Article Review: Boomers Going Bust

People have accused the baby boomers of being whiners almost since we were born. But just wait until we get to retirement age and discover that we don't have nearly enough money to take care of our "golden years." That's going to be the ultimate generational bummer.
I've been gathering some data about what I'll call, with the usual boomer understatement, the "retirement crisis." My mentors have been Eugene Ludwig, the head of the consulting firm Promontory Financial Group, and his colleague Michael Foot. The numbers show a genuinely frightening gap between what people have saved for retirement and what they will need. And many of these studies don't take into account last year's stock market crash, which will make the problem worse.

Let's start with the basic fact that only about half of Americans have any employer-sponsored retirement plan at all. The other folks will have to depend on Social Security. For a typical boomer worker, that would mean a monthly benefit of about $2,400 at a retirement age of 66 in 2020. On that, you won't be able to afford many Starbucks lattes.
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Fool's Gold[en] Years For Low Saving Boomers

By Dick Wagner

We have known it was coming for such a long time. This is no surprise. Yet, it is always startling to be reminded of the number of folks who are not ready and will never be ready. This is "the cherry on top" for the various economic issues that are going to be facing the American public over the next 20 to 30 years and after.

What to do? Capitalism presumes work able bodies. Will there be some sort of enhanced old guy welfare? What about health care? What shall they eat? What will the ants think about the grasshoppers? Intergenerational generosity? Take a look at some of the comments posted on this article.

There is challenge here. This will be the first generation to face the demands of lengthy, expanded life spans armed primarily with unearned income from financial products and tax collections. Ignatius' article tells us that these don't look like they are likely to do a great job of it. These dire prospects are partially the harvests of believing that money answers all things. Unfortunately, money is not likely to work as magically as hoped. At this juncture, thoughts seem to be tending towards expanded work lives. After all, there is nothing sacred about an age 65 retirement. However, this is not an answer for those no longer capable of working, those with obsolete skill sets or those who have worked for this recession's losers.

Money is about allocations around unmet needs and unused energies, reciprocity and exchange and efficient means of providing for ourselves. Knowing as we do that baby boomers are ill-prepared to meet their own financial requirements, perhaps energy could be usefully spent on identifying nonfinancial resources and systems that could complement the international trading currencies of dollars, euros, yen and the like.

One thing is for sure, baby boomers are not likely to go gently into that good night as much as some of the more vitriolic commentators would prefer that happen sooner rather than later. For now, they give us a great opportunity to look at money's weaknesses, possibilities and complements.

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