Everybody is having a terrible time. Nobody is enjoying much in terms of growth in net worth. No one has enough to support themselves in retirement for 20 years. |
God knows what people will do if they're handed $60,000 at retirement. |
Having a pension and Social Security [combined with private savings] allows most households to live as well after retirement as they did before. If you don't have a pension, you'll have to tighten your belt in retirement. |
I worry about the Fed using up its ammunition. |
It looks like we're doing as well as we've always done. But in fact, the world has changed. And it's for four big, real obvious reasons. |
It's an entirely new phenomenon for healthy companies to freeze their pensions. |
Most people are going to arrive at retirement and not have adequate money. This is serious. None of us are good at doing our own retirement savings. |
Our employer-based social-welfare system is collapsing. |
People will be scrambling at a time when they should be secure. |
The aging of the population may put employers in a tight situation. |
The implication is really clear. People need to have more saved than they did in the past. |
They will no longer be able to rely on a rapidly growing group of younger workers in the future. Increased employment of older workers seems like a natural solution, but employers will have to change their hiring and retention policies if they want to attract these highly productive older individuals. |
We're on a downward trajectory here. The traditional pension is not coming back. |
With public employees, the day of reckoning is more in the distance. |