Is Shapiro correct? Is retirement a ridiculous institution?

Yes, I'm sure Shapiro is set and can retire comfortably but he expects the rest of us rabble to work until we drop. Back to work dammit!

 

He was born into a wealthy family and is bankrolled by Kochs, DeVos, and other right wing sources. He’s never done a minute of manual labor in his life.

 

I definitely think Republicans should run with the idea of "work until you die." This is the kind of brainworms people get when their job is a make work job where you just get to fellate rich people by sitting around and talking all day then cashing their checks. Who wouldnt want to do that well into old age?

Also, if this guy has ever once complained about the age of people in government, he's full of shit. Biden, Pelosi, Trump, etc are just doing what he says people should do! Never retire!

 

Let them eat cake

 

He's basically a welfare queen, there's no way his media job exists without rich people bankrolling it lol. If he had to get a real job, he'd be counting down the days until he could take SS and Medicare lol.

 

The answer to this is "it depends".

Some careers you can work for as long as you want, others not so much. It also depends on if you like what you are doing, own your own business, etc.

There are actors and musicians that are well into their 70's. How old is Mick Jagger? 110?
Professions like lawyers (and Architects) can work well into their 70's if they like. Brick layers not so much.

Unfortunately for a lot of Americans it's not really a choice to retire or not.

 

Hasn't Americans' overall life expectancy been flat or slightly dropping in recent years? Seems like that would be lowering payouts at least for now?

I know some people who retired and didn't seem to have a purpose without work. Others I know thought they wouldn't know what to do with themselves but are much happier retired. I personally can't imagine spending my "golden years" grinding out paychecks at the vast majority of jobs. For people who truly love what they do for a living and can do jobs that don't require any physical demands, good for them. I don't think this is a winning political message though.

 

Retirement is already a bit of a luxury, I cant imagine anyone arguing it should be more of one as a winning message. Also this stuff is why I laugh whenever people want to make the case that the Republican party is taking a "populist" turn. This is virtually the same message from 20-30 years ago. SS is 'unsustainable,' blah blah.

 

If your purpose in life is work, well there is your problem. My purpose for work was to apply my education and skills to better my community, to support my family, to afford a reasonable lifestyle, and to prepare for retirement. Having retired just under two weeks ago, my purpose in life remains to enjoy my family and friends, and to continue with my responsibilities and hobbies and community service. Now I have more time to do so. I also have the ability to do a project or two a year if I want to, so I will maintain my engineer license so I can exercise my brain a little, continue to interface with colleagues, and earn a little mad money. Getting out of the daily grind is a good thing if you can afford it. It removes a lot of pressure for those of us that have demanding jobs and opens the pathway for those we have mentored to grow their careers. I’m good with retirement, even at younger than 65. Ben is barking up the wrong tree.

 

Opinions are like,,,,,,

 

Isn’t this just an attack on social security retirement benefits?

retirement is freedom of choice. It’s like he believes in some communism of everyone toiling away. Weird.

 

Seems he has really wadded himself up in unnecessary angst, according to himself.

Problem: "It's totally insane that you believe that you should be able to work from the time that you are essentially 20 to the time that you are 65 -- which is a 45 year period -- pay in, and then you'll receive Social Security benefits sufficient to support you and your family, you and your wife or whatever, for, like, another 20 years. That's crazy talk. That is not fiscally sustainable."

Solution: "Everybody that I know who is -- who is elderly, who has retired, is dead within five years."

 

He is correct in that if you thought and expected that SS income upon retirement was all you need you are sadly mistaken. I fully expect my SS and plan for my wife to start receiving, worked her whole life, at 62 with a lower payment and then start getting mine either at 65 or 67. We both are in our late 50's. These payments will be supplement to my pension and what we have acquired and saved throughout our lives. I do agree with Cron though in that if your entire being is about your job/career, you will go down fast after retiring.

 

Like I said above, its the same message from like 20-30+ years ago. Republicans have wanted to introduce increased age for benefits or introduce some kind of means testing as long as I can remember because they claim its unsustainable. The Shapiros of the world have been inhaling this stuff since they were in diapers.

 

Do you think current SS benefits are sustainable as they are?

 

The gop has hated ss from the get go.

 

Just imagine when technology allows folks to live comfortably into their hundreds and more.

You’ll be expected to work 75% of it.

If humans chose to use AI for the benefit of everyone, this would eventually not be an issue. They won’t though.

 

Of course, they should even increase the benefits if we are worried that it doesnt allow people to live comfortable in old age. I love that people pretend we dont have a political system that can simply fund these things if they choose to. If SS dies, it will be because we killed it, not some kind of inherent flaw in it. No one makes the case that spending nearly a trillion a year on the military is 'unsustainable' because we could just you know, not do that if we wanted.

 

The reason behind hating it is because it is a total pyramid scheme with very poor ROI. If you don't believe me, get a log on to SSA.gov where you can see exactly how much you and your employer has contributed during your working career and compare that number to if you had been contributed same rate to a 401K, bond, etc.. and it may change your mind. Had that been an option when I started, I would be over a million ahead of where I am now. Changes how you think about it, even if your income was lower middle class.