I seem to be bombarded lately by email advertisements from various financial institutions with whom I’ve done business asking the age-old and well-worn question “Are You Saving Enough For Retirement?”
It’s an obviously idiotic question with an equally obvious answer. No, OF COURSE I’m not saving enough for retirement, and neither is anyone else, if the assumption is that the “saving” is being done in the fiat currency of any nation in the developed Western world. Not only are all such currencies declining in value over time (inflation), but the amount of savings required to sustain one’s current standard of living in the future is impossible at current rates of inflation, which every economist who doesn’t want to make a fool of themselves has to admit will only get worse over time. Simply stated, saving money in today’s fiat currency for the purpose of future sustainment in retiremrnt, whether through simple savings accounts or complex investment instruments, is a fool’s errand. And if inflation doesn’t destroy your future nest egg(s), confiscatory taxes surely will.
It’s all a scam, folks. For 95-plus percent of us working stiffs in the late-stage Boomer generation and younger, “retirement” is an unattainable pipe dream. The combination of demographics and economic reality simply militates against it. The Establishment and all of its institutions are visciously denying this and will crucify anyone who speaks the truth. “Investment advisors” and “financial planners” are scam artists devoted to enriching the Wall Street casino in exchange for kickbacks, not enriching you, the working stiff (do not EVER say “social security will be long bankrupt by the time I’m eligible to retire” to a financial planner; the meltdown that follows is epic). Finally, count on collapsing, fiscally desperate western governments “nationalizing” their citizens’ retirement savings accounts (401Ks, IRAs, pensions, etc.) as they’re increasingly driven towards bankruptcy. So what to do?
The only solution I see, in addition to stocking up on precious metals and precious metals-backed currencies, is to seek some source of investment in a going concern that will provide a steady cash income stream in your twilight years, something to augment what will likely be a dwindling salary at any paying job you have as you age. Such investments will probably be increasingly hard to come by as the overall economy continues to steadily implode.
In short, the economic future for all of us is best summed up as “be prepared to live your final years in poverty.” The current system is rigged to ensure exactly such a future.
God help anyone who is without family to fall back on.
To Reclaim Normality 
It’s a chilling thought that until about 100 to 150 years ago, there wasn’t any such thing as “retirement”. You worked until you were dead. And most people were dead by age 60, felled by disease, injury, exposure, or malnourishment. People who lived longer generally were wealthier. People like the early revolutionary to Civil War era wealthy and their families, because they had land and money and thus could afford to live longer and insulate themselves from those problems. Everyone else – you worked until something killed you or you were bedridden.
LikeLiked by 1 person
We’ve reached the end of an unsustainable socioeconomic experiment that blended longer lifespans with Establishment and institutional corruption and currencies that are based upon no tangible asset of any intrinsic value that can sustain its value over time. That latter factor is what guarantees retirement’s future untenability. Sadly, most of society is simply unprepared to accept economic reality.
LikeLiked by 1 person
If you were not wealthy and somehow managed to survive until you literally could not work anymore because of crippling arthritis, traumatic amputation, senility, crippling illness, or bodily breakdown, you went to live with one of your children or a relative. You lived there and you did what you could around their home until you could not, and then they took care of you until you died.
LikeLiked by 1 person
If you were an older widower, you lived with one of your children and you did what you could around their home, and otherwise your daughter or daughter in law took care of you.
If you were an older widow, you lived with one of your children and worked essentially as your grandchildren’s babysitter and one of their primary caretakers.
Most of the time, however, you didn’t live this long. If you were a man, you were killed at work, or you died of a heart attack or major organ failure, or you caught a deadly infection, or you slowly died of “the sugar sickness” (diabetes) or “the cancer”. People don’t realize this about diabetes – but uncontrolled bad diabetes pulverizes your liver and kidneys.
LikeLiked by 1 person
If you were a woman, you had about a 20 to 30% chance of dying in childbirth. If you somehow managed to survive that, likely at least one of your children died before you. If you managed to survive that, then you died by age 60 of exposure, starvation, diabetes, infection, undiagnosed heart defect, or mental illness.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Unrelated:
I’ve just read Rod Dreher’s latest at The American Conservative. The piece is called “The Marriage Monster”. I have never read such self absorbed, self pitying bullshit in all my life. Rod Dreher can’t write about anything other than Rod Dreher.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thank you for reading that so that the rest of us don’t have to. For the very life of me, I can’t understand why ANYONE still pays any attention whatsoever to that self-absorbed, whining, half-closeted faggot.
LikeLike