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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Road Walker who wrote (281055)	3/20/2006 10:38:05 PM
From: Amy J	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1573215

John, when discussing savings rates for retirement, it's significant to speak of a particular demographic, because the timing of both the demands and the timing of the savings for retirement is key. The "when" is critical to both the savings potential and the demands. For example, when a Gen Y saves a dollar at age 20 they will get 10X back when they retire, however, a BB that saves a dollar at age 55 might only get 1.5X back. The basis of the opinion on demographics savings is a report that indicated Gen Y is as large as BB, however, they are many years away from retiring and yet were saving more as a % than BB at the same corresponding age. A separate report indicated that Gen Y have no expectations a corporation will pay for their retirement through a pension, however, the report said a surprising number of BB actually do think this to be the case. There's really no other way to state the problem that boomers demographically aren't saving enough money and this is especially critical for them because they are so much closer to retirement than any later generation. RE: "Yes, many have not saved enough money for retirement, as many in previous generations didn't save enough for retirement." This might be why you and I have a different opinion. The savings report indicated prior generations demographically saved more than the BB. The BB seem to be the only generation out of the ones mentioned in this report that is saving less as a %, at correspondingly the same age points. And I think that high level of confidence in the USA was not particularly surprising when you consider they grew up at a time when Americans were landing on the moon, and many other US scientific inventions of a profound nature were created. RE: "Be careful with painting with too broad a brush. Blame the people that are responsible, not "a generation"" When discussing mathematical numbers that pertain to time, demographics is used. The BB are about to retire, Gen Y are not. Btw, I disagree with the belief that one should blame others in charge for ones own savings rate failure. Sure, you can blame the govt for not encouraging savings as I stated, but you can't totally blame Clinton, Bush etc for the lower savings rate the BB demographically displayed according to the report. RE: "Otherwise you are putting yourself in the same boat with a lot of bad folks in history; folks that blamed blacks, or Jews or whatever group for their own problems" I don't think you want to be placed in the same camp for your belief the USA should get out of the ME as those in the analogy that say one must be antisemitic to have such a belief. I think you are entitled to your opinion for withdrawal without being labeled antisemitic. Your comparison isn't mathematically logical. Neither Jews nor blacks pertain to a demographical age group about to retire. They are not all of the same age group where they all are about to retire over the same period of time creating demands on the country, nor are they a large enough group for their retirement to impact this country's finances, so selecting them as a group to discuss a demographic savings rate problem would not be making any valid point in the discussion of the impact of the BB retirement. RE: "Look to the real source... it's not a generation, it's an ideology." I think you're trying to say, "don't blame the BB demographics, blame Bush's ideology." This is where you and I disagree on the facts. I don't think you can blame Clinton or Bush for the lower savings rate the BB generation had per the report. People need to be responsible for their own savings rate. The cost of the war might end up being a couple of trillion, the country's debt is around 8T, but the demands the BB generation will have in their retirement is estimated to be $30 to $40T. Another $40T is estimated to pay off govt debt (existing IOUs the govt pays back, tax cuts) and that could get out of control. So, the biggest two financial issues (remember this is a financial discussion about this country's future), is the retirement of the BB (40T) and funding the govt debt (60T). 40T vs 60T mathematically means you really can't focus on only one of these two figures, like you suggest you can do (when you said blame ideology). The ideology problem created a 60T problem, but you really can't ignore the 40T problem of a group about to retire. On a completely separate note, I'd feel much better if Congress was packed full of people of all sorts of ages. Did you know there is only one Congressional leader that's in his 80s - can you imagine what that age group must feel like to have no one represent them? I think each generation should have the same representation in Congress. For example, when the BB do retire, I do not think it would be right if Gen X and Gen Y made up Congress in totality to the exclusion of representation of the BB. I'm a huge believer in having the diversity actually be in the room making the decisions with everyone. Regards, Amy J