Can We Tolerate Millions of Elderly People Living in Cars?

The poor will always be with us. For many it is a pattern learned from their parents and the parents before them.

Years ago we lived in Birmingham. Just a few blocks from the downtown area was a rather large housing project. I rarely went there but sometimes I had to cut through to get to my destination. Generations of people lived there, apparently few had jobs. Nothing to do day after day but sit outside (weather permitting) and wait on the mail to arrive.

No matter how much taxpayer and charitable money is poured into these situations, nothing changes. Very few ever break free from the bonds of economic slavery and the constant stream of free services.

Dr. Ben Carson, grew up in a housing project and was raised by a single mother. He later became a world renown pediatric neurosurgeon, but those stories are rare.

Folks who get to 65 and are still living paycheck to paycheck (earned or given to them from the government) will not change their way of life. They were not willing/able to budget over the last 40+ years and that won't change when they start collecting SSA benefits. They will continue to be supported by charity and taxpayer wealth redistribution programs.

In 1964 LBJ declared a War on Poverty. There are more people (as a percent of the total population) on the public dole than there were then

In 1971 Nixon declared a War on Drugs . . . years later there are more people using drugs than before.

You can hope for change you can believe in but as long as there is someone willing to take all the free stuff and ask for more don't expect a different outcome. No amount of "awareness" will result in a different outcome.
Nothing is free. One way or another, a price is being paid. :yes:
 
When I was a Junior or Senior in high school, I had an elective class called General Business. They taught us things like how to balance a checkbook, do a simple tax return, budgeting, etc.


I had a similar class called "career economics."

But it never addressed investing for Retirment, saving for a down payment, responsible borrowing, etc.

The one thing that stcu with me all these years was the teacher telling us not ever to agree to work for less than $8/hour and that that that figure should increase with inflation. That was 1985. Minimum wage in 2023 is still only $7.25 in many areas.
 
An education is great, but there is a lot they don't teach you. I have done extremely well investing and with business ventures and my career with very little formal education.
 
Good post, @somarco

I believe that we don't need to accept that so many will always be so poor among us. I believe with all my heart that the politicians WANT more, not less poverty as a means of controlling us. Why else do they require that kids take classes in high school about how to use a sewing machine (that none will ever own) and how to make breakfast, rather than a class about how saving just $100 a month from 22 to 60 can make them millionaires in retirement?

It's about keeping people as consumers and paying fees. Look at the price of new vehicles.
 
Maybe I missed it skimming through here, but I didn't see anyone bring up the 2030 problem. Retired adults are projected to outnumber young people by sometime in the mid-2030s. So when the thread title is

"Can We Tolerate Millions of Elderly People Living in Cars?"

I don't know, can we? Do we really have any choice other than screwing the younger generation over more than it already is? The baby boomer cohort makes up a much larger portion of the population than their parents did proportionally when the boomers were in their prime working years. They also control most of the wealth, it has not trickled down to the younger generations.

Wealth distribution by age 1989-2019:
https://www.cbo.gov/publication/58533#:~:text=In 2019, the median wealth,families ages 50 to 64.



57598-19-wealth-age-group.png



It's clear from this chart that as soon as baby boomers started to retire (2011), wealth followed them, yet the wealth of the younger generation is proportionally worse than it was in 1989, on top of that the cost of everything has skyrocketed exponentially.

"The government could also help by providing reinsurance, to cap the amount of risk a private long-term care insurance issuer has to take on, Lynn said.

Rep. Suzan DelBene, D-Wash., said her state's Long-Term Care Trust Act will generate revenue from a new payroll tax and provide support services."


I just love that the solutions in the article are to have the government back insurers and pass the buck further down to the next generation through payroll taxes and more national debt. It's like a final middle finger from the baby boomers to their children, especially if the proposal is to follow what Washington State is doing.

On top of it all, the younger generations will have no access to these programs because they will collapse long before the millennials or gen z retire. Yet we are supposed to feel bad that the generation with the most wealth & best economies in history didn't plan better for their own retirements.

Sorry, but I just don't feel sorry for the baby boomer generation. They will be living in cars, but my generation will be living under tarps to support them, and they will be entirely okay with that.
 
Maybe I missed it skimming through here, but I didn't see anyone bring up the 2030 problem. Retired adults are projected to outnumber young people by sometime in the mid-2030s. So when the thread title is

"Can We Tolerate Millions of Elderly People Living in Cars?"

I don't know, can we? Do we really have any choice other than screwing the younger generation over more than it already is? The baby boomer cohort makes up a much larger portion of the population than their parents did proportionally when the boomers were in their prime working years. They also control most of the wealth, it has not trickled down to the younger generations.

Wealth distribution by age 1989-2019:
https://www.cbo.gov/publication/58533#:~:text=In 2019, the median wealth,families ages 50 to 64.



57598-19-wealth-age-group.png



It's clear from this chart that as soon as baby boomers started to retire (2011), wealth followed them, yet the wealth of the younger generation is proportionally worse than it was in 1989, on top of that the cost of everything has skyrocketed exponentially.

"The government could also help by providing reinsurance, to cap the amount of risk a private long-term care insurance issuer has to take on, Lynn said.

Rep. Suzan DelBene, D-Wash., said her state's Long-Term Care Trust Act will generate revenue from a new payroll tax and provide support services."


I just love that the solutions in the article are to have the government back insurers and pass the buck further down to the next generation through payroll taxes and more national debt. It's like a final middle finger from the baby boomers to their children, especially if the proposal is to follow what Washington State is doing.

On top of it all, the younger generations will have no access to these programs because they will collapse long before the millennials or gen z retire. Yet we are supposed to feel bad that the generation with the most wealth & best economies in history didn't plan better for their own retirements.

Sorry, but I just don't feel sorry for the baby boomer generation. They will be living in cars, but my generation will be living under tarps to support them, and they will be entirely okay with that.

Hard to accumulate a lot of money and plan for retirement from your Boomer parents and grandparents basement.
 
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