Time To Raise Retirement Age

[retread]

This guy is saying what I have been saying for years:

Many of us won

Anybody who can crunch the numbers (I use my Retirement Investment Analysis) knows people don't have enough saved for retirement.

Retirement Calculator

And even if you are sitting on lots of cash, Obama is printing money and wiping it out as we speak.

Whatever you do, don't quit your day job.

Yes... the only way to increase my savings is to earn income. (Duh!) This is the plight of many of us who lost our life's savings at retirement... we have no choice but to go back to work. Even if I hadn't lost it all, the poor performance of the market would have accelerated the loss unless I had 1035'd it into an annuity or bought a SPWL. How many of us knew that 11 years ago? At that time, I was earning about $10k/month on my investments. Those days are gone. I am just glad I finally discovered selling insurance would be the work-at-home solution. I now have a business that does not discriminate on age, and does not require the physical effort such as driving a truck, or construction, etc., and I don't have a supervisor my kid's age to insult the quality of my work. But the big winner is that my income potential is limited mainly by my own effort. There is no other job that I know of and that I can qualify for at my age that has an over 6 figure potential.

Thanks for the retirement calculator. I played around with it a little bit and found that I need about $3000 put into some savings vehicle for the next 8 years to provide $20K supplement to my current retirement income. I am thinking that if I made that savings vehicle a Roth (IRA or 401k) and pay taxes now (which I expect will be less than later), then I will not have to make RMDs at 70 1/2 and the distribution will be tax free.

comment?

 

[retread]

What? No takers?

Compulife calculator.... 8 yrs @ $3000/yr= $20,000/yr draw over the next 25 years. Oh yeah? Simple math.... 8 yrs @ $3000/yr = $24,000 total savings.... WITHOUT INTEREST!!!

The problem... drawing $20K per year for the next 25 years after retirement 8 years from now. The Compulife projection I calculated did not mention total savings with interest.

Leaving out some important numbers can make a lame statement. --- just some food for thought. I was brainstorming some ideas for letters, when I saw my own comment and realized how lame it sounded after letting it lie fallow for a little while. I don't know about you, but when I write, I forget to be specific about things I assume others will understand. My point is... our clients don't do this for a living and may not make the same assumptions we do. I know... you are thinking: "Duh!"... but maybe we need reminding from time to time.

 

[Robert Barney]

What? No takers?

Compulife calculator.... 8 yrs @ $3000/yr= $20,000/yr draw over the next 25 years. Oh yeah? Simple math.... 8 yrs @ $3000/yr = $24,000 total savings.... WITHOUT INTEREST!!!

The problem... drawing $20K per year for the next 25 years after retirement 8 years from now. The Compulife projection I calculated did not mention total savings with interest.

Leaving out some important numbers can make a lame statement. --- just some food for thought. I was brainstorming some ideas for letters, when I saw my own comment and realized how lame it sounded after letting it lie fallow for a little while. I don't know about you, but when I write, I forget to be specific about things I assume others will understand. My point is... our clients don't do this for a living and may not make the same assumptions we do. I know... you are thinking: "Duh!"... but maybe we need reminding from time to time.

You are going to have to be more specific with the numbers. What numbers are missing?

 

[KJ in Miami]

I wonder if this is just another scam cooked up by the politicians!! Similar to the Federal Reserve.

This needs to be done NOW - not later.

Both parties mull raising retirement age - Washington Times

 

[torrid]

My dad gets a six figure pension but my parents will still get the max from Social Security. They don't need the money but if you talk to them about that they get mad as all get out saying "it's their money" and they deserve it back. They did indeed contribute to the system. Is it fair to means test them and not give it to them?

As for the age, when social security was started the average life expectancy was around 65. People were retiring around 62 and 63 so the government figured on average people would get 2 or 3 years as benefits! Now some are getting 2 or 3 decades.

This year the benefits paid out will exceed the social security taxes collected by about $48 billion. Yet another gone broke government program. I think Perry calls it a Ponzi scheme because the cost of it is getting passed on to the next group of workers... who can't afford to pay for it.

 

[Robert Barney]

Is it fair to means test them and not give it to them?.

Is it fair for a person who is making a higher income, to pay an ever increasing tax on that income?

Shouldn't a person making $300,000 per year, be paying 10 times as much in taxes as someone making $30,000 per year? Isn't that fair? And yet the person making $300,000 pays a disproportionately higher amount in taxes. Is that fair?

So in answer to your question, no, it's not fair. But Social Security is going broke, and the question is how do you fix it. "Means testing" is a way to reduce costs, which I think is as fair as anything else.

Remember, contributions to Social Security are called payroll TAXES. TAXES, get it? Ask your dad if there are any other taxes he is expecting to get back from a government over $14 tillion in debt.

I think Perry calls it a Ponzi scheme because the cost of it is getting passed on to the next group of workers... who can't afford to pay for it.

Perry is correct to call it a Ponzi scheme, although it's WORSE than a Ponzi scheme.

You can't opt out of Social Security, you are COMPELLED to pay into it.

Further, the government can COMPELL you to pay more and more into it - you have no choice.

When Social Security taxes were first introduced, they were about 1 percent. Today payroll taxes are 15% and there is talk about raising them again.

Had Social Security been managed properly, it would have been fine. But the government robbed it and now the government is out of money.

NOTE: WE are the government - we robbed it - we are broke.

 

[b61mack]

The Gooberment, will spend all the money they can, to keep their jobs. they raided the socal security money, and started using it for SSI. federal welfare.

 

[Robert Barney]

The Gooberment, will spend all the money they can, to keep their jobs. they raided the socal security money, and started using it for SSI. federal welfare.

So we do what to fix it?

 

[b61mack]

Our gooberment, only knows how to spend. every truck (big)you see on the highway, pays about 3000 per year in highway tax. to fix the roads. where is that money going?. NJ said the casino and lotto money was going to the seniors and for education. Where did all that money go? PA now has gambling. the governor praised how well they were doing? But he is ignoring, the people who now are betting their house payments. A woman who lost all her money at the casino, robbed a local bank. She maybe got a mile away. Our government is sometimes our gooberment. I shouldn't make fun of goober. If him and Gomer were running things, we would be better off. Floyd would be in his cabinet along with Aunt Bee. And of course Barney.

 

[Sales71]

To fix SS is not to take any money out for 10 years.