Retirement!!!

[WestHautianPlen]

got a company pension, a military pension. social security and an ira.

sad thing is, i doubt that my grand kids will ever be able to retire...
freekin' country is broke. jobs being outsourced. taxes gooing up to pay the debt. more and more retired old farts (like me) less and less productive workers.
no money to pay law enforcement (they gotta pay the retired guys). violence/food prices going up.

think your pention (entitlement) is bullet proof? think again.

sthe only people with bullet proof pentions are in congress, pardners.

don't see anything on the horizon that's likely to turn this around
i'm afraid what's gonna happen is a major scio/political adjustment like a big war.

i hope it's not with china because they probably won't lend us the money to go to war with them.

did i mention that the state of health car for the unwashed masses is unlikely to improve? what about neculear insecurity?

i don;t see any ideas in congress other than

"we need to create jobs and be competitive in the world market".

brilliant

what are we gonna build that the world wants to buy and let the workers retire at 55 or even 65?

do the math. i've been trying hard to be optomistic. might work if i go back to drinking.

Could not agree more.

[Omega Man]

I think that it important to have some people around you to remind you of a lot of what has been said here. My Mother, at around 65, basically retired sick with esophageal cancer (smoking). After being down for 2 1/2 years, gutted like a fish, somehow she is still alive. Now at age 80, she will frequently bobble at the cost or trouble/time involved in something. I ask "what are you waiting for" OM

[tommcgee]

I think that it important to have some people around you to remind you of a lot of what has been said here.

My two youngest daughters can't even find jobs. One is working at the deli counter at a supermarket -- they are the biggest chain in the state and have NO full-time employees and she's lucky to get 20 hours a week and zero benefits. The other works with a theatre troupe for $250 a month plus a T pass (Boston mass transit).

It isn't pretty out there. Enjoy your retirement, your world is gone, you (me) are the last generation that will have a retirement option.

[martinph]

My two youngest daughters can't even find jobs. One is working at the deli counter at a supermarket -- they are the biggest chain in the state and have NO full-time employees and she's lucky to get 20 hours a week and zero benefits. The other works with a theatre troupe for $250 a month plus a T pass (Boston mass transit).

It isn't pretty out there. Enjoy your retirement, your world is gone, you (me) are the last generation that will have a retirement option.

My children are the opposite, both have very good jobs earning way more than I ever did.

[tommcgee]

My children are the opposite, both have very good jobs earning way more than I ever did.

My older two are doing okay, employed before the meltdown in the US economy. You're in Canada.

[martinph]

Yes, I dont think we have been hit as hard as the U.S.

[36654]

It isn't pretty out there. Enjoy your retirement, your world is gone, you (me) are the last generation that will have a retirement option.

You can make that statement but it can't really occur. Just look at what you do and how you've had to adapt to your age over the years. That fine print is a real bear and you don't just (visually) jump from one point of focus to the next. In addition, your muscle tone isn't the same as a 30-yo and, for some, the broken bones and mashed joints of younger days are aching with arthritis. So, while we understand that the body of a construction worker/miner/farmer has a finite lifespan, there are also less obvious physical factors that will sideline folks working in higher tech jobs. With each change of my bifocal prescription, I have to develop new means of visualizing 3-D CAD geometries and physical hardware. As such, I can recall my father cursing about working around his bifocals to machine stamping dies. So, what hindered him as a skilled tradesman, hinders me a developmental engineer and will hinder a neurosurgeon. As such, each of those accumulated "hindrances" result in a less effective employee which must be displaced by younger, more agile folks. Experience allows the older performer to maintain an advantage for a while, but eventually that passes. Thus, the organization must move out the less efficient to maintain profitability.

So, no, people will always retire. Whether, or not, they have any means of support is another issue.

[36654]

Yes, I dont think we have been hit as hard as the U.S.

Your laws precluded the banks from writing high risk mortgages in-country, so you didn't experience the same type of real estate / housing industry boom as the US. When that boom died, a lot of asset value evaporated.

It's the same scenario as in most of Dicken's novels. However, our rich Uncle hasn't, yet, died and left us his fortune.

[Omega Man]

you don't just (visually) jump from one point of focus to the next. In addition, your muscle tone isn't the same as a 30-yo and, for some, the broken bones and mashed joints of younger days are aching with arthritis.... With each change of my bifocal prescription, I have to develop new means of visualizing 3-D CAD geometries and physical hardware..... As such, each of those accumulated "hindrances" result in a less effective employee which must be displaced by younger, more agile folks. Experience allows the older performer to maintain and advantage for a while, but eventually that passes.

Falls in to the sad but true category.........Necessary Losses

[ISAMEMON]

was not planning to retire, but the economy, well killed me in this rural area for what I used to do recently, 20 years of nail pounding adn part time wrench
odd, in my youth I used to be a full time wrench and parrt time nail pounder

but out of retirement I come as my checkbook told me so,my youngest in school needs thebucks, my love for bikes said, go for it

now im coming out to help some kids ( they in their 30's me pushig 60)

twisting wrenches since the late 1950s. Im back to wowrking on old brit machines, and old BMW cars and bikes
they are setting up a good thing
and its a shop that is drug and alc free, which is way cool compared to the "olden days". they only work by appintment, so no lookey lous or dreamers wanting the cheapest deal out there, if so , well go to oil can henry or something bike like.

they have been a legit biz since 2002, but never went into bikes much other than rice and quads

rules on this forum forbid me to advertise or say what we offer and thats very ok, very ok. im not here to drum up work. I dont want to hurt my standing here on the forum or with friends.
jsut thinking, im glad to have work and glad to be out of "retirement" as retirement makes many people old and fat, adn many die as soon as they dont have a reason to work or live

but just hope this old bod can handle dong this for a living agin

cool thing is, when the weather is good, I can ride my bike to work, now I donthave to sell the bike to pay bills
honest babe, its the best gas mileage thing we own.....yahoo
back in the saddle agin, back to being appreciated for my skills





p.s only putting this out there cause its a retirement thread

yahooooooooooo, riding and working and making money at it..............yahoooooooo

[Rip]

I retired at 56, 2 years ago. We are ok but I want to make sure the last check I write bounces. That should be when we are 95....just kidding

[ljjohns]

In my world, I had to announce my intent to retire 12 months in advance--that's something probably unique to universities--and so I've been watching this thread with interest. I'm now about two months out from the end of my classroom obligations but 5 months from the official date of my last check. While I had planned to die in the front of the classroom, I've now reassessed the environment and am content with abandoning that fantasy.

Forty years here have been worth it; I'm proud of what I've done for my students and grateful for what I've learned. But having made the transition from "young Turk" to "old fart" over that period, I am ready for change.

What that change will be is, at the moment, a freedom from increasing "obligations" to folks who assume that I owe them what I offer them, and then accept what I deliver grudgingly. That group encompasses students, colleagues and the "institution" (or its constituent administors with whom I have cooperated for the good of the university over the last four decades).

I'm in a good place: my kids are self-sufficient and a source of pride; my available resources are equal to the modest lifestyle I enjoy, and at athe moment no health problems are visible. So I have some space and time to define the next stage. It will entail, as has every other stage, some continuous learning; it may also include some sharing of that learning in far less formal environments (as long as those environments allow me to continue learning from those whom I am purportedly teaching) and, most generally, a freedom to choose that I have never before enjoyed.

So we'll see how all of this works out in the next couple of years....

Larry Johnson
El Paso Tx

[AKBEEMER]

Gonna open a brewery?

[Rip]

I retired at 56, now 58 and to busy to go back to work. " My friends all tell me I am jerk, I am to lazy to get up go to work, but let me tell you how I feel, I am to lazy to work and to nervous to steal." T. Bone Walker... Couldn't have said it better

[AKBEEMER]

Annie and I both retired just over 6 months ago. Today we began the first phase of a summer long motorcycle meander. I feel like I'm on vacation..... Vacation from what I do not know.