Can We Afford the Baby Boomer's Retirement?
Let us assume the worst case scenario… Well, actually this may be the best case scenario, because worse would be famine and pestilence and war. (without death)
let us assume that there is nothing in the Social inSecurity fund. The stuff that i know is in there is special The US bonds. Which means, the people paying for the retirement are going to pay, or pay. Or pay and pay. (It doesn't make much difference if we pay for the bonds, which finances SS or we pay for the SS.)
Also, we will assume there is no gold in Ft. Knox.
Now, of course The US govern-cement can always print more money. The problem is, what will those Social inSecurity checks buy? Already, retired people are having tough times because their checks do not keep up with rent increases, nor health care increases, nor care facility increases.
The bottom line is we do not have enough young people making anywhere near enough money to afford Social inSecurity.
Baby Boomer Savings
Baby Boomers have the most "assets" of any generation to use to finance retirement. There is just one, HUGE problem. No other generation, and actually, all the other generations do not have the money to buy any of these assets.
Baby Boomers own 25% of the houses with almost 50% of the value. Right now, only the rich are buying houses. The middle class can't afford them. The lower class can't even qualify. So, dumping 25% of the houses onto the market at a normal time would disrupt the housing market. But, right now, there is no spot where the prices will bounce off of. There is no money for buying this many houses, and there isn't enough people to buy them.
It is the same with the stocks and bonds. Basically, more than half of Black Rocks worth will try to be withdrawn, and there is no money coming in. Buffet is on the sidelines, in cash, waiting to buy up CHEAP stocks.
Basically, the Baby Boomers have no retirement savings. And many boomers don't even have a home.
This is the reality that will be seen when the show is finished, and they pull back the curtains, and all you see is the brick wall at the back of the diner.
We don't have enough
We don't have enough retirement homes.
We don't have enough care facilities.
We don't have enough nurses.
I would say that one should invest in retirement services, however, i suggest running away from what is going to turn into a fuster-cluck of regulations and price controls that will make this area a nightmare for investors.
One could say that all the migrants who were let in where to be to fill these roles, but that would only work if we had enough time for these migrants to assimilate. Basically, the next generation. We don't have that much time.
What i see is two very depressing futures. Assisted suicide (thanks Canada) or robot nurses. Everything else requires a complete change of societal structure, where we have a multi-generational homes, where the children's children all help take care of the elderly. (too bad many boomers are not seeing grandkids)
This doesn't happen in a vacuum
It would be interesting to see the Boomers get a proper payback for blocking any SS reform from even being talked about. Gen X saw that they would never get Social inSecurity long, long ago. But, every mention of SS reform was smashed down.
If Social inSecurity collapses, than we see a huge amount people who will be scrambling to figure out how to care for their parents. We will see a lot of forced house sales. And, worst is that we will see a lot of elderly out on the streets, and that means a lot of bodies to be picked up. Like a real life version of Monty Python.
If Social inSecurity doesn't collapse, we see the middle class gutted. All the money being siphoned from those working, to those retired. And, if not in taxes, in inflation.
Already we see a lot of the youth just "quietly quitting", or "laying flat". They perceive that they will never get ahead. Working hard doesn't get them anything, except broken and tired. So, many of them have just stopped trying.
At this rate, we will see one worker supporting one retired person. Social inSecurity was set up on ten workers for every retired person. There isn't a way for one worker to provide for another person to continue a normal life.
What will happen when the Baby Boomers have to retire? We don't know. We haven't ever been in this position before. Well, except for times like the Black Plague. Where the elderly were basically just, SOL.
Hopefully we find some better solutions. But the ideas of those "golden years" and world traveling vacations and living without children in their own house, until they have to go to a retirement home, are gone. The reality just hasn't caught up yet, people still believe in the dream.
And i haven't even brought up that many important fields of work will be seriously understaffed when the boomers retire. Like farming, high voltage electrical… Things are about to really fall apart.
Things are going to get really bad, so bad people may hope for the natural disasters to come and wipe out some people.