Fewer.

AGE WAR!!!!

Call this an unfair generalization if you must, but old people are no good at everything.

Actually, it means that younger people are now researching ways to off Baby Boomers with undetectable poisons.

Jubeebee: Work well past retirement age due to shiatty financial planning early in your life, thereby reducing the number of jobs available to young people, who you then denounce as lazy freeloaders for not being able to find jobs..

So the solution to optimize the productive capacity of the economy is for the most experienced workers to make themselves idle? Please. Shiatty financial planning or no, by definition we're collectively better off with more people working rather than fewer.

Carousel. (new window)


/They're going to die soon anyway
//Might as well be entertaining
///Runs

Work 'til you drop?

I thought I was the only one with that retirement plan...

Weaver95: Obviously, the solution is

Let people die.

Amos Quito: [www.weblogsinc.com image 400x300]

Carousel. (new window)


/They're going to die soon anyway
//Might as well be entertaining
///Runs

is that happy face on his hand?

Dear Mom and Dad,
Thanks for handing us down the awesome-ness that was the greatest generation! Wish we could have turned over something decent to our kids too. Anyway, just wanted to drop a line and hope they're treating you well at the assisted living center. I know it was a hard transition, but I knew you'd understand when you found out I was turning the bedroom I promised you guys into a place to store my Star Wars Figure collection and my 45s. Well, I gotta jump off here and head to work. The retirement that was due to come this year has been postponed (again..lol) as I replan my financial strategy to be able to retire within three years, and spend as frivolously as I ever had before. It should work out this time.
Love always,
your son,
Chip.

Oh come now, I know a few boomers who are going to retire just as soon as they flip a couple more houses.

But the richest few percent control more of the nation's wealth every year! So they're doing great. Never your mind about the shrinking middle-class, not like they're important or anything.

But by all means, keep voting 'em in.

This should be a fun thread.

...less fewer jobs...

/FTFY

Jubeebee: Work well past retirement age due to shiatty financial planning early in your life, thereby reducing the number of jobs available to young people, who you then denounce as lazy freeloaders for not being able to find jobs.

In your free time, claim that music in the 60s was so much better than music now based solely on what you hear from Top 40 radio, lecture people about how you paid your own way through college doing pizza delivery, and start asking about grandchildren when your own kids are in their early 20s.

Or call you entitled for wanting what they had and not wanting to flip burgers.

Lump of labour fallacy (new window) for the not-yet-caffeinated

If you enjoy your job, and can choose when and where you work, why would you ever retire?

I plan to carry on inventing new jobs for myself for as long as i can reach the keyboard

There is something fundamentally wrong when the meaning of life becomes "work" and not just to live and enjoy life. I would love to see the reaction from the retarded right if Obama proposed something that was suggested a couple of years ago in the UK. That was to essentially make the work week 20-30 hours. Argument was that this would provide time for families to actually spend time together, and people to actually have the time to themselves to pursue the life they want.

And if you can't find one of those jobs that doesn't exist, it's because you're lazy.

Debeo Summa Credo: Jubeebee: Work well past retirement age due to shiatty financial planning early in your life, thereby reducing the number of jobs available to young people, who you then denounce as lazy freeloaders for not being able to find jobs..

So the solution to optimize the productive capacity of the economy is for the most experienced workers to make themselves idle? Please. Shiatty financial planning or no, by definition we're collectively better off with more people working rather than fewer.

Naw, the solution is the same thing that it always has been: Keep your good workers happy and well-paid, fire your bad workers. Age doesn't really factor into it. If someone is a great worker because they've been doing it for decades and still have what it takes, great. If someone else used to be a great worker, but now they're too old to understand that the business has changed, unwilling to be flexible, and make a huge salary because of years of promotions, fire 'em and hire someone young and hungry.

Businesses need a balance between experience and energy, which tend to be more concentrated among the old and the young, respectively.

mjjt: Lump of labour fallacy (new window) for the not-yet-caffeinated

If you enjoy your job, and can choose when and where you work, why would you ever retire?

I plan to carry on inventing new jobs for myself for as long as i can reach the keyboard

Another statistical outlier old person who thinks he is the norm so every claim against his generation is bullshiat.

Kasira: Fewer.

Missed it by that "" much.

ssa5: There is something fundamentally wrong when the meaning of life becomes "work" and not just to live and enjoy life. I would love to see the reaction from the retarded right if Obama proposed something that was suggested a couple of years ago in the UK. That was to essentially make the work week 20-30 hours. Argument was that this would provide time for families to actually spend time together, and people to actually have the time to themselves to pursue the life they want.

I wonder how that would work... with more leisure time, would people spend more money? Would that help keep our economy running? Would more people have jobs because with only a 30 hour work week, more people would have to be employed to keep up with demand...

does this work the way I'm thinking? What am I missing? It seems too tidy.

ssa5: There is something fundamentally wrong when the meaning of life becomes "work" and not just to live and enjoy life. I would love to see the reaction from the retarded right if Obama proposed something that was suggested a couple of years ago in the UK. That was to essentially make the work week 20-30 hours. Argument was that this would provide time for families to actually spend time together, and people to actually have the time to themselves to pursue the life they want.

They'd scream about unions that don't actually exist anymore. Same as they do now.

Jubeebee: Work well past retirement age due to shiatty financial planning early in your life, thereby reducing the number of jobs available to young people, who you then denounce as lazy freeloaders for not being able to find jobs.

I always get a kick when people say this. The Boobies-pension generations are just starting to retire in large numbers and they're struggling because their 401ks haven't kept pace, their home values dropped suddenly and severely, and their savings accounts are earning just above what might be called "jack" and "shiat".

Meanwhile, those of us still working have seen all the same problems plus we've watched as our matching 401k contributions have been slashed or eliminated, health care costs during our working lives have skyrocketed, food and fuel costs are on the rise, and the deficit, which we'll eventually have to pay off, has threatened our current and future tax rates and also threatened to pull the few safety nets we have (like future Medicare coverage) out from under us.

So, basically, virtually no generation has managed to effectively be able to plan out a workable retirement strategy without a pension yet while also leaving a decent and comfortable lifestyle.

Just for shiats and giggles, I estimated what it would cost for me to save up $1,000,000 from the day I started working until the day I retired. If I've done this right, I'd have had to have saved nearly 37% of my pre-tax income from the day I got my first paycheck to now. There's no way I could have comfortably lived doing that 25 years ago and I don't think a million bucks is enough to retire on anymore. I probably couldn't have bought a house ever because the house I did buy and now own free and clear has gone up in value nearly 80% since I bought it.

Does it never occur to people like you that maybe it's not actually possible to live a reasonably modern life and effectively plan for a 20+ year retirement with our current working conditions?

We insist on tying retirements to the stock market, which may or may not provide you with enough to purchase an annuity from someone that will represent a small portion of your pre-retirement income. We also insist on barely regulating the securities industry, even after they've unapologetically destroyed the economy.

This situation is good if you're a major stockholder in a cat food corporation, but not so great if you'd like to spend your twilight years doing something other than being chained to a Wal-Mart greeting station.

We boomers will not be working until we drop. At some point, we, too, will be let go. Because like it or not, at some point, it becomes harder to keep up with the "fast pace of business." When this happens, even if it is only a false perception on the part of the employer, you're history. You'll just be called in and told that some changes have to be made and it's time for you to consider retiring (ready and able or not). If you are over about 55, the chance of getting another job in your field is near-zero.

But younger people are in for such a hard road that I feel so sorry for them. Many won't even get the chance to have a real career. The jobs they could hope for are going overseas. Most people don't see the scope of this migration. I've seen recent pictures of a city in India where there is office complex construction everywhere for miles around it. I'm talking about hundreds of buildings. All of this building is for American companies, who are moving much of their operations to India. And that's only one city. Our Indian employees say this is happening all over the country.

I figure I will work until I die. I sorta accept this. I do fear that I will not be able to work in my chosen profession or at least something respectable.

Work until I die doing what I love = acceptable
Work until I die and spending the last 10 years working at Wal Mart while a 20 year old tells me what to do = Go ahead and kill me

Hey, fine by me. The boomers can have the manufacturing/faceless drone at a desk/anonymous "middle manager" type jobs, and I'll take the ones they've never even thought about being practical, or looked down on because they weren't jobs "for men."

Why yes, Mr. "I've been working at the plant 9-5 for 40 years", I do about 90% of my work from the comfort of my own home, via something called "the internet". I get to spend time with my wife and kids, don't come home from my day dead tired, and I make significantly more than you do right now (I'm under 30) than you after your life sentence working manual labor at a factory. U jelly?

As an aside, it was much, MUCH more feasible in the 50s-60s to "work your way through college" and get a job after. Many people I know tell stories about how "when they went to college in 1967, I was working full time while going to class, and I paid my own way 100% without scholarships, AND managed to save enough to buy a car and put a down payment on a house afterwards." Yeah, that's significantly easier when a.) your education cost 5% of what mine did, and b.) the gap between your full time job's earning power and the same type of job I could get today (while a full time student) is so wide it's laughable. Pay your own way through college 100% while working 40+ hrs a week at a retail job that pays $8.50/hr, while staring at $100,000 of debt? I'm not even getting into how "college" is seen as a necessity now, and the competition for admissions has risen exponentially, and the competition for post-graduation, entry level jobs has done the same. Yep, things are exactly the same now as they were 60 years ago.

Kasira: Fewer.

Subby did this on purpose. Trolling the less/fewer Nazis is too easy.

You're welcome for everything!

Duke Phillips' Singing Bears: ssa5: There is something fundamentally wrong when the meaning of life becomes "work" and not just to live and enjoy life. I would love to see the reaction from the retarded right if Obama proposed something that was suggested a couple of years ago in the UK. That was to essentially make the work week 20-30 hours. Argument was that this would provide time for families to actually spend time together, and people to actually have the time to themselves to pursue the life they want.

I wonder how that would work... with more leisure time, would people spend more money? Would that help keep our economy running? Would more people have jobs because with only a 30 hour work week, more people would have to be employed to keep up with demand...

does this work the way I'm thinking? What am I missing? It seems too tidy.

I have to admit that I'm no economist, but I could see it working.

I know that when I was a part-timer, I was MUCH more productive per hour than now. If you're only working for a few hours a day, you don't really have time for Farking and other time-wasters.

Cubansaltyballs: I work in IT, and it's pretty rare to see people older than 60 doing anything other than managing mainframes or programming them etc.

Most of them don't see any reason to learn the newer systems and a lot of places won't bother spending the money to train them.

//*former system programmer
//*not even close to 60
//*hope to never see another line of JCL again
//*

You farked up.

You trusted capitalism.

Hmm, I have an idea for a retirement plan. Load a pistol. Find a bunch of conservative politicians. Blow away as many of them as possible. Surrender. Go to jail. Have my housing, medical care etc. paid for.

Beats working at McDonalds or WalMart.

Kasira: Fewer.

This!

Did I miss a memo where the use of fewer is being discouraged? Way too many headlines and comments use less in place of fewer.

Doryphore: Kasira: Fewer.

Subby did this on purpose. Trolling the less/fewer Nazis is too easy.

Sure, subby did.

grinding_journalist: Hey, fine by me. The boomers can have the manufacturing/faceless drone at a desk/anonymous "middle manager" type jobs, and I'll take the ones they've never even thought about being practical, or looked down on because they weren't jobs "for men."

Why yes, Mr. "I've been working at the plant 9-5 for 40 years", I do about 90% of my work from the comfort of my own home, via something called "the internet". I get to spend time with my wife and kids, don't come home from my day dead tired, and I make significantly more than you do right now (I'm under 30) than you after your life sentence working manual labor at a factory. U jelly?

As an aside, it was much, MUCH more feasible in the 50s-60s to "work your way through college" and get a job after. Many people I know tell stories about how "when they went to college in 1967, I was working full time while going to class, and I paid my own way 100% without scholarships, AND managed to save enough to buy a car and put a down payment on a house afterwards." Yeah, that's significantly easier when a.) your education cost 5% of what mine did, and b.) the gap between your full time job's earning power and the same type of job I could get today (while a full time student) is so wide it's laughable. Pay your own way through college 100% while working 40+ hrs a week at a retail job that pays $8.50/hr, while staring at $100,000 of debt? I'm not even getting into how "college" is seen as a necessity now, and the competition for admissions has risen exponentially, and the competition for post-graduation, entry level jobs has done the same. Yep, things are exactly the same now as they were 60 years ago.

"And the good times will never end..."

"But, that's similar to what those guys said at your age..."

"I SAID the good times will NEVER END!"

My boss is "retired." She spent 30 years in real estate, retired to FL, couldn't afford it, then started a second career at 62. Same thing with our secretary, except she can afford it, but is just too bored at home.

Kasira: Fewer.

^

Doryphore: Kasira: Fewer.

Subby did this on purpose. Trolling the less/fewer Nazis is too easy.

Was the silly notion that there is a fixed number of jobs available also a troll?
People working longer does not create unemployment.

I think you give subby too much credit.

Kasira: Fewer.

Came here for this. Glad to see you have it covered.