politics Archives - Peter Levitan & Co.

Feeling safe and secure about your retirement funds? Are you in the 50% or so that will outlive your savings? Love that I am going here right now?

Dig this… yes its true, more than 50% of retirees (and even you great Gen X members) will die kinda poor if you think living on your Social Security checks of say $17,000 per year ain’t that appealing. I won’t go into major detail right now. But, I will, soon, I promise.

What has caused this? Here is a list of factors, but not all of them:

You simply didn’t save enough (that’s why Gen X and gen Y better start now)
Only 53% of workers have a pension or 401K
Workers age 55 to 64 had just $54,000 in their 401K in 2010
On average, this group has $120,000 in savings (that’s about 1/4 required according to the experts)

Bottom line? Our savings culture and systems suck. Yes, there are solutions being considered by pro-active politicians like Senator Tom Harkin (but not in time for those lucky Baby Boomers.)

Stay tuned.

So, tonight, regardless of your political persuasion, you will probably watch some, if not all, of Bill Clinton’s speech. I don’t do politics here. But I do do Boomer stuff.

Bill is the quintessential Baby Boomer – based on my definition. As I write below, “We, on the other hand, have been an action generation that challenged the status quo, believes deeply in personal choice, the idea that change is good and delivered on the dream of the American Century.”

I have been rereading Tom Brokaw’s book, The Greatest Generation. Rereading it because I see an idea in it that might be my next book. Here is a bit from my take on The Greatest Generation from Boomercide: from Woodstock To Suicide…

“I have always been somewhat disheartened that this pampered Baby Boomer image has dogged us for years despite the fact that we have dutifully trudged off to our jobs, reinvented industries, raised super Gen-X and Y kids and are now caring for our aging parents. In fact, I bristle when I see Tom Brokaw’s book The Greatest Generation.”While the book is kind to our parents, it makes me ask what isn’t to love about Baby Boomers? It is my sense that the “Greatest” are the enduring generation having lived through the depression and two wars. Our folks had to deal with tough times and successfully played the hand they were dealt. We, on the other hand, have been an action generation that challenged the status quo, believes deeply in personal choice, the idea that change is good and delivered on the dream of the American Century. And, as they say in New Jersey, not f’nuthin, but we also had major things to endure like Lawrence Welk and Swanson TV dinners.”

The idea? Who is telling our story?

[Also thinking that Bill will do a better old-white-guy pitch than Clint.]