I don't believe in retirement. I think retirement makes no sense for anyone except professional athletes and career politicians. I know this cuts against the grain of societal expectations where freedom from work is deemed to be "the good life." But I have solid reasons for this stance. You should give up on retirement because it is bad for society, antithetical to your happiness, dooms you to poverty, and probably won't happen for you anyway.
Prior to the implementation of Social Security back in the day, people didn't retire except for a handful of rich motherfuckers who never worked all that much to begin with. An extended life of leisure in your golden years was never contemplated because it was never possible nor valued. This is because retirement makes no economic sense. Paying people not to work makes no sense. It rewards laziness, and please don't give me that shit that because somebody is old and has worked their whole lives they deserve to live off of other people's paychecks. The result is idleness and loss of productivity. In the aggregate, this leads to a net decrease in wealth. Always. When consumption exceeds production, you have economic collapse.
Social Security changed things. At the time, few were expected to even reach the age of 65. Social Security was a clever trick to fleece cash from people. It has become a Ponzi scheme which will collapse except Medicare will collapse first. The biggest damage from Social Security was a cultural change. People wanted to retire. Companies started offering pensions and the like. Wall Street got into the game with corporate and private retirement plans that were tax incentivized. The result was the now universal societal expectation that the last 20 years of one's life could be spent in idleness. It is 30 years now that 55 is considered "retirement age." With baby boomers hitting these ages, a third of of the workforce could become idle. But I don't think this will happen for the reasons I will explain later in this essay.
You can't have a third of your workforce idle for a third of their lives. It is not sustainable. This is why the combined costs of Medicare, Social Security, and pensions will bankrupt America. We already see this happening now with Detroit automakers being the canaries in the coal mine. To sustain it will require fleecing the rest of society which society won't like. "Euthanasia" will become a human right then, and geriatrics will be encouraged to exercise it with extreme liberality. This is preferrable to working?
But I don't think these doomsday scenarios will come to pass because people are waking up to these realizations. With the recent downturn in the stock market, people realize they don't have enough to retire on. Retirement checks are seen as being supplemental to a continued life of work, and this continued life of working is a good thing.
Work is important not because it makes money but also because it improves health and increases happiness. Work makes people feel vital and productive. It demands physical exercise even if that exercise is just walking from the car to the office. Work is an unqualified good. Why do people hate it so much? This goes back to that retirement mindset that has been the cultural byproduct of Social Security.
We have people in their 60's and 70's running marathons, completing triathlons, climbing mountains, hiking trails, and what have you. Yet, we consider it a travesty that these people should have to keep working in their golden years? Please. . .
I'm all for people saving cash in retirement accounts, but I think Social security and pensions should disappear. I think people should give up on retiring. The result will be a net improvement for society and for individuals. You should aim to work until the day you die and love what you do. Work is not a curse.
Critics will say they want to do other things in their lives like travel or write a book or whatever. I think the answer to that is not retirement but the sabbatical which I think employers would be willing to go along with especially when they need to trim their workforce during lean times but retain them for the fat times. The only drawback is that it is unreasonable to expect to be paid during these sabbaticals. But saving up for what Tim Ferriss calls "mini-retirements" is a solution.
My viewpoint is not shared by many, but it doesn't matter. When people hit 65, they probably won't be able to retire anyway, or if they do, Alpo will be a staple of their diet. Social Security will either be bankrupt or no longer indexed for inflation. Pensions will be toast. Private retirement accounts will be underfunded or decimated by the markets. The irony is that the people in the best position to retire will be the ones who have no interest in retirement. These will be the workers who spent their lives saving money, being industrious, and eschewing consumption.
Idleness is not a sustainable lifestyle. This is the bottom line. Retirement is idleness.
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