Median boomer retirement account $144,000

[Stormin]

Well, you and I do agree about the AMA then.

Do you not believe my grandmother's stories about growing up? About her wanting to be a doctor, being academically gifted, yet her parents discouraging it for sexist reasons and medical schools being "women need not apply" much the time?

Her father/my great-grandfather only consented to her going to nursing school because, to him, it was a good place for her to find a husband. For her, it was the closet thing she had to living out the dream that she had but would never realize.

I am surprised you of all people would try to avoid or minimize the role discrimination had in people's lives back then. Women were discouraged from pursuing a higher education and professional careers, which made it easier on men.

You cannot write that out of the economic history of the postwar world.



If you want them to pay for using infrastructure, then you should advocate either (1.) direct user fees, such as tolls on highways and bridges or (2.) just privatize the infrastructure and let the owners interact with the market to set the price.

Pipelines and railroads are "infrastructure" and almost entirely privately-owned.

Not minimizing your grandmother at all. Just said there are lots of gifted intelligent people today that want to become doctors but can’t because the doctors of the AMA want to protect their gravy train and in doing so they screw the middle class with their high charges.

Privatize infrastructure? You are an idiot.

 

[Stormin]

Makes a big difference when you say live life now when you expect to be gone by 60.

Saving later denies yourself the long term benefits of compound interest.

My in-laws saved their entire lives. Had a good amount of money. Great retirement income with pension and SS. Had an apartment building as a rental property fully paid for. And a wonderful house and Motorhome. All of it went to the nursing home as they spent almost 18 years between the two of them. The last several years it was around $200 per day for each of them. Multiply that $200 by 2 and you are talking about $140,000 per year. It doesn’t take long to eat up a million bucks. Oh well.

 

[Sigmapolis]

Not minimizing your grandmother at all. Just said there are lots of gifted intelligent people today that want to become doctors but can’t because the doctors of the AMA want to protect their gravy train and in doing so they screw the middle class with their high charges.

Privatize infrastructure? You are an idiot.

Railroads are private.

Pipelines are private.

Electricity generation, transmission, and distribution are mostly (90%+) private.

Those are work fine.

Even the stuff that is publicly-owned, like roads and bridges and airports, are technically built and maintained by private contractors.

What do you say to those?

Or are you just being idiotic again?

 

[Stormin]

Railroads are private.

Pipelines are private.

Electricity generation, transmission, and distribution are mostly (90%+) private.

Those are work fine.

Even the stuff that is publicly-owned, like roads and bridges and airports, are technically built and maintained by private contractors.

What do you say to those?

Or are you just being idiotic again?

Railroads were given over 100 million acres of public land from 1862-1866 period alone. Railroads are still getting government money and help today.

https://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/nation-world/national/economy/article24759688.html

Pipelines are given millions of dollars in subsidies.

We give energy subsidies. They have all gotten government money. And you want to exempt them from taxation as well. You are an idiot.

 

[SpokaneCY]

Railroads were given over 100 million acres of public land from 1862-1866 period alone. Railroads are still getting government money and help today.

https://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/nation-world/national/economy/article24759688.html

Pipelines are given millions of dollars in subsidies.

.

Professional pipeline guy here... WHAT?

 

[MWB76]

Stormin,

You mention land given to railroads 150 years ago, as subsidies.

Then you make an unsupported claim of pipeline subsidies. I'm not aware of any major pipeline subsidies so educate me about them,

But I'm curious as to why you didn't mention the billions of dollars of wind and solar energy subsidies?

 

[Sigmapolis]

I think Stormin’ is my favorite poster on this site. His ability to spout absolute BS yet ignore it when called it on, trying to change the subject and keep chargin’ just as hard as before is pretty entertaining and a really wondrous vision to behold sometimes.

 

[Stormin]

Stormin,

You mention land given to railroads 150 years ago, as subsidies.

Then you make an unsupported claim of pipeline subsidies. I'm not aware of any major pipeline subsidies so educate me about them,

But I'm curious as to why you didn't mention the billions of dollars of wind and solar energy subsidies?

I linked to Obama giving railroads subsidies. Pipelines get tax breaks. That is a subsidy. Energy companies get tax breaks. Those are subsidies.

 

[Sigmapolis]

I linked to Obama giving railroads subsidies. Pipelines get tax breaks. That is a subsidy. Energy companies get tax breaks. Those are subsidies.

Find me a sector that does not take at least *some* sort of incentive or tax break from the government. I’ll wait. You’re not going to find one.

If your standard for a business to be privately owned and operated is not its actual ownership but that it takes absolutely zero government largesse, then the economy is 100% government and you are making Marx and company very proud.

Just face up to what you did. You said we have no private infrastructure, which is an idiotic thing to say. Railroads are owned by their investors. So are pipelines. So it telecom and data. So is most of the electrical system. I could think of more.

The idea that infrastructure cannot be privately owned and operated is a stupid one, and you are about as bright as a dodo for scoffing at me for even suggestion it even if reality says it is quite common.

 

[Stormin]

Find me a sector that does not take at least *some* sort of incentive or tax break from the government. I’ll wait. You’re not going to find one.

If your standard for a business to be privately owned and operated is not its actual ownership but that it takes absolutely zero government largesse, then the economy is 100% government and you are making Marx and company very proud.

Just face up to what you did. You said we have no private infrastructure, which is an idiotic thing to say. Railroads are owned by their investors. So are pipelines. So it telecom and data. So is most of the electrical system. I could think of more.

The idea that infrastructure cannot be privately owned and operated is a stupid one, and you are about as bright as a dodo for scoffing at me for even suggestion it even if reality says it is quite common.

Is private infrastructure paid for by government subsidies truly “private”? Seems like it is publicly financed private ownership.

 

[SpokaneCY]

I linked to Obama giving railroads subsidies. Pipelines get tax breaks. That is a subsidy. Energy companies get tax breaks. Those are subsidies.

Is it the steel from Canada, US, Japan where they get breaks?
Is it with the individually negotiated rows?
Is it the union labor?
Is it the rail fees?
Is it the decades long environmental reviews, federal, state, local permitting?
Is it the endless environmental litigation?

You should spout off on something else you know nothing about.

 

[Stormin]

Is it the steel from Canada, US, Japan where they get breaks?
Is it with the individually negotiated rows?
Is it the union labor?
Is it the rail fees?
Is it the decades long environmental reviews, federal, state, local permitting?
Is it the endless environmental litigation?

You should spout off on something else you know nothing about.

If you could only read. Here is the link. Again. Click on it.

https://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/nation-world/national/economy/article24759688.html

The public dollars have built new overpasses to separate trains from one another, as well as cars and trucks. They’ve replaced aging bridges, laid new track and upgraded signal systems. They’ve paid to enlarge tunnels and raise bridges so that shipping containers may be double-stacked. They’ve built new facilities where cargo containers can be transferred from trucks to trains, or vice versa.

Supporters say these public investments, combined with private capital, are model infrastructure partnerships that will help take trucks off crowded highways, reduce pollution and improve the flow of goods to and from the nation’s seaports.


Read more here: https://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/nation-world/national/economy/article24759688.html#storylink=cpy

 

[SEIOWA CLONE]

You made the point that 1950s and 1960s America was a great time for the middle class, mostly due to strong unions protecting the interests of their members.

I refuted that claim -- productivity growth was unusually high and has never been repeated, international competition was moribund and recovering from the war, and the prosperity that you and your family felt as White people in Iowa was not as broadly shared as you like to imagine. In fact, the high wages paid to White men of the time were directly related to the scarcity of labor created by discrimination against women (including of my grandmother), minorities, and by restricting immigration into the United States.

Unions played a strong role in that White middle class prosperity but also a strong one in that same discriminatory process to suppress labor supply.

You say the economy of that era has a lot to teach us yet ignore its foundations (including unions) were built on discrimination and intimidation. You just refuse to discuss this point because it is devastating to your, "Look to the past, there are answers there, go back to that!" version of toxic nostalgia that we all need to leave behind.



Owners of capital and labor should be allowed to do what they think is in their best interests. We should not even be taxing corporations at all really.



When you say "unions are the answer" and "we need an economy more like the one my parents and grandparents had when I was growing up, before Reagan," then you are bringing up the topics of equal rights and discrimination. Like it or not. You might not like that, but the "golden hue" of the 1950s and 1960s for the White middle class is inextricably related to the rampant discrimination and intimidation of the same era.

Discrimination was/is not just political and social. It is economic, as well.

I bring up my grandmother because she was one of the victims of this system -- she was shut out of the career her intellect deserved. Saying it was good for your White and male relatives growing up does not prove it was good for everybody.

Is there still discrimination today, most people would say yes, and are currently protesting against it. So your points about discrimination being present in the past really does not matter in the least.
Whether that job went to a white person, a colored person, a male or female really does not matter. The jobs were there, they no longer are.

Your whole point of unions discriminated so therefore they were horrible does not matter, because discrimination still exists today.
The wage gap today is the highest in our history, the wealthy have seen their share of the pie continue to grow, even as the pie grows itself. While the middle class and below have seen stagnate wages going on 30 years.

But keep pushing the idea of discrimination being the reason for it all, hell, someone might actually listen and believe you.

 

[SpokaneCY]

I linked to Obama giving railroads subsidies. Pipelines get tax breaks. That is a subsidy. Energy companies get tax breaks. Those are subsidies.

Pipelines get tax breaks? Other than simply being set up as a certain type of corporate entity, please tell me where all the free money is coming from? Is if the local and municipal franchise fees? Is it from the company being required to move all facilities on our dime when the city/county does a road relocate? Is it the mandated low ROR? Is it through all the social programs we're required to fund? Is it the regulatory process where the commissions deny us recovery of prudent expenses? Is it from the regulatory lag where we can't earn on investments to our systems (reliability safety etc.)?

Maybe its from being mandated to develop and deploy resources that don't pencil because of environmental zealots? Nope - that doesn't seem to scream subsidy except for customers.

MAYBE it's from the congestion and transmission issues coupled with environmental legislation that requires additional expense for capital to support the load factor of useless technologies?

Holy crap you've demonstrated absolutely ZERO knowledge of my industry.

 

[JP4CY]

God ****, theres some novels being written in here.

 

[CTTB78]

God ****, there's some novels being written in here.

No kidding. Makes you wonder how they have the time in the day for post after post.

 

[nfrine]

I read in another thread that we are all going to die of Covid-19. Makes this retirement thread kind of useless...

 

[Sigmapolis]

Is there still discrimination today, most people would say yes, and are currently protesting against it.

Of course there is still discrimination today.

So your points about discrimination being present in the past really does not matter in the least.

What the ****...?

Jim Crow was still active in the South until the mid-1960s. Women's labor force participation rate was 33% in 1950, and it is now like 57%. Young women now earn more bachelor's degrees than the corresponding men, an equal number of law degrees, and an equal number of MDs, which were all heavily tilted in the male direction through the until the late 1980s and the 1990s. Things are better, even if we have a long way to go.

Saying that women and non-White people's access and equality on the labor market has been unchanged for the past 70 years -- so we can go ahead and ignore how particularly intense that was during your supposed "golden age" for the middle class -- is an asinine point. Total hogwash. You should be ashamed of yourself.

You should be embarrassed to try to make such an absurd and insensitive point when women and non-White's have much better formal and informal access to the labor market than they did during your White family's Camero heyday.

Whether that job went to a white person, a colored person, a male or female really does not matter. The jobs were there, they no longer are.

What an idiotic thing to suggest who got those jobs "does not matter" when they were almost all going to White men. Do you not realize the mechanism here? That those jobs were good *because* women and non-Whites were shut out, making labor artificially scarce and bidding up the price for White men? And that was the plan? That you cannot judge the era fairly unless you get outside of your own middle class White upbringing?

Adjust for the people shut out, and it was far from a golden age.

Your whole point of unions discriminated so therefore they were horrible does not matter, because discrimination still exists today.

See my above point. It is complete horsepucky on your part to try and believe there has been no change in access or fairness on the labor market in 70 years.

Again, still got a long way to go, but to act like things are stagnant is silly.

The wage gap today is the highest in our history, the wealthy have seen their share of the pie continue to grow, even as the pie grows itself. While the middle class and below have seen stagnate wages going on 30 years.

But keep pushing the idea of discrimination being the reason for it all, hell, someone might actually listen and believe you.

The process you are describing has happened in virtually every country in the world. Including in the "workers' paradises" of northwestern Europe.

Globalization is the trend here.

Most of the large industrial firms that used to offer those union jobs to White men either do not exist anymore or only exist in much diminished forms. The Japanese and the Germans (and later the Chinese) wiped them out. I do not see how reconstituting unions is somehow going to make U.S. industrial firms with higher wages competitive on world markets, especially considering they tried that and failed already.

Considering how much better robots and AI are getting... I would get with this century. Those kinds of jobs available only to White men with little for skills or a formal education are not coming back, and even if they were, a robot would do it better.

 

[AuH2O]

Is there still discrimination today, most people would say yes, and are currently protesting against it. So your points about discrimination being present in the past really does not matter in the least.
Whether that job went to a white person, a colored person, a male or female really does not matter. The jobs were there, they no longer are.

Your whole point of unions discriminated so therefore they were horrible does not matter, because discrimination still exists today.
The wage gap today is the highest in our history, the wealthy have seen their share of the pie continue to grow, even as the pie grows itself. While the middle class and below have seen stagnate wages going on 30 years.

But keep pushing the idea of discrimination being the reason for it all, hell, someone might actually listen and believe you.

First, just because discrimination exists today, it is nothing remotely close in the job market to what it was then. Not remotely close.

Yes, we all agree the jobs aren't there. No one is arguing that. But they were largely there due to an unprecedented simultaneous explosion in demand due to rebuilding the post-WWII world and restriction in supply due to WWII destruction, and that effect of course diminished over time. And the US was pretty much the only industrial nation left standing for a period of time. And those jobs left because other nations developed the infrastructure and trained workforce willing to accept a fraction of pay that the US workers could, and automation developed rapidly.

No one is arguing that the jobs that were here in the 50s and 60s are no longer here. You and Stormin seem to think that unions created that prosperity and those jobs. They didn't. A complete abnormality and demand/supply shock unlike anything ever seen before or after created it. You also seem to be thinking if not for their decline the unions would've saved those jobs. They wouldn't and couldn't stop India and China from building infrastructure and a capable workforce, and they couldn't stop automation from happening.

I'm not into the argument of life was better or worse across eras. But I can't stand hearing idiotic arguments about post WW2 prosperity in the US and claiming some inconsequential domestic policy, business practice or labor unions had any role when there were years of an industrial world in rubble rebuilding feverishly with the US as the lone industrial nation at remotely close to capacity.

 

[Sigmapolis]

First, just because discrimination exists today, it is nothing remotely close in the job market to what it was then. Not remotely close.

Yes, we all agree the jobs aren't there. No one is arguing that. But they were largely there due to an unprecedented simultaneous explosion in demand due to rebuilding the post-WWII world and restriction in supply due to WWII destruction, and that effect of course diminished over time. And the US was pretty much the only industrial nation left standing for a period of time. And those jobs left because other nations developed the infrastructure and trained workforce willing to accept a fraction of pay that the US workers could, and automation developed rapidly.

No one is arguing that the jobs that were here in the 50s and 60s are no longer here. You and Stormin seem to think that unions created that prosperity and those jobs. They didn't. A complete abnormality and demand/supply shock unlike anything ever seen before or after created it. You also seem to be thinking if not for their decline the unions would've saved those jobs. They wouldn't and couldn't stop India and China from building infrastructure and a capable workforce, and they couldn't stop automation from happening.

I'm not into the argument of life was better or worse across eras. But I can't stand hearing idiotic arguments about post WW2 prosperity in the US and claiming some inconsequential domestic policy, business practice or labor unions had any role when there were years of an industrial world in rubble rebuilding feverishly with the US as the lone industrial nation at remotely close to capacity.

The decline of unions was a result of those kinds of jobs going away, not a cause.