This time is different. The type of loans, the record debt, overbuilding, are going to make this real estate collapse the worst in our country’s history.
An excerpt from the Frontline story
The nightmare I have,” says pension expert Brooks Hamilton, “is the vision of people … outliving their retirement income and being down to Social Security.” And the shock waves may reverberate through the entire economy. “What holds up our economy,” says Hamilton, “is consumer spending. When retirees are 20 percent of the population and run out of money, then ‘poof,’ there goes the economy.”
The change is already happening, as retirees find they are having to go back to work to make ends meet. Pat O’Neill, a retired United Airlines mechanic, is now driving a truck after his pension and benefits were cut. Winson Crabb and Gil Thibeau, two National Semiconductor retirees with widely different financial results from their company’s 401(k) plan, are both still working in retirement.
“What is the meaning of retirement if the only way you can live is to work?” asks Notre Dame professor Teresa Ghilarducci “The answer is there is no meaning to retirement anymore. We are now shifting from lifetime pensions to lifetime work. It’s the end of retirement.”
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I know some of you will appreciate my post, others say I’m extremist, doom and gloom and all that.
My point is to help people. Watch the video. Are you ready, or will you be like one of those little old ladies and men who can never afford to quit working and are worried abotu paying the rent? Is consumption today more important than that lifetime security?