Phillip Tilley: At least that is what the Government is saying. Good for whom you ask? Good for you because most people can’t afford to stop working. There are 78 million baby boomers, those born between 1946 to 1964, that are only now reaching retirement age. There are 37 million Americans over age 65 and 23.2% of them are still working according to the 2007 U.S. Census Bureau. The Government says that is their choice. Yes, if you choose to eat and sleep in a warm bed you better choose to keep working.

My friend Chuck retired and his funds ran out after only three years. Now he is back working again. He said health costs ate his retirement and he is right. Fewer companies offer health insurance to retirees and some can’t afford it anyway. The average retiree only gets one third the income they made while working and spend 13% of that on health care, according to the 2005 Consumer Expenditure Survey. The elderly in the work force is an economic necessity on many levels.

It’s not just an old people problem, it’s every ones problem. A majority of Americans aren’t saving anything for retirement, or they just aren’t saving anything at all. It takes everything they earn to live day to day, and why save worthless Federal Reserve Notes anyway with inflation making them worth less and less. Rising prices, layoffs and divorces have sent a record number of middle-aged people back home to live with their parents. These people are 40 to 50 years old and back living in the bedrooms they grew up in. 25% of Generation Xers, those people age 28 to 39 get financial help from family and friends according to a survey by AARP. This causes hardships for their parents, delaying their retirement.

Congress blames Social Security for its shortfall, and half of all employers in the U.S. don’t offer a retirement plan or 401K, and for those that do, few participate. Congress wants to cut social security benefits and increase taxes to keep it from running out of money. It helps if older people keep working because they keep contributing which helps fund the shortfall. Of course a cut in benefits means the young people pay more and will receive less. This means they won’t be able to retire either.

Some economists think the best way to motivate Americans to save for retirement is by using a carrot while others suggest using a stick and others yet suggest a combination of both.

I suggest using real money which would be worthy of saving. Let’s face the facts, the problem with Social Security isn’t that it’s running out of money, the problem is it never had any money in the first place.

President Roosevelt confiscated the Americans gold in 1933. The Social Security Act was signed into law in 1935. This means the money was gone before Social Security even started. With worthless Federal Reserve Note currency to start with it never really had any real money. Nobody can enjoy their golden years without the gold.

You can’t retire and that’s a good thing. Wake up people, the money matrix has you!

Phillip Tilley is author of The Money Matrix of the New World Order and other articles.

Stuff and nonsense. If people were not so money minded, the society will not become like that. Besides working helps the country's economy. What about the working people?

Unfortunately there are those of us who work, and I mean really work. We are the guys who build your houses, roof it, pipe it, wire it, floor it and finish it.
Its these guys who suffer the most. A great portion of us will end up being 50-60 and are going through their 2nd or 3rd knee operation.

When we hit 65 do you really think we want to keep on wearing out our already worn out bodies?
Most of us only make between 25,000 to 60,000 per year. (thats $2080-5,000/month taxman takes about 25%-30%esp in Canada, most of us are 25-40,000/year)

This is the normal tradesman's costs of living:
Rent or mortgage = 1200.00/month
Gas = 100.+/week (and no, we need the truck to haul tools and equipment, not some firefly or neon)
Lease = 500-1000/month (this saves me from paying mega tax at the end of the year)
Food = 300-400/month
Utilities = 700+/month

This is not including yearly replacement tools, tires, vehicle fluids....
This is also not including having kids.
This does not include replacing stuff around the house that wears out.
This does not include any extra (movies/dinners out/entertainment)

Where the hell do you expect us to save something for retirement?
And now oil prices will raise those utilities another $1500/year and gas/diesel another $200-300/month and food will be double what it was really soon.
Gotta have the wife bringing in second income, although it gets mostly taken for tax.

The government is totally out of touch with the reality of the average working class person.

I agree with you. The don't know and they don't understand. They don't care about the people.

My retirement plan is: Never plan on retiring.

All I can do is hope to have my house paid off so I can get that bill out of the way and back off some till I die.

You know, Mr, Tilley, we really don't need your articles to tell us what we already know. We don't have governments anymore, we have CORE-POOR-ATIONs, they get the core and we get all the poor

What we need to know is if there is anything we can do about it.... on no money, no time, and if the liberals had their way, not even guns when they come to take our homes as well.

I am REALLY REALLY angry with the way things are going right now and how the government is more worried about running for prez and stupid little pork barrel bills getting passed, none of which help me. They will not deal with the oil companies going insane with greed, their decades long refusal to support alternative fuels to prevent this day, the lack of national health care options, and the theft of our social security funds in the first place. If I ran my check book the way they run the government, I'd be in jail or on the streets.

They flat do not work for us, these politicans we send to Congress (and huge paychecks and retirement funds they vote for themselves and then have the balls to feel good about raising min wage to 6 bucks... when a gallon of gas is approaching that now). Not that it matters, since my car is about to get taken by MAZDA, the compassionate people who really think that they have to punish us somehow when we cannot make payments and it is ok to rob us of the thousands we did pay already on our transporation?

I used to joke about moving to Canada, but nowhere is safe anymore, they're all in on the greed game and we're increasingly all slave labor they occasionally placate.

I lost my job and do you know, I am not eligible for unemployment (worked less than 18 months for them), nor welfare (you have no kids at home, and you have been working), nor job placement assistance (you are a year too young) nor medicare or medicaid to help recover from the pneumonia which got my job lost for me (I am too young for that) ... in fact there is nothing for me, despite working for the past 34 years straight. My savings is gone now, trying to make it until I can find a job here in nowheresville (I am too old or over educated or under educated no matter who I apply to).

The system is broken, and I am rapidly being left with nowhere to turn, and it didn't take much, people. Wake up. Seriously.

Lesson learned: NOBODY CARES. We have been and are being robbed by our "own". And if you wonder how I am online if it is so bad, give it a couple more weeks if I don't find a job really fast next week (week 8 of nothing) and the internet company is slow for once about disconnecting.



NS

In one of Tilleys early articles "Money vs Currency", he stated that it is good to be angry, but not at him as he did not create the money matrix and is only a messenger. In his book he pointed out that most of us are only three paychecks away from living on the streets. He also pointed out that once he has awakened enough of us, what we do to correct the situation is up to us. I know where you're coming from friend, I've been there. Once I earned nine dollars to much to get food stamps, the next month I was denied because you have to have a place to live to get food stamps! I went to the food bank and they informed me they collect food, they don't give any out. For that I had to be put on a waiting list at guess where, the foodstamp office! The only way to really change things is to be one of the powers that be, and that means we need a guy like you in Congress. Those that are there don't know our problems exist because they have never experienced them. In the U.S. less than one half percent of the people are classified as millionaires, and yet everyone in Congress is in this small percentage. That means they run the rest of us 99.5%. Only when poor people run for Congress will that change.

Oh, I'm not mad at him, I am angry with the situation and the obliviousness of the powers that be. As for the three paycheck thing, that is about right, and I hope more people reading will figure it out and realize how much of an illusion security is. I hope they check and find out before the fact what I have - there is no help for you, despite the fact it was you for decades paying for the "help" for others.



Yes, and this true of a whole lot of blue and white collar workers reading this column. I agree with him, people need to wake up and see what is being done to us while we were away at work

Thank you for replying to my post, Oen. It's nice to know one person gives a hoot enough to empathize

NS

And there are still people on this board who appear to be offended because I chose to retire in Mexico. Here I can have everything I had in the U.S. at a fraction of the cost. I have a more peaceful lifestyle combined with a beautiful countryside, wonderful people and a couple of businesses on the side.

Now tell me it wasn't the smart thing to do.

You did good to move to Mexico. A lot if not most people just cannot do that. Just imagine tho if the Americans moved to Mexico and the Mexicans moved to the US. Will it still be the same???. Just wondering thats all.

You say that a lot of people can`t do that . . . retire in Mexico . . . . and I am curious about why?

o

Retiring to Mexico is an option. I don't think you are allowed to own property there unless you are a citizen or have lived there for 20 years or something like that.

I was considering Costa Rica myself.

Utilities in Canada cost that much? Yikes!

And what are you leasing that costs 500/1000 per month?

Just curious.

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My Mom is 65 and can't afford to retire. Of course, she spent most of her life as a housewife and only started working again about 12 years ago. I'm self-employed so there is no such thing as 401ks and employee-match retirement plans, but I'll be fine because I'm heading to self-sustainability. As long as the internet doesn't disappear I'll be fine.

Non-citizens are permitted to own property in the interior of Mexico. There is no time limit on the amount of time you have lived here.

I have been to Costa Rica and between it and Mexico, I would overwhelmingly choose Mexico. The stronger and more diverse economy (Costa Rica depends heavily on tourism), different tax structures and the restrictive land options in Costa Rica makes Mexico the much better option (to me).