Tyler: The New Retirement Normal: The Average American Must Work For Two Extra Years After Death. He begins:
While Italy is bickering over just how inhumane it is to raise the retirement age by 2 years in a 15 year span (which works out to a whopping 48 days per year) and will likely lead to mass riots and bloodshed in Rome before the idea is ultimately scrapped, things in America's own back yard, the country that now that the EFSF is finished will have no choice but to come to Europe's rescue via the IMF, are looking horrendous to quite horrendous. In fact when it comes to retirement, 80 is, we are sad to say, the new 65, at least according to Wells Fargo. And with average life expectancy in the US peaking at 78.1, it means that the typical American will have to work for an additional 2 years after death to pay for not only not having any retirement savings (thank you Bernanke ZIRP and VIX>30 stock market), but to make sure Europeans have theirs. You think we jest? Nope.
Read the whole thing. Years of cheap money, the housing bubble, and other bubbles resulted in a 20-year party built on credit and spending. (Of course, governments did the same thing.) Although most people continue to work after retirement, it is more pleasant when it is semi-optional.
On the other hand, if you spend most of your life drearily putting money into savings instead of living, you will get sick before you ever have a life with some fun and adventure in it. Sailing in the Med, fly fishing in Patagonia, hunting Ptarmigan in Alaska, cruising around the world, riding horses in Montana, golfing in Scotland - none of these things are (yes, "none" takes a plural verb) much fun to do when deaf, half blind, and with a colostomy bag, two bad knees, and a touch of dementia.
Honestly, I'd rather be working with the latter and have some of my fun in advance. Buy now, pay later. Health, like youth, is wasted on the young, and idleness wasted on the old. During my two years of zombie working, I'd like to be a WalMart greeter, just adding some good cheer to the world for a humble wage.
