My dad retired when he was 62 – took early retirement, because he could. This was in the late 70’s, when my dad could go to the local car dealer, and buy, not one, but two new Toyotas – a Corolla and a Celica – with money he had saved, working as an elementary school Principal, in a small town in Iowa. That’s right – no auto financing was needed, because inflation – considered “rampant” at the time – was nascient, compared with its blood-sucking dominance today. His retirement package was 67% of his final salary, for 10 years following.

By the mid 2000’s (I’m guessing), the reality of a company-sponsored, extended retirement, was gone. Now, as with most myths, this one has taken a long time to be erradicated from the public conscience, mostly because the myth is ardently perpetrated by the headless “financial system”, with its attendant media arm. To what end, we can only guess, but it would make sense that it is tied directly to the profits invesment firms make on the corporate IRAs, which essnentially replaced the pension that my father had (and even I had, until the mid 2000’s). As you may know – although, again, many “believers” never cued into this – you put money into the company IRA, and it can be matched by the company. But where does it go? Into stocks – all of it. It’s not a savings account – it’s an investor/trading account. Your retirement dollars get whisked away into stocks, which perform well, or not. As a lot of people found out (surprise!), much of their IRA just disappeared in 2008! I know people who “called their company” to find out what the hell happened. Well, what happened was, your retirement account blew away with the winds of a market economy (yet another myth buster – that “supply side economics” they taught you in school, was gone from reality, long before they took it out of your textbook – along with the heroism of Christopher Columbus).

I don’t pretend to be an economist – as a rule, they have a pretty poor track record, anyway. But I do know that inflation hit 13% in 1980. To me, this is when the middle class (myth 3 in this post), left, and was replaced by the Debtor Class, or TCFKAM (making a joke at Prince’s expense). By this point, or soon after, every house had a mortgage and every car had consumer financing. Of course, people still thought that as middle class citizens, they should still buy several cars and sevreral houses. They just lost sight of the fact that all these things are now 10 times as expensive as they were 10 years before.

When you talk to a financial advisor today, their first quesiton is always “how much do you want per month, when you retire?” What a funny question – of course, I want like $10 million a month! But they ask this only to lead you into a discussion of how that corporate IRA is going to be the answer. But the solution they offer is for you to contribute the max amount to the IRA fund – dovetails nicely with the Wall Street profit motive I mentioned above.

In the end, you don’t have enough money to be building the kind of retirement fund you would need, AND deal with the wild inflation. So, you end the conversation with some kind of compensation – you’ll do your best to contribute more, and wait until you are 70 to retire.

But the truth is that, when you are 70, you will retire with about 1/3 of your monthly income, assuming that’s even relevant in 10 years – and that includes Social Security, assuming that’s even relevant in 10 years.

Just open your eyes. Don’t listen to NPR, or your corporate financial advisor. Look around. How many elderly people do you see working at Walmart, WinDixie, etc. (just not Whole Foods – far too elitist to hire smelly old people). I have small jobs done by people in their 70s, I get groceries delivered by people in their 70s – the middle class is gone, and so is the working class.

There’s always the conflict with the “official narrative” that keeps using the inflation rate, which is heavily adjusted, rather than the cost of living, which is hidden, to judge the economy. The official narrative wants you to keep working, until you’re sick, and then when you’re sick, you can support the medical complex until you’re dead.

So, your retirement is going to be spent in the grocery business, greeting and helping people, along with millions of new immigrants to the US (which I welcome whole-heartedly). I just want to show the connecting thread in the economy: the “class system” that is preached, is really now obsolete. There is the Market Class, at the top (until the Wall Street “casino” busts), and the Service Class, which are minimum wage (indentured slave wage, by any other name), and the Debtor Class, which lives in blissful debt, counting themselves among the well-to-do, when in fact, they are a hair away from the Service Class, where they will end up eventually.

It’s all good. You didn’t want to retire anyway! You might want to consider a career change early though, since your corporate job is going to be taken away from you when you are too old and cost too much. If you cram your Library Science MA into the last two years of your job, you will end up with a decent salary, augmented by your meager retirement and Social Security, and live within your means (finally!), at peace, and in touch with real people.