It's a nice place to be to have retirement near. I'm loving this whole thread. Yeah, I'm one of the older ones here. Been at my job 40 years. I have a very (VERY) unique skill set. I had planned on retirement in 2019, but my employer has been begging me to stay on. I could easily retire at anytime. At this point, I'm losing a bit of money working (compared to retiring). That alone is a bit of a problem. We penalize workers (via mandatory SS taxes, and taxing the SS taxes - that's just nuts). None-the-less, as long as my job is fun and my employer is bending over backwards to keep me happy, I'm good.

I've worked with younger employees, students, and others for most of my career. Part of my job is teaching younger folks, including formal classes at various Universities around the country. Things HAVE changed in the last 6-8 years. It's obvious to me. Young folks have a very different skill set and ethic. Some of this is good; most of it is bad. I can't say I blame them. Though they may not know how to articulate it, they're screwed. Honestly, the US is screwed. The accumulated debt, the aging of the population, and unsustainable government benefits (mainly, Medicare and SS) will result in an inevitable crash. I know what that crash looks like, and it isn't pretty.

The short version is this: we've backed ourselves into an unsustainable fiscal position. We'll never pay off our $30T debt. Include unfunded liabilities, and it's closer to $75T. There's 3 ways to address this: raise taxes, lower benefits, or devalue the currency. The first 2 of these cannot be done in sufficient volume to address the problem. Consider taxing. The default position of the majority in the US is: tax the rich. Go ahead. Do it. Take it ALL. Every last cent of those in the upper 10%. You've addressed maybe 1/4 of the problem. It's not politics. It's something far harsher. It's called "math". How about cutting benefits? Will never happen. Once the majority figures out a way to vote itself the proceeds of the nations' treasury, they'll never turn back. Already, 70% of all government expenditures are for "entitltements" that happen automatically by law. Those will never go away. Thus, the only way our crisis resolves is via the the 3rd option: devaluation of the currency.

In English, this means printing money to pay off debts and fund benefits (or as the kids today say, Money Printer goes Brrrrrrrr). This isn't new. It's been done throughout history, with predictable results. The US will eventually come to a point with hyperinflation, unpayable interest rates, and a dramatically lower standard of living. It will arrive suddenly. The first clue will be an inability to sell government bonds to anyone but the Federal Reserve Bank (the entity that controls the printing of money). We're very nearly there. I forget the actual figure, but something like 75% of government bond issues were bought by the Fed during COVID. Would you loan money to the US government? At 3%? When inflation is 3 times that figure? I sure wouldn't. Compounding this problem will be loss of the US dollar as the world's reserve currency. This is more complex, but its already underway.

The underlying reasons for this unsustainable position are many. At their core is the imbalance in the US between worker productivity overall and our expectations for our standard of living. In sum, we don't produce enough stuff ourselves to maintain our standard of living. We've been living off debt and the willingness of other countries to supply us goods and services at rates we ourselves are unwilling to work for. This is also unsustainable. You see it all over this thread, itself. Many here want to be independent of the need for work. Once enough people feel that way, there's not enough folks working to provide for all those that don't. Pretty simple, actually.

I've known this was inevitable for decades. It's one reason I never had kids. I can't imagine having children now, and knowing what's coming. I'm just old enough to live off the last of the inertia in the system, built upon generations of hard-working folks whose gifts we're now squandering.

Such a shame. My last bit of comment is to those younger generations: God bless you! You've voted in a regime and government that spends your entire inheritance and them some, lavishing this largesse on today's older generations. And, I'm pretty sure you've done this without even being aware of the results for you to come! You're easily the most magnaminous generation in American history. In a few decades, you'll be cursing us older folks. For now, you're too clueless to see what's coming. Thank you!

And trade jobs are far-harder to outsource. If you job involves processing information, creating "content", or providing knowledge, you're at risk of outsourcing. It's already happening. Far-better to get hands-on and fix something. Considerably harder to outsource that job to someone in SE Asia.

I discussed this quite extensively in my post, below (# 300)

New Mexico locked down, hard. Closed nearly every business except a select few deemed “essential”. Mainly big-box warehouse stores and grocery stores. Everybody else was closed for an extended period. It devastated our local business community. I’d say something like 1/3 of the local mom and pops never reopened.