Millions of Americans nearing retirement age with no savings

What inflation > interest implies is that you should try to place your savings in in real assets, i.e., assets that are inflation protected, rather than in assets that just pay interest, such as bonds.

In an inflationary environment, saving up to purchase a house can be an enormous, life-altering financial windfall for those who can do it.

Just a few hundred a month could have made you a millionare today through dollar-cost averaging. Deciding not to invest because you think our economy isn't as great as before is a terrible reason not to invest. If you are trying to "time the market" with your retirement account and believing that no time in the past 12 years is a good time, rather than dollar-cost averaging and investing all throughout, you're really screwing yourself over

sucks to be you though.

I don't have a great solution to apply to the masses. Personally I enjoy researching my investments, but am well aware people don't all feel this way.

Not investing for the future, however, feels like rather than finding a solution, it is just the "throwing one's hands up in the air and giving up" option. And the results are, well, what you might expect.

Perhaps the best solution is for people to find what DOES interest them to invest in. The options aren't limited to company stocks, or real estate, debt, or even commodities. A larger and larger portion of the market has been opening up to retail investors with increasingly minimal costs. Perhaps no solace to the 50+ crowd that hasn't started yet, but at least hope for younger generations to have better options to avoid the same fate.

The problem isn't retirement accounts, it's a lack of mandatory funding by employers.

Another game was simply redefining the terms, almost always reducing the benefits. This was a common game and it's almost irresistible to the managers. At the highest level, the US government is always doing when they tweak the Social Security formulas for retirement age.

At least with the 401k/IRA/SEP etc, you're in control and you see the assets go up or down.

This was the problem, not lack of defined benefit pensions. With the advent of near zero cost target date retirement funds and equity and bond index funds, there is no need to be beholden to one employer and have to trust the pension plan trustees with your retirement.

Best case scenario is the trustees invest in the same index funds you would, and worst case is they misappropriate the funds or take wild risks. So why not cut out the unnecessary middleman?

If you really want an annuity, then buy it from an actually regulated insurance company, rather than a DB pension plan that is doing who knows what.

That's a pretty big question mark though.

Many people start developing dementia before 70.

If you are asking what will be done to offset the monetary effects of the additional government spending, then “increased high-end taxes, starting with taxing long-term capital gains the same as other income”.

If you are appealing to the myth of necessary fiscal balance in government operations, well, that’s a myth, but same answer as the monetary answer, to the extent anything is done.

There are certainly consequences to be paid when you do that, but so far we seem fine with those consequences when they benefit the most powerful among us.

However, since this has become an ingrained habit, this cannot be a short term stimulus, and will need to be continued.

Inflation as a result cannot be ignored obviously, but I suspect this will be ignored, and will cause significant drops in people's standard of living, and create huge divide in the lifestyles of those who rely on UBI like programs, and those who do not.

Even then, entering and upsizing is generally a long term play where price differences are distributed.

Well, the nice thing about being retired is that you can live anywhere you choose to live, more or less.

You don't have to pay $2-3k/month to rent a rathole apartment in Silicon Valley when you're retired.

The median house price in San Jose, CA is $1.1 million. The median house price in Gulf Shores, AL (a pretty nice resort area) is only $479k. If you went for a less-resorty area, say Biloxi, MS, you could get by for only $207k.

Edit: you could even have a summer place in Maine (median price: $299,000) and a winter place in Biloxi (median price $207k) and still spend less than half what the San Jose house would cost.

The amount of Elderly people living alone in homes large enough for a family is bananas.

And then they have assisted living people come take care of them in their homes because it's too much for them to look after alone, but they refuse to move somewhere smaller.

Why?

If they sold those homes they would never be able to buy back in. Nobody is going to sell a South Bay area home they inherited from their boomer parents. They will rent it out or move in. A massive windfall for them.

Maybe that's the final push we need to adopt universal health care like the other civilized countries? When the cost of caring for Boomers will become too high for younger generations to bear, it will either solve itself out through policy or lots of misery.

The amount of money that can be saved this way is nothing to shake a stick at. It may not be what most people want to put up with, but it's not without its financial benefits.

I watched my parents, and especially my mom, give up their entire youth caring for my dad’s excessively elderly parents.

They sacrificed portions of mine and my sister’s childhood to take care of two people, who from the age of 75 to almost 100 (both of them), were a net loss to the family since they did not speak English, could not drive, and “needed” home cooked meals 2 to 3 times per day.

It was absolutely a burden for my family, and I hope to never be the parent that needs chronic care, and I am certainly not wanting my kids and grandkids to give up their youth for my senescence.

Yea, how awful -- you might get in the way of their modern narcissistic lifestyle.

But yes, it can go badly -- if, for instance, you're moving in with your kids, rather than providing the house for them to move into. And doing so when no longer physically capable of providing that childcare as a benefit. And then expecting them to pay for your groceries, etc.

But then, the same has been known to happen when you've got ungrateful children, who can't be asked to lift a finger around the house, and who rely on child protective laws to shield them from ever being taught a lesson in reality.

Living with other people isn't always easy, but it does typically pay dividends when you can make it work.

At a FAANG table of 5, I was the only one doing anything outside of 401k. I’m also the only one without a Tesla.