The concept of retirement is undergoing fundamental change. Does anyone really believe anymore that it’s possible for most folks to live comfortably over the final third of their lives while essentially generating no income?
That changing dynamic is behind such ventures as the Great Retirement Swap:
The way that we think about retirement in America is fundamentally flawed. The current retirement system assumes that people must diligently invest in the stock market over an extended period of 30 years or more in order to buy things in the future – like food, shelter, and clothing.
But what if people are free to share, barter and swap for these goods? To travel to wherever they want, provided someone has a spare room for them to use? To have access to any item they need, as long as they have an item of similar value to swap? [. . .]
Well, what if we fundamentally change the way we think about retirement to take into account the new trend toward collaborative consumption? Call it The Great Retirement Swap. At a macro-level, Americans would be swapping a bleak version of retirement for a positive, hopeful one.
At a more tactical level, older Americans would be swapping for goods and services, rather than owning them. Wealth in retirement would become a relative issue – are you wealthier if you own a second home in Florida, or if you have unfettered access to apartments across Europe, at any time of the year? [. . .]
While all this sounds a bit "un-capitalistic," it’s actually the free market at work, on a grand scale. When you barter for goods, there is a market price established for those goods. And best of all, it doesn’t require 7% annual compounded returns in the stock market to succeed.
With millions of Baby Boomers set to start retiring within the next few years, retirement nest eggs shattered by the financial crisis, and even eternal optimists convinced that Social Security is no longer sustainable in the long-run, it’s time to start thinking of a ground-breaking, innovative – dare I say it – radical solution for helping Americans attain the type of retirement they always dreamed of in their golden years.
Regardless of the feasibility of the Great Retirement Swap, what are the chances that government will do a better job than markets in providing choices for retirees?
an alternative view is that the 20th century experiments in communism AND “RETIREMENT” have failed and should be abandoned.
sit on your butt, worry about your prostate and make yourself happy pursuing stuff because you, presumably, “earned” it by working at a job you apparently did not like, is so flawed, from the age of 23, that it is tough to know where to begin.
better idea: if you dont like your work, tone down your material expectations and pursue what you like. save money by not living beyond your means. plan to work till you are dead in this work you enjoy but let savings give you the freedom to slow down at age 50 or so and pay your own way to europe, not having time to worry about your prostate. let life and disability insurance “protect” you from financial market downturns and enjoy dying with your boots on after a charmed life of work you enjoyed, freedom from financial stress and plenty of earned time off. this life spends little time worrying over the trivial and finds 80 year olds with a deep sense of satisfaction, NOT weary bones.
woodlands older resident, david gottlieb, has done this and written a book called “staying in the game” that chronicles the lives of many who have.
Very interesting idea, but the folks who resent the fact that Government programs like SS are keeping millions of people from living in total poverty won’t stand for it.
SS recipients are people who had 16% of their earnings deducted during their working lives. Despite the propaganda, SS isn’t going broke anytime soon. Unless you consider insurance to be a oommunist scheme, SS isn’t communism. It’s also extremely popular. I believe something like 78% of Americans strongly and wisely support it.
Destroying it and requiring people to hand over such a huge amount of their earnings to banksters
and their ilk is one wealth transfer scheme that
is unlikely to fly – anytime soon.
To make healthcare more available and affordable to all retirees, maybe we should allow medical professionals from Cuba to come here and work.
American doctors who cater to rich hypochondriacs could then maybe “serve” even more of them. That way, they could make even more money which they could donate to groups which advocate destroying
programs which the public supports.
“Regardless of the feasibility of the Great Retirement Swap, what are the chances that government will do a better job than markets in providing choices for retirees?”
Great. Unless our venal Congressmen and Senators are successful in scaring the public into believing
the lie that SS is going broke anytime soon. They might be more successful in their efforts to destroy
the SS safety net by continuing to raid the fund, and/or cutting benefits (which President Blackbush
will say he will agree to, if the cuts are temporary and the military/security complex needs more money to kill those people that hate us for our freedoms).
I’m not optimistic.