Since little has changed in the stock market this week, I’ll take this blog in a slightly different direction. I was drawn to three Wall Street Journal articles this week, entitled:
- Workers Saving Too Little to Retire
- Health Insurers Warn on Premiums
- Older Households Loading Up on Debt
The first article reports that 57% of U.S. workers have less than $25,000 in total household savings and investments (excluding their primary residences); and that 28% of Americans have no confidence that will have enough money to retire comfortably. That’s based on a survey conducted today, based on today’s Market conditions.
This week health insurers warned agents that premiums for individuals and small businesses could rise sharply due to the implementation of the Affordable Care Act (ACA). The ACA, which was signed into law in March 2010 and affirmed into law by the Supreme Court in June 2012, was supposedly designed to make healthcare affordable. But now it is expected to cause premiums to more than double as early as next year. As projected in Supreme Letdown, this is the beginning of the healthcare boom that will include massive broad scale inflation.
Add this to forthcoming cuts in Medicare and Social Security – cost of living for retirees is poised to rise dramatically from where it is today.
And today, seniors are already increasing their debt loads at alarming rates. Over the last ten years senior citizen debt has increased 120%. Historically, older households owned their homes outright, and to augment their Social Security benefits, earned sufficient income on bank savings accounts, certificates of deposits, or U.S. Treasury bonds. But with current and prolonged “easy money” policies employed by the last two Federal Reserves (Greenspan and Bernanke), this option no longer exists. There is simply nothing to be made there – interest rates are too low, and inflation easily negates any income earned.
With the ACA, individuals and small businesses will suffer most. Large corporations – and those include unions – will suffer least. Why penalize individualism and entrepreneurs?
Retired people, who have worked entire careers and played by the rules, are forced to move their savings from the safety of FDIC insured financial instruments and into the greedy clutches of the Wall Street establishment, where they must take on much higher risks for an incommensurate amount of return. The must mortgage the house they spent a lifetime paying for. And then they must deal with the aforementioned cuts to government programs that they have invested heavily in.
Why is it that the U.S. government constantly screws people who deserve it least?
Young working adults and recent college graduates, the healthiest demo among us, are forced to buy health insurance at premiums with no relation to their health status. They pay as if they are older, and sicker. That will make it harder for them to get ahead, save, and invest for the future.
That’s what they get for being young and healthy.
And then there are those that do nothing to enhance their self worth or financial status. They live off what the government will take from someone else and give to them. They don’t care about debt and deficits, taxes or interest rates. Free healthcare, food stamps and welfare, unemployment and earned income tax credits – that’s all they care about – no matter how much it drains and strains our collective worth and livelihood.
For those of us too proud to fall into that minority – there’s only one thing We can do: make the most of what little money We have left.
And the best way to do that is with superior 15-51 construction.
$25,000 multiplied by 1,044.2% equals $261,050.