Are boomers “strangling the American economy”? Or this just a rant that some retirees haven’t died quickly enough?

Photo above - "Breakfast at Sunset Manor nursing home". This is evidently how Fortune Magazine sees boomers. Stop hoarding all that wealth and power, mom!

Fortune Magazine sez: “Boomers are terrified of outliving their money.” (link below). Well, who isn’t? The list of people who don't want to die broke would also include generations X, Y, Z and millennials.

Fortune’s Op-Ed writer Nick Lichtenburg says boomers are up to no good: "hoarding all the wealth and power in America”. To his credit, Nick admits that he relies on AI to help write some of his articles. Since ChatGPT is just lines of code in a box, and doesn’t have supper with its widowed mom , you can hardly blame AI for failing to understand that the elderly don't live like Holly Golightly.

Instead, most retirees scrape by on a fixed income. Septuagenarians have almost zero power, except on election day. They are hanging onto their homes because that's their last, best source of living expense, once their 401K’s have been reduced to zero by required minimum distributions. When annual social security cost of living increases actually put them further BEHIND inflation, once Medicare premium increases are taken into account.

During its weekly supper with mom, ChatGPT or Claude should ask about what happens to the social security trust fund in 2032, or whenever it’s now predicted to go bankrupt. Probably some boomers would like to live to 2032, or beyond. And does ChatGPT know how much long term assisted care costs?

This is entirely the problem. Despite all the angst that Americans die a few months sooner than people in the EU, we do live quite a LONG time. American health care is outrageously expensive. Medicare, Medicaid, ObamaCare, and employer provided retiree coverage can’t possibly pay for it all. In fact, the more money we throw at the problem, the faster medical costs seem to rise.

Depending which AI system you ask, half of a person’s lifetime medical expenses will be incurred either in the last year of their life, or last 6 months. If AI and Nick from Fortune Magazine doubt this is true, then come visit Florida. (I live near Tampa). Watch who the ambulances come for at 11pm. Sit on the bench outside the emergency room. Visit an Alzheimer’s care facility. Price titanium hip replacement surgery. And the chemo and surgical care to keep cancer at bay.

None of this sounds like “Strangling the American Economy” to a rational person. It sounds like Americans actually ARE outliving their savings and social security. That medical science continues to offer expensive miracles which keep $2,000 a day double occupancy hospital rooms full.

Yes, healthcare in America is too expensive. But the solution is not ranting at boomers to move out of their homes and turn the money over to their kids and the US tax system. Boomers aren't plotting to impoverish their kids by remaining upright and somewhat pain free. To suggest that is what's happening is something which only AI - or a clueless magazine writer - could come up with.

I’m just sayin’ . . .




The golden years are not golden: Boomers are hoarding most of America’s wealth and power because they’re terrified of outliving their money

https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/economy/the-golden-years-are-not-golden-boomers-are-hoarding-most-of-america-s-wealth-and-power-because-they-re-terrified-of-outliving-their-money/ar-AA251Lm0?ocid=BingNewsSerp