If the boomers drain the SS dry, as the government and experts say, the government and the experts have no one to blame but themselves. Historically, the present, working, younger generation pays for the present retirees. So right now the 30 somethings will be paying for the boomers.

NOW...there are clearly not as many people in the work force as the last generation. Families were smaller. What were the stats...1.5 kids/family. Clearly not the 3,4,5 kids/family. Coupled with abortions and the loss of jobs, should have surely been taken into consideration decades ago. We didn't wake up one day and this was the situation.

The government and experts and economist should have visioned the future and as a society as they created it and made the adjustments back then.

Thanks BigK isnt the internet great ?

Quoted from Sombody

Thanks BigK isnt the internet great ?

Don't know what I'd do without it.  

http://www.dailygazette.com

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Aging in place
Baby boomers will need homes that are less physically demanding – and remodelers, developers are taking note
BY JAMES SCHLETT Gazette Reporter

   Gregg Gibbons spent over 30 years building houses. But when his in-laws encountered problems living in their Virginia homes, the developer started doubting his trade.
   Gibbons had an epiphany after his motherin-law fell and broke her hip in a ranch-style house. She had moved into that home thinking it would be more accommodating than her former colonial-style house.
   “Then I finally figured out I’ve been doing it wrong all these years,” said Gibbons.
   By “wrong” Gibbons means building in a way that does not take into account homeowners’ aging. After his mother-inlaw’s fall, Gibbons started researching better building practices that could be more accommodating to seniors and children.
   “It’s the environment that is wrong, not the person. We all age,” said Gibbons.
   A growing number of developers and remodelers are reaching the same conclusion as the nation’s baby boomers — Americans born between 1946 and 1964 — approach retirement age. The Buffalo Branch of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York recently predicted an “age-in-place” crisis in upstate.
   Gibbons in 2005 established Lifetime Home Builders. That Scotia development firm specializes in building “universal design homes,” which feature no-step entrances, wide doorways and easy-to-open lever door handles.
   In Glenville, Liftetime is constructing its first model universal home on a two-acre plot on Wagner Road. Gibbons last week poured the house’s concrete walls, which make the house, aside from its furnishings, fireproof.
   Given that 80 percent of upstate senior homeowners have been living in the same house for over 20 years, the Fed warned that much of New York’s housing stock is “illsuited” for life beyond 65. That is because the expansive lawns and staircases homeowners once coveted might soon increasingly resemble the Great Plains and Mount Everest.
   “Most seniors bought their homes as young or middle-aged adults. But housing characteristics once valued, such as a big house and yard for raising a family, can turn into impediments as homeowners grow older and begin to experience physical and mental changes,” Fed Buffalo Branch Regional Analyst Jane Humphreys said in a late-October report.
   More than 80 percent of Americans age 50 and older want to continue living in their homes as long as possible, even if they must hire aides to do so, according to an AARP survey. With the number of Americans aged 65 and older projected to more than double to 71 million in 2030 from 35 million in 2000, demand for age-in-place services is expected to surge.
GETTING HEAD START
   “I have a lot invested in this home. I intend to stay here as long as possible,” said Beverly Korff, a 57-yearold Ballston Spa resident.
   Korff has lived in her one-story brick ranch on Raymond Road for 23 years. In 1999, she started taking steps that allow her to age in place.
   Korff, who has bad knees, hired Burnt Hills remodeler Schrader & Co. to relocate her basement laundry room to the house’s main floor. Schrader on Tuesday started another age-in-place project: a redesign of Korff’s bathroom, which will be fi tted with a seated tub, grab bars and ambient lighting.
   “She’s thinking ahead. She’s thinking down the line. She’s what we want people to start thinking about,” said Ben Cangeleri, Schrader’s vice president and production operations scheduler.
   Seniors living in urban areas are highly likely to encounter age-inplace problems. That is because they tend to live in multi-story structures, lack cars and have lower incomes and home values, Humphreys said.
   Only 25 percent of Albany’s residential homes are single-story, compared with 45 percent in both the city’s suburbs. Fifty-one percent of the homes owned by city residents over 65 were built before 1940, compared with 26 percent in the inner suburbs and 33 percent in the outer suburbs, according to a Fed analysis.
   Albany’s inner suburbs include Bethlehem, Colonie, Cohoes, Green Island, Guilderland and Watervliet. Its outer suburbs include Berne, Knox, New Scotland, Rensselaerville and Westerlo.
   “[Age-in-place remodeling] is not necessarily new. It’s definitely going to continue at a stronger level,” said Pam Krison, executive director of the Capital Region Builders & Remodelers Association, an Albany trade organization.
   Less than half of the nation’s communities are prepared for the wave of retiring boomers. And only 16 percent of seniors have made the necessary modifications that would allow them to continue living in their homes, the National Association of Home Builders reported earlier this month.
   The Fed said local governments and community groups will face significant health care, transportation and accessible housing challenges in trying to meet seniors’ age-in-place demands. Those demands will also create new business opportunities, such as specialized renovation services and Gibbons’ universal homes.
   “I’m hoping in our area we could take advantage of it, instead of sending them to nursing homes,” said Gibbons.
   The NAHB recognized that opportunity in 2002, when it established a Certified Aging in Place Specialist Program in partnership with its NAHB Research Center, NAHB 50+ Housing Council and the AARP. By September, 1,141 remodelers had completed the Washington, D.C., trade organization’s CAPS program — representing a handful of its total membership.
   The CRBRA three years ago started offering NAHB-backed CAPS classes, but less than 20 builders and remodelers have participated in them. Schrader’s two owners underwent CAPS training in 2003, followed by two more workers last year and one this year.
CO-OPS FORMING
   State Office for the Aging Director Michael Burgess said seniors must look beyond remodelers if they want to age in place.
   Seniors should also look to each other for help, Burgess said, such as a 23-year-old senior community outside Utica that did earlier this year when its residents formed a cooperative-like organization. The Sunset Neighborhood co-op in New Hartford secures transportation, personal care, home maintenance and other services for the community’s 65-and-older residents.
   Burgess said the Sunset Neighborhood model could work in the Capital Region. In September, the Albany Guardian Society and CareGivers Consortium of Northeastern New York hosted an innovative senior care conference at the Desmond Hotel and Convention Center in Colonie. An official from Boston’s Beacon Hill Village — a leader in senior community co-op movement — spoke at the event.
   “It’s a grass-roots thing. That’s what I like. It’s neighborhoods not waiting for us to come along with a program,” Burgess said of Sunset Neighborhood — the first organization of its kind in the state. The Aging Office might provide technical assistance in establishing similar co-ops.
   To further enable seniors to age in place, the state wants to help more seniors tap into their homes’ equity for sources of income. Burgess said the state is exploring ways to make reverse mortgages more affordable and easier to access.
   Reverse mortgages, which Congress in 1988 authorized for Americans at least 62 years old, allow seniors to receive loans that do not have to be repaid until they move out of the house.
   Seniors often take out reverse mortgages because they are in dire need of funds or they want to enhance their retirements. But that more comfortable living could come at the price of seniors sacrificing their ability to give their homes to their children. The sale of the property goes toward paying off loans issued under the reverse mortgage.
   Some of that equity-based funding could go toward age-in-place projects.
   “People are saying they want to stay in their homes. . . . People are going to have to make some changes, and that should be a boon for the construction trades and remodelers,” said Humphreys.

The universal home in Glenville features comfortable, efficient radiant floor heating. Tubes for the heating system are seen in the basement of the home.

MARC SCHULTZ/GAZETTE PHOTOGRAPHER Gregg Gibbons of Lifetime Home Builders in Scotia is building a model “universal design home” on Wagner Road in Glenville designed specifically for the elderly. It features no stairs, fireproof concrete walls and many other senior-friendly features.

MEREDITH L. KAISER/GAZETTE PHOTOGRAPHER
Ralph Coppola, right, of Schrader & Company Co. remodelers in Burnt Hills and Barry Nicoll of Suburban Services group of Burnt Hills talk about the renovation of Beverly Korff’s bathroom in her Ballston Spa home. The bathroom will feature open space under the sink and vanity, seated shower and higher toilet.

I work in rehab/nursing home/healthcare and Folks should think of their houses as physical therapy---move it or lose it.....sure it's easy to pay someone else to do it or make it easier but dont be too quick to--'not do'

http://www.dailygazette.com

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Boomers face tough decision on Social Security On the Money
BY EILEEN ALT POWELL The Associated Press

    Drew Denning, vice president of the retiree services division at the Principal Financial Group in Des Moines, Iowa, suggests that baby boomers look at several factors before deciding when to collect Social Security benefits:

    NEW YORK — The oldest baby boomers are turning 62 this year, and some are using that as the catalyst to consider retiring.
    It’s possible because they can begin collecting their Social Security benefi ts at that age, though at a lower level than if they wait until their full retirement age of 66 or older.
    But before quitting their jobs, baby boomers need to think long and hard about whether they’re ready financially and psychologically to move into the next phase of their lives, experts say.
    “For some, turning 62 is the siren calling from the shore,” said William O. Wright, a certified financial planner in Wichita and president of the Financial Planning Association of Kansas. “There’s the opportunity for the Social Security check and we’ve been through four years of bull market, so people have amassed the assets.”
    But boomers considering early retirement also need some sense of what they’re going to do with their time.
“There’s a set of financial conditions and psychological and qualitative conditions,” Wright said. “Not having both can spell peril for the retiree.”
Bill Frisbie, 64, who retired from his job selling print products 2-1/2 years ago because of Parkinson’s disease, said he would have continued to work if he hadn’t gotten sick.
“I liked the thrill of the hunt,” he said. “I worked 60 hour-, 70 hour-weeks. I actually miss that.”
He worries that if his wife, Lynette, 57 and an executive with the Western wear company Sheplers Inc., retires too early, she’ll be bored or risk outliving their savings.
    On the other hand, he said, the couple has been working with Wright to determine if they have the resources for her to join him in retirement in a couple of years.
    “The real positive side is that it would give us more time together,” Frisbie said.
    Experts say there are a number of issues boomers should weight before plunging into retirement.
    While Americans can begin collecting Social Security at age 62, their monthly benefit check will be at least 25 percent smaller than it would be if they wait to full retirement age. The impact on benefi ts can be determined at the Social Security Web site, http://www.socialsecurity.gov. Search for the “retirement age calculator” and then click on “age 62 benefit” for the analysis.
    Bryan D. Beatty, a fee-based asset manager in Vienna, Va., said that many wouldbe early retirees also overlook health care costs.
    “A lot of people don’t realize that Medicare doesn’t kick in until age 65,” he said. Medicare is the federal health insurance program that covers hospitalization, medical and drug coverage.
    Bridging the gap in coverage between 62 and 65 can be expensive, he said, especially for workers who don’t have retiree health coverage. In some cases a worker can take advantage of a spouse’s coverage. In others, they can buy 18 months of coverage from their former employers under a program known by the acronym COBRA.
    An alternative is private health insurance, “but you better not have any pre-existing conditions,” Beatty warned.
    Drew Denning, vice president for the retiree services division at the Principal Financial Group in Des Moines, Iowa, said boomers also need to “make sure your nest egg is at critical mass.”
    He noted that studies by the nonprofi t Employee Benefit Research Institute in Washington, D.C., and other groups have found that a majority of Americans haven’t saved enough and haven’t tried to estimate retirement expenses.
    Denning’s quick formula: Figure that you’ll spend in retirement between 70 percent and 100 percent of what you do before retirement. Subtract your Social Security benefit. Subtract your pension, if you’ve got one. Say the result is that you need an additional $50,000 a year. Multiply that number by 20 to 25. In this case, your nest egg needs to be at least $1 million, which will allow withdrawal at a rate of 4 percent to 5 percent a year to support your lifestyle.
    Because that number is so daunting, many boomers will have to work beyond 62, he said.
    “Frankly, you’re better off knowing at 62 that you can’t afford to retire until 65 than to find out at 75 that you can’t make it,” Denning said.
    Ellen Hogan of Portland, Ore., retired last year at age 62 in part to get away from a high-stress job at a skilled nursing facility and in part to be able to spend more time with her husband, who retired from a career in the U.S. Navy.
    Before she left her job, the couple made sure they had their finances in order, she said. They signed up for a Navy health care program; they paid off their mortgage; they replaced major appliances they feared wouldn’t last.
    Now, Hogan said, she can travel with her husband, including on salmon fishing jaunts. And she has time to spend with her grandson, Charlie.
    “He’s going to be 3 years old next month,” she said. “I would like him to have the memories that we have of our grandmothers.”
    Her advice to those debating retirement? “If you’re comfortable with it, go for it. You can always go back to work if you have to.”

http://www.dailygazette.com

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Susan Estrich
Even boomers must grow old someday
Susan Estrich is a nationally syndicated columnist.

    It started with my hands. They hurt. They were numb and tingling, and the pain went up and down my arms.
    I did not like it.
    I am a worrier, not a whiner. I’ll put up with almost any level of pain and discomfort, so long as it’s not accompanied by fear of something worse. Tell me it’s not terminal, and I’m ready to go back to work. I proudly think of myself as a horse — I worked through walking pneumonia, gave a speech right out of the operating room after hernia surgery and billed most of the hours I spent in labor to a client who, believe me, got almost my full attention.
    Not being able to use my hands is a problem. I’m not a pianist, but I am a typist. So, with my hands throbbing, I did what we do these days: I typed “sore, swollen, numb hands” into my web browser and promptly got inundated.
    Carpal tunnel sounded right: 30 years on a computer, three jobs, four columns a week, briefs and motions. Could be me.
    The good thing about carpal tunnel is you don’t die of it. You deal with it; you have surgery if necessary. I went to the hand surgeon and then to the doctor who puts needles in your fingers and checks the electromagnetic current. They agreed on the diagnosis: carpal tunnel in both hands. Surgery recommended. No problem.
    But then my feet started hurting. I called my friend and internist and asked him whether it was possible that I could also have carpal tunnel in my feet. I was kidding, but actually there is such a thing. The only problem was, or is, that I don’t have it.
    So I had the surgery on one hand, but the other hand and my feet, and also my elbow if I’m being honest, hurt just about as much as my supposedly fixed hand. “Was it really carpal tunnel?” I asked my hand surgeon, a talented and lovely man.
    “Absolutely,” he said.
    “So why does everything else still hurt?” He looked at my toes and suggested I see a rheumatologist — another doctor, another set of forms, another history and more insurance cards to be photocopied on both sides.
    I’m not complaining. I have insurance. I have access to health care. I may work three jobs, but at least I can take time to run to my different doctors. The rheumatologist didn’t like what he saw. More X-rays. More blood work. More tests.
    He talked to my hand doctor, my heart doctor and the various other doctors on the growing list of a healthy boomer getting older. I remember how my mother, in her last years, spent most of her days going to doctors, how which doctor and what for was the topic of every conversation. I remember thinking, not meanly I hope, that this was not a life I looked forward to. All of a sudden, I noticed my own calendar crammed with visits to the various medical offices around town.
    A “robust rheumatoid” — that’s what my newest doctor says I am. The good news is that I tolerate pain well. The bad news, really the danger, is that I tolerate too much and the disease could progress without our aggressively addressing it because I just put up with it.
    So now I’m on more pills: four of these every Saturday, one of these the other six days, two of these every day and another one of these if the pain is too much.
    No, thanks. I’ll take the four and the one and the two, but I’m drawing the line at the other one. Too many side effects. Pain is better.
    So my hands and feet hurt, and my elbow, too, but compared to so many friends of mine fighting really tough stuff, what’s a few sore limbs? Not much, except that it hurts, physically and mentally.
    Getting old beats the alternative, but not by a lot. Michael Kinsley, who recently underwent a nine-hour operation for his Parkinson’s, wrote movingly about feeling like a sort of “scout” for the baby boom generation, as we face the not so pleasant realities of aging. Ultimately, what is required, I’ve decided, is grace and acceptance, not necessarily the strong suits of a generation that has lived with the fire of change and possibilities. But given the alternatives, what choice do we have?

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Getting old beats the alternative, but not by a lot. Michael Kinsley, who recently underwent a nine-hour operation for his Parkinson’s, wrote movingly about feeling like a sort of “scout” for the baby boom generation, as we face the not so pleasant realities of aging. Ultimately, what is required, I’ve decided, is grace and acceptance, not necessarily the strong suits of a generation that has lived with the fire of change and possibilities. But given the alternatives, what choice do we have?

Make your kids and grandkids witness it, up close and real....not the Hollywood way.....

It's not: "I worked this hard so you dont have to."---rather: "I work this hard so you know how to."---ie:I will age in front of you so you will know too.

I foresee my kids generation having to work til 80 in order to collect social security.  And they will collect only a fraction of what they will have paid in over their working years.  

I looked at my statement received recently, that annual statement before your birthday.  Anyone really look at it when they get theirs?  It tells the total amount of what you paid in to date.  And to think if I die, all my wife get's is a measly one time $255.  Or vice versa.  Big whoop.  

I suggest that optional privitization.  It's our money, not the goverments.  Let us save it the way we want to.  We'll have to accept responsibility for our decisions to opt out.  I bet I could get a better return from a passbook savings account !!!!!!   And if I die before I can collect, my wife gets it.  My money, my choice.

The only other suggestion is to eliminate that maximum at work SS is withheld.  I don't remember the percent that we pay, I've lost track, but hovering about 7 percent, right?  Well, why should a rich person pay less percent in SS than I do?  

http://ssa-custhelp.ssa.gov/cg....._li=&p_topview=1

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What is maximum amount of earnings subject to Social Security taxes for 2008?
       Question
       What is maximum amount of earnings subject to Social Security taxes for 2008?
       Answer
       

The maximum amount of earnings that are subject to Social Security tax rises in step with increases in national average wages.

Maximum Earnings Taxable
Program                      2006           2007               2008
Social Security      $94,200      $97,500      $102,000
Medicare                   No Limit for any year after 1993

NOTE: The Social Security tax rate is 6.2% and the Medicare tax rate is 1.45% for each year shown above. Thus the maximum Social Security tax withheld in 2008 is $6,324.

We are screwwed......but, look at the bright side----at least(the very least)-----We live in America.......we must keep the pioneering spirit, community and self reliance we were born upon.......we are not Russia, we are not North Korea, we are not Canada, we are not the UK etc etc.......

Render unto Ceasar what is Ceasar's and render unto God what is God's....

Quoted from senders

.....we are not Russia, we are not North Korea, we are not Canada, we are not the UK etc etc.......

...Yet (and I notice that you conveniently left China out of this list).

I really didn't think I had to beat a dead horse......

http://www.dailygazette.com

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CAPITAL REGION
Nonprofits stand to gain from passing of baby boomers
BY JASON SUBIK Gazette Reporter

    As the huge baby boom generation born after World War II begins to die over the next 10 to 27 years, billions of dollars in wealth will be transferred in the Capital Region, according to a study released Thursday by umbrella charity group Community Foundation for the Greater Capital Region.
    The foundation coordinates donations to about 300 nonprofit organizations and has set the goal of getting at least fi ve percent of that wealth for charity.
    The study estimates that between 2005 and 2015 approximately $13.7 billion in the 10 counties of the greater Capital Region will be transferred out of the ownership of aging baby boomers and the remaining citizens of older generations.
    Over a 50-year period that figure balloons to $98.8 billion.
    “Over the next few decades, Americans will transfer wealth from one generation to the next in unprecedented amounts,” said Kristen Frederick, Community Foundation president and chief executive officer. “This represents an extraordinary opportunity for our communities. Some of that wealth can — and should — support community needs and quality of life into the future.“
    Community Foundation for the Greater Capital Region Thursday also offi cially expanded beyond its traditional scope of Albany, Schenectady, Saratoga and Rensselaer counties to include Fulton, Montgomery, Schoharie, Greene, Columbia and Washington counties.
    According to the study, if 5 percent of the wealth transferred between 2005 and 2015 in the region is donated to charity, organizations would receive a total of $683 million.
    The study was paid for by the Community Foundation and conducted by the Rural Policy Research Institute’s Center for Rural Entrepreneurship RUPRI used statistics from the Federal Reserve, the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis and other government figures to estimate local wealth levels.
    Frederick said over the next 12 to 18 months she will make four presentations in each county, two to certifi ed financial planners and two to nonprofit organizations.
    “I want to talk to the estate planners and the financial planners, so that they know what the nonprofits are in their backyard,” she said. “I want to tell the nonprofit communities that there will be an end to this pipeline.”
    According to the study, at about the year 2035, because of expected demographic factors, the amount of wealth being transferred in the greater Capital Region will peak and then decline, even as the national amount will continue to rise.
    “Ultimately, we need to tell the nonprofits that they need to start planning, not just for their operations and annual funds, but they need to look at planned giving to build the endowments to provide them with an income source in perpetuity,” Frederick said.
    The RUPRI Center for Rural Entrepreneurship calculated that if 5 percent of the wealth transferred between 2005 and 2015 were donated to nonprofit organizations and then invested in endowed funds yielding 5 percent annual interest, the payout would total $34.2 million every year.
    “Creating scenarios reaching out 50 years is somewhat heroic. But this [10-year] time frame provides a full generational picture of the transfer dynamic.” RUPRI lead researcher Don Macke said.
    Robert Dollar, an investment and trusts consultant with KeyBank, said his company helped pay for the study. Dollar said he’s worked with many families planning endof-life financial decisions. He said families are often willing to donate money if they understand the options available to them.
    “There can be no planning and [money will go to taxes] to build a new highway, or there can be planning and it can stay within the community,” he said.

Amazing.  Some of the comments in this article are summed up to me in the following sentance.  "We can't wait for people to die so that they can pass on their money, not to their families, but to charities."