John Tierney of the NY Times has written
an OpEd piece titled "The Old and the Rested". (Free subscription to the NY Times required).
In this OpEd, he tries to sell the idea that older people should stop trying to retire, and just keep working in order to stop burdening America's youth with taxes.
More below the fold...
Americans now feel entitled to spend nearly a third of their adult lives in retirement. Their jobs are less physically demanding than their parents' were, but they're retiring younger and typically start collecting Social Security by age 62.
With the help of groups like AARP, the elderly have learned to fight for the right to retire earlier and get bigger benefits than the previous generation - all financed by making succeeding generations pay higher taxes than they ever did themselves.
If the elderly were willing to work longer, there would be lower taxes on everyone and fewer struggling young families.
It was so unbelievable to me that he'd write this, that I took all day to respond, starting to write and then wiping it out and starting again. When I finally achieved coherence, here's what I responded in the NY Times forum dedicated to John Tierney's column.
There are so many inaccuracies and leading statements in this piece, I don't know where to begin.
John Tierney thinks he's being impolitic. I suggest he's being ingenuous, or maybe even illogical.
A few 70 year olds can perform some athletic feats, and Mr. Tierney concludes that we should all work into our 70s?
Are our jobs less strenuous than our parents? Are we retiring earlier?
My father worked 9-5 with an hour for lunch. I have worked 60 hour weeks for the past 20 years. Sometimes I get a break, sometimes I don't. But breaks don't count and I have to be 120% billable. Lunch time doesn't count, either does dinner or travel time. My dad's generation had a set retirement age of 55, although many of them worked till 60. Now if you plan to retire before 70 or 75, you're "lazy", at least according to Mr. Tierney. Well all I can say is - I'm only 48 and I'm tired. Bone tired. How the hell am I supposed to do this for another 30 years?
He goes on to blame the "greedy" elderly for the failures of the current SS system. Good grief. If the government hadn't stolen the money and spent it elsewhere, we wouldn't have the issues we have today. Put the blame where it belongs. EVERY American worker that has paid into that system deserves to get their money back out, no matter what their age. It's OUR money. We've earned it and we've paid it in. Trying to incite riots in the young workers against the old workers is terribly unethical in this case. Let's incite them to go get the money back from the ones that stole it.
Last, but not least, where are all these elderly workers supposed to work? Walmart? McDonalds? Do you want fries with that, Mr. Tierney? American corporations are unloading workers over 40 as quickly as they can without getting sued. If the courts have found pension conversions illegal, by god they'll get around it by dumping the older workers. American workers between the ages of 40 and 65 are trying as hard as they can to hang on to their jobs, while the Corps try to shift them to cheap labor in India and China.
I don't know exactly what world John Tierney lives in, but I'd like to extend him an invitation to the real one. Also, I'm thinking I might like to apply for HIS job, as it seems to require a great deal of logic, and it might make a very nice vacation from mine.
I'd like to encourage everyone to visit the NY Times forums and let Mr. Tierney know what they think of his OpEd piece, the logic he uses to draw his conclusions, and the amount of work he should be putting in to really understand the issues here.
