Tuesday 25 August 2009

Demand for Leisure or Demand for Freedom?

Subtitle: Bureaucrat emeritus tells the truth as he sees it

The seven deadly sins in aging policy and research: a cautionary list for policy makers and prognosticators by C. Eugene Steuerle provides no directly useful lessons or financial advice for the individual investor. Instead, it provides delightful reading, states uncomfortable truths, punctures ignorant or politically incorrect policies and twists of insight on aging, retirement and what people are really after in life. It is about the situation in the USA.

The piece tends to reinforce the idea that more people will choose to work longer and governments will change rules that encourage people to stop working too early.

Sample quotes:
"... “leisure” is almost a meaningless concept. People, at least those who are not economists, don’t just do “nothing. ... Among those intangible items we seek are freedom from financial pressures and the dictates of superiors in our jobs; we don’t like outside forces to command our use of time to do things we really
don’t like doing." Amen to that, brother.

"... my calculations show that by sometime before 2020 there are no revenues left for any other function of government other than providing defense, Medicaid, Medicare, and Social Security. Basically, middle-aged people today are scheduled, by the time they retire, to get almost everything government provides—for themselves."

1 comment:

larry macdonald said...

"Among those intangible items we seek are freedom from financial pressures and the dictates of superiors in our jobs"

Well said.

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