SEC Commissioner Kara M. Stein spoke to the Brookings Institution recently, and she had some alarming things to say about the coming retirement crisis.
Most worrisome for seniors is the acknowledgement that Social Security is vastly underfunded.
The Daily Coin recently wrote a story on how retirement pensions around the country have become nothing more than a ponzi scheme. Most, if not all, state local and federal pension programs are underfunded by as much as 40 percent or more.
The steam that is building began in earnest in 2012 and has been picking up speed ever since. Look no further than some of the recent events we have documented time and again – Detroit, CALPers, Jeremy Stein, Teamsters and Dallas Pension Fund. All of these events have taken place in less than five years. What will the next four-plus years bring? How much longer should one sit on their hands and watch as thousands upon thousands of people either have retirement stolen or placed on lock-down as is the case with the Dallas Police Pension fund?
We have studied, researched and written about this for well over four years. Harry Markopolous, in 2011, tried to warn us about the ongoing theft, within the pension funds, on a daily basis by the banking cabal – link. CALPers pension program is north of 50% underfunded and losing a little more each and every quarter. – link. These are merely two of the articles that paint a picture of a tsunami of pension bankruptcies in the near future.
Due to a number of factors, the financial health of the Social Security trust fund has been declining. According to the 2018 Trustees Report on Social Security, the fund will be depleted by 2034. That is only 16 years away. At the same time, the availability of employer-provided pension plans has also been declining. Few private sector workers today have access to a pension, and many public sector pension plans are facing severe financial problems. . . .
We’ve moved from a collective retirement system to one in which each person is expected to go it alone. . . .
The retirement crisis is a tsunami that is rapidly approaching. We can already see it and, indeed, we are starting to feel its effects. Americans are having to work past traditional retirement age. And the number of bankruptcies for those over the age of 65 has increased dramatically. The size and speed of the tsunami is likely to increase as it gets closer and closer to us. Our population is aging and the cost of medical care—an important factor for retirees—is increasing. We must address this problem before we are collectively underwater. . . .
Stein also said the SEC could create a model curriculum for schools and other things to help educate people on how best to prepare for retirement because it increasingly looks like you can’t depend on the government to follow through on its Social Security promises.
