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| | The Innovation Network Network is not currently active and cannot accept new posts | | Retirement | Views: 405 | | Apr 03, 2009 9:19 pm | | Retirement | # | 
Ken Hilving | | One good fallout from the economic crisis will be a re-evaluation of retirement:
⁃ go into retirement; stop performing one's work or withdraw from one's position
⁃ withdraw: pull back or move away or backward
⁃ withdraw from circulation
⁃ dispose of
⁃ lose interest
Humanity is the only species that has such a concept based on age, and the current approach is a recent concept of the past three generations.
We weren't always so foolish. For many years most cultures revered their elders. What they lost in physical capabilities was offset by knowledge acquired by application and in many cases wisdom bought from experience. Even the initial retirements post Industrial Age were not a withdrawal from society. Rather, it was an exchange of physical labor for intellectual and emotional labor. Instead of an employer, our elders shifted their efforts to family and community.
We adopted our current concept last century. In order to increase opportunities for young adults, we began "retiring" our older workers. Since they were still fully capable and functional, we created a concept of "permanent vacation" and to support this we implemented corporate and government pensions at levels meant to support a vacation life style. Keeping with the vacation concept, we moved our senior members of society out of the mainstream and into their own "special" communities. We then embraced the concept so fully that this became an end in itself - early retirement to a life of leisure separate from younger generations. We changed savings to entitlements along the way, pushing the financial burden of such a social structure onto each new generation as it entered adulthood.
I suggest a different approach, one that has the added benefit of being implemented on a personal basis rather than requiring a national initiative. A return to the multigenerational family is a first step. How that is accomplished is a matter of choice, but placement in a "retirement community" is generally not a good beginning. Those operate for profit, and common sense says that eliminating that profit margin or putting it to use within a family is a better use.Private Reply to Ken Hilving | | Apr 05, 2009 5:57 pm | | re: Retirement | # | 
Joseph Lynders | | ~~~~~~~------+-----~~~~~
A very interesting point.
Somehow we have become conditioned over just a very few generations to seek and accept accept a lot of nothing special over a reasonable amount of really wonderful.
I suppose that conditioning can be reversed.
Now that I have grandchildren I hope it happens sooner rather than later.
Have a good IDea today,
Joseph F. Lynders FTg/M/TPrivate Reply to Joseph Lynders | | Apr 05, 2009 10:17 pm | | re: re: Retirement | # | 
John Stephen Veitch | | Yes Kenneth, the concept of retirement is relatively new, and designed for a previous age.
I wrote about that in my "Depression Series" recently.
Here I make the point that you can't "save" from today's production to provide for your retirement income. All you (or your retirement plan company) can do is buy the right to sell something in the future that may or may not have value at the time.
http://www.openfuture.co.nz/depression/retirement.html
Or you can claim from the political process a welfare payment that is a direct claim on the production at the time when the payment is made. This is very cost efficient, but as politicians and insurance companies constantly point out, it's an entirely "unfunded liability" dependent on the ability and the willingness of future governments to tax incomes at the future date. [There's a element of self interest operating here. Profits are to made today if you can be enticed to allow them to invest your money to ensure your retirement income. Of course if they fail in their investments, they take no responsibility, while they have already taken their fees.]
So in this context, working longer, and living in extended families and planning a "retirement" which is actively engaged in the community and producing use value for others is an important mind shift to make.
Although of retirement age myself, I have no intention of "retiring" while I still have the energy and the interest to keep being productive.
John Stephen Veitch
Open Future Limited - http://www.openfuture.biz/
Innovation Network - http://veech-network.ryze.com/
Building an Open Future - http://openfuture-network.ryze.com/Private Reply to John Stephen Veitch | | Apr 05, 2009 11:44 pm | | re: Retirement | # | 
James Booth | | .
"vacation life style" – yes
- another "feature" or element of the so-called "consumer lifestyle" in which human beings are "calculated" as "profit centers" and little more.
A "return to the multigenerational family" might be as simple as seniors making themselves "apparent" in community roles that need to be filled, roles that may in fact have few if any individuals qualified to fill them.
Not that I have anything against *profits* but I think it is high time we look at "profits" staying in *community* (another word being "re-evaluated"” just now) instead of being sucked out of our local “treasury” to line some already bloated pockets elsewhere.
JB
Private Reply to James Booth | | |
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