End:Retirement

I had this idea once to make a stencil that said, 'retirement is a warm gun'. I thought it was kind of clever but most people didn't get it. In the end, this may be the only choice that we get.

Now the UK has announced that the state retirement age will rise to 71. That's right, 71. It ties retirement to life expectancy. In Canada we are looking at another rise in the pension age but no one really knows what the Cons will decide. I imagine all other countries are going to follow suit to be 'competitive'.

What these announcements tell me:

1) Governments (and their buddies in big business) want real people, normal people to throw their money into the casino that is the stock markets. Because that has worked so well for our parents and grandparents. If you want to retire before your 70s then you have to jump in with the sharks. Guess who's going to actually profit from this.

2) The party is over. Not that we didn't know this already with the price of oil. But it is most certainly over. We can't afford it after the boomers have sucked up all the money and energy. All we can do is live in hope and toil for the destruction of the planet (what do you think all the money you are going to invest is going toward?).

3) Young people are basically going to have to pay in longer to pay for all the boomers. It's doubtful, if after sitting at a desk for maybe 50 years, people will even be in any kind of shape to retire. Who thinks disability pensions will still be around in even 20 years? Try disability insurance instead and line the pockets of Wall Street!

I have no retirement plans apart from a state pension, OAS and the like that I pay into now and again when I decide to sell my labour. I flatly refuse to invest in the system which is destroying the planet and lining the pockets of the 1%. Now even that 'plan', such as it is, is looking murky. But I take heart in the fact that humans eventually decide to change things. We can tolerate a lot, we can cope with a lot but eventually something has to give. Maybe it's the insulting mansions of the super rich. Perhaps it's some fucker mocking us by saying his wife owns two Cadillacs. Maybe it's knowing that your children are going to suffer in the future. Eventually humans break out the guillotine.

So I have a feeling that in the coming 20 years that one of two things will happen. Either the system collapses entirely in which case our retirement investments will amount to nothing (unless you were one of the rich bastards overseeing the whole thing). Or two, people get fed up and our dear leaders implement a fair and just retirement scheme. I'm not expecting to live in Florida or anything, just something fair.

Or maybe if our kids don't hate us for screwing things up so bad, they'll be our retirement plan.