What one generation leaves another.

[Oerets]

Been thinking over this for some time and still have to wrap my head around all the complexities. Hopefully will have help from others with great minds here.

My wife just retired after 39 years with the same company. So we both now receiver retirement checks. From company supplied pensions. With benefits! Both from organized workforce environments.

A time when one graduated from HS and a collage education was not a necessity to a future full of opportunities. An expected lifetime employment with the same company till retirement. With a paid pension at the end of service.

Then the 401K's happened, at first not a form of retirement for the masses but a way to avoid taxes for the executives. But now the norm. Due to companies wanting to save and pay more to the top. Now a way to not pay pensions for the employees. Taxes were higher on the "job creators" also back then.

Just what is my generation leaving for the next? The preceding generation made it possible thru their struggles to insure this for us. Now what about the next to follow?

Seems to me that we let the struggles of the past be forgotten and are now leaving them to be fought again. Our predecessors realized long ago most will not save for their old age. Just will not happen, through ignorance judgment or plain bad luck. That is why SS was forced upon the citizens long ago.

With the advent of Artificial intelligence and all the jobs lost there in, just what is going to happen in the future. I have Grandsons now and worry for them.



Barney

[MrPots]

We became a greedy society. The greatest generation gave way to the "me" generation. We wanted everything, we wanted it now, and we didn't want to pay for it. Take what you need and leave the rest? Not for us....we took it all and left the tab for the grandkids.

That's my cynical opinion. We've done the next generation no favors.

[Oerets]

I tied to do my part but got lost in all the "lifting up from ones boot straps, trickle down BS wishful thinking and rhetoric. Voted my conscious over the years but again it got lost due to the narrative put forth by the system in power.


Barney

[nailer]

Lifetime employment with one company with an associated pension never existed for most of the populace and AI doesn't exist either.

[Oerets]

Originally Posted by nailer

Lifetime employment with one company with an associated pension never existed for most of the populace and AI doesn't exist either.

The quest of AI would of been a better way of putting it. The word I should of used was automation in it's place. Does anyone naively believe self driving cars are just for the drivers benefits? I see it as a way to eliminate more jobs, taxi buses delivery's like mail and on and on.

Don't know just how old you are, at my graduation the expectation of a good paying job with full benefits and a pension was the norm. Outside of the Military and Government the private sector offered pensions and benefits and were the majority 40hr work weeks with two days off.



Barney

[Dondilion]

Originally Posted by Oerets

Don't know just how old you are, at my graduation the expectation of a good paying job with full benefits and a pension was the norm. Outside of the Military and Government the private sector offered pensions and benefits and were the majority 40hr work weeks with two days off.

Barney

Competition mainly from the Asian trio--Japan, S.Korea and China collapsed that model.

[merrylander]

Originally Posted by Dondilion

Competition mainly from the Asian trio--Japan, S.Korea and China collapsed that model.

Along with a lot of help from those who set out to destroy the unions.

[Oerets]

Originally Posted by merrylander

Along with a lot of help from those who set out to destroy the unions.

We both were in two different sectors that went thru forced deregulation. She was involved in the breakup of Ma Bell and mine was the Airline Industry. Both had chances to leave the organized labor into management. Knew how they were treated and choose to stay put. The unions would never have been invented if all companies treated their employees fairly.



Barney

[nailer]

Originally Posted by Oerets

The quest of AI would of been a better way of putting it. The word I should of used was automation in it's place. Does anyone naively believe self driving cars are just for the drivers benefits? I see it as a way to eliminate more jobs, taxi buses delivery's like mail and on and on.

Don't know just how old you are, at my graduation the expectation of a good paying job with full benefits and a pension was the norm. Outside of the Military and Government the private sector offered pensions and benefits and were the majority 40hr work weeks with two days off.



Barney

You can look it up right on this site.

[CarlV]

I will never understand how my generation was so gullible to think that the transferring of the USA's wealth to the richest of us would actually improve the economy and the Americanway of life. Just plain dumb. Geez, how do I get some of these drugs to make me believe it too?

updated 10/22/2004 4:44:47 PM ET
WASHINGTON — With no fanfare, President Bush Friday signed the most sweeping rewrite of corporate tax law in nearly two decades, showering $136 billion in new tax breaks on businesses, farmers and other groups.
Intended to end a bitter trade war with Europe, the election-year measure was described by supporters as critically necessary to aid beleaguered manufacturers who have suffered 2.7 million lost jobs over the past four years.
But opponents charged that the tax package had grown into a massive giveaway that will add to the complexity of the tax system and end up rewarding multinational companies that move jobs overseas.
There was no ceremony for the bill-signing. White House press secretary Scott McClellan announced it on Air Force One as Bush flew to a campaign appearance in Pennsylvania. Bush mentioned the new tax law at the beginning of a health care event in Canton, Ohio.
“I signed a bill that’s going to help our manufacturers — that will save $77 billion over the next 10 years for the manufacturing sector of America,” Bush said. “That will help keep jobs here.”
http://www.nbcnews.com/id/6307293/ns.../#.V-gItsmtz1I

Carl