[Plantagenet]

I still do the food preps and I like trying different things like starting fire without matches. But increasingly, I am doing more financial preps as I reach older ages. Recessions happen. Lived through several of them now and financial planning is as much a prep item as buckets of wheat.

Yup.

When you're in your 20s its exciting to think the collapse of the global economy as the world runs out of oil is going to happen soon. I used to imagine after collapse I'd be riding my motorcycle through darkened abandoned cities with girl in a leather thong bikini on another motorcycle beside me, and my trusty half-wolf dog "Kraken" running along at my side, ready to warn me of any danger from zombies and mutants lurking in the abandoned suburban ranch houses.


Get 'em, Kraken!

But when you're in your 50s the collapse of the global economy seems farther away, and the your own personal finances and things like collapse of the social security system suddenly seem closer and surprisingly important.


Can I buy some gas, a pint of Starbucks Expresso Ice Cream, two bacon cheeseburgers with fries and a bottle of Cabernet with my social security check? There's an attractive older woman on a motorcycle dressed in a leather thong bikini waiting for me back at my place.

[Timo]

I still do the food preps and I like trying different things like starting fire without matches. But increasingly, I am doing more financial preps as I reach older ages. Recessions happen. Lived through several of them now and financial planning is as much a prep item as buckets of wheat.

Yup.

When you're in your 20s its exciting to think the collapse of the global economy as the world runs out of oil is going to happen soon. I used to imagine after collapse I'd be riding my motorcycle through darkened abandoned cities with girl in a leather thong bikini on another motorcycle beside me, and my trusty half-wolf dog "Kraken" running along at my side, ready to warn me of any danger from zombies and mutants lurking in the abandoned suburban ranch houses.

Damn! You make collapse sound so freakin' sexy and exciting!!!

Bring it on!!!!

[JimBof]

I still do the food preps and I like trying different things like starting fire without matches. But increasingly, I am doing more financial preps as I reach older ages. Recessions happen. Lived through several of them now and financial planning is as much a prep item as buckets of wheat.

Yup.

When you're in your 20s its exciting to think the collapse of the global economy as the world runs out of oil is going to happen soon. I used to imagine after collapse I'd be riding my motorcycle through darkened abandoned cities with girl in a leather thong bikini on another motorcycle beside me, and my trusty half-wolf dog "Kraken" running along at my side, ready to warn me of any danger from zombies and mutants lurking in the abandoned suburban ranch houses.


Get 'em, Kraken!

But when you're in your 50s the collapse of the global economy seems farther away, and the your own personal finances and things like collapse of the social security system suddenly seem closer and surprisingly important.


Can I buy some gas, a pint of Starbucks Expresso Ice Cream, two bacon cheeseburgers with fries and a bottle of Cabernet with my social security check? There's an attractive older woman on a motorcycle dressed in a leather thong bikini waiting for me back at my place.

When you hit your sixties you can no longer remember where "My Place" is.

[PEAKINT]

Ahem........I am 50, and am very busily trying to save for my retirement because i expect to live for another 30, or even 35 years. Maybe more. I do not expect our current retirement systems to last that long. Therefore, i need to save every last penny i can NOW, and not live today like there is no tomorrow. There will be a tomorrow. And a day after that. And a day after that. And a day after that, ad infinitum, or at least until the sun fries all life off this planet. I'm also trying to figure out how to actually earn some income after i retire, precisely becauswe i do not expect Social Security to be in place, and because my job's retirement plan may not be there, either. Therefore, everything that i will have access to in the future to suppport myself and my family is up to me to provide for myself, and that means planning ahead.

I think the zeitgeist is changing here around retirement. The last generation or two was worrying about what they were going to do when they retired. Now we are moving into the age when retirement never happens. There are two sides to this. One is economically driven since pensions and severance pays and SS are either insufficient or non existent. I am assuming this is Timo's reason for planning on some income stream as part of his retirement plan. But isn't it more than this Timo, and for many of us as well. That retirement can be this opportunity for community, gardening, volunteering, small little cottage industry enterprises, being a mentor to youth, what ever it is that contributes toward strengthening community and ones local ecology, to feel like in the end of ones life we can turn inwards toward those things that were compromised during those decades that we were tethered to the machine.

It will most likely be the case that many of us will move into this retirement age exactly when we will experience more intense hiccups to our economic system, more severe consequences from our biosphere etc. etc.

Never a better time than right now to focus on all those areas that our economic system was neglecting; family, friends, community, gardening, volunteering, manual skills, emotional intelligence, etc, etc.

If I was young though I would not participate in any plan around long term retirement. I would do exactly what Peakint is suggesting. Do not be beholden to the system providing for you. Learn the skills of living on the edge, moment to moment. I think this may be more adaptive.

I concur.

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2015/07 ... ning-guns/

So they steal from you (Social Security) and when it comes time for them to pay you back they steal from you again (your 2nd amendment rights) for first stealing from you in the first place (forced social security) and if you want them to pay you back you have to 'volunteer' to give up your rights or forfeit everything you've been forced to put into Social Security your entire life... So yeah, we still have a constitutional right to bear arms, unless you have the audacity to ask the government to pay back what they stole from you in the first place then your rights get stolen too. How exactly does that work?

Do not be beholden indeed. It never quite works out the way people hope it will. But change is coming. lol

[ennui2]

So now we're going to start linking to fox news? I thought this was a doomer site, not Rush Limbaugh. News Flash: fear of a liberal planet != doomerism.

[PEAKINT]

So now we're going to start linking to fox news? I thought this was a doomer site, not Rush Limbaugh. News Flash: fear of a liberal planet != doomerism.

Never thought I'd say this but I believe if Trump becomes president we might have a chance.

[ennui2]

So now we're going to start linking to fox news? I thought this was a doomer site, not Rush Limbaugh. News Flash: fear of a liberal planet != doomerism.

Never thought I'd say this but I believe if Trump becomes president we might have a chance.

A chance of what, becoming the laughing stock of the world?

[Ibon]

So now we're going to start linking to fox news? I thought this was a doomer site, not Rush Limbaugh. News Flash: fear of a liberal planet != doomerism.

Never thought I'd say this but I believe if Trump becomes president we might have a chance.

A chance of what, becoming the laughing stock of the world?

Don't get me wrong here as I would not support Mr. Trumpet, who loves more than anything to blow in his own horn!
When I gaze however over the political landscape around the planet these past 50 years you find populist and bombastic politicians often rising to power. Folks like Hugo Chavez who in the early days was seen as a clown but who then rose in power in a popular uprising. I think the US is potentially ripe for this type of idiocy.

Counter intuitively, sometimes a clown who is a caricature of a nations pathology, can have a cathartic affect if elected into power. Stupidity, given the light of day, can help accelerate national consensus around more enlightened solutions to problems when the crash and burn follows.

It would not be the end of the world if Trump was elected. He is after all in one of the US leading industries, entertainment.

[ennui2]

It would not be the end of the world if Trump was elected. He is after all in one of the US leading industries, entertainment.

Trump handling foreign policy? With his "my way or the highway" attitude? He would have his finger on nukes. That's scary.

[PEAKINT]

It would not be the end of the world if Trump was elected. He is after all in one of the US leading industries, entertainment.

Trump handling foreign policy? With his "my way or the highway" attitude? He would have his finger on nukes. That's scary.

You really think the POTUS has access to nukes and that the football is not just for show?

[kublikhan]

why the HR guys positively despises me for opting out of everything? Maybe subconsciously he knows the gig is about to be up, and pissed that I'm not "all in like the rest of them" and feels I'm "not playing fair"?

I doubt it is that complicated. They probably just don't like doing 2 sets of work. One for you and another for everyone else. HR told me as much when I selected "option B" when everyone else selected "option A".

[ennui2]

You really think the POTUS has access to nukes and that the football is not just for show?

Yes.

But honestly, it doesn't take the president hitting the nuke button to cause a lot of damage. Look at how much blood and treasure GW Bush cost the US by invading Iraq.