Homestead mailing list

[Don Bowen <don.bowen AT earthlink.net>]

At 11/7/2005, you wrote:

> You say that there are soon to retire ex-hippies and yuppies there and that
> they are wealthy enough to keep pushing land and housing prices up.  Not 
> on SS,
> says you, but on privately funded savings, investmets,. pensions,. and
> retirement plans.  Where's that money invested, the stock market?  Not so 
> much of
> it.  The lion's share now of days is in Mortgage Based Securities (MBS).

Forget the pensions.  Companies are shedding pension plans as fast as they 
can.  They are also cutting health care for retires even faster.  Many of 
those boomers (who start retiring in 2007, not 2010) will be faced with no 
health care and will have to put off retirement.  Many others will see the 
promised benefits evaporate in a merger or a business decision based 
bankruptcy.  Most have only a modest 401(k) as the average holdings are 
around $17,000.  For many the biggest asset is the house and for many of 
those it is mortgaged to the hilt.  So for many the sooner the baby boomers 
parents die off the sooner they can retire.

That is if they are still employed.  Recent trends in many industries it to 
shuck the older worker and move the work off shore.  Health care for older 
workers is getting to be an expensive drain on CEO paychecks so the cure is 
to move work to socialized medicine countries or hire younger workers with 
fewer problems.

Don Bowen                          Awl Knotted Up

My travel journal
http://www.braingarage.com/Dons/Travels/journal/Journal.html

My present location is the star on the map in the link below
http://www.mapquest.com/maps/map.adp?latlongtype=decimal&latitude=35.588269&longitude=-82.629132