Chief Executive Douche at AIG Says "Work Till Your Dead, Suckas!"

It's heartwarming to see a bailed out Master of the Universe sitting in his seaside villa in Croatia telling the average schmuck to get ready to work until they're 75 or 80. Can't wait to see those 75 year old strippers and police officers using walkers chasing after criminals.

American International Group Inc. (AIG)Chief Executive Officer Robert Benmosche said Europe’s debt crisis shows governments worldwide must accept that people will have to work more years as life expectancies increase.

“Retirement ages will have to move to 70, 80 years old,”Benmosche, who turned 68 last week, said during a weekend interview at his seaside villa in Dubrovnik, Croatia. “That would make pensions, medical services more affordable. They will keep people working longer and will take that burden off of the youth.”

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-...etirement-age-as-high-as-80-after-crisis.html

Make sense to me, after all Eurozone has all those unfilled jobs due to its massive labor shortage.

sarcasm?

Just a bit.

So I'm thinking out loud here. Corporate Europe (or U.S.) doesn't need more workers, unless they are computer programmers. Which pretty much rules out the geezers. So what jobs would the oldsters take at age 75 instead? Selling pencils on the street corner? Wiping down your car windshield at traffic lights?

I mean really. Come on.

That's just because Obama and his Euro-socialist cronies are punishing job creators. Once they get thrown out of office, the jobs will be there for the taking, for everyone from the ages of 6 to 80.

http://www.mahalo.com/how-to-become-a-walmart-greeter/

Though it seems Walmart is cutting its greeting staff, so who knows?

Mission of Burma said it best.

That's when I reach for my revolver. Seriously, a bullet could do alot of good for the world shot into this guy's skull at high velocity.

For 10 years I've been telling my kids that I expect to work until I'm 70. My colleagues and I joke at the lunch table about how there will be no social security for us. I don't like it, but that's my expectation.

It was truly sad when auto unions negotiated the "30 and out" clause, causing a whole generation of both unionized and white collar workers to expect a long and comfortable retirement.

But who will want you?

Nothing personal and maybe you'll be the exception, but most people who are 65+ aren't all that great as workers. That's why they get crap jobs like Walmart greeter or (in my local supermarket) slow-motion grocery bagger.

I don't see having older folks work as much of a retirement answer, because they're not going to get hired unless there's a bigtime labor shortage. And when will that be happening?

I'm going to be one of those high-salaried BigSoccer moderators.

Well there you go. As I wrote, you are the exception.

Who knows? When my mother retired, the company hired 3 people to replace her!

The retirement age will inevitably go up as life expectancies continue to increase. That doesn't mean that this guy ought to have a villa in Croatia. If everybody worked until they died, but our Gini Coefficient was .100, that'd be awesome too.

FYP

No I do think that people should work longer. What's the old saying, when you retire there's really only one thing left to do? The problem isn't increasing the retirement age, it's making income redistribution more equal.

I've got two words for you: Soylent Green.

Just sayin'.

"Soylent Green is people, my friend."

--Mitt Romney

This is one thing few people like to discuss. I have no idea if I will see a penny of Social Security so I am planning as if it won't be there.

Unfortunately, Mr AIG is right, people will have to work longer. I wish there was a better spokesman for this harsh reality but it is true.

You will. Same people who say Social Security won't exist are those who deny global warming and believe in angels watching over them.

Oh and you don't have to work longer either. You do if you want to keep up flat-screen TVs and the newest smartphones and nice dinners and buying retail. Otherwise, you don't. My mama retired at age 50 and she never made diddly or squat for income.

I was just reading somewhere that you shouldn't neglect investing for retirement and plan to just work longer. The reality is that many people are forced to retire before age 65 due to bad health, need to take care of family members, getting laid off and unable to find new job, etc. etc.

I've argued many times on the 606 that the Western elite is behaving in a way that'll make the sheeple eventually break out these again:

We could make SS solvent for 100 more years. Raise the taxable wage base to $200,000 (or some higher number) instead of $110,100. I'm sure there will be some "class warfare" whining on the right, but it's an easy solution.

Or reduce benefits, or many other solutions.

Responding to policy suggestions with the response of "class warfare" is class warfare. It is one class (the wealthy) blowing up rational discussion so that it can have its needs met, at the possible expense of other classes.

You and your colleagues would benefit from becoming better informed.

Even if no policy changes are made, and SS depletes its trust fund in 2033 (as is currently projected by the government), the program will still be able to pay out 75% of scheduled benefits. That would be unfortunate, but probably not a catastrophe for most people.

Of course, any expectation that no changes will be made to shore up benefits is highly questionable. And any expectation that politicians will simply allow SS to disappear is laughable. Social Security is incredibly popular, one of the very most popular things that the US government does; no politician with aspirations to national office dares to speak out against it. What plausible series of events would lead to the program no longer providing benefits within our lifetimes?

Of course, it's technically possible that some combination of political upheaval and multi-decade economic decline could dramatically reshape the political and economic landscape to the extent that Social Security's existence could be threatened. But if a calamity of that scope comes to pass, the absence of Social Security checks will probably not be among our most pressing concerns (and, needless to say, most alternative forms of retirement savings and planning will also not be of much use in such a scenario).