Pending financial disaster

I feel sorry for the post baby boomer generation. Our government is setting up to saddle them with expenses they'll have a difficult time paying. What I'm referring to are Social Security and Medicare. I've already resigned myself to the likelihood I'll only receive back a fraction of the money I paid into those systems. Why? Because they are essentially bankrupt. Instead of saving our money for us, the government has used the revenue from those taxes to pay for other programs. This works as long as employment is growing faster than the number of people drawing on those programs. As the baby boomers retire, that isn't going to be the case. The number of retired people will increase substantially while the number of active employees contributing to the system decreases.

What does this mean for the post baby boomers? Likely large increases in taxes and decreases in government services. As well they will need to make some very difficult decisions on tax and benefit issues that will significantly affect the financial status of their parents. What does it mean for the baby boomers? Well if you're like most, you'll have counted on Social Security for a substantial portion of your retirement and you're likely to find those benefits cut some. If you're like me and have aggresively saved over the years for retirement, you'll probably find you don't get anything from Social Security, or will be taxed such an amount in retirement that it will have little positive effect on your financial situation.

Is it too late to change this? Depends upon who you believe. Are we headed in the right direction? As Bill Cosby says in his Noah skit: Riiight.