About 40% of Australians say they’ll never have enough money to retire, despite the country boasting one of the world’s most envied pensions systems. https://www.japantimes.co.jp/business/2024/09/11/economy/third-australians-retire/ #business #economy #australia #economicindicators #economy #retirement
retirement
There is no music in this, but it has a lot of things that inform and mold everything that will follow.
The #AfterActionReview for my military career.
We had a great meeting today with three! generations of Django Fellows to celebrate my retirement 🍰 🎉 🎩 Thanks and hugs to @carlton @nessita @sarahboyce #django #retirement
Edited 356d ago
If you’d like to help choose what will be listed on the potential archive of selected blog posts once Bix Dot Blog comes down, you can see the current list here.
My intention is to have the blog offline before the end of the month, allowing me to cancel my DigitalOcean.
Edited 363d ago
After the 2008 financial crisis (which really should more accurately be called the 2008 Fuck Around And Find Out Event), many observers wrote that rich speculators on the stock market had benefited, but it would be everyday people who paid the cost, for generations to come.
Most folks tend to assume these observations were about lost jobs and incomes, or future taxation to pay for the bailouts big companies got but everyday people didn't. The truth however is that corporate America and the investors who own the companies we work for weren't satisfied with billion dollar bailouts, and saw the aftermath of the crisis as a way to fundamentally alter their relationship with the labor class, to the benefit of the folks who own everything, and the detriment of those of us who work for a living. A good example of this would be the American auto industry, where only a generation ago, workers were able to retire at 55 with healthcare and a good pension; benefits that were clawed back in the wake of post-crisis reorganization of the industry, and simply never returned.
Of course in a humane society, this might be where we'd expect the government to step in; if not to force corporations to provide good pensions, to at least to help people retire with dignity and enough money to survive. That isn't how it actually works right now, but any reasonable person who doesn't want to see grandma eating tins of cat food in her 70's certainly thinks it should. Turns out that Bernie Sanders and eight other Democrat Senators agree, and now the Senator from Vermont is trying to publicly shame Congress to do something about it:
https://www.commondreams.org/news/retirement-crisis-2667426533
"In his op-ed, Sanders wrote that the loss of pension and fixed benefit plans among American workers—60% of whom had them in the early 1980s, compared to just 4% in 2023—has led to a 23% poverty rate among senior citizens, one of the highest rates compared to other wealthy countries, according to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development."
The plain and simple truth here is that as the Baby Boomer generation ages out of the workforce, America is speeding towards a retirement crisis; more and more Americans are retiring without *any* benefits accrued during a lifetime of laboring for capital, and simultaneously politicians from across the political spectrum are trying to raise the retirement age and gut, if not eliminate social security benefits. This isn't an oncoming train, it's more like an avalanche of boulders speeding towards our collective reality; and there will be a very real, and very predictable cost for the vast majority of Americans. A cost paid in miserable existences for seniors, and very real casualties in our society.
The bill Sanders and his allies in the Senate are proposing, the Social Security Expansion Act, would work towards addressing this crisis primarily by forcing the wealthy to pay more into the Social Security payroll tax - which is currently capped in such a way to ensure billionaires pay only a tiny fraction of their fair share into the system.
This is a problem that isn't going to solve itself, and Congress has the ability to address that problem with ready-crafted legislation they could pass right now. Will they? Don't bet your retirement on it buster...
I've decided to retire from being a Django Fellow at the end of March 2024. It's a great honor to be a Django Fellow. I've spent the last 5 years in my dream job 💚 🦄 but it's time to move forward 🔭 I'm not abandoning Django completely, nothing like that 🤗. I will continue to be an active member of our amazing Community and do my best to help it grow 💓
I'm open to new positions from April, 1st, so contact me if you need someone with my expertise 🤝
This is heartbreaking to think about: having to go back into the closet just to get respectful old-age care.
From @thelocal: Recloseted at 80
#Retirement means many different things to different people. It changes your #perspective. It doesn't solve all your #problems. It doesn't free you of #responsibility or #obligations. You have more choice than before when it comes to setting #priorities. Eventually, you'll have many more #doctor visits. Life is fragile.
Treat people the way you want others to treat you. Resist the urge to stick it to "them" before "they" stick it to you.
Edited 1y ago
New #introduction!
I’m a #British #queer #CatDaddy living in #Tokyo, #Japan with my partner & two #calico #cats. I am proudly #bisexual.
I have a #PhD in #Sociology & until 2022 was an Associate Professor at a #Japanese #university but took early #retirement to focus on my #MentalHealth (#CPTSD). My #Research looks at #community through the lens of #ethnomethodology & #HCI.
I am on a path of #conversion to #Judaism.
Follow for toots on cats, #Jewish stuff & a bunch of #daily life things!
Edited 2y ago
No one told me that retirement at 67 would be jarring. For 50 years, I found my challenges, value, and rewards in my work. When I let that go, I was unprepared to find those things elsewhere going forward. They will no longer be found in a singular focus, but a multi-faceted one. I must rediscover myself. Once again, I am a work in progress. 🤔🙏 #retirement #life #work #selfworth #contentment
Since I've moved to a new instance - one I'm running myself - I though I might re-introduce myself.
I'm Jeff Markel (see profile for pronunciation) - he/him. I'm kinda old, kinda not - born on the cusp of Baby Boom I and Baby Boom 2, aka Generation Jones (1955).
I can schmooze, but am basically very shy - f2f, anyway - and very introverted. More than a few hours of f2f interaction are exhausting.
I had one sibling - a sister - who died of pancreatic cancer in 1997, at 45. I lost my dad to bladder cancer in 1991 (age 67), and my mom to breast cancer in 2006 (age 80). So the big-C is ever-looming; my odds aren't so good. But I've lived longer than my sister and my father. Hopefully the string will continue.
My wife and I have been married to each other since 1982. We have 3 "children" (in quotes only because they're long-past childhood), and 4 grandchildren. Two are in NYC and one is in LA. The oldest of the grands is 14 and in full-fledged teenager mode.
I'm Jewish, but also an atheist - if that makes sense. The ethnicity does mean a lot to me. I have always felt a sense of 'other'ness and, although I know that I benefit from white privilege, I no longer really think of myself as "white" because the people for whom that matters most do not - and that's perfectly fine with me.
I get obsessed with things. I bake sourdough. I make cocktails. I walk long distances. I develop websites - using Drupal mostly, though I'm now learning React and a few other Javascript frameworks like Sveltekit and Astro - and of course those all have adjacent, and necessary, technologies that I also want to learn. As I used to say in my Twitter profile, when I was still there, I try to learn something new every day.
I've been a software person since the late 1970's. I started out on mainframes - but that's become a distinction without a difference. I've written code in many languages, from Algol to YAML (I tried to think of one starting with Z but Zend is all I could come up with, but that's a company, not a language 🤷♂️). Still working, but I do plan to "retire" in the next 18 months or so - in quotes because I will certainly need to do something after that besides sleeping in.
#introduction #introductions #drupal #react #svelte #sveltekit #astro #mainframe #baking #sourdough #cocktails #walking #retirement #website #cancer #fuckcancer #generationjones
Edited 2y ago