On November 2, 2012, Helaine Olen writes on Marketplace.org:
We’re on the verge of a retirement crisis in this country. It’s something pretty much everyone knows except, apparently, the two guys running for president. Pensions are rapidly becoming a thing of the past. And the private savings schemes that have taken their place are not working out as planned. Most Americans have less than $100,000 in their 401(k)s. And that’s unlikely to change anytime soon since about half of us live paycheck to paycheck. We can hardly save for an emergency tomorrow, never mind something that’s going to happen 20 years from now.
President Obama stated: “What’s at stake is whether this will be a country where working people can earn enough to raise a family, build a modest savings, own a home, and secure their retirement.” As long as working people are limited by earning income solely through their labor worker wages, they will be left behind by the continued gravitation of economic bounty toward the top 1 percent of the people that the system is rigged to benefit. Working people and the middle class will continue to stagnate, resulting in a stagnated consumer economy. More troubling is that this continued stagnation will further dim the economic hopes of America’s youth, no matter what their education level. The result will have profound long-term consequences for the nation’s economic health and further limit equal earning opportunity and spread income inequality. As the need for labor decreases and the power and leverage of productive capital increases, the gap between labor workers and capital owners will increase, which will result in revolution.
The ONLY way the economy, which is reflected in the reality that jobs ONLY slowly continue to return and those jobs are paying less and less, is for stimulating and incentivizing economic growth simultaneously with broadening private, individual ownership in FUTURE income-producing capital assets generated by our business corporations––productive land, resources, structures, machinery, human-intelligent machines, superautomation, robotics, digital computerized operations, etc. JOB CREATION always follows OWNERSHIP CREATION, and the solution is to balance production and consumption with broadened ownership as tectonic shifts in the technologies of production will continue to destroy and degrade (less income) jobs.
The lingering unemployment will persist until we can stimulate and incentivize new capital formation financed so that EVERY American can have access to CAPITAL HOMESTEAD loans (without pledging “past” savings or equity) to invest in FUTURE growth assets that will generate income to pay back the loans. While this will result in a short-term demand for labor, long-term the capital plant once built will less and less labor to sustain. That is why is it is CRITICAL that EVERY American have the equal opportunity to build a viable income-producing capital estate and become stronger self-sufficient individuals and less dependent on taxpayer-supported government welfare.
http://www.marketplace.org/topics/elections/commentary/retirement-election-no-show
