On May 16, 2013, Kathy Lynch writes in Financial Advisor:
During the recession, Gen Xers lost nearly half (45 percent) of their wealth. That’s the highest loss for any of the age groups, the report found. “This all means that Gen Xers may be the first group to fall short of the age groups that came before them and face downward mobility in retirement,” said Elliott. “Only half of Gen Xers are projected to have enough savings or wealth to cover half of their income in retirement,” she added.
The report points to a lack of savings and wealth accumulation among Gen Xers before the economic downturn. It says particular attention should be paid to helping this generation prepare for retirement security.
This reality will persist and worsen not only for Gen Xers but for Gen Yers and the Millennial Generation as tectonic shifts in the technologies of production exponentially restricts and devalues human labor opportunities, as “machines”––and other productive capital means of production––displace the need for jobs, and thus the primary income source for people.
The majority of Americans are essentially clueless and ignorant as to their plight and that of their children and grandchildren, whose ONLY source of an income is a job, or worse yet dependency on taxpayer supported government welfare. In effect, the majority of Americans are job serfs who are dependent on jobs, which are increasingly being replaced and devalued by productive capital assets OWNED by less than 10 percent of the population. Worse yet, the financial system is structured so that essentially ALL FUTURE economic growth, as embodied in the formation of NEW wealth-creating productive capital assets, will be owned by the same wealthy minority and their heirs.
The rich are RICH because they OWN the wealth-creating productive capital assets or means of production, which is at the core of our capacity to produce products and services. Until we reverse course and provide equal opportunity for EVERY American to acquire ownership in FUTURE productive capital assets using insured capital credit, wealth and income differences will continue to dramatically widen as tectonic shifts in the technologies of production displace human labor with the non-human means of production––productive capital. Such displacement is exponentially accelerating and NO ONE in a position of “leadership” or academia is addressing this paradigm shift in how the products and services that we consume are produced, and how we can connect individuals with the property rights of ownership in the FUTURE wealth-creating productive capital assets so that they will derive income from a new source that has been, as a practical matter, the exclusive opportunity for those already wealthy.
Until we reform the system, the majority of Americans and future generations will increasingly become financially insecure and the most likely to experience downward mobility in retirement––causing them to become increasingly reliant on government welfare for their subsistence.
The answers and solutions are to be found in the proposed Capital Homestead Act at http://www.cesj.org/homestead/index.htm and http://www.cesj.org/homestead/summary-cha.htm, and the Agenda of The Just Third Way Movement at http://foreconomicjustice.org/?p=5797
http://www.fa-mag.com/news/gen-xers-may-face-downward-mobility-in-retirement-14310.html?section=131
