Reinspiration Replaces Retirement – 2009
“Age means nothing to me. I can’t get old; I’m working. I was old when I was twenty-one and out of work. As long as you’re working you stay young. Retiring at sixty-five is ridiculous. When I was sixty-five I still had pimples.” George Burns 1896-1996
One of the most disturbing aspects of the recent economic downturn of 2008-2009 is the fact that many people on the horizon of their golden years have just lost around 50% of their retirement portfolios. Hard-earned money put into 401(k)s, IRAs, stocks and bonds, or market funds on the advice of a trusted adviser, virtually gone overnight! Not only have huge sums been wiped out, but now recession-hit businesses have frozen access to employee 401(k) accounts! Who knows? (401(k) Withdrawal Freeze – Wall Street Journal May 5, 2009)
If that wasn’t bad enough, those who rely on Social Security benefits to make ends meet just got some bad news. For the first time in 30 years they will not get their COLA (cost of living adjustments) for 2010 and 2011. Older Americans on fixed incomes who received a 5.8% COLA increase in 2009 will have a hard time keeping up with the cost of living going forward. (Social Security Benefits Not Expected to Increase in 2010 New York Times, May 2, 2009)
Oh well, so much for thinking it was his money first! Reality paints us a completely different picture.
Most Americans have worked in the prime of their lives with one eye waiting for that magical moment when they could leave it all behind to play golf, fish, garden, and spend time with their grandchildren. While many suffered from jobs they hated hours away from their families enduring the stress of professional responsibilities they didn’t really care about, retirement provided the carrot to cross the finish line.
Unfortunately, that carrot is hard to find these days, as retirement as a social concept is in its later years. The writing has been on the wall since the 1990s with pension plans discontinued or bankrupt and jobs shipped to other countries.. The 2008-09 recession has changed the retirement landscape from bad to worse. Still, most Americans prefer to keep their fingers crossed in the hope that they can be the ones to make it through the retirement window before it closes for good. Lest we forget, the employer of last resort, the federal government, continues to dangle a healthy pension carrot.
The good news is that there is already an alternative. Extreme 21st Century Retirement Makeover Gets REINSPIRED. Reinspirement has been born from the ashes of the exponential loss of purchasing power in a debt-based monetary system, it is an idea whose time has come. Similar to the conventional wisdom that tells us to start saving for retirement when we’re young, rebreathing offers a similar journey for a lifetime.
Achieving comfortable independent living in later years requires a willingness to reorganize how we think about money and plan for the future. The rebreath states that you (with the help of friends, colleagues, and professionals) you can design and implement a work path to meet current and future needs by starting simply from where you are and what you have today.
Lifetime cash flow is the name of the game, but it doesn’t necessarily mean lifetime hard work. Part of the challenge of rebreathing is learning how to leverage your tangible assets (not the fancy digital numbers on a statement) to work for you in the future. Each person’s unique talents, interests, assets, and abilities offer the key to unlocking and developing a personalized rebreathing strategy.
A commitment to rebreathing means you’ll blaze a trail beyond current societal expectations of when to hang up the saddle; that is, when private money will stop flowing into your life. If you accept this mission, you will lead by example to provide a critically needed role model for future generations. Since given a central banking system, the value of the currency will continue to be devalued. That means young people will need viable options for their senior years even more than we do.