> There are various versions

This one appears every second weekday, alternating with that.

I love that account and 'follow' it religiously, vacating the sentiment: It's not that I want to give even more attention to the internet now, it's that I'll always wonder how much richer my life would have been if all this information and insight (and amusement) had been available when I was twenty instead of forty.

Good blog post.

I am sure there are a lot of people who on their deathbed, wish they had been better able to provide for their family

After she left the hospital with a stage IV diagnosis, all my wife wanted to do was return to work. She was self employed as a massage therapist. Over the course of her 26 year career her clients became her friends, and vice-versa. She chose to die in her home office.

To Nicole's point, I am glad I packed up my apartment in the city I was working in and came home shortly before we received her diagnosis. I was regularly employed in a gig economy, but the project pool was shrinking. All signs pointed to everything running down professionally and wearing down personally, which wasn't sustainable. I am glad I could physically care for her and financially afford the unraveling that followed, because grief is a wrecking ball and after 10+ years of having major life decisions revolve around care-taking, there was nothing left to give or go back to.

A crappy job with crappy pay is the worst of both worlds. I quit low paying, high stress jobs because they left me too depleted to participate in domestic maintenance and assist with the demands of being on call to manage family care taking. Leaving to work in another city with a better economy wound up being a better gamble for awhile.

If you can have a reasonably innocuous work life that allows you to come home whole *and* provide for yourself and your family then that is an enviable position to be in, and a fairly modern development.

Thanks, Crid - and same here re: the Internet.

And Michelle, some people have a different idea (from mine) of what's important, and prefer a life with more balance. I of course expect and respect that -- I just find that we should rethink the notion that led this blog post as the assumed best way for all.

Here,here to the jobs that allow that work/life balance.

My husband and I are at the ages where our parents retired. I plan on working another 7 years. My husband works with his brain and is self-employed, so he plans to keep working forever.

I have a 10 month job. This year, I’ve been working about 50 hours per week on average. That is sustainable. Last year, I usually worked 60 hours per week, which was wretched. This week, I had to put in those kind of hours. It led to a three day weekend migraine. When I work 60 hours, I spend my remaining hours recovering, often in bed.

That life is not sustainable. There is nothing reason to live without balance.

Ironically, at work, with fewer duties, I’m finally a rock star. With too much on my plate, I can barely function.

Employers always try to get a little more out of employees until the burn them out. Perhaps it was okay to work like this when there was someone at home to take care of the family. There has to be a way to find balance. We are not there.

A culture of retirement at 65 has led us to believe that people over 50 have little value in the marketplace, that they cannot adapt to changes in technology, work habits, etc. - that they're only killing time until retirement.

Everything focuses on Millennials these days. Consumer products are tailored to their tastes. Politicians pander for their votes. Movies and television ignore anyone over 40, both in advertising and plot development. Publishers only want younger characters and marketable younger writers. Workplaces are radically tailored for younger workers, "collaborative workspace" they call it.

With all this, we've given tacit permission for younger people to treat older people with sneering contempt. Witness David Hogg's profanity laced temper tantrum about "old-ass" parents not knowing how to use iMessage. If you had to face a younger boss or coworker like that every day, would you want to keep working?

We've made our older workers unemployable with this attitude. No wonder they retire. They're undervalued and won't get promoted once they reach a certain age. Plum assignments go to younger workers. How can we expect the job to be rewarding to them?

So, as long as we refuse to hire anyone over 50, we're gonna have to support them when they can't find work and have used up their savings trying. That means we've effectively lowered the retirement age.

Well, now, let's remember the profound demographic changes at work across the planet.

Some note that "History is moving North" around the globe, as workers from less-technical economies are migrating for employment near & with our graying modernity.

Others note that in 2017, we passed the point of "peak baby," as wealth's reduced fertility accelerating these trends.

Mostly what this means is that when you're in an old folk's home, it won't be some warm-hearted, chubby, freckled 3rd cousin from rural Texas who sautés your omelette and counts out your meds. No, it'll be some swarthy ESL immigrant who's helping you in the shower.

A Moozlim will probably be touching your genitals.

Hi, Amy! Hi, Snoopy! Hi Raddy!

he plans to keep working forever

✔

What I do now, I plan to keep doing until they relieve me of the building keys and escort me off the premises and tell me not to come back, except to visit.

After that, I might start an LLC and employ myself as a consultant, and keep doing the same thing, just on a contract basis and for many other people.

no one said: 'I wish I had spent more time on my business.'? I know elderly people who are not well-off financially, and it is pretty sad and they do in fact wish they had maybe worked a little harder/smarter. They are people who in their 60s have no savings and a tiny pension (or none). In the old days they would be living with their children but now they maybe don't have kids or the kids won't take them.
As to work/life balance: it is helpful to plan ahead. If you are a roofer at 30 you maybe need to plan for what to do when you are 55 and roofing becomes too hard. My friend is a plumber and his solution in his 60s has been to take fewer jobs.

The sentiment is true but also misses the point. The very vast majority of us don't go to work because we enjoy it. We work because we get paid. Talk to some pro football players. They go into that job because of their incredible skill but also because they love the game to death. And once they start making the big bucks they find out it is a job and not a game.

"Everything focuses on Millennials these days. Consumer products are tailored to their tastes."

People are habitual Conan. Changing the spending habits of the young is easy but changing the spending habits of the old is hard. So companies focus on the group they have an opportunity with.

"Workplaces are radically tailored for younger workers, "collaborative workspace" they call it."

Maybe in your industry. There are plenty of others that don't follow this trend.

I agree about the stupidity of David Hogg. But come on. This is standard Democrat policy. Remember 'Don't trust anyone over 30'. It's been that way for a long time.

Changing the spending habits of the young is easy but changing the spending habits of the old is hard. So companies focus on the group they have an opportunity with. ~ Ben at May 8, 2018 9:28 AM

I'd agree with that. I've spent over ten years studying spending and shopping habits.

The problem is not that companies are focusing "on the group they have an opportunity with." It's that they're completely abandoning the smaller and less lucrative Gen-X cohort and the now-set-in-its-ways Boomer cohort.

I watched one clothing company for which I worked discontinue product lines whose average consumer age was over 35 - not reduce production or limit updates, discontinue - citing that older consumers were not in the desired demographic; and having older consumers wearing its clothing did not fit image the company wanted to portray.

Maybe in your industry. There are plenty of others that don't follow this trend. ~ Ben at May 8, 2018 9:28 AM

Just wait. Those open floor plans and collaborative workspaces are coming soon to an employer near you.

Good resource for this - "Poor Richard's Retirement: Retirement for Everyday Americans"

https://www.amazon.com/Poor-Richards-Retirement-Everyday-Americans/dp/154553909X/

"I watched one clothing company for ..."

Well that is retarded. But I believe you. Plenty of companies do retarded things. Look at Best Buy. They had a very profitable thing going on. And then they decided it wasn't cool enough for them and almost tanked the company. Now they compete with Radio Shack to sell cell phones.

On the open floor plans, factories haven't changed much in the last 100 years. Management got rid of most of the rats and roaches but you can't really do much other than tables in a big empty room. And cube farms started in 1960, so that's been around for a while too. The main difference is trying to convince people all of this is hip or trendy rather than cheap. All a "collaborative workspace" seems to be is management being so cheap they won't even pay for the felt walls.

All a "collaborative workspace" seems to be is management being so cheap they won't even pay for the felt walls. ~ Ben at May 8, 2018 10:16 AM

That's all it really is. You can fit more people into a building if you don't give them the illusion of having their own space.

Amy there isn't much meat to the article.

I would have appreciated some numbers to support his optimism, which I think is not too much to ask from the Director of the Center for Economic Freedom, or from Forbes.

The article reads like a book promo, so I don’t want to be too hard on the author for this piece in particular, however as a stand alone piece there are some glaring errors in his presumptions and omissions:

1) “The future” is now - this is not a long term planning issue, this is an imminent concern and those tech innovations are a b*tch to find, learn, and integrate on short notice if you’re lucky to have needs someone has already predicted and designed for in a way that integrates with whatever legacy systems are used by the providers you rely on or will be thrown into on short notice. The financial products he vaguely references won’t come in time for the front wave of baby boomers now in their 70s, or for their kids who are in their 50s and likely to feel the emotional and financial impact of their parents’ needs and experiences.

2) Tamney also leaves out the cost of services (not gadgets) that need to be provided by other people, either the cost to hire someone or the costs incurred by other family members who do those tasks unpaid, and at great opportunity cost to themselves (there’s a ripple effect). Even for the tasks that are increasingly outsourced, making and managing those hires is its own full or part time job that not everyone has the cognitive ability to do for themselves, so add to that the costs of time and attention and opportunity costs for the family members that are making and managing those hires or those innovative technologies.

We're lucky if we can care for ourselves in retirement. While I'm glad for the independence made available by the innovation that is Uber (and Amazon home delivery) sometimes you just need someone to help you wipe your own ass, sit with you in a waiting room during those terrifying eternities of uncertainty, or sort out what the doctor is telling you and help you think it through in the context of your own values and personal history so you can make the next right choice. There’s no telling when that will be you, or you sitting with your parents.

Parents are the new dependents, for younger Baby Boomers. The parental care-taking role could land in your lap just as you reach the point in your own life where you are likely to experience age discrimination in employment.

Regarding age discrimination in employment, Money.com offers these numbers:

“in July [2016], 29 percent of older full-time workers age 55-64 were in what Ghilarducci calls “bad jobs.” That means they were earning less than two-thirds of the median wage for workers in that age range.

She adds that when older displaced workers do find new jobs, they typically go back to work with about 75 percent of their former pay.

These income disruptions play havoc with retirement plans. Nearly half of current retirees retire earlier than planned, according to survey research by the Employee Benefit Research Institute. And 60 percent of older workers who experience involuntary job loss end up retiring involuntarily, according to the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College.

Lost income in the decade leading to retirement can cut into future Social Security earnings by reducing the credits used to calculate a worker’s benefits. It also can force workers to file for benefits early, sharply reducing lifetime benefits. The ramp-up to retirement also gives some workers – especially empty nesters – a chance to catch up on retirement saving, but that does not happen when income from work stops. If anything, jobless older workers are more likely to crack open their nest eggs early.”

To put a fine point on it -

3) The author mischaracterizes the nature of the retirement problem. Retirement isn't always optional and we don't always get to say when we need to do it. It’s great that we’re less likely to die on the job, however we’re very likely to age out of getting hired, leaving us alive but unable to work for decades. The indefiniteness of those years makes it hard to plan for. It's a marathon that can begin at any moment.

The gig economy Tamney touts is not necessarily a way to earn a living wage especially as one ages into physical or cognitive decline. I’d be interested to see how his reliance on the idea of the gig economy differs if at all to Richard Florida’s predictions about the Creative Class.

"29 percent of older full-time workers ..."

This is almost a tautology. 30% of workers are in the bottom 30%. I know that is not exactly what was said but it is pretty close.

And you are correct Michelle that many people don't retire willingly. As for the gig economy it seems to work best for young people trying to get their foot in the door and the highly skilled. For everyone else it doesn't go too well.

I a came upon a quote that resonated with me,”find something you’re passionate about and you’ll never work another day in your life” you can feel. The truth in that.

I enjoy my work, but if I had a windfall that would provide for me for the rest of my life I'd be out of here in a cloud of dust like some old cartoon character.

Not that I wouldn't stay active; I'd just have that spectre of salaries and savings out of my head.

What the is wrong with working on an oil rig?

I retired at 59 after a medical crisis. I was revived in the hospital.

I am lucky. I have an Army reserve and a civil service retirement.

I hated my last job. Love the one prior, but I mistakenly took a promotion.

I do not miss working at all. There are too many other things that I have neglected for too long. Right now, I am recovering from surgery to correct problems that I have never had the time for.

I do find I have to force myself to get out for personal contact, though. My wife, who works from home, doesn't understand this. :-)

Never mind my deathbed. I don't want to be standing at my parents' funerals, bemoaning that I was chasing money and career advancement, rather than spending time with the people who brought me into the world. I left Silicon Valley (not a moment too soon, by all accounts) and now I work in a steakhouse kitchen. There is something to be said for punching off the clock and owning my time once again.

The only thing I truly miss from my Silly Valley days is the church I attended.

I think personally I think this whole retire at 65 thing was a Labor union/ Democratic Party promise to their rank-and-file members. Just another vote buying scheme that hasn't worked out well for the taxpayers particularly when the age of retirement kept getting pushed down for public employees, and the benfits skyrocketed.

It was never meant for farmers or other small business owners who have a tradition of working until they can’t do it anymore.
The only positive note, is that Obamacare really fucked with a lot of teachers and other public employees plans for early retirement. They can’t afford to retire and still pay their health insurance.

My own father was quite happy to collect his minuscule Social Security check at the age of 62 (born in 1913) and then continue working at his business until a little past 80 when he died about a week after shutting the door for the last time. Friends and family had to sell off the remaining inventory and close up shop. I still have some of the inventory in my garage.

My husband is 60, and would probably literally work until he dropped, but like Joe Bar had a health scare two weeks ago, that put him in a Japanese hospital for five days.
I think he is starting to see the advantages of hanging it up, and taking care of his health a bit better when his tour ends here in the Spring of 2020.

LIke you, Amy, I think writing is the perfect job. I can do it anywhere and vary the pace to suit my circumstances. I plan to keep doing it until my brain shuts down.

Other jobs, not so much. I'm currently writing a book that has me reading Navy SEAL bios. That's not for me, but I can see how it appeals to many when they're young and strong. But what about later? It makes working on an oil rig look easy.

I once knew a Navy carrier pilot who told me he got out when "age and deceit could no long beat youth and skill." That's the problem with physically demanding jobs. You age out of them when you're still healthy. If that is what matters most, what do you do with the rest of your life. Look back and long for the past? That's not good.

Instapundit sent me over here. I noticed the your fine attire. As they say, dressed fit to kill...flies.

@sdaf, the Advice Goddess isn't saying there's anything wrong with work on an oil rig. It's just that she understands two things for the purpose of this discussion:

1. Oil rig work can be physically grueling, and some people simply work at it until they're no longer able to.

2. Oil rig work isn't the Advice Goddess's training, so it's highly unlikely that she'd be working there anyway. But that doesn't detract from (1) above.

Instapundit sent me over here. I noticed your fine attire. As they say, dressed fit to kill...flies.

It's that they're completely abandoning the smaller and less lucrative Gen-X cohort and the now-set-in-its-ways Boomer cohort.

Conan the Grammarian at May 8, 2018 9:39 AM

Conan, I'm thinking that Gen X is going to be handling the affairs of their Baby Boomer parents. Would this put Baby Boomer purchasing power into the hands of the Gen Xers?

I'm also wondering what purchasing decisions will interest the children of Gen X and Millennial parents, kids who are going to coding camps after school (or coding classes in school) and have access to the personalized manufacturing plants that are portable 3D printers.

I'm wondering what the global economy will look like when code is communicated globally and manufacturing is personal, fast, and cheap. As an aside - it seems like internet connection is and will be to the economy what rivers and railroads used to be.
~~~

Joe, I'm glad you're taking good care.

Isab, may your husband's recovery be seamless.

> a quote that resonated with me,
> ”find something you’re passionate
> about and you’ll never work
> another day in your life”

At some point home manufacturing may take off Michelle. But have you actually looked at the thing? What goods that you use in your everyday life are you capable of producing from such a machine? Plastic cups? Spoons? Plates? Because anything bigger than that aren't really practicable. You can do some nice art work stuff. But I just don't see people printing off dozens of small plastic parts and assembling them themselves instead of going to the store and buying what they want. At some point what you envision may happen. But I don't expect to live long enough to see it.

And I'm not dissing 3D printing. But I see it mainly impacting small business types. A large 3D printer and a small automated CNC can fit into the average American garage now. Small businesses operating out of a home now have the space and can afford in house manufacturing. That is a great boon to entrepreneurs.

My work is my hobby and my hobby is my work. As I approach full retirement age after 50 years in my industry I can't imagine walking away (exclusive of a medical crisis). Retirement for me will be shifting time from projects I am paid to do to projects I am not paid to do.

My work is my hobby and my hobby is my work. As I approach full retirement age after 50 years in my industry I can't imagine walking away (exclusive of a medical crisis). Retirement for me will be shifting time from projects I am paid to do to projects I am not paid to do.

Crid - that's the truth.

Ben - what kids are doing with coding and 3d printing machines piques my imagination regarding the future of the local and global economy. One friend's kid has world renowned places mail him tech to see what code he'll create for it. Another kid was making and selling fidget spinners at home before he was old enough to work for someone else. This is just the first generation.

Kids are coding apps - they're also more impulsive and calculate risks differently (badly, but often with much luck) and given the time they have on their hands to tinker, and the data they don't hesitate to share... how long till a kid who spends his or her time coding and has access to good lab equipment at school makes an app that crowd sources data in a revolutionary way, or starts manufacturing chemicals or small medical wearables for fun?

Manufacture of the physically big stuff is changing, too. People are now 3D printing houses, no small thing. I'm wondering what the house construction market will look like in 30 years, and the economic ripples that flow from construction innovations.

There's a manufacturing facility in western Pennsylvania that has one human working on the floor- and his job is to keep the machines running. Somewhere, there's a manufacturing facility where machines make those machines.

As a fellow writer, I couldn't agree with you more. Amen, Amy! I'll never retire!

What would I do? Play pickleball? Get into "crafts"? I can't sew a straight stitch,and I got a "D" in art when I was in fifth grade, so I don't think water-colors are my thing. Really, all I can do is write (I'm a pretty good cook, but I'm not fast, so I could never make money at it). "Retirement" is depressing. Have you ever been to an "active adult community"? It's sad--and that's without even looking at the death notices on the bulletin board. It's basically young people herding around and playing cheerleader to gray-hairs with too much time on their hands.

That said, contra Tamny, I think it's a really good idea to save money for the day when you can no longer work--which will, in fact, eventually arrive because we are all mortal. Some things may be cheaper in the future, but others, such as real estate, a huge-ticket item, won't.

As for 3D printed houses in developed nations, you probably aren't seeing any of that in your lifetime. Or to be more accurate you've already seen that and most people don't like it. This is little different from a concrete house. Soviet Russia built quite a few of those.

"... makes an app that crowd sources data in a revolutionary way ..."

This stuff happens all the time already. Unfortunately it isn't enough to have much impact. There is a good reason it is the second or later guy who makes a fortune off of an idea. The idea just isn't enough. You also have to have the marketing, manufacturing, management, and a good dab of luck to make things work.

I'm not poh-pohing the technology. It is just from my experiences I already see medium sized businesses using 3D printing for in house manufacturing of small piece parts. So I can see the upside and downsides of the tech. It is about guaranteed you won't see the same quality or cheapness as you would get from older technologies. The main benefit my customers are seeing is reduced inventory and reduced lead time on low volume product. It may only cost $0.10/plate to produce a million plastic plates in an injection molded factory and the same plate with slightly lower quality costs $1.50/plate from a 3D printer. But if I only want one plate then I don't have to store the other unwanted plates somewhere till they are needed and I can get my plate much sooner.

Thanks Ben.