Greenspan wants us to work until we croak; giving government more money to waste

It˜s time to retire 78-year-old Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan and put a baby boomer in his job.

Since the old codger certainly is a numbers guy, he must have a pretty good grasp of just how many of us baby boom types he is threatening with his latest speech in Jackson Hole, Wyo., where he urged lawmakers to start slicing our retirement and Medicare benefits. Or else É

But to remind him — that would be approximately 77 million of us born between the years of 1946 to 1964, a little more than one out of four of the U.S. population, actually 27.5 percent to be exact. Every eight seconds a person turns 50. Happened to me almost four years and eight seconds ago.

Perhaps in my deteriorating state, I don˜t grasp politics so well. But this seems like an awfully big number of people to be getting mad just before your boss is up for re-election.

Greenspan claims we˜re not doing a very good job at saving, and we better stick more of our earnings into retirement accounts and spend less on fun things like cars and plasma TV sets.
Since he˜s still goes to work (in his limo) as he approaches 80, he thinks this is a dandy idea for all of us. Work, he says, is "becoming less physically strenuous but more demanding intellectually." Something tells me he hasn˜t driven a FedEx truck all day lately.

No, Greenspan thinks we˜d be better off dropping dead in our late 70s on the job É just think how much can be saved not paying out those retirement benefits that come out of every one of our paychecks. It˜s a good deal, too, for all the bureaucrats running various government agencies like Social Security. I bet there˜s not a one of them who took early retirement, huh?

No, we baby boomers clearly are a lazy lot. That˜s why we have annual spending power of about $1.1 trillion. We have the highest education level of any generation before us. We only average 1.7 wage earners in each household — can˜t we get that higher?

The poverty level among boomers was 7.3 percent in 2000 — lower than any other segment of the population. But I guess all the money we have saved the government in food stamps or other assistance benefits doesn˜t count.

For the most part we love kids but not always a whole house full of them. We average 3.3 people in a household, and we spend 11 percent more on average for pets, toys and playground equipment.

When we make up our minds about something, it changes entire industries. Real estate, for example. Tired of mowing the grass, we˜re starting to buy into maintenance-free communities or loft-style or work-live communities. This is giving builders and Realtors a whole bunch of new things to sell. What˜s the commission on a $1.2 million loft in downtown Boulder?

Now personally I do grasp where Greenspan is going here, I just don˜t happen to agree with him about what needs to be done. We˜re forcing America into a cash crisis, experts say. The country just can˜t afford us.

I˜ve been trying to save more ever since the IRA was invented, and when the limit was raised to $3,500 a year, I did it. Being an editor, scary stories about how Social Security will disappear by the time I do manage to retire got my attention early on. I don˜t have any children, so despite quite a few doggie toys, my playground expenditures fortunately are much less than many of my friends.

As we age, we˜re also getting more serious and concerned about the future. Our life expectancy is now at 74 years old for males, 79.5 for females. Greenspan probably sees this as a good reason for women to work longer.

Older boomers also spend 20 percent more than others on life and other personal insurances. We˜re fueling an entire new insurance industry — from umbrella coverage to long-term care.

OK, yes we also have a higher divorce rate than previous generations; about 14 percent of us are divorced. That˜s short for saying we˜re making lawyers quite wealthy.

As Greenspan continues his campaign to eliminate benefits, maybe, just maybe he overlooked this one statistic. A majority of us usually vote.

Fifty-nine percent of boomers voted in the 2000 presidential election. The 55-64 and the 65-74 age groups had the highest turnouts, with 70 and 72 percent turnouts respectively.

We˜re also pretty good readers, unlike younger generations. We read stories about the $417 billion defense budget. We read how $166 billion was spent in 2003 on supplemental spending bills for Iraq and Afghanistan.

And we will read with great interest the names of any congressmen who start slashing our well-earned Social Security benefits.

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