@MentORPHEUS

Dude, that sucks about your dad. I just had to arrange full time care for mine a couple of months ago. My parents did the financial planning thing, but my dad has massively outlived the life expectancy he was planning on. If the actuarial tables had been correct, he would have been gone a few years ago and left a modest amount for my brother and me. Mom went “on schedule,” but dad is still around. I guess there are worse things than NOT DYING, but it plays havoc with your estate planning.

The state is insisting on getting their pound of flesh, though, because now that all his assets are gone, he has to rely on Medicaid. (I could make his situation marginally better for a few months if I completely drained my retirement savings, but nobody wants that.) So my brother and I (by that I mean me doing 95%), are dealing with the US version of socialized medicine that sweeps up everyone over 65.

We have to prove that he has no personal assets left to spend on himself, and we even have to ensure that his life insurance policy goes to the state, minus whatever they approve for his eventual funeral costs. Mind you, my dad is a 30% disabled veteran who paid taxes for seven decades, and they’re giving us a financial rectal exam with no lube.

I think I’m okay: I get a fat military pension, I plan to max out my Social Security before I start collecting, and everything I own is paid off. I even generate my own electricity. Most people are not situated like I am, though.

If I predecease my wife, she might have to rely a bit on her family, but 1) that’s not likely, 2) it probably wouldn’t take much, and 3) they would do it without hesitation.

My brother, though… he might be screwed, but that’s largely because he made a financial decision a few years ago that was, in my opinion, catastrophically stupid.

@lurkerhasarisen (Continued) This has been an ongoing conversation with my 80yo widowed Boomer Mom, who will be able to live out her days financially secure in a comfortable retirement village. I, will not be able to live the same fate, and neither will my Brothers kids, neither of whom has opted to have kids of their own well into their 30s.

In my case, Covid lock downs bankrupted my business and stripped away 40+ years of the fruits of hard work. My Brother lost his retirement nest egg when his wife ran off with some dude and got rewarded with half the marital assets automatically.

America is way over the cliff edge already. Not a matter of if, but when, the system crashes epically hard. A small Oligarch class already has their golden parachutes strapped on and ready to deploy. For the rest of us, the prospects look grim indeed, literally no matter what we do.

@lurkerhasarisen Heh, it came up under the masthead California Post when I clicked on the link from a CA IP address. And, the second I read Obama in the title, I correctly guessed exactly what sort of article I was about to read, and precisely what it would include and omit to sheepdog readers toward establishment safe conclusions.

What this conspicuously left OUT, is how what gets called Capitalism and Democracy in America, has gotten completely captured and configured to min/max every aspect of economic and political activity, into a powerful engine to funnel wealth and power away from the bulk of the population, and into the hands and wallets of the 0.0.01 % class.

Dropping out of such a blatantly corrupt system, IS the rational response to the reality of what trying to engage and live within such a system offers average Americans. It's actually but a palatable intermediate plateau, a holding pattern far short of the only thing that offers escape from this cynical and brutal holding pattern: violent French level Revolution!