The economic crisis is just beginning. It has not even gotten bad yet, at least in terms of what lies ahead.
Most Americans have not a clue as to how bad things are going to get. Why should they when the entire governmental propaganda machine, from officials to media to economists, all spew nonsense about “the recovery.”
The changes to our lifestyle will be many. Our standard of living is headed down. It never was as high as too many of us believed. It was achieved by borrowing money to live a dream that never was. Now the dream has turned into a nightmare.
Ultimately the hardest hit will be the elderly. One of the changes will likely be the effect on retirement possibilities. Those who have worked their entire lives, even many prudent savers are likely to be unable to retire. Many will have to work until they drop. The thought of this possibility is both shocking and heart wrenching. Retirement will likely be one of the casualties of the economic upheaval. Michael Pento believes retirement for many will become extinct:
The sad facts are; Americans are broke, the real estate market is still in secular decline, stock prices are in a decade’s long morass, real incomes are falling, public pension plans are insolvent and our entitlement programsare structurally unsound. If the pillars that seniors have relied on in the past fail to miraculously regenerate (and there is certainly no reason to believe they will), all that most retirees will have will be freshly printed greenbacks that come from a never ending policy of federal deficitsand an obliging Federal Reserve. Unfortunately, the inflation that will result from such a policy will sap most of the purchasing power that those notes possess. In other words, for most people retirement is now an illusion, and many Americans will find themselves working far longer, for far less real compensation, then they ever imagined. The quicker we realize this, and plan accordingly, the better off we will be.
