When should you have access to a lot of money?

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My brother described this plan to me also.

As a young engineer, he thought it was dumb that people spent their best years in life working at cubicles inside windowless spaces. So he quit engineering, and opened up his own company, and eeks out a very meager existence as a self-employed photographer.

Reminds me of ....

Last edited by LoveNotHate on 13 Jan 2015, 1:45 am, edited 1 time in total.

We don't have to think in terms of cubicles. By a certain age, sitting and doing these types of things; talking on the phone, data processing, socializing rather than partying, appeal to people more than they did when they were younger so it seems logical that is the time to work, the only thing we need is advances to make everyone comfortable and to keep everyone on their toes mentally but work is supposed to keep people young. Older people are more respected too, so if you saw an older person working you are apt to mind your manners more, not blow your top so easily, so it would create better customer relations, too. People think older ones know more and are better able to handle things than younger so they don't have the attitude, oh that's just a kid what does he know?

It's a great idea to consider.

And a lot of times middle age is when people experience crisis that can result in bad vibes at work. maybe even firing them but if you just started your career then, you wouldn't fear losing everything by getting laid off or whatnot due to the fact you are aging and to make room for younger workers.

You must be very young to think this is a good idea. I am close to 50 and quite glad that every day I go to work I lose only the typical taxes and not nearly all of my paycheck to pay off a crushing debt I incurred in youth.

I had a tiny, mild taste of the lifestyle you are proposing in my mid 20's-early 30's via student loan debt. That is pretty common for everybody who paid for college entirely through loans, as I did. The saving grace was that I knew I would get out from under it in X years if I kept slogging along. What you are proposing is that people spend the rest of their lives working off the debt. You seem to be assuming that people in the 35-75 age bracket have such meaningless lives that they might as well spend them working long hours for little pay to work off an ancient debt. This is why I am guessing you are young.

Of course there are people who do just that. They get second mortages. They go as far into debt as a bank will let them. But this is usually on behalf of their children, to pay for education or health expenses not paid by insurance (or not having insurance!). Working to pay off a gigantic debt is a horrible way to live but is somewhat less horrible if it is on behalf of your children becuase then it feels like paying for the future, not the past, especially not your own past.

Revisit this idea when you are middle aged. Then you will understand the horror of it.

After you have earned it.You would.

It is a bad plan because it assumes that you will still be able to work when you are older, and that you haven't somehow "Skipped Out" on your debt when it comes time to start earning it.

Your plan favors only deadbeats, cheats, losers, slackers, swindlers, and anyone else who believes that Society owes them something just for having been born.

Addendum to my other post

The proposal not only underestimates the horror of working for little take-home pay with no chance of ever retiring, it also doesn't take into account the work best done when young.

Eric76 gave the example of startups. The proposal makes startups impossible since everybody is already pre-hired by the company that somehow subsidized this youthful spending spree and everybody owes their labor to the company that pre-paid for it. But suppose the youthful spending spree money comes from the government and so you owe the government money starting at age 35 (or whenever) but are not tied to a particular company. Still no startups. First, startups are risky and what happens if the startup fails and you are even deeper in debt? Also, startups really do thrive with youthful energy and optimism. If all the 27 year olds are surfing or hanging out in museums (or whatever), who is going to work the 80 hour weeks needed while coming up with innovative ideas on little sleep. The 47 year olds? You've never been 47, have you? Some work is mentally and physically easier when you are young.

Speaking of physical work, who is going to do that? It's possible for middle aged people to be strong (aghogday said he is more physically fit now than when younger) but it's a lot harder and takes more work. Not every job is a desk job. Should all our firefighters and construction workers be middle aged?

Currently in the U.S., our construction workers are middle aged on average. And this is not a good thing.
http://ohsonline.com/articles/2010/03/01/the-aging-worker.aspx

So you want construction workers(just as an example) to start their career just as their bodies are starting to go into decline. What happens when they get injured on the job (and they will) but they still owe the government/some construction company an enormous number of work hours? Unless you can figure out a way to make all construction automated(and I do mean all, including that guy fixing your roof), construction is just as dead as startups. An industry can't function if all of its workers are middle aged to elderly yet must do physically demanding work.

And what of firefighters? Cops? Think of all the jobs that aren't cubicle jobs and then think of the people fated to do them until they drop dead (because they owe the hours). Fifteen years of youth on the beach only to be flung into indentured servitude at a physically demanding job sounds like a scifi horror movie (which I would totally watch )
but not a good idea for a society to function.

You have to keep in mind, there are people who work their fingers to the bone daily and deserve a lot more money than they ever get for that only because of how the system is structured, the economic system.

Janissy,

Construction jobs need not be that difficult with automation and advances, and perhaps they should be easier? If older people did those jobs, maybe they would cause the jobs to actually be better jobs that are easier on human beings? There would be a boom in the automation industry spurred by older people in the workforce. I personally think this empowers older people. Once they are retired, people try to push them aside some but if they are working when they are older, we can no longer simply push them aside and focus on our needs. Everything would improve across the board for us in old age if we were still allowed a more active role in society imho.

We should question more instead of just accepting.

We are conditioned to believe retirement is always a good thing but maybe it's not so true? Maybe it's actually not good for people? Maybe everything would be better if we were allowed to work at later ages and the work force was primarily older? It would be an improvement?

Just think, if you were actually expected to have a career at an older age rather than younger, there would be no pressure to push people into retirement. Generally it's done for budget reasons, retirement is cheaper for an organization than keeping someone on salary so there's pressure put on the employee to retire at the earliest possible time, in some cases, mostly because they have seniority and they are taking a chunk of the organization's overall payroll budget, so the supervisors and managers think, how can we pressure this employee to retire so we can budget two younger employees for the same price as this one with seniority. It happens a lot and it's demeaning and difficult for who it happens to.

Then, there's this glass factory my Uncle worked at for something like thirty years or longer, not sure just how long, but quite a good number of years. They had many long term employees who were all approaching retirement age and they started working near when the plant first opened. Solution the company had? Close the plant. That would help them save money and it would mean the people working there would lose it. And since many of them had been working for so long, they had acquired decent salaries over the years so it would be cheaper for the company to force those salaries away and offer them only unemployment and pensions which are usually less than the salaries. Once someone is older, they are seen as expendable by companies.

Perhaps the most important realization of all;

Retirement is a major life change for anyone who undergoes it, especially people who are used to working a lot of hours everyday.

When suddenly, they are retired and are no longer in that routine, it is a very difficult thing with which to cope. A younger person is far better able to cope with disruptions such as this than an older person. As we age, it becomes more difficult to accept new ways. So we are depriving this stability and it might actually be unhealthy.

Dear gods, I hope you never gain any kind of political office with control over monetary policy.

This is obviously a job for 60 year olds while the 30 year olds sleep off their hangovers:

If someone doesn't start looking for a real job until they are in their 40s, there is no reason to hire them at all.

The executive staff at Facebook in ooOoOoOAnaOoOoOoo's alternate universe?

Last edited by eric76 on 13 Jan 2015, 2:02 pm, edited 1 time in total.

It would be discrimination to tell a sixty year old they can't take that. They have just as much right to do that kind of work as younger people if they choose. What gives you the right to exclude them or judge them, thinking all of them are fragile and not capable?

There are plenty of twenty year olds that could never do that kind of work, either.

See, you are trying to be the one who decides what they can and can't do. That's discrimination.

Your local fire department waiting for a fire:

I would NEVER hire a 60 year old to do that. Fortunately, most 60 year olds have enough brains to look for something they can actually do.

You don't seem to want to see older people at work. I don't know why. Do you realize, that is why so many are impoverished on social security, even? No one will hire them because they don't want to integrate them. They just want them to be out of sight, out of mind, even though they might not have enough money to make ends meet...

People don't generally value that which is given to them, but they do value that which they worked hard to earn for themselves.

Giving people money so that they can play around instead of working would only mean that it would be squandered.