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I Want to Sell My Body: Practical Ways to Provide for Retirement
The underlying ethical problem is that as a society, we have allowed poverty for seniors to become normalized
There was a time in America where people worked hard their whole lives, and when their working life came to a close, they were rewarded with a decent pension, Medicare, and full Social Security at age 65. This was the reality for millions of workers for decades. This was the world my dad lived in.
Things Begin to Change.
In 1978, things began to change with the advent of the 401K. This new retirement plan became all the rage as America slid into the conservativism of the Reagan years. The 401K changed everything, even the language surrounding retirement savings. We began to hear terms like “investment tools” and “financial products.” Pensions were so 1960s. 401Ks were new. They were sexy. You were in control of your own money. You could take it with you. You could borrow against it. What was not to like?
Or at least that is the way they were marketed.
The problem, of course, was that in time the 401K replaced pensions in many businesses and many of the people who were now in a 401K plan had little financial literacy or savvy. In a pension…
