‘Too Little Too Late’: Bankruptcy Booms Among Older Americans

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Oh yeah, I forgot about those, senior apartments like the “villages” or “estates.” Personally, do you think many of those places are a good place to live life in one’s “golden age” or it is rather dependent where you go?

Ideally, we have adequate housing resources for our elderly and disabled and that facilities would serve as a good independent living or even assisted living communities for those in need.
 
RCIAGraduate said:
do you think many of those places are a good place to live life in one’s “golden age” or it is rather dependent where you go?
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It depends, not just on the location but the expectations and life experience of the individual senior citizen.

With some seniors, who spent the rest of their lives poor in crappy ghetto or section 8 housing, its an improvement. Takes some more getting used to for others who could no longer afford the cost of maintaining a large home.

In any case, they have staff that keeps an eye on the residents.
 
Pardon for highjacking this conversation, but Augustian, could you see yourself supporting more funding and programs to help establish these independent living communities (ideally loving and nurturing ones) for our elderly and disabled indigent/destitute/poor or its rather iffy? Do you see a huge need of communities like these, particularly in your own backyard?

In respect to the greater conversation at hand, personally in my quite judgement option, I feel Americans ideally ought to save but I understand it’s not always possible due to issues like stagnant wages and rising living costs. Also, a lot of people aren’t “lucky” for example, what if you were the type of worker, who gets a job, only to be laid off because of corporate downsizing and economic downturns, never settling or finding your footing? Not to mention other issues like medical problems and the like.
 
The need is decreasing for this kind of program around here- the older generation is dying off and my generation, the Baby Boomers are smaller around here after the Steel Collapse of the 1980’s.

Its difficult to say whether more funding is needed, because its not a single program but multiple programs for housing, medical, food, etc.

There is definitely reform needed. Right now, there are numerous “elder law” firms who advise seniors of the way to distribute their assets to qualify for help for the poor. This just seems wrong to me.

If someone is a senior with money, and they have to go to the nursing home, they should pay.
 
I’m not using poverty as a value judgment. I’m stating that relying on others to take care of your retirement is a bad plan, especially now with the removal of pensions and growing problems with Social Security. I get why people find themselves in this situation, and it’s not a judgment against them.

My issue with taxing people to cover this is that it would place a greater burden on everyone who is trying to avoid that same fate, and would make it more difficult to save up enough money to make sure they don’t have to declare bankruptcy later on in life.

There are also the growing problems in the medical industry that need to be addressed. Rather than being about healing, it’s about profit. Drug companies sell their products for well above production cost, and oftentimes well above reasonable expectation of profit (I’m looking at you, Insulin). Then, they push out anyone who comes up with a cheaper alternative. Add to that the fact that malpractice insurance and government involvement in healthcare have cause prices for everything to skyrocket, and we’ve created a system that is unsustainable at best. That’s why I like things like CMF Curo. If the health insurance from my company wasn’t so good, that’s who I’d be using. They help bring costs down by removing the red tape, negotiating with the companies, and just paying them outright.

Higher education is no better, and quite frankly I believe we should do away with it for everything except for the math, science, and medical fields. I went to school for architecture, but I would have been way better off if I had just spent those five years working for an actual firm as an apprentice / intern. (Granted, I wouldn’t have met my wife if I had, so I don’t regret it, it just wasn’t really necessary). Most disciplines would be far better off with an apprenticeship system than requiring college for four/five years, completely detached from the real world, all while causing students to build up massive debt it will take a lifetime to pay off…

There is no quick solution to these problems, and sadly for most of these people there won’t be a solution in their lifetime; but taxing everyone and making it more difficult for the younger generations to avoid the same fate is definitely not the answer.
 
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adgloriam said:
No, they should regulate mortgages.
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What kind of new regulations for mortgages would you suggest?

The Federal government has had a policy to pressure banks to make mortgages more available, yet that increases the chance of defaults and people getting “upside down”.
 
ProdglArchitect said:
My issue with taxing people to cover this is that it would place a greater burden on everyone who is trying to avoid that same fate, and would make it more difficult to save up enough money to make sure they don’t have to declare bankruptcy later on in life.

…

There are also the growing problems in the medical industry that need to be addressed. Rather than being about healing, it’s about profit…

Higher education is no better, and quite frankly I believe we should do away with it for everything except for the math, science, and medical fields. I went to school for architecture, …
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I’m not exactly with you on the taxation for retirement support. There are 3 basic strategies to retirement savings. Pensions (annuities), personal saving, and government benefits. The problem with pensions is that they are at the whim of the provider to properly manage. If your company happens to declare bankruptcy, your benefit are way at the bottom when it comes to creditors. Personal savings places the onus solely on you. Most people today must invest heavily in the stock market to meet their needs, but plenty of people have watched their investments crash just as they need them most. Government support feels bad to some people, but it’s also the most reliable baseline (note I’m saying baseline) benefit option in light of the previous ones.

I mostly agree with you on the medical industry, it’s profits are a big part of the problem. Malpractice is indeed another issue. Government involvement, I guess I put a little more faith in the political process than you. I really don’t think having good health care if you have a good job is fair nor you having bad or no insurance so you wait to the last minute and either show up in the emergency room or are in worse condition had you gone in earlier. The truth is if you have insurance, you are paying already for people who don’t. Hospitals can write off some people who can’t pay, but you know they have to make it up somewhere else.

I totally are with you on education. Many countries in Europe do what you are talking about. There are trade schools even for traditionally white collar jobs. It may also not sound fair to some, but you have to score high enough on your final school exams in order to get into college. Even then places like Germany have two tiers of university, ones that are more applied oriented (Fachhochschule, which I happen to have a diploma from) and full universities. This an the fact than these schools are no frills are how they make them virtually free.
 
PJH_74 said:
Government involvement, I guess I put a little more faith in the political process than you.
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Just to get this out of the way, as it will go a long way in explaining our differing viewpoints. I put literally zero faith in the government to manage anything beyond the military. I don’t care who’s in office, the minute the government gets involved it becomes far less efficient, and far more wasteful and unnecessarily bloated than it otherwise could / should be.
I’m not exactly with you on the taxation for retirement support. There are 3 basic strategies to retirement savings. Pensions (annuities), personal saving, and government benefits. The problem with pensions is that they are at the whim of the provider to properly manage. clipped for length
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The problem with this is that the government is only capable of providing these benefits by first taking other people’s money. It doesn’t produce anything itself, and has no way of generating revenue to cover expenses apart from taking it from people who are actually doing the producing.

We all have an obligation to support people in need, but that obligation should be exercised on the local, personal level. The government takes so much of my paycheck that I pretty much can’t afford to do any charity. That means that the money I would otherwise donate to the Church to help people locally is sucked up by the government and distributed wherever they think there’s a need. If the government would let me keep my money, I would be able to donate to people / the Church directly, which would save a lot by avoiding red tape and bureaucracy.
I really don’t think having good health care if you have a good job is fair nor you having bad or no insurance so you wait to the last minute and either show up in the emergency room or are in worse condition had you gone in earlier.
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I think having good insurance through your job is fair, and I believe that companies have an obligation to provide good insurance as best they are able. However, I also think that health sharing ministries like CMF Curo / Samaritain are the future, and are the only way most people will be able to get help if things continue on as they are.
I totally are with you on education.
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👍

I went to a trade school for drafting, and it did more good for my career than my entire college degree. I also had to teach myself the tools my profession was adopting because my professors refused to learn how to use them. Trade schools are the future. Hopefully, in time, we can escape the horrifically-bloated higher-education system we have in America, because I honestly can’t see how I’m going to be able to send my kid to college, even if I start saving now, which I can’t do because the government takes too much of my money >_>…
 
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adgloriam said:
The sort that were implemented after “sub-prime” should have been implemented before.
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That’s Monday morning quarterbacking.

The folks who came up with sub-prime mortgages didn’t force the bust.
 
In 2008, 2 Trillion was lost in the stock market and retirement savings such as that can never be recouped for persons in the age group we are talking about. Period!~ Someone mentioned the school of thought regarding subsidiarity. This would need to entail the assist of the federal government at this level of loss. You don’t send in the boy scouts when you need the national guard and that indeed is what subsidiarity is about. We are a nation about safety nets especially when youth and elderly are involved, and claiming bankruptcy which is the topic of this thread has never helped anyone especially when they will need to live from hand to mouth for 7 years. What a shame. Work all your life only to destroy your credit is hardly the answer.
 
DENNYINMI said:
In 2008, 2 Trillion was lost in the stock market and retirement savings such as that can never be recouped for persons in the age group we are talking about. Period!~
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It doesn’t matter what age group someone was in, but whether they needed to liquidate their holdings.

I was down a lot of money in the market in 08 and 09, and recovered it back and more in time. A lot of people freaked out and sold at the lows. The wise guys are the ones who were buying. I wasn’t that smart, but I was smart enough to hold on.
 
Augustinian said:
It doesn’t matter what age group someone was in, but whether they needed to liquidate their holdings.

I was down a lot of money in the market in 08 and 09, and recovered it back and more in time. A lot of people freaked out and sold at the lows. The wise guys are the ones who were buying. I wasn’t that smart, but I was smart enough to hold on.
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LOOK at the history of what happened at that time with Enron which started the ball rolling. The stock was frozen, there was no selling or buying, all persons could do was sit and watch and cry. Check out Lehman Bros. as well. This is about too little too late through no fault of what anyone did or didn’t do, especially being barred from activity.
 
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Is it just me, or do posts about those in need on CAF all-too-often sound like they have been authored by Ebenezer Scrooge…
 
DENNYINMI said:
LOOK at the history of what happened at that time with Enron which started the ball rolling. The stock was frozen, there was no selling or buying, all persons could do was sit and watch and cry. Check out Lehman Bros. as well.
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Enron wasn’t part of the 2007-09 fall, that came done in 2001-02.

If someone had all of their money tied up in Enron, or in Lehman Brothers- or nowadays in Penney’s and Sears (even though there isn’t a crash)- they took a bath.

But the vast majority of investors- even those who worked for Enron or Lehman- have diversified equities. Yes, they got smacked down, but the general market increased.
 
jesucated said:
Is it just me, or do posts about those in need on CAF all-too-often sound like they have been authored by Ebenezer Scrooge…
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Funny, they strike me as mostly being authored by Leon Trotsky…
 
Augustinian said:
But the vast majority of investors- even those who worked for Enron or Lehman- have diversified equities. Yes, they got smacked down, but the general market increased.
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But without as much time to recover as a 20 year old, it was more than a smack down. It hurt badly for many simply because of their age.
 
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