Mr Tambourine Man

Source: Decline of the Empire

It’s New Years Eve and traffic will be light today, so I’ll do my first Saturday oil report of 2012 next week on January 7th — Dave

It’s the end of 2011, so let’s take care of some unfinished business.

I am a Baby Boomer. That is not a badge I wear with pride. For 40 years now I’ve watched the dildos and douchebags I grew up with—can you say William Jefferson Clinton?—make a fine mess of things. And now those same self-absorbed, narcissistic fools are getting ready to retire. A little over half of them don’t have any significant savings for retirement, having spent everything during the 40-year Consumption Party. That situation did not improve much after Housing Bubble collapsed.

The generation that gave rise to Hula-Hoops, Woodstock and Jimi Hendrix is reaching America’s traditional retirement age this year woefully unprepared. As the oldest of the boomers turn 65, they face a retirement that is unlikely to go as smoothly as their parents’ did.

A poll released Wednesday found that a whopping 25 percent of people ages 46 to 64 say they have no retirement savings — and 26 percent have no personal savings.

Back in February the Wall Street Journal gave us Retiring Boomers Find 401(k) Plans Fall Short.

The 401(k) generation is beginning to retire, and it isn’t a pretty sight.

The retirement savings plans that many baby boomers thought would see them through old age are falling short in many cases.

The median household headed by a person aged 60 to 62 with a 401(k) account has less than one-quarter of what is needed in that account to maintain its standard of living in retirement, according to data compiled by the Federal Reserve and analyzed by the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College for the Wall Street Journal. Even counting Social Security and any pensions or other savings, most 401(k) participants appear to have insufficient savings. Data from other sources also show big gaps between savings and what people need, and the financial crisis has made things worse.

This analysis uses estimates of 401(k) balances from the end of 2010 and of salaries from 2009. It assumes people need 85% of their working income after they retire in order to maintain their standard of living, a common yardstick.

Facing shortfalls, many people are postponing retirement, moving to cheaper housing, buying less-expensive food, cutting back on travel, taking bigger risks with their investments and making other sacrifices they never imagined.

Not a pretty sight! These hippies were going to be the Generation That Changed The World. Well, they changed it all right. Sure did! The world is considerably worse in 2011 than it was when I was a teenager in the 1960s. And now these free-love, go-with-the-flow, kick-the-can-down-the-road, mantra-chanting, dope-smoking knuckleheads can’t retire because they have no savings.

Congratu-fucking-lations!

It is in that spirit that I give you The Byrds singing the uplifting Mr. Tambourine Man in 1965.

Hey Mister Tambourine Man, play a song for me
I’m not sleepy and there ain’t no place I’m goin’ to

That’s right — there ain’t no place you’re going to.

And then, in the True Spirit of My Generation, I give you William Shatner’s version.

Read more at Decline of the Empire