I have nearly reached the end of my patience with stories about people who are broke “due to the economy” and the fact that “middle class wages haven’t kept up” because, when you look closer, this is what you get (see below).  I’m not talking about hard working people that are doing everything right and they have health problems or they are trying to put food on the table for their children.  I’m talking about people like this …

From an Associated Press story called Markets Rebound But Workers Have Minimal Savings by David Pitt.

Tom Taormina is 65 and has no retirement savings.

The Virginia City, Nev., business consultant said it’s not for lack of trying. He and his wife, Midge, have tried to save and at one time invested in the stock market, but it’s all been depleted.

“We’re scrambling to make it through the next 20 years,” he said. “We’re doing everything we can to set money aside, but every time we do something unforeseen comes up.”

They’ve downsized and cut expenses. He no longer drives a leased Lexus and now sits behind the wheel of a 2008 Subaru Forester. He also brought in an investor on to help with his business, The Taormina Group Inc., a business consulting firm.

This man delusional.  It infuriates me because so many people are doing what’s right (working long hours, buying only what they can afford, and striving to become financially independent) and those people get a bad name because of idiots like this.

He and his wife have saved nothing – literally – nothing after 40 years of working, yet he has the money to drive a leased Lexus?  And to cut back, he goes with a 2008 Subaru Forester?  You all know that in the car department, I have no sympathy (having refused to buy one until I was in my 20’s and Aaron driving a 1993 Ford Escort with 150,000+ miles and no heating or air conditioning as we were saving to build our first company).  Everyone looks at the Jaguar now and wants to skip all of the work it took to get it.

Maybe We Should Go Back to a Pension System, Only Make It Portable

The old pension system invested in the same stocks and bonds that these people are losing everything in, the difference was the plans were managed by professionals and you couldn’t cash out of them, even if you were starving to death.  Later in the story, it tells of an advertising man that had to close his firm and liquidate one of his IRA accounts.  If he had been covered by a pension, that wouldn’t have been an option.  Human nature being what it is, guess what?  He would have made due.  He would have come up with the money somewhere else.

Maybe people really are so unbelievably, incredibly stupid that 401(k)’s should be outlawed in place on portable pension plans.  The markets had the same level of volatility but because you can’t “see” a pension plan asset balance on your account statement, you don’t think of the losses the same way.  It’s denial but it seems to make people happy.  These people are idiots, but they are apparently a significant portion of the population.

These people want to tax those like my Aunt Donna, who saved all of her life and didn’t go into debt, simply because they made bad choices and now think they should be able to stop working.  Bullsh*t.  I’m sorry, there is no other word in the English language the adequately encapsulates the sentiment. How is that any different than someone mugging her walking through the city at night?

My grandmother asked me, “So you think he should just starve if he can’t work?”  My answer to that is yes (even though I personally believe in charity and believe the churches and non-profit foundations should exist to help so that doesn’t happen).  This is because my life philosophy is that we should all have the freedom to make choices and live with the consequences of those choices.  I should have the right to become a drug addict and die young because of my foolish decisions.  I should have the right to have a nicer lifestyle than other people because I saved all of my money throughout my childhood.

Freedom is the right to make choices, not to be free from the consequences of those choices.

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