<p>I’ve never had an espresso before. We have a machine somewhere in the office and I should go and find it someday.</p>
<p>You can get chocolate without the sugar which cuts out a lot of calories. The fat and protein would be good for a low-carb diet. It would also contain a lot of fiber. I usually go for dark chocolate when I have it. I tried unsweetened but it’s too tough, even for me.</p>
<p>When I worked in a cardiology ICU, I lost count of the number of patients I had with heart attacks who had recently retired. Many of them had all sorts of wonderful plans for travel or pursuit of hobbies, only to be sidelined or killed by a heart attack shortly after retirement.</p>
<p>“I’m not sure that it was a deliberate hoax but unemployment rates for STEM majors aren’t trivial and there are many STEM majors in jobs where they aren’t using their education.”</p>
<p>Well, I’m sure it is a deliberate hoax, and a way to drive down wages, while at the same demonizing public education (and preparing for privatization). If you look at the cast of characters (the foundations and think tanks) that perpetuate the hoax, it becomes very clear.</p>
<p>I work with an engineer that must be over 75, and many people have stayed on as contractors after retirement. A bit less common now, the company has had a downturn.</p>
<p>As for my husband, he is aware of his health risks, and chooses to ignore them, just like his mother did. Her poor lifestyle choices manifested themselves in her mid 60’s with cardiac<br>
issues and type 2 diabetes. Which progressed to heart and kidney failure in her early 70’s. She died at 75, after several years of H and his sister being her caretakers.</p>
<p>I’ve already told H that if he doesn’t take better care of himself, I’m going to put him in a nursing home when the time comes. I’m kidding, kind of , but very exasperated .</p>
<p>I don’t really pay a lot of attention to foundations and think tanks but I do look around to see how hard it is to find people to work in our area. Our problem is that we do very specialized work and hiring people that have done research work in our area has worked out a lot better than hiring good people that don’t know our area of expertise.</p>
<p>I think that STEM is still a good area if you pick a subspecialty that is in demand or you have good contacts or your school has good contacts but the unemployment rates for recent engineering grads at around 7% indicates that it’s not a slam-dunk.</p>
<p>That’s a problem that a lot of couples have. The general experience is that there’s not much you can do to convince another spouse to take better care of them - it’s something that has to come from within.</p>
<p>We just hired a substantial number of people where I work to backfill people who left. We have at least 8 people over 70 years old that are still “working” - because they are there I could not hire 8 young people. </p>
<p>They are not retiring because they would be bored. I tell their boss to make them work because they should not find coming to work more relaxing than being retired. Their bosses try to tell me but they try, they do not feel well, they have been here a long time. I say tell that to the young emploee who can not get promoted because they have the job title but he/she must do the work for them. Tell it to the kid we could not hire but has student loans to pay. I do not care if they are 100 if they do the job but in reality at a certain point they can not do the work any longer. Last year i had to talk a 92 year old into taking a demotion so I could promote a young person. He finally retired but wanted me to hire a relative in his place as a condition. Sorry the answer was no.</p>
<p>Where I live, the English majors can find work. Biology majors? Starbucks if they’re lucky. Some try to go back to nursing school, but getting into our community college nursing program still makes H. look like child’s play.</p>
<p>I hadn’t thought about working in my 90s - we’ll have to see what my fitness and mental acuity levels are like. My mother had to retire in her late 70s or early 80s because of a workplace injury in her 50s that got progressively worse. Her mind is still reasonably sharp though.</p>
<p>This talk reminds me of the older person in the indian village that would just walk up into the forest, sit down against a tree and just stayed there until they died.</p>
<p>The generational conflict issues seem to cover several areas besides my focus on inflation/deflation aspects as seen in Kondreytieff Waves.</p>
<p>Once again I find myself in the minority position here in cc. While still a teenager, I came across what seemed like a self-published booklet named How to retire at 45 at a Toronto bookstore. That was where I first came across terms like retirement savings plan, mutual funds and the like. It was an eye-opener and I thought at the time a worthy goal to have.</p>
<p>I forgot about the booklet until I started working full-time years later. By then I fully understood the concept of learn, earn and yearn, and just need to get up to speed on investing </p>
<p>By the time I was 47 I was financially ready to go but decided to stay a little bit longer. Thinking back, I believe anyone with enough discipline, and worked from 1975 to 2000 can make it happen; there was never a time in history where the market moved up so much in so short a time frame.</p>
<p>I would not worry about having nothing to do in retirement. My life is as full as it ever was, but now I do have the flexibility to do what I want when I want. It gives me the time, for example, to take Mrs. Canuckguy traveling, something I promised her when the children were young. In short, it is the best job I have ever had, and I have no regret leaving work at age 50.</p>
<p>It’s pretty tough for biology majors out there. Daughter of a friend that just graduated with a bio degree is working at the local Gap Store. My son’s organization is hiring bio majors but I imagine that they are pretty picky and I’d guess that lab techs aren’t paid very well. One of his friends from school works there as a lab tech and has a part-time retail second job to make ends meet.</p>
<p>It’s unfortunate given the amount of effort required to get a STEM degree.</p>
<p>I am 65. I was just hired. I retired from my last job. My parents lived almost to 100 and retired at 60. They had almost 40 years of retirement and loved it. I love my new job. It is part time but all benefits. I am part of my family team including many young people. We work together. That is what counts.</p>
<p>Secular bull market. Makes anyone look like a genius.</p>
<p>Of course you might be aware of what happened after 2000. Perhaps you can understand better why many continue to work after the traditional retirement age. Some of us did pile into precious metals and energy stocks in 2000 and 2001 after selling our tech stocks but I’d guess that we were in the minority.</p>
<p>For many, working past retirement age has nothing to do with money. My previous manager is now an individual contributor and has multiple pensions, a new house, newer cars, and a political and journalist life. He had planned to retire a while ago but my new manager and his previous manager convinced him to stay on part-time.</p>
<p>this, of course, is a common misreading of statistics. Adults lived on to much of the same ages we do now. Almost all of the life expectancy differences comes from child death rates, including common diseases now vaccinated against. The elderly lived to much the same ages as we do now. (This is a less extreme version of the assertions I’ve heard that in past centuries, 50 was old. no, less people got to old age, but old age was old age at pretty much the same time. We just have more basic preventions, like penicillin and vaccines.)</p>
<p>dstark- about 8 government workers and several supervisors. I do not expect them to be treated any differently than their co-workers because of their age. No better or worse. At their age if they can do the job fine but they need to perform. The supervisors need to get past their age and document their non-perfomance.</p>
<p>Do you have a source for your assertion? I had a look at the CDC page on mortality and they provide a range of reasons for longer life expectancy.</p>