It’s easy to see the retirement of the baby boomers in the decade ahead, and how Social Security and Retirement Income all come together in “lifestyle” and then ultimately death. That’s right. You won’t get out of life alive. In the end, there is an end. And for some, then comes eternity. An interesting thought for sure.
If you had a Great Park to look at, with a 2050 time horizon, how would you build it out brighter, smarter, more thoughtful to energy and water and even transportation? Do we have the creative minds to do it? You bet. California has been built around engineering, transportation and business. We do know something about oil, concrete and steel too. We are bright creative fun people living in delightful weather. How can we cash that check and help our State come up with better solutions that don’t discourage business and growth with too much regulations and taxation.
They promised us the Jetsons! How can we use monorail technology in and around Southern California? How can we have a system between LA and San Diego, and include Palm Springs and Las Vegas. We have the airlines, and they should be doing great. Travel and Lifestyle is always a number one goal for people, after they have security, food and the basics. Why have we made travel so “not fun?”
In my days in Europe in the 70’s traveling on an American Passport was like having “the gold card.” Americans had control of their people, and their data base, and they were a good country. Their currancy was solid, and the Americans were fun, smart and kind.
We could use that Patriot Card again now in our American Passport. The background check is a formal part of that process. It’s like applying for FAFSA and getting a PIN number so you can get financial aid for college kids. You are in the system already.
Now, do we all agree that beheadings are bad? What went on in Alcapolco was not good. Mexico suffers with a new kind of bully. We have had our own American experience with that kind of behavior, and we agree it is unacceptable. There actually is a LINE for behavior, and it is always up to debate. That’s why we have a Constitution, the Amendments, and The Bill of Rights and the Court System.
America has a wonderful INFRASTRUCTURE. 1950 was the year of my parents marriage. They had 5 kids during the next decade. We had wonderful Grandparents on both sides with a broad storke of European DNA. We were the “white” on the forms. Now we are the EuroAmericans, and you know who we are.
Social Security was designed in the 1930’s to be a safety net for society. In all honesty, you shouldn’t pull your benefit until age 65 at a time when life expectancy was 62. It was a pass thru funded system based on taxation of wages. I have my grandfathers original paperwork from 1937 in my office. It was like your “insurance policy” with America.
You pay in while you are young, and take back benefits when you are old, or disabled, or you die we have survivor benefits. They never dreamed we would have so many wives, and children, and live so long! We should be able to BANK hours of service to charitable causes while we are young, and then be able to draw from that same “charitable bank of hours” as an old person to be able to remain healthy and independent. Old people need good housing and good communities within which to live. Not die. But death is actually part of that whole process, and it can be planned for too.
Are you willing to look back and see where we were in 1900 with the Pacific Electric Trains, the growth of LA and suburbia and the opportunity to find “leasure time at the beach.” In the 1850’s we were trying to get to CA and survive too! By the 1950’s my parents were married in a nice back yard ceremony with an opportunity to make a life for themselves. In 2000 they had arrived at 50 years of marriage looking really good, with their kids in good order, their health holding up and enough money to have a great lifestyle. They had arrived.
By 2050 they will be gone, but their 5 kids produced 13 grandchildren, and the great grandchild count is nearing 10. They paid into the system and they left a whole string of others to pay into it too.
When we let the “immigrants” into the Social Security system, we undermined it because their lack of premiums through wages into the system put a huge drag on the system.
The other mistake we have made is in having Social Security be a pass thru system without actually holding the assets. If it held the bonds that funded the retirement villages we would live in some day, around a lifestyle that encouraged education, the arts, productivity and recreation, then we would have a society that boomers and others would want to be a part of. Baby Boomers would buy into a retirement story like that. Just look at how many people enjoy Mammoth area. Can we harvest that geothermal energy up there and use it for a retirement community? How can we be creative and come up with new ideas for our State of California? Highway 395 is the Motherroad, and the mining story all along there is great history from the 1850’s era.
Does a municipality really need to always run in the red? How could a city be profitable, and even own some retirement real estate for the community it represents? Can we have a layer of local social services that help take care of the “people” before the government steps in? How can we run our books smarter, and work to be profitable and accumulate assets, with all our education, creativity, technology and systems we already have in place? We can.
The 2020 Initiative is simply that. A “can do” attitude of America.