Bill Gates: Trust me, the world is really getting better, not worse

[HughBeaumont]

23. Far easier for someone sitting on an 11-digit net worth, no doubt.

As for the 85% of us that DIDN'T choose a layoff-proof path to well being?

The older "Baby Boomers" fall in a few financial categories; Retirement, but not a comfortable one, Near Retirement, but having to take care of their "Greatest" parents due to benefit cutting, or Unable to Retire due to their own ongoing medical expenses/kid's student loans/investments not panning out/general financial difficulties.

Generation X and the younger Boomers are in their earning years, but are now both wide targets for ageism-driven firing or automation (which, unlike the industrial revolution, takes labor OUT of the equation entirely). And good luck trying to get a job after 40. Or starting your own business when your competition is Amazon or WalMart and your potential customer base lacks discretionary income. Their spending is going to be halted at the slightest hint of corporate "rightsizing" or political tumult . . . say, for example, a cadre of labor-hating, tax-cuttin', social safety net-gutting billionaires taking over Washington D.C.

Millennials cannot buy big ticket items like homes, cars, appliances, etc. because they're already financing 1/2 to 3/4 of a mortgage for the crime of wanting to develop a skillset or an education beyond High School. IF they get hired in this shoddy job market, their pay is not even near what it needs to be in order to successfully pay their debts down and purchase products or services, let alone homes and cars.

For all of these groups, any social safety net that can assist them promises to SHRINK, not expand like it desperately needs to.

With each generation, how does retirement happen? How does the next generation get any sort of fiscal start?

Elizabeth Warren said this about health care, but this pretty much applies to life in America:

"Unless you are a multi-millionaire, you are not safe."