Retirees could face poverty not seen since Great Depression

[Hortensis]

14. Well, U.S. had a NEGATIVE savings rate at times before 2008.

Negative, DK. On average as a nation, our personal savings were next to nothing or less than nothing--debt instead. 2008 did one good thing--personal savings rates have increased even as people are still hurting from low wages.

HOW to keep savings generally growing at an appropriate rate and from safe from devastating losses due to market swings is the question. Whether one should save and how to save are not.

My husband and I didn't save enough long enough, but that's no one's fault but ours. Sounds to me like you're also doing okay. After all, you have SS, a home, and an extra bedroom to rent out. I'm writing from a decrepit 50-year-old mobile home surrounded by marsh that we purchased for almost nothing (far from jobs, etc.) for snow-birding, but with full awareness that if we lost everything else, this could be our fallback.

As for "this Congress," almost half of it really does care, and I think it's incredibly foolish to tar them all with the same anger. After all, what we do not value and respect, we do not bother to protect. The terrible, stupid mistake so many made of choosing to think Democrats were as bad as the hyenas who took over the Republican Party is A HUGE PART OF HOW WE GOT OURSELVES IN THIS MESS. More pubs voted for their people than we did. NO EXCUSE FOR THOSE OF US WHO DIDN'T VOTE DEMOCRAT.

When the bastards on the right cut SS and other benefits, scream bloody murder, and next chance without fail go vote bloody murder--for people who believe in the need for government-assured retirement and healthcare programs.