"Personal finance has come to substitute for the role government should play for people," observes Nan Mooney, author of (Not) Keeping Up with Our Parents [3]. "In the past 20 years the myth of the person succeeding on their own has gotten bigger and bigger. This myth is dangerous. It tells you if you can't balance everything and you are in debt, it is your fault."
So what I get from that is if I end up $20,000 in debt, it isn't my fault? I read this and was absolutely shocked. I couldn't believe what I was reading. It is absolutely crazy to me how much the climate in America has shifted. All of a sudden we have an economic downturn and personal responsibility is not possible and our financial system doesn't work? Financial guru's have never told us that the system is a get rich quick scheme. They've told us if you stay in it for the long run, you can retire with money. And this has been the case. The problem now are those that are close to retiring are now going to have to work longer, putting an even bigger strain on the system, creating job problems for a long time to come.
I recently read an article that was talking about how drastically the financial system has changed. It use to be that you'd work for a company for years and year, then retire with a 3 legged stool: pensions, social security, and personal savings. Those 3 were good enough to keep you afloat. Then came 401ks and the market system. Slowly people started adding this "third leg" to the system replacing savings. When companies saw the way the market was going, many did away with pensions and replaced them with 401ks. While 401ks are great, they were never really meant to be a primary source of retirement income because of the fluctuations in the market. Add the profitability of the market before the crash, and many bad funds were showing up and companies were offering them to employees. So not only did they take away a once essential leg of the financial system(pensions), but in the process they replaced it with a system that is set up with hidden fees and people trying to make a profit. Basically, a bad switch.
Sooo, where do we go from here? The job market isn't the same, workers aren't working for one company their whole life, so pensions aren't the answer. So what is? I'm not really sure. Social Security is failing... I doubt I get any of that money
