• floofloof@lemmy.ca
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    8 months ago

    Why I should never retire: because I’ll starve on the street. Unfortunately I’m getting old enough that no one is going to want to employ me. So I guess I’ll starve on the street and serve as an incentive to others to work harder for the man.

  • electric_nan@lemmy.ml
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    8 months ago

    My parents have spent the decades of their retirements volunteering and helping their neighbors.

  • dylanmorgan@slrpnk.net
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    8 months ago

    Cruises and golf? What a shallow, sad view of retirement. My uncle goes to Florida in the winter and fishes off of various docks and camps, and spends time with his grandkids, and ducks around with gadgets the rest of the year.

    • Trainguyrom@reddthat.com
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      8 months ago

      When I worked at a bank I went to a work-sponsored golf outing and it was both way more fun and required way more physical effort than I was anticipating. I’m not going to go out of my way to go golfing again but I certainly won’t turn down an invite if I’m ever invited golfing again

  • MoonManKipper@lemmy.world
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    8 months ago

    There are a lot of bits of my job enjoy, when I retire I shall just putter about and spend some time doing those bits and get paid less money for doing it

  • WaxedWookie@lemmy.world
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    8 months ago

    What portion of the population do you think finds their job more fulfilling than the specific activities listed - let alone being able to spend your days as you please.

    …ohhhh - “We’ll make sure you can’t afford to do as you please, let alone survive, so you’ll have to work, but making sure the workers are responsible for it means we can keep our bullshit and economic vandalism up.”

    • InputZero@lemmy.ml
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      8 months ago

      Within the confines of the neoliberal-capitalist societies most of us on Lemmy reside in, only the most privileged get to have a fulfilling and well paying occupation. Totally agree with you. My take on the peice is that it’s parodying the notion that you have to turn a hobby or unique skill into capital even well past retirement.

      I’ve always believed that people desire an ‘occupation’, just something to do with your time. Anything a person finds fulfilling to do. I also believe that we’ve confused occupation with payed work and now the two are perceived as the same. Or maybe I’m nuts.

    • S_204@lemm.ee
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      8 months ago

      My stepfather was a managing partner at an accounting firm. He got bought out by one of the big guys.

      4 months after retiring he started consulting. He doesn’t need the money, he needs something to do other than golf and he has no hobbies.

      The kids want him to travel etc but he’s happier working… which is fucked in my view.

      • stoly@lemmy.world
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        8 months ago

        My father has retired multiple times. Then he keeps going out and finding new jobs like in real estate and making more money. My parents were very stingy with sharing, they spent all their money on random shit and properties that they’d then take a loss on. It’s really sad.

  • ZombiFrancis@sh.itjust.works
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    8 months ago

    “Pleasure cruises, golf, and tracing the family tree.”

    What the authors’ retired parents did while waiting for grandkids.

    A wild guess, but I’ll make it.

    • Benn@lemm.ee
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      8 months ago

      Economist is for sure a mouthpiece of the political class, but the Bartleby column is satirical.

      • rwhitisissle@lemmy.ml
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        8 months ago

        Gaslighting comes from the movie Gaslight (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaslight_(1944_film)). It refers to the practice of lying and manipulating someone into questioning their own recollection of events and general memory in order to cause them to doubt their own sanity, mental faculties, or perception of reality. This is not gaslighting because you are not being lied to about events that have happened. You’re being lied to to try and convince you to not do something that you should/would typically want to do for yourself. These are different things.

    • tegs_terry@feddit.uk
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      8 months ago

      It’s one of those terms people are so rabidly eager to use that any excuse will do. Look at what happened to ‘reboot’.

  • CaptainProton@lemmy.world
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    8 months ago

    Just don’t confuse wanting to work for having to work.

    My grandmother, who had been retired for 30 years, turned her music-writing hobby into a second career after my grandfather passed by taking on artists, getting involved with concerts, etc.

    I’ve met plenty of very old dudes in my hobbies of archery and shooting guns who are absolute masters and charge too little too profit or nothing at all for tuning, gunsmithing, and coaching.

    These have nothing to do with keep a roof over your head, and everything to do with staying sane when the expectation seems to be waiting around until you die

    • ryathal@sh.itjust.works
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      8 months ago

      Doing nothing for years is a good way to die younger. If you can turn a hobby into a 20hr a week “job” where you pick your hours, that can very easily keep you alive.

  • BargsimBoyz@lemmy.world
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    8 months ago

    To be fair, all of those activities sound like shit.

    If I’m retiring I’m playing games, reading, hiking etc.

  • Bobmighty@lemmy.world
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    8 months ago

    I’ve been ten years disabled to the point that I don’t have a job. My life has been more fulfilling in that decade than it ever was in my able bodied, over worked previous life.

    I take care of my household, I volunteer where I’m able to, I seek out new topics to learn just out of curiosity, and I have a heap of different hobbies I bounce between. Sure, I get bored sometimes, but it’s a much cleaner boredom than the kind I got at work.

    No way I’m the only one who can very much enjoy an unemployed life. That article is a bunch of bullshit.

  • تحريرها كلها ممكن@lemmy.ml
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    8 months ago

    One of the reasons I decided to leave the US. Yes, the Economist is British but the US has the same problem. I realized chances are I will never save enough for retirement, my 401k planner even says so. So I am moving back to the country that allowed my father to retire in his 50s. 10 years ago when I started working in the US I didn’t expect this outcome, and the longer I stay here the longer it will take me to improve my conditions.

  • AMDIsOurLord@lemmy.ml
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    8 months ago

    The Economist has not changed a single bit since the day Lenin dropped that qoute

    The Journal That Speaks for the British Millionaires