I had some victory that was just failure in deceit
Now the joke’s comin’ up through the soles of my feet
—From Springsteen and Lucky Town

The Philadelphia Inquirer has published an editorial by Maria Panaritis about the grim odds of Generation X making it through retirement without going broke.

The facts are sobering. Most of us have no money in savings. We won’t be able to collect Social Security until we’re 67 or older, and even then, it will be 76 cents on the dollar. All of this is documented in Panaritis’s article, which highlights the findings of Jack VanDerhei, a former Temple University professor who is convinced Generation X retirement is a doomsday.

You can read more about generational inequality via vanishing pensions, flattened wages, and inflated mortgages at philly.com. Excerpt:

Rates of return, as of February 2010, on equities-only 401(k) plans for three generations of hypothetical workers who began investing in 401(k)s when they turned 30:

Early baby boomer (50 years old in 1999) 9.20%
Late baby boomer (40 years old in 1999) 5.50%
Generation Xer (30 years old in 1999) 0.30%

Finally, while searching for an image for this post, I came across an interesting collection of images from around the globe that feature stockbrokers reacting to the market in late September and early October of 2008 when the jarring financial collapse. The pictures are from the United States, Germany, Kuwait, Korea, Japan, and Argentina. To see enlarged images of this set, visit Crisis Financeria by Flickr user artesmuestra.

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