Why are retirees running out of money? Simple. Banks are paying next to zero for their savings. To make matters worse, since the interest payments on savings are so small, retirees are eating into their principle - money they spent their whole life saving - just to make ends meet.
This is one more example of the rich ripping off the poor, in this case the elderly poor. As inflation rises, their savings purchase less and less.
After 1971, the Federal Reserve Bank was allowed to print money. Printing money is the same as ripping off savers because each dollar printed devalues every other dollar in circulation - including your savings. Every dollar printed not only rips off savers but also rips off taxpayers because the interest on every dollar printed is paid for through taxes.
"Deflation is always reversible under a fiat money system." ~comments from Fed Chairman Bernanke on printing dollars. In other words, deflation is far more frightening than inflation. Today, the economy is deflating and the Fed is printing money to reverse it.
"Like gold, U.S. dollars have value only to the extent they are strictly limited in supply. But the US has a technology called a printing press (or, today, its electronic equivalent), that allows it to produce as many U.S. dollars as it wishes at essentially no cost. By increasing the number of U.S. dollars in circulation, or even by credibly threatening to do so, the U.S. government can also reduce the value of the dollar in terms of goods and services [inflation], which is equivalent to raising the prices in dollars of those goods and services." ~ Bernanke explained in a speech how far he'd go to save the economy, a few years ago.
In other words, we're willing to devalue people's savings to save the economy.
The rules of money changed in 1971. Today, we see the tragic results of that change. The tragedy shows up in the lives of people who are not only out of work but in many instances too old to go back to work. The tragedy is the erosion of their life's savings as inflation marches on.
