Retirement - thegoodwills.com

(Official White House Photo by Adam Schultz) Wikimedia creative commons

Perhaps it is the circles in which I travel, but of late it seemed to me every person who thinks deeply about life had one thing to say about the USA: How is it, in a country of 336 million people, that Joe Biden and Donald Trump are the only candidates for president? * (There’s also a Kennedy offspring, whose name escapes me, who plans to run. Ed)

This rhetorical question became academic after President Biden’s selfless decision in June to step aside and not contest the November election. Maybe nobody else noticed, but Biden flagged this about a day before it was revealed he had Covid (again). “If a doctor tells me to, I will step down.”

FYI Ronald Reagan said the same thing when pressed about his age and his health.

Not so much a promise but to keep the media guessing.

And the world’s media sent packs of journos, analysts and photographers to the US to provide a running commentary (interspersed with cunningly edited faux pas from the debate the Democrats would rather forget).

It was clear that Joe Biden’s 64-year career in politics was coming to an end, as the inevitable ageing process caught up with him. Let’s not forget President Biden’s steady hand as Barack Obama’s vice president from 2009 to 2017. But he was becoming frail, and something had to happen.

Collectively, we kept waiting for an Obama or Kennedy-like personality to emerge from the pack. There is Kamala Harris, a black, female Vice- President whose media profile was below the fold, as they say. Biden’s decision to endorse her as the Democrats candidate will change that exponentially. Regardless of reports that Harris has fumbled various tasks allotted to her, she is a 59-year-old, well-credentialled lawyer who has been in the White House for nigh on four years. If Harris wins the election and becomes President, she will be 64 next time round and hopefully will have a younger deputy by her side.

But should this debate really be about age or disabilities?

Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR) served as the 32nd president of the United States from 1933 until his death in 1945. He was not only the longest-serving US president, but he was also the only president to serve more than two terms. This was despite being confined to a wheelchair and relying on leg braces for mobility. Roosevelt developed polio aged 39 and spent the rest of his life running the US from a wheelchair.

Donald J Trump, who can walk unhindered, is a political naif compared to FDR. Trump stands out for unpalatable precedents, including surviving a court challenge that pending criminal charges should disqualify him from running.

A scrum of judges, when asked should Donald Trump be granted immunity from prosecution, answered ‘some’. Or at least that was the word headline writers grabbed from a lengthy judgement. As some wag posted on social media when this was announced: ”So the American Revolution was for nothing”.

According to the official White House bio, Joe Biden, 46th President of the United States, ran for the White House on a platform which said he would “restore the Soul of America, rebuild the backbone of America – the middle class – and unite the country”.

Did he in fact do as he promised? Furthermore, as a rising 82-year-old, could he promise more of the same for a tenure which would have seen him celebrate his 86^th birthday in office?

My research unearthed only one other candidate who led a major western country aged in his 80s. William Gladstone won a UK election in 1892 aged 82, resigning two years later. He was, however, PM on three other occasions (1868–74, 1880–85, 1886), all packed into a 60-year career in politics.

Point being, Donald Trump is no Gladstone.

Talk show hosts, comedians and lefty social media influencers pounce on any nonsensical utterance from Donald Trump. He’s an easy target but (a) he doesn’t care, (b) he can work a crowd), (c) he’s a salesman whose pitch attracts those who share his views and (d) he doesn’t care.

There was much conjecture about Biden’s mental acuity, not much of it from medicos, I might add.

Surely this was the main reason Democrats and ageist people alike wanted Biden to step down. They’d been calling it long before the debate debacle with Donald Trump.

There has also been similar speculation about the mental fitness of former president Trump, who comes to the campaign with a lot of baggage. This year Trump turned 78. If he wins the November election he will be 82 at the next election (though he recently told Christians to ‘vote now and you’ll never have to vote again’).

As with many things Trump says, that is open to interpretation.

The long (too long) televised debate left Joe Biden under the spotlight long enough for his emerging vagueness to become obvious. His faltering gait, especially when climbing up to the Presidential jet, a more than obvious sign of ageing (or underlying health condition).

In Biden’s defence, his long battle to overcome a stutter could explain his faltering speech patterns. Moreover, his decision to stand down indicates he is still capable of wise decision-making.

From a Down Under perspective, it is clear we don’t like old people running the country. The oldest person to be appointed Prime Minister of Australia was Sir John McEwan. He was 68 when appointed to a six-week caretaker role after the disappearance of sitting PM, Harold Holt.

The oldest person ever to serve as Prime Minister of Australia was Sir Robert Menzies, who left office one month and six days after his 71st birthday.According to www.australianpolitics.com, 9 of 31 Australian PMs took office aged in their 50s. McEwen, William McMahon and Malcolm Turnbull all took office in their 60s, but none were the result of an election. McEwen was a stop-gap PM after Holt disappeared; McMahon and Turnbull overthrew their predecessors.

The youngest PM lasted only four months. Chris Watson (ALP) took office at the age of 37. Of all our PMs since Federation, only 9 were younger than 50 when appointed.

Compare this with the USA, where 12 presidents got the keys to the Oval Office aged 60 or older, and four of them (Biden, Trump, Reagan and George Bush), were between 64 and 78 when sworn in.

From my perspective as an elder, the weeks and months of people urging Sleepy Joe to go revealed a clear bias against older people as no longer being capable of holding down serious jobs.

There is no official retirement age in Australia (apart from judges who must stand down at 70 and Catholic priests, who can work until they are 75). The Age Discrimination in Employment Act forbids employers from forcing their employees to retire.

Much of the desire to retire revolves around when you qualify for the age pension (in Australia this is now 67).

An ABC report in 2023 cited Census statistics that showed more than 65,000 Australians in their 70s worked full time (3% of that age group). The 2021 Census also revealed that 5,200 people aged in their 80s worked full-time. About double that number worked part-time.

Our cohort continues to slave away when they should have their feet up, primarily because of punitive social security and tax systems, and/or personal circumstances.

We’ll get our chance next year to pick the (relatively young) politician who promises to do most for the disadvantaged. It won’t happen of course, but we will hear lots of promises from Peter Dutton (55 in 2025) and Anthony Albanese (62).

Domestic events aside, the US election in November is the most crucial since Nixon faced impeachment. It means a lot to Australia to be able to work with a capable, cogent, energetic leader and Kamala Harris seems to fit the job description.

The US media appears to have allowed Harris a brief honeymoon but do not think it will stay like that. It won’t.

Now that we have your attention, perhaps you could advise us what to do about our modest portfolio of shares, the value of which, in line with the rest of the Australian share market, is down 20% from April last year. Retirees tend to be more jittery about share market gyrations than your high-earning 30-somethings who have another 30 or so years to remedy the situation.

She Who Has Been Telling Me To Sell Since April says the solution is to report the diminished value of the portfolio to Centrelink and our part-pension will part-compensate. In response, I wait for the market to bounce back. Methinks the cat is dead.
“Now is the time to buy more of the same shares cheaply and lower our unit cost average,” I opine. (“Idiot” I hear someone say from the other side of the hedge, where we are doing our own trimming due to a lack of cash to hire a robust young person).
Veteran Queensland property developer Archie Douglas gave me some unsolicited advice at my “going away party” at a Brisbane hotel, circa 2005. Friends from my place of employment and city business people who had a grudging respect for me came along for drinks. I was 56 and had opted out of the mainstream media in pursuit of a calmer life, more music and more independence. We had some drinks, there was finger food and I got up on stage and played a half-dozen songs.

Time to smell the roses
Archie, who was 60-something then, backed me into a corner and told me about the dangers of letting the R-word creep into my consciousness. He urged me to never stop working, in one form or another. If I was fed up with what I was doing, step back, have a rest, then jump back into something less stressful and more suited to my temperament.
So advised, I set up one of those consultancies, you know, Bob Wilson and Associates Who Cannot Be Named. The first two years went really well; we got more work than we actually wanted, so in the third year downsized a bit. Just in time for the Global Financial Crisis. Timing, Bob.
Archie’s been good at jumping into something else. He and his brother Gordon, who founded PRD Realty (now Colliers International), started Halcyon, a property development company which creates over-50s communities on the Gold Coast, Sunshine Coast and Brisbane’s fast-spreading northern suburbs.
Although he’s chairman, Archie doesn’t have to go into work (unless he wants to). “I have the time to do the things I want to do,” he said, while agreeing with me that the notion of retirement had changed, probably for the better.

The closet songwriter emerges

When I first ‘came out’ as a singer-songwriter at my 50th birthday, a few of my business acquaintances were perplexed.
“It must be good to have a hobby,” said one.
“There’s no money in it, is there?” asked another.
“Do you get royalties?” asked another.
Seventeen years later, I can answer all of those questions. Yes, it’s great to have a hobby and work at it as part of your day job, to wrap it inside your consulting business and make it official. Is there money in making music? A better question might be “how do you value making music?”
Blood pressure’s spot on, cholesterol not bad at all for a man who could afford to lose a few kilos, no heart problems, no diabetes, no outbursts of nuttiness as long as I take my ‘nutty pills’. Time has become my currency.
Not that the world in general needs to know, but I earned more in royalties than CD sales in 2014. That’s not to say CD sales have been that bad, I’ve been lucky to have songs included on compilation CDs with national and international distribution. A few people even cover my songs. It’s what you’d call an emotionally charged, passive investment.

Eighty is the new 65

There is a growing anti-retirement chorus, notably from former Victorian Premier Jeff Kennett. Some politicians have been urging older people to ‘stay in harness’ as a means of pushing the retirement age out to 70 or beyond, thus deferring the evil day when the state lurches into unsustainable deficit.
The discussion about retirement and whether it is an irrelevant concept has a lot to say about the collective perception of work and the value of work. Whose contribution to the good of the community is more valuable − someone who earns $100k+ advising corporate clients on communicating with their public, or the busker who puts a smile on people’s faces and mows lawns when he needs to pay the rent?
I was steered into this subject via a couple of people I know who ‘pulled the pin’ after working full-time into their early 70s. My advice to older people who want/need to keep working past 65 is to negotiate a four-day week; a rest day, a weekend, and they’ll pay less tax. It should go without saying that people who are still working and earning at 70 are (a) good at their job and (b) either have obligations to their clients that go well past earning an income, or (c) want to stave off the inevitable day when they will have to go home to an empty house, or to a distant partner who has become used to a day-time routine without the other half of the relationship.
Over the past decade I have come to perceive retirement as leaving your paid employment in search of alternatives, which is what Archie was advocating. The main risks for someone leaving the job they have been doing routinely for the past 25-35 years are the loss of social networks with workmates and acquaintances, the loss of a daily routine and the risk to your primary relationship which can happen when the previously absent partner is underfoot, 24/7.

And a word from Citizen Jeff
Jeff Kennett, who visited much rapid change upon Melbourne and Victoria in just seven years, has strong opinions about retirement.
“Retirement equates to death,” he opined in the Herald Sun in 2011. “One of the great lessons of ageing and witnessing ageing is the impact that retirement has on so many people, particularly men.
It can be deathly. I shall never retire.”

Many men are not properly prepared for retirement, he wrote. “You can only fish or play golf so many times a week.”
Kennett observed that as people advanced into retirement they often became less interesting. Their interests narrow as their interaction with work colleagues lessens, along with their interest in current affairs.
Kennett, chairman of the depression initiative BeyondBlue since 2000, is right insomuch that many men, particularly those who have held senior positions in government or private enterprise, feel lost when their networks are severed. The struggle with relevancy can be acute for people who have held positions of power and/or were held in high public esteem. They become the “Paul Who?” of a sarcastic song I wrote about the cult of celebrity.
When I left the orthodox workforce, people urged me to “keep up your contacts – stay in touch”. But as the years slid by it became apparent I did not have much in common with people still locked into high-stress careers and office politics.

Archie, we have smelt the roses and they smell just fine.

Tag: Retirement

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