Will there be enough money for everyone?

However fascinating, I’d like to stray off the subject of rabid cats and dogs for the moment and talk about old folks. It’s official, for the first time in our history, seniors outnumber the young.

You might be asking yourself, so what? We all knew that the baby boomers were lurking in the wings, ready to descend upon our shrinking Social Security and ailing health care systems. I hope that our government, in its infinite wisdom, has prepared a plan to handle this onslaught, but I haven’t seen any evidence to that effect yet. Most will retire and collect Social Security to supplement their savings. By the way, how is that fund doing these days?

Old folks spend their money differently when they are utilizing their retirement dollars instead of a paycheck. In our infinite wisdom, we old folks have learned some pretty solid lessons over the last half century. We’ve paid into the system our whole lives and now we want some of our money back. Sounds fair, but will the money be there?

Will there be enough hospital beds, assisted living facilities, and support for these old folks by current new generations? How will they feel when more and more of their paycheck is taxed to support grandma and grandpa and the health care they will eventually need?

Our “feed me” government will, no doubt, sell some bonds or print more worthless money. There’s a lot of old folks out there … me included. This should be interesting.

LAURIE WADKINS

Priest Rive