RETIREMENT AT 70 - A NASTY PERSPECTIVE FOR MANY

GUEST POST by GIAN PAUL

The reason: empty coffers, miscalculation, incompetence, idiotic life-style and a few other reasons we are not being told. It's in the air, foremost in Germany, the rest of Europe by bits and pieces, even in Greece now. As well as in the USA, Australia, even Brazil, Chile and Argentina.

Who wants it? Some mostly "old crocodile - type" politicians. The same who for years knew that demographics, an unfavorable age pyramid, were a looming threat to comfortable retirement for the many. But as the topic is not popular, for fear of being associated with it, they kept it on the back-burner for too long. And thereby augmented the problem now at hand...

And politicians, by the nature of their ambition-distorted personalities, never retire, unless not re-elected. So to them, others can/should also work until death catches up with them or close to it. But no politician will say so, of course.

And then there are other reasons to keep people working ever longer, besides the empty coffers, public and private retirement funds. Here first the pros, then the cons of all this, astrologically as well.

Ever thought that if people worked for extended years, neither golf courses nor marinas nor tennis courts would be over-crowded during week-days? These facilities would then be exclusively available to politicians and their lobbyist friends.

Commerce can only benefit from people working longer. The Japanese with an important aging population know too well that once retirement sets in, many of their citizens buy "their last car", even "their last pair of slippers". But that's the Japanese. Or is it only them?

The health industry by a broad definition represents almost 30% of GDP. The more older people there are who are still working, the better their coverage by employers. And all sorts of excesses can thereby continue.

Ecology: Now that's a controversial issue; the amount of travel done by retirees is no doubt a polution factor. If most of them were working for some additional years, the environment would benefit, not Las Vegas and similar resorts.

On the negative side of working up to age of 70, hereafter the main points ( trying not to repeat what's already known ), but looking at links with astrology:

As a general rule, quasi - statistically, the human life - span is astrologically defined by Uranus, 84 years for a full cycle. This also coincides with 3 x 28 years for Saturn and almost 7 cycles for Jupiter or almost 1/2 cycle for Neptune. Amazing mathematics!

Even clearer, as most of us get there in good health and full consciousness, is the half - cycle of a human life, age 42. This is also an often critical moment in our lives, known as "mid - life crisis". Around age 42, Uranus makes it's first and only opposition to itself on one's birth horoscope, Saturn then is squaring itself
(28+14=42) and Neptune is also almost squaring on itself. More or less, depending on retrogradation of these planets at the time of birth. But the mid - life thing is very real, from 42 to 45, give or take a few years. "Astrology" sure shows it's full effect then for many people.

Most humans are at their best career potential at this stage in their lives. For parents, children then become adults, and some "affairs" sometimes set in - including the marital complications that go with it.

Age 56, or around that, appears to be a much more interesting moment in our lives than what happens at mid-point 42-45. It's a pivot-point for many. Saturn then is completing it's second revolution, Uranus trines itself and Jupiter is conjunct (more or less) it's birth position. Astrologically a mostly harmonious passage. From the point of view of life-experience, a moment of maturity, fulfillment but also
a favorable time for looking ahead on how to "organize" one's last third of life, including of course one's retirement.

This moment coincides also with the birth of grand children. Giving to this age a kind of generational perspective. And, important for many self-employed, it's a good moment for planning on the type of succession they wish for their businesses.

But it's a phase for everybody, not just the self-employed, where some decisions regarding the future need to be taken. That is under normal conditions, when retirement would be before and at the latest at 65. If retirement becomes mandatory only later, say at 67-70, the incentive for some serious planning for the age beyond retirement becomes seriously amputated. There then is not enough interesting
time-space left worthy of any planning other then "will play some golf or similar".

Extending retirement age beyond 60-65 will deprive people of organizing for a distinct goal for retirement, ideally starting at around age 56. If condemned at that moment to think that the then routine/occupation/stress will fatally last until "the end of my life", there is trouble ahead: It's actually stealing from our freedom by not permitting to add a different chapter to one's life. More of the usual but no hope for anything creative anymore.

More in defense of the individualists then the conformists, the right to creativeness is more important than relative greater security and financial comfort at retirement. Knowing at age 56 that for another 14 years or so one's current routine will more or less continue, is oppressive. It's about similar to someone, as often happens, who, living in a huge apartment block in a big city, goes on vacation in another big concrete structure somewhere on a beach, say from New York to Miami. Where is the charm?

For some (maybe many) people, the idea of having still a window open on another chapter to one's life, after retirement, is all important. Our professional life often drags us into some routine which by far is not felt ideal, even oftentimes adverse to our health. Enough reason that such conditions not be prolonged.



In today's world, the economic "dictat" has precedence over all the rest. Some nevertheless feel that that's wrong. And from an astrological point of view there are solid reasons to believe that retirement should be at around age 56. But not for when it's too late.

Only the exceptional person will still have the physical force and drive at a late stage in life to do something meaningful and new. When still young, we tend to ignore that "time gets so-to-say geometrically shorter as we progress in age".

Question: if all the goodies we produce can not provide this type of alternative, even by accepting to reduce our standards of living to some extent, what's the point in producing the goodies in the first place? They actually are not goodies anymore, but soon turn into their contrary. Creating more and more dissatisfaction. It's a difficult re-think the industrial world would have to do. Without it, however,
it's a nasty perspective, indeed.

PS. How many Germans are secretly not thinking that the Greeks are right? And why should they sell their most charming islands to also drive a Mercedes?