Long Beach, Ca.  Today I read a very interesting article from Kelly Greene about reverse mortgages:  http://online.wsj.com/article/SB119862780200649751.html  please check out this article in that it really shows the type of progress borrowers have been making with banks as far as discounting the principle loan amounts that have been made on their homes through the shoddy and questionable lending practises of the last four years.  It is another observations and acceptance of Americans taking reverse mortgages out just to survive...

As a practising mortgage broker in Long Beach, I have realized recently that the current financial system in the United States via the Social Security System for retired folks is completely inadequate for the sustenance of the Baby Boomers currently retiring on social security. ...both of my parents continue to work into their 70's and fortunate for them, they enjoy their work.  I have seen statistics that less then 25% of workers feel satisfied with their current jobs but that doesn't matter if you're 68 and have to continue to work to make ends meet or pay the heating bill.

I don't have the statistical chart but I read recently that 75% of working Americans retire on Social Security income alone.  This is a very scary situation considering:

A).   Social Security was never meant to adequately sustain anyone after retirement; furthermore, we have to ask ourselves what is really going to happen to our parents' generation as far as economic survival. 

B).  What are the true implications of a whole class of retirees betting on reverse mortgages as a way of getting through the "golden" years or should we say "tin" years of their lives?  Not to mention that the idea of passing down the family home or farm is completely been thrown under the bus...It means that everyones' blood sweat and tears are gobbled up by either the banks, the hospitals, or the retirement homes.  Hopefully enough family wealth will be left in America's estate to bury or even cremate its latest and greatest generation on its demise.  To me this is a terrible travesty of the modern age and banking, medical and governmental systems and begs the question:   Is America really still the land of the free?

With a current inflation rate adjusted to over 10% when the cost of food and fuel is included(the government does not allow these "volatile" price indexes to be included in the consumer price index of inflation, even though all we ever seem to spend money on is gas and food).  Our older generation will have to expect much less out of retirement and much more working before retirement.  It seems that when 70% of the GNP in the United States is based on consumer spending and that approximately 25% of that consumer spending in the past three years came from the equity in people homes; including the elderly, and that that equity has been tapped out in many cases thrusts America into a very dangerous situation.  If we can't continue to spend any  longer because we have already spent our equity on just plain surviving, what will the real future of this United States look like 50 years from today?

I would ask every American to start properly planning for retirement, from the time you graduate from high school.  Our system, seems to have been designed to impoverish us....Wake up America before it is too late.