Money is a claim on energy, materials, and/or labor. Given that none of these are growing more abundant (except perhaps labor, depending how hard you squint), it may not make sense to plan for the same retirement prospects as the currently retired generation. This is neither fair nor easy to accept but internalizing it now may save some pain later.
This is not to say one should accept injustice handed down from on high. There are some who will try to exploit contraction for their own short-term benefit at everyone else's expense. Be wary, and be prepared.
My current plan is to live with my parents as long as I need to to at least get out of debt, hopefully that doesn't take more than a year but yes you're not wrong. Of course that raises another question of who is going to accept a 70 year old cloud admin/devops engineer/whatever-it-is-in-40-years on their team when the time comes but hey, you never know.
> Given that none of these are growing more abundant (except perhaps labor, depending how hard you squint)
While that sounds obvious, itβs not necessarily true. Empirically the real price of many commodities has come down, even in the face of growing population.
> neither fair nor easy to accept but internalizing it now may save some pain later.
that's a bit of a defeatist attitude though.
I expect a better retirement than the current generation of retirees right now, and i expect to achieve that by purchasing as many assets as possible, while earning as much as possible, before i retire. Of course, one does not know what the future holds - so the method i am using may turn out fruitless.
This is not to say one should accept injustice handed down from on high. There are some who will try to exploit contraction for their own short-term benefit at everyone else's expense. Be wary, and be prepared.