Today is Your Financial Independence Day

Over two centuries ago, on the 4th of July 1776, Americans declared their independence from the British empire. This 4th of July you can declare your independence from the Wall Street empire.   Just as only a small portion of the American population gained true independence on that fateful day 223 years ago, (the majority of the population was comprised of poor white indentured servants, black slaves, and ethnically cleansed native people who would not receive their independence for centuries to come) today the vast majority of Americans are financial wage slaves of Wall Street.

Only a very small minority of Americans in the year 2009 enjoy financial independence.  The rest spend their entire lives toiling away as wage slaves to support the Wall Street empire, working many years longer than necessary, filling the coffers of the empire with additional income from fees and commissions.  Wall Street uses an army of financial planners, 401k administrators, and lobbyists to insure that Americans will never achieve financial independence.  Wall Street owned magazines and newspapers print financial propaganda, a mixture of fear, greed, and distraction, that keeps workers worried, unsatisfied, and confused.

However, the main weapon used by the Wall Street empire, to deny Americans  their financial freedom, is the formula for calculating retirement savings needs.   Retirement is financial independence, the point at which you no longer have to work, to financially support yourself.

Used for generations by tens of millions of working Americans, the Wall Street formula for calculating retirement savings needs, over-estimates the amount of savings needed to retire, forcing Americans to work many years longer than necessary.  And by design, the formula makes it nearly impossible, for  average working Americans to achieve financial freedom.

The Wall Street formula uses a percentage of a worker’s salary to calculate their retirement savings needs.

Retirement = 80% of Salary

The Wall Street formula guesses that a worker will need to be able to spend the equivalent of 80% of their current salary every year in retirement.  The 80% part of the formula is an over estimation. The salary part is used to keep you in wage slavery.

The only purpose in using a person’s salary in the formula, is to punish Americans whenever they get a pay raise, using their salary to keep them in wage slavery.  Every increase in your salary, using the Wall Street formula, increases the amount of savings you need to retire.

The truth is that the amount of savings you need to retire, the amount of savings you need to achieve financial independence, is not determined by your salary.  The truth is how much you spend in retirement, determines how much savings you need for retirement, and when you can achieve financial independence.   And since you control how much you will spend in retirement, you control how much savings you need for retirement, and when you can retire.

You are in control of your financial independence - Wall Street uses your salary to control you.

Millions of working Americans are in a position to be financially independent right now, or with a few lifestyle changes, could achieve financial independence much sooner than they ever imagined.  Becoming financially independent is a simple three step process:

3 Steps to Financial Independence:

Step1 - Determine how much you need to spend
Step 2 - Calculate how much savings you will need
Step 3 - Save towards financial independence

Step 1
Determine how much you need to spend, to support you and your family, when you stop working.  And remember, the less you spend in retirement, the less savings you need, the sooner you will become financially independent. You need to create a retirement budget. Check out our retirement budgeting software, that makes planning and maintaining your retirement, simple and easy.

Step 2
Calculate how much savings you need to become financially independent.  How much savings you need to retire is determined by how much you plan to spend when you retire.  You control how much you will spend in retirement, therefore, you control how much savings you will need for retirement.  The less you spend in retirement, the less savings you will need for retirement, the sooner you can become financially independent.  Use our free retirement calculator to find out how much savings you really need to retire.  It’s a lot less than you think.

Step 3
Once you know how much savings you need to become financially independent, begin saving as much as you possibly can to reach your goal of financial independence, and remember, you can always reduce the amount of savings you need by reducing the amount you will spend in retirement.

Using the Green Retirement Planning formula and method, enables you to retire with less savings and many years earlier, by calculating the positive impact living a green lifestyle has on your retirement savings needs.  For instance, if you decide to give up your car in retirement, you can retire with $180,000 less in retirement savings.   How many extra years of working will it take you to save an extra $180,000?  Give up your car before you retire, use public transportation to commute to work, and after 20 years of investing the savings you could have an additional $400,000 in retirement savings.

Going Green, conserving your financial resources, is the key to financial independence. Wall Street has Americans hooked on a lifestyle of consumption, that is damaging to the environment, and to your retirement.  Using your financial resources to destroy earth’s natural resources,  and in the process, placing generations of American families in debt.  Families who owe more than they own, who can never become financially independent, who can never stop working.

Visit the Green Retirement Planning Website to learn how to become financially independent.

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Suggesting that taxes may need to be raised, on the the wealthy and perhaps on benefits, in order to pay for the health care plan.  President Obama is meeting real resistance in Congress, that may end up scuttling his desire to pass real health care reform during his administration, perhaps setting back health care legislation for another generation.

For the cost of two unnecessary wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, that neither the people in those countries nor the American people want, President Obama could have his health care plan without the need to raise taxes. Yesterday, the Iraqi people celebrated with marching bands and fireworks, as 130,000 American troops withdrew to bases outside Iraqi cities.  And today in Afghanistan, the U.S. Marines turned into the D.E.A, when 4,000 troops invaded an Afghani province to wipe out poppy farming.

The direct cost of these two unpopular wars is $80 billion per year - the indirect costs are much higher.  Simply by ending the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, every American man, woman, and child, could have health care at no additional cost.  And if the U.S. reduced it’s military budget by another $100 billion per year, by getting rid of bases we don’t any longer need in Europe for instance, the American people could have health care at no cost at all.

So, when you hear the debate over health care take place, and hear experts and politicians claiming that the nation can’t afford health care, can’t afford to raise taxes during a recession to pay for health care.   Send them a note and tell them “Yes, we can. Yes we can afford health care.  What we can’t afford is war.”

Here is a Green Retirement reason for national health care.  If the U.S. had cradle to grave national health care for all it’s citizens,  Americans under the age of 65, could retire with $150,000 less in retirement savings.  Try the free retirement calculator at the Green Retirement website and find out how much savings you really need to retire.  Traditional retirement planning overestimates your retirement savings needs by hundreds of thousands of dollars, forcing you to save more and work longer than necessary, damaging your retirement and the environment.

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Two year ago, before the economic collapse, I wrote an article titled “Retire Now or Never.”  Since that time, Americans have lost over $10 trillion of their net worth, and many individuals chose to delay their retirements in hopes of recovering their retirement savings.  While the stock market and housing values have not regained their previous highs, the recent rise in stock prices and the bottoming of the housing market, is an opportunity for you to lock in the gains and retire.

If you are greedy, and further delay your retirement in hopes of completely restoring your previous net worth, you may end up missing your last chance at retirement.  The idea that you will achieve the net worth you enjoyed, when the housing market and stock market were at the peak of their credit induced artificially inflated bubble values, is both a foolish and dangerous gamble with your retirement savings.

Their is good reason to believe that the current recovery in the stock market, and the bottoming of the housing market, is artificial as well.  That the recovery we are currently experiencing, has been produced by massive government stimulus spending, and historically low interest rates.  Neither of which can be sustained in the long run, and may only have the effect of producing a short-term recovery, followed by another large drop in the stock and housing markets.

Right now the U.S. Government is printing money, to buy U.S. Government debt, to pump money into the economy.  The Federal Reserve is robbing Peter to pay Paul.  At some point it will have to stop.  At some point a choice will have to be made by the Federal Reserve and the Treasury.  A choice between hyper-inflation or very high interest rates.  Either way, when the time comes, you will pay the price.  Both outcomes will have a negative impact on both the stock and housing markets.  So why wait?

Visit the Green Retirement website and try the Free Retirement Calculator, find out how much savings you really need to retire, and use the Green Retirement method to create a retirement plan.  Green Retirement enables individuals to retire with less savings, and years earlier, than is possible with traditional retirement planning.  So, even if you were hurt by the economic collapse, you may discover that you still have more than enough savings to retire.

Also Read: Retire in a Recession

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San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom, in presenting the City’s $6.6 billion budget for the coming year, announced an additional 1,600 San Francisco City employee layoffs.  This is in addition to the San Francisco City layoffs that have already occurred.

Since before the first San Francisco City layoffs were announced late last year, I attempted to help the City of San Francisco avoid layoffs, by offering the free use of Green Retirement to identify which of the City’s employees were in a position to retire.   Employees should be attending retirement parties instead of pink slip parties.

I contacted Mayor Gavin Newsom’s office, David Chiu, the SEIU, San Francisco Unified School District, in a futile effort at preventing layoffs.  It is obvious that the politicians and bureaucrats are not interested in stopping layoffs, that the loss of jobs is being used, by various interest groups to enhance their own power.  And it is obvious, that I am not going to be successful, in sparing  City employees from being laid off.

Therefore, I suggest that all San Francisco city employees that have been laid off, or that are facing layoffs visit the Green Retirement website and try the free retirement calculator.  Your layoff may be a blessing in disguise.  After trying the free retirement calculator, you may discover that you are in a position to retire, and can stop worrying about finding another job.

Green Retirement enables individuals to retire with much less savings than is possible with traditional retirement planning.  Traditional retirement planning calculates how much savings you need for retirement based on your salary.   A calculation that over-estimates your retirement savings needs, is completely inaccurate, and forces you into wage slavery.  The Green Retirement formula calculates how much savings you need for retirement based on how much you will spend in retirement.  It is a far more accurate formula and method, which gives you control over your retirement savings needs, and enables you to retire with much less savings.

So, whether you are a laid off San Francisco City employee or not, try the free retirement calculator and find out if you can retire.  When I spoke with Supervisor David Chiu’s office a few months back, and my free offer of help was rejected, I warned that more layoffs would be inevitable.  Good Luck to All

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The current recession is causing the Social Security and Medicare trust funds to run out of money sooner than anticipated, reports the trustees of both government funds, headed by Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner.   The Social Security trust fund will go negative one year earlier, paying out more than it takes in by 2016, while Medicare will completely run out of money in 2017, only eight years from now.

The most often cited solutions to the twin crises, is a raising of the retirement age, and increased taxes.  Both solutions, unfortunately, will have a negative impact on workers and the economy.  Instead, Timothy Geithner and the rest of the administration should think outside the box, and consider this creative plan for how to fix Social Security and Medicare.

How to Fix Social Security

1.  Fix Social Security and Medicare by fixing the economy.
Increase Social Security  and Medicare receipts through wage inflation by lowering the retirement age.  Yes, you read that right, decrease the retirement age.  Decreasing the retirement age will decrease unemployment, ending the recession much sooner, leading to higher wages and payroll tax receipts for Social Security and Medicare.

2. Legalize Illegal Immigrants.
Legalizing and taxing the un-documented workers that already exist in our country will increase Social Security and Medicare receipts.  People can argue ’til the cows come home about illegal immigration, in the meantime, Social Security and Medicare are losing billions of dollars every year.  One of the benefits of legalizing un-documented workers for everyone, not just illegal aliens, is that everyone’s wages will go up and therefore bring in even more funds for Social Security and Medicare.

How To Fix Medicare

1. Nationalize Health Care.
Do it now, shut-up and just do it, corporations are profiting by denying Americans health care and raising prices for everyone they do insure.  All Americans are created equal and deserve equal health care.  Obama’s plan to provide “affordable” health care for all Americans, is simply an attempt to slice the health care baby, between the health insurance companies and the American people.   Screw the CEO’s and their bonuses, if the Canadians, English, and Australians can provide their citizens with quality affordable health care, so can we - just do it.

One more thing about Social Security and Medicare, all Americans should be using the Green Retirement method and formula, to calculate their retirement savings needs.  Green Retirement enables American workers to retire years earlier, and with much less savings, than is possible with the current retirement formula used by the financial planning industry.  Try the Free Retirement Calculator, help yourself, the economy, and Social Security.

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Retirement confidence has crashed, along with the housing and stock markets, by more than 50% since 2007 according to the latest Retirement Confidence Survey.   The 2009 results for the Employee Benefit Research Institute, shows that Retirement Confidence among American workers, is at it’s lowest point since the survey began 19 years ago.  Now, only an unlucky 13% of American Workers are very confident that they have enough savings to successfully retire, in 2007 more than twice (27%) of American workers were very confident about their retirement prospects.

Result finding also show that 72% of Americans plan to work after they retire, 81% of Americans say that they have reduced expenses to cope with a loss in their retirement savings, and only 25% of workers have sought professional financial advice in response to the falling house and stock markets.  And 28% of American workers have decided to delay their retirements.

But perhaps the most shocking statistic not contained in the survey, is that 99.99% of working Americans have not tried the Green Retirement calculator, and thus are working much longer than necessary and needlessly delaying their retirements.  Instead, the survey indicates that 40% of working Americans tried to calculate their retirements using traditional retirement calculators, and received erroneous results.

Green Retirement enables the average working American couple to retire 10 years or more earlier, and with nearly a million dollars less in savings, than is possible with the current and widely accepted retirement formula.  Worst of all the survey does not reveal that their are millions of working Americans, who after trying the free retirement calculator from Green Retirement, may discover that they may already have enough savings to retire.

All working Americans who are considering delaying their retirements, due to retirement savings losses in the housing and stock markets, are urged to try the free retirement calculator before deciding to postpone their retirements.

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I don’t know exactly when it started, or even where it started, but I can see dead trees.  Wherever I go, I see the rain forests, jungles, redwoods that once existed.  Where people see cows grazing on beautiful rolling green covered hills - I see dead trees.

Long after the forests and those who remember them have died, after the traces of their existence have disappeared, after all the wild has been squezzed out of the wilderness, I can see the forests that once were there.  I can look at a city with it’s hills covered in concrete, and I can see the trees that once lined the hills, and where the creeks once ran.  When I see someone’s backyard redwood deck - I see a dead tree.

Sugar cane fields in Hawaii, sugar cane fields in Brazil, sugar cane fields in Costa Rica - dead trees.  A ski-resort in Tahoe - dead trees.  It’s a curse.  Something I can’t shake.  Wherever I go I see dead trees.  I hate chain-saws.  I can’t believe their is a program on t.v. that celebrates men who kill trees.  I don’t understand what is so brave and macho about killing something that can’t move.

I know that people think that people who sit in trees to save them from getting chopped down, and after reading this article you may think I belong in a tree with them, are out to lunch crazy.   But have you ever stood under a tree that was born before Christ, that sheltered the first American explorers of the West, that survived thousands of fires and droughts, that existed when your ancestors still lived in caves - I have.

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I haven’t paid much attention to the tea bagging phenomenon, where angry groups gather and like the revolutionaries in Boston Harbor centuries before, demand “No taxation without representation!”  It’s the same sad story of one group of Americans using and fooling another group of Americans into giving up what money they have left.

This time around, it’s so obviously obvious and stupidly stupid, that one can only feel sorry for the tea-bagging protesters.  Rich Americans have conned a bunch of poor and middle class Americans, taking advantage of the usual tactics of fear-ignorance-greed, into fighting for the protection of their Bush Era tax-cuts. The tax cuts that were meant to be temporary, in order to help get the U.S. economy out of it’s last recession, but ended up wiping out a budget surplus and replacing it with an economy endangering budget deficit and $12 trillion debt.

The tea-baggers are defending a tax-cut, whereby they and essentially every other American took out a $36,000  loan on their country, that’s how much each American owes the holders of Treasury Bonds (the Chinese and Japanese are the largest purchasers of Treasury Bonds), and gave the money to the richest one percent of Americans.  In return, they put themselves and their children into debt, and are now protesting the Obama administration’s attempts to help them by letting the tax cuts on the rich expire and use some of the money to lower their taxes.  They are protesting against lowering their own taxes so the rich can get their money instead.  How stupid can you get?

I think I understand why the Tea-baggers don’t get it, they’re drinking the wrong kind of tea, they should be drinking Green Tea.  Every photo of tea-baggers I’ve seen, shows them holding bags of lipton or some other black tea, instead of green tea bags.

This is a mistake.  If they switch to green tea, they will quickly realize that they are simple pawns and puppets of Wall Street, being used as wage slaves to enrich the corporate class.  If they drank green tea, they would realize that they could achieve financial freedom, by living a green lifestyle.  They would be using Green Retirement instead of Wall Street Retirement.  Plus the anti-oxidants contained in green tea might help their brains function better and reduce their bouts of unspecified anger.

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This earth day green calculator demonstrates the positive financial benefit living a green lifestyle has on your financial future.  See how lowering your consumption enables you to save more for retirement and need less savings to retire.  Going green allows you to retire early.

Enter an expense into the Green Calculator, and the number of years until you plan to retire, and the calculator will calculate how much extra savings you will have and how much less you need for retirement.  Examples are getting rid of your car, expensive coffee habit, worthless gym membership, mini-storage unit, any expense that you can live without or replace with a less expensive alternative.

While you are trying the Green Calculator on the Green Retirement Planning website, be sure to try the free retirement calculator to find out how much less savings you need to retire.  The free retirement calculator will show you how much savings you need using Green Retirement vs. Wall Street Retirement.

Celebrate this Earth Day by trying Green Retirement and learning how you can retire early.  Retirement is the single best action you can take to reduce climate change.  Better than driving hybrid cars, recycling, or changing light bulbs.  When you retire your commute comes to an end, heating and cooling two locations for your comfort is no longer required, and your overall consumption of natural and financial resources dramatically declines.

This Earth Day - Do the World a Favor and Retire!  Try the Green Calculator

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Their have been a lot of retirement propaganda stories in recent years, exhorting the virtues of working past one’s retirement age, all part of an effort by various interest groups to either profit or save money by keeping you working.  The stories that appear in newspapers, magazines, and on t.v., usually have a similar theme.  “Betty retired when she was 55, but quickly got bored, and is happily back working stuffing groceries into paper bags at a local supermarket.”

Hidden within the anecdotes of smiling octogenarians wearing blue vests greeting shoppers, are statistics that tell a different story, and one can usually find an example of a wage slave senior who wishes they could be retired.  A recent story titled “More Californians working later in life, especially women” which appeared in the San Jose Mercury News and written by Jondi Gumz, is a perfect example of retirement propaganda.

The article starts with a short story about how “Margaret Kinda retired after 25 years as a family law attorney in Aptos, she spent time gardening and going to yoga retreats.  But she got bored and decided to return to the workplace in December… At 58, she’s among the growing number of California women who are working later in life. That’s one of the findings of a new study released Monday by the California Budget Project.”

What’s the finding? That people who retire get bored and go back to work or is it that people are working later in life than they used to?  The latter silly, but how the article begins, would lead you to believe that the reason people are working later in life is out of choice and not necessity.  The next two paragraphs give the numbers: “Last year 63 percent of people age 55 to 64 were employed. In the two decades before that, the percentage hovered around 54 percent.”  And, “Older people, 65 to 69, are still working, 29.7 percent last year, compared to 22 percent in 2000.”

Thirty percent of Americans who are entitled to receive full retirement and health care benefits are still working, a 7% increase since 2000, apparently their is an epidemic of boredom among American seniors.  Buried down near the bottom of the article, we learn the primary reason why so many more older Americans are working, they can’t afford to retire.  We are introduced to Sally French and Nancy Macy.

“Being single, with one income, retirement is a stretch,” French said. “With my retirement plan losing so much, I will probably work for several more years than I had originally planned on.”Nancy Macy, 62, of Boulder Creek, said her husband took early retirement from Hewlett-Packard and now works part time. So her pay from part-time work at the Valley Women’s Club recycling center is important.

Macy pointed out that not only do people over 55 need to rebuild retirement savings reduced by the downturn, they may face financial demands from children, grandchildren and elder parents.

The California Budget Project claims to be a non-partisan policy organization, dedicated to helping the lives of low and moderate income Californians, however their gleeful spin on a set of depressing statistics suggests otherwise.  In reality, the story appears to be yet another retirement propaganda piece, aimed at keeping people working.

The retirement propaganda became too much for Jason Linkins a blogger at the HuffingtonPost, who was taken aback by a story he saw on CNN which suggested that an 84 year old waitress named Mildred does not have it so bad because she does not have a mortgage.  Jason wrote a very strong blogpost in response titled “CNN Says 84-Year-Old Woman Fortunate To Be Waiting Tables” Read the full Article.
Who are the various interest groups who want to keep Americans working and what are their agendas?

The truth is that Washington, Wall Street, and Corporations do not want Mildred, Sally, Nancy or any other working American to retire. The reasons are obvious, if you take a moment to think about it, and the MSM is simply used to further their agendas.

Washington - If Mildred retires, she will stop contributing to Social Security and Medicare, and begin receiving benefits costing the government money.

Wall Street - If Mildred retires, she will stop contributing to 401k’s and mutual funds, and begin drawing down her retirement accounts costing Wall Street Commissions and fees.

Corporations - Keeping Mildred working keeps wages low. If Mildred retires, they will be forced to pay higher wages, which will cost them profits.

I recently published a short book on Amazon Kindle titled “Million Dollar Difference: The Wall Street Wage Slave Formula That Keeps You Working” You can read it here for free: Wage Slave Formula

The truth is that Mildred, and every other working American, needs much less savings to retire than they are being told by Wall Street. You can find out how much savings you really need to retire by trying the Free Green Retirement Calculator.

You see the photo at the top of this retirement blog article?  That is a photo of 71 year old Carolyn, receiving the “Older Worker of the Year Award” at an event that “celebrates” the contributions of older workers,  sponsored by The Georgia Department of Human Resources Division of Aging Services, the Department of Labor, and other organizations serving (profiting from) older workers.  Try the Free Green Retirement Calculator.

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