We all know now that what had been happening in the past decade was a mirage. Ever spiraling stock prices and home prices was all a pyramid scheme - a financial game of musical chairs in which the music has now stopped.
We know about people losing their homes - some due to greed, some due to need, some due to ignorance, some due to all three.
But here's what all this boils down to:
Seniors having to work in their 70s or later despite having worked 2 generations already.
Some were victimized by unscrupulous mortgage salespeople often including their own children.
Some were relying on investments - again peddled by the unscrupulous and unskilled (See Warren Buffet's Gotrocks saga in Berkshire Hathaway's annual reports) which were hammered in last year's (and this year's ongoing) market collapses.
Some were just working people who made a living, raised kids, and are now relying on the Social Security money they had been counting on all these years.
Whatever the reason - this is a tragedy.
Elderly emerge as a new class of workers
by Clare Ansberry/The Wall Street Journal
An excerpt:
Mary Appleby, 76 years old, lost her job in January as a cashier at a courthouse cafeteria here. She is now looking for minimum-wage work.
Mary Bennett, 80, began filling out applications for fast-food restaurants and convenience stores after she was laid off last March as a machinist. Fred Dase, 81, a bartender until last summer, also needs another job.
Mary Appleby lost her job in January as a cashier at a courthouse cafeteria and the 76-year-old Ohio woman is looking for minimum-wage work.
During past recessions, older workers simply would have retired rather than searching want ads and applying for jobs. But these days, with outstanding mortgages, bank loans and high medical bills, many of them can't afford to be out of work.
With jobs so scarce, people in their seventh and eighth decades are up against those half their age in a desperate scramble for work.
