Originally Posted by
ewrbasedpilot
I know their are a lot of Bush lovers out there, but when he signed the age 65 legislation into law, he SCREWED a LOT of pilots. I'm amazed too at the number of over age 60 guys who seem to have 110 credit hour months EVERY month because they're finding it so damn hard to survive on $17,000 a month and need it to make ends meet. So let me get this straight..............you've had from 25-35 years to put away for retirement and you STILL can't do it? Well, from my perspective, another 2-3 years isn't going to make a bit of difference because you'll NEVER be ready. I have ZERO sympathy for a guy who works like this and kicks the bucket at 62 or so. What they don't realize is that they CAN'T take their money with them. (Steve Jobs had all the money in the world..........but he didn't have his health, so what good did all that money do him?) At least these pilots kids and relatives will get to blow all their money for them!
I've foregone the "pilot toys" so that I can leave BEFORE age 60. Theirs way too many things to do and see in this lifetime to spend it at work till I die. Yes, I love my job and the folks I work with, but not till my dying days. Sorry guys, but it's time to retire and enjoy life...........let someone else have a career and be able to support their family. Sorry for the thread drift.
Well, how about this then? I hear a lot of crap from my F/Os about how us older guys are wrecking their career advancement by staying past 60. I'm at a loss to understand why they tell me this since I was 52 when that was enacted, and thus, got just as screwed as anyone, but I'm assuming that they mean anyone older than them who stays past 60 is screwing everyone junior/younger than them.
So, here's my open offer: To all those guys whom feel screwed by age 65, if you'll all go down to the Notary Public with me and sign the same affidavit as me, we can all be happy. That affidavit says that we will ALL quit at 60. But I don't have any takers so far because they all say that they'll now have to go past 60 to recoup their losses (I guess they're entitled to do that, whereas the older guys whom have precious little time to recover are not entitled to go past 60).
Pretty simple: if someone is so sure that quitting at 60 is the right thing, they should have NO PROBLEM making a legal promise to do so. And good luck dealing with the curve balls thrown your way in the meantime.
By the way, I'm 56 and can't wait to be done with this ʙʉʟʟʂʜit. I've been a captain (the word is not capitalized, according to Webster's Dictionary, so I use lower case, even though some use upper case for captains of my integrity. That's for all the tools out there whom believe that using upper v. lower means something) for 16 years, but never owned the "Captain's House" or Lamborghini, Corvette, or Yak 52, etc. I just downsized my home, matter o' fact.
And I lived on United's B-scale for 5 years, qualifying for food stamps the first two years as a pilot for the biggest airline in the free world.
TW