Taking a rather more dire tone than he (apparently) adopts in his book Perfecting Your Walk in Retirement: 10 Steps to a Worry-Free Retirement, filmmaker Tony Walker's Say Goodbye to Granddad's Retirement trots out some rather sobering current and predictive statistics regarding average human lifespan (age 60 in 1935, age 89 in 2050), worker-to-retiree ratios (42:1 in 1940, but more like 2:1 in 2041), active pension plans (a total of 112,000 in operation in 1988, down to 30,000 today), and personal savings rates (7.5% in 1960, compared to our current 0.5%). What do you get when you add all of these numbers together? One very anemic piggy bank. Still, despite the teetering-on-bankrupt Social Security system, the credit card debt crisis, rising healthcare costs, and defaults on college loans, Walker finds a silver lining or two amidst the clouds of economic doom and gloom as he interviews various teachers, financial experts, and students here. One well-spoken professor tells her class that by merely cutting their monthly fast food bill in half and investing that extra $100, they could well end up being millionaires upon retirement. While this is excellent advice, it's a bit harder to figure out exactly what we're supposed to ascertain from a pair of overextended profiles of 1) an unemployed young man who wants to be a filmmaker and is thinking about going back to school, and 2) a college graduate who accepts a small promotion in the fluorescent lighting department of the store where she works. Say Goodbye to Granddad's Retirement is full of eye-opening statistics and some solid advice, but it's buried in an awkward cinematic package that mixes personal documentary, consumer awareness information, and inspirational talk—but ends up being neither a hard-hitting exposé nor a helpful financial how-to. Optional. Aud: C, P. (R. Pitman)
Say Goodbye to Granddad's Retirement
(2007) 60 min. DVD or VHS: $195. Landmark Media. PPR. Volume 23, Issue 4
Say Goodbye to Granddad's Retirement
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