America’s retirement savings shortage is a growing crisis

This is Bloomberg Opinion Today, a slap in the face of Bloomberg Opinion’s opinions. Sign up here.Today’s Agenda America faces a retirement [Bloomberg]( Follow Us [Get the newsletter]( This is Bloomberg Opinion Today, a slap in the face of Bloomberg Opinion’s opinions. [Sign up here](. Today’s Agenda - America faces [a retirement crisis](. - It’s not a bad time to [raise taxes on the rich](. - Beating [climate change must take a back seat]( to beating Putin for now. - Congress must pass [more Covid funding](. Retirement’s Going to Be a Real Slap in the Face It may be hard to remember today, but there were other Oscars ceremonies before last night’s, which Chris Rock described as “the greatest night in the history of television” just moments after Will Smith [slapped]( him in the face. At last year’s slap-free ceremony, in fact, the Best Picture winner was “Nomadland,” an uplifting film about retirees living in vans and doing backbreaking transient labor after society and capitalism failed them. The movie was based on a [true story](, and it could soon be a familiar one. Possibly half of all working-age American households [won’t have enough income to survive in retirement](, Bloomberg’s editorial board points out. And the ranks of the retired are growing fast; within a decade they could represent a fifth of the population: There are only so many Amazon-warehouse and beet-harvesting jobs available for these people, meaning the burden of supporting them will soon fall on state governments. With the retirement-savings shortfall estimated at $7 trillion, this could quickly break many state budgets. My personal retirement plan is to drop dead at my keyboard sometime between this afternoon and 2050. But not everybody has that option. We need to encourage people to save more, which will be the subject of a new series of editorials coming this week. In the meantime, [read Part One](.  It’s Not a Bad Time to Tax the Rich Shoring up government finances to prepare for the retiree wave, and maybe also to [fight]( inflation, might not hurt, either. The White House today [released]( a new plan to raise $2.5 trillion in taxes from rich people and corporations, because obviously they read Matt Yglesias this weekend telling them to do just that. Unlike a decade ago, when an austerity drive stunted the recovery from the Great Recession, Matt writes, [shrinking the government deficit by taxing the rich]( a little more isn’t a terrible idea. It increasingly looks like we might need the money. Russia and Lesser Evils “Don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good” and “The enemy of my enemy is my friend” are two well-known adages about enemies, and both can be applied to today’s foremost enemy of peace and prosperity, Vladimir Putin. In World War II, the West temporarily teamed up with the monstrous Joseph Stalin to defeat the even more monstrous Adolf Hitler before restoring Stalin’s enemy status. Today the West might need to temporarily team up with global warming and fake news to defeat Putin. In a perfect world, Europe would simply snap its fingers and use alternative energy instead of Russian fuels. This would address both our climate-change problem and our Vladimir Putin problem. But this is not a perfect world (see: world events, 2000 B.C. to present), so [Europe will have to keep using fossil fuels for a while](, writes Andreas Kluth, but imported from elsewhere. Even that is easier said than done; Julian Lee points out [Germany’s fuel infrastructure will need to be adjusted]( to account for non-Russian flows, which could take many months. At the same time, just as the Arab oil embargo in the ’70s inspired a wave of environmentalism, Putin’s death grip on global energy will make the transition to cleaner, less problematic sources even more imperative, Andreas points out. Meanwhile, though U.S. social media outlets such as Facebook and Twitter scrub Russian misinformation from their sites, Telegram, which operates out of Dubai, lets the fake news run wild. The downside of this is obvious, but the upside is that it keeps Russia from shutting the messaging service down. And as Parmy Olson points out, [Telegram is filled with anti-Putin content]( that Russians wouldn’t see if they had no access to Telegram. The enemy of my enemy is my et cetera. Bonus Ukraine Reading: - We should use [Russia’s failure so far as an opportunity to stop the war]( rather than press for full victory. — Clive Crook - But [neither side is convinced it has anything to lose]( by warring on, so the war will get worse. — Hal Brands Telltale Charts With yields rising and spreads and credit quality improving, [demand for European bonds is jumping](, writes Marcus Ashworth. Further Reading Democrats [must get more Covid funding passed](, ASAP. — Jonathan Bernstein Consumers will [soon crumble under the burden of higher prices](, making the coming recession much worse. — Lisa Abramowicz The [Japanese yen keeps weakening](, with big implications for markets. — John Authers [Disney’s dilemma over Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay](” bill shows how business is caught between right and left now. — Adrian Wooldridge [IT talent is fleeing Russia]( and may never return. — Tim Culpan Ukraine [might make you think tanks are outdated](, but people have been wrong about that many times before. — Stephen Mihm Crispr could [give us better Covid tests](. — Lisa Jarvis ICYMI Russia’s [demands appear to be softening](, though somebody may have [poisoned Ukraine’s negotiators](. Donald [Trump likely committed a felony](, a federal judge ruled. Bookstores may be [making a comeback](. Kickers Plant-based nanocrystals could [keep ice cream creamy](. (h/t Scott Kominers) [Weird space blob]( photographed. Italian scientists create [yeast-free pizza dough](. How [Crazy Eddie scammed America](. Notes: Please send pizza and complaints to Mark Gongloff at mgongloff1@bloomberg.net. [Sign up here]( and follow us on [Instagram](, [TikTok](, [Twitter]( and [Facebook](. Like Bloomberg Opinion Today? [Subscribe to Bloomberg.com and get much, much more](. You’ll receive our unmatched global news coverage and two in-depth daily newsletters, The Bloomberg Open and The Bloomberg Close.  Before it’s here, it’s on the Bloomberg Terminal. Find out more about how the Terminal delivers information and analysis that financial professionals can’t find anywhere else. [Learn more](. You received this message because you are subscribed to Bloomberg's Bloomberg Opinion Today newsletter. [Unsubscribe]( | [Bloomberg.com]( | [Contact Us]( [Ads Powered By Liveintent]( | [Ad Choices]( Bloomberg L.P. 731 Lexington, New York, NY, 10022