We have a Honda CRV that we bought in 2013. Anne and I are both 71 and we don’t want to buy another car. Living in the city means there are plenty of transportation alternatives that don’t involve trying to find a parking spot after six in evening in Logan Square. Which is already impossible to do.
But we are hanging on to this one for as long as we can.
We take good are of the car so that it will last. Last week I took it in for a scheduled oil change and maintenance service. I change the wiper blades with the oil change even if they seem to be working okay.
Yesterday I received a customer survey and the final demographic question had to do with my age.
Most forms end with “65 and above,” which I think is stupid since there is a great deal of difference between a 65 year old and an 85 year old and I found it a little disturbing to be in the final category when I hit 65.
Honda’s last category ends at 49. Nothing above or below that that.
>Oh, wait. I think there’s “60 and above” down at the bottom all grayed out.
I’m hoping my Honda CRV lasts a long time. It seems Honda does not hope the same for me. Or maybe they’re hoping I will buy another one at 50.
But I won’t. Because I’m 71.
And no more cars after this one.
<Segue>
It seems maybe the Illinois General Assembly feels the same about pensioners as Honda feels about CRV owners.
Over 65 and you’re kind of grayed out.
They have decided that the solution to the growing pension liability (now at over $130 billion dollars and – for the time being – growing, is to wait for Tier one teachers and other state pension members to die.
And to have Tier two teachers do the heavy lifting of paying down the debt.
The Tier two system, which lawmakers enacted during the 2010 session when the pension funds were still reeling from additional losses suffered during the Great Recession was rushed through the General Assembly in about nine hours.
Under that plan, starting in 2011, new employees pay 9 percent of their salary into the pension system, the same as Tier 1 employees. Of that amount, however, only 7 percent is actually used to fund those employees’ pensions. The other 2 percent goes to pay down the unfunded liability of the Tier 1 employees.
Tier 2 employees also get smaller benefits. They don’t vest in the system until they’ve worked for 10 years, instead of five. And their annual cost-of-living raises after retirement are capped at either half the previous year’s rate of inflation or 3 percent, whichever is less.
This year the Illinois legislature fell $2,000,000,000 short of fulfilling their actuarial pension obligations.
But all that will be solved when Tier one teachers are, well, gone.
And meanwhile Tier two teachers continue to be the only ones paying down the debt with contributions to the system that they will never get back.
May all of us Tier one teachers outlast my Honda.
May the legislature fix Tier two (unlikely).
And I wish you all a Merry Christmas and Happy Hanukah.
Fred Klonsky 
Over and over, I told the young’uns that they needed to start some savings plan because they couldn’t count on their pension. I always wonder how many listened.
Merry Christmas. There was another bracket for age, it just didn’t get scrolled up …. but you make a great point about the Tier 2 teachers. I sub (retired 10 years) and there are some very wonderful young teachers out there! May their union bargain a much better deal than what they are getting now.
Merry Christmas! You can see they meant to have us old people included in that survey – it just didn’t scroll down far enough. I’ve been retired 10 years & sub in my district with some wonderful, talented, very creative young teachers. Let’s hope their union can bargain a better deal for them.
How would you know to scroll?
I have a Honda Civic that I bought in 2007. It now has around 130,000 miles.
I hate the surveys. I figure that if a company knows its employees this is totally unnecessary. Some people are going to give everyone a bad rating, just because they are mean or just because they ‘can’.
I always say that if I were rating whomever wrote the survey I’d give that person a minus number.
There are too many surveys these days. I say stop this because it demoralizes the workers who are always supposed to be afraid. Fear is NOT a decent motivator.
I never noticed the age of people ending in their 40’s. I’m past 60 and above.
The Honda service guy, who I have worked with before and I like, requested several times that I respond to the survey. It seemed to me that it was to the employee’s benefit that I fill it out and give him a good rating, which I was willing to do.
I ALWAYS give the highest ratings possible.
So how did you answer the survey?
Sent from my iPhone
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All but the age.
Perhaps the Honda PR people think that beyond 49 would be considered “of a certain age” &, thus, insulting. Or–better still–if their ad people are targeting to a younger audience–they might not even WANT to know that seniors drive their cars! (They should be PROUD of that fact &, also, that the cars are so well-engineered that they last!)
My 1993 Volvo–yes, still running–is sitting on my driveway, waiting to be donated. (I was advised by our very trustworthy & skillful auto shop owner to buy another car, as the transmission was slipping, & he didn’t want us to spend any more money on it.) I am hoping that someone who has unlimited $$$$ & is a Volvo fanatic will buy & restore it (yes, it’s rusted), & we’ll still donate the proceeds.
All of that having been said, this car really did save my life in a terrible tollway accident I was in in 1997. It ALWAYS started. Its hearty Swedish heritage & AWD guaranteed that I could pull right out of any snowdrift we’d find ourselves in. Finally, I always said that there advertisements SHOULD have featured an ordinary-looking person (such as myself) saying, “I want a car a can swear by, not swear at.” (Of course, all the Volvos today are sleek & “sexy” & uber-expensive & marketed to the younger crowds & families. & have plastic bumpers–not the heavy, rubber-on-steel combo that absolutely destroyed the front end {even SUVs} of any car that dared to rear-end me, & left me w/not a dent or scratch).
Honda should be PROUD of the longetivity of their cars…& especially of the owners.