Fundamental Transformation: Obama Says He Wants to Lower the Retirement Age. A Whole Lot.

The current official retirement age in the United States is 65. Speaking in Kansas today, President Barack Obama said that if he had his way, Americans would retire a whole lot earlier than that.

"What I really want is somebody who has worked for 20, 30 years being able to retire with some digity and respect." —President Obama

— The White House (@WhiteHouse) July 30, 2014

Setting aside the “digity” typo (Yo!), an American who starts work at age 18 would retire at 38 or 48 — the age when most Americans hit their prime earning years.

An American who graduates college at 22 would retire at 42 or 52.

Given current lifespans in the US, even retiring at 52 would put millions of Americans on retirement for 30 or 40 years. Social Security cannot sustain that. Public and private pensions aren’t designed to sustain that.

The best that can said about Obama’s retirement comment is that it’s what you might expect from a man who treats the hardest job in the world as if it’s just an opportunity to spend a third of his time playing golf and going to parties.