Sir Edward Coley Burne-Jones:
The Perseus Series: Atlas Turned to Stone
(1878)

"Good riddance to bad dictators."

Retirement plans vary considerably from employer to employer. Few offer pensions anymore, for they were replaced with a Reagan-era delusion that every man and woman should be able to earn ample Retirement income by speculating in the rich people’s stock market. That hasn’t worked nearly as well as expected. Medicare remains essential, if not always available, for those too aged to be covered by an employer’s insurance, though only about 60% of people under 65 have employer-sponsored insurance as of March 2025. Worker-specific numbers seem more nuanced. About 75% of workers are eligible for job-based coverage, down slightly from 2023. Access has always been deeply uneven. Employer-sponsored insurance covered only about 20% of people with incomes below 200%, compared to more than 80% of those with incomes above 400%, of poverty. Fewer than three-quarters of firms with 10 or more employees offer health benefits at all, with large employers (200+ employees) offering coverage at a nearly 100% rate compared to less than 60% of smaller firms. Cost-sharing seems significant, too, with covered workers contributing an average of 16% of premiums for single coverage and 26% for family coverage in 2025, with average family premiums reaching over $26,000 annually. Many retirees rely entirely on Social Security to provide a barely subsistence-level Retirement income.

Retirement features no dental insurance. No vision insurance, either, and Repuglican congresses and legislatures have for years been cutting the remaining meager benefits available to what I might call “regular” people. The wealthy also age, of course, but are much more likely to enjoy some leisure before shuffling off this mortal coil. If your employment included leadership of an actual country, again, Retirement benefits tend to vary widely between jurisdictions. It seems to matter whether you’re democratically elected or a self-appointed despot. Elected leaders tend to retire with an adequate, if not necessarily generous, stipend ($220K for a US President), often including expenses and a security apparatus for life. Despots might retire with vast fortunes, though they face much greater uncertainty about whether they’ll live to see their Retirement. Neither democrat nor despot tends to give a damn about the availability of dental or vision insurance upon Retirement.

The despots live more swashbuckling existences, for their careers often careen between highs and lows. It’s hard to beat the highs achieved by even a third-rate tin-pot dictator. Often presumed to be “dictator for life,” their tenure doesn’t require the messy uncertainty of periodic election results. Any halfway decent dictator, by which I mean any absolutely indecent one, can maintain power while draining the public purse. They often rely on a small but extremely loyal military to address minor upsets and uprisings that any aspiring society experiences. They thrive on pomp and circumstance and can usually cast an adequate illusion of absolute authority to keep even a disloyal opposition at bay. (I said usually.) There’s always a lurking chance that each day might be the dictator’s last. Their tenure requires more than constant vigilance; it requires considerable assistance, often from a supportive big brother dictator wealthy enough to subsidize their extraordinarily expensive lifestyle. Should they retire before being deposed, the dictator might reasonably aspire to a comfortable time with at least half-vast wealth and competent physicians, though he will never escape the suspicion that some opponent might be stalking him. Otherwise, should he “retire” early, he will die infamous, resolving the Retirement question entirely.

The democratically elected President might die in office, though he’s statistically unlikely to do so. Recent retirees have enjoyed second careers, one as a prominent financier, another as a semi-professional semi-fine artist, a third as a world-class volunteer for charitable causes. A fourth remains an extremely popular and prominent social commentator and supporter of liberal policies. A fifth went into denial that he’d been retired and spent the following four years campaigning to regain his lost career. Some people retire into denial, while others actually retire. That last one became our current incumbent and serves as the poster child for refusing to elect anyone over 70 to any office, including dogcatcher. He has encouraged the vast majority of his former constituency to fervently pray for him to enter Retirement again, though it appears that he might have missed his one opportunity to move into his twilight year(s) with any dignity. Denial serves as his 401(k). He contributes daily. Few expect him to live long enough to cash in his Social Security, though he probably wouldn’t need it anyway. He richly deserves poverty.

A colleague was forced into Retirement by his former employer. Nobody deserves or expects to be forced into their Retirement. An employer’s supposed to hesitantly let an employee leave, celebrate their loyal service to the organization on their way out, and award the retiree with some token of their eternal esteem, assuming an employee deserves such a sendoff. Loyal service should earn no less. Our incumbent has served more disloyally than any incumbent in our history, so he richly deserves to be rudely retired. This decision should be taken out of his hands, given that he’s already more than adequately proven to be out of his goddamned mind, and not merely the senile kind. Retirement might be preferable to other means by which a dissatisfied population might decide to end an incumbent’s tenure. He could be removed for cause, though those in charge seem to lack the testicular vigor to perform that particular public service, however urgently needed. He deserves a despot’s retirement, one spent looking over his paranoid shoulder, convinced someone’s sneaking up on him. I’m in favor of whatever might remove him from the office he despoils. Good riddance to bad dictators.

©2026 by David A. Schmaltz - all rights reserved

Tags: #EndDays, #PureSchmaltz