I’ve never really understood why people are racist either, but the other points make sense.
One place I’ve had my eye on (thinking of summering there rather than living full time) is Malaysia, where everyone speaks pretty good English already. The Philippines is another candidate, but I haven’t been there yet, so I don’t have the lay of the land.
Of course, my starting point is Japan, so Asia is a lot easier for me.
It also means leaving a network of family and friends. Priceless connections.
Then again if one has hermit tendencies…
Hopefully that will improve a bit with this year’s record $97B budget surplus. Although I doubt that most teachers will suddenly start getting paid enough to live comfortably in CA.
I would really like a breakdown of the age distribution of those surveyed. Call me ageist, but I wouldn’t trust a randomly surveyed 18 year old about their financial or retirement views, much less retirement finances.
Now that I think of it, I don’t think I’d really want to trust any randomly surveyed person of any age unless they’ve been retired for a number of years. I really need to talk with my parents and other retired people I know, some of whom are younger than me.
I can’t even imagine having half of the amount there saying people should have saved
Not for the majority, it’s advice for potential customers of financial planners / institutions. So people who could in principle save 10s of thousands of dollars a year and retire with over a million dollars. Over-saving among the upper middle class is actually something of a problem now, at least from an economic standpoint. This is in part driven by fake panic driven by retirement advisors, part legitimate panic over end of life healthcare and living costs, and largely caused by the death of traditional pensions and limitations of social security and medicare. Everyone who can afford to thinks they need to save enough money to live to be 100 and pay for crippling medical costs even though most people don’t live to 100 and many people won’t have outrageous medical costs. And it is almost impossible for even the wealthy to save enough money for the worst case healthcare costs.
Pensions and insurance would cut the needed savings for retirement in less than half. The demand for personal retirement investment by the top ~10% has been part of what has driven the rising stock market over the past few decades even when the fundamentals don’t seem to justify it. It’s just supply and demand, a bunch of people wanted to buy stock and there was a limited supply.
That is not to say that traditional pensions as they existed in the US were great. They were terribly racist and sexist and private employer pensions gave employers way too much leverage over employees. We don’t want to go back to that either, but we should be able to come up with some sort of pension system that was more efficient and helped more people than what we have now.
I agree with this idea. But much like the “single payer” health care or Medicare for all ideas it does mean eliminating or at least drastically shrinking certain existing pieces of the economy. In the health care sector that would be the insurance companies and all of the financial institutions on the retirement side. I just haven’t seen anyone put forth a good plan of how you are going to shift hundreds of billions of dollars (if not verging on a trillion) around in the economy effectively shrinking one sector and growing another.
That looks to be a great resource, thanks!
I like the annual breakdown of spending.
One thing he doesn’t include is, what if you need a new roof, or the car totally dies? But at those low general costs of living, having some padding for occasional big purchases seems way more likely than what I usually see.
I enjoyed Nomadland, but yeah… I think it sort of glorified that lifestyle being pushed.
Yep. Rugged individualism, frontier mentality, bootstrapperism, etc. Ugh.
To say nothing of what in hell would retirement even look like in what has become a global dystopia? Where would you retire to? I mean, look at what the ultra-wealthy are planning - militarized compounds, bunkers, spaceships…
The healthcare sector can afford a little shrinking considering it is grossly inflated by runaway arbitrary costs and no free market. I have no problem with government subsidies taking a bite out of an industry which finds profit in suffering and deprivation.
I feel seen. Maybe I am over saving, but I want to keep living in California, and I believe that I can live as long as my parents and grandparents. And I want to be able to afford to enjoy my retirement with my spouse- travel, the occasional new vehicle, eating out with friends, seeing potential grandchildren wherever they may be, etc.
Being an anxious type, I wouldn’t want exactly enough money to last until I die because it would become a self fulfilling prophecy: as my funds get lower, my anxiety would get higher until I die from the stress.
@bcsizemo It’s doable, and not any more destructive of the economy than the shit show that passes for health care and pensions the US has now. Almost all other countries around the globe have these national health and pension plans. Their citizens aren’t any worse off for implementing and having national health care schemes (better life expectancy & health outcomes) and national pension (provide at least a buffer against having nothing).
Survival of the Richest: Escape Fantasies of the Tech Billionaires by Douglas Rushkoff is highly recommended reading.
If you define “regular” as upper middle class and better, sure it is. For anyone who didn’t work hard enough (or failed to choose the proper sort of parents) well, retirement just isn’t meant for your sort anyway…
(edit for missing words)
I keep having flashbacks about this:
https://www.politico.com/agenda/story/2018/06/07/myra-save-for-retirement-obama-program-000662/
One problem in the US is that the private sector does not want competition or regulations that affect profits. They’ve screwed up healthcare, raided pension funds at taxpayer expense, and are poised to profit even more from the new folks who need payday loans, pawn shops, and shelters to survive:
Unless financial firms are going to increase profits by supporting more people saving money for retirement instead of spending it as soon as it is earned, it’s likely to continue to be a struggle.
After thinking about your question, and reading this article about Patty Murray possibly losing her Senate seat to Tiffany Smiley on “quality-of-life issues, from urban crime and homelessness to inflation”, I think the answer is “yes”. Stoking fears about inflation and what it means for future retirement is a huge conservative talking point, and I could see discussion on this topic pushing some from the left and center to the right. That being said, I don’t want to come across like a Christian blaming everything bad on “the devil”, but I can’t help but think that everything we read/watch has been weaponized to induce fear, uncertainty and doubt, like what Marilyn Manson said in Bowling for Columbine:
I love the idea of pensions, but hate that pensions led to the corporate raider trend of snapping up companies to liquidate their pension, and then breaking up the company to sell off like leftovers from a thanksgiving feast discarded in an itis induced fog.
It’s aimed at “regular” people, i.e. people making the median American income of $55k, who live in an alternate universe where 50%+ of their annual pre-tax income isn’t consumed by housing and health insurance costs.
If someone making that amount or higher can afford to invest 15-20% of their gross income every year starting around age 30 and don’t touch it they actually have a shot at coming out at age 75 with $1-million-plus. But most Americans, due to no fault of their own, are unable to save enough to cover a $400 emergency.
