Tonight on GeekNights, we consider the concept of retirement. I know what my plan is. In the news, James Bond is captured by an evil megacorporation, and supplements will destroy your liver.
This is a topic I have been focused on quite a bit over the past couple of years. I have thought about pretty much all the things that were discussed in the episode.
I am really pushing to be able to retire at a much younger age than is typical, I technically could do it now except for the the biggest uncertainty - will society, the economy, and the stock market continue to operate in a way that is close enough to the manner as they have or are the actions being taken and still desired by the RWNJ’s in charge of not just our national but also State governments push things too far and bring about a significant change of cascading events of unintended (but entirely foreseeable) consequences that upends the tenuous “stability” (predictability based on the norms of the post-war era) of the world?
Why would I like to be able to retire younger than normal? Because I want to be able to enjoy the things that I am curtailed or limited from being able to do while I have a M-F job, even if that job is above average on pay, duties, flexibility, benefits, and vacation policy - it is still a job that I have to meet expectations of and dedicate my time and brain power to constantly. If I could work 2-3 days a week and then multiple times a year ignore it for 3-6 weeks at a time, I would be willing to meaningfully contribute my effort and talents to it for many years to come. I don’t want to have the freedom when I am at a more typical retirement age when I am statistically less likely to have the energy, health, and overall quality of life that I do now. And most of all, there is no guarantee that I don’t get hit by a car or suffer a catastrophic health condition between now and then and never get to enjoy the freedom I want to do the endless things on my list.
I agree with the sentiment that I do not understand people who say that they do not know what they would do with their days if they didn’t have a job. To each their own, but for me that is a sad indictment of a life poorly lived, and not something I suffer from.
I’m catching up and listening to this ep just now (missed the livestream), and I did feel compelled to comment on the intro bit on supplements, which I would have simply done in the livechat had I been present. Don’t get me wrong, the general point is correct, a lot of supplements are bullshit. BUT. HOWEVER. 50% of the population is losing blood (iron) for 1/4 of any month for 50% of their lives in a way that won’t necessarily be fixed by diet. You wouldn’t believe how many folks who have periods are silently iron deficient, it’s ridiculously underdiagnosed, and we know it’s a lot of folks already.
Not trying to be the person here with a singular gotcha, but the population swath is wide enough that I thought it was worth the gentle reminder.
For the rest, agree with Neo’s thoughts as well. I’d love to retire early. There’s so much I’d rather do with my life - much of which is work, but does not pay for a living.
Surpised that fire wasn’t mentioned.
One would hope that iron deficiency would be detected at a routine physical, and a doctor would instruct the patient to take iron supplements.
The only way to achieve financial dependence and retire early is to acquire valuable assets. That means owning something like real estate or a huge pile of stonks. It’s an easy enough plan to work at a job, live frugally, save money, and then eventually acquire such assets.
The problem is with wealth inequality, this strategy does not work numbers-wise. People who already have assets, get huge passive income from those assets. It’s more money than they can possibly spend, so they save it. How do they save it? By buying more assets.
The supply of assets is not increasing. We don’t have more real estate coming into existence. This is it. Therefore, with wealthy people constantly, automatically, reinvesting their enormous passive income into purchasing more assets, the price of assets goes up.
This means that even someone with a very high wage, like a doctor or a lawyer, can find themselves unable to ever amass any meaningful wealth. Wages go down, prices of assets go up, prices of every day goods and services go up. Now no matter how frugal someone is, or how hard they work, they can never ever cross the line.
Retirement, and the existence of a middle class, is a historical anomaly. It only existed in a few places for a short time. In most of history, regardless of economic system, there have been a few wealthy people and many people in poverty. The places where a middle class does, or did, exist are largely headed back in that direction. No amount of smart personal finance can counter this imbalance.
The only way is to tax the wealthy.
Just moved all my 401k money into a bonds fund from my blended 2055 target fund for the short term future to try to just keep more monetary value against what I expect to be a bad year for stonks even if the tariffs get rolled back (cumulative effects of gov’t spending contracting, gov’t workers and contractors fired en masse).
Not investment advice. If you take action based on my non-expert thinking, you have only yourself to blame.
I’m not sure if US bonds are the best idea when the US is fucked the fuck up. But then again, what country has bonds that are safe? When the world is unstable, even betting on a country becomes risky.
Personally I feel like evil corporations are less risky. No matter what happens politically do I think Chase Bank, Coca-Cola, Walmart, Amazon, Microsoft, or any other of the megacorps will disappear?
If I was a decade or two older I’d be selling now. With the time I have I feel like it’s better to just keep buying. If the market goes down, that just means I am getting more shares for my dollar.
I have not even watched the episode, but was just commenting on my own actions in relation to the wider environment personally. I am not taking your comments as financial advice nor you as a financial advisor and same goes for me to anyone else reading my comment.
With my 401k I can’t do individual picks, just different funds with different targets/makeups so I’m shifting to what I feel is the safest choice short of taking a huge tax hit if I tried to actually pull all that money out as cash. Basically just trying to protect the current value as much as possible and maybe shift it back later if things get unfucked.
You’d think that, but a lot of menstruating health is bullshit by people who’ve never had a period in their life and often chalk anything wrong with their menstruating patients up to basically “bitches be crazy”.
A lot of health is locked behind these kinds of bullshit biases; see the studies that show that many doctors still believe that POC patients have a higher natural pain tolerance or literally thicker skin than Caucasians.
That’s all extremely true. But every time I go to the doctor for a routine physical they take my blood and perform a range of standard tests. My vitamin D was low, they told me to take some. If iron was low, they would have told me to take some. This is all part of standard procedures for all patients there.
Doctors do have biases. They all too frequently dismiss patients complaints of various symptoms.
But this one situation isn’t that. If a doctor sees the test comes back with an iron deficiency, that’s an objective number. If the doctor does not address it, that’s just malpractice.
You see how you, a cis white college-educated man, might have a different experience with the doctor than someone who presents differently, though?
But yes, I do agree that a lot of these things are tantamount to, if not actively, malpractice.
Yes. I am aware of those things.
But I am saying this one specific case, of a specific deficiency, is a thing that is tested and treated rather objectively. If a doctor is not performing those routine tests or not acknowledging the test results, that is a whole new level of fucked.
It’s okay it just admit when you’re wrong, without the need to defend your position. My wife isn’t Caucasian and wasn’t recommended to take an iron supplement until she became pregnant. It was only after the OBGYN did multiple blood tests that other doctors didn’t bother with. So yeah, medicine is very much biased even if the doctors don’t think they are.
Doctors are biased. The whole medical field is. I’m not disagreeing at all. I also see how in your case, the bias of the doctors led them to not even bother testing. That’s real.
But the fundamental question, in just this one specific case, is that why was performing such a basic and routine test at the doctor’s discretion to begin with?
At the medical practice I go to there is a whole array of tests that are performed on every single patient who is getting a routine physical exam. It includes testing blood for iron, among many other things. Even if I go there and have no complaints, no symptoms, and say I am in perfect health, they will still perform those tests. I know for a fact these procedures are the same for all patients regardless of gender, age, race, or anything else. They have a documented procedure, and they follow it very strictly.
When it comes to doing anything extra above and beyond, absolutely the doctors psychology will come into play regarding how seriously they listen to the patient, whether they believe them, etc. But for this one case, the problem is that the doctors just didn’t even do their job at all. Even a wealthy white guy going to that same medical practice would have their iron deficiency missed!
Having been on the lower end of being insured for my health I, as a white male, have had doctors not order blood tests for me unless something was wrong, mostly because my insurance, or lack thereof, would not pay for it unless it was justified beyond “just to find out if anything is wrong”.
There was also a long period of time where my insurance only covered the yearly checkup, and anything extra fell under my $5k yearly deductible. As you could imagine with the level of coverage of that I didn’t really have enough regular cash to cover even a yearly blood panel.