Retirement thoughts Past Present Future

[California]

It's worth mentioning, even if obvious to most, that you will be hopefully drawing on that retirement savings for 20 years, maybe even 30 years. No matter where the market is on the day you retire, up or down, it will very likely go thru many cycles during the time over which you are drawing from it. Careful management would have you moving assets from stocks to cash or bonds during up markets, so that you don't need to suffer losses by converting assets during a down market. There is no reason to wait for retirement to start this practice, you should be moving some fraction of your assets into cash or bonds at least 10-15 years before retirement, with that fraction increasing as you approach your retirement date.

That's the prudent approach but with lifetime pension and health plan, I've gambled that staying invested is worthwhile.

I've been retired 25 years now (early retirement) and mostly fully invested. Drawing down IRAs replaced some of the salary until SS at age 67. Pension, (small, about same as SS), and lifetime health plan started immediately upon retirement. Retiring had the net effect of ending our substantial savings contribution each year but no effect on standard of living. We've watched investments that we started years earlier, (mostly S&P or equivalent) grow faster than we're spending, and now the balance is 50% more than the day I retired. Or slight increase in terms of actual purchasing power.

The way a long extent of time compounds your savings, is magic that many don't appreciate.

Kids, start savings early, pay cash and avoid paying interest on anything but housing, and you won't have to stay in the workforce until elderly.

 

[Snobdds]

Rather than tax rate increases, I think they should broaden the tax base. Manufacturing robots are taking family wage jobs, so they should tax manufacturing robots. As AI replaces higher income jobs like stock brokers, programmers, and screen writers, they should tax the AI. For decades we have been faced with a shrinking jobs base, forcing more and more people into lower paid service occupations. That process will accelerate in the next couple decades. Consumers already far outnumber the producers, and it's only going to get worse.

Broadening the tax base to me is getting the 50% of the working age population to pay more than 0% in federal taxes.

I can't keep supporting everyone...

 

[goeduck]

Broadening the tax base to me is getting the 50% of the working age population to pay more than 0% in federal taxes.

I can't keep supporting everyone...

That is a good point and I agree, but it will never happen. They think they are paying too much as it is.

 

[Snobdds]

That is a good point and I agree, but it will never happen. They think they are paying too much as it is.

They use the most services and refuse to pay anything, makes total sense.

Just like the coming SS fiasco. Even people that just want to have a discussion about SS are labeled as Nazi's. I was traveling last week in Florida and saw a tv add saying...Ron D has voted 5 times to cut SS funding, he wants to take away your SS. We all know SS has not gone down, it's just fear mongering. However, because of this fear mongering, it creates the topic as untouchable. All it does it make us slowly march towards a world where SS is gone and we just have fear mongering platitudes to throw at everyone. That world is less than 10 years away.

 

[Larry Caldwell]

I refrained from commenting before, because I actually like the concept, having corporations and machines paying some fraction of my income taxes. But unfortunately, it doesn’t fit with reality.

New tech typically do not reduce net workforce labor requirement, in any long-term or permanent way. New tech, such as the automation you’ve already mentioned, have almost universally only increased productivity and moved labor requirements from one skill set to another.

Destruction of easily automated repetitive labor roles has been replaced by an even larger number of jobs in designing, building, maintaining that equipment, and all the logistics around it. It has never historically managed to actually reduce net headcount in the workforce, and most experts seem to believe AI will be much the same.

It’s scary to me, for my kids choosing what career to pursue, that any choice made today could be obsolete in 15 years. The same thing happened with those going into factory jobs in 1965, displaced by automation in 1975 or 1980. But this automation did not reduce the number of taxpayers in the workforce in any long term manner, actually the opposite, it pushed more of that workforce into tech roles above the poverty line and added them to the tax base.

What it has done is increased productivity, and thus lowered product cost. Consider how many days of salary time it cost to purchase each of your household items, in the pre-automation days, versus today. Now apply that same cost to financial, legal, and medical advice, with respect to the AI future.,

That's the conventional wisdom, but I don't think it's true. There are about the same number of workers in computer science now as there were 30 years ago, while the number of low paid service workers has increased over 10%. Elimination of high paid production workers has contributed greatly to wage stagnation. Production line workers have been retrained to clean toilets.

 

[Larry Caldwell]

Imagine all of the people put out of work by inventions throughout human history. Penalizing innovation by punitive tax is completely wrong in my opinion. I also don't think there is a lack of jobs in the US. I think there is a lack of people willing to do the available jobs. Ask anybody trying to hire in manufacturing, agriculture, service etc. if there is a lack of jobs.

The work force is shrinking, and will continue to shrink until we boost immigration numbers. Businesses are on the other end of "You're lucky to have a job." Now it's "You're lucky to find someone to do the job."

 

[Sprinkler Fitter]

They use the most services and refuse to pay anything, makes total sense.

Just like the coming SS fiasco. Even people that just want to have a discussion about SS are labeled as Nazi's. I was traveling last week in Florida and saw a tv add saying...Ron D has voted 5 times to cut SS funding, he wants to take away your SS. We all know SS has not gone down, it's just fear mongering. However, because of this fear mongering, it creates the topic as untouchable. All it does it make us slowly march towards a world where SS is gone and we just have fear mongering platitudes to throw at everyone. That world is less than 10 years away.

I agree it’s fear mongering, the way they talked years ago as Social Security would never be available when I retired, I retired four years ago and September 1st I’ll turn 62 and start collecting Social Security so it lasted a lot longer than they made us think it was going to last or not going to last

 

[NoTrespassing]

The work force is shrinking, and will continue to shrink until we boost immigration numbers. Businesses are on the other end of "You're lucky to have a job." Now it's "You're lucky to find someone to do the job."

I'm fine with increasing immigration as long as they are skilled law-abiding immigrants. I am not in favor of what's happening now. I believe government support is much too easy to come by and a lot of the unskilled labor jobs could be filled if government support was more difficult to qualify for.

I know a lot of students at my local community college are getting a free ride, paid for by taxpayers.

I long for the days when one salary could support a household though.

 

[Snobdds]

The work force is shrinking, and will continue to shrink until we boost immigration numbers. Businesses are on the other end of "You're lucky to have a job." Now it's "You're lucky to find someone to do the job."

Bringing in unskilled labor that undercut wages and put strain on social services is not the immigration we want.

 

[California]

I long for the days when one salary could support a household though.

Back when collective bargaining (unions) made labor more powerful in negotiating wages than an individual alone could ever be? So he could afford the middle class house, car, kids that young families long for, today?

Maybe part of the solution to labor shortage today is higher pay? I keep reading of folks who are denied a substantial raise after they become skilled, and essential, so they bail for another job that needs those skills and pays 40% more. I wonder if the employers crying No Loyalty Today!!! are recognizing this.