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More Americans are considering retirement

bloomberg.com

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Re: More Americans are considering retirement

#61

Post by bobthepanda »

throwaway0a5e wrote: post #41
Pet_Ant wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anything and everything? 50 years people thought we’d have flying cars and unions. Who would have imagined all the automation? It is a world of work that was inconceivable to most people then.

50yr ago was 1971. People's takes on flying cars and unions were much more modern (less optimistic) at that time than they were say 70yr ago.

Flying cars had mostly already proven to be impractical, but at that point there was at least some optimism in some areas left (like space) and the massive reality check that was the OPEC oil embargo had not happened yet.

Re: More Americans are considering retirement

#62

Post by bobthepanda »

sam0x17 wrote: post #20
paulpauper wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not really. Most boomers and are not rich at all. Go to your local food store and you will probably find plenty of older employees...it's not just 20-somethings who are stuck in crappy professions or in a rut. Many boomers did not save for retirement and face the same problems young people do. Also there are plenty of 20 and 30-year-olds on Reddit (such as on investing and FIRE subs) and hacker news who have sizable…

Except the vast majority of them own property that they originally purchased for under $50k which, if sold, would net them hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars. Many of them are on pensions (something that doesn't even exist anymore), plus they receive social security payments.

Maybe in high-COL areas, but a lot of the older people in the US also tend to live in areas that young people have mostly left, like rural areas or small towns.

Owning a house for 30 years in Berkeley in 2021 is a lot different than owning a house for 30 years in Gary, IN.

Re: More Americans are considering retirement

#63

Post by [deleted] »

refurb wrote: post #39
cercatrova wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They probably will be, what will be (truly, materially) different?

A big part of older folks wealth is based on gains from housing. Do you think that will continue at the same pace and leave us with an inflation-adjusted doubling or tripling of home prices? Do you think migration trends into cities will continue unabated? Do you think US population growth which drives much of the housing market will continue?

[deleted]

Re: More Americans are considering retirement

#64

Post by jason-phillips »

jleyank wrote: post #55
dougmwne wrote: post #2

This sounds absolutely wonderful to me. At this point we have 2 generations straining for opportunities and advancement while the wealthiest and luckiest generation in the history of the country sits at the top of the ladder. Time for them to go enjoy their good fortune in Florida and let the rest of us crack into that turf they've been hoarding.

There are a bunch of 60+ senior developers sitting there occupying positions in the modern software industry? If so, they must have been damn lucky not needing to look for work after they hit 45 or so... Or, are they doing stuff "nobody in their right mind" would be interested in doing, like Cobol or Fortran?

> If so, they must have been damn lucky not needing to look for work after they hit 45 or so... Or, are they doing stuff "nobody in their right mind" would be interested in doing, like Cobol or Fortran?

I think the key(s), whether you're sixteen or sixty, are natural intelligence and a great work ethic.

I'm fifty and am full-stack in whatevers with a side of devops/architecting. I frequently have to walk into a room and in less than thirty minutes figure out what the hell is going on, how I'm going to add value, communicate that to the stakeholders and then deliver. People seem to dig it.

Fifty ain't so bad. What's COBOL?

Re: More Americans are considering retirement

#65

Post by swiley »

dougmwne wrote: post #27
hi5eyes wrote: post #12

rise in popularity of FIRE lifestyle with everyone in their late 20s too

At it's heart, FIRE is a reaction to how tenuous, unsustainable and unstable the job market has become in recent years. I don't particularly want to sit on the couch and binge Netflix, but I have such low faith that I'll be able to maintain decent employment that won't destroy my physical and mental health till the age of 67 that FIRE is a completely reasonable thing to aim for. The only unreasonable thing is the cor…

This exactly, after looking for my first job I feel like I'm always going to need a backup pan that can be Sustainable with very long periods of no income. The upside to having that in place means the minimum I need to retire is very low. I'm pretty pissed that everything seems to be blowing up this year because my 401k is just about there.

Re: More Americans are considering retirement

#66

Post by Grimm1 »

angelzen wrote: post #34
petilon wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's what a FAANG software engineer can expect to have at retirement: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Ryu_-mVYxSdJbW8lmf1z...

https://mobilemonkey.com/articles/employee-tenure-in-tech-co... Here’s How Long Employees Are Staying AT The 10 Biggest Companies in Tech: Facebook – 2.02 Years Google – 1.90 Years Oracle – 1.89 Years Apple – 1.85 Years Amazon – 1.84 Years

I mean I can generally negotiate higher than 20% bump every two years or so going to a new employer, not sure my incentive to stick around longer. My understanding is that’s prevalent throughout the industry

Re: More Americans are considering retirement

#67

Post by rhexs »

cowanon63636 wrote: post #42
andreilys wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The idea that professional software developers will have their negotiating power depleted is preposterous. Barring an AGI that can take care of knowledge work, companies will continue to pay a premium to developers because they are often times the core value creators of the business. Even in traditional areas like finance, quants with CS PhDs are displacing Harvard MBA’s trading on fundamentals b/c their returns blow…

> The idea that professional software developers will have their negotiating power depleted is preposterous. Lol, I heard the same arguments in the 1990s about webmasters, which at that time were also commanding large premiums over the market median. I also remember when any engineer who touched a linux kernel could make 3x "normal developer" wages. Most FAANG engineers aren't working on anything too special; the big…

Yep. We haven't hit a real bear market in quite a while -- even 2008 was mostly a road bump if you were in tech. We'll see what shakes out when everyone isn't getting trivial 20-30% gains in the market every year.

There are good years, and then there are bad years...

Re: More Americans are considering retirement

#68

Post by justshowpost »

dougmwne wrote: post #2

This sounds absolutely wonderful to me. At this point we have 2 generations straining for opportunities and advancement while the wealthiest and luckiest generation in the history of the country sits at the top of the ladder. Time for them to go enjoy their good fortune in Florida and let the rest of us crack into that turf they've been hoarding.

And Millennials are getting their second opportunity [to squander] as the slate is wiped clean by societal collapse.

Re: More Americans are considering retirement

#69

Post by itronitron »

paulpauper wrote: post #58
sam0x17 wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except the vast majority of them own property that they originally purchased for under $50k which, if sold, would net them hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars. Many of them are on pensions (something that doesn't even exist anymore), plus they receive social security payments.

It's not like boomers in the '70s and early '80s had $50k just lying around. Even today that is considered a sizable amount of $. Wages were pretty low back then even when adjusted for inflation. Saving $50k would have been a major challenge even for professionals back in the 80s. It's easy to see how cheap things were generations ago and think that this meant things were thus more affordable, but not necessarily so.

You make an interesting point, and I wonder if hearing about the very high incomes supposedly being earned by employees at certain tech companies explains the willingness for young people to incur large amounts of student loan debt.

Re: More Americans are considering retirement

#70

Post by ec109685 »

angelzen wrote: post #34
petilon wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's what a FAANG software engineer can expect to have at retirement: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Ryu_-mVYxSdJbW8lmf1z...

https://mobilemonkey.com/articles/employee-tenure-in-tech-co... Here’s How Long Employees Are Staying AT The 10 Biggest Companies in Tech: Facebook – 2.02 Years Google – 1.90 Years Oracle – 1.89 Years Apple – 1.85 Years Amazon – 1.84 Years

That is misleading. If a company is high growth, their median tenure is going to be low.
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