Undiagnosed Cognitive Decline Eats into Seniors' Retirement Savings • Hacker News Board

Re: Undiagnosed Cognitive Decline Eats into Seniors' Retirement Savings

#81

Post by ndriscoll » Tue, Jan 28, 2025, 4:42 PM UTC

javagram wrote: post #74

EE84M3i wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In contrast private retirement plans put the individual in charge of their own retirement (why should the government be telling you when to retire?) What countries let you do this? I thought 401ks, for example, do not generally allow tax free early withdrawals.

Early retirement can be done through https://www.irs.gov/retirement-plans/substantially-equal-per...

A better, more flexible strategy is Roth conversion laddering: https://www.investopedia.com/how-roth-conversion-ladder-work...

Re: Undiagnosed Cognitive Decline Eats into Seniors' Retirement Savings

#82

Post by datadrivenangel » Tue, Jan 28, 2025, 4:56 PM UTC

HWR_14 wrote: post #78

CobaltFire wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Around 2011 a report from the CBO came across my desk. It was a study regarding how long US military retirees lived after retirement. Two key findings were in the report: Career Military lived (this is from memory but should be very close to accurate) 7-15 years longer than their civilian cohort. The difference in longevity tracked so strongly with rank they had to run the numbers several times and make sure there we…

I thought the military could retire with a full pension after 20 years. Wouldn't that imply that they have an expected retirement of around 40 years?

People living closer to 80 than 65, assuming enlisting at ~20 and retiring at 40.

Re: Undiagnosed Cognitive Decline Eats into Seniors' Retirement Savings

#83

Post by datadrivenangel » Tue, Jan 28, 2025, 4:58 PM UTC

dsheets wrote: post #62

vkou wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Basic demographic analysis will point out that in a world with a declining and aging population, private investments are probably not going to be doing so hot, either. Wealth creation requires work. Retirees don't work, but still require a portion of the wealth that workers create to live. It doesn't matter if it's a government pension or a 401K investment, a declining worker population will mean that you'll have the…

It depends on how the problem is defined. Do private pensions solve the “I hope I have money in old-age” problem better in a fundamental way? No. Do they solve the “I want to pay more now to have more later” problem better? Probably in most systems. Do they solve the “what is the fair value of grandpa’s pension this month” problem? Definitely yes. If you want guarantees, the state can pull tricks to make you believe…

You're mostly right, but production can only be stored for so long. If a young farmer produces more food than they consume, they can't save that specific food to eat when they retire. Likewise, investing in machinery to increase production later only goes so far without further reinvestment in the form of maintenance.

Re: Undiagnosed Cognitive Decline Eats into Seniors' Retirement Savings

#84

Post by PopAlongKid » Tue, Jan 28, 2025, 4:59 PM UTC

dutchbookmaker wrote: post #69

kome wrote: post #7

i strongly oppose the American approach to pensions, which is regrettably spreading worldwide. relying on private savings to finance retirement is highly risky, and this is the crux of the article in question. pension systems should be administered through public programs, not turned into moralistic contests in which individuals are penalized if their investments fail for any reason (and it's only their fault... whil…

Funny that I know quite a few baby boomers and every single one has a pension, a 401k, maybe a roth AND gets social security and medicare. Not a single one has a college degree. All life long factory workers. Some alcoholics. All they did was show up to the factory job. I know my father hasn't read a book in at least 50 years and he might not have read any in school either. They have no real expenses either besides g…

>They have no real expenses either besides going out to eat, vacations and sports gambling.

Then you don't really "know" boomers. First, there are tax expenses on the pension/401k/Soc Sec. Rent or homeowner maintenance/taxes/insurance are huge, even without a mortgage. Transportation--how do they get to the eat-out place? Medicare does not cover dental or vision, and you can usually expect several crowns/root canals and eye cataracts during this period. Electric/natural gas/internet utilities, even water and trash collection, are all rising faster than inflation. Add in possible veterinary bills, and financial aid to adult children who need it, and you have plenty of expenses.

>Anyone of retirement age right now that is not doing well in America REALLY fucked up in life.

No need to explain how completely wrong and ignorant this assessment is.

Re: Undiagnosed Cognitive Decline Eats into Seniors' Retirement Savings

#85

Post by Dig1t » Tue, Jan 28, 2025, 5:28 PM UTC

My prediction: scams that target this are going to massively increase.

The majority of people I know are not planning on having kids. There’s a huge percentage of my generation who are the last of their family and will have nobody to manage their estate when they start declining cognitively. There’s going to be a big opportunity for scammers and even legit businesses to vacuum up all of their wealth.

Re: Undiagnosed Cognitive Decline Eats into Seniors' Retirement Savings

#86

Post by matthewdgreen » Tue, Jan 28, 2025, 5:29 PM UTC

ThrowawayR2 wrote: post #76

pjc50 wrote: post #11

Under-rated problem. The decline is real, and towards the end of their life many people end up handing a power of attorney to their children or other close relative in order to run their lives. While in the meantime there are so many more internet-enabled scams.

Except increasingly many elderly don't have children / relatives to pass power of attorney to. A bit of a tangent but there is a market opening for a national scale business that is a trustworthy end of life management service for people who are going to die alone. That is going to be a huge market if demographic trends are any indication. Local attorneys / solicitors already provide such services but one has no way…

Sure. But in our society that “trustworthy end-of-life management service” is going to realize that it can achieve better returns by abusing seniors’ finances (or else lookalike services will pop up.) This is the pattern with most debt management companies: they take vulnerable people and upsell them on high-interest consolidation loans.

You either need strong societal values that can stop this (and a business structure that keeps reasonable people in control) or a government that legislates to stop it. We currently have neither in the US, which is one of the reasons we’re in this jam.

Re: Undiagnosed Cognitive Decline Eats into Seniors' Retirement Savings

#87

Post by ThrowawayR2 » Tue, Jan 28, 2025, 5:42 PM UTC

matthewdgreen wrote: post #86

ThrowawayR2 wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except increasingly many elderly don't have children / relatives to pass power of attorney to. A bit of a tangent but there is a market opening for a national scale business that is a trustworthy end of life management service for people who are going to die alone. That is going to be a huge market if demographic trends are any indication. Local attorneys / solicitors already provide such services but one has no way…

Sure. But in our society that “trustworthy end-of-life management service” is going to realize that it can achieve better returns by abusing seniors’ finances (or else lookalike services will pop up.) This is the pattern with most debt management companies: they take vulnerable people and upsell them on high-interest consolidation loans. You either need strong societal values that can stop this (and a business struct…

Firstly, is that worse than letting individual scammers prey on the elderly which is what is happening now? Authorities already can't keep up with finding and prosecuting each of these individual cases. For an institution, there's at least some small hope of scrutiny and eventual accountability for crimes.

Secondly, there can be institutions that are trustworthy enough. There are nationwide scale banks in the US that I could name that have an unsavory past reputation but there are also ones I could name that don't. It's not impossible to make an end of life management business that the public can feel safe in hiring.

Re: Undiagnosed Cognitive Decline Eats into Seniors' Retirement Savings

#88

Post by theamk » Tue, Jan 28, 2025, 5:51 PM UTC

otoburb wrote: post #73

dachris wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google site:bogleheads.org elderly scams - the list goes on and on ... I've also got elderly relatives, and even with their pensions secure (European-style pension system), there's lots of people going after their money. Trying to prepare them for encounters with online and real world scammers is an ongoing process, e.g. by recounting the cases that I read in the news to foster mistrust. I've lost count how often an…

>> I've lost count how often an elderly family member (who is still sharp as a tack fortunately) told me that the "police", "your beloved niece", or "Microsoft" called them. It's very sobering when we realize that we too will one day be just like them.

Right now my default reaction to phone call from unknown number is to ignore it instead of picking it up. Hopefully this will stay with me as I get older.

(my parents are notably different in this default)

Re: Undiagnosed Cognitive Decline Eats into Seniors' Retirement Savings

#89

Post by ahmeneeroe-v2 » Tue, Jan 28, 2025, 6:44 PM UTC

vkou wrote: post #19

YWall39 wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

European pensions are predominantly unfunded, and promises typically amount to 3.5 times GDP. The prevailing view among those who have looked at this is that nobody under the age of 40 will get anything close to what is promised. The only exception is Netherlands, and maybe Sweden. Leaving private pensions the only option.

Basic demographic analysis will point out that in a world with a declining and aging population, private investments are probably not going to be doing so hot, either. Wealth creation requires work. Retirees don't work, but still require a portion of the wealth that workers create to live. It doesn't matter if it's a government pension or a 401K investment, a declining worker population will mean that you'll have the…

You are exactly right.

Put another way, retirees who are no longer actively building/operating society, require that someone else does actively build/operate society. If there are fewer people left to do that, retirement will necessitate a decrease in quality of life (for everyone, not just the retiree).

How to solve for this? Not sure but the west will need to figure this out.

Re: Undiagnosed Cognitive Decline Eats into Seniors' Retirement Savings

#90

Post by htrp » Tue, Jan 28, 2025, 6:49 PM UTC

>>But the data showed that losses were concentrated among those in the upper 25% of wealth distribution who were unaware of their cognitive decline and reported being active in the stock market, the paper said.

Less likely that your elderly relatives get scammed and more likely they yolo some crazy thing like quantum computing triple levered etfs