71–80 of 246 posts
Ha ha. This is _wildly_ optimistic - this means 7% minimum and prob 8% or 9%. If he can guarantee these kinds of returns the world's money managers are going to be calling.
MMM has a philosophy that is mathematically sound, and might even work for some people. Unfortunately, it's proven to fail for just about everyone (the spend less, save more advice has been around since the industrial revolution, and it isn't working to well: the average American has $16k in credit card debt). The reason it fails is because it ignores basic psychology. The key quote in this article is: >>But simply c…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
You do realize you've disproved your own point, right? >>This is vitally important because it means it's impossible for a significant percentage of people to retire early unless the remaining workforce becomes correspondingly more productive ... >>Arguably, that is already happening even without additional early retirees, simply because the increased average life expectancy (and thus the time people spend in retireme…
I haven't disproved my main point at all (returns from investment are ultimately funded by the working population) - just perhaps not given the proper weight to the caveat about increased productivity when talking about the effects. However, fact is that most people's incomes have stagnated or decreased. The increased productivity is not quite enough to compensate for the increasing number of retirees and/or super ri…
To simplify: if you work 7 hours a day, but save 3 hours worth of income out of those 7 hours and invest it in a company in a developing economy, you could be purchasing 300 hours of economic activity. So by saving, you have actually worked 300 hours that day (without your capital, those 300 hours would not have been done at all), while if you did not save, there is only 7 hours of economic activity.
Sadly MMM and others don't mention the whole "all 5% per year after tax gains get reset by 20 years when the world markets crash" scenario. Also he doesn't take into account if you have kids and want to help them with their college education where that leaves you savings wise. Yeah, I'm annoyed to have been trying to save money through the second depression.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
>I've stopped buying myself a new computer every six months or so. Err.. why would you do that to start with? Even my hardcore gaming friends can make machines last for years.
I've always liked to have the latest and most powerful piece of hardware I could afford ... I know it was a stupid thing to do, but this is the way I was.
If I was a moustachian I would probably say something like:
"Looking back on that, you realise that was an absolutely insane way of spending money. What expenses do you still have which you might look back on as insane a year from now?"
Sadly MMM and others don't mention the whole "all 5% per year after tax gains get reset by 20 years when the world markets crash" scenario. Also he doesn't take into account if you have kids and want to help them with their college education where that leaves you savings wise. Yeah, I'm annoyed to have been trying to save money through the second depression.
Sadly MMM and others don't mention the whole "all 5% per year after tax gains get reset by 20 years when the world markets crash" scenario. Also he doesn't take into account if you have kids and want to help them with their college education where that leaves you savings wise. Yeah, I'm annoyed to have been trying to save money through the second depression.
Sadly MMM and others don't mention the whole "all 5% per year after tax gains get reset by 20 years when the world markets crash" scenario. Also he doesn't take into account if you have kids and want to help them with their college education where that leaves you savings wise. Yeah, I'm annoyed to have been trying to save money through the second depression.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Sure, if you assume everyone just sits around twiddling their thumbs and going on vacations once they're retired. A large number of people end up continuing to be productive during retirement, but they choose "jobs" based on enjoyment rather than salary. With a free market and a global economy, I fail to see the potential dilemma large numbers of early retirees could cause. Retirement != not working.
Shouldn't salary correspond to productivity in a free market, though? So the retirees will work in less productive jobs, on average. It's an interesting question what it will do to the job market. I suppose it means it becomes pretty much impossible to find a joby that is both enjoyable and pays well because the retirees who don't care for the salary will drive that down.
Ideally, yes. In reality, that's rarely the case, which is why wealth distribution has become such an issue and incomes continue to rise for top earners while falling for those in the middle and bottom tiers.
Sadly MMM and others don't mention the whole "all 5% per year after tax gains get reset by 20 years when the world markets crash" scenario. Also he doesn't take into account if you have kids and want to help them with their college education where that leaves you savings wise. Yeah, I'm annoyed to have been trying to save money through the second depression.