Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

America vs. Singapore: You can't save your way out of economic shocks

governance.fyi

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

181–190 of 488 posts

Re: America vs. Singapore: You can't save your way out of economic shocks

#181

Post by kelvinjps10 »

raw_anon_1111 wrote: post #84
everforward wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To me it sounds like a tax structured in a strange way so it doesn't obviously read as a tax. It's essentially a forced loan to the government at subpar rates. The "tax" is the delta between what the government pays out for the bonds vs what a bond of equivalent risk in the free market would have paid. The magnitude of the investment also probably makes it impractical for anyone but the very wealthy to retire before…

It’s almost impossible for an upper middle class couple to retire in the US before their 65 unless they have some type of government provided or private company provided health insurance like teachers, police officers, military etc. It’s about $25K a year for a decent plan which is doable. But you have to hope that Republicans - and yes this is a political issue - don’t successfully kill the ACA and make it impossibl…

With health marketplace you can get insurance, or you can get a PPA service, or save money into a HSA, like there is multiple ways to do it.

Re: America vs. Singapore: You can't save your way out of economic shocks

#182

Post by raw_anon_1111 »

kelvinjps10 wrote: post #181
raw_anon_1111 wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s almost impossible for an upper middle class couple to retire in the US before their 65 unless they have some type of government provided or private company provided health insurance like teachers, police officers, military etc. It’s about $25K a year for a decent plan which is doable. But you have to hope that Republicans - and yes this is a political issue - don’t successfully kill the ACA and make it impossibl…

With health marketplace you can get insurance, or you can get a PPA service, or save money into a HSA, like there is multiple ways to do it.

Until the Republican Party finally succeeds at gutting the ACA or make it so bad that insurers wing cover it.

Let’s say you maxed out your HSA for 20 years and have $200K - that can be wiped out with one uncovered major medical incident the HSA max is relatively low.

Re: America vs. Singapore: You can't save your way out of economic shocks

#183

Post by lotsofpulp »

foxyv wrote: post #101
coldtea wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesn't (you can retire early), but it does decide part of what you will need to be saving and how. And the reason it decides that, apart from "because it can", is because many societies have seen what happens when it's left to individuals to take care of this, and they fuck it up in massive numbers, and the outcome of that then fucks up society.

It is really easy to "Fuck it up" when greedy assholes jack up the price of necessities like food, shelter, and medical care. 66% of bankruptcies are due to medical costs. We should just socialize necessities like food, shelter, and medical care so there is no chance of "Fucking it up." That would cover the possibility of disability as well. It sounds to me like we have built a system to exploit people as much as pos…

>We should just socialize necessities like food, shelter, and medical care so there is no chance of "Fucking it up."

How does socializing work if there are insufficient workers relative to non workers? I.e. the supply of food/shelter/medical care is insufficient to meet the demand?

Re: America vs. Singapore: You can't save your way out of economic shocks

#184

Post by robocat »

philwelch wrote: post #90
bombcar wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is more fleshed out in the book "Die with Zero" which may be a bit too extreme. But in general you have three things to spend in your life: time, money, and effort. You don't want to spend all your time saving money because you'll run out of time eventually, but you also don't want to spend all your money saving time because you'll run out of money. It's all about balance and thoughtfully understanding what you…

Money can be passed down to your children and grandchildren though.

You won't be able to in the future unless you are very wealthy.

Countries cannot afford the benefits and healthcare promised to retirees. So governments are getting more grabby. That pattern seems to be occurring in many countries.

New Zealand example: when you are in nursing or elderly care you must spend all your savings and sell your home. The retirement age also needs to increase - one fund suggested to 70+ https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/business/586737/retirement-age-wi...

Netherlands example: new capital tax 36% rate. A capital growth tax (vermogensaanwasbelasting) applies to stocks, bonds, savings, and cryptocurrencies. A separate capital gains tax applies to real estate and startup shares, taxing only upon sale.

US: see medical debts.

Articles usually talk about savings as though you can bank some funds while working, earn interest, and withdraw the savings later.

Don't deceive yourself thinking like that.

"Savings" cannot work in the future due to demographic issues (especially due to people living longer) even if you saw it work in the past.

Look at how many workers support one retiree. In New Zealand it used to be 7 workers to one retiree, and in the future it looks like 2 workers to 1 retiree.

This is a core issue for anyone below retirement age. Not only do we deceive ourselves about solutions, we are deceived by articles and history.

Re: America vs. Singapore: You can't save your way out of economic shocks

#185

Post by lotsofpulp »

yoyohello13 wrote: post #88
arolihas wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Like half of our budget goes to welfare (Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, Income Security, etc). https://www.usaspending.gov/explorer/budget_function

What annoys me the most about this is I'm like 80% sure none of those programs will exist by the time I retire.

The programs will exist, the purchasing power (or quantity/quality of the benefits) will not.

Re: America vs. Singapore: You can't save your way out of economic shocks

#186

Post by Jach »

raw_anon_1111 wrote: post #176
glimshe wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I didn't get where I am by taking random bets, but I'll say you'd lose your money here.

Were you around and trying to get health insurance before 2012? I was. The startup I worked for shut down and while I had a well paying contract lined up literally the next week, I couldn’t get health insurance at any price because of a pre-existing condition even though at the time, I was a part time fitness instructor and I had just gotten through running my first (and last) two half marathons. If you are betting o…

So what did you do? Clearly you didn't die. Did you just have no insurance for the week before the new job started, or what?

This also happened to you while you were working and slightly between jobs. So it's not really a FIRE concern if the concern is the US messing up the health care system even more in that it would effect everyone whether working or not. Generally speaking, an answer to mitigating a lot of types of risk with a FIRE model is: you just go back to work for a while. This is easier the younger you are.

Edit: Also I thought COBRA would have been a more recent thing but it was Regan era. So did you not have employer-sponsored coverage with the startup?

Re: America vs. Singapore: You can't save your way out of economic shocks

#187

Post by paulddraper »

raw_anon_1111 wrote: post #133
paulddraper wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you accept that cancer is a death sentence, it’s not absurd to “self fund” your insurance with a nest egg. You can shop around quite a bit for non urgent care, and get good cash discount.

How much of a nest egg do you think would let you afford a major operation like heart surgery or cancer care?

Read the qualifier.

And heart surgery is ~$60k. [1]

That's [1] https://cost.sidecarhealth.com/ts/heart-bypass-surgery-cost-...

Re: America vs. Singapore: You can't save your way out of economic shocks

#188

Post by [deleted] »

raw_anon_1111 wrote: post #173
snake42 wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FIRE doesn't depend on having a tech job. Its all about income to expense ratio. Planning for medical events is something that gets talked to death in these communities.

How do you plan for a potential quarter million dollar medical bills over a couple of years?

[deleted]

Re: America vs. Singapore: You can't save your way out of economic shocks

#189

Post by paulddraper »

greedo wrote: post #167
paulddraper wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you accept that cancer is a death sentence, it’s not absurd to “self fund” your insurance with a nest egg. You can shop around quite a bit for non urgent care, and get good cash discount.

If you accept cancer as a death sentence, you're an idiot. I had cancer at age 41. If I left it untreated, sure I'd be dead, probably by age 43. But I'm not an idiot, I had good health insurance, I was treated, and now that health event is over twenty years in the past. Had I self-funded with a (non-existent) nest egg, I would still be in debt over $600k. Instead, my insurance had to deal with that...

While I won’t argue insurance wasn’t overall beneficial in your case…

There is no way that $600,000 is the cash price for cancer treatment (especially 20 years ago, but also today).

The average cost of cancer treatment is $150k [1], and lower with cash price + shopping.

[1] https://treatcancer.com/blog/cost-of-cancer/

Re: America vs. Singapore: You can't save your way out of economic shocks

#190

Post by mothballed »

paulddraper wrote: post #187
raw_anon_1111 wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How much of a nest egg do you think would let you afford a major operation like heart surgery or cancer care?

Read the qualifier. And heart surgery is ~$60k. [1] That's [1] https://cost.sidecarhealth.com/ts/heart-bypass-surgery-cost-...

It cost $30k for a loved one just to go to the hospital when their heart "felt weird" but absolutely nothing turned out to be wrong and all they did was run a couple quick scans and tests. I do agree with the overall idea of what you're saying that usually the premiums are way more than what you could get care for if you just saved the money, but the numbers on the website seem very wrong. I realize it's a total anecdote but from loved one's bills it is $20-30k just to get in the door and that is if actually nothing is wrong and there is no heart attack yet they're quoting $30k for an actual heart attack care.
Post reply on HN