How Viewing a "Virtual You" Can Help You Save 182
Hugh Pickens writes "The WSJ reports that computer scientists, economists, neuroscientists and psychologists are teaming up to find innovative ways of turning impulsive spenders into patient savers. One way to shock Americans into saving more for their retirement is software that lets users stare into a camera in a virtual-reality laboratory and see an image staring back of how they will look in the year 2057. By enabling the young to see themselves as they will be when they are old, virtual-reality technology can transform their urge to spend for today into a willingness to save for tomorrow because to the extent that people can more vividly imagine how badly they will feel in the future with little to no retirement savings, they can be motivated to save more money now. In one test experimental subjects who saw a persuasive visual analog of a 70-year old version of themselves by morphing the shape and texture of his avatar to simulate the aging process reported they would save twice as much as those who didn't (PDF). 'An employee's ID photo could be age-morphed and placed on the benefits section of the company's website,' says Dan Goldstein of London Business School. 'From there, we're just a few clicks and a few minutes away from someone making a lasting decision that can be worth thousands [of dollars].'"
I have one of those (Score:2)
He's called "my dad"... and he worked hard his whole life, and I see that now at 64 has failing health, is tired all the time and doesn't do much apart from watching TV and surfing a bit. I know how my future looks, I can see him every day if I want.
Well lucky you (Score:2)
Not all of us have that luxury, you insensitive clod.
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Is prostrate cancer the kind of cancer you get from lying facedown too much?
Taking care of self (Score:2)
Just other food for thought.
Weak. (Score:2)
This explains it all. (Score:4, Interesting)
http://youtu.be/A3oIiH7BLmg [youtu.be]
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This video is quite fascinating. I think there should be more studies like these so we can treat the underlying problems of impulsive behavior, which in moderation is usually OK, but that some people take way too far.
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Wow now I see why my sister seems like a dumb slob. I'm future-oriented and she's present-hedonistic.
Those other RSA Animate videos are interesting as well.
Another way to save (Score:3)
You couldn't be more wrong (Score:2)
Deflation helps savers. Inflation helps borrowers.
You noticed all the "SALE 50%" signs go up in 2008/9? Deflation. Money increases in value.
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A 50% off sale doesn't help the guy who just lost 75% of his wealth.
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But it would be pretty foolish to put all of your money in the stock market. Something about putting all of your eggs in one basket or something like that. Other markets went up at the same time, so worst case should be that you are no further ahead.
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Um... *Money* becomes more valuable. *Things*, become relatively less valuable. Stocks, shares, property are *things*, not money.
If you save *money* in a deflationary environment it becomes more valuable over time. If you invest in *things* in a deflationary environment they become less valuable over time.
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"Another way to help Americans save for retirement is to not crash the market..."
Tee hee! You kill me! (runs)
Ah, yes, the US retirement scams (Score:4, Interesting)
Get $100 taken out of your paycheck every month for 40 or 50 years (480 months * 100 = $48,000) and then get a meager 600/month back for maybe 10 (120 months = however much $72,000 will be worth within 40 years) and if you're healthy enough 15 years.
My employer pays for my pension plan and they put in $100 and the $600 is what the fund says I will get even though my investments are very aggressive at this point (50% goes in the tech and asian markets with very good dividends that double the investment every quarter, 50% in the safe 'recommended' aggregated funds which doesn't ever seem to make a profit but is promised to be always there even if the markets crash). If I make another $250 contribution every month they say I should be able to have the same income as I do now but measured against the historic devaluation of money that is not what I want to be making within 40 years and I really could use the 250 right now.
The only way the pension funds work is if you're in the middle-to-upper class (>$250,000/year income) and can contribute easily a good $1000/month into your own managed investment funds. Then you should be able to cash in when you're 60 and live comfortably if off course you're investments paid off over time and you're not committing large funds in bubble's and crashes.
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If you add in the 8% annual long-term average stock market return, 480 months of investing 100 currency units per month comes to nearly 350k in today's currency units.
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You put off retirement for a year to wait for the market to bounce back. Better yet, you sold in 2008 because you saw the bubble and were fearful when others were greedy [wikiquote.org].
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If you had any sort of investment strategy, you would have been out of risky investments anyway and wouldn't have noticed.
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Let's say you retire at 65. How long do you hope to live? Till 75? 85?
350k / 10 years = 35 k/year
350k / 15 years = 23.3 k/year
350k / 20 years = 17.5 k/year
When we assume that social security is likely to be completely broken by the time we retire, our nest egg has to last us. 350k is still frighteningly small! Especially if you need to pay for medical treatment, or want to do more than sit in a small apartment and eat ramen.
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my pension plan is the following, I have a unionized job in a medium ivy university, I get 3.35% of the average of my best five years by years worked there. I got job security and that I plan to retire atfer 35yr of service. I will therefore get what I got when I retire without doing anything else to save money!
Unions rocks !
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Unions rocks !
So long as they're properly funding that pension plan. It might be more expensive than you think - just ask UAW retirees.
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I will therefore get what I got when I retire without doing anything else to save money
Are you sure? Promising to pay is one thing, but actually paying out is something else. Remember that airline workers once thought that their pension promises were secure too, until smart lawyers figured out ways to burn those promises in bankruptcy court and the pensioners received 1/3 of promised payments from the Public Benefit Guaranty Corporation (where pension funds go to die). The only thing that guarantees your retirement is direct ownership of assets, not a promise from someone else to take care of
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That's great for you. Meanwhile, your students are saddled with massive debt to pay for your cushy retirement.
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One minor flaw in the ointment is the baby boomers have just spent 40 years throwing money into the market for retirement. Now they'll be pulling it out.
Consider the very basic supply -n- demand implications. Huge demand to buy results in high prices results in people believing the market will always miraculously give great returns. Then huge lack of demand aka selling means prices drop.
Another problem is pre-tax is the govts money to be used at the govts beck and call, possibly even for your benefit, if
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Then huge lack of demand aka selling means prices drop.
This would be a great time to buy.
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Do you have any suggested alternatives that don't involve the multi-generational Ponzi scheme known as Social Security, or did you just want to whine?
It should not be surprising that if you save $100 a month for 40 years, it will give you very much for very long after retirement. On the other hand, the median household income in the US is $50,000. If you rely on your employer to put aside the equivalent of 2.5% of your income, without putting in anything on your own, that is your own fault. Most American
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Typo: "it will give you very much" should, hopefully obviously, read "it will NOT give you very much".
No kidding (Score:2)
Sounds like his whining is coming down to the fact that his company has a small pension. Ok well that's fine, the idea may well be "We are going to force you to save a little, but we'll give you the flexibility to decide what you want to do with the rest." Fine, but it is then on you to save more.
At my job we have a pension and they take a variable amount (how much depends on how well the fund does, when it does bad you put in more when it does well you put in less) currently 9%, and the employer matches th
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Get $100 taken out of your paycheck every month for 40 or 50 years (480 months * 100 = $48,000) and then get a meager 600/month back for maybe 10 (120 months = however much $72,000 will be worth within 40 years) and if you're healthy enough 15 years.
My employer pays for my pension plan and they put in $100 and the $600 is what the fund says I will get even though my investments are very aggressive at this point (50% goes in the tech and asian markets with very good dividends that double the investment every quarter, 50% in the safe 'recommended' aggregated funds which doesn't ever seem to make a profit but is promised to be always there even if the markets crash). If I make another $250 contribution every month they say I should be able to have the same income as I do now but measured against the historic devaluation of money that is not what I want to be making within 40 years and I really could use the 250 right now.
The only way the pension funds work is if you're in the middle-to-upper class (>$250,000/year income) and can contribute easily a good $1000/month into your own managed investment funds. Then you should be able to cash in when you're 60 and live comfortably if off course you're investments paid off over time and you're not committing large funds in bubble's and crashes.
How on EARTH do you need to earn >$250k/year to contribute $1k/month to your retirement savings? I own a condo, have a paid off car (bought new) and contribute over $1k/month to my retirement... and I make less than 6 figures.
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Single? or Married no children?
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For those that don't live in a basement with their parents and has a small family
Let's say you make 65,000 gross, an average income in an average US city. That comes down to ~42,000 net after local, state and federal taxes, social security, insurance and whatever else comes out of your paycheck or ~3500/month.
3500 - 800 rent or mortgage = 2700
2700 - 300 car payment = 2400
200 * 2 for groceries = 2000
200 for cable, phone, cell phone etc. = 1800
500 for various bills, car insurance, medical costs = 1300
500 for
Re:Ah, yes, the US retirement scams (Score:5, Insightful)
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What a bunch of bull! A few years ago I made $112k/year and put away $2500/month pre-tax consistently for 3 years in a row! If I couldn't have done that, I would have put away $1600/month after tax! I don't feel any sympathy for people that make as much as I did or even more. They can easily put away significant amounts of money and live extremely well when they retire. Since I turned 40 I have been saving money even when I was making significantly less than $100k/year, which was most of my live and
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Even at $2500 a month, you're not going to have your entire retirement funded in a handful of years, which is what the AC alleged.
Yes, but that's $90k in just 3 years. Certainly nothing to sneeze at! Now imagine investing that in mutual funds and bonds for 15 years and it already helps in a noticeable way.
Still, I do agree with you. I think it takes about 20-30 years of saving to have a fairly financially sound retirement investment. Personally I feel that I owe myself that! I also think that it is dangerous to stand on just one leg. For example, as a hedge against inflation ,and a storage facility for my huge comic book coll
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The magic number from all my calculations is around 12%. That pretty much assumes that the market will not be good at all, and inflation will be somewhat high. If you bank 12% of income your working career (including employer matches), and you purchase a home on a 30-year mortgage before you're 35 (so your housing costs essentially disappear at retirement), you should be GOLDEN, living better than you did when you were working.
$100 or $200 a month isn't going to cut it. A person working in technology making
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Sorry, but you're unlikely to be living better after retirement. You'll have little aches and pains all day, arthritis, hair loss, bad teeth, you'll need glasses to see, and have trouble getting it up, let alone having sex for half t
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The only way the pension funds work is if you're in the middle-to-upper class (>$250,000/year income) and can contribute easily a good $1000/month into your own managed investment funds. Then you should be able to cash in when you're 60 and live comfortably if off course you're investments paid off over time and you're not committing large funds in bubble's and crashes.
No offence, but this is insane. First $250,000/year is *middle*-to-upper class??? Even in the rich US $250,000 is past the 98th percentile for salary. Anyone who thinks this is a reasonable salary for middle class people has completely lost touch with reality, IMHO.
Second, you say $1000 per month investment. On $250,000 per year income? That's over $20,000 per month pre-tax income. Maybe you left out a zero??? If not, this is the *definition* of not being able to save. Somehow you've got it into you
B.F. Skinner would be proud (Score:5, Insightful)
Just short of mind control, really. We're holding your future self for ransom and if you don't put your money in the the 401(k) he's gonna get it! It's also weirdly like the Wolfenstein HUD in that your character's face is used to communicate status.
Such a technology as this is really an abandonment of rationalism -- we concede we can't use empirical arguments and evidence about saving and retirement to convince people to save, so now we'll just scare them. Notice that people are only manipulated into saving, and not into thinking about what to put their money into, which is the actual decision people are making. How will your face look if you discover in 20 years the stocks you were buying were a house of cards, and that the only reason you were putting your money into them is because your corporate HR department was guilting you. You should decide how to save their money with a sound mind, free of the sort of manufactured anxieties bank and stock broker marketers use to induce new customers, which is all this is.
Idealism vs. Pragmatism (Score:2)
Unfortunately, we do not live among Vulcans. People have feelings, and sometimes the best way to motivate someone is by manipulating those feelings. Sure, I'm an idealist in the sense that I think it would be ideal if people used their brains and saved more money. But I'm also a pragmatist, and my ex
Why on earth would I save? (Score:5, Funny)
Saving? Are you insane?
Real inflation is hitting what? 8% per year. Anything I save is made worthless very quickly. It is handed over to the bankers. On the other hand, if I take out as much debt as is possible and then I get to pay it back in devalued currency.
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Saving? Are you insane?
Real inflation is hitting what? 8% per year. Anything I save is made worthless very quickly. It is handed over to the bankers. On the other hand, if I take out as much debt as is possible and then I get to pay it back in devalued currency.
Frosting on the cake, is using the cash to either generate income or reduce expenses.
On the other hand that assumes wages will someday increase in step with inflation instead of just 3rd worlding the countries standard of living...
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Not wages. Commodities, stocks and shares.
With the Fed pumping out trillions, it's a one way bet at the moment.
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>On the other hand, if I take out as much debt as is possible and then I get to pay it back in devalued currency.
Or, even better, die indebted and you will have gotten more than you should have, in the end.
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We'd be damn lucky to see only 8%. Food costs went up 4% month over month in February alone, the greatest monthly increase since 1974. [ocregister.com] Assume the February increase is double the "actual" rate and we'd still be looking at 25% year-over-year inflation.
Core inflation in 1974 was about 12% over the entire year. It was
over 30% for the period from 1973-1975. This is significant because
there is general agreement about the causes of the violent inflation
of the early 70s: The global financial order fundamentally
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They aren't excluded to hide cost of living increases, they are excluded because they are relatively volatile.
Gas is pretty expensive these days, but it was only about 15 years ago that it was about as cheap as it had ever been.
That you can research such information on their website sort of deflates the conspiratorial hand-wringing:
http://data.bls.gov/pdq/SurveyOutputServlet?data_tool=latest_numbers&series_id=WPS0571&output_view=pct_1mth [bls.gov]
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When the US went off gold and floated our currency, there was
a long (5-10 year) period of economic shock while everyone had to work
out what happened.
I thought it was Hubberts peak of USA oil production happening just as predicted 40 or so years earlier... So in the '67 arab israeli war the arabs could shut off the spigot and ... who cares since pre-peak you can always increase domestic production. But in the '73 arab israeli war we were at or post peak so the arabs figured out they can now shut off the spigot and we get gas lines and economic collapse... And everybody had to work out what happened w/ regards to that.
Also, its not so much "spot price fo
Re:Why on earth would I save? (Score:5, Interesting)
The idea that you and I will have equal votes in forty years, when my life of scrimping and saving means I have $1M in the bank, and you're penniless and living on debt scares the bejeezus out of me.
Re:Why on earth would I save? (Score:5, Insightful)
The idea that you and I will have equal votes in forty years, when my life of scrimping and saving means I have $1M in the bank, and you're penniless and living on debt scares the bejeezus out of me.
The really scary part is that 40 years of 70s style stagflation in a post peak oil environment means $1M will roughly buy a cup of coffee at starbucks...
Saving $1,000,000 only gets you $200,000. (Score:2)
The problem is.
Over those 40 years, you saved $1 million worth of value, but only get lets say $200,000 worth of benefit from it. You have been robbed[1] of $800,000 worth of value. This is the nature of saving in an inflationary environment. It is stupid to do so.
[1] By the state and by the bankers.
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It's okay, each dollar of your $1M in the bank is an extra vote he won't have.
You just keep saving! (Score:2)
I'll keep spending it for you.
You really need to find out what money is before you get totally robbed.
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Only if the interest on that debt is < 8%.
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You're my hero.
Have fun with that (Score:2)
First off though you might want to do a bit more learnin' before you take a figure like 8% to be the "real" inflation because you read it on some random site (here's a hint: it's not).
Then you might want to consider that your debt has interest factored in, unless you've convinced a bunch of friends to loan to you. You'll almost certainly find that interest is above 8% meaning that you can crow on about currency being "devalued" all you like, in real dollars you'll pay more to pay it off. Goes double since w
Speculation runs from measurement. (Score:2)
The Fed took food and fuel out of their inflation measures on the pretext that they are too volatile.
To be fair, they should measure the volatility of all goods, and take them out on the basis of volatility alone.
If they did that, I think they'd find that food and fuel have, on average been high for quite some time, and are thus not as volatile as they think. Also, the iPads and other gizmos that they are currently including in the index are even more volatile than food and fuel. When Apple decides to cut
Inflation as *previously* calculated... (Score:2)
http://www.shadowstats.com/ [shadowstats.com]
You may find it beneficial to your financial health.
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Aren't there multiple indexes, some with energy+food and some without?
From what I can tell the 'All Items' includes oil and food, while the 'All items less food and energy' index doesn't.
This seems very comprehensive: http://www.bls.gov/cpi/cpid0211.pdf [bls.gov]
Apple is a poor example, Housing is better (Score:2)
You may want to check out how the Bureau of Labor Statistics calculates CPI. www.bls.gov/cpi/
It does count oil. It does count food.
Yes, it does count the cut in Apple, but the weight given to such items is low. Look at housing instead. That has been keeping overall inflation low for the past few years.
I think you are talking about "headline" inflation, which is something different. That excludes oil and food. The fed can cut / raise short term interest rates. Tha
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But remember that in the 1980s, the FED increased interest rates to clean up the mess of the 70s stagflation. Heck, you could get 5% interest on a simple savings account. CDs were paying out in the double digits. I remember watching gas prices fall from over $1.50 to $0.99 and even lower for special occasions like price wars.
An even better way to 'save'... (Score:2)
...would be to find a way to drain those parasites at the top of more or less the entire finance system and many other sectors of the excessive riches they have misappropriated. The scum which acts as top suit of company A and sits in the board of directors of company B,C and D which colludes with the other scum which heads B and sits in A, C and D's board, approving each others thievery.
As long as those parasites hold sway over the banks it does not seem to make that much sense to go on a saving spree. Com
The top 400 own more than the bottom 150,000,000 (Score:2)
I'm surprised that guillotines aren't being built in America yet. Maybe in a decade, when the top 400 own more than the bottom 290,000,000 and people start to wake up to the Ponzi scheme.
Re:The top 400 own more than the bottom 150,000,00 (Score:5, Insightful)
Right, because breaking out the guillotines and slicing the heads off of a bunch of rich jerks will is totally an effective strategy for improving the day to day lives of these people. Hope they enjoy themselves. Myself, though, I think I'll wander off somewhere else before anyone decides it's time to start purging the intellectuals, and would advise most of Slashdot to do the same.
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My pet rats take great offence to that comparison, you insensitive clod.
I think cancer is a more suitable match.
Advertising (Score:2)
This can not possibly reverse decades of conditioning that watching advertising has wrought on a typical mind. Advertising is what makes you want things you do not need. Advertising is what gets you to spend on things that you would not have heard of otherwise. Advertising is what gets you to buy things impulsively without researching alternatives, checking prices in multiple places to get a better deal, or thinking about whether you can do just fine without the damn thing. If you could train people to have
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Wow. Are you really that easily led? Some guy on TV, radio, in a book or otherwise mentions a brand name to you and it "makes you want" things... MAKES you want?! I watch the shopping channels as entertainment - I've never seen anything quite so funny or as contrived and I've never once even considered buying any of those products. I don't think I've ever bought anything featured in an advert I've seen because of the advert (even if you assume some weird subliminal "X is better" subtext).
If you're buyin
This is good news! (Score:3)
Simpsons did it! (Score:2)
Isn't this how The Simpsons were encouraged to save?
You know what else would help me save? (Score:5, Insightful)
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Try unconventional lifestyles and learning things to stretch your check over a lifetime. Learn to fix nearly everything you own. Have useful hobbies. Make friends with all the technology around you.
aka (Score:2)
And this (Score:2)
beh (Score:2)
What people say and what they do are like white knight to black bishop.
US-centric fear mongering (Score:3)
I stopped reading when they stated that a sloppy investor might be eating ramen noodles later in life, while a good investor could be eating sushi. That is such a moronic, consumption-based bullshit example that works so well on mindless US tweens, who are bombarded with the idea that wealth = happiness. Fuck that shit, man, I like ramen noodles!
If you're worried about being broke in your late years, lifestyle decisions will have a much more profound impact than any typical investment strategy some banker will shove down your throat. Want to live like a king ? Don't have kids, and don't spend money you don't have. Better yet: choose a career where you'll still be valuable in your old age and retirement becomes a non-issue. A skilled consultant with 45 years experience will beat your retirement fund, since he won't be competing with inflation, he rolls it into his hourly rate.
Ultimately, we are very adaptive creatures. I'm not saving up for retirement, though once the wife is settled in her career, and her student debt is paid off, we'll be earning more than we can reasonably spend, since we already live quite indulgently on our sub-average income. If we set a goal to retire by a certain age, we'll make the lifestyle adjustments to attain that goal. Right now, we're living for today and life is grand.
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I eat ramen now. Know what I'll be eating later?
My gun.
That's my retirement plan.
How about fixing the system instead of (Score:2)
in a world where top 1% gets 52% of all wealth generated, top 5% including that 1% gets a whopping 72%, and bottom 85% - practically everyone - gets only 15%, there is a lot you need to do before you ever need to get to the point of trying to scare people into savings.
http://sociology.ucsc.edu/whorulesamerica/power/wealth.html [ucsc.edu]
and no - the top 5% had not come to grabbing that much of everything by 'saving'. you cant get 72%
I don't understand (Score:2)
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...and when you don't save for retirement, you're gambling with your life. Pick your poison.
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Indeed, except that all the rest of us have to pick up the tab if you make *no* effort to plan ahead. I know which route I favour you taking...
I'm not big on slaving now in the hopes of being happy when I'm 80, but I'm not so selfish or silly as to assume that someone else will have me live like a king if I recklessly failed to put anything away.
Besides, as I understand UK law where I am, if I drop dead before taking my pension then my family get the contents tax free. In which case an early death can be
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
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You're mistaken in that you need to be young to appreciate Vegas.
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So if someone is responsible, makes sacrifices, and saves, they are rewarded by having to subsidise those who didn't bother to plan ahead. If, on the other hand, they blow all their money on blackjack and hookers, their retirement is then subsidised by those who still have some money.
Sounds like a system that encourages you to take the trip to Vegas while you're young enough to appreciate it, as far as I can see...
A system that lets the elderly who have no money rot would certainly encourage people to save.
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Actually in the UK if you do fail to put anything away, the government will shower you with means-tested handouts. Its the savers who get screwed out of everything.
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And the current government is proposing to change exactly that: I don't think any party of any hue is in favour of encouraging deliberate sloth and recklessness...
Rgds
Damon
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For them, the picture will be of a coffin or an urn.
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Life has a cycle, you start with nothing, and die with nothing. But it gives you a chance when you're younger to have something before you die. If you
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I was going to mod you down, but I couldn't find a "-1, Damn Stupid" mod. Have fun when you're 65, unemployable, deteriorating physically, and have no saved resources. I hope future you feels like suiciding in an half-as-awesome-as-you manner so that "death before retirement" gamble comes off.
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Which he, presumably, hasn't been doing, since he's "stopped caring for the future". Whether you invest in shares or community makes no difference if you've made a point of not investing at all.
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Maybe he doesn't have to be a wage-slaver, or his job is fulfilling (saving children or what not), that would be my ideal life.
Anyway, at the rate humans, represented by democratically elected leaders, are fucking up the world, I doubt that it will survive another 50 years. From climate-change-deniers-and-proud-of-it-in the USA to "oh we pledge to reduce car emissions by 50%... by 2020." too-cozy-with-car-companies Europe, all are blind to the fact that the summers are getting hotter, and the winters are ge
Re:Good life (Score:4, Insightful)
It's reasonable to worry about global warming and similar effects, and it's all well and good to complain about "climate change deniers and proud of it", but to visit the other extreme is also an affront to reason. To wit: changing weather patterns may affect the world economy to the tune of trillions of dollars, but your "uber-winter" scenario sounds like something out of The Day After Tomorrow. As such, I believe that your worries have transcended reason and are now firmly in the realm of paranoid delusion.
Please come back. I assure you there's still plenty of room to be rationally concerned about the world, and (outside of a circle that already embraces the notion) you're really undermining the global warming cause.
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"have an appalling sexual history"
Appalling "good", appalling "bad", or even more appalling "none"?
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Did that. However, because THEY saved and because I saved, we were in a much better position to care for them during their dying process.
We all croak. Live a balanced life and you can be reasonably comfortable until you start "dying in earnest".
When THAT comes I'll either OD or pull a Hemingway. Nothing, at ALL, wrong with suicide when the alternative is slow gnarly incontinent insanity.
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The argument didn't lose validity, you just became "them."