We have robots. It’s the future now. We should be retiring at 85 while the robots live in luxurious sky cities.
I, for one, welcome our new robot overlord.
We should be retiring at 50. This is bullshit.
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RIGHT???
because the entire point of living isn’t to work.
But the point of living is simply to survive and procreate. There’s no innate requirement of “living” to be not working… we worked hard for thousands of years just killing things to eat.
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That is almost impossible. Even if we had machines and robots, there will always be the necessity for people to work
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There are many people for who working isn’t the meaning of life.
And I said that it is almost impossible because there will always work to be done
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Do you mean this as in robots cannot do it all? Because I’m pretty sure they soon will be able to. Or do you mean it in that humans need challenges to make their lives feel complete? Because I would agree with that.
I meant the first one. Someone will have to create/update/maintain robots.
For awhile they will. But still, that would mean one engineer could handle several restaurants, for example. We won’t have nearly enough jobs for all the people, unless we invent some busy work. Maybe that’s what pumping gas jobs in certain states always has been though 🤔.
Wr should be able to retire whenever we want. Fuck work.
If you have enough money then ya
Women in China retire at age 50, men at 60
how are retirement plans in china? are they good?
Pretty good. My mum’s living in Shanghai (most populous city in China) and has been a pensioner for 20 years. It’s enough money to get by and now that she’s 70 she also receives monthly coupons for her neighbourhood canteen (although food is already very cheap)
really? that seems unsustainable, but would explain a few things I suppose.
Unsustainable??? Have you seen how many people there is in China? They could probably retire at 30 and still have enough people to fill in the jobs.
China has a bad ratio of young people to old people. They have a lot of people, but as the population ages there will be fewer working people supporting more retired people. It’s not just about money either. There are a finite number of nurses or caretakers in a country at any given time, so it will mean higher ratio of people needing care to those able to give it. It’s a complex issue that almost every country is going to be dealing with more in the future, but China will probably feel it more than average.
Keep in mind China has a much tighter family structure where children look after their elderly parents (and often live under the same roof), and in return grandparents provide free childcare so both parents are able to work full time. Nursing homes are not incredibly common but it might become a bigger problem as more and more young people move away from their family in the countryside to work in the bigger cities.
Oof. Check out what retirement ages were in the USSR. They were very similar to China with options to retire earlier if you worked more physically demanding jobs.
Turns out retirement ages in the imperial core have always been worse and since there is no big bad red to be scared of, the capitalists don’t feel the need to make the same kind of concessions they needed to make to prevent similar uprisings in their country in the past.
Your life is being stolen from you for someone else’s profit. It will always be this way under a capitalist system.
imperial core
How does this not describe the USSR and China? Two literal empires that increased expansionist policies after going communist?
How many countries have Russia and China, combined, bombed in the last 10 years?
How many countries has the US alone bombed in the last 10 years?
It’s a shame you don’t really wonder why people don’t describe Russia or China as part of the imperial core, because if you bothered to engage in arguments in good faith, maybe you could finally get the taste of boot off your tongue.
You both sound like huge bootlickers.
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People love to have something to live for, but they end up making work their personalities because they have no time or energy for anything else. Turns out if you give people time to actually build a life, they don’t want to go to work constantly.
You can retire at any age you want lol. Most people didn’t live in their means nor did they save for retirement starting at 18/22. This was possible 30 years ago. These days? Not so much.
It doesn’t mean you can’t leverage it way better than most though. Starting a Roth IRA saves more money than even paying off your house loan in half the time. That’s saving an extra $70,000 for most. Putting into retirement early triples that lol.
Compound interest via stock/bonds is a bullshit money generating hack made up by rich people to get richer though. The poors literally get their dregs from riding on their coattails then acting like they invested well. Nobody wants to admit that you should be able to retire indefinitely by what amounts to hoarding above a certain dollar threshold though lol.
Is it really just a simple matter of living within your means when you are constantly bombarded with the idea that you are inferior for not having that shiny new thing and banks are constantly trying to push you into predatory debt schemes like credit cards?
At that point, I don’t blame people for not having a retirement fund. This is a systemic problem, not an individual failure and we should look at changing those systemic failures rather than pointing the finger at people and saying, “you fell for our bullshit and now you are poor. Shame on you!”
Tell me you have bad credit and a spending problem without telling me you have bad credit and a spending problem
Tell me you’re a stupid chud without saying you’re a stupid chud.
That doesnt really fit here bro sorry. It was a solid meme attempt tho. Keep practicing!
I just want wages to increase to a point where people with a decent education can afford a home without any major financial stress.
It’s not normal to have professionals with bachelor’s degrees not being able to afford a home.
middle aged would be around 36.
I didn’t come here to be insulted.
Me: *turns 51 in a few days
Also me: “fuck”
Spitting truth
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According to my kids:
0-30 is young.
31-60 is middle aged.
61-90 is old.
Over 90 is fucking old.
The whole point of calling somebody “middle-aged” is that they’re in that indeterminate space where they definitely aren’t young anymore, but they aren’t like, old, old, yet, basically they’re still able-bodied enough to hold down a job.
Not one. Not the other. Somewhere in the middle. Middle-aged.
30 isn’t so old, but it depends hard on the person in question, some are still in great shape, but many 30-year-olds have been nursing a back problem and/or jacked knees for years by the time the birthday comes, they sure as hell don’t feel young. Some 30s haven’t had kids yet, some of them have kids in middle school. So that averages out, and we onboard you to this shitty party at 30. If you can still rock the swimwear at 30, do it, and don’t take it for granted.
For the record, we don’t care what children think old is. Children are insane.
Fuck. I’m really middle aged aren’t I…
I’m just about to get old LOL
You and me both Obi.
Thanks for starting my day with giving me a midlife crisis.
Brah, I kinda figure education that was for you didn’t count … If it helps
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eh, you’re free to retire in your mid 30s. it’s easy. i retired in my late 30s, then went back to work again when I ran out of money a few years later. it was nice, i look forward to retiring again.
Most people would call that a sabbatical.
Interesting. Is retirement just a sabbatical until death?
Death is just a sabbatical until reincarnation.
yeah, you could call it that. for my mental health I referred to it as a retirement.
Did you FIRE and calculate wrong or had a bad few economic years?
oh no, my job was offshored by IBM - I decided I wasnt going to work anymore and did that for a few years. then I ran low on funds and found a new job. I could quit now & do the same thing for a few years but I’ve got a different plan this time around, it’ll drastically reduce my monthly expenditures allowing my next “retirement” to much longer - possibly permanent.
Dude it is NOT easy to make enough to retire in your 30s. Congratulations to you for even making it a few years. That’s a huge accomplishment. But saying it’s easy is a bit unfair to those who are not able to make that kind of income.
Saying this as someone who also plans to retire before I turn 40, and I DO have an income advantage. It has been very difficult even still.
What’s your retirement number to retire by 40?
Close to $2M, but I care more about dividend income than the current stock market prices. If I can survive on dividends from VTSAX then I’m good.
Home paid off? LCOL area?
I apologize if these are prying questions.
Not at all. These are normal questions, especially from r/financialindependence back from Reddit. South Florida but I bought my house and homesteaded it (locks the property taxes to no more than 3% increase per year) before the value doubled. Home is paid off. No other debt anymore. I can and have spent as little as $25k per year, to as much as $40k per year. This only represents my half of expenses though. My wife has her own fire plans.
Legend. You should be proud of yourself. Not sure where I’m heading but FIRE or a lean FIRE is one of the options.
Avg life span is 80+ in most countries…
I’ve never heard anybody suggest that 50 is middle aged, usually it’s traditionally been 30, or nowadays with life expectancies being higher, 36 is spot on.
Anyway, we’re all going to work until we’re dead, to keep the rich ruling class fed. There’s no escape.
I thought 50 was the middle of your adult life, 20-80 ish years old
This was my understanding as well.
I’ve always viewed middle aged as 40s
I agree here.
Right cuz that’s why people work til 65. Totally just a choice/s
I guess the point is you’re middle aged in regards to your contribution to society. First 15-20 years of your life you pretty much just “take”, while the following 50ish you are expected to chip in. In those terms, 50 sounds about right as being referred to as “middle aged”.
Something doesn’t seem right about that.
You’re supposed to work 40+ years to pay off a 20 year debt to society? That doesn’t seem fair.
Also you didn’t chose to be born, I don’t think you owe anyone anything for having to grow to reach an age where you have agency over yourself.
a 20 year debt to society
It could actually be way more than that when you consider retirement (in much of the western world at least). You also can’t really “have agency over yourself” in the sense you mean without making use of what society puts at everyone else’s disposal (roads/internet/currency/etc), and freeloading comes with all sorts of drawbacks because society is shaped in a way that doesn’t reward it for obvious reasons.
technically NO ONE asked to be born. Not even your parents or your grandparents.
It’s not a debt to society. You have to “chip in” to take care of yourself and what you consume & throw away.
You’re free to go live in the backwoods, build a rudimentary cabin, and hunt or fish to survive. That might be harder work than what you’ve got now though.
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Holy, i never thought about it like that
Actually, we pay a fuck ton during that time
Wait, your retirement age is less than the average lifespan?
Uhm, retirement was invented for the elderly who can’t really work on the fields/processing plants anymore. Work changed and people got older since then.
Most people still work manual labor jobs. Cognitive ability also declines with age. Age discrimination during hiring/recruiting is fairly common (witnessed it at nearly every job I’ve ever had, even though it’s illegal, and I’ve had a lot of jobs). There aren’t enough “bullshit jobs” like Walmart greeter for everybody. Aging population can be solved by permissible immigration (which are comparably younger populations), but there are too many racists and politicians worried about demographic shifts.
Since when do most people in the US still work manual labor jobs? Have we not been in a service economy since around the 80s or did I miss something
Yeah I think he’s just making stuff up.
Work is now driving people to age faster due to stress.
I took a year off work recently to detox and had a zero cortisol policy. Lines on my face faded, hair looks great and stopped thinning, came back nicely, lost weight, almost have a six pack for the first time in my life approaching 40. People know how stressful work is but most don’t understand what it’s like to truly live for yourself stress free. I’m super fortunate and grateful for having the opportunity to do that and highly recommend.
The hardest part about going back to work was reentering that disgusting American corporate culture of toxic optimism. I’m fine with a lot of work and my stress tolerance/management is much better now. But that culture of toxic optimism is hard to handle.
Yeah I had a genius boss who was an outrageous overworker. Like he didn’t always work on his job but when not he was learning to play guitar, learning languages, always “on”, didn’t sleep much and got more done than most any two regular people could do. Like at work he did the work of 3 people at least. It broke his marriage, his life but he cannot slow down. I actually like him as a person but it’s terrifying.
On every review I got points from him for “work-life management”, limiting work so that I could do life, be with my kids, SLEEP, exercise, take all my “use it or lose it” PTO, etc. I made myself available for one late day a week and one weekend a month, am not inflexible but not so hyperfocused on work and for some reason he could see this as a good quality in an employee - others in the department tried to meet his insane standards and would burn out. By keeping my boundaries I can be creative, see solutions, not get so deep in that I lose the objectivity.
You are not a better worker by killing yourself giving too much to work. Not even by the standards of a boss who is killing himself with overwork. Keep your objectivity. Rest, work, exercise, play, rest. Not work hard play hard, no.
Those people are mentally ill. Living in a permanent state of mania or hypomania isn’t normal or healthy. But because they are hyperfocused and sleep only a few hours a night they manage to get themselves into leadership positions and set the tone for literally everyone else. It’s fucked up.
Setting boundaries is crucial for dealing with these people. I’m so glad my resume and circumstances are strong enough to be able to stand up for myself.
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We’re living longer and aging slower than ever before now
The average life expectancy of men in the US is 73 (it was 74 pre-COVID).
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