
A Path to Retirement, for Those Far From It - jbae29
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/04/your-money/a-path-to-retirement-for-those-far-from-it.html?smid=pl-share&_r=0
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carsongross
You have to laugh at the same old investment advice, as if real interest rates
haven't been slammed to zero/negative and won't be held there for the
foreseeable future, as if stock returns haven't become almost completely cap
gains driven on dubious earnings multiples, as if real wages aren't flat to
down and as if housing, education and healthcare haven't all run out
_dramatically_ far ahead of what our friends in Washington are calling
"inflation".

That's not to say the advice to save as much as you can and invest in index
funds isn't sound, but look around guys...

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jksmith
Exactly what is %15 for 30 years going to get me but delayed poverty? The
standard retirement language in this piece is just bs peddled by money
managers that I've been hearing all my working career.

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lumberjack
$1.9M assuming you start at 25 with 15% on a $100K salary ($15K stashed away)
and retire at 65. I'm assuming real returns of 5%.

You have a point. That is not even safe retirement money today and definitely
not in 40 years time.

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lumberjack
Interesting. At a first glance it looks like a condensed version of
boogleheads. [1]

Also I didn't know who William Bernstein was but I found this interesting
Google Talk he gave on the macroeconomics of global prosperity. [2]

[1] [http://www.bogleheads.org/](http://www.bogleheads.org/) [2]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fTUZXwQwUJM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fTUZXwQwUJM)

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jtolle
I've liked other stuff by William Bernstein. His book "The Birth of Plenty" is
excellent. I haven't read the pamphlet mentioned in the article, but I just
downloaded it.

I'll be interested to see what his advice is to younger people now. At least
in the past, he was not quite the typical scold. I always liked this quote:

'An optimist might cite this as an example of the "magic of compound
interest." Too much is made of this phenomenon. A pessimist would note that
our industrious saver died an old man without enjoying his fortune; had he
consumed even a few percent of it each year his estate would have been vastly
smaller. Personally, I’d rather be a 26 year old roaming the boulevards of
Paris with a few francs in my pocket than a rich old man. Everyone cannot be
rich, but perhaps their grandchildren can.' (from:
[http://www.efficientfrontier.com/BOOK/chapter2.htm](http://www.efficientfrontier.com/BOOK/chapter2.htm))

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tempestn
If you haven't read it already, I highly recommend The Four Pillars of
Investing by Bernstein. Goes into a bit more depth than his newer books, but
it's still very readable.

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noisy_boy
The only path to retirement I can see is to work in an developed country (or
relatively more developed than the country of origin), save like crazy and go
back the country of origin/a cheaper country (in case your country of origin
is already developed), when the sun no longer shines or the target cut-off
date arrives, whichever is earlier.

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throwaway344
The article as a whole seems fairly sound to me, but in the second paragraph
it says "strengthen Social Security". That implies, to me, that Social
Security, is something worth saving. Social Security, as a program is not just
close to bankrupt finacially, but also morally.

That's because, unlike the other government programs, Social Security (and
Medicare), are neither investments in the future (education, roads, defense),
or helping the needy (Medicaid, SNAP). Social Security, is in the simplest
sense of it, taxing the young, and giving it to the old. That's despite the
fact that the old are doing far better than young people economically. [1]

[1]
[http://www.usatoday.com/money/economy/income/story/2011-11-0...](http://www.usatoday.com/money/economy/income/story/2011-11-06/wealth-
gap-young-old/51098910/1)

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Swizec
The idea being that our young will do the same for us.

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pravda
I think what you mean is, we'll do the same to our young. Two Wrights might
have made an airplane, but two wrongs don't make a right.

