Is Shapiro correct? Is retirement a ridiculous institution?

Congrats on your retirement!

 

It’s been nice knowing y’all. I just passed my 5 years retired (at 63) and so I’m just waiting for death to overtake me (@RIP whereyat?). And here I thought I was totally digging it, hiking, volunteering, having bonfires and drinks with the neighbors on a school night. Death, where is your sting?

 

no concept of the average physical condition of a blue-collar worker at 65 and someone young enough to have more years in front of them than behind them. travel, hiking, fishing, photography, consulting...I won't run out of things to keep me engaged but I certainly won't be counting on SS to fully fund my life either

 

Yep, planning as if ss $ won't be coming to me, so if it does it will be a supplement to my retirement funds.

 

congrats, what kind of engineering consulting? I am leaning towards focusing on professional witness work related to civil and planning/zoning work. PE (civil), AICP with 10+ years on a zoning board and qualified across 12 or so different jurisdictions (counties, cities) as an expert in stormwater, transportation, planning, utilities. Still trying to figure out how to build a client list but with all the lawsuits re: HOA's, CDD's, ADA violations etc it shouldn't be too hard. Don't want anything to do with car crashes though. Lot of transportation experts go into that area.

 

brooks falls uses some volunteers, they may even need some employees next summer...just sayin...your work history should certainly help get your application pulled from the file and then you can hook a brother up when you get there,just need room behind the wire for a sleeping bag for a couple of nights.

Volunteer - Katmai National Park & Preserve (U.S. National Park Service) (nps.gov)

 

I chose a career that has a good retirement rather than work higher paying jobs.

I’ve been retired since 2007. Did not know I should have died long ago. lol. I have a private pension and personal savings so SS is not an issue. I guess not worrying about SS has allowed me to live well into my golden years.

 

fill retirement benefits are 70 now anyway.

 

This was something I believed strongly and why I always saved and invested no matter my salary. It still being available to me is gravy. I like but don’t depend on it - though I know folks who do.

 

Or alternatively the individual blew it all on girls and booze and have nothing. The result is a net drain on society at a later age. Very few people are disciplined enough and have hindsight into investing into the S&P at a young age. Heck, think about all those frivolous things you spent that could have also been put into Nvidia and you would be better off.

 

I agree 100% and my thoughts were that the only choice you would have is to where you participate not a choice of if you participate and it would be like a 401k and not availble until a certain age.

 

Retirement Accounts and Overworked Drivers: The Potential of Nudge Theory

Under traditional economic theory, individual actors are characterized as ‘homo economicus:’ consistently rational and self-interested individuals who make optimal decisions. Unaffected by the sway of emotions, they calmly evaluate each possible option and choose the one that provides the highest payoff. Consumers therefore make decisions to maximize their utility and producers make decisions to maximize their profits. This framework, called rational choice theory, is a popular model of economic behavior.

However, this model has been heavily criticized by economists, academics, and the informed public. A principle criticism of rational choice theory is that it doesn’t acknowledge the role that psychological factors such as cognitive biases and emotions play in decision-making. For example, research conducted by Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky demonstrated how cognitive biases and heuristics skew our thought process, leading us to make decisions that are not in our best interests. Insights like these led to the development of an area at the intersection of psychology and economics: behavioral economics. Building on this research on cognitive biases, nudge theory is one of the biggest breakthroughs in the field of behavioral economics.

****

One of the most significant contributions of nudge theory is in the area of retirement savings. In 2004, Thaler and fellow economist Shlomo Benartzi co-authored the paper, Save for Tomorrow: Using Behavioral Economics to Increase Employment Savings, in which they discuss the use of nudges to get employees to save more. Companies offered employees a type of retirement plan called defined-contribution (DC) plan, to which employees have to manually contribute on a regular basis. Getting them to enroll in this plan is a challenge, especially when the desirability of stashing away their hard-earned money instead of spending it on consumption goods is not immediately obvious.

Thaler and Benartzi took an interest in this problem, realizing that the key to solving it was to make the process of enrolling in the DC plan simple and painless. To this end, they came up with a behavioral intervention called Save More Tomorrow™, which consisted of three components. First, employees committed in advance to saving a portion of their future salary. Second, increases in saving rates were linked with increases in pay rises. Third, employees stayed enrolled in this program unless they manually opted out. These components were engineered to circumvent people’s cognitive biases. For example, enrolling new employees by default raised the ‘cost’ (in terms of effort) of leaving the plan, making it more likely that they would stay. Evidence shows that this worked—around 80% of the people enrolled in the program by default remained.

 

I want to retire at 51 but my wife and boss told me no.

... My accountant agreed with them.

I think Ben got to them!

 

He's such a fool. And he must not know many old people. My parents, aunts, uncles and many older friends and acquaintances have been retired for decades and are somehow still alive.

 

I concur 100%. That is why the option is where it goes, not whether it goes! The company I worked for about 15 years ago signed everyone up on the 401K program at hiring or existing employees had to physically fill out an opt out form. It started with 6% because of what the company matched, and it was done when raises came out, so most didn't even notice it. Then annually at raise time it would go up 1% until the employee reached 10%. They could increase or decrease afterward but it required effort to do that. I had a 50-year-old driver that was totally against it, when he retired at 65, he was making $18/hour, and had over $100,000 in his 401K and couldn't thank me enough for not allowing him to opt out. Not enough to live on, but he didn't start until he was 50. So, it needs to be forced, but the return can be much greater than what SS provides now.

 

Civil site design and permitting. Been doing it for about 35 years and the opportunities near me are numerous. I won’t chase any work. It tends to find me since my wife is an architect. In retirement I will be very picky about what projects I accept. Plus my former employer is interested in me being available to them on a consulting basis, probably mostly for QC. Expert witness is too intense for me. Been through a couple (successful) trials and don’t need that pressure.

 

really good point. And what Shapiro is, deciding his parents should work forever. Plus Shapiro is 40 yrs old. Will be interesting his opinion in 15 years. (Well, not him specifically, but someone that doesn't sling mug, insults and tear down society to get clicks).

it’s almost uncanny how “retirement” is barely considered in younger years. Although our society did well getting 401k paycheck withdrawals as a perceived priority in our culture.

 

It just goes to the right wing idea that there are only two social classes: Their monied elite and slaves. The purpose of almost all their policies is to push this country towards that reality.

 

Keep on truckin’, man. My dad retired first from the USAF after 22 years, then after another 20 years driving a school bus and wound up with three monthly checks after turning 65. He triple-dipped until passing away last Thanksgiving weekend at 99 years and 11 months of age. I doubt I’ll get 35 years of retirement, but some of us might. Other than God’s Grace and decent genetics, the key is to remain active and choose to be happy/thankful. I believe that good attitude can carry you a long way.

 

Sounds like personal choice to me. Just don't tell me I can't.