Maybe. But that’s also what most of my family thought in the 70s, and SS still chugs along. Well not that it would be means-tested, but that it would be gone. I think Republicans have been really good at planting the idea in people’s heads not to count on SS.
It’s hard for me to see them just taking all the money from people who paid into the system. I feel like there would be an uproar.
Right, like when I’m getting closer to that decision and based on my financial situation, I’ll probably look to be conservative enough with enough that I have some baseline level of money to live off of for the rest of my life.
Of course, retirement is a very fluid concept for me. I’ll probably never stop working completely, because I can’t imagine never playing poker. It just may be skipping more weekend games to do fun stuff, or playing on the weekend but quitting at 6pm to go out to dinner or do fun stuff, etc… Maybe playing like 50 hours a month. So there will always likely be some income coming in, it’s just more about whether I feel guilty if I don’t put in enough hours.
I know we shit on hedge funds and I know why, but this is the exact type of situation where they can make a lot of sense. The S&P dividend yield is 1.44%, so if all you do on the long side is buy and hold the S&P, you basically need to net out less than half its annual returns after hedging. It seems like a hedge fund could do that very effectively with a strong hedge. Now whether it’s worth 2 & 20 is a whole other question, you’d basically be comparing that to the $100K up front cost on the annuity.
But that’s the type of thing that an average investor just can’t do effectively, both because it’s tricky/complicated and because they don’t have access to the best tools to do it.
I, too, assume zero Social Security. I expect it to exist but be mostly irrelevant. What I mean is, the Boomers are going to leave the cupboard bare for the rest of us, and we’re almost certainly going to have to make drastic changes to preserve Social Security. I think possible outcomes include:
It’ll probably be some combination of the above. I expect to officially get Social Security payments, I don’t expect it to be any significant part of my retirement income.
All that said there’s a significant risk it does just totally go away. If the GOP manages to legally rig the elections enough to secure long-term one party rule (which is a distinct possibility), they’ll come for it right after the Affordable Care Act and Medicaid. Social Security and Medicare would be next on the chopping block.
Hedge funds have collectively shown no ability to mitigate volatility, even self described “long short” ones. The entire industry is a scam, with a few exceptions you can’t access.
As someone who has a job but plays quite a lot of poker as a side hussle the best feeling is being able to easily quit bad (or even mediocre) games while the full time regs have to sit there playing mentally taxing gtoish against each other and hoping a random drunk wanders in. My hourly is probably way higher than their because I’m super picky about playing only in good games. I don’t need to get in 30-40 hours a week I can pick the best 8-10 hours.
I think the Republican approach isn’t going to be eliminate programs, they will try to make them deliver value for their constituents but not for others. Socialism But Just For White People is going to be a major winner in the next 10 years or so because white people still hold overwhelmingly disproportionate power in the US. Some form of SS but with benefits only for people that are properly “registered”, just like voting, is going to be great for the Republicans. LAW AND ORDER! STOP SOCIAL SECURITY FRAUD! NO BENEFITS WITHOUT PROPER APPROVAL!
“Living too long.”
The world is absolutely mad.
I get that’s not what you were saying, and this isn’t a response to you personally. … That the idea even exists (I’ve heard my 85-yo father say the same thing), I honestly think is just self-evident proof that most people have gone absolutely insane and don’t see it.
Yeah that’s already pretty much what I do, except for more hours. I’ll play smaller if the bigger games aren’t good.
What they really mean is running out of money.
Yeah I know. And. Probably not a relevant comment, sorry. But it does seem to be a symptom of a system where everything is about the $ that this idea exists, this phrasing.
It’s a symptom of a system where life expectancies have been climbing for decades. Oh no!
I think when most people talk about living too long they’re referring to physical deterioration to the point where the burden of living outweighs the benefits. Not wanting to live to 100 seems at least somewhat reasonable considering what day to day life is like for most at that age.
Although there are the weirdos who genuinely seem to think 75-80 years is enough time to do everything worth doing.
No, in the context of retirement planning it is almost always used to describe the problem of running out of money. Very few people think about their low quality, end of life phase.
This terrifies me. I’ve seen how the poor old 90 year olds live, and it ain’t pretty.
errr maybe but only because you need money to run out of money.
This seems kinda racist?
You think no other demographics have money?
What makes you think you’ll still be a winning poker player at 60+?
Hey I’m 52 - fuck off. 
I think anyone who learns how to beat the game live can continue to beat the game at 60+. Provided they aren’t trying to play nosebleeds against GTO bots.
Multi-tabling online maybe not so much.
The fact that I beat it for a really strong bb/hr rate now and live poker is always going to be pretty soft. I also don’t plan on waiting until I’m 60 to retire.
It’s roughly 20-25%. I don’t think Munger has been involved in any of the decision making for the last decade or so. As for Buffett leaving, I’m not sure what to think. I think/hope that the two primary investment managers are at least going to able to match the market index and be willing to aggressively repurchase shares when the price is right. (As the firm seems to be doing now.) Maybe the thing I’m most afraid of is that, without Buffett, Berkshire won’t get the attractive deals that they’ve historically gotten when firms wanted the Berkshire Hathaway seal of approval.
I’m thinking of deals like this:
The famed investor’s company handed Occidental $10 billion in 2019 to help fund its takeover of Anadarko Petroleum, in exchange for 100,000 preferred shares paying an 8% annual dividend, and warrants allowing it to buy 83.9 million shares at a fixed price in the future.
Icahn castigated Occidental CEO Vicki Hollub for striking that agreement with Berkshire, calling it “one of the most ridiculous deals that I’ve ever seen.” He bemoaned in a letter to investors that Buffett “took her to the cleaners” and the negotiation was like “taking candy from a baby.”
But even now after the last year of outperformance, Berkshire seems cheaper than the aggregate market, so I’m still ok having a pretty outsized position. Rest assured, my wife will let me know how wrong this was when the stock drops upon Buffett leaving.