Way too many people with jobs. Fed going to have to hike 75 and real hawkish rhetoric in December if this continues.
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Anecdotally I’m hearing about layoffs in a lot of industries, not just tech.
It’s a complete mess. Our company literally is simultaneously fighting a labor market where we can’t fill open roles and laying the groundwork for layoffs in 2023.
Nobody knows what the fuck is going on. I think the unproductive 55ish year old people that have been doing the same increasingly less valuable job for years are about to get wrecked. They were getting by on the fact that it’s a pain in the ass to fire them but if push comes to shove they’re toast, IMO.
Yeah our most expensive and least productive people are 55-65 year olds completely coasting. They’re so fucking entitled and absolutely refuse to do anything beyond their (self-defined) job description. They have bad attitudes, complain constantly and just generally demoralize everyone else, especially given their compensation.
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Honestly I think most relatively affluent people should be meeting with a good financial advisor almost every year after they turn 55 and figuring out what would happen if one or both of them lost their jobs and was never able to get another one. Most people think of “retirement disaster” as the scenario of running out of money in retirement, but tons of people are facing the more immediate risk of becoming unemployed at 58 with no employment prospects and nothing close to enough money to retire. It is absolute disaster when this happens, the marriage is almost never going to survive and people end up absolutely miserable, no more home, no prospects, just bitterly hanging on month to month. It’s an absolute shit show.
This is why I’m cutting back a little now so I can be financially independent by 50. Working in your late 50s because you have to and not because you choose to would be stressful and miserable
While on one hand, yes, definitely and obviously, on the other my experience is that for people in that age range to get fired from white collar jobs they have to be pretty freaking bad at their job. Despite how fragile their finances are, they are often comically entitled. And while they usually cry age discrimination (and this may well be true in some industries), in mine there is a dearth of experienced people and employers are really hesitant to let people with 20+ years in the industry go.
Yes, for sure. But that’s part of why peoples’ lives are so completely wrecked when it happens to them. They aren’t ready for it at all.
In my direct personal experience it tends to happen mostly to people when their company is acquired and the buyer quickly realizes that they can pay one grumpy boomer to do 50% of an FTE instead of paying 2 grumpy boomers to do 25% of an FTE each. These people are SHOCKED that this is happening to them, then they’re SHOCKED at how little their 401(k) plan can actually buy them as retirement income, then they’re SHOCKED at how bad their job prospects are.
As you say, this is a minority of people currently. But we are heading into a “recession” where wages are rising and corporate earnings are struggling. Levers are going to get pulled that didn’t get pulled before.
Same. I acknowledge that my household is enormously privileged in this regard because we have two professional level incomes, but we maintain two retirement plans. Plan A is to work into our 60s and generate enough retirement income to have vacations and dining out etc., etc., etc. But we also have a Plan B where if we get forced out at 55 we have at least a sustainable income where we can pay our bills. Hell, I could even enjoy a retirement like that because I am totally capable of entertaining myself exclusively by shit posting on UP all day and playing chess. But I think a sit-around-the-house-all-day retirement would end my marriage so that’s not great. My hole card in that scenario is a puppy, I think the puppy might distract my wife enough to stop her from hating me if she has to spend all day with me.
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Too many people fail on even basic financial fundamentals that this isn’t the case. North America is packed full of 50-somethings that got the biggest possible mortgage and house the bank would approve, didn’t save at all outside their employer sponsored plan (if they even have one), didn’t even max the employer matching contribution if they did have an employer plan, squandered tons of money on disposable consumer comforts, etc., etc. There are plenty of people where it all blows up if their paycheck stops. The house is sold, the marriage ends, the unemployment drags, to get any job you have to take a job that’s “beneath you”, it’s just a fucking dumpster fire.
Same scenario with housing. We know there is a housing shortage but now we are going to stop building because interest rates are too high. This unique situation seems to have really called for more government intervention in markets, like price controls, taxes on real estate speculation, etc.
Just found out my parents are getting completely ripped off by their advisor. Could not be less surprised! In addition to terrible funds with obscene fees, 80% equities for a couple of 80 year olds, JFC
being in equities may have been better than bonds this past year
I agree with you on the fees.
The 80% equities could be anywhere from terrible to K depending on a variety of factors.
Yeah, I feel like 80% equities could be completely fine, especially if:
- they have social security payments (or even pension payments)
- the remaining 20% in cash-like instruments is large enough to cover 3 years of expenses or more.
At some point, I think “sufficient cash balance, everything else iin equities” is a better approach than raw percentages. Or at least that’s what I tell my mom.
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This is all true but most of the time “financial advisors” put these old people in equities because it has the highest kick back, er, I mean commission, end of story.
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They told the guy preservation of principal was their main objective, but no kickbacks from short term treasuries I suppose. LOL 1%+ expense ratio S&P 500 index funds.
Financial advisors gotta eat, man.
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Yikes
My father invested with a guy named Ken Moraif. He is famous for selling low and buying high. Guy is complete disaster with his “market timing strategy”. It was such a shitshow he had to rebrand his entire business. He gets all his business from hour long infomercials disguised as financial talk radio on conservative AM radio.
The average rate of return after fess was something like 3% over the last 14 years. It’s fucking robbery and I can’t get my dad to do anything about it.