Based on your Sunday post I think you may have gotten it, but the issue with your comparison here is your contributions are mismatched, because you're contributing twice as much to your Roth as your Traditional. If you put the same $200k into the Traditional as you were throwing at the Roth, it would grow to $1,000,000, not just $500k. You then pay 25% in taxes, which leaves you $750k free to personally spend. This is much better than the $500k from the Roth.

Yes, you have paid more in taxes overall ($250k for the Traditional versus $100k for the Roth) but that's kind of irrelevant. What is relevant to you is that you have $750k rather than $500k.

I encourage you to reread the AC's post above this, because I don't think you're quite seeing his point. If the government's taking their cut, it may not really matter if they do it up front or later, it's likely to work out close to the same either way. Paying 20% at the beginning and then letting your money grow, or letting a bigger pile of money grow and then paying 20% at the end, you personally have the same amount. Yeah, you're correct that the 20% at the end is bigger (i.e., more total tax paid to the government), but the amount YOU get to spend is still the same.

If you don't believe me, run some numbers to test it. A quick spreadsheet will demonstrate that it works out even.

As the AC said, the reason to game the system is if you have reason to believe your future tax rate will be higher or lower than your current rate, then obviously pick whichever investment is favored. There's also issues like if you go all ROTH and then have no income at all upon retirement, you may be throwing away your annual personal tax deduction, whereas if you've got some small amount of theoretically taxable income, you may actually get it all tax free, or at a pretty low rate after deductions. Other reasons to choose traditional: a small tax deduction when you're young and struggling to get established may be more important than tax-free income later in life, when you're well established and (if you invested well) money isn't tight.

I think for most people either option is likely to work out pretty close to the same. When in doubt hedge your bets and do half of each, if possible.

Stray note: it's not capital gains inside a retirement account, you're taxed on your withdrawals as if they're income.

Thanks for this. I really like the show, but tired of them assuming I had the attention span of a rhesus monkey on crack. I've always wanted a more focused translation.

I know it's an exception, but I intentionally picked a school that didn't have a PE requirement, because I knew going in how dumb that was.

As for art history? I took two of those classes, and they were the most interesting, educational, and mind-expanding classes I took. Also, when I ended up doing web development out of college, that little bit of art knowledge may have served to improve my designs, and probably contributed to my ability to get a job with a design firm in the first place. Now, again, I picked a flexible school, so these were options that I embraced rather than requirements, but I found them worthwhile in surprising ways that I wouldn't have anticipated going in.

It did not accept the apology, and actually, I'd even go so far as to say it got a little bent out of shape over the incidents. Eventually it turned into a certified basket case, and we had to replace it with another unit that had stronger mettle.

Honestly, that never even occurred to me. I haven't done much piracy since the Napster days. I don't mind paying for books and movies, so I don't usually go that route for other media. And basically all the other TV shows I've wanted to watch have been available.

Yeah, I know how it goes. I'll admit to times, particularly in my younger days, when I jumped to the conclusion to the other party was ignorant/wrong/missing some obvious technical solution, rather than giving them the benefit of the doubt. And if I'd been asking a question like "How can I get this show?" I definitely would have in the wrong for omitting those details. In this case I know the answer already, and was just griping that CBS can't come to a deal with Netflix. You know, in case they're just waiting for enough explicit public demand before bothering to ink the deal. I thought maybe I'd seed the search engines a little.

Antenna, syndication? I'm sorry you city-centrists don't realize a mountain might get in the way of watching over-air broadcasts. It's almost as if I actually knew why the show isn't available to me, and wasn't just making it up.

No. I live on the back side of a mountain from the nearest broadcasting station.

I think everything's more fun in person, too. Otherwise known as the baseball phenomenon.

Now if they could just put it on Netflix or Amazon Prime, I might actually try to watch an episode. People keep telling me I'd like it but I can't currently get it.

I'm reminded of one of my old physics profs who tripped over a trash can frequently, and apologized to it every time.

Ironically, the batteries weigh 40kg, and cannot be lifted by robots or humans.

(I know, 40kg isn't actually unliftable by humans.)

I thought everyone on Slashdot knew Perl.

Something about resistance is futile, right? Or is that Borg's law?