Most Votes
- Your main desktop OS at home is: Posted on December 21st, 2024 | 24691 votes
- What AI models do you usually use most? Posted on February 19th, 2025 | 10438 votes
- How often do you listen to AM radio? Posted on February 1st, 2025 | 7186 votes
Most Comments
- How often do you listen to AM radio? Posted on February 1st, 2025 | 85 comments
- What AI models do you usually use most? Posted on February 1st, 2025 | 78 comments
- Do you still use cash? Posted on February 1st, 2025 | 54 comments
how many of these people don't want to retire? (Score:5, Interesting)
When I see ages like 75 and never, I wonder if these are people who don't want to stop working, or people who financially can't stop working. My grandfather is 92 and still working...by choice.
Re:how many of these people don't want to retire? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
That's how I view retirement. A chance to do the things you want to do. Not sit on the fucking couch and wait to die. If you enjoy what you do it's not really what I call work. Work is drudgery.
Re: (Score:3)
Some retired individuals will stay active, take up gardening, and generally pretend the things they need to do are of significant consequence.
Others, like myself, need a job or other responsibility to tend to... a motivation to separate ass from couch, if you will.
I appreciate the work time because it allows me to truly appreciate the down time.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
When I see ages like 75 and never, I wonder if these are people who don't want to stop working, or people who financially can't stop working. My grandfather is 92 and still working...by choice.
It's a money issue for me. I screwed up by not saving money starting earlier in my career, so I have nothing to fall back on once I start working. I'm still not doing a good job saving money, despite knowing I probably should.
Re: (Score:2)
It's a money issue for me. I screwed up by not saving money starting earlier in my career, so I have nothing to fall back on once I start working. I'm still not doing a good job saving money, despite knowing I probably should.
It's a money issue for me, too. Unlike you, I DID listen to the HR people who told stories of millions of dollars if I just put away a few hundred a month for 40 years. Well, so far I have been putting away 300 to 400 a month for 25 years, plus matching, and right now I have maybe $150k. I guess If I continue for another 25 years I might have $400k, which will be the equivalent of about $100k in today's dollars, which would be good for about a year or two. Basically each 25 years you work buys you about tw
Re: (Score:2)
how much do you think you need to retire?
trying to set these targets for myself (in my thirties).
Re: (Score:2)
About 1 million dollars.
Seriously, I have seen the numbers from multiple advisers. If you expect SS to be available when you retire, or you are OK with being poor in your retirement, you can save less. At least make sure your mortgage is paid off by retirement age. That's another way people prepare-- they pay off their mortgage, sell the house, downsize, and have a nice $50,000-200,000 fund in addition to a smaller house that's easier to take care of. Of course, the housing market is volatile, too...
Re: (Score:3)
[......] pay off their mortgage, sell the house, downsize, and have a nice $50,000-200,000 fund in addition to a smaller house that's easier to take care of. Of course, the housing market is volatile, too...
If you retire at 65 and live till 85, that $200,000 is only about $10,000 a year - which won't get you far!
Re: (Score:2)
Re:how many of these people don't want to retire? (Score:5, Informative)
How much do you expect to spend per year in retirement? Take that number and multiply by 20 (assuming you think a 4% safe withdrawal rate is OK; or multiply by 33 for a 3% rate, etc.). Note that the safe withdrawal rate also depends strongly on your asset allocation.
See also: http://www.firecalc.com/ [firecalc.com], http://earlyretirementextreme.com/ [earlyretir...xtreme.com], and (my favorite) http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/ [mrmoneymustache.com].
Re: (Score:3)
How much do you expect to spend per year in retirement? Take that number and multiply by 20 (assuming you think a 4% safe withdrawal rate is OK; or multiply by 33 for a 3% rate, etc.). Note that the safe withdrawal rate also depends strongly on your asset allocation.
See also: http://www.firecalc.com/ [firecalc.com], http://earlyretirementextreme.com/ [earlyretir...xtreme.com], and (my favorite) http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/ [mrmoneymustache.com].
This is the best answer I've seen here so far. My anticipated budget (house and vacation condo are already paid off) is about $200K/year (12-15 years in the future). We're aiming for $4M.
Re: (Score:2)
Interesting, so that puts me at about $2M in today's dollars, as I'd be comfortable with 100K/yr in retirement.
Only I want to retire early, so perhaps I need a bit more than that amount.
Re: (Score:3)
Wow, what's your occupation? Even being a software developer, my budget and retirement asset numbers are almost exactly an order of magnitude lower than yours...
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3)
When I see ages like 75 and never, I wonder if these are people who don't want to stop working, or people who financially can't stop working. My grandfather is 92 and still working...by choice.
Agreed. Really there should be reworded to "When do I want to be financially independent." Personally I don't want to retire. I enjoy work and the sense of accomplishment that goes with it. Traveling is fun and I do it three or four times a year, but I enjoy my businesses. Why would I sell my businesses that I enjoy and make wonderful money at?
Re:how many of these people don't want to retire? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
Different definition of "retire" (Score:2)
I prefer to think of retirement as when I don't need to work in order to be able to afford a comfortable lifestyle. Approaching that point now. A couple more good years from the stock market and work becomes optional; not necessary. On the other hand, I actually enjoy doing software development and may keep working for quite some time after I "retire." The only obstacle I see is that a lot of managers can't deal with having someone working for them who doesn't desperately need the job and is therefore n
Re: (Score:2)
We we can use republican logic.
If they didn't plan for retirement, that means they want to work until they die.
Just like all those people who want to be poor.
Re:how many of these people don't want to retire? (Score:5, Funny)
What does he do?
He's a roadie for the Rolling Stones - they refer to him as "the kid".
Re: (Score:3)
he's an accountant. he maintains his license, does taxes and advises his friends who are also in their 80's and 90's and works 2-3 hrs a day.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
hey is that you Prince Harry [google.co.uk] ...
Working? That old parasite Phil's never done a day's work in his life!
Re: (Score:2)
ah, yes, those russian brides can be expensive...
Software developer (Score:3)
What am I'm going to do after I retire? Go fishing? I will probably continue developing software, because that's much more fun.
Re: (Score:2)
I already code as both a job and a hobby. I'm in the same boat -- when I retire, I'll still code. The difference will be what I work on.....and if I need cash, I can always pick up short-term gigs.
Re: (Score:3)
It turns out I only want to code about 25 hours a week. I'd like to spend more time either outdoors or in my workshop.
Re: (Score:3)
If you only want to code for 25 hours a week, just join a large company. You'll be in meetings for 25 hours a week and have to work 50 hour weeks to get all of your work done....... :)
Never (Score:2)
As soon as possible (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
If your life is so miserable that you can't wait till the few years you have left on earth (where health problems may prevent you from spending whatever nest egg you've saved on fun, or perhaps take it) perhaps you should consider a different career.
Re: (Score:2)
Agile is called Fragile at our place.
It is anything but Agile as the edict is 'no spikes'.
Then there is all the technical debt being built up and again the edict is 'sod the documentation, deliver or else'.
I'm glad I'll be retiring in a tad over 2 years and I won't have to put up with the BS any longer but by then Agile will have been replaced by some other buzzword.
Define "retire". (Score:2, Interesting)
Is it when you stop doing productive work? When you stop working for pay? When you stop working for enough pay to live? When you stop having to do it, rather than just doing it by choice?
I've never had to work, so in a sense I'm always retired. I do a lot of free coding and IT work, though, because I find it fun (it's surprising how insulted people are when you tell them that you'll do work for almost nothing, but oh well). I've also collected three or four degrees over the past decade, because the subjects
Age is a problem (Score:2)
So actually one of the biggest problems facing the retirement industry is the increasing age of death.
50 years ago, the actuarial tables of mortality went to 100. All annuity and life insurance payouts were based on them, and it assume all the population would be dead at 100. If you were lucky enough to live to 100, your life insurance policy would "mature" and you would collect the value of it, tax free.
These days, thanks to increases in medical care, too many people have been living past 100. So they'v
Re: (Score:3)
The benefits of longevity is concentrated on those wealthy enough not to need a pension. People who do manual labour do not have a longer healthy-lifespan. Therefore they either die, or are too broken to work.
The idea of able-bodied pensioners jaunting around spending their children's inheritance is a myth, such a lifestyle is limited only to those wealthy enough not to quality for pensions; and thus not subject to increased pension qualification ages anyway.
The "entitlements" bullshit is peddled by the ver
Re: (Score:3)
Forgot to add:
We simply haven't budgeted enough for that sort of retirement
That's a myth too. The crafters of the US pension trust fund weren't stupid. They built fairly conservative actuarial assumptions into the system, and we haven't exceeded their assumptions. (IIRC, the rate of actual lifespan increase is below their assumption.)
What they didn't allow for was the zeroing of growth of median wages, combined with the cap on contributions from the wealthy. They assumed a distribution of income fairly similar to when they created the modern system, or that we'd be s
Re: (Score:3)
You didn't read my post, or didn't understand it. The actuarial tables are forward looking.
While you may have had grandparents die at or before 72, the MEAN of the POPULATION GOING FORWARD has increased, and the TAILS OF THE DISTRIBUTION are now farther out.
The actuarial tables also take into account how healthy your grandparents are. Were they obese chain smokers? Might be a reason they didn't live past 72.
So, YMMV.
You can of course stop being so lazy and google the mortality tables yourself. Here.
http [soa.org]
Nope (Score:2)
All that sows is that people are healthier from 56-76.
The average life expectancy for people who lived past 5 hasn't change much at all since 1930. People are healthier.
This whole people are living longer excuse to shove out the retirement age is nothing be a baseless attack on social security the pubs have been mindless jabbering about since SS inception.
Re: (Score:2)
If it's true life expectancy hasn't changed but you're just healthier in your golden years, why did they extend the mortality tables out to 120 instead of 100?
I see an argument with no facts to back it up, trying to counter an argument with facts backing it up.
Re: (Score:2)
Oh, shallow end of the gene pool, eh?
Too poor (Score:5, Interesting)
I'll never be able to retire. Never made enough money, and never had enough, early enough for a useful 401k. Two bubbles bursting killed what little I was able to afford to put away. My parents technically didn't retire either, they just got too old, sick and tired to keep working. Unlike them I have no kids to help support me so when it's my turn in the next few decades I'll be out on the street.
Social Security my ass.
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
Social security is wealth transfer, not savings (Score:4, Insightful)
That's exactly why we have Social Security - it forces people to put aside money so that, no matter what, they have something by retirement.
It does no such thing. Social Security forces working people to pay for the retirement of those born earlier. While there are rules that require paying in in order to collect, those rules have little to do with where the money comes from and the actual dollars you pay in have nothing to do with the amount you collect. What you collect depends on how much money is coming in at the time you collect and politics. There isn't any "no matter what". You always get out of Social Security whatever politicians can and are willing to give. Population demographics means that if you are post-Boomer you will likely pay a lot and get nearly nothing.
Re:Too poor (Score:4, Insightful)
That's exactly why we have Social Security - it forces people to put aside money so that, no matter what, they have something by retirement.
Or looked at another way, it prevents people from putting aside money that they could use to earn interest and multiply their money and not have to be dependent upon government money. Instead, it rewards them with a fraction of what they put in when they retire.
If government mandated that you take a certain portion of your income and invested it for your retirement, that would be awesome, but that is not what it does at all.
Re: (Score:2)
To someone who understand how Social Security actually works, reading slashdot post form people who have no clue is like fingernails on a chalkboard.
Re: (Score:2)
A) SS isn't going anywhere, nor is it in fiscal jeopardy
B) You have no kids. You should the putting a hell of a lot more money away.
Talk to experts.
Re: (Score:3)
Yes, Social Security is in jeopardy. Do people who say this not realize that the actuaries who actually administer SS (the OASDI trustees) give out a nice handy report detailing the status of the trust fund every year? Obviously, their projections aren't going to perfect, but I'd be more inclined to trust them than random people on the internet.
From the OASDI Trustees Report:
"Annual cost exceeded non-interest income in 2010 and is projected to continue to be larger throughout the remainder of the 75-year
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
I always put the maximum I could into a 401k, but most of the low-end jobs I had early on didn't offer one, and later on I was chronically underemployed. I only buy economy cars and keep them at least 10 years. I've never taken a vacation, buy no luxury items (Ex; jewelry, high end gadgets, etc.) I've gone through two recessions/depressions, and now I'm at the age where career prospects only go downward if you haven't made it to C level.
So... yes, you can blame my poor prospects for retirement entirely on m
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Haha, now I know you're a troll for sure. Enjoy living in your fairy dreamland where everyone with good money management skills is guaranteed a golden retirement no matter how little money they make. ;)
Re: (Score:2)
. Enjoy living in your fairy dreamland where everyone with good money management skills is guaranteed a golden retirement no matter how little money they make
Of course not, they also need skills. Which apparently you don't have.
Re: (Score:2)
You realize the median income in America is only about $25k/yr right? That means half of the country makes that or less. Which even with the best money management skills isn't going to leave with with much for retirement, unless you live like a college student alone by yourself in a tiny rented bedroom for your entire life AND have no irregular expenses like car repairs or medical care.
$25000 times about 0.7 for after-tax take-home pay minus about $1100/mo for ALL expenses total -- housing, utilities, food,
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
And how much do you expect someone making $25k a year to be able to buy? Bearing in mind they're going to be having to rent while saving up for a down payment. And then they if they somehow manage that, the interest alone on a 30-year mortgage is likely to be greater than their rent.
I agree that owning your own home is the first step toward a truly secure retirement, but that is even further out of reach of the majority of people than just saving enough to rent a tiny apartment through their old age is. You
Re: (Score:2)
I always put the maximum I could into a 401k,
I've heard that a lot, but I put in 15k per year in a 401k (the max) even when I didn't make much more than 15k. Prospects are a result of location and skills. You should have changed what you could. I have multiple times, and always for the better.
Re: (Score:2)
Do you blame people with cancer for their plight?
If they smoked.
What about victims of violence?
When they pick the "bad guys" to go for, get hit, and keep going back for more (and having children in that abusive environment).
You know nothing of context and come to a conclusion anyway.
The OP set a context, and his reply was well within that context.
The very definition of bigot.
A bigot is a person who sees someone laying in the mud as says "they are dirty". For all the bigot knows, they are trying out a new plastic spray that covers a person in an impenetrable field of clean. Or, the more likely explanation of "they are dirty" may be right, but you have to make the correct
Never! (Score:4, Interesting)
A mix of bad decisions and really awful decisions mean I don't see how I'll ever be able to retire. :(
Which is bad, but what is worse is Development feels like a "young persons game". Rarely do I see anyone over 45 (not far off) coming for an interview, so I've got to move out of what I enjoy (creating stuff) and move to the next level (stopping other people from developing, err, management). :(
Re: (Score:2)
It is sort of weird, not sure where old programmers go.
When we had our last round of hiring, oldest applicant was 38 (and got hired) - in my earlier jobs I can't recall anyone over the age of 50 applying; I guess programmers of the 80s and early 90s where so uncommon and all have matured to management - or given up on keeping up and found a new career?
Re: (Score:2)
"Live like you'll die tomorrow, learn like you'll live forever" - Mahatma Gandhi
By choice, not by necessity... (Score:3)
I'm sure a lot of people who said "Never" are because they can never afford it. Cue gripes about economy, job market, politics, etc.
But for me its because I enjoy working. The dean at my last college was a retired CPA. At my last job several of the retired engineers still booked consulting hours. Barring any medical issues I hope to stay busy and active my entire life doing something I enjoy.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
well, by retiring I take it to mean not sitting at the stupid cube and being able to do what I want. whether that's surfing, or doing some fun consulting work.
Re: (Score:2)
Why are you not doing "fun" work now, instead of sitting at a cube? Become a consultant now. Telecommute and work at the beach.
I made the change about 2 years ago. Left corporate cubelandia and created my own company. Its a shit-ton of work but a LOT more fun. And I've got two school age kids and a stay at home wife so I'm the sole breadwinner. Everyone thought I was nuts. But so far its turned out ok. Yeah its risky but so is life.
Missing option (Score:5, Interesting)
Retire into "freelance" (Score:2)
When they pry my cold dead fingers (Score:2)
off the oscilloscope knobs.
For all the 20-somethings... (Score:2)
Used to be social security in the US, you could retire at 65. Now... 62... but you get a third or more less monthly. 67 gets you your "full" amount, but if you wait till 70, you'll get more.
So, enjoy your jobs, and your bosses, and let's not forget that we have to spend for overpriced crap, so that CEOs can get their increasing millions, y'know. It would be *such* a hardship on them to pay what we pay in taxes, and maybe we could go back to retiring at 65 (oh, and opening up jobs for you kids....)
Re: (Score:2)
What does "social security" have to do with anything? I'm a "20-something" and plan on retiring 10-15 years from now on just the assets I save myself. If I eventually get social security, well that's just a bonus.
(The hard part is not the lack of social security; the hard part is the shitty job market. Since my wife and I graduated college 5 years ago, at least one of us has been unemployed at almost any given time. We've learned to live on less than a third of our fully-employed income -- which is coincide
Define "retire". (Score:3)
A bit of advice to you young folks from one of the old farts: do the math. The "rule of 72" is that dividing 72 by your interest will tell you how many years (roughly) it will take to double your money. At 10% it doubles every seven years, at 7% it doubles every 10. Tossing even small amounts into a 401k now will give you a lot more cash at the end than throwing in a lot more later in life.
I probably *could* retire around 65... (Score:2)
But will I? I dunno. I mean, I love playing around with computers and t-shooting, etc. Kind of like I am right now -- except getting paid for it. Yes, being able to knock off the zillions of books on my "to-read" backlog would be nice, and maybe finally getting a degree in... something. Perhaps learn some languages, and do some traveling. But I'll have a month's vacation by then, anyway, so I'm not sure I'm willing to "work at home" instead of "work at work." (And, oh yeah: my company doesn't mind me
Dunno (Score:3)
I'm already too late for the first two options. In theory, I could retire in my mid 50s, which is drawing dangerously close, but I don't think I will. I should have enough by mid 60s, assuming Congress doesn't raid my 401K, Social Security still exists, and the entire economy hasn't collapsed. Hmm, now I'm depressed. :(
Re: (Score:2)
Hell, my retirement plan DEPENDS on the world economy collapsing!
I'm stocking up on shotgun shells, shiny bits of metal, and cans of pork & beans.
"retirement" == terminal unemployment (Score:3)
Given the volatility of the job market and age discrimination, I will probably "retire" when it becomes clear that I will never get another job. I hope have enough saved up to survive when that happens but I'm not real optimistic. There's a good chance that much of everyone's retirement savings will evaporate as economy rebalances to the inequity of too many people not working and living off of "investments" and not enough people actually producing.
Re: (Score:2)
Haven't you heard? Everything is all better now, I saw the Whitehouse press spokesperson saying the economy is recovering nicely. It must be true, never known those guys to lie.
I will not retire.. (Score:2)
.. I can't afford to retire, I'll be working until I'm dead.
Does dying count as retirement ?
umm (Score:2)
not Never! more like never :(
Stupid finance companies collapsing and taking my money.
Already Retired (Score:5, Informative)
I retired about a month before my 62nd birthday. I delayed taking Social Security until my wife retired 2.5 years later; she delayed to a month after I started. Instead, we lived on our investments and her meager wages. She had to continue working so that we would have group health insurance through her employer. Then, we paid for continuing her health insurance via COBRA (about 6 months for me and 18 months for her). This was all per a set of spreadsheets that I developed to determine the optimum time to retire and how to finance it.
We are now in our early 70s. Our retirement investments continue to grow faster than we spend them. Until this year, we did not even spend all the dividends and interest. I expect that, by the end of this year, we will again have underspent our dividends and interest.
I manage our investments myself, relying on mutual funds. Of course, this means I am really relying on the managers of those mutual funds. However, the choice of which funds and how much to allocate to each is my own choice. For anyone interested in my investment philosophy, see my http://www.rossde.com/invest2r... [rossde.com].
We have a very comfortable retirement. No, I was not a corporate executive, entertainer, professional athlete, or hedge fund operator. For my entire career, I either created or tested software, primarily for use by the U.S. military to operate its earth-orbiting space satellites. No, I did not work for the government; I worked for defense contractors. (See my http://www.rossde.com/retired.... [rossde.com] for a brief history of my career.) Our retirement is successful because I understand investing and choose to be somewhat conservative (despite my liberal politics) in how I handle money that might have to last another 30 years (being from a family that is very long lived).
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Yup, although it's being phased out. Traditionally it was 60 for women, 65 for men, but it's being changed to 68 for both. As I won't be able to get a state pension until I'm 68, I've voted for the "75" option - the 65 one being irrelevant as I'll still have 3 years to go.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U... [wikipedia.org]
Re:Frist pots (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:3)
The retirement age only affects when you can get the state pension. If you're expecting the state pension to make a significant difference to your standard of living in retirement then you're pretty much doomed anyhow.
Re: (Score:2)
I think that's by design.
Re: (Score:2)
It is by design. The "original" retirement age of 65 was set there because that was the average life expectancy. The idea was that if you managed to beat the odds, then a small pension would pay for your food and incidentals while your family was expected to provide the rest until you managed to do the right thing and kick off.
Today, of course, "retirement" has become an entitlement and you expect the government to keep you in the style you have grown to expect with a sufficient pension to maintain your ind
Re: (Score:2)
Not sure what you expect from your government, but here in the USA we have a range of options, from bupkis, to the triad (personal savings, worker pension, social security, all of which were paid into), to whatever you can scrounge. If we can get the government to pay for anything beyond health care at 65, it would be both lucky and meager.
Re:Frist pots (Score:5, Insightful)
Shouldn't things be getting better? Isn't that what your parents and grandparents were working for? So that their kids and grandkids didn't have to work 60 hour weeks until the day they died?
If not, then what the fuck has it all been for? "Growth" and "development"? If not to make things better?
Re:Frist pots (Score:4, Insightful)
You are clubbing all the 1% into a single group. There's a study by Saez and Zucman of Berkley/LSE that talks about how clubbing the entire 1% into a single group is disingenuous -- The other wealth gapâ"the 1% vs the 0.01% [cnbc.com].
Most of the 1% to .1% are nothing more than hardworking Americans with a Calvinistic work ethic who have been successful. It is easy to do the math and realize how a two income family can break into the 1% territory after a couple of decades of hard work and fiscally conservative habits. Socially and economically, they are nothing like the top .1%.
The surge in 1% is entirely attributable to the growth in capital of the .1% while the rest of the 1% has in fact stagnated. The "middle rich" (1% - 10%) are in fact losing ground to the top .1% (i.e. capital is flowing upward) while the 1% to .1% have merely succeeded in holding on to their wealth.
Most government policies favor the really rich and *punish* the hardworking upper middle classes. In fact, I would argue in favor of Reagan-esque tax policies for these folks, who are for the most part well educated, successful individuals in banking, law, medicine, technology, consulting and so on. These are the ones who are really building the economy, but the ones who are being punished by the government and vilified by the mass media who club them with the truly wealthy.
Imagine a successful husband and wife earning $150k/year, working in a white collar job (lawyers, doctors, consultants, IT -- take your pick). According to the IRS, making $343k/year puts you in the top 1% (by income). But what about wealth? Well, that's supposedly $8.4MM.
Some simple math will make it evident that a husband and wife earning (an average) of $171k for 40 years (assume raises and lower starter incomes are factored into the average) who save 15% of their annual income, with a starting principal of $10000 will have ~$5.4 MM at the end of their careers. Assume that they invested in a home that cost $300k early in their careers, whose value has gone up 5X in the 30 year time that they had to pay off the mortgage. Assume that they more or less maxed out their 401K, giving them $17,500.00/year for 40 years each, which is ~$1.4MM. At best, they have $8.4 MM, assuming market crashes, children's education, and life threatening diseases didn't wipe out their savings.
However, by virtue of having $8.4 MM, suddenly, these people are being placed in the *same* category as someone with enough capital to buy legislation or pay an army of Cravath lawyers. That is not factoring in any smart investing in what's been a pretty bullish run (minus the recent crisis) or basic fiscal conservatism.
sometimes work doesn't pay (Score:4, Informative)
Small employers have ripped me off a few times now. Whenever they want to pay you as a contractor (handled by the 1099 form in the US) instead of as an employee (the W2 form in the US), watch out. Mind, though, the W2 isn't proof against employer cheating either, it's only a little more protection than the 1099.
Startups will share the risks without properly informing their workers and getting consent to do so, and at the same time arrange not to share the rewards, should they be successful. The first official word you may get that the company is failing is that they can't make payroll, and this of course occurs when they owe you a month of pay. They knew money was running out and that if sales didn't pick up or more like start, they would be unable to pay everyone, but they refuse to talk or think about that because that's defeatism. Just before the end, they will likely crank up the stress levels, try to drive everyone to work extra extra hard. They're deluding themselves that mere hard work can get through the crisis, when the problem is that their idea was actually not much good. When it doesn't work, the crying and wailing comes out of the closet. How can you whine about the month of pay they owe you, when their precious business failed? Can't you see they're hurting more than you? Oh, and they'll beg you to keep working for free. Surely the business will succeed with just a little more time and effort.
Only way I've found to avoid getting screwed by a failing startup is to read between the lines. If it's not going well, get out before the money runs out. If they're lying to themselves, they sure aren't giving it to the workers straight. The government can't help you. Yeah, you can sue the employer, and win, but if the business really is broke you will get nothing. Compared to collecting, suing and winning is easy.
Life isn't fair that way. Hard work often isn't rewarded. The Protestant Work Ethic sometimes is a cruel delusion. All those conservatives who think "get a job" is the magic that separates a good citizen from a lazy mooching bum ought to experience failure after failure.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Free rides are over (Score:5, Funny)
Buy guns and ammunition. Even harder to argue with those.
Re: (Score:2)
Gold does not work. Gold is only worth what you get for it. In an economical collapse you get nothing. At present the gold price is very high because money is so cheap. What really helps is a house of flat in a building not made out of wood and paper.
Re: (Score:2)
$300? OK. I'll take all you have to offer at $300. Feel free to sell me Fort Knox, that's OK. I'll take it.
Re: (Score:3)
I will also take all you care to sell at $300. In fact, I'll pay $400 per ounce for all you care to sell.
Re: (Score:2)
The people that aren't starving will trade.
Re: (Score:3)
Put money aside, corporations and governments are going to take it all anyway.
That's what Bitcoin is for.
Ah...so someone else can take it. Got it.
Re: (Score:2)
Yes, but is it maintainable?
Unions work only when they control the supply of labor. As the auto unions have shown, if that labor starts going to China, unionized shops are no longer profitable, and it's entirely possibly your benefits could be cut. That's even worse then a crappy retirement benefit: being 80 and having your benefit cut.
Although, admittedly it's much better than the no benefit most of us get
Re: (Score:2)
The only people who lost money in 2008 were the people who did something stupid with it (i.e. who pulled out of the market and locked in their losses). Everybody who stayed the course made all their money back a couple of years ago, and is now way ahead.
Re: (Score:2)
You mean 2 variables: savings rate and asset allocation. If you want a 50% savings rate to get you retired in 7-8 years, [most of] that money needs to be in the stock market or a real estate portfolio, not under your mattress.
Re: (Score:2)
I tried explaing to one of my coworkers in that same situation how he was working for less than minimum wage. We sat down, figured up what it cost him to go to work in gas and such and other expenses and he was basically working for about 4 dollars an hour. He retired a month later. Turns out we didn't figure it right, his taxes dropped a lot and he ended up only losing about 150 dollars a month. He had a craft business going on the side and he started doing that real heavy and now makes about twice wha