May 4, 2012 at 6:51 am
ken.trock (5/3/2012)
I'm with CrankyRat on this one. Maybe not the Glenn Beck part 🙂 In the last 10-12 years here in the USA we've seen internet bubbles, mortgage meltdowns, and financial crises. Mainly products of Wall Street. I fear these whiz kid mathematical geniuses will find another way to circumvent regulation like they did with CMOs and CDOs and reduce our nest eggs by half, or worse.There's some talk that student loans that can't be paid back are the next bubble though it seems there's not enough money in there to cause that kind of damage.
Yep. And the government has been hand-in-hand on every single one of those. It's been a very cooperative effort on the part of bankers and government.
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May 4, 2012 at 10:26 am
GSquared (5/4/2012)
ken.trock (5/3/2012)
I'm with CrankyRat on this one. Maybe not the Glenn Beck part 🙂 In the last 10-12 years here in the USA we've seen internet bubbles, mortgage meltdowns, and financial crises. Mainly products of Wall Street. I fear these whiz kid mathematical geniuses will find another way to circumvent regulation like they did with CMOs and CDOs and reduce our nest eggs by half, or worse.There's some talk that student loans that can't be paid back are the next bubble though it seems there's not enough money in there to cause that kind of damage.
Yep. And the government has been hand-in-hand on every single one of those. It's been a very cooperative effort on the part of bankers and government.
Exactly. In fact the driver of the soaring cost of education in this country (both primary and secondary) is government spending and handing out loans as fast as they can at low interest rates. Housing bubble? Same thing ... Health care costs? same thing.
Printing and handing out money through all sorts of programs pushes up costs. Of course it only affects those that are actually paying taxes... which ends up being fewer people with each year. The result is a $16Trillion and growing national debt. This is an astounding amount... more even than our total national GDP. In fact, this will NEVER be paid back.
The Titanic has sailed... and government is busy arranging the deck chairs. :hehe:
The probability of survival is inversely proportional to the angle of arrival.
May 6, 2012 at 5:15 am
I thought the original article was right on target. I very near the end point of my working days and have been in the work force for 50 years, as I starting working for pay at 12. When other kids were at the ball field or taking summer vacation, I was working a 8-12 hour day on weekends and summers. Even spring break during college was spent working. For over 25 years after college, I worked 50-60+ hours every week and went 20 years without a vacation. Most of this was by choice and have always been proud of my work ethic and ability to "get things done".
I learned a few life lessons after all of the years, including many years in management.
- The "job satisfaction" from a job well done fades when you are burnt out from the long hours and your personal life is a mess
- Every employer will work you are hard as you let them. If you are willing to work 60 hours, they will ask for 65.
- Hard workers are prized for their ability to give more "bang for the buck", and not for their real achievements
- When you are young, you think "I can rest tomorrow"
- When you are older, you ask "why didn't I rest yesterday?"
- You can never save enough for retirement.
- You can blame others, or blame the "system", or blame some other vague entity for all of the ills surrounding you, but in the end, you are responsible for your own happiness.
- Life is hard.
- In the end, people don't remember or care much about people who just worked hard, or got lots of awards. They remember people who made a difference as a person, not as a working machine.
- By the time you are old enough to realize any of this, it may be almost too late to "stop and smell the roses" or be able to afford to even if you wanted to relax.
I find the doomsday thinking of some posts here as shortsighted and just illogical. I have lived though many political and social shifts, and believe that ultimately governments only do what society allows them to do, regardless of the ideology the party in power claims to support. And if you do nothing to plan for the future, it becomes self fulfilling prophecy.
May 7, 2012 at 3:23 pm
brightbillconsulting (5/6/2012)
I thought the original article was right on target. I very near the end point of my working days and have been in the work force for 50 years, as I starting working for pay at 12. When other kids were at the ball field or taking summer vacation, I was working a 8-12 hour day on weekends and summers. Even spring break during college was spent working. For over 25 years after college, I worked 50-60+ hours every week and went 20 years without a vacation. Most of this was by choice and have always been proud of my work ethic and ability to "get things done".I learned a few life lessons after all of the years, including many years in management.
- The "job satisfaction" from a job well done fades when you are burnt out from the long hours and your personal life is a mess
- Every employer will work you are hard as you let them. If you are willing to work 60 hours, they will ask for 65.
- Hard workers are prized for their ability to give more "bang for the buck", and not for their real achievements
- When you are young, you think "I can rest tomorrow"
- When you are older, you ask "why didn't I rest yesterday?"
- You can never save enough for retirement.
- You can blame others, or blame the "system", or blame some other vague entity for all of the ills surrounding you, but in the end, you are responsible for your own happiness.
- Life is hard.
- In the end, people don't remember or care much about people who just worked hard, or got lots of awards. They remember people who made a difference as a person, not as a working machine.
- By the time you are old enough to realize any of this, it may be almost too late to "stop and smell the roses" or be able to afford to even if you wanted to relax.
I find the doomsday thinking of some posts here as shortsighted and just illogical. I have lived though many political and social shifts, and believe that ultimately governments only do what society allows them to do, regardless of the ideology the party in power claims to support. And if you do nothing to plan for the future, it becomes self fulfilling prophecy.
My gray hair is a witness that I know what I am talking about: this guy is anything but newbie.
May 8, 2012 at 5:09 am
I agree in the main with this post. In fact, the other day I wrote a list of things I to suggest to my kids as the most important things they should consider. Making provision for retirement via saving in a pension was one of them.
But after a conversation with my accountant, I realised that my advice was slightly outdated, so I revised it.
The western world is in flux about this whole pensions thing and I now think that making and maintaining professional relationships is one of the most important things you can do today. When I look back across my career, I realise that most of my work (I’ve been working as a freelance DBA and SQL Developer since 1991) has come from relationships I’ve maintained along the way. I think this skill is under-mentioned but it means that your 'friends' think of your first when wanting services you have rather than automatically going to an outside company. Promoting oneself is cool but maintaining relationships, wherever practicable, I think is a better long-term option. To do this though does require you to be truly (rather than superficially) interested in people.
The importance of this advice ranks alongside (1) ridding yourself of excess fat (much depends on your continued good health), (2) ridding yourself of unnecessary debt (with debt, you are gambling with your future ability to repay and there are many classless, headless forces working hard to part you with your money), (3) saving for the future (your kids are in for a challenging work life), (4) cultivating practical ways to get regular residual income, (5) needing as little as possible to live (this is about having the smallest footprint as possible)
I do agree though, that retirement will most likely become a thing of the past. Working on your own terms for as long as you want is ideal. Many people (like my father) die within three years of retirement so there is nothing great about it!
Regards
Tony
May 6, 2016 at 6:41 am
So Steve is at SQLBits (in Liverpool?) and I am in Harrogate enjoying a beer ready for a weekend of (field) hockey. Steve's winning (as always) but today I think I have nailed the work/life balance. :w00t:
Gaz
-- Stop your grinnin' and drop your linen...they're everywhere!!!
May 6, 2016 at 7:04 am
For more information about investing I strongly recommend this web site: https://www.bogleheads.org/wiki/Getting_started
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May 9, 2016 at 5:05 am
Gary Varga (5/6/2016)
So Steve is at SQLBits (in Liverpool?) and I am in Harrogate enjoying a beer ready for a weekend of (field) hockey. Steve's winning (as always) but today I think I have nailed the work/life balance. :w00t:
For sure. I'm tired, worn out from a week of travel with a bit more to go.
Definitely not balanced this week, but I'll catch up over the next two months :w00t:
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May 9, 2016 at 6:54 am
It's too late for me.
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