Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
...what I object to is this extremely narrow, black and white thinking that having a job = contributing to society. If people can't see the numerous glaring, real-world exceptions to that kind of thinking, I wonder what planet they're living on.
Glaring exceptions about, both of insiders in the corporate-world who contribute utterly nothing, and of nominally unemployed outsiders who contribute a great deal. Many hard-working corporate types have arguably a net negative contribution to society, because what their employer does, is pernicious and vile. Such employees would contribute “more” by spending their day on Facebook.
But for many of us, particularly for those for whom American culture is not native, there’s a beguilingly straightforward narrative: study, pay attention in class, get good grades… then move on to the next academic level; take Advanced Placement classes in high school, score well, get into a good college, ideally with generous scholarships. Again, study hard, avoid partying or other distractions, take hard classes, endear yourself to your professors, obtain good recommendations… then get into a good graduate school, on fellowship or teaching-assistantship… pass qualifying exams and candidacy exam, be dedicated to your research, produce something of archival value, publish a few papers, write a good dissertation, defend it, graduate,… and then what?...
… then the natural choices are academia (if we’re indomitable go-getters), corporate research (Lockheed, GE,…), an FFRDC (JPL, Sandia, …), or the government (NASA, NIH,…). In most of those cases, the engineer becomes a member of the workplace community, exchanging reduction in liberty (applying for a security clearance, acceding to computer monitoring, limitations on international travel,…) for increase in benefits (traditional defined-benefit pension, stock-options, paid attendance at innumerable conferences,…). Upon retiring, both the limitations and the sustenance end. One goes adrift! How then to contribute? How then to stay mentally active? Some people thrive in this latter stage of life. Others whither. A corporate-drone for Boeing might reinvent himself as an adjunct professor at the local college. Or lose his friends, his access to scientific-life and his reason for getting out of bed every morning.
Recall the hard-working kid who did his homework and paid attention in class, taking the harder classes and relishing advanced concepts in math and physics. Chances are, this kid isn’t particularly savvy in starting a business, or even volunteering in the community. His career skill-set is orthogonal to his retirement skill-set. Meanwhile, work is no longer magical. It feels oppressive and banal. One wishes to resign, to do something else, to relocate to a nicer part of the country. So, the dilemma.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Maddie104
Wealth from stock options are a function of number of shares awarded, vesting schedule (typically from award date), option price and exercise price. Sometimes they expire underwater. There is no comparing two people with 20 years of service.
This is precisely why I keep reiterating that luck plays inordinately large role. Two clever and dedicated tech-workers might start on comparable paths, with comparable promise. One works for Apple, another for Worldcom.
Quote:
Originally Posted by PuppiesandKittens
The guy in the article ... seems to be on a near-permanent vacation.
This point is well-taken. Beyond sheer envy, to which forthrightly we ought to admit, there's the question of putting our talents and education to good use. There is definitely a feeling of waste and untapped potential. This holds even if the gentleman in question enjoys his new life, and isn't laden with any regrets.
Let me suggest a totally different, but still illustrative example. The blue-collar fellow down the street wins Powerball. Sudden he has tens of millions of dollars. He quits his job and goes on a spending spree... McMansions, a Harley dealership, lavish fireworks displays, yachts. He buys several vanity-businesses, all of which go under. He buys a hobby-farm, spending millions on the latest agricultural equipment - which doesn't get used. Eventually his millions dwindle. 10 or 15 years later, the money's gone, and he's back on the assembly-line at GM.
There's of course envy of his initial good fortune. But beyond that, we - the spectators - feel a tinge of bemusement, regret and eventually revulsion, that this fellow frittered away so much, mismanaging his life. It's none of our business, and maybe the guy's happy. Fine. But something actually WAS lost, wasn't it?
The FIRE-engineer is by definition the opposite of profligate or dissolute. He's sober and responsible, for that's how he was able to retire early. But like the lottery-winner, he stepped out of conventional life, striking out on his own... and that's fine, save that most of us just won't find the sort of success in such circumstances, as we did while mere office-drones.
Quote:
Originally Posted by PuppiesandKittens
I could deal with him being on a near-permanent vacation if he had enough money to invest in his child. Will he be able and willing to spend $250,000 to send his child to a top-tier college?
I think that the kids will be fine. Lots of FIRE-types take early retirement to invest more parental resources into child-rearing, for example by home-schooling. This was for example the attitude of Mr. Money Mustache.
But what of the single child-free FIRE type? There’s less that’s compelling at home. One can only self-advance so much, by restoring more classic cars or converting one’s house to off-grid carbon-neutrality.
So, in contrast to PuppiesandKittens' point, I'd argue that FIRE is better for parents or at least for couples, rather than child-free singles.
Quote:
Originally Posted by PuppiesandKittens
Plenty of nonprofits could benefit from his engineering skills. He isn’t volunteering those skills, either.
What if every 30-year old quit working and instead went on vacation? The economy would tank and all of us would be worse off.
We don't know about the volunteering. Maybe the person in question is quite active. But so many engineering ventures require large and unwieldy corporate machinery. It can't really be done by community volunteers. It tends to be done by thousands, maybe tens of thousands of engineers, working in multi-billion-dollar facilities. Drop out of the corporate rat-race, and one concomitantly drops out of the professional-community that does the useful work.
Anyone can volunteer for after-school programs for kids, or to tutor disadvantaged folks in math, and so forth. But contributing at a high, professional level? It's hard to work on, say, advances in artificial intelligence or nuclear energy as a community volunteer.
As for the question of every 30-year-old quitting work and "going on vacation", indeed, we'd have a problem. We have to acknowledge that unorthodox lifestyle choices, or unorthodox genetic predisposition, would be a problem if we all had it. For instance, if everyone chose not to have kids, we'd have a problem. If everyone wanted to be a mathematician, we'd have a problem. We need janitors, security-guards, cafeteria workers and ditch-diggers, too. If every person working a menial job got a better education and was promoted to something more intellectually-challenging, we'd have a problem.
Society is contingent on lots of people working hard, without much remuneration. Society is contingent on lots of people working their entire adult lifetime, and dying at around age 60 or 65 or 68, so that they never really collect on retirement benefits. If everyone lived for many decades in retirement, the cost of retirement would become unsustainable. Cynics would say, that this renders society a sham and a treacherous pyramid-scheme. Many of these cynics are hording gold and ammo.
I'm a different sort of cynic. I believe that in all human societies, most people are going to get screwed. This is inevitable and essential. On the corpses of those who get screwed, humanity overall steps upward. We go from spear-throwing jungle-tribes to eventually explorers of the stars and galaxies. And if too many intelligent and educated people, whose profession it is (or would be) to design those star-ships, instead lead quiet lives of introspection at the shore of Walden Pond, something is, I think, collectively lost.
I have a close family member who is in his mid-40s and is retired, with two kids. Spouse doesn’t work. They are constantly on vacation.
Another ancestor of mine (who I knew as a child) retired at age 35 and was also constantly on vacation.
Neither of them volunteered ever.
However, both of them had so much money (the relative today, over $10 million in assets that are invested well in income-producing investments) that they can take care of their children and satisfy their every need. The ancestor sent children to expensive private colleges and gave them expensive cars and then left big inheritances.
I don’t love that because both retirees had talents that they didn’t use to better society.
However, unlike the engineer in the first post, both have gobs of money and do look after their families.
The engineer in the first post cannot afford a $250k college tuition bill (or a further $350kngrad school tuition bill) and it’s unfair to the rest of us for his kid to get financial aid- and unfair to his kid to have to incur college tuition debt- due to the father’s laziness.
I have a close family member who is in his mid-40s and is retired, with two kids. Spouse doesn’t work. They are constantly on vacation.
Another ancestor of mine (who I knew as a child) retired at age 35 and was also constantly on vacation.
Neither of them volunteered ever.
Great for them. Volunteering should be left to those who are compelled to do it
Quote:
However, both of them had so much money (the relative today, over $10 million in assets that are invested well in income-producing investments) that they can take care of their children and satisfy their every need. The ancestor sent children to expensive private colleges and gave them expensive cars and then left big inheritances.
Every need? Well getting into a discussion of what needs really are vs wants gets a bit tough sometimes
Quote:
I don’t love that because both retirees had talents that they didn’t use to better society.
Yeah but who cares what you think about it? No one other than to discuss it on a message board
Quote:
However, unlike the engineer in the first post, both have gobs of money and do look after their families.
The engineer in the first post cannot afford a $250k college tuition bill (or a further $350kngrad school tuition bill) and it’s unfair to the rest of us for his kid to get financial aid- and unfair to his kid to have to incur college tuition debt- due to the father’s laziness.
Don’t talk about fair. Most families can’t afford 250k for one kid let alone all their kids and whose to say a parent should be responsible for paying that bill partially or entirely?
I have a close family member who is in his mid-40s and is retired, with two kids. Spouse doesn’t work. They are constantly on vacation.
Another ancestor of mine (who I knew as a child) retired at age 35 and was also constantly on vacation.
Neither of them volunteered ever.
However, both of them had so much money (the relative today, over $10 million in assets that are invested well in income-producing investments) that they can take care of their children and satisfy their every need. The ancestor sent children to expensive private colleges and gave them expensive cars and then left big inheritances.
I don’t love that because both retirees had talents that they didn’t use to better society.
However, unlike the engineer in the first post, both have gobs of money and do look after their families.
The engineer in the first post cannot afford a $250k college tuition bill (or a further $350kngrad school tuition bill) and it’s unfair to the rest of us for his kid to get financial aid- and unfair to his kid to have to incur college tuition debt- due to the father’s laziness.
I think you're seriously overgeneralizing and projecting based on your personal experience. I also think you really seem to lack the willingness to question that maybe the standard upper middle class way of doing things isn't even good or healthy in many ways.
Wealth from stock options are a function of number of shares awarded, vesting schedule (typically from award date), option price and exercise price. Sometimes they expire underwater. There is no comparing two people with 20 years of service.
While it’s not out of bounds, but it’s not usual as someone posted here. I know lots of engineers who never amassed more than $5 million. Sometimes when they do, they are burnt out and retired. In my cousin case, both husband and wife still work, not just husband who’s successful, but the wife is not as successful as the husband. Plus if you know those companies, you know they give out RSUs to employees, heck they give out to brand new graduates too, that’s how I know. When we talk about generality, it’s easy to presume things.
Yeah but who cares what you think about it? No one other than to discuss it on a message board
Ultimately, nobody cares what any other individual thinks about anything, unless the persons in question are already intimately close. But the point remains, that society and its collective achievements are composed of the aggregate of what we do as individuals.
If my neighbor chooses to join some ascetic religious cult, I probably won't care, nor should I - beyond, say, how that might affect my own property-value. But if the entire nation joins said cult, that's going to affect our economy, in personally deleterious ways to us all.
To give a fanciful example, if in 1900 Einstein decided to become a top bureaucrat in the patent office, instead of pursuing his interests in physics, Mankind would have been deeply the worse for it. Presumably not every engineer taking early-retirement is an Einstein, but in some small part, some of them are... and to the extent that their retirement results in a life away from science, a life of casual leisure and private contemplation, we as a society are the poorer for it.
What we have here is another flavor of "the tragedy of the commons". If we all act in rational self-interest, working only as long as is necessary for our own material support, then arguably we've done a sensible thing, even a personally rewarding thing... but however inadvertently, we've caused a common-harm. This is not, of course, an argument to compel people to work. But it might be an argument to sway the undecided.
I have a close family member who is in his mid-40s and is retired, with two kids. Spouse doesn’t work. They are constantly on vacation.
Another ancestor of mine (who I knew as a child) retired at age 35 and was also constantly on vacation.
Neither of them volunteered ever.
However, both of them had so much money (the relative today, over $10 million in assets that are invested well in income-producing investments) that they can take care of their children and satisfy their every need. The ancestor sent children to expensive private colleges and gave them expensive cars and then left big inheritances.
Yes, I expect someone with $10 million in assets to be living quite well on investments alone. Or they may own expensive properties in high COL metro areas (which is, again, living quite well).
If they are financially educated, then they should never have to work for a living again.
I have a close family member who is in his mid-40s and is retired, with two kids. Spouse doesn’t work. They are constantly on vacation.
Another ancestor of mine (who I knew as a child) retired at age 35 and was also constantly on vacation.
Neither of them volunteered ever.
However, both of them had so much money (the relative today, over $10 million in assets that are invested well in income-producing investments) that they can take care of their children and satisfy their every need. The ancestor sent children to expensive private colleges and gave them expensive cars and then left big inheritances.
I don’t love that because both retirees had talents that they didn’t use to better society.
However, unlike the engineer in the first post, both have gobs of money and do look after their families.
The engineer in the first post cannot afford a $250k college tuition bill (or a further $350kngrad school tuition bill) and it’s unfair to the rest of us for his kid to get financial aid- and unfair to his kid to have to incur college tuition debt- due to the father’s laziness.
Yeah,working at a soup kitchen is a dead give away. I know one who does and he’s an unemployed engineer in his late 40s, for some reasons he gave up in life, never wanted to look for a job.
He talks about not having a car, not having this or that, etc., and how little he spends.
People who are able-bodied and in their prime working years should work.
Hey if I could have afforded it I would have retired at 18 years old and enjoyed a life of leisure. The majority of us work to make a living not because we are able-bodied and should.
Location: Formerly Pleasanton Ca, now in Marietta Ga
10,348 posts, read 8,564,711 times
Reputation: 16689
Quote:
Originally Posted by eddiehaskell
I feel comfortable saying I paid cash for my home. I doubt anyone truly cares. My house tripling in value is basically public record too...anyone can look up an address on Zillow and get a ballpark value.
Point is - individuals post on these forums and each individual controls what they want and don’t want to divulge about their personal lives. No one has any responsibility to answer any question they don’t want to. If you want to know specifics - ask! If someone doesn’t answer your question - move on.
I’ve had gf’s that pay their fair share of the bills - again generalized information which is common amoung most couples. Heck, if you want to get technical maybe I made a post about using Charmin toilet paper...perhaps you could use that information to get a bead on my finances.
Well you keep bringing up your finances and lifestyle, so people will keep asking. Did you expect differently?
If you think no one cares, why are now saying you don't want to divulge private info when you've already spread it all over the forum in various posts.
Sure people can look it up . . . if you post your address and real name, but you haven't so why are you concerned? I guess I'll just go with what most here think and that's some nice size holes in your story.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
