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Bankrate.com's "retirement" guide
Old 06-11-2007, 11:48 AM   #1
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Bankrate.com's "retirement" guide

Sometimes I wonder which side these guys are on and who's checking the facts. Then I remember that editors play to the biggest market they can find and journalists have to write to deadlines.

Bankrate.com has been flogging their 2007 retirement guide and I've been browsing the occasional article. One of them is Working life goes on for serial retirees", which is mainly intended to encourage those without a pension who haven't saved enough in their 401(k)s. It talks about various part-time or health-insurance ideas. It quotes the usual sound-bite experts across three pages of ad-clogged bloated website. Don't retire, just rehire!

Then I stumbled across these two paragraphs at the end:
"Rob Bennett, a tax attorney and journalist, dreamed of writing a book but needed to work a full-time job for financial reasons. With his dream as a goal, he "worked and saved like a madman until I got to the point fairly early in life where I had saved enough so that I could do what I wanted to do," he says.
"Now I'm at the point where I only have to make $12,000 a year or so to pay my bills and that covers food, utilities and other day-to-day expenses," he says. "My mortgage is paid off and if I make more than my minimum, we can take a nice vacation." His book, "Passion Saving: The Path to Plentiful Free Time and Soul-Satisfying Work" and his blog, promote the idea of early savings as a path to financial freedom."

I'd describe the reader's experience as biting into an apparently good apple and seeing half a worm waving back at you. Apparently Bankrate.com hasn't been fully inoculated against Hocomania...
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Old 06-11-2007, 11:56 AM   #2
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OMG!

Wonder what ***** does to earn that $12,000 a year. Sure isn't book sales.
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Old 06-11-2007, 12:05 PM   #3
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OMG!

Wonder what ***** does to earn that $12,000 a year. Sure isn't book sales.
His income probably is from sales - of his blood plasma.
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Old 06-11-2007, 01:08 PM   #4
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"Rob Bennett, a tax attorney and journalist, dreamed of writing a book but needed to work a full-time job for financial reasons. With his dream as a goal, he "worked and saved like a madman until I got to the point fairly early in life where I had saved enough so that I could do what I wanted to do," he says.
Isn't this Rob Bennett the idiot of the century, whose plan/execution/logical thinking has been the laughing stock in the Early Retirees circle?
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Old 06-11-2007, 01:10 PM   #5
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Sam, you're being too kind.
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Old 06-11-2007, 01:38 PM   #6
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Wonder how that 100% TIPS portfolio is working for him these days...
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Old 06-11-2007, 03:03 PM   #7
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Sam, you're being too kind.


Form a recent posting of mine on a H related board:
"Most other posters have a long and ‘senior’ position to mine but I have to respectfully disagree that the thread needs correction. H’s postings are nuts but isn’t that why we even look at this board? (Does anyone actually come here for financial insights?) H is f%$#ing nutz, but in a more interesting way than say my friends father with Alzheimer’s who wears a diaper & doesn’t know who his daughter is. So its hard to complain that his responses make no sense. Even when he is on topic he makes no sense. The question, for me, is how long this story will continue to be interesting. It got pretty slow for a while and then hit a new pocket of Hocomania and I was just amazed that there can be this continual source or mental & financial dysfunction presented with just enough appearance of substance that a newbie might get taken in."
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Old 06-11-2007, 05:48 PM   #8
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I have visited the Hoco - site...it was amazing to read some posts that were several paragraphs long and made absolutely no point! There has to be some genious in that!!

Or not................
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Old 06-12-2007, 05:45 AM   #9
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I ran into that nutty sight years ago. But I don't get the "Hoco" part - why call it "Hocomania?" The guy just talks about passion saving or something, doesn't he?
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Old 06-12-2007, 07:18 AM   #10
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I ran into that nutty sight years ago. But I don't get the "Hoco" part - why call it "Hocomania?" The guy just talks about passion saving or something, doesn't he?
Because he has been known to use the handle "h*cus".
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