Recent content by FinallyRetired

Just had my second square trade iPhone warranty claim for a wet phone. Note: the Aquapac may be shark proof but it will not hold up to grandkids in a swimming pool. This time they balked, suggesting that Aquapac should pay, but relented after realizing they were dealing with the retiree from...

My comment was made in jest, as I explained. However, I have found that health care problems and associated cost are quite a bit higher than I planned, and this will probably be the case for the average retiree. For example, getting prostate cancer was nowhere in my spreadsheet. Of course...

I can think of worse ways of losing an eye ;)

I think TromboneAl pretty much summed it up. It's the guilty pleasure of playing golf, going for a walk, taking a nap, or doing anything you feel like it while colleagues your age are slaving at the office. Once you are 65, most of your colleagues are there with you doing nothing. :blush:

Quit your job, slide down the emergency chute, and you're out of there! Oh, don't forget to grab a couple of beers on the way out. JetBlue flight attendant turns into overnight Internet sensation - NYPOST.com

Actually, health care is the least of my worries, as I have several alternatives to good health care. My sympathies reside with those who have planned their retirement based on programs that are built on quicksand. Unless one is self-insured or qualifies for the "socialized" military health care...

Congratulations! I know how hard you have slaved over this book.

Had a mini reunion with some old, I mean, experienced Air Force buddies from 25 years ago.

The scary thing is that this guy is ahead in the polls.

This is very good news short term. If the problem is Chinese labor costs rising, however, I assume that it's only a matter of time before another country raises a suitable labor force at cheap wages. Chasing the lowest international wages doesn't seem like a sustainable solution. OTOH, when...

Maybe, but I wouldn't bet on it. Entry tests can differentiate between knowledge levels, but not necessarily between capacity to learn. Education has many counter-intuitive issues. Let me give you one example based on a short time when I was a teacher/administrator. We used student...

ERD, the problem with your example is that it's extremely difficult to measure incoming student quality in the same way you measure trucks, on moral as well as technical grounds. Is the school board going to question every family as to their income, their drinking habits, their marriage...

That's what I would suspect. Not just the parent effect, but the peer effect.

Yes, that would be an equally valid or invalid way of looking at it, depending on perspective. The study showed a $320,000 lifetime earnings diffferential based on KG teachers. BTW, I'm not sure I accept these results, and they are yet to be peer reviewed. But, for the sake of argument...

Actually, I do look at the future value of the ditch diggers' work when I decide the most I would pay for the job. If the risk is $10k a year, I might pay a multiple of that to save the future expenses. Now, if a guy came along and offered to do the job for half of that, and do it well, of...