Retirement vs Perfect Job

[wzd]

Ted - The variety of opinions is expected, and we all do not agree on everything. After looking back over this thread, I think that I, and maybe others, have responded more to the tone of your post than to the content. To me, the tone of your posts sounds like burnout - based on my limited experience.

Your leaving will reduce the diversity of opinions on the board, and I'm sorry to see you go. Consider coming back after you take a break! In any case, good luck, and thanks for the many interesting posts.'

Wayne

 

[sgeeeee]

. . .
And frankly, guys, I'm through giving free investment advice to a bunch of people who obviously don't.  (I don't include Dory36 in this category because he is providing a very useful public service with FIRECalc, in addition to whatever else he is probably doing that is of value to the community.)

Bye y'all.

Ted,

Would you consider continuing with our discussions if we all pitched in and bought you a box of dryer sheets?

Good luck. If you are finding this stressful, then you just don't need it.

 

[Roger_R]

Ted, I am new to this forum, and hardly know of the contributions you've made or not made. Nor of the tones and personalities here. I feel poorly that a discussion I started has resulted in bad feelings. I can only offer that if you feel some sort of urge to return something to a community, that your advice, wisdom and if so be it diversity are helpful. I'm pretty dumb about a lot of this ER stuff, and need help. I'm sorry I can't offer more advice, but will do so when I can. I do know that life is not meant to be tied up in some uncomforable undies, and you should do what you want.

 

[cute fuzzy bunny]

Oh boy...

Well I think I was part of this, so here are my 4 cents.

I wont bore anyone with tales of living hand to mouth and working 80 hours a week until I managed to get myself into a position where I could make enough to retire early, despite a lack of formal education and with no silver spoons nearby.

Suffice it to say that it was a long hard road, with a lot of compression of good and bad times.

I feel no guilt or remorse in taking at least a few years to smell the roses and be "unproductive". I would feel just as little remorse in remaining "unproductive" until I dropped dead in my wheaties.

Through the course of time, and to this day, I have and continue to influence peoples lives in what I hope is a positive manner. There are surely a long line of people who regularly tell me that I did more for them than anyone else in their lives. And with less reason to.

What I bristled at frankly was a guy who doesnt know me or anyone else here particularly well proclaiming that he was going to reserve his respect for me or anyone on the basis of his opinion of our values as human beings with regards to the frankly damn skimpy information he has about us.

Now in this latest incantation, we're immoral, selfish and undeserving. Excuse me sir, but I'm none of the above, and you neither have the information nor the right to come to that determination.

Frankly Ted, I think you're a smart guy. I've enjoyed your posts, input and feedback. I think you have a lot to offer a community like this (or any other). However you can just as frankly keep the holier-than-thou crap.

I hope you continue here. If you dont, the loss of your knowledge will definitely take something away from the hive.

By the way, I'm a great admirer of Franklin as well. Be advised though that he, Washington, and a lot of the other guys you mentioned and are thinking of had a lot of time to "adjust history" (in their older ages) in how they were perceived, and their successes allowed them to be remembered only from the better perspectives. Many of them were scoundrels, selfish, immoral and as undeserving of their place as you and I are.

Despite the harsh words, I hope you live well and I would wish you good luck, but then we all know that luck is never a factor.

 

[nfs]

Thanks for a highly amusing thread.

Now I'll have to go trawl around to see whether any of Ted's financial advice was worthwhile.

Finally, somebody should update the glossary/acronym thread. It took me quite a while to figure out what dryer sheet stood for.

 

[nfs]

The search function here is great.

Ted's departure really is a loss. His investment advice was 98% bang on.

 

[Bill kimberlin]

Ted said...

"it is becoming ever more contrary to the national economic interest for people to be retiring early -- especially if they become "totally" retired and don't perform some sort of socially useful service."

Ted, I'm just wondering if you want to include the idle rich in your comments or do you just want the poor middle class working slobs to follow your Puritan work ethic?

Are you really worried about the "national economic interest" or are you just sore at early retirement types.

You are talking to the "little people" of the world and telling them to do better and follow the rules, except you forget to mention the "big people".

Of course the "big people" would laugh at you, if they could see you... but of course they will never see you; but you will go on and on correcting the lives of everyone at your level or below because you have never been among the "big people". And they know that and they also know that you will never betray your faith in them.

How comforting for you both. Your happy, they are happy.

bill

 

[Lohengrin]

Ted, I'm just wondering if you want to include the idle rich in your comments or do you just want the poor middle class working slobs to follow your Puritan work ethic?

I try to refrain from these sensitive subjects but in this case I just have to say: BRAVO Bill! This is something that seems so bloomin' obvious to me but is invisible to everybody else.

The Rich don't work. They inherit and make loads of unearned income, control the cash flow from a business and everybody admires them. Even when they go to the office or "run the business" they ain't working. They are following their dreams. They are doing what they want to do. They are not economically exploitable and do not "work" the way the rest of us HAVE to work. If they wanted to stay drunk on their yachts forever they could and nobody would castigate or denigrate them.

If folks like us scrape together enough money (from working) to avoid being forced to work-- not generations worth of dissolute luxury--- just enough to keep out of the coal mines and maybe follow our middle class dreams, we're lazy and unproductive, and irresponsible?

Capitalism. Good enough for the working class but the Rich have better things to do?

 

[wabmester]

Is nothing sacred? Now we're bashing the rich!? I personally have no problem with those born rich. They can't help it.

Executive greed is another issue entirely. I really don't understand the free market weenies who think it's perfectly OK for a single CEO to make more than, say, 1000 employees combined. And despite the publicity over a few corporate thieves who got caught, *nothing* has changed. Executive compensation is obscene, and I don't see any free market forces that have any control over that.

The NY Times has an article today about Grasso defending his $139M pay. This should be interesting.

http://nytimes.com/2004/02/28/business/28nyse.html

 

[Lohengrin]

Is nothing sacred? Now we're bashing the rich!? I personally have no problem with those born rich. They can't help it.

Hey, I ain't bashing the rich. We all wanna be rich. Just making an observation. I know they can't help it and wouldn't if they could. Not in their enlightened self interest. Sometimes the truth can be uncomfortable. It's their cross to bear I guess. What ticks me off is when certain types bash the "other than Rich". Make an observation about economics and get attacked for "Class Warfare". Whenever I hear that it reminds me of The Wizard of OZ. "Pay no attention to the man behind the Curtain"

 

[Bill Kimberlin]

The other thing that Ted slipped by was his comment about George Washington.

Well Ted, I have read my history and I know that Washington married a very wealthy widow. Very wealthy Ted. Thousands of acres of land. A huge Plantation. Over a thousand Slaves, Ted. You don't mention that. You don't mention the (by marriage) huge inherited wealth in your hero.

You also don't mention that Franklin made his fortune buying up the land grants of Revolutionary War soldiers for pennies on the dollar. Soldiers too poor to understand what these land warrents were worth. These warrents were given to them and their widows for fighting for your freedoms.

Once again you go with the "marble men" to support your positions but you haven't done your homework.

You need to correct your posts because you walk away before you are done, or before we are done with you.

bill

 

[Hiss]

Such acrimony! Now, to quote my hero (Al Bundy): "Can't we all just get along?!"

 

[Lohengrin]

Al Bundy. Heh heh. A good one. In my final year of working I found another Al Bundy quote more appropriate: Oh God! Am I not fit to die?!

 

[cute fuzzy bunny]

"Sure selling shoes is fun. But behind the glamour, it's
like any other minimum wage slow death."

 

[Ted]

I won't waste my time trying to refute the Marxist attacks on all people who have inherited wealth. That issue has practically nothing to do with the matter of early retirement, since that is just one of an infinite number of things that people can "buy" when they have sufficient assets.

Personally, I feel that wealthy people should be taxed at a higher rate, both through a progressive income tax structure (which we have) and through a progressive inheritance tax (which the hard core conservatives are trying to eliminate). So I'm no knee-jerk supporter of wealth, whether inherited or earned (or, more typically, some combination of the two).

While I think that it is legitimate to examine the motives of any historical "icon" like George Washington or Benjamin Franklin, it is plain ridiculous to imply that their support of American independence was nothing more than a scheme to further enrich themselves. Sure, the men who signed the Declaration of Independence (Washington was not there and did not) and led the subsequent revolution were very wealthy. And they were smart enough to know that they were risking not only their wealth, but their very lives, in that they were committing "treason" against the British Crown.

They closed the Declaration of Independence with the statement "And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor." They weren't just blowing smoke, and I think that they deserve our gratitude for their sacrifices. In the long run, most Americans benefitted greatly from them.

 

[Ted]

Lighten up Ted, life is a marathon, not a sprint.

I agree with that statement absolutely. That is why I criticize the established paractice of working like crazy for some number of years -- whether it is 50 or 62 or whatever -- and then abruptly "dropping out." It isn't good for most individuals, it isn't good for the overall economy, and anybody with an ounce of understanding of economic principles should be able to understand that the problem is going to become worse in the future.

Furthermore, if you really are an ex-Marine, you should realize that this country is at war, Americans are dying as the result, and it is no time to be justifying and even glorifying the concept of "dropping out," even though it is one of the rights that the people in the military are preserving.

 

[haha]

Furthermore, if you really are an ex-Marine, you should realize that this country is at war...

This cat Ted must have taken a course in offensiveness. along with his Masters in economics. Does anyone on this board, other than Ted, have any doubt about the veracity of anything that Jarhead has said in any of his many interesting and self-disclosing posts? Does anyone doubt he was a Marine? I sure don't. I also don't doubt that his life has been lived real close to where the rubber meets the road. If he wants to tramp around the mountains fishing, lets not forget that over 40 thousand years of human evolution have given that way of life a good look, and found that it worked.

If Jarhead were a mutual fund manager, getting his $2 million a year for poor performanace, then spending a good portion of it having mountain trout flown in from Chile, walking on a treadmill or climbing an artificial wall for exercise, maybe taking a Tae-Bo class to feel masculine- I guess by Ted's metric, since he hasn't "dropped out", he would be an upstanding productive citizen. Huh

When I was young I lived in logging country near Forks Washington. One day I was talking to a few old timers, including one guy who was then (in the 60s) nearing the end of a long career as a logging show topper.

They were talking about how great the depression was. Nothing to do "but fish, fight, and f*ck!" Like, driving a logging truck was cool and all, but as guys we know what we really are like.

I think that being told how we ought to think is getting a litle old.

Mikey

 

[bill kimberlin]

"Marxist attacks" ?

We all recognize when our opponent has left the field of engagement.

Unable to respond he results to either personal insults or appeals to patriotism. Mine has done both.

Thank you Tim, I accept your sword.

bill

 

[bill kimberlin]

Yes, I know.

But you see, I demoted him to a Tim, from a Ted. Such is the nature of battle.

bill

 

[John Galt]

Excellent post Jarhead! Even though I am opinionated,
overbearing and egomaniacal, I try to let everyone
do whatever they want, as long as they don't mess up
my life. Truly, I want everyone to be happy, just want
some of them to be happy far away from me

Re. being "at war", anyone who knows any history at all
knows that warfare is almost constant since before the
dawn of recorded history. Unfortunately, this seems to
be mankind's natural state.

John Galt

 

[cute fuzzy bunny]

Glad to be of help in passing the rainy season through, Jarhead. Sure is pissing it down today, isnt it? Gave me a chance to declutter the house and I'm about to launch into...TAXES! I sure would prefer some widely spaced rocks to that. Although I already did a 10,000 foot run and it looks like i'm zero taxed again.

Keep the opinions coming folks, thats what makes it interesting.

Of course, if the essence of your opinion is "screw you", then keep it

 

[cute fuzzy bunny]

TH:
g about the spring up here though is everything is green. It turns brown in a hurry as soon as the summer heat hits.

Thats what I love about living here. Back in new england everything drops dead in the winter. Brown, gray, and dirty snow. Depressing. Out here everything is green in the winter except for the few trees that drop leaves in the cooler winter months. Then those green up for summer.

Since I live in a subdivision amidst orchards, the entire area is well irrigated (by wells no less) so we dont get the huge dead grass pastures.

I just did my yard fertilizing and pulled a few weeds yesterday. Everything is starting to bloom. The plum trees in the yard and all of the fruit trees in the orchards are starting to blossom. My parsley actually lived right through the winter and my basil came up in early february. I expect the tomatoes and jalapenos I planted last year to be coming up soon, maybe another 2-3 weeks.

Dont you guys living in the snow belt hate this thread now? 8)

 

[ordway]

Thats what I love about living here. Back in new england everything drops dead in the winter. Brown, gray, and dirty snow. [...]

Dont you guys living in the snow belt hate this thread now? 8)

Actually, no! I'm a Yankee through and through, and I *like* the cold, and the winter. I'm living in Maryland now, which is way too hot in the summer (ick) but the winter is nice. Just the other day, I went for a bike ride with my husband, and I commented on how lovely it was to see the yellow fields and the sunshine on the bare, brown trees - a stark kind of beauty, different from the lush sunlight on green leaves in the summer, but definitely beautiful.

I would hate living in Florida or any of the hot southern states. Ugh! All that humidity! No change of seasons! No snow! The best weather is cold, crisp weather that gets your blood flowing. Oddly enough, as my husband and I have gotten older, we've gotten to like the cold more and tolerate the heat less.

Ideally we'd love to live somewhere with cold winters (but not Arctic ones - maybe around 10-20 F in the winter) and summers that don't get hotter than around 70 F, max (and more like 65 would be perfect). Any suggestions? (We considered Alaska, but the long days of darkness would be a total deal-breaker).

 

[indymom]

Holly,
Look into parts of Michigan.

 

[Martha]

Actually, where I live in Minneapolis it's usually not much colder than your range although it does dip below zero about 10-20 nights per year.

I can't say many nice things about Minnesota during Dec, Jan, and Feb. but the rest of the year is very nice. The trip we took to Florida last week, took the winter edge off of us.

I did live in Florida for 3 years and it was mostly hot and muggy. So no place is perfect and I think my wife and I have decided on the snowbird approach. Gone for about 1 - 2 months in Winter.

There is nothing like a Minnesota winter to make you appreciate good weather. When I lived in Florida the weather was taken for granted.

Hey Cut-throat, as a fellow Minnesotan (Duluth), you didn't mention the 30 below weather we all got a couple of weeks ago. That sure was dipping below zero. But you can't beat summers in Duluth. Lake Superior keeps it cool, and it can be 90 degrees in Minneapolis and only 70 degrees here.