Author Topic: 14 Reasons Why You Shouldn't Retire Early  (Read 6598 times)

minority_finance_mo

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14 Reasons Why You Shouldn't Retire Early
« on: May 04, 2015, 10:27:56 PM »
http://whitecoatinvestor.com/14-reasons-why-you-shouldn%E2%80%99t-retire-early/


I wonder who the fuck thought this was a good idea.... All of the bullets are utter garbage, but some are especially putrid:

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6) You’ll have to figure out how to get your money out of retirement accounts before age 59 ½.

Both IRAs and 401Ks have a 10% surcharge if you want your money for early retirement.  Now there are several ways to get at least some of your money out without the penalty, but a traditional retiree doesn’t have to deal with any of them.

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12)   You’ll have to be smarter about investing

And I'm still trying to wrap my head around this sucker...

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10)   We have a progressive tax system.

You are penalized for earning a lot of money in a few years versus earning the same amount of money over a longer period of time.  Doctors are already punished by this fact since they get no “credit” for not making anything in their 20s.  If you “burn the candle” at the other end of your career, you’ll be punished again.  Tax-wise, you’re far better off making $100,000 a year for 40 years than $200,000 a year for 20.  For example, a married tax-payer making $100,000 a year and taking the standard deduction pays $12,506 in taxes.  The same tax-payer making $200,000 a year pays $41,998, over three times as much.   That’s not counting the additional state taxes, payroll taxes, or phase-outs either.


Please be a parody...

LalsConstant

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Re: 14 Reasons Why You Shouldn't Retire Early
« Reply #1 on: May 05, 2015, 05:46:13 AM »
Good gravy.  This is dumb.

Zinsch

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Re: 14 Reasons Why You Shouldn't Retire Early
« Reply #2 on: May 05, 2015, 06:15:22 AM »
The article can be summed up as follows: If you work more, you earn more.

nereo

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Re: 14 Reasons Why You Shouldn't Retire Early
« Reply #3 on: May 05, 2015, 07:18:02 AM »
My favorite line in the whole article:
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It turns out you can live in a much nicer house if you’re willing to work an extra decade or two.
Duuuhhhhhhhhhhhh........

My favorite comment (as far down as I could stand reading, which admittedly wasn't far)
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Your assumption of a 5% real return is insane. If you look at the history of the S&P 500 since 1926, with dividends, it has returned 8.6% which consists of about 4.4% real plus 4% inflation rate average. [note: it's actually 6.9% real, inflation adjusted with dividends.] Now, if you look since February of 2000, the s&P 500 has returned about 1.2% on average per year. So it has done worse than inflation which over the last 10 years has returned about 3%. [note: SP500 returned 4.6% real, inflation adjusted over this time period].

So I think it is important in these times to just make as much as possible
. I firmly believe stock market return is linked to GDP which has struggled over the past 10 years for a number of reasons. It is impossible to retire early unless you somehow win 5 or 10 million in the lottery as the cost of health insurance is terribly expensive. [note: the article itself referenced an average health-care cost of about $6000 per year.] 

dsmexpat

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Re: 14 Reasons Why You Shouldn't Retire Early
« Reply #4 on: May 05, 2015, 08:18:03 AM »
Getting money out of my retirement accounts without a penalty does sound hard. Better work for another 20 years instead.

dandarc

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Re: 14 Reasons Why You Shouldn't Retire Early
« Reply #5 on: May 05, 2015, 08:30:05 AM »
This is a post from 2011 on a site geared towards doctors, from a blogger who has stated he's not interested in retiring early.

WCI has a lot of good information for the higher-income crowd on tax-planning, life insurance, and such.  But yeah, definitely not an early-retirement site.

dcheesi

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Re: 14 Reasons Why You Shouldn't Retire Early
« Reply #6 on: May 05, 2015, 08:58:51 AM »
The article can be summed up as follows: If you work more, you earn more.
That, and "Wahhh! Managing investments is hard!"

nereo

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Re: 14 Reasons Why You Shouldn't Retire Early
« Reply #7 on: May 05, 2015, 09:03:19 AM »
The article can be summed up as follows: If you work more, you earn more.
That, and "Wahhh! Managing investments is hard!"
yeah, that notion ("managing investments is hard") deserves several face-punches. Investing is one of the easiest things a person has to do in their adult life.  The instructions can be printed on a 3x5" index card, and it can all become automated. Unfortunately, there's an entire industry that's bent on making it seem complicated and scary, and a 'feeder-industry' of talking heads parroting harmful information around.  [rant over.]

Cheddar Stacker

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Re: 14 Reasons Why You Shouldn't Retire Early
« Reply #8 on: May 05, 2015, 09:11:28 AM »
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12)   You’ll have to be smarter about investing


Shouldn't you always do this? I'm too dumb to invest well, so I'll work forever, then it won't matter if I only get a 2% return.

kittenstache

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Re: 14 Reasons Why You Shouldn't Retire Early
« Reply #9 on: May 05, 2015, 11:08:48 AM »
And that article was on website geared towards physicians! Hopefully, there aren't any physicians out there who are dumb enough to fall for their sh*tty advice!
BTW, I'm a physician who plans on retiring somewhat early, around age 50 :)

minority_finance_mo

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Re: 14 Reasons Why You Shouldn't Retire Early
« Reply #10 on: May 05, 2015, 11:34:22 AM »
dsmexpat, that was the git of much of that list: it's hard to figure out how to do things, so might as well work another two decades so you don't have to do them.

Dude, if you can't figure out how to rollover your 401K into an IRA to get the Roth ladder started in 20 (!) years, or hire someone to figure it out for you, I'm a little scared how you got your medical qualifications...

plantingourpennies

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Re: 14 Reasons Why You Shouldn't Retire Early
« Reply #11 on: May 05, 2015, 11:39:46 AM »
Jesus, don't you people have anything better to do than run around the internet and get upset about stuff you don't like?




Exflyboy

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Re: 14 Reasons Why You Shouldn't Retire Early
« Reply #12 on: May 05, 2015, 11:47:49 AM »
Yes I am smart enough to get through medical school and pass my board exams but I'm too dumb to understand investing!....

Yup makes perfect sense to me.. I mean I "only" have a Masters, what hope is there for my feeble brain?

What about people who are even less educated than me?.. Oh my, and Social Security won't be there after 2033 either..

Now where is that credit card I need to go blow my $1.5M on a yacht!

druth

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Re: 14 Reasons Why You Shouldn't Retire Early
« Reply #13 on: May 05, 2015, 12:03:14 PM »
Jesus, don't you people have anything better to do than run around the internet and get upset about stuff you don't like?

Isn't that the point of the "Antimustachian Wall of Shame and Comedy"?  If you don't like it this maybe isn't the section for you.

Also making myself feel superior to others has some valuable benefits to my psyche. :D

MgoSam

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Re: 14 Reasons Why You Shouldn't Retire Early
« Reply #14 on: May 05, 2015, 12:43:13 PM »
Yes I am smart enough to get through medical school and pass my board exams but I'm too dumb to understand investing!....

Yup makes perfect sense to me.. I mean I "only" have a Masters, what hope is there for my feeble brain?


Oh shit, I'm fucked! I only have a bachelors....

Exflyboy

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Re: 14 Reasons Why You Shouldn't Retire Early
« Reply #15 on: May 05, 2015, 05:20:23 PM »
Yes I am smart enough to get through medical school and pass my board exams but I'm too dumb to understand investing!....

Yup makes perfect sense to me.. I mean I "only" have a Masters, what hope is there for my feeble brain?

[/quot

Oh shit, I'm fucked! I only have a bachelors....

Totally screwed..:)

Kris

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Re: 14 Reasons Why You Shouldn't Retire Early
« Reply #16 on: May 05, 2015, 05:34:42 PM »
Jesus, don't you people have anything better to do than run around the internet and get upset about stuff you don't like?

Isn't that the point of the "Antimustachian Wall of Shame and Comedy"?  If you don't like it this maybe isn't the section for you.


No kidding.  With all due respect, Planting, one could just as easily say to you, "Jesus, don't you have anything better to do than run around looking for forums that mock people, and mock the participants for mocking people?"

« Last Edit: May 05, 2015, 05:37:01 PM by Kris »

PathtoFIRE

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Re: 14 Reasons Why You Shouldn't Retire Early
« Reply #17 on: May 06, 2015, 08:04:52 AM »
The author of that blog and post is on these forums sometimes, just FYI.

While I agree the list does not present much challenge to good Mustachians, I've seen prior articles from WCI where he purposefully takes up the counterargument to make a point. I didn't see an article about the 14 reasons TO retire early around the same time, so maybe he was legitimately arguing these points...

minority_finance_mo

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Re: 14 Reasons Why You Shouldn't Retire Early
« Reply #18 on: May 06, 2015, 08:53:24 AM »
As I read it, I had hoped it was a parody. Perhaps the author will see this and comment, then.