I saw this idiotic article on Reddit, and I just had to make fun of it:
https://wggtb.substack.com/p/the-fire-movementThe author, Jared Dillian, hates the whole idea of FIRE. Apparently, he's extremely offended by the idea of people living their lives according to a plan he doesn't agree with. Let's look at his reasoning:
Retirement is hard. If you don’t have a plan, you will descend into loneliness and despair, with Fox News as background noise. If you retire in your thirties, you will spend a lot of time playing the ding-a-ling banjo. After a few years of such self-abuse, you will write a book that nobody reads, play songs that nobody hears, or start a blog that nobody clicks on. You will accomplish nothing. You will live a life without accomplishment or purpose.
I'd agree that if you retire without any idea of what you want to do next, you'll be bored and unhappy. But that's not an argument against FIRE, because it's equally true of people who retire at any age.
If anything, people who retire young are more likely to have the passions and the energy to pursue their own goals in life, whereas many people who've spent their whole life in a corporate career have had that enthusiasm burned out of them. (Also, what's with the extreme snobbery of assuming a creative project is only valuable if
enough people see it?)
The one thing that all the FIRE people have in common is that they hate work. Like, they really, really hate their jobs. I have a theory on this. Happy people like their jobs, unhappy people don’t. It doesn’t matter what job they have; unhappy people will be unhappy no matter what they are doing. They talk about the “soul-destroying” 40-hour work week. I don’t know about you, but I like the 80-hour work week even better.
I'm a data point against this hypothesis, because I didn't hate my job. It paid me well, and I had a good manager and coworkers I got along with. It was as good as a corporate job could be. But I like not working a whole lot better!
And holy crap, 80-hour workweeks? This guy is setting himself up for a stress-induced heart attack at a young age and boasting about it.
Dillian seems to think that FIRE people are betting on the stock market returning 12% a year forever. I've never heard anyone make this claim. He seems completely ignorant of the Trinity Study and the 4% rule (which is, if anything, a conservative return expectation) - and many of us are planning on withdrawal rates even lower than that!
It’s a belief that these 12% returns are an immutable law of nature, like gravity. Really, it’s an article of faith. You’re betting your life and your life savings on the idea that U.S. stocks will be the most attractive destination for capital over the next 100 years. I am not so sure, certainly not sure enough to bet my life on it.
I'm amused by the idea that FIRE people are "betting our lives" on the continued existence of the global stock market... but ordinary workers somehow
aren't betting their lives on the continued existence of their jobs. If he's imagining a scenario where the stock market craters and all investments flatline for decades, yet somehow
his specific job will employ him and pay him a salary the whole time, he's more ignorant of economics than I thought.
No early retiree who follows the FIRE plan is going to wake up one day and discover they're broke. The vast majority of us have a stash big enough to see a failure coming years in advance. And if that happens... well, we'll just have to go back to work. Big deal! As I heard it put once, our worst-case scenario is most people's everyday scenario.
This is a fact: material things bring us happiness. It is good and right and a joyful thing to see a fancy new jacket in a store, try it on, look in the mirror, whip out your credit card, wear it out of the store, and show it off to all your friends. To deny yourself a lifetime of material possessions is insanity.
The life he's describing sounds sad and empty. It's not even a little controversial that material things don't bring lasting happiness, only a temporary bump of pleasure that soon fades and leaves you wanting the next thing. It's similar to any other addiction. But hey, if he'd rather have fancy jackets than the freedom of waking up each day and knowing he's free to do whatever he finds most meaningful - be my guest.
Investing only works if other people are working. So really, the FIRE people are the ultimate free-riders, piggybacking off the efforts of others, while contributing nothing but blog posts and Instagram reels about Van Life.
...The FIRE people also have a poor understanding of how capitalism works—the stock market is a function of corporate profits which is a function of output, which requires everyone to chip in.
This is the most hilarious part of this essay: his argument that we all have a duty to keep working
for the good of the stock market. Won't someone please think of the P/E ratios?!
If you think that living off investment returns is "free-riding" and shouldn't be allowed, then I've got news for you: you're not against FIRE, you're against
capitalism. If we're going down that route, there are lots of billionaires and hedge-fund managers who are leeching off society and ought to go get a real job at their local McDonald's.
(As it happens, I'm skeptical of capitalism myself. At the very least, I think markets need to be overhauled to be more humane. No one should be denied food, housing or medical care because they're poor, and no one should be forced by financial desperation to accept abusive treatment or hazardous work. But somehow I doubt that's what he was driving at.)
All in all, this article was shoddy, poorly researched, and driven by personal animosity rather than facts. If there's a valid critique of the FIRE movement, I'd welcome the opportunity to hear it. If I need to make a course correction, I'd want to do that sooner rather than later. But there's nothing to be found on Dillian's blog except aggressive ignorance and low-quality flamebait.
