More a question of WHICH disaster(s). Wildfires? Hurricanes? Tornadoes? Drought? Heatwave? Famine? Extreme flooding? War? Fascist regime? Derecho? Baseball sized hail? Coral bleaching? Dust storms? Is this multiple choice? #retirement
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4 posts4 participants1 post today
Started this morning with the best of intentions. I was going to sit down at the computer and finish one of the two "computer things" tasks on my list (finishing up the shop-calendar coding, and getting the "lighthouse" for my home-built tailnet installed on my VPS). #DayInTheLife #Retirement… (1/3)
#joshhawley , a complete #jan6 coward, is proposing a bill in the Senate that I agree with.
Total ban on day trading stocks in #congress.
Watch the majority of #Senate and #Congress announce #retirement if this #unicorn passes and #Trump signs it.
Not likely.
#election2026
#2026election
#premarket
#investing
#lablife #retirement
This is what 1500 samples of frozen glycerol stocks of plasmid-containing bacteria look like going into autoclave bags. I'm reducing the collection from ~8000 to the most essential ~600 for saving. The lab is slowly clearing out as I send out reagents/notebooks to lab alumni, give away equipment, and throw out/recycle things no one will want. There is so much stuff after 36 years! On July 1, I am an Emeritus Professor.
Kiplinger: Two Don'ts and Four Dos During Trump's Trade War
https://www.kiplinger.com/retirement/dos-and-donts-during-trumps-trade-war #Retirement #PersonalFinance #Investing #MoneyAdvice #Kiplinger #RetirementPlanning
Kiplinger · Two Don'ts and Four Dos During Trump's Trade WarThe financial rules have changed now that tariffs have disrupted the markets and created economic uncertainty. What can you do? (And what shouldn't you do?)
USian Xennials have seen the dream of #retirement slip from our grasp within our lifetimes. In the 1980's, we saw our grandparents retiring from a single income with nice houses and possibly some vacation property to the 2020's horror of a COVID ridden life sentence to an LTC facility or possibly run out of money and going homeless, fighting off others over a can of cat food on the sidewalk.
Anybody recommend books on retirement - the non-financial side?
p.s. don't tell them on Linkedin, I'm pretending to be a "consultant"!
*Assuming the US Social Security system still exists next fall*
The inflationary effects of Trump’s tariffs will factor into the 2026 Social Security Cost of Living Adjustment, and the mandated increase will be higher than expected.
Who bets the loyalist stooges jigger the formula and the inflation-linked cost of living increase magically disappears?
#USPol #USPolitics #SocialSecurity #Retirement #HandsOffSocialSecurity
BenefitsPro · Trump’s tariffs could impact 2026 Social Security COLA increase
"Maybe they won't remember our #plundering of their life savings," the kakistocrats are likely thinking.
Oh goody goody, I only lost 18% of the value my #retirement savings so Turnip's friends could buy low while he makes self-aggrandizing grifty side deals with appeasers one by one.
#FDA #Layoffs Could Raise #Drug Costs and Erode Food Safety No mission, no research, no science, no knowledge. #FDA is eviscerated. In many areas of the #FDA, no #employees remain to process payroll, to file #retirement or layoff paperwork and to help overseas #inspectors who are at risk of maxing out agency credit cards. Even the agency’s #library where researchers and experts relied on medical journal subscriptions that have now been canceled, has been shut down. https://archive.is/NBha8
Continued thread
(continued from previous post on thread)
This topic is very apropos in the current market. We may be about to enter another recession, perhaps a depression. 401K's are down. So the claim that we could do better investing on our own is uncertain, but is again certainly going to test a lot of ordinary citizens, postponing their ability to retire.
And I emphasize that the choice f when to retire is not just a whim. Even ignoring age discrimination, age wears on a person, and some people do physical jobs (read: ACTUAL hard work, as opposed to metaphorically hard work done by rich executives) that leave them depleted. So delayed retirement is not just an inconvenience, it is in some cases torture and in some cases impossible.
But even as we are potentially entering a depression, the billionaires are salivating. They are looking forward to "buying low". They're treating this roller coaster as a buying opportunity. They plan to get rich on this depression. Even as others suffer and probably many die. They are gleeful.
This is the time when Social Security should be doubling down and assuring people it will increase benefits to cover rising costs (although it wouldn't be terrible if we just impeached the President who's causing those rising costs artificially with tariffs that really no sane business people think are a good idea). Because Social Security is again a contract with the population about what our priority is. And if we need more money, we should be bumping the tax on those gleeful about what a great buying opportunity this is.
They, the rich, would probably whine that this singles them out. That people are jealous. No one should stand for such rhetoric. The ones making the noise did not get their power by dealing honorably with us citizens. This is not jealousy speaking, it is a desire for justice. Be glad I'm not suggesting (as some are) that we just eat the rich and be done with it. Proper taxation of accumulated wealth (not just income) works for me.
No one needs that much money anyway. It's CLEAR from their observed behavior that one can only buy so many gold toilet seats before one starts to wonder what the point of excess riches is, and really it seems the only thing that one can find to spend such wealth on is buying governments. And then, apparently, running them badly and cruelly. No, I'm not going to feel sorry about suggesting taxation.
2/2 (probably the end)
I often hear people say that Social Security should be eliminated, that we'd do better with our own 401K's.
There are a lot of problems with that argument.
First, it turns us into gamblers. The argument is that people could invest their money better. Maybe. But they can also invest their money worse. So it's a very uneven policy. And that is ultimately cruel. That's just gambling, and experience shows that gamblers are often a lot more confident than is warranted.
The sociopaths among us often say, "Too bad. Individuals should take responsibility for their lack of saving. It's not my fault that some people don't plan." Those same people, though, are telling us that we should eliminate the minimum wage, that if the market doesn't want to pay someone enough to even live, why should it have to. So exactly where is the savings supposed to come from? On the one side, people work hard for hardly any money. On the other side, they're told their failure to save is a moral failing. Where is the discussion of moral failing in having more money than God and still being unwilling to help raise people out of poverty? That seems the biggest moral failing.
Moreover, a lot of what makes the difference in who succeeds or fails is one's parents. Dynastic fortunes. Better schools. Better connections. Sometimes even just better health or better clothing. The narrative is spun that the rich worked hard for their money, but in my experience, poor people work much harder for the scraps they are thrown than rich people ever do, and the notion of "meritocracy" is nonsense because the people who get ahead are just those who get to start ahead of the others.
But while on the topic of morality, let's also look at the structure of Social Security itself. People like to compare it to a 401K, but it's not like that. It's not a bank account. It's a very different beast.
As an example, you become suddenly unable to work, it kicks in right away, even if you didn't pay for a long time. That's very different than a bank account. If you live a long time, it continues to pay you.
There may be issues with cost of living adjustments, but the only reason we don't do those more often is that the aforementioned rich sociopaths insist it's better to give tax breaks to the wealthy. They'll tell you that Social Security is intended only to supplement your retirement, not to be the full amount, and yet they'll back penalties for trying to draw money out of Social Security if you're also getting other income. That's not really how supplements work, and it's a disincentive to additional work.
But my point is that the contract is not for a specific quantity of money. It is a social contract, that you pay into it while you're able and you are paid when you're not able. We could do better on the getting paid part, but the point is for it to keep you from falling into poverty, to add dignity.
It's worth noting that Social Security did not arise in a vacuum. While people COULD invest their money, a lot of people didn't, or else were losers in that gambling. Before Social Security, in the 1930s, the elderly poverty rate in the depression was something like 70%. So there is an objective way to understand what this did for the public. Some have called it the most successful anti-poverty program in the history of the US.
And if we were really worried that investing in the market were a better bet, we could arrange for the Social Security trust fund to do that. That's just an implementation detail and has nothing to do with the overall social promise. If DOGE wanted to do something HELPFUL, instead of aggressively dismantling all of the US government's ability to provide value to the public, they could analyze whether there are better ways to manage the funds.
But, ultimately, government is not a business and social security is not a profit & loss center, even if it's popular for some who don't like it to portray it that way. It mostly pays for itself, but from a moral point of view, its real purpose is to say that we as a society need to have a commitment to our sick and elderly, to assure they are taken care of, BEFORE we declare a profit. If we as a nation are able to give tax breaks to rich citizens only by cutting social programs, then the rich are preying on the poor. The health and welfare of all citizens is our first priority as a nation. We should not be preferencing the already-preferenced before we have attended to that.
1/2 (continued next post)
Continued thread
5/5 On a larger note, I do not see 'retirement' as living off your savings. That is a different stage when I'm physically or mentally unable to do what qualifies as work. I see 'retirement from full-time employment' as a stage where I do less to earn the same or more than as I was employed full-time. That provides me more time to myself, and not pretend to spend all of it for the employer.
Everybody’s getting a big haircut tomorrow. Like a good old American-you’re-in-the-Army #1 buzz haircut 
I've just retired from 40 years in Japanese higher education. I'm happy, however, because I'm completely healthy. I just had a catheter operation that fixed the irregular heartbeat that was concerning for several months.
I still belong to the EU-Asia digital partnerships grant project, and a long presentation on Japan to students from California is scheduled for May.
I'm already back to outdoor activities, as you can see with these photos of sakura cherry blossoms in the castle ruins park near our house.
@grammargirl Yeah Mignon, I know that drill. Plus I have at least 20+ years on ya, so "keeping it together" takes on a completely new meaning.
These days, I have so many "to do" lists in my head, I need to make a To Do list to keep them straight. Thankfully, it is all small personal stuff. But when I ran my ad agency, I kept a 3-ring notebook glued to my hand so I wrote down everything when I was managing several clients at once.
Now I just have to remember to feed the cat.
What could possibly go wrong? #DOGE to rapidly rebuild #SocialSecurity #codebase.
Under any circumstances, a migration of this size and scale would be a massive undertaking, experts tell WIRED, but the expedited deadline runs the risk of obstructing payments to the more than 65 million people in the US currently receiving Social Security benefits.
#cobol #ssa #takeover #retirement #takedown #maga #trump
> sadly, most likely crash and burn
Ars Technica · What could possibly go wrong? DOGE to rapidly rebuild Social Security codebase.
In the next couple of weeks, millions of Americans will receive their first quarterly retirement statements under Trump II, and their balances are going to be down significantly from their last statements under Biden.
Poilievre says he'll keep retirement age at 65 in play for boomers
https://nationalpost.com/news/politics/federal_election/poilievre-says-hell-keep-retirement-age-at-65-in-play-for-boomers
This is one of those policies on which I disagree with #PierrePoilievre : I support "gradually increas[ing] the age of eligibility for OAS and GIS payments to 67 from 65." As Canadians live longer and work for most is less physically wearying than it was fifty years ago, we should expect retirement to start later.
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nationalpostPoilievre says he'll keep retirement age at 65 in play for boomersConservative Leader Pierre Poilievre said Wednesday that he'll keep the retirement age at 65 if he becomes prime minister