Same, I drive a new model Suburban and constantly get flashed. I think it is the combination of the LED headlights and height at which they sit. I wish there was something I could do about it, but it isn't user adjustable.
You can absolutely adjust the angle of your headlights in any modern vehicle. There's usually a screw somewhere reasonably accessible. Drop it literally like 1 degree.
As a non-religious person, I have found a lot of “meaning” in reading literary fiction. I don’t know if it has made me happier, but it has definitely scratched an existential itch.
Something most people don't seem to understand... to retire comfortably (in the US at least) you need to consistently save some percentage of your income all of your life, or a significant portion of your income most of your life. I don't know if their parents or education system is failing these people, but something needs to change.
I kind of think we have proven that most people are not, and cannot be, capably responsible for their own retirement. The 401k was an experiment, and that experiment has largely failed.
The answer is probably a more generous and better funded Social Security, except that fund keeps getting raided for other purposes.
> I kind of think we have proven that most people are not, and cannot be, capably responsible for their own retirement.
This is one of the reasons I suggest people buy a house rather than renting. The financials may not always make sense, but it forces savings in a way that many people would not otherwise do.
How many people do you think would manually pay a large chunk of their paycheck into a savings account every months before deciding whether they can afford an extra order of curly fries?
Rent eats first and having a mortgage lets you actually save some of that (once you get past the substantial interest heavy starting year).
> The 401k was an experiment, and that experiment has largely failed.
Retirement accounts are not the problem. It’s a general lack of financial education. People can barely calculate simple interest. Compound interest is even less natural. Calculating the present value of a fixed payment annuity in 25 years? We’re a slim minority that can do that from scratch.
Some of the best savers are the ones that do not even understand the financial constructs, but take the savings rates and methods as gospel. Faithfully putting away percentages of their salaries that are orders of magnitude higher than the rest.
> The answer is probably a more generous and better funded Social Security, except that fund keeps getting raided for other purposes.
Social security is claimed to be “money you paid into”. But that cannot be true if the net amount grossly exceeds what you paid in. That system simply would not work without another revenue source.
People have to pay massively more into it over their entire working lives.
And if someone wants a pension the financial product exists. Except nobody wants to actually pay for it because an inflation adjusted guaranteed annuity for life is incredibly expensive! So the present value of it divided out would be more than people are willing to actually pay.
I would love to buy a house, was saving and planning to do so ten years ago, then prices started to skyrocket and never went down. One story mold ridden shacks with 2 rooms and 1.5 baths going for $400k+ here in Oregon because I can’t compete with all the people with money fleeing California. Especially after the fires a few years ago that created emergency demand for house and less wood to build them.
Sure, had I gone full throttle into a house back then, I could pat myself on the back right now, but at that point my employment wasn’t anywhere near as much of a certainty, and money was sit tight so the wisest thing to do with the information I had was wait a few years.
While I think things may be slightly better now and I need to do my yearly review of how things are, for most people getting stable enough to do anything other than split rent is out of reach. I’m one of the few people I know that could stop working and not be out on the street in 3 months.
I’m fortunate in that at least I have a pension I’ve been putting into over the matched amount all this time.
> Retirement accounts are not the problem. It’s a general lack of financial education.
The 401k experiment is not failing because people don't understand how interest and capital gains work. It's failing because people are not funding their 401Ks and the ones who do, don't sufficiently or consistently fund them. I know so many people my age (mid 40s) who don't even save at all. Like zero. They are playing a dangerous game of chicken where they believe the USA ultimately won't let the elderly die en masse in the street, and they think they'll be rescued. They think I'm the sucker for saving the max every year and then saving more.
This isn't a lack of financial education, it's deliberate. People can save but they won't because they don't think they're going to meet the consequences. Or they don't save enough because they don't think they need to. I also know people who say things like "I plan to die the day after I stop working, so I might as well spend everything now."
And that doesn't even consider the large number of people living paycheck to paycheck who literally can't save. It's going to be a shit show in 20-30 years.
I have to agree. When I was working with a carpenter union, one of their big problems was that members would see their pension balance get large at which point they would stop working long enough to trigger emergency access to the pension and then withdraw the money to buy a truck or other expensive item they wanted. As a result, even though the union had a pretty good pension system, many of their members were sabotaging their retirements.
I feel there is a vast and pervasive misunderstanding of Social Security, and I want to shout from the rooftops: "It's an insurance policy! Literally! Anyone pretending it's an investment account is a banker trying to trick you into letting them take all the money!"
If you reframe SS/OASDI as "someday starving because unable to work insurance", many different facets of its rules and financing fall into logical place.
As is, I feel like I'm watching people paying premiums for "house burns down" insurance and then being angry about "their money" not being "all paid back" when their house never has any problems. ("That's not how it works, that's not how any of this works.")
A very unusual point of view, but you haven't provided any biologic or evidence to support it.
So here, I'll give you some from the other side.
First, the "Old-Age, Survivors, and Disability Insurance" really is literally Insurance because it's literally in the damn name and I don't know how much clearer I can make that.
Second, you can tell it's insurance because larger payouts are conditional based on bad things happening to you. That is not true for an investment account, therefore they are different.
Third, you can tell it's insurance because the benefits are typically not transferable (inheritable) to another thing (person) being insured. That is not true for an investment account, therefore they are different.
> To the recipient, SS resembles an investment account more than an insurance policy.
Being deeply misinformed doesn't make something true.
> the "Old-Age, Survivors, and Disability Insurance" really is literally Insurance because it's literally in the damn name and I don't know how much clearer I can make that.
> If you reframe SS/OASDI as "someday starving because unable to work insurance"
You might want to contact the Social Security Administration with your gripe, because they present SS as a "retirement benefit":
And look at your annual Social Security Statement. Mine says:
Retirement Benefits: You have earned enough credits to qualify for retirement benefits.
These explained benefits are not linked to bad things happening to you.
Earlier you said:
> As is, I feel like I'm watching people paying premiums for "house burns down" insurance and then being angry about "their money" not being "all paid back" when their house never has any problems. ("That's not how it works, that's not how any of this works.")
I disagree, because people expect their SS retirement benefits to pay out even if the house doesn't burn down. Which is why I'm saying I don't think people view it as "insurance" even if it technically is. People just want the income stream (aka "retirement benefit") that they earned (this is the language used by SSA) by contributing over their entire working life.
> How many people do you think would manually pay a large chunk of their paycheck into a savings account every months before deciding whether they can afford an extra order of curly fries?
People are irrational. I have a loved one who told me they can’t afford car insurance, but subscriptions to Spotify, Netflix, Duolingo, and uses DoorDash, etc.
I think people are wired to think that small purchases are ok but that long term things are “not possible.” Of course there’s also a sense of people wanting to have some joy in their life now and choosing to gamble away future prosperity.
> People are irrational. I have a loved one who told me they can’t afford car insurance, but subscriptions to Spotify, Netflix, Duolingo, and uses DoorDash, etc.
Yes, that's the Avocado Toast problem. You point out that maybe, just maybe, they don't need all of these optional luxury expenses if they can't afford to do "normal adulting". The response is always a cornucopia of excuses and fatalism: "Saving $5 is not going to make me financially stable!" and "There's no way I'll ever retire--I might as well live a little today!" and "I can't just eat rice and beans every day!" and "Why shouldn't someone have just one little luxury to make them feel happy?" and "The cost of my flagship smartphone is trivial, just 1% of my student debt!"
It's not the actual Toast that's the problem, it's the attitude that excuses the toast.
The avocado toast problem is that an average house in my city costs just over $1m (aud), while avocado toast averages $20. So that is about 45 years of eating avocado toast 3 times a day, hell even just getting enough for a deposit will take 9 years.
The reality is saving $5 here or there will not make a difference. You need to be saving 60 bucks a day for 10 years just for a deposit. Or over a hundred for a more palatable 5 year saving.
The average wage in Australia is around $1400 per week, tax is around 20% and average rent is around $300 per person. So that leaves you with $120 for everything else.
“To the capitalist, every luxury of the worker seems to be reprehensible, and everything that goes beyond the most abstract need – be it in the realm of passive enjoyment, or a manifestation of activity – seems to him a luxury.“
A lot of people struggle with regular literacy despite being educated on it for their entire life. I don’t think more education will help these people.
The notion that a nation can save for retirement is a fundamental misunderstanding of money.
Money is pieces of paper that determines how a nations resources are divided.
Having more money in a "Social Security fund" is useless. If the social security fund is massive when it comes time to withdraw money from it but there are no resources to divide, then inflation will ensure the fund is worthless. If the fund is tiny but there are lots of resources to divide, the money will go a long way.
Individuals can save money to ensure they get a larger share of the resources in the future. But overall money is a zero sum game -- if one person has a greater share, everybody else has a lesser share.
As a country, to support retirees you invest in the productive capacity of the country -- train nurses, build infrastructure & housing, et cetera.
The vast majority of people aren't even taught how money works. There also seems to be as assumption with certain people that everyone has an interest in it because they do.
From an anecdotal point of view, I have never cared for money in the sense that I have not been busy maximizing my money whether it be salary, retirement, etc. not to mention "investments". I could not care to play the game of money/investments, I want to do other things with my time and headspace. However, in our Western society I'm forced to play the money game and to "be on top of it" otherwise later in life I am f*ked.
"Money" seems to be mostly an "interest" of some people and somehow we seem to have pivoted our entire society around that.
> Something most people don't seem to understand... to retire comfortably (in the US at least) you need to consistently save some percentage of your income all of your life, or a significant portion of your income most of your life.
The reason most people don't understand this is because retirement has historically been a pipe dream for 99% of the population. You worked until you were no longer able to get up physically (from illness or general deterioration).
Nowadays people don't just want to retire, but retire "comfortably", whatever that means. Presumably living in your paid off suburban home, while travelling and owning multiple cars? It's not sustainable and will revert back to the mean, unfortunately.
After the collapse in 2008, they decided to drop the effective interest rate to 0.0% on personal savings accounts, like the one my parents were counting on.
The 5-8% per annum, which everyone older expected to live off of, was stolen to prop up the banks which got us into the mess in the first place.
It's not their lack of planning, not their generations fault. They they shouldn't be the ones to pay for the crash of 2008. There should be thousands of former bankers starting their second decade behind bars... but there are NONE.
Technically, it's both. Parents don't teach their kids because they didn't/don't really know. Financial literacy isn't in the curiculum at all pre-college level. Even then it's not a "core" competency in any degree that isn't finance related. Even just ~10-15 years ago I wouldn't say the topic itself had as wide of discussion as it does today.
The big thing that happened to these people was the pension crisis. They were told, while working they would get a decent pension early in their career Plus when most started, it was expected you would be with the company your full lives.
Then the 70s and 80s happened, people did not realize there would be a paradigm shift in the work force. So here we are, and back then IRAs were limited on what you could save and I think there were no 401k's at all.
Simply knowing how it would have to work doesn't magically grant you the capacity to do it. Life is full of unexpected surprises, and they can be very expensive.
I think a lot of these people get caught in the loop of renting and bad luck and healthcare spending and never have much left over. plus, kids. They just never seem to get it together. Half the population has an IQ below 100. I imagine these people will naturally struggle at saving compared to the other half.
Yes, saving 20% when you have $20 left over your paycheck (or sometimes even negative dollars) might net you a solid $100k when you’re retirement age but I doubt you’ll be able to stretch it very fair since it’ll be likely you’re still renting and still have debts dragging you down.
I think what we will see is a return to generational housing in America. More out of a necessity, like how divorced couples still lived together during economic strifes across the world.
However, there is 55 and up communities across the country, and they offer affordable housing options. You can get a new trailer for 80k or a camper and live comfortably until you die. I am not buying a house but saving at least 100k for retirement. I’d prefer a million but will see. I’m going to start saving a 500 to a 1000 a month in a high interest account whether it is stocks, bonds, or a CD
Having a low IQ makes no difference in whether a person can save or not. Your answer was in your comment, it’s all based on luck. I know some people who are brilliant but have an alcohol addiction and literally don’t care about anything.
> I don't know if their parents or education system is failing these people, but something needs to change.
Is there any evidence or reason to think that people were just more financially literate in the past and somehow regressed? This theory seems to ignore broad societal trends such as increasing wealth inequality, increasing housing costs, increasing health care costs, stagnation of wages, decreasing employment stability and security over time, and the elimination of employer pensions.
The classic retirement plan was to have a bunch of kids, raise them right, and one of them would take you in your later years. The other half of that bargain was that you’d help take care of the grand kids, teach them, and maybe prepare dinner.
The more kids you had, the more of a buck shot approach it was.
The auto enrollment private pension minimum contribution in the UK is 8% (3% from the employer and 5% from the employee)...and its widely known that this is pathetically inadequate. It needs to be doubled.
Nobody is taught about this stuff in British schools either. Most people don't start worrying about funding retirement until they hit 50
Eh, one alternative as in my shithole in Eastern Europe is that they take 25% out of every pay you get throughout your life and when you do retire, you get some shit money for the 5 years of life expectancy you have left.
I am reading it now as well! I always felt like I wasn't ready, but last week I just decided to go for it. It's been on my list ever since finishing "A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man". The only other prep I did was reading Hamlet... which so far seems to have not been necessary (but am only up to Lestrygonians).
I actually have to credit Joseph Heller for the nudge to start, I had recently remembered a quote in Catch-22 that stuck with me:
"He knew everything there was to know about literature, except how to enjoy it."
I feel like having a kid is one of the final milestone in adult maturity. That isn’t to say that you can’t be a mature adult without kids, but the act of having them sort of fast tracks you - and you either rise to the occasion or you don’t.
This tracks with what my mom says - that she didn't feel like a full-fledged adult until she had kids, whereas her life before had just been a continuation of her adolescence and young adulthood.
This feeling is interesting, and very new. During the Baby Boom, people married young (women at 22 or 23) and had kids young, not as a "capstone" to a developed life.
Do you have any insight into why you feel that way?
Not the OP you're replying to, but a parent nonetheless.
From basically the very moment you realize you're having a kid you essentially become the #2 person in your own life. Its more so for the mother, but even the father likely needs to do some maturing in preparation to being a good dad.
If you're hoping to be a good parent you need to start weighing every decision on a basis of where it leads to. There's simple things like affordability: deciding to make smarter financial decisions because you're going to be supporting another human for the next couple decades at least. There's more complex things like suddenly seeing your own health as a liability and needing to straighten yourself out if you want to set a good example. Things get way easier if your life has structure honestly. Having good habits about food prep, cleaning, chores makes things way easier and bad habits really make life more difficult than it needs to be.
You also need to adapt quickly. You realize that you don't define your schedule any longer. Whether you sleep at night is up to the kid. As they grow from baby to toddler you start to see how the fundamental things like routine have impacted your child and you can begin to make connections to how you did things 6 months ago impacts how things are going now. Self reflection is huge, knowing how your emotions, your reactions, your behavior is a template this person learns from humbles you.
I think that's the new value system that leads to having children being such a burden. There are sooo many expectations of parents that they spend all their time fulfilling those without questioning any of them.
I always knew my dad was a good dad but only once I had a kid did I really understand how much he had quietly and willing given up because he loved me. More and more each day I understand him better and continue gaining an appreciation for all that he has done for me. All of this thanks to my daughter making me / giving me the chance to see life from the other side.
So that sounds like: in the past there were well defined templates for how to live your life, and people followed them; but now you have to make up your own, continuously figuring things out for yourself, and that is harder to do and needs more maturity.
My experience with my friends who had kids isn't like that at all.
To a person, they spent many years trying to be "responsible adults" and then they feel they've given something up, they've missed something. They suddenly (sometimes when the kids leave the house and sometimes before) want to act like kids themselves and have adventures of self-discovery! 50 is not 20. It's a bit unseemly.
I wonder if mid-life crises happen because of parenthood.
Or somehow whole thing managed to operate while pouring untold amounts of money to provide these free services... Whole fundamental idea of how anything operates that is makes more money than spends was distorted for too long time...
