Something similar was played on us in The Netherlands. They changed the rules for inflation indexing. It used to be that pension funds calculated their obligation on a 30 year horizon and if they would forecaste enough assets, they would index pensions.
Then the government forced the pension funds to use the bank interest rate to calculate their 30 year asset forecast, and of course the last decades that interest was just 1 or 2%, or even negative, which meant no indexing for the last 15 years, although pension fund assets were growing at a 7 to 9% yearly rate.
Jan
It's amazing how society just throws away highly skilled and competent people, based almost entirely on demographics. Let's just get rid of the highly skilled white dudes with impeccable work ethics and hire a bunch of ignorant, lazy kids Because Demographics. It's like throwing money away.
I just made friends with another white guy that has multiple STEM degrees (including a PhD in chemical engineering) who was summarily ejected from the workforce at age 56, never to work again.
Welcome to the club.
In my case several things were working against me. I was a 62 year old electrical engineer who worked in two way radio or cell phone design for his entire career. For the last decade of my career I had a 6 figure salary and two STEM degrees. Perspective employers assume that I want lots of money and they would rather hire a youngster for far less. Cell phone and two way radio design is not done in the USA any longer with two notable exceptions, and even there only the high level architecture is done.
I had enough of the big city rat race and moved to a small town where there is no technology development. Sure, I might be able to find work at Apple, or Amazon's LAB126, but that brings you to an even bigger more messed up city and state than Florida. My surprise came when none of the 4 small local colleges that taught tech would even interview me when I had stated that I didn't care about the salary, I just wanted a way to get health insurance for less than $2000 per month. I am now on Medicare, but my wife still pays over $1000 per month.
I'm not exactly sure how the MAP-21 rule is worded but buried in the fine print in the yearly statement we get from the fund managers is the actual funding assets to liabilities ratio. It's somewhere around 70% while the MAP-21 number is in the mid 80's. Either way there isn't enough money in the fund to pay everybody everything they are owed. The 2021 statement looked more positive than 2020 until you dig deep enough to realize that the asset's / funding part didn't change, Covid forced a change in the actuarial tables. The life expectancy for a primarily older male population dropped by almost a year, reducing the liabilities.
It’s a scam and everybody knows it. I am semi-retiring in a month. My company has requested that I stay on half time for the next several years instead of going off grid for good. Main reason? They are desperately afraid of me selling secrets to the enemy (Or even contracting for them). In the past, WFH was strictly forbidden, but post COVID they have changed their tune. WFH will be necessary because of me moving out to the sticks with a wife who is desperately unhappy here and suffering from the onset of dementia. Being out in the fresh air without seeing houses stretching for miles helps her condition, and we may not have very many “good” years left so there is some urgency here. She’s been on Medicare for 4 years now, and I’m not all that worried about losing insurance anymore. When the most likely thing happened a year and a half ago - me getting hit by a car on a bike - the whole damn bill from the ER was less than what I had paid in “employee contributions” over the last 10 years. UHC tried to weasel their way out of it (unsuccessfully) and are still trying to sue the driver. I’ve given up on that. It happens again I’ll just pay the ******* bill - it’s CHEAPER.
Our pension funds are allowed to (partly or fully) index for inflation if asset to obligation ratio for a 30 year horizon is 105%. Very conservative; too conservative some say, but most funds are there or above.
Jan
Americans hold about 70 trillion USD in currencies (mostly USD, of course), money market funds and bonds. while value of all USA land is about 20-25 trillion. Do they have any idea how worthless fiat vehicles are? So prepare all of this to lose 4/5 of purchasing power over next 3-10 yrs
Crusty old geezers are less of a concern in the city of Boulder, CO where I work.
They worry about the young employees getting caught in rock slides, avalanches while back country skiing, skiing injuries, mountain biking injuries, goat yoga injuries.....
Re attaching those feet that are just attched with soft tissue gets sort of expensive.
NO, they don't, but being a large company of 140,000 people (before the Wall Street Wizards bought their way in, busted up and parted out the company like a junk car) they can get low rates from a low quality insurer and offer them to us. Many studies done over the years have shown that subsidizing the rates to some degree and offering basic health screenings for no cost to the employee saves the company money overall, so those were pretty much the norm for all large companies until the ACA came into existence.
Motorola was broken into two companies first, Motorola Solutions and Motorola Mobility. The health insurer then quoted two different sets of rates for the two different companies. Why? Demographics, there was one significant difference between the two companies, average age. Solutions was almost 10 years older (on average) than Mobility. With that revelation, it did become "time to get the crusty old geezers out."
Now, just firing, or otherwise removing all the old geezers is illegal in the USA, so more covert methods were used. In the case of some older mediocre employees who had worked their way up the food chain into a highly paid position, they were given a "new opportunity" at which they could not possibly perform at the expected level, then fired or encouraged to retire. In my case I received "the letter" from the CEO offering me the "year's pay to go away" plan, AKA a buyout. The buyout had several BIG strings attached......
One of the strings was that was attached to my "years pay" would be the continuation of my salary at the same rate and frequency (two checks a month) for a year, AND the continuation of my employment agreement as if I was still working there, including NDA and the part where "all secondary employment must be approved in advance by Motorola." I doubt that they would have cared if I worked at McD's or the Mr. Fixit job at the prison but going to work at Harris (Mot Solutions biggest competitor) would trigger the end of my paychecks.
Been looking at some historical data, and some of the compareable previously dips have been at the lowest in November/December, so I might buy some stocks in strong companies then, and if the dip is still happening in January I will go for some funds that look interesting. If the dip is still happening in March I guess I will go for more stocks with dividend at that time. Should this drag out into may I will see about adding other stocks then.
Either way I am somewhat sceptical to wait too long before starting, many strong companies are quite cheap these days.
Either way I am somewhat sceptical to wait too long before starting, many strong companies are quite cheap these days.
First time I heard about this. Googled it. Ridiculous. Get a dog.
Excellent information, thanks.
I know there's no fire-sure way of predicting anything and the market does whatever it does for sometimes no apparent reason at all, but every little bit helps.
I do think there will be a bit more dipping this year though, increased expenses are still not finished making an impact.
Energy price fluctuations were not there earlier, be utterly cautious.
Consider gold and silver as investment alternatives.
What I also will say that the war was not there 2 years back, and its influence is unclear in the long term, particularly on countries self sufficient in enegy.
Historic data does not consider that.
Consider gold and silver as investment alternatives.
What I also will say that the war was not there 2 years back, and its influence is unclear in the long term, particularly on countries self sufficient in enegy.
Historic data does not consider that.
NareshBrd does have a point. This is a very different year - coming out of COVID, and War in Ukraine.
Gold, Silver, Oil are conservative investments in these times...and don't forget Acholic Beverage Industry....people drink more at home during rough times...
Gold, Silver, Oil are conservative investments in these times...and don't forget Acholic Beverage Industry....people drink more at home during rough times...
That's not correct. Currency in circulation is $2.3 Trillion, of this somewhat less than half is held by non-US residents. Currency is included in M2 which itself includes checkable deposits and totals ~$21 Trillion.
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