easy jobs

[Bill Sloman]

On Thursday, February 20, 2020 at 12:34:06 PM UTC+11, dagmarg...@yahoo.com wrote:

On Tuesday, February 18, 2020 at 1:22:08 PM UTC-5, bitrex wrote:
On 2/18/20 1:04 PM, John Larkin wrote:
On Mon, 17 Feb 2020 20:23:03 -0500, bitrex <user@example.net> wrote:

On 2/17/20 1:55 PM, John Larkin wrote:


https://www.breitbart.com/2020-election/2020/02/17/mike-bloomberg-belittled-farm-and-manufacturing-jobs-for-not-requiring-brain-power/

https://gizmodo.com/biden-to-coal-miners-learn-to-code-1840735758

Bloomberg seems to be running on a platform of "To beat a Republican,
you have to think like a Republican. And be a Republican...."

We wouldn't want to give the dumb, deplorable US electorate what they
want, would we?

Eeeeeh despite loads of cash to throw at that questionable leap of logic
very few liberal voters I know are fooled.

That's funny, about liberal voters not being fooled. Fortunately,
politics is heritable and the climate crisis has made them too afraid
to breed.

There are a couple billion more other liberals on the planet if one
accepts that what passes for left-wing policy in the US is called being
"sane human" in most other first-world nations.

Virtually none of which are free in the way Americans are free,
(e.g., in many European countries there are things you aren't
allowed to say, songs it's illegal to sing, outlawed books, etc.)
and their middle class has a standard of living equal to our
lowest quintile.

If you let some right-wing US think tank work out what constitutes a standard of living. As soon as you start figuring in things like free health care, free education, and happiness, the US standard of living looks less impressive.

People shouldn't go broke paying for healthcare costs,

Which they wouldn't have to, if the federal government would get
out of it and let people's natural shopping habits drive down the
prices.

A trifle unrealistic. The medical profession is in a uniquely strong bargaining position, and unregulated health systems are crawling with doctors who exploit it.

Universal health care actually constrains them from being particularly rapacious.

US health care costs half as much again more than more per head than closely regulated universal systems, and delivers worse results over the population as whole.

poor people should be able to have food and somewhere to live

Or even better, they should be permitted to work, have jobs, and
not be poor! If you finish high school, get any kind of job, and
don't have kids until married, your chances of being poor in the
U.S. are vanishingly small.

Depending on what you mean by poor, And of course if you get sick, you become much more likely to end up bankrupt in the US than anywhere else.

By contrast, the government redistributing money to 'correct' poverty
is awful, brutish, and cruel.

Not a criticism usually levelled at Sweden, where they distribute enough money that the children of single parents do just as well a the children of couples.

I calculated that if a person earning minimum wage had
put his Social Security tax into an S&P500 index fund earning 3%
*less* than the actual S&P500 return, he'd retire with $43,000 in
*investment income* and half a million dollars in assets that he
can pass to his children. That's for MINIMUM WAGE.

You've got to have a full-time job and keep it for the whole of your working life to manage that. The gig economy doesn't support that.

at a minimum without
resorting to religious charities they don't want to be a part of,
notions of "personal liberty" should apply equally to women as well as
men, you shouldn't be able to buy your way out of jail if you do the
crime you do the time, whomever you are or what your income is.

Oh, and
having as many firearms in circulation as there are people is mad.

No, it's brilliant. European countries have collapsed into bloody
conflagrations over and over (many of them multiple times) in the
last century. They gave us Hitler, Mussolini, Marx, Stalin, two
world wars, and over a hundred million dead. If you add in the
same in Asia, Africa, South and Central America, the total's
over two hundred million killed -- _by_their_own_governments_.

https://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/20TH.HTM

None of which has anything to do with letting random nutcases keep as many guns as they like at home.

The second amendment talks about a "well-regulated militia" but it was badly drafted, and people with delusions about the political significance of an armed rabble have been misuisng it ever since.

On average over the last century, our annual losses to criminal acts
(who are often killing one another), are about one percent of the
average number of Europeans killed annually by their own governments.
And then there's Asia, and Africa, and the Middle East, etc.

Not counting war, European governments last century collectively
killed roughly a million of their own citizens on average, per
year.

But that has *never* happened here, in substantial part because
of the brilliance of the designers of this country, who provided
that if America ever elected a Hitler, the citizens could stop him.
And because we could, we've never had to.

That rather ignores the US Civil war.

"The war resulted in at least 1,030,000 casualties (3 percent of the population), including about 620,000 soldier deaths—two-thirds by disease, and 50,000 civilians".

> > Wild stuff!

Fatuous misrepresentation.

The idea that you have a *right* to another man's labor and that
the legitimate purpose of government is to take it for you, is a
dangerous, destructive, inherently evil philosophy, and it's
an unstable design for a society / government as well.

Except that James Arthur is perfectly to see the government take it to spend on the police, the judicial system and the army.

He endorse that "dangerous, destructive, inherently evil philosophy" just as long as the money is spent on projects of which he approves.

He benefits from the protection that that money buys. Stuff that he doesn't see as benefiting him directly is out. He doesn't understand that universal health care protects him from epidemics (like the one currently brewing up in China, if the their universal health system doesn't get it under control).

More complicated ideas about making the population as a whole healthier, better educated and eventually more productive have even less traction.

--
Bill Sloman, Sydney

 

[Bill Sloman]

On Thursday, February 20, 2020 at 1:02:31 PM UTC+11, mpm wrote:

On Tuesday, February 18, 2020 at 10:27:01 PM UTC-5, Bill Sloman wrote:

Oh, the Russians.
Thanks for clearing that up for us, Bill.

No need to thank me. Mueller did all the work - as you would be aware if you paid any attention to actual news, as opposed to right-wing twaddle designed to appeal to the likes of John Larkin and Cursitor Doom.

--
Bill Sloman, Sydney

 

[bitrex]

On 2/19/20 8:33 PM, dagmargoodboat@yahoo.com wrote:

Or even better, they should be permitted to work, have jobs, and
not be poor! If you finish high school, get any kind of job, and
don't have kids until married, your chances of being poor in the
U.S. are vanishingly small.

By contrast, the government redistributing money to 'correct' poverty
is awful, brutish, and cruel.

I calculated that if a person earning minimum wage had
put his Social Security tax into an S&P500 index fund earning 3%
*less* than the actual S&P500 return, he'd retire with $43,000 in
*investment income* and half a million dollars in assets that he
can pass to his children. That's for MINIMUM WAGE.

To retire with even a ~35k compound-interest generated income at age 65,
assuming a 5% ROI after retirement at age 65, into something like a Roth
IRA, you need an contribution-ending balance of about 700k. Assuming a
7% ROI during the compounding period you'd need to contribute minimum
$2500/year each year from age 20-65.

Minimum wage is $7.25/hr that works out to under $2500/month. If you
think someone making minimum wage can afford to put $2500, over one
month of their income, into an investment account every year which they
then can't touch without taking serious penalties, with cost of living
expenses what they are anywhere in the country in the year 2020, then I
gotta say you're maybe not strictly "nuts" but deeply out of touch with
what kind of expenses people at that level actually have. Maybe your
name is Bloomberg or Biden?

In any case anyone making minimum wage anywhere in the US and not
homeless is already reliant on either their Mom and Dad, private
charity, or government "handouts" to cover part of their cost of living
expenses and likely still in debt despite that.

But even assuming someone making minimum wage with a much better
position than most, like say inherited a modest one bedroom home from a
dear deceased aunt, there's a further wrinkle which is that at no time
during the past 100 years over any particular 45 year period you select
has any index fund provided an average ROI better than 3.5 to 3.8%.

Most young workers can't afford to shovel figures like $2500/year at an
IRA in their 20s at the current CPI and average wages for 20-somethings
as they are now, much less for whatever they'd have to contribute yearly
at a more realistic 3.5-3.8% average return.

That sucks for them because compound interest works best if you put
money in early. Very difficult to shovel enough money at the process
later and expect the exponential "blow up" to occur within your lifetime.

As we know from the behavior of exponential processes the "magic" that
allows you to retire on 35k/year interest-only vs. about diddly-squat
happens in the last few compounding periods; the net growth over most of
your investment time into index funds sucks with realistic yearly
contributions, and if that hits or not before you're required to start
making withdrawals and/or die of old age is sensitive to initial
conditions.

That is to say, how much did your Mom n Dad put in on your behalf in
your 20s?

PS: 50% of American workers don't have access to a 401k plan, IRA
protections suck a lot harder, AFAIK they're only protected in
bankruptcy. Big medical expense? Declare bankruptcy, keep your IRA but
wreck your credit. Yay!

 

[bitrex]

On 2/19/20 8:40 PM, John Larkin wrote:

On Wed, 19 Feb 2020 16:08:17 -0500, bitrex <user@example.net> wrote:

On 2/18/20 10:26 PM, Bill Sloman wrote:
On Wednesday, February 19, 2020 at 5:04:33 AM UTC+11, John Larkin wrote:
On Mon, 17 Feb 2020 20:23:03 -0500, bitrex <user@example.net> wrote:

On 2/17/20 1:55 PM, John Larkin wrote:


https://www.breitbart.com/2020-election/2020/02/17/mike-bloomberg-belittled-farm-and-manufacturing-jobs-for-not-requiring-brain-power/

https://gizmodo.com/biden-to-coal-miners-learn-to-code-1840735758



Bloomberg seems to be running on a platform of "To beat a Republican,
you have to think like a Republican. And be a Republican...."

We wouldn't want to give the dumb, deplorable US electorate what they
want, would we?

That rather neglects the money getting spent to persuade the dumber end of the US electorate (which would included John Larkin if he ever bothered to vote) to like particular candidates.

John Larkin does tend to ignore the way that Russian spending on social media persuade the electors to vote for Trump in what turned out to be the three crucial states in 2016.

Well the good news for them must have been to discover Americans tend to
be cheap dates!

My conservative kids will beat up your non-existent liberal kids.

Sigh, how typical.

"Bitch, where do you live. I'm going to come to your house and beat your
ass you little punk."

"Ok, tough guy. I'm going to kick _your_ ass. Meet me outside my house
at 5 o clock and shout real loud 'Get out here you little faggot. I'm
going to kick your pussy ass!' so I know it's you. You'd better be there."

Then I give him the home address of the local Patriarca family crime
boss. he lived a few streets down.

Stop.....think....

 

[bitrex]

On 2/19/20 8:33 PM, dagmargoodboat@yahoo.com wrote:

But that has *never* happened here, in substantial part because
of the brilliance of the designers of this country, who provided
that if America ever elected a Hitler, the citizens could stop him.
And because we could, we've never had to.

There were few German citizens available to stop Hitler regardless of
what weapons they did or didn't possess, Germans loved him too much.

You think good Germans were, on average, SAD the day Hitler took
absolute power? Happiest day of most of their lives I'd recon.

 

[bitrex]

On 2/19/20 10:11 PM, Bill Sloman wrote:

The idea that you have a *right* to another man's labor and that
the legitimate purpose of government is to take it for you, is a
dangerous, destructive, inherently evil philosophy, and it's
an unstable design for a society / government as well.

Except that James Arthur is perfectly to see the government take it to spend on the police, the judicial system and the army.

He endorse that "dangerous, destructive, inherently evil philosophy" just as long as the money is spent on projects of which he approves.

He benefits from the protection that that money buys. Stuff that he doesn't see as benefiting him directly is out. He doesn't understand that universal health care protects him from epidemics (like the one currently brewing up in China, if the their universal health system doesn't get it under control).

More complicated ideas about making the population as a whole healthier, better educated and eventually more productive have even less traction.

Most of the guys I've known who prattle on about "right to another man's
labor" are the last people who have any idea what a "hard day's work"
actually is other than going to the bank to write a check from their
trust fund.

 

[bitrex]

On 2/17/20 1:55 PM, John Larkin wrote:

https://www.breitbart.com/2020-election/2020/02/17/mike-bloomberg-belittled-farm-and-manufacturing-jobs-for-not-requiring-brain-power/

https://gizmodo.com/biden-to-coal-miners-learn-to-code-1840735758

Elizabeth Warren possibly ended her campaign tonight making a kamikaze
run on Bloomberg; it doesn't make me like her much more as a candidate
but it was a respectable thing to do.

"Cannibal left"? The left sees a dressed-up Republican that has snuck in
and behaves appropriately, seems like team playing to me

 

[bitrex]

On 2/19/20 11:26 PM, bitrex wrote:

On 2/19/20 8:33 PM, dagmargoodboat@yahoo.com wrote:

PS: 50% of American workers don't have access to a 401k plan, IRA
protections suck a lot harder, AFAIK they're only protected in
bankruptcy. Big medical expense? Declare bankruptcy, keep your IRA but
wreck your credit. Yay!

Oh, another thing I forgot. All that principal is not necessarily going
to go to your heirs either that's another gamble. Any nursing care
services are fantastically expensive, even if you have an illness where
you need to be in a rehab facility for just a month, much less long term
care. IRAs are NON-EXEMPT with respect to Medicare contribution
calculations.

Hopefully you can successfully predict when you'd need that and start
transferring assets to your heirs because there's a 5 year lookback
period, however once you start transferring money out that leaves you
with less interest-generated revenue to live on. Unless they re-invest
that and then transfer some profit back to you, but then if they
transfer large enough sums at one time they have to pay a gift tax on it.

Well, hopefully your kids like you that much.

 

On Wed, 19 Feb 2020 23:45:42 -0500, bitrex <user@example.net> wrote:

On 2/19/20 8:40 PM, John Larkin wrote:
On Wed, 19 Feb 2020 16:08:17 -0500, bitrex <user@example.net> wrote:

On 2/18/20 10:26 PM, Bill Sloman wrote:
On Wednesday, February 19, 2020 at 5:04:33 AM UTC+11, John Larkin wrote:
On Mon, 17 Feb 2020 20:23:03 -0500, bitrex <user@example.net> wrote:

On 2/17/20 1:55 PM, John Larkin wrote:


https://www.breitbart.com/2020-election/2020/02/17/mike-bloomberg-belittled-farm-and-manufacturing-jobs-for-not-requiring-brain-power/

https://gizmodo.com/biden-to-coal-miners-learn-to-code-1840735758



Bloomberg seems to be running on a platform of "To beat a Republican,
you have to think like a Republican. And be a Republican...."

We wouldn't want to give the dumb, deplorable US electorate what they
want, would we?

That rather neglects the money getting spent to persuade the dumber end of the US electorate (which would included John Larkin if he ever bothered to vote) to like particular candidates.

John Larkin does tend to ignore the way that Russian spending on social media persuade the electors to vote for Trump in what turned out to be the three crucial states in 2016.

Well the good news for them must have been to discover Americans tend to
be cheap dates!

My conservative kids will beat up your non-existent liberal kids.


Sigh, how typical.

"Bitch, where do you live. I'm going to come to your house and beat your
ass you little punk."

"Ok, tough guy. I'm going to kick _your_ ass. Meet me outside my house
at 5 o clock and shout real loud 'Get out here you little faggot. I'm
going to kick your pussy ass!' so I know it's you. You'd better be there."

Then I give him the home address of the local Patriarca family crime
boss. he lived a few streets down.

Stop.....think....

One brat is a PhD botanist with her own DNA consulting buisiness.
She's been in the New York Times and is also a certified BMW
motorcycle mechanic. I work for the other one.




--

John Larkin Highland Technology, Inc

The cork popped merrily, and Lord Peter rose to his feet.
"Bunter", he said, "I give you a toast. The triumph of Instinct over Reason"

 

[bitrex]

On 2/20/20 10:39 AM, jlarkin@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote:

My conservative kids will beat up your non-existent liberal kids.


Sigh, how typical.

"Bitch, where do you live. I'm going to come to your house and beat your
ass you little punk."

"Ok, tough guy. I'm going to kick _your_ ass. Meet me outside my house
at 5 o clock and shout real loud 'Get out here you little faggot. I'm
going to kick your pussy ass!' so I know it's you. You'd better be there."

Then I give him the home address of the local Patriarca family crime
boss. he lived a few streets down.

Stop.....think....

One brat is a PhD botanist with her own DNA consulting buisiness.
She's been in the New York Times and is also a certified BMW
motorcycle mechanic. I work for the other one.

Sounds a little old to be going around beating anyone up.

Anyway the point of the original anecdote is that bullies tend to be
very gullible.

 

On Thu, 20 Feb 2020 11:17:34 -0500, bitrex <user@example.net> wrote:

On 2/20/20 10:39 AM, jlarkin@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote:

My conservative kids will beat up your non-existent liberal kids.


Sigh, how typical.

"Bitch, where do you live. I'm going to come to your house and beat your
ass you little punk."

"Ok, tough guy. I'm going to kick _your_ ass. Meet me outside my house
at 5 o clock and shout real loud 'Get out here you little faggot. I'm
going to kick your pussy ass!' so I know it's you. You'd better be there."

Then I give him the home address of the local Patriarca family crime
boss. he lived a few streets down.

Stop.....think....

One brat is a PhD botanist with her own DNA consulting buisiness.
She's been in the New York Times and is also a certified BMW
motorcycle mechanic. I work for the other one.


Sounds a little old to be going around beating anyone up.

Anyway the point of the original anecdote is that bullies tend to be
very gullible.

They certainly don't spend a lot of time in introspection.



--

John Larkin Highland Technology, Inc

The cork popped merrily, and Lord Peter rose to his feet.
"Bunter", he said, "I give you a toast. The triumph of Instinct over Reason"

 

[bitrex]

On 2/20/20 11:34 AM, jlarkin@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote:

On Thu, 20 Feb 2020 11:17:34 -0500, bitrex <user@example.net> wrote:

On 2/20/20 10:39 AM, jlarkin@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote:

My conservative kids will beat up your non-existent liberal kids.


Sigh, how typical.

"Bitch, where do you live. I'm going to come to your house and beat your
ass you little punk."

"Ok, tough guy. I'm going to kick _your_ ass. Meet me outside my house
at 5 o clock and shout real loud 'Get out here you little faggot. I'm
going to kick your pussy ass!' so I know it's you. You'd better be there."

Then I give him the home address of the local Patriarca family crime
boss. he lived a few streets down.

Stop.....think....

One brat is a PhD botanist with her own DNA consulting buisiness.
She's been in the New York Times and is also a certified BMW
motorcycle mechanic. I work for the other one.


Sounds a little old to be going around beating anyone up.

Anyway the point of the original anecdote is that bullies tend to be
very gullible.

They certainly don't spend a lot of time in introspection.

What was that airline again that said something like "Sir we lose 100
pieces of luggage a day here at..." like it was a selling-point?

 

[John Larkin]

On Thu, 20 Feb 2020 12:31:50 -0500, bitrex <user@example.net> wrote:

On 2/20/20 11:34 AM, jlarkin@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote:
On Thu, 20 Feb 2020 11:17:34 -0500, bitrex <user@example.net> wrote:

On 2/20/20 10:39 AM, jlarkin@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote:

My conservative kids will beat up your non-existent liberal kids.


Sigh, how typical.

"Bitch, where do you live. I'm going to come to your house and beat your
ass you little punk."

"Ok, tough guy. I'm going to kick _your_ ass. Meet me outside my house
at 5 o clock and shout real loud 'Get out here you little faggot. I'm
going to kick your pussy ass!' so I know it's you. You'd better be there."

Then I give him the home address of the local Patriarca family crime
boss. he lived a few streets down.

Stop.....think....

One brat is a PhD botanist with her own DNA consulting buisiness.
She's been in the New York Times and is also a certified BMW
motorcycle mechanic. I work for the other one.


Sounds a little old to be going around beating anyone up.

Anyway the point of the original anecdote is that bullies tend to be
very gullible.

They certainly don't spend a lot of time in introspection.




What was that airline again that said something like "Sir we lose 100
pieces of luggage a day here at..." like it was a selling-point?

I actually heard a stewardess announce this:

"We know you have a choice of bankrupt airlines, so thank you for
choosing United."

--

John Larkin Highland Technology, Inc
picosecond timing precision measurement

jlarkin att highlandtechnology dott com
http://www.highlandtechnology.com

 

On Thursday, February 20, 2020 at 12:01:06 AM UTC-5, bitrex wrote:

On 2/19/20 10:11 PM, Bill Sloman wrote:

The idea that you have a *right* to another man's labor and that
the legitimate purpose of government is to take it for you, is a
dangerous, destructive, inherently evil philosophy, and it's
an unstable design for a society / government as well.

Except that James Arthur is perfectly to see the government take it to spend on the police, the judicial system and the army.

He endorse that "dangerous, destructive, inherently evil philosophy" just as long as the money is spent on projects of which he approves.

He benefits from the protection that that money buys. Stuff that he doesn't see as benefiting him directly is out. He doesn't understand that universal health care protects him from epidemics (like the one currently brewing up in China, if the their universal health system doesn't get it under control).

More complicated ideas about making the population as a whole healthier, better educated and eventually more productive have even less traction.


Most of the guys I've known who prattle on about "right to another man's
labor" are the last people who have any idea what a "hard day's work"
actually is other than going to the bank to write a check from their
trust fund.

I think you make up most of those generalizations, generally
speaking.

I spent yesterday with a chainsaw dangling from ropes, high up in
a tree dropping 500# chunks of wood safely between delicate obstacles
on all sides. I'm still sore from spurring up that 113' foot oak
last week, taking down this ready-to-fail monster that was hell-bent
on destroying a nice lady's house. We did some of the work in 22-degree
snow.

A couple years ago I spent a month or so driving a big diesel truck,
making deliveries on mountain roads for an injured friend so he
wouldn't lose his job.

I doubt Mike Bloomberg has the slightest idea how skilled and
hard-working are those people who regularly perform those jobs for
their living.

So please, tell me about my lack of knowing hard work, and how
blue-collar guys need your infinite fatherly wisdom and guidance
to plan their jobs, retirements, and health care.

Have you ever done any actual physical work?

Cheers,
James Arthur

 

bitrex <user@example.net> wrote in
news:ioo3G.682512$ek.595451@fx48.iad:

On 2/19/20 10:11 PM, Bill Sloman wrote:

The idea that you have a *right* to another man's labor and that
the legitimate purpose of government is to take it for you, is a
dangerous, destructive, inherently evil philosophy, and it's
an unstable design for a society / government as well.

Except that James Arthur is perfectly to see the government take
it to spend on the police, the judicial system and the army.

He endorse that "dangerous, destructive, inherently evil
philosophy" just as long as the money is spent on projects of
which he approves.

He benefits from the protection that that money buys. Stuff that
he doesn't see as benefiting him directly is out. He doesn't
understand that universal health care protects him from epidemics
(like the one currently brewing up in China, if the their
universal health system doesn't get it under control).

More complicated ideas about making the population as a whole
healthier, better educated and eventually more productive have
even less traction.


Most of the guys I've known who prattle on about "right to another
man's labor" are the last people who have any idea what a "hard
day's work" actually is other than going to the bank to write a
check from their trust fund.

Does anyone here check out John Oliver at all?

He just got his green card.

He has a pretty good perspective on the health care thing.

<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Z2XRg3dy9k>

 

On Wednesday, February 19, 2020 at 11:27:01 PM UTC-5, bitrex wrote:

On 2/19/20 8:33 PM, dagmargoodboat@yahoo.com wrote:

Or even better, they should be permitted to work, have jobs, and
not be poor! If you finish high school, get any kind of job, and
don't have kids until married, your chances of being poor in the
U.S. are vanishingly small.

By contrast, the government redistributing money to 'correct' poverty
is awful, brutish, and cruel.

I calculated that if a person earning minimum wage had
put his Social Security tax into an S&P500 index fund earning 3%
*less* than the actual S&P500 return, he'd retire with $43,000 in
*investment income* and half a million dollars in assets that he
can pass to his children. That's for MINIMUM WAGE.

To retire with even a ~35k compound-interest generated income at age 65,
assuming a 5% ROI after retirement at age 65, into something like a Roth
IRA, you need an contribution-ending balance of about 700k. Assuming a
7% ROI during the compounding period you'd need to contribute minimum
$2500/year each year from age 20-65.

I calculated my figures as an update to a 30-Oct-1996 article in the
Los Angeles Times, "Even a Bad Investor Can Beat Social Security,"
by Christine Murphy.

http://articles.latimes.com/1996-10-30/local/me-59230_1_social-security

Lots of things have happened since then, so I wanted to see how the
scenarios played out.

I looked up the actual S&P500 return from 1982 to 2017, which was 11.1%
as an annual rate. That includes multiple crashes and recessions.

I used the actual federal minimum wage as the income basis, and
diverted the actual amount deducted from a minimum wage person's check
by the federal government to this hypothetical account, and compounded
it at 8%, which is 3.1% less than the *actual* S&P500 return.

(I assumed only 40 hours a week, although I've never worked that little
in my entire life. I personally started off saving for college working
two full-time minimum wage jobs.)

Since I was adapting Christine Murphy's scenario, I started at 1982.
In 1982, for example, the federal minimum wage was $3.10/hr. A full-time
worker would gross $6,200 a year, and pay $868 in personal and employer
Social Security taxes.

Minimum wage is $7.25/hr that works out to under $2500/month. If you
think someone making minimum wage can afford to put $2500, over one
month of their income, into an investment account every year which they
then can't touch without taking serious penalties, with cost of living
expenses what they are anywhere in the country in the year 2020, then I
gotta say you're maybe not strictly "nuts" but deeply out of touch with
what kind of expenses people at that level actually have.

It's trivial to subsist on minimum wage-level income. I've done it
most of my life.

Maybe your
name is Bloomberg or Biden?

In any case anyone making minimum wage anywhere in the US and not
homeless is already reliant on either their Mom and Dad, private
charity, or government "handouts" to cover part of their cost of living
expenses and likely still in debt despite that.

A false, incredibly arrogant and ignorant statement. I've easily met
my expenses for decades on less, taking no handouts from anyone,
without privation or want.

Assuming that everyone else is a materialistic spendthrift is
obnoxious.

But even assuming someone making minimum wage with a much better
position than most, like say inherited a modest one bedroom home from a
dear deceased aunt, there's a further wrinkle which is that at no time
during the past 100 years over any particular 45 year period you select
has any index fund provided an average ROI better than 3.5 to 3.8%.

To allow for inefficiencies and fees, I calculated using 3.1% less
than the *actual* S&P500 return over the interval in question.

Those returns re-calculated today would be substantially higher, since
I calculated prior to the recent stock market rise.

Most young workers can't afford to shovel figures like $2500/year at an
IRA in their 20s at the current CPI and average wages for 20-somethings
as they are now, much less for whatever they'd have to contribute yearly
at a more realistic 3.5-3.8% average return.

You're confabulating -- I simply diverted what Social Security
*already takes* from the fed's Ponzi scheme, to this hypothetical
much-worse-than S&P500 investment.

The actual hardship is imposed by Social Security. Taking money early
in life from young people who can least afford it robs them of a
lifetime of investment returns on their labor. Suppose an eighteen
year old wants to save that Social Security money and buy a truck and
start a business instead? He can't.

Social Security forces youngsters to pay for retirees, preventing those
youngsters from a lifetime's benefit of saving and investing their own
money toward schooling, investments, buying property, starting a
business, or whatever else they might choose.

And then in their autumn years, Social Security robs a new generation
to pay these rooked retirees a fraction of what they could've gotten
in interest alone, and leaves them zero equity to pass on to their kids.

A society based on theft has much lower annual returns than a society
based on savings and investment.

That sucks for them because compound interest works best if you put
money in early. Very difficult to shovel enough money at the process
later and expect the exponential "blow up" to occur within your lifetime.

As we know from the behavior of exponential processes the "magic" that
allows you to retire on 35k/year interest-only vs. about diddly-squat
happens in the last few compounding periods; the net growth over most of
your investment time into index funds sucks with realistic yearly
contributions, and if that hits or not before you're required to start
making withdrawals and/or die of old age is sensitive to initial
conditions.

That is to say, how much did your Mom n Dad put in on your behalf in
your 20s?

I got zero. I left Europe at seventeen on money I saved selling
furniture in my second (and last) year of high school. I had enough
for plane fare and a Honda motorcycle. I got two full-time minimum
wage jobs, and worked my way up from there.

PS: 50% of American workers don't have access to a 401k plan, IRA
protections suck a lot harder, AFAIK they're only protected in
bankruptcy. Big medical expense? Declare bankruptcy, keep your IRA but
wreck your credit. Yay!

Cheers,
James Arthur

 

[bitrex]

On 2/20/20 4:13 PM, bitrex wrote:

but this fashion of sarcasm I tend to see a lot from other men and sadly
often gives me the impression that the person using it is more annoyed
at someone else than me; I'm just stating a fact from my personal
experience. I didn't do nothin' to nobody and I don't live to give
anyone "fatherly wisdom", blue-collar or otherwise. Not for free, at least.

Pretty sure I just remarked in another thread by "mpm" about his
unpleasant boss something to the effect of "you don't really need
anyone's advice in this situation."

Maybe that constitutes meta-advice, though. IDK.

 

[bitrex]

On 2/20/20 2:41 PM, dagmargoodboat@yahoo.com wrote:

On Wednesday, February 19, 2020 at 11:27:01 PM UTC-5, bitrex wrote:
On 2/19/20 8:33 PM, dagmargoodboat@yahoo.com wrote:

Or even better, they should be permitted to work, have jobs, and
not be poor! If you finish high school, get any kind of job, and
don't have kids until married, your chances of being poor in the
U.S. are vanishingly small.

By contrast, the government redistributing money to 'correct' poverty
is awful, brutish, and cruel.

I calculated that if a person earning minimum wage had
put his Social Security tax into an S&P500 index fund earning 3%
*less* than the actual S&P500 return, he'd retire with $43,000 in
*investment income* and half a million dollars in assets that he
can pass to his children. That's for MINIMUM WAGE.

To retire with even a ~35k compound-interest generated income at age 65,
assuming a 5% ROI after retirement at age 65, into something like a Roth
IRA, you need an contribution-ending balance of about 700k. Assuming a
7% ROI during the compounding period you'd need to contribute minimum
$2500/year each year from age 20-65.

I calculated my figures as an update to a 30-Oct-1996 article in the
Los Angeles Times, "Even a Bad Investor Can Beat Social Security,"
by Christine Murphy.

http://articles.latimes.com/1996-10-30/local/me-59230_1_social-security

Lots of things have happened since then, so I wanted to see how the
scenarios played out.

I looked up the actual S&P500 return from 1982 to 2017, which was 11.1%
as an annual rate. That includes multiple crashes and recessions.

I used the actual federal minimum wage as the income basis, and
diverted the actual amount deducted from a minimum wage person's check
by the federal government to this hypothetical account, and compounded
it at 8%, which is 3.1% less than the *actual* S&P500 return.

8% is mad.

<https://www.forbes.com/sites/robisbitts2/2018/11/19/the-sp-500s-long-term-return-is-mediocre-really/#60657dca5b1e>>

(I assumed only 40 hours a week, although I've never worked that little
in my entire life. I personally started off saving for college working
two full-time minimum wage jobs.)

Since I was adapting Christine Murphy's scenario, I started at 1982.
In 1982, for example, the federal minimum wage was $3.10/hr. A full-time
worker would gross $6,200 a year, and pay $868 in personal and employer
Social Security taxes.

Minimum wage is $7.25/hr that works out to under $2500/month. If you
think someone making minimum wage can afford to put $2500, over one
month of their income, into an investment account every year which they
then can't touch without taking serious penalties, with cost of living
expenses what they are anywhere in the country in the year 2020, then I
gotta say you're maybe not strictly "nuts" but deeply out of touch with
what kind of expenses people at that level actually have.

It's trivial to subsist on minimum wage-level income. I've done it
most of my life.

The logic of relying on someone who claims to have lived at minimum-wage
level income most of their life, for wealth-management advice, eludes me.

Maybe your
name is Bloomberg or Biden?

In any case anyone making minimum wage anywhere in the US and not
homeless is already reliant on either their Mom and Dad, private
charity, or government "handouts" to cover part of their cost of living
expenses and likely still in debt despite that.

A false, incredibly arrogant and ignorant statement. I've easily met
my expenses for decades on less, taking no handouts from anyone,
without privation or want.

Assuming that everyone else is a materialistic spendthrift is
obnoxious.

No, I think people sometimes (often!) don't tell the whole truth.
Nothing unusual about that and hardly is an arrogant thing to think, in
isolation. My own mother probably lied to me, sometimes. Doesn't mean I
don't otherwise like her, or respect her as a person.

But even assuming someone making minimum wage with a much better
position than most, like say inherited a modest one bedroom home from a
dear deceased aunt, there's a further wrinkle which is that at no time
during the past 100 years over any particular 45 year period you select
has any index fund provided an average ROI better than 3.5 to 3.8%.

To allow for inefficiencies and fees, I calculated using 3.1% less
than the *actual* S&P500 return over the interval in question.

Those returns re-calculated today would be substantially higher, since
I calculated prior to the recent stock market rise.

Most young workers can't afford to shovel figures like $2500/year at an
IRA in their 20s at the current CPI and average wages for 20-somethings
as they are now, much less for whatever they'd have to contribute yearly
at a more realistic 3.5-3.8% average return.

You're confabulating -- I simply diverted what Social Security
*already takes* from the fed's Ponzi scheme, to this hypothetical
much-worse-than S&P500 investment.

The actual hardship is imposed by Social Security. Taking money early
in life from young people who can least afford it robs them of a
lifetime of investment returns on their labor. Suppose an eighteen
year old wants to save that Social Security money and buy a truck and
start a business instead? He can't.

Social Security forces youngsters to pay for retirees, preventing those
youngsters from a lifetime's benefit of saving and investing their own
money toward schooling, investments, buying property, starting a
business, or whatever else they might choose.

And then in their autumn years, Social Security robs a new generation
to pay these rooked retirees a fraction of what they could've gotten
in interest alone, and leaves them zero equity to pass on to their kids.

A society based on theft has much lower annual returns than a society
based on savings and investment.

Market-based retirement-funding vehicles are a similar scheme but one
that allows selection bias to be leveraged to act as its PR campaign to
get in on the ground floor of this golden opportunity.

For those who win they will sing its praises, for those who lose they
will tend to be unwilling or unable to comment.

It's easy to find senior-citizen winners who construct post hoc analysis
of unverifiable accuracy of how they "won." You can always hit the
target and paint the bulls-eye afterwards.

Much harder to find someone who was living on minimum wage at 20, who
constructed a financial plan of the type suggested and followed it to
the letter, and kept accurate records and documentation of how it played
out over time.

That sucks for them because compound interest works best if you put
money in early. Very difficult to shovel enough money at the process
later and expect the exponential "blow up" to occur within your lifetime.

As we know from the behavior of exponential processes the "magic" that
allows you to retire on 35k/year interest-only vs. about diddly-squat
happens in the last few compounding periods; the net growth over most of
your investment time into index funds sucks with realistic yearly
contributions, and if that hits or not before you're required to start
making withdrawals and/or die of old age is sensitive to initial
conditions.

That is to say, how much did your Mom n Dad put in on your behalf in
your 20s?

I got zero. I left Europe at seventeen on money I saved selling
furniture in my second (and last) year of high school. I had enough
for plane fare and a Honda motorcycle. I got two full-time minimum
wage jobs, and worked my way up from there.

Rather like the claim that CO2 injected into the atmosphere causes
average planetary temperatures to increase to dangerous levels,
statements of this type are clearly unverifiable. I'm something of a
skeptic, myself.

 

[bitrex]

On 2/20/20 1:28 PM, John Larkin wrote:

On Thu, 20 Feb 2020 12:31:50 -0500, bitrex <user@example.net> wrote:

On 2/20/20 11:34 AM, jlarkin@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote:
On Thu, 20 Feb 2020 11:17:34 -0500, bitrex <user@example.net> wrote:

On 2/20/20 10:39 AM, jlarkin@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote:

My conservative kids will beat up your non-existent liberal kids.


Sigh, how typical.

"Bitch, where do you live. I'm going to come to your house and beat your
ass you little punk."

"Ok, tough guy. I'm going to kick _your_ ass. Meet me outside my house
at 5 o clock and shout real loud 'Get out here you little faggot. I'm
going to kick your pussy ass!' so I know it's you. You'd better be there."

Then I give him the home address of the local Patriarca family crime
boss. he lived a few streets down.

Stop.....think....

One brat is a PhD botanist with her own DNA consulting buisiness.
She's been in the New York Times and is also a certified BMW
motorcycle mechanic. I work for the other one.


Sounds a little old to be going around beating anyone up.

Anyway the point of the original anecdote is that bullies tend to be
very gullible.

They certainly don't spend a lot of time in introspection.




What was that airline again that said something like "Sir we lose 100
pieces of luggage a day here at..." like it was a selling-point?


I actually heard a stewardess announce this:

"We know you have a choice of bankrupt airlines, so thank you for
choosing United."

Airline executives are bad at keeping airlines profitable but seem to be
much better at running railroads:

<https://www.wbur.org/hereandnow/2019/11/15/amtrak-profit-train-ceo-richard-anderson>

Maybe they should have the railroad people run the airlines and the
airlines run the railroads.

 

[bitrex]

On 2/20/20 1:51 PM, dagmargoodboat@yahoo.com wrote:

On Thursday, February 20, 2020 at 12:01:06 AM UTC-5, bitrex wrote:
On 2/19/20 10:11 PM, Bill Sloman wrote:

The idea that you have a *right* to another man's labor and that
the legitimate purpose of government is to take it for you, is a
dangerous, destructive, inherently evil philosophy, and it's
an unstable design for a society / government as well.

Except that James Arthur is perfectly to see the government take it to spend on the police, the judicial system and the army.

He endorse that "dangerous, destructive, inherently evil philosophy" just as long as the money is spent on projects of which he approves.

He benefits from the protection that that money buys. Stuff that he doesn't see as benefiting him directly is out. He doesn't understand that universal health care protects him from epidemics (like the one currently brewing up in China, if the their universal health system doesn't get it under control).

More complicated ideas about making the population as a whole healthier, better educated and eventually more productive have even less traction.


Most of the guys I've known who prattle on about "right to another man's
labor" are the last people who have any idea what a "hard day's work"
actually is other than going to the bank to write a check from their
trust fund.

I think you make up most of those generalizations, generally
speaking.

I spent yesterday with a chainsaw dangling from ropes, high up in
a tree dropping 500# chunks of wood safely between delicate obstacles
on all sides. I'm still sore from spurring up that 113' foot oak
last week, taking down this ready-to-fail monster that was hell-bent
on destroying a nice lady's house. We did some of the work in 22-degree
snow.

A couple years ago I spent a month or so driving a big diesel truck,
making deliveries on mountain roads for an injured friend so he
wouldn't lose his job.

Sounds like you've worked too hard all these years to get paid minimum
wage for it if that's the case as you say.

Maybe you're pissed off at the wrong people.

I doubt Mike Bloomberg has the slightest idea how skilled and
hard-working are those people who regularly perform those jobs for
their living.

He's a deeply unpopular candidate among most Democratic voters I know as
well, you're preaching to the choir.

So please, tell me about my lack of knowing hard work, and how
blue-collar guys need your infinite fatherly wisdom and guidance
to plan their jobs, retirements, and health care.

I know it may be hard for you to understand but I wasn't speaking of
you, specifically. you weren't on my mind at all when I made the
statement, in fact. I can't divine what you do or don't do with your time.

but this fashion of sarcasm I tend to see a lot from other men and sadly
often gives me the impression that the person using it is more annoyed
at someone else than me; I'm just stating a fact from my personal
experience. I didn't do nothin' to nobody and I don't live to give
anyone "fatherly wisdom", blue-collar or otherwise. Not for free, at least.

Unsolicited advice or even the impression of giving it often tends to
annoy people as we have seen.

> Have you ever done any actual physical work?

Like banging attractive younger women? Yeah I do some of that. Can be
hard to keep up with the "kids these days", sometimes.

Cheers,
James Arthur