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My parents mainly relied on a pension. My grandparents on “build a city house” with benefits passing to my parents. My great grandparents afaict were all “village land plus gold” Through much of history nobody thought of the future at all. Planning = land+gold+weapons.
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The mindset we bring to retirement investing is what our ancestors brought to afterlife investing. Prayers and ritual observances tailored to a fine-grained sense of sin/virtue karmic cash flow and afterlife belief portfolios. Pascal’s wager is *normal* 17th century mindset.
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This game is not something I have much aptitude for, yet I have to play it, as do you. We are all far less fit for this job of insuring the last third of our lives than we are for however we earn a living. Yet collectively it works better than command-economy+gold+land.
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The 1/3 life job most of us have but don’t want. Kinda like going to school. The first and last thirds of life are dominated by “jobs” most people don’t want. Annoying. Four stages of life: school, precarious survival, portfolio management, healthcare system navigation.
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Replying to
Isn’t this really an argument for robo advisors? Most of us lack the interest and/or aptitude for this calculus, and (especially with the near-disappearance of pensions) almost everyone now has to think about this. Most of us would likely benefit from outsourcing this again.
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Replying to
IIRC it originally came about in response to growing socialist sentiment cuz by binding retirement to stocks you gave workers a long term reason not to defect from capitalism
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