Bernie's In

Quote Olivier5:

Right. Because there is no shame in not being battle proven, (there is extra respect in being battle proven), but there definitely is a stigma in not accumulating a really good amount of money if you've been earning much higher than average your working life, like Bernie.

A few things.

You're taking inflation off of both ends. 10.2 percent is the historical growth. It's true that the million will be worth roughly 250,000 in today's dollars.

Along with inflation comes an increase in wages which I didn't include in order to simplify. That means someone making 55k now will likely be making closer to 150k in 40 years so their contribution grows close to inflation (historically). This means they'll save more which will make it worth a 2016 level million in the end

Also, retirement age is 67 years right now, so it's a 42 year calculation. That puts it over a million. And it's 3 million if 10% holds true.

And the 10% ROI is calculated AFTER any fees.



I don't know why you're arguing with me here.

Do you think people shouldn't be saving money? If you think 10% is too low, then I agree with you.

Really? Who told you that?

The historical stock market return is only about 10% including dividends. That is with NO fees subtracted. That is also often done as the average return which tends to be higher than actual return over time. Calculating return of 7% after inflation is considered to be overly aggressive.

Here - see for yourself. The return from 1900 to 2000 is only 10.4 with dividends reinvested. 7% after inflation is calculated. And that doesn't include investment costs.
http://dqydj.net/sp-500-return-calculator/


Of course people should be saving money but they should also have realistic expectations. It will be a very select few that have returns of 6% or more after inflation and fees in a 40 year time frame.

And stigmas are culture-specific. They vary from culture to culture.

IOW, this is very American. It wouldn't be a factor in Europe.

Its inaccurate to adjust based on inflation and at the same time not factor in wage increases.

Using 6% (which you see I did use) saving 10% will get you a million dollars in 2016 dollars.

That's realistic.

A judge just dealt a blow to a big gun-maker being sued over the Sandy Hook massacre

I believe one has to factor in other things like mortgage/lease/rent, ,cost of living, and medical bills, in order to get a better picture of what a million dollars will mean.

I saw some squabbling about that on my FB page this morning. The partisans were starting the debate early

Of course CI (although I hope that when one retires it will be without a mortgage). A million in San Francisco is different than a million next door in Arizona.

That being said, the majority of Americans COULD be millionaires if they took the steps to make that happen. And it's really not that hard if you make smart financial decisions (literally $4.50 per day).

Unfortunately, American's are not taught to make smart financial decisions. It's not valued in American society. Many people (including myself until a couple years ago) make horrible choices with their money.


I feel like people are arguing that the person/family making 55k/yr can't become a millionaire just through savings and living on just 52k/year (401k plans are pre-tax). They most certainly can. And if they don't, it's most often because they've lived beyond their means.

That doesn't mean they share all the blame. Credit card companies, media companies, American society, colleges, student loan companies, major banks ALL serve to take money from the middle class.....and they should be reigned in. But someone who intelligently stays away from those things or works to pay cash for college (this is still possible) can do it.

She's their leader.

Financial education is missing from our schools, and it's one of the most important subjects of life.
When we got married (1963), I told my wife we needed to save from 15 to 20% of our income every year for our retirement.
We live in Silicon Valley, one of the most expensive areas to live in the US, but we have no mortgage nor car payments. Our property tax is very low, because we bought our home in the mid-seventies, and with Prop 13, they can only increase it by 2%/year.
We're not wealthy, but comfortable in our retirement. We bought our home for $50,000, and it's now worth about $1.7 million. Yes, we've done major renovations to this house over the years, but the value of this house more than makes up for it.
Who knew then this will become the heart of Silicon Valley? Apple is building their Campus 2 not a mile from where we live, and they're spending $5 billion on a saucer shaped building that will house 13,000 workers. The demand for housing will increase in this area, but we have no plans to move from here.
Kaiser Hospital is only one block away, the freeway about one mile away, and we live in a ZIP code in our city where the value keeps going up.

A black man became president.

Is Texas going to vote for Hillary Clinton?

Some Texans will. Some Texans have. Just as some Texans voted for a black man to be President.
It's unlikely that Clinton will carry Texas but Obama didn't carry it and he was still elected to the office twice.

I think Bernie has a much better chance in Texas than HRC. He beats the GOP by bigger margins than HRC.

Why vote for HRC????

1) I believe her more
2) She'll be a better president
3) She's battle tested

Hillary can't win this year...sorta like she couldn't win last time.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/columnists/kass/ct-hillary-clinton-will-lose-kass-0313-20160311-column.html

Democrats won't carry Texas, so it doesn't much matter which candidate the Democrats run there.

The Democrats have to work on their downticket/bottom line before any Bernie/Hillary stuff even registers in Texas.

It's got to be painful to be a Democrat in states like that. You can get hepped up about your candidate but you can really only try to influence people who vote elsewhere.

Is there any kind of vote-swapping campaign in the US? I've quite liked participating in it here.

Meanwhile, she has millions more votes, 220+ pledged delegates, 450+ super delegates, and the lead in just about every state left to vote.

Hillary will win. Trump is all but out. So much for the anti-establishment rah-rah.

He had 48K excited people last night. Anti-establishment fever is high.

We'll see the short-term result soon enough.

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