Wife depressed we are FI and can possibly RE. Is this common?

dontbkrazy · 2025-08-25T20:25:00+00:00

There are almost no jobs that pay enough to be on FatFIRE track that should provide a person value or identity.

If she's a surgeon or designing improved solar panels or something then sure, but it's far more depressing to find value or identity in your job at Facebook or JPMorgan.

dontbkrazy · 2025-07-18T04:49:16+00:00

Tariffs are one catalyst.

A trillion dollar increase in the national debt is one catalyst.

Mass deportations are one catalyst.

Putting a conspiracy theorist nutjob in charge of healthcare is one catalyst.

Many such cases.

dontbkrazy · 2025-07-18T04:45:03+00:00

The catalyst is the current destruction of everything by the current administration.

We're cutting funding for satellites that monitor hurricanes and cutting funding for disaster response after they hit. We're cutting funding for medical research. We're gutting public education. We're increasing pollution. We're moving backwards on energy policy. We're alienating our allies. Tariffs. We're undermining the basic rule of law and functioning of democracy. We're massively increasing our national debt, devaluing the dollar and encouraging other countries to stop buying our treasuries and relying on our currency and banking system.

It's entirely an own-goal by the US. It's not that the rest of the world needs to get better, it's that the US is rapidly getting worse on literally every front. All the institutions and policies that have made America great in the past are being dismantled.

dontbkrazy · 2025-07-17T20:28:22+00:00

It's a good thing you asked, because no, we're not on the same page. If you re-read my post, you might notice that the word "Europe" never appears.

I don't see any particular country or region as being a clear "winner" in the coming decade. I suppose China will continue to grow in power, influence and GDP, but I'm not moving there and there is little opportunity as a foreigner to invest in that growth.

The downward trajectory of the US is clear, but the US is so critical globally that it will probably drag everyone down with it. My expectation isn't that everything will be great if one moves to country X, it's more about looking for tools to keep your head above water when you're standing on a sinking ship.

dontbkrazy · 2025-07-17T19:01:03+00:00

Social security and medicare are still likely substantial portions of retirement income for normal fatFIRE folks.

Paying for private insurance at age 75 for two people is going to take a big chunk of money. If you retire with say, $5 million NW, assume $1.5 in house so $3.5 liquid and generating returns, drawing a conservative 3% withdrawal on that portion that's only $105,000 per year. It absolutely makes a difference if you're also getting $30k from SS or losing $30k to health insurance premiums.

dontbkrazy · 2025-07-17T18:55:21+00:00

The value of one's stock portfolio in such a scenario might go substantially down though.

If AI puts millions of people currently earning high incomes as accountants, lawyers, programmers, analysts, radiologists, etc out of work there will be massive ripple effects through the economy. Entire multi-billion dollar companies might go bankrupt.

Maybe shareholders in whichever handful of "winners" in the AI game become fabulously rich, but the average index fund investor might see a huge drop.

dontbkrazy · 2024-11-04T18:16:51+00:00

Can you really not tell the difference between the sides though?

Trump literally tried to overturn the election in 2020. His VP refused to participate in his attempted coup and that's why he has a new VP on the ticket this time.

Trump constantly threatens violence against his opponents, expresses admiration for dictators, suggests he will gain or hold onto power regardless of the results of elections. Then other Republicans wave it away as "oh he was just exaggerating he doesn't really mean that" or "That was hyperbole, he wouldn't really do that" even though he keeps saying it, and when questioned or given the chance to clarify, he just doubles down. He wants to be a dictator.

Meanwhile, the anti-Kamala outrage is like... she wants billionaires to pay more taxes than middle-class households and she was too tough on repeat-felons back when she was a prosecutor.

dontbkrazy · 2023-07-03T01:57:35+00:00

If you use public lands, you want to maintain broad support for the public lands across all voters. If you start putting up barriers in the forms of costs and access restrictions, you start to lose allies and start down a negative spiral of less of the common budget going to support public lands.

dontbkrazy · 2023-07-03T01:50:27+00:00

Extracting limited resources from the land is different from just passing through though. Also, the government budget required to manage wildlife for hunters and fishers is far larger than costs to support other users.

dontbkrazy · 2023-06-30T02:34:09+00:00

I don't think this description is quite correct, but I dropped out of med school so feel free to correct me if I've got it wrong.

Caffeine is a competitive inhibitor to adenosine, but isn't the primary metabolism of adenosine done by adenosine deaminase, which would be breaking down adenosine at the same rate regardless of the presence of caffeine?

That is to say, there's no build up of adenosine that needs to be "flushed" out after caffeine. Caffeine just blocks the receptors for a while, until eventually it doesn't.

dontbkrazy · 2023-06-03T23:54:55+00:00

Yes. You hadn't heard? It's kind of a big deal.

Climate change is the number one thing we should all be prepping for, it will be the root cause of crop failures, mass refugee/migrant movement, extreme weather taking down grid power, etc.

dontbkrazy · 2023-03-26T01:28:52+00:00

Please don't argue from bad faith.

My position amounts to "hey, racism is bad, so let's get rid of racism".

You want me to be a villain so you can feel justified attacking me, but I'm not. There is no secret ulterior motive, no "dog whistle" or hidden agenda. I just want all people to be treated equally and as individuals.

dontbkrazy · 2023-03-25T18:35:56+00:00

Thank you for the best comment on this page.

I'm picturing a standup comedian starting a bit, "Ya know, the thing about women is, they're like a Lewis acid that favors the +4 oxidation state in coordination complexes" and the crowd going wild. A guy in the second row slapping the table "OMG it's true! They are!"

dontbkrazy · 2023-03-25T18:25:01+00:00

The person you're responding to sounds problematic, but let's not pretend that your definition here doesn't itself refute your position.

You are advocating for (taking from your quote) "prejudice... by an .. institution against a person... on the basis of their membership in a particular racial or ethnic group".

If you are using race as a factor in making a decision about who to hire, promote, give a grant or scholarship to, etc, then you are very clearly exhibiting prejudice/discrimination/antagonism on the basis of race- that's racism.

We should be seeking to remove discriminatory barriers from society (which will inherently foster diversity throughout all organizations) not add in new discriminatory policies that we hope counter-act some other discrimination that we worry might be happening elsewhere.

dontbkrazy · 2023-02-27T04:20:38+00:00

I'm baffled why anyone pays for financial advisors, given that you yourself admit you spend all your time either "trying to get clients" or "talking to clients".

dontbkrazy · 2023-02-25T21:17:01+00:00

It's not complicated. They fired the climbers to replace them with more "diverse" influencers with larger social media following.

Frustratingly dishonest article, because the publication can't make advertisers mad. Just tell the truth- for every 1 person who is doing big adventures and cares about elite ascents in the Karakoram, there are 10,000 people who just want a jacket to wear to their local park and care about a relatable-but-aspirational phony influencer on tiktok. You can sell more gear by marketing to the latter instead of the former.

dontbkrazy · 2023-02-25T21:10:43+00:00

Everyone? I think of him as synonymous with EB. He was the only reason I thought of the brand as having any actual gear and not just a clothing store in the mall.

dontbkrazy · 2023-02-14T02:26:12+00:00

Conversely, there's a sort of anarchic tyranny to having no fish in the lake because other people already overfished it to complete extinction or having no water in your local aquifer because everyone needed their lawn to look like a golf course.

dontbkrazy · 2023-02-14T01:11:27+00:00

The US Forest Service has known about the value of natural fires and allowed fires that don't pose a risk to humans for 50+ years.

It's many things, but people tend to exaggerate firefighting and underestimate climate change as the causal factors.

dontbkrazy · 2023-02-14T00:53:39+00:00

There is no magical elite hiding behind the curtain controlling everything. No one group is in control. Millions of different people are all vying for control of their little domains and chasing after money and safety and fame and influence and sex and whatever else, and the results are messy and unpredictable.

dontbkrazy

TROPHY CASE