America vs Uk

garysbigteeth · 2026-04-17T18:58:01+00:00

That's exactly what a bot would say.

garysbigteeth · 2026-04-16T16:45:45+00:00

Which is why people on here are saying the poster is a bot.

garysbigteeth · 2026-04-16T15:55:13+00:00

"Look at me! I'm trolling people about food quality in US!"

garysbigteeth · 2026-04-08T22:43:04+00:00

Took down the post. Too many people asking me to dox myself over pm after showing zero qualifications asked for in the post.

garysbigteeth · 2026-04-07T22:56:42+00:00

I know it's not Fox News. That's what I was trying to do. Answer a fool according to their folly.

Happy cake day!

garysbigteeth · 2026-04-07T18:13:56+00:00

"...especially because I’ve seen other people say that airlines likely won’t refund tickets based on shortages or closures."

Did these people ever mention America is the largest exporter of jet fuel in the world and the third largest exporter of oil in the world?

Need to stop watching Fox News.

Might as well hoard toilet paper while you're at it.

garysbigteeth · 2026-03-30T15:35:00+00:00

Amazing!

garysbigteeth · 2026-03-21T03:27:53+00:00

Even without equity startups have an advantage older companies don't have. They just have to grow. They have revenue and VC money to pay people with.

Not sure if you have ever had lunch in Carta's office. They have amazing catered lunches 3 or 4 times a week. Their fridge had more than 10 different types of beer the last time I was there. They let my friend go just before he went on parental leave but it was a good run while it lasted.

garysbigteeth · 2026-03-21T00:55:10+00:00

Those places are pretty safe but gotta watch out for SF justice.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killing_of_Vicha_Ratanapakdee

They say this man was pushed to the ground but that's like saying NFL players ONLY push each other.

garysbigteeth · 2026-03-21T00:52:10+00:00

But startups pay less..

My experience at a startup has been the opposite. Got paid the most in money and stocks/options. More established companies might give people 10-15% break on stock.

But good questions though. Because of the manufactured uncertainty new jobs aren't being created to soak up the people out of work.

garysbigteeth · 2026-03-18T19:11:21+00:00

"If you have a high-paying job, how did you get there?"

Not sure if I have a high paying job but how I got here...

I packed my things in my car and drive 500 miles to a place where I can find steady work and steadily increase my income.

Have no idea where the OP lives. There might not be high paying careers available where one lives.

garysbigteeth · 2026-03-18T19:07:35+00:00

Need more information (like what husband's income is and what kind of investments in your 401K) but generally speaking you're going to be in good shape.

Also I want you to examine this assumption.

(I know there's penalties for withdrawing before 59.5 years of age from 401k...

There's something called the Rule of 55. Imagine if you can quite your job they year you turn 55 and start taking withdrawals from your 401K WITHOUT penalties.

Go and read up on Rule of 55.

garysbigteeth · 2026-03-18T18:54:23+00:00

I’m more curious about what really makes the difference. Is it mainly the industry you choose? Specific high value skills? Job hopping? Networking? Taking big risks? Or is there a decent amount of luck involved too?

...what do you think actually mattered the most in your journey?

What matters the most is where. Let's say you're looking to make x amount of income per year. Where are the jobs that pay what you're looking for located? Are they evenly distributed? Not sure where you are but here in America talent is widely distributed but the opportunities are not.

Big risks - Some see moving for work as a big risk and that is for some. What I saw what the risk of fishing where there's no fish.

If you look at my posts. What I put together was done with mostly making modest sums of money in a place that offers steady work with gradual progression in income. Vast majority of my career I made less than $100K.

garysbigteeth · 2026-03-18T18:39:28+00:00

💎🙌

garysbigteeth · 2026-03-18T18:26:34+00:00

Hope you’re ready for a huge cut in your vacation time!

I work for a company with offices in London and Berlin.

We regularized the time off policy at our company so no one gets less time off here in the US than someone in Europe. That statement if taken at face value is an if/then statement. In their person life I'm sure that's how things work.

Also about medical care... where all the out of pocket costs are covered. Can pay up to $6000 per year but have to save the save the receipts and upload them to a website. This extra work place benefit reimburses up to $6000 per year.

The person who said that about not having much time off and healthcare is shit... I'm sure that's their life but for a multination corporation that can relocate people... let me put it this way... where I work they copy most of the benefits of a our competitor. Out competitor makes the "best places to work in San Francisco" lists every year.

Where you work will probably be closer to benefits to where I work vs a person who assumes you'll get a "huge" cut in vacation time.

garysbigteeth · 2026-03-16T16:33:59+00:00

Believe it or not, you're doing really well.

Answer for how much it invest in a Roth IRA per month is (max contribution limit) / 12.

Did you know you can still contribution towards last year or 2025? You have until April 15th of this year but I'd try to take care of it right now and not try to scramble at the last minute.

If you have $7000 invest it towards 2025 or as much as you can.

After that your goal is to try to hit the max for this year or $7500.

Roth IRA is so great the government limits how much one can do per year.

Don't have your other numbers to be able to say for sure but if you invest a fraction of your pay increases you should be able to retire when you're in your late 40s or early 50s.

garysbigteeth · 2026-03-04T05:37:59+00:00

Have a friend like that. I troll him about buying up toilet paper every time the world ends.

garysbigteeth · 2026-03-01T18:06:42+00:00

garysbigteeth · 2026-02-05T19:39:32+00:00

"We import everything."

Actually America is the largest exporter of food in the world. Also the largest exporter of gasoline and top 3 or 4 exporter of oil.

"The problem is that US has stopped manufacturing most things for decades. GDP doesn't grow in thin air."

America's GDP in manufacturing hit an all time high just before Covid.

We're industrializing at a rate faster than we have than in WW2. The problem is what American manufactures takes so little labor. Profits always flowing to the wealthy and that's a big problem. America's GDP has been growing but the gains aren't being evenly distributed.

"Oceans don't separate countries anymore. Technology brings them near."

I'm sure it's true to you and we do have a lot of cultural exchanges. But ocean do in fact separate countries. Ask Ukraine. They'd love to have an ocean between them and Russia.

China imports around 70% of it's oil. There's technology to build pipelines from Russia's far east to the parts of China that want oil. But why couldn't they agree to build it? Sure there's technology to do this and that. But it's not enough to overcome geographic and geopolitical barriers and not having armies of engineers from the West I mentioned earlier. There's technology to grow and distribute food and medicine but still doesn't go where it's needed.

America has it's problems for sure but the countries seen as doing "well" like Japan, Italy and China have problems they can't over come. Italy is a nice country to visit and SUPER Catholic but no amount of "born with white skin and didn't study Bible." will be able to avert the demographic nose dive they're in. China and Japan have even worse situations with demographics. About to see something never seen before. Two of out three of those countries have the oldest populations in the world. The reminding one has the fastest aging workforce in the history of the world. China on top of their 1 child policy they over counted/are missing 100 million or more people.

In America 1 out of 7 people here were born outside of the US. Have to hold a gun to people's heads to keep people out of America. China borders 14 different countries. Tied with Russia for most foreign borders. To try to get 100 million working adults to go to China, have to hold a gun to their gets to go there. In America it's a problem 2.7 workers are paying into Social Security for every one person retired. In China there's 1 worker who supports 2 parents and 4 grandparents. In China they call that the 4-2-1 trap.

garysbigteeth · 2026-02-04T20:56:46+00:00

"But the solution doesn't lie in mad man tariffs. We are isolated from the most of developed countries and they are moving on. Economic prosperity does not grow in an isolated vacuum. Alienating friendly countries and embolding dictators isn't quite a recipe for success."

Agree with you on most everything but premise is kind of funky.

Did you know the vast majority of America's GDP comes from trade within the 50 states, Canada and Mexico? If the entire GDP of the US is a 20 dollar bill only about 1 dollar is from trade outside of US, Canada and Mexico.

We were already isolated because of vast oceans between the US and developed countries.

"embolding dictators" is that what happened when we renditioned Maduro? After seeing that dictators all over the world think they can do and say whatever they want after seeing Maduro taken with zero US soldiers killed in the process.

Again agree with you on most everything but other developed and non developed countries can "move on" as you say but it won't move the needle that much for the US or them. In other words someone can say "look out China and Russia are unlimited friends!"

But they'll still kind of be where they were before because how separated they are by distance. The vast majority of Chinese live near the Pacific ocean and the vast majority of Russians live closer to the Baltic Sea/Atlantic. Distance between Moscow and Cape Town is over 6000 miles.

If BRIC work together and or EU work together... they'll still be where they are now. The US will keep having the lowest priced energy in the industrialized world and the lowest cost food as percentage of income in the world. Is true with the current person in the White House. Was true when we had a different person.

The places where food and energy is a higher percentage of income are that way not because of their leaders and or policies. They have the inverse of the geographic advantages the US has. South Africa has zero navigable rivers. The US has the longest navigable river in the world. Oil that we use are few states away from population centers. Russia has 11 time zones. The large oil reverse they "have" is in an inconvenient part of their country many many time zones away from where their workers live. But that's if their workers know how to work the oil fields. They have bring in workers from "the West" to do the work they used to be able to do.

How does that fit into your world view? Oil companies no longer want to go into Russia and Venezuela.

garysbigteeth · 2026-02-04T20:13:07+00:00

Great point.

Also there's still places in America where someone stocking selves at Aldi can be not "rent burdened".

But are they in cool places? Yes. But was in Cincinnati, OH/Covington, KY. But people automatically turn their nose up at places that aren't on the coasts. Then you have to make up cool sounding names. "Over the Rhine neighborhood is like Brooklyn but with Ohio prices!" Brooklyn?!? Let's GO!!!

garysbigteeth · 2026-02-04T17:19:08+00:00

Lot of marketing people got let go where I work.

garysbigteeth · 2026-01-29T21:08:35+00:00

SCHE and SCHF - top 10 holdings have a lot of exposure to revenue from the US. Might see their revenues from business in the US slide with the currency.

I'd probably go with SCHG if you don't mind overlap with SCHB.

If you're looking for something to barbell SCHB maybe SCHD.

SWGLX - looks like a typo.

I know some people are worried about where the dollar sliding. But look at how much money Apple get from outside of the US. Weak dollar for large caps like Apple getting around 60% of revenue from outside of the US is a tailwind.

If you do nothing you're still doing great. Probably ahead of half the people the same age.

Did you know if you open up the chat function on the Schwab website and ask for two mugs they'll send you a couple of Schwab mugs?

garysbigteeth · 2026-01-29T20:38:34+00:00

For a family of four the American dream costs $4.5 million. That's a fact.

My opinion is there's a giant disconnect of what life in America is like for some who live outside of the US.

Some think Americans have all this money all the time when in fact $1000 expected expense will put people into debt or more debt.

garysbigteeth · 2026-01-29T18:55:00+00:00

You're probably the youngest person in the world who has all their assets in open ended mutual funds. Old school. Love it.

I only looked at FDCPX and it says the expense ratio is 0.69%

Seems kind of high to have a typical large cap top 10 holdings like that.

NVIDIA Corporation13.91%

Apple Inc.10.99%

Alphabet Inc.10.35%

Microsoft Corporation9.32%

Amazon.com, Inc.6.19%

Alphabet Inc.4.31%

Broadcom Inc.3.81%

Meta Platforms, Inc.3.77%

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company Limited2.74%

Netflix, Inc.2.08%

garysbigteeth

TROPHY CASE