Having an impossible time browsing & responding from work anymore. Some security/IT change now prevents me from connecting, either with a DNS not found error, or a check your port settings error, neither of which I can do anything about. And I can't really complain about it as I'm at work. So much for killing a few minutes between meetings.
Retirement is just around the corner, you can do what you want or K will let you do 
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Yeah, just another 3 1/2 years to go ...
CrossRoads:
I think I want to do a few days of this in September, go blow a few bucks.
Just be a little more careful than Ari Vatanen 
...R
If possible do not retire, biggest mistake I ever made. I would love to go back to work doing what I used to but at my age no one will hire me not even the place I used to work at. Something about retirement benefits and that I have been away to long. As to the racing by all mean do. I did some in my youth and never regretted it.
Best thing I ever did. (edit: Oops, best thing was to get married to my wife ??? )
In 40 years 90% of the people on this site will be dead.
If possible, retire as soon as you can afford to.
Yes you will have to work to live, you shouldn't live to work.
Do what makes you happy in your life.
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+10 for retiring. I got an offer of early retirement and grabbed it with both hands.
I am intrigued by the moves in the UK to extend the age when people qualify for the State pension because people are living longer. WTF is the point of living longer if it's just to work longer so the rich can get richer.
Maybe Chester Bennington figured that out.
...R
I doubt he killed himself because the rich were getting richer or for any logical reason. The rich will always get richer.... if you tax them to death they will just find away to get rich around the burden of taxes. Rich people arent giving up their money. They'll just have to charge more and pay less in order to keep their margin. No one is going to give up there margin. Ever.
We live in a time where we tax and spend exorbitant amounts of money on social welfare yet the GAP between the rich and the poor is as bad as its ever been. Why? Is it because we arent spending enough money on social welfare? No. Its because the rich have been forced to protect their margin.
Thanks for letting us know, CrossRoads.
You've spent more than enough time on these forums over the years (during working hours or in your own time), so no one can hold anything against you.
One might wonder why you aren't around any more as much as you used to be, but you just explained that.
Also, you've got a lot of other things going on besides your daily work.
Like the fencing, your Arduino (or whatever) products and your (the both of you) initiatives to help youngsters getting started with Arduino and /or microcontrollers.
So you won't fall into any hole, wondering how to spend time after retirement.
So do retire when you can, and enjoy that next step in life.
I'm sure you'll still spend much more time over here than the average user, and i'm sure i'll learn a lot from your future posts.
My apologizes. It looks like the sense's is to retire as soon as possible. To each their own.
Naneen:
My apologizes. .......... To each their own.
Nothing to apologize about.
...R
Qdeathstar:
The rich will always get richer....
Indeed. But do you want to work for more years just to feed their habit?
Or would you prefer to retire and have a few leisure years while you still enjoy good health?
...R
Qdeathstar:
I doubt he killed himself because the rich were getting richer or for any logical reason. The rich will always get richer.... if you tax them to death they will just find away to get rich around the burden of taxes. Rich people arent giving up their money. They'll just have to charge more and pay less in order to keep their margin. No one is going to give up there margin. Ever.We live in a time where we tax and spend exorbitant amounts of money on social welfare yet the GAP between the rich and the poor is as bad as its ever been. Why? Is it because we arent spending enough money on social welfare? No. Its because the rich have been forced to protect their margin.
The GAP is bigger than at any time in our history, even in the robber baron age.
Why? Because the rich won't pay the people who do WORK anywhere near enough.
Protect their margin? They protect the GROWTH of the margin and have been aggressive on that since 1980.
The people who don't understand that either refuse to look (the majority) or are really bad at math.
But blame the poor for what little they get that GOES RIGHT BACK INTO THE LOCAL ECONOMY. Social Welfare is a source of economic circulation in our increasingly stifled economy. Cut that and watch the fails multiply, life will get worse for everyone but the economic elite.
In 40 years 90% of the people on this site will be dead
- that is cheerful
Every dog in the whole world that was alive when I was born is now dead, makes you think!
I see the intention behind raising the pension age as life expectancy rises but although people are living longer that does not mean they are able to work longer. Do we really expect to have 70 year olds controlling classrooms of rowdy teenagers or working as firemen and carrying people down ladders?
Having a moving target retirement age is also rather cruel.
Several countries seem to be considering the idea of of a Universal Income where everyone, of all ages, gets a basic income. People could of course earn additional income by working. It seems like a good idea to me you could cut out a lot of red tape at the same time as giving people flexibility and control over their lives as well as security.
How is this going to be paid for you ask? The real question though is with increasing automation can the existing system survive?
ardly:
How is this going to be paid for you ask? The real question though is with increasing automation can the existing system survive?
I'm guessing that the 1% answer involves removing 6.5 billion "worthless" people to get the all-important margins right.
The present system only works because there are sufficient people in employment to buy goods, so industry generates profits, and pay taxes to support pensioners and the unemployed.
As automation and the use of AI increases fewer people will be employed and the burden on them of supporting the unemployed and the aging population will become unsustainable. Industry will suffer because there simply will not be enough people able to buy the goods, the gap between the haves and the have nots will grow and something will have to give.
Better to plan for a transition to a universal income that to wait for a crunch that must surely come. Taxing the use of robots and AIs may be the way to go.
ardly:
Better to plan for a transition to a universal income that to wait for a crunch that must surely come.
Doesn't seem to be possible for humans. Read Jared Diamond's book "Collapse" - very scary stuff.
And what the rich guys always forget -- there are many more of us than them
...R
ardly:
The present system only works because there are sufficient people in employment to buy goods, so industry generates profits, and pay taxes to support pensioners and the unemployed.As automation and the use of AI increases fewer people will be employed and the burden on them of supporting the unemployed and the aging population will become unsustainable. Industry will suffer because there simply will not be enough people able to buy the goods, the gap between the haves and the have nots will grow and something will have to give.
Better to plan for a transition to a universal income that to wait for a crunch that must surely come. Taxing the use of robots and AIs may be the way to go.
Lots of good paying jobs making weapons, ammo, bombs, tanks, truck, planes, helicopters, etc, for "defense".
We've got miles of desert where year after year the overproduction gets parked.
Budget must get used up or it and the slush fund might not get bigger and bigger.
In the meantime, our highway system needs a lot of overdue work done but lets build more for-profit prisons instead!
GoForSmoke:
In the meantime, our highway system needs a lot of overdue work done but lets build more for-profit prisons instead!
There was, at one time, an answer to that. They were called chain gangs.