retirement – Nick Grant

Nick Grant

Tag: retirement

  • The End is Nigh

    This is a story about the finish line…

    Marathon

    My idea of ‘winning’ is very different from most other people’s I think. Well, actually, on reflection, we are agreed on what would constitute ‘winning’ but most other people have decided to lower their standards, and call something else ‘winning’.

    Let me give you a breakdown:

    Having a house is something which everybody wants. I want to have a house. Other people want to have a mortgage: the bank will own the house, and allow the person who pays the mortgage to live there, but it’s not the same as having a house.

    Retirement is something which everybody wants. I want to retire. Other people want to collect a pension: the pension will be woefully inadequate, so the people who are collecting their pitiful pensions will have a new job, which is trying to make their meagre funds stretch to pay for their needs, which is not the same as retiring.

    Financial independence is something which everybody wants. I want to be financially independent. Other people want credit cards which aren’t maxed out, and a small pot of savings – enough for a holiday or a minor improvement to part of the bank’s house – which is not the same as financial independence.

    Freedom is something which everybody wants. I want to be free. Other people want to be told when and where they should be, for the majority of their time, and otherwise controlled by the limits of their meagre finances.

    All I want is everything.

    That’s all.

    Of course, we can all agree that owning a house – outright with no mortgage – not having a salaried job, having enough money in the bank to last you for the rest of your natural life (at a high living standard) and otherwise being free from any commitments or other coercion, would be the dictionary definition of ‘winning’ right?

    So, why then do I sound so ludicrous when I say “that is what I want”? Why does it sound so implausible? Why does it sound so impossible; such an unattainable fantasy?

    I’m getting close.

    I’m getting really close.

    But.

    My version of ‘winning’ is a shit version of ‘winning’. I will buy a shit house. I will live in a shit part of the world. I will not be able to live for very long, at a reasonable standard of living, before I run out of money. My freedom will cost me the ultimate price: premature death.

    Is that so bad, premature death? Many people who pay off their mortgage and retire, do not live for very long. Are they ‘winners’? Obviously not.

    To win the game, you have to have spent more years of freedom, financially independent, retired and living in a house you own, than anybody else. The winner is the person who spends the most years in that situation. There are no prizes for paying off your mortgage, retiring, and having a huge pot of savings, when you are 65 years old, and you die 16 years later, having spent most of that time with no freedom at all because you are old and sick and dying.

    In terms of quality-adjusted life years, if I spend just 8 years with good health, right now, I will have achieved more than 16 years with arthritis, dementia, cataracts, deafness, incontinence, heart disease, lung disease, diabetes… not to mention the vastly diminished energy levels, fragility of my body, and far greater length of time for any injury to heal.

    Why wait?

    I don’t need to wait until I’m pensionable age to take advantage of my health. In fact, to wait would be incredibly foolish, because it’s inevitable that my health will deteriorate, and there’s an ever-increasing chance of death. How stupid it would be, to die before retirement, or soon after.

    Sadly, there’s a finite limit to the length of my early retirement, which dictates that my life must be cut short, artificially, in order to yield the high-quality years of freedom which I quite rightfully demand. There’s a price to be paid, and I will pay the ultimate price on a pre-chosen day, in the not-too-distant future. However, don’t be sad… everyone dies you stupid cunt.

     

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  • Everybody Wants to Die Rich

    This is a story about retirement…

    Opera house

    It’s unusual that nobody sets out to be impoverished in old age – quite the opposite – but most people will end up poor during the twilight years of their life. It is unusual that so much money is pumped into pension funds, but so few enjoy a wealthy retirement.

    I suppose, for people who work but don’t earn much, there’s an ever-decreasing opportunity to build up any kind of pension pot. Since the demise of both final-salary pensions, and social housing, the difficulty of balancing the immediate needs of food, housing, clothing and other essentials, far outweighs the impending old-age poverty. Although the home-ownership fetish appears to lead to some security, in fact the cost of council tax, energy bills and food, is still substantial enough to erode anybody’s meagre pension income, even without the cost of a mortgage. Old-age poverty is inevitable.

    Given that we are all aiming for the same thing, in theory, it’s remarkable that most of us fail to achieve it.

    I suppose some will say that they love their work, and they’re happy to accept that they’re underpaid, because they are happy with their career. I suppose some will say that friends and family are their wealth, and haven’t paid much attention to the trivial financial nonsense. In fact, they all care about what happens to them in old age, it’s just that they assume – wrongly – that things will work out OK. Things will not work out OK.

    Pensions are, unfortunately, a Ponzi scheme. All public companies function on the basis that very large pension funds will automatically have to buy their shares, once they reach a certain market capitalisation (i.e. valuation). Many private companies, angel investors, venture capitalists, private equity fund managers, entrepreneurs, investment banks, and whole swathes of other ancillary leeches, function on the assumption that there is a virtually unlimited supply of new suckers, prepared to pump a substantial portion of their wages, into the Ponzi scheme, allowing others to siphon it all off. There are more people withdrawing obscene amounts of unearned money, than there are honest hard-workers injecting new money into the system, and as such, failure is inevitable.

    I find it very unusual that many people feel wedded to a particular corporation, which evidently pays them very little versus the market value of their labour, which can be worked out by the profit generated for the company. The argument is often that it’s a “safe” job, that redundancy money provides “financial security” and that they’re somehow locked into a pension scheme, which is expected to provide a “generous” retirement.

    No.

    Everybody wants to retire well-off, but unfortunately, demographics and the refusal by the generation who most recently retired, and are in the process of retiring, has brought the whole Ponzi scheme crashing down.

    Not everyone can retire on a final salary pension. In fact, already, far too many have been allowed to retire on a final salary pension. The huge burden placed upon the few at the bottom, by the massive number of grotesque fat greedy pigs at the top, creates an inverted pyramid which must, inevitably, topple over.

    Yes, it’s all well and good having a lot of industrial action to demand the impossible. Useless do-nothing people in do-nothing jobs went on strike, threatening to do nothing and harm nothing… then when they finally pissed off and made some space for others to get promoted and start earning a decent wage, there are now too few of the decent salary earners to pay for the disgustingly high final-salary pensions which were unearned by the lazy fucks who expect to spend a far greater proportion of their natural lives than any generation in human history, riding on the backs of the overworked and underpaid working class.

    Yes. My granny and granddad spent approximately 15 to 20% of their lifetime in retirement, which was pretty good going. Now that has doubled. To expect to spend 35 to 45% of your life, with good health, living by picking the pocket of your sons, daughters, grandchildren and great-grandchildren, is criminal.

    The generation who just retired and is in the process of retiring, will die rich, up to a point. Inflation eroded their debts and gifted them vast property wealth, without having to do a single day of labour. They will, of course, have to relinquish a small amount of that wealth when they eventually need to go into a nursing home, but because of good diet and medicine, they will enjoy the health of a 40 or 50 year old from their parents’ generation… for many decades.

    Meanwhile, the generation who are working now, today, will have no opportunity to retire rich, unless they are in the top 2 or 3% of earners; born into a wealthy family. For 97% of the country, nothing awaits in old age except for cold and hunger.

    It is highly unusual that, despite all the furious energy expended, scurrying around busy as hell, so few people have managed to comprehend the fact that their effort is futile: they’re going to die poor, and their children are already poor; their grandchildren are just utterly fucked. Take a look around: there’s nothing for them… no jobs, and no comfortable retirement at the end of it. It’s all fucked.

    I’m afraid neither compound interest, financial planning, nor hard work is going to make the blindest bit of difference: the numbers are too stacked against you; Ponzi schemes always fail eventually.

     

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  • Too Many Hours in the Day

    This is a story about time to kill…

    Commute

    I wouldn’t call myself a workaholic, but I hate to be bored, with nothing to do at work. I like to keep myself busy; to keep my mind busy.

    It seems extraordinary that I would struggle, then, with evenings and weekends. If I’ve got something better to do with my time, then why do I hate being bored at work? Why do I insist on having such busy working days, when I’m obviously so bored in my leisure time.

    The reality of my situation, is that I’m completely tied to a time and a place. Given that the prime hours of my waking day, and the majority of days of the week, I have a commitment to be available at more-or-less a moment’s notice, it would be very difficult for me – although not impossible – to get involved with another major project, in my leisure time.

    Psychologically, I’m not built to context-switch. I spend the majority of my income-earning hours context switching, to the point which would make most people’s heads spin. My approach to my work doesn’t allow for any long periods of concentration, although the role does demand concentration: the only solution is to work extremely quickly, and get very good at context switching. It’s enormously taxing, to have your train of thought interrupted continually, and to manage to still be productive; to not forget any of the important details.

    I never really thought of myself as a details person. Certainly, names and dates often seem to be filtered out by my brain, along with other trivia deemed worthless. I’m completely clueless about pop culture. I’m utterly divorced from tabloid gossip drivel. I’m culturally disconnected from the bulk of my colleagues, for example.

    Although it’s pretty obvious that I’m an arrogant and aloof individual, condescending, conceited and full of a misguided and misplaced sense of superiority… I don’t actually think that my life is better than anybody else’s. In fact, I am acutely aware that my life is considerably worse than the breeder plebs who spend their life watching soap operas with their grubby progeny, and otherwise festering in a pit their own ignorance and stupidity: sounds like bliss.

    There’s nothing quite like the miserable realisation that you made a substantial wrong turn in your life, and it’s too late to make different choices. Once you’re beyond the point of no return, inured into a life of isolation, then your fate is sealed. Just as it was when I was a schoolchild, as an adult it will be immediately obvious that I don’t fit in.

    What I’m left with, would be considered extremely valuable, for those who couldn’t wait to fulfil the will of their genes, as a mindless vessel for DNA replication. I sleep as much as I want – which is a lot – and I have as much leisure time as I want. Perversely, I have too much leisure time, and I wish I could work twice as many hours in the day, and 7 days a week… but it would be so irregular that it would cause more problems than it would solve.

    My strategy is to sprint and coast. I am working as hard as I can, in the hope that I can take a short career break. I am working as hard as I can, so I can enjoy a period of time to pursue whatever I want, uninterrupted.

    Of course, everyone’s strategy is to work as hard as they can, so that they can have a lengthy period without work… for most that is retirement. For me, that’s not an option… I’m working to a constricted and constrained timescale; my choices are limited. I don’t know why other people think – naïvely in my opinion – that they’ll get to enjoy their retirement: the omens are not good, health-wise, financially and more generally in terms of the benefit that’s been promised, versus the likely reality. Your strategy is to defer that period without work until later life, gambling that your health will be OK. My strategy is to live my life within the parameters of what is for certain; that I have my health right now, today.

    It might seem appallingly churlish to complain about long evenings and weekends, bored, but I assure you that the time is filled with seemingly interminable suffering.

     

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