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immigrant in 1990, naturalized citizen 1996. scarred by South African experience - market declines and double digit inflation lasting for decades, exchange rates plummeting, exchange controls kept us from getting any money out. So everything we saved before the age of 30, all that was solid melts into air. not interested in personal finance but would like to retire someday, as a result obsessively concerned with personal finance. No debt ever, except for the mortgage. BSc degrees in mathematics from University of Cape Town, philosophy and operations research from University of S. Africa. Postgraduate degree in computer science. Army conscript, worked in Electronic Warfare for Chief of Staff Intelligence. University of Witwatersrand, postgrad student part time, full time DBA and project leader for university IT department. Consultant on projects at RJ Reynolds, State of California as immigrant H-1B laborer. Technical specialist at Software AG for thirty years until bought out by IBM, now IBM.
Comments
+1 65 now, bought what I thought would be my last car, Ford Maverick hybrid. I love it.. but it is a computer appliance with an engine, I can't work on it. This has been troubling my sleep, slightly. My old car, 2004 Ford Sport Trac, was something I had confidence that I could repair most anything up to a transmission rebuild. This new truck ? I have to have faith that Ford has made reliable hybrids (C-Max) for years now, and hope..
Post: Another HD Post About Cars
Link to comment from June 3, 2025
Computer scientist here to tell you that blockchain and bitcoin are cons. Bitcoin/blockchain is now seventeen years old, and has not yet found any use case. It excels in: 1. speculative gambling on valuation, bitcoin as poker chip 2. enabling massive ransomware attacks on corporations and government. No other use case has emerged. Bruce Schneier is a computer security expert. He wrote, What blockchain does is shift some of the trust in people and institutions to trust in technology. You need to trust the cryptography, the protocols, the software, the computers and the network. And you need to trust them absolutely, because they're often single points of failure. When that trust turns out to be misplaced, there is no recourse. If your bitcoin exchange gets hacked, you lose all of your money. If your bitcoin wallet gets hacked, you lose all of your money. If you forget your login credentials, you lose all of your money. If there's a bug in the code of your smart contract, you lose all of your money. If someone successfully hacks the blockchain security, you lose all of your money. In many ways, trusting technology is harder than trusting people. Would you rather trust a human legal system or the details of some computer code you don't have the expertise to audit? Of course you can make money on bitcoin, you can make money betting on horses too. That doesn't make either of them an investment.
Post: Up Because It’s Up
Link to comment from June 3, 2025
"Usually, when investors become fearful, they seek out the safe haven of the bond market, and especially the security traditionally offered by U.S. Treasurys." the problem is that US Treasuries are no longer a safe haven, as no-one knows what the mad king might do next. All the old certainties melt into air when the regulatory state is dismantled. Foreign stocks are booming and are now disconnected from US stocks, which hasn't happened in decades. As Zeynep Tufekci notes, "decades-long stable *correlations* between stocks, dollar and US bond yields are still breaking. "
Post: School Is In
Link to comment from April 22, 2025
we have had experience in down markets that last for decades, with double digit inflation and exchange rates tanking. That wiped out ten years of retirement savings in S. Africa. So I have somewhat catastrophic expectations, having lived through it once already..
Post: Meeting Expectations?
Link to comment from March 10, 2025
I have a folder on my desktop named Retirement Fantasy.. Still working, had planned to retire end of this year at 65, delay SS until 70 so my wife gets the best possible survivor benefit. my wife is younger, working another five years then take SS and retirement at 65. I'd planned to sign up with IOCC rapid response disaster team, do trail maintenance for BWCA and locally in CO, and help with church work. Also take over most meal planning and cooking while my wife is working. There are several backpacking/canoe trips I've never had time for while working, put those tentatively on the calendar for 2026. Our younger son has had a number of health issues and will be living at home for the foreseeable future, which had not been part of the plan. So although we'd love to travel, that's not an option for us. However given the tariffs which will produce high inflation, and market declines, and the cuts to SS and Medicare that the administration is promising, it may not be possible for me to retire. I can't keep doing my current high stress fast response job and won't be able to find another IT job, so looking into Costco and Ace Hardware. I'm sad for the retirement fantasy I'll never get to..
Post: Meeting Expectations?
Link to comment from March 9, 2025
new dentists have enormous college loans to pay off, so they are incentivized to find things.. went to a new dentist, they had a bold treatment plan for me that would have been about $10-20 000 out of pocket payments. I went back to my old dentist, it's been ten years and he's replaced one loose filling..
Post: Hole Truth
Link to comment from February 25, 2025
thanks David.. we have found this all out too ;-) but I didn't know about the ABLE Act. set up a special needs trust in our wills last year. One child in medical school, one child at home forever. Roll the dice..
Post: Special Care Needed
Link to comment from November 5, 2024
exactly where I am, except 14 months left.. not sure I'm going to make it. but, that extra year of not needing to nibble away at retirement savings seems like it is necessary.. trapped in a cubicle for 42 years now, ready for something else by now.
Post: Before You Quit
Link to comment from October 31, 2024
I have the opposite problem - working in IT, a lot of companies including mine are enforcing back to the office. My local office 15min away is closed, so now the company wants me to start commuting 2 hours a day to the downtown office. Honestly it might force me into early retirement, I'm not prepared to do that.
Post: Before You Quit
Link to comment from October 31, 2024
"After all, if you truly have a burning desire to do something, why aren’t you doing it already?" I work 9 hour days, on call weekends every 5th week. That means every 5th week is a 12 day week with no breaks, which takes at least one weekend to recover from. Desire is nothing to do with it, it's about time and energy. As a younger man before kids I did a lot of volunteer work. I really hope to manage a bit of useful volunteer work after retirement when I'll have an extra 9 hours a day to do it..
Post: Before You Quit
Link to comment from October 31, 2024