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96-Year-Old Secretary Quietly Amasses Fortune, Then Donates $8.2M

• ghazak 9y ago
  Just goes to show the effect of putting away money every year, and placing it in assets where the returns will compound over a long period.
  • loeg 9y ago
    Especially over a 67 year period! If she saved about $10k (2018 dollars) annually for the first ten years of her working career, got ~4% after inflation, and never saved another penny that would account for ~$1.2 million of the sum by itself. Buy and hold long term; reinvest dividends folks :-).
    • djrobstep 9y ago
      What if I'm hit by a bus and killed the day before I retire?
      • loeg 9y ago
        That is a fairly unlikely outcome. Consult an actuarial table. If it happens, it happens. Not saving for retirement because you might die suddenly is irrational and defies statistics on when and how people die.
      • CydeWeys 9y ago
        Not sure what your point is here -- A chance of reaching the future means you shouldn't plan for the future at all, even though statistically most people do survive to retirement age?
        • brisance 9y ago
          No, grandparent is saying "carpe diem". You never know when you're going to drop dead, and being too old makes it difficult to see the world. Also, you never know when evil politicians are going to raid Social Security or change the laws to protect insurance companies that have taken on moral hazards, causing you to lose your coverage/annuity.
        • lifeformed 9y ago
          The point, in my interpretation, is: don't put all your eggs in the basket of your latter years. Find the balance of long term planning and short term fulfillment.
          • CydeWeys 9y ago
            Nobody's suggesting doing such though (yet the comment seemed to imply someone had). The suggestion was to save a meager $10K/year, which is tiny relative to the salaries of most people on here.
            • sidlls 9y ago
              It's 20% of the gross median household income. For the typical family it's probably closer to 25%-30% or more of their gross pay net of taxes. That's a lot of money to save for this kind of household. It's simply not a realistic goal for the majority of households in America.
        • hfdgiutdryg 9y ago
          I think the implication is that if your spend your life toiling for future reward at the expense of present reward, you may lay there on the pavement bleeding out, wishing that you'd taken that vacation you always wanted. Obviously it's presuming that you're neglecting reasonable gratification in the present, and it's all a spectrum of choices and rewards. But often people talk about financial investment without balancing it with "personal investment". Personal enrichment can pay interest of a sort, too.
          • loeg 9y ago
            I think you're maybe being too charitable with djrobstep's comment. It's an inane response to the comment it replies to. Here's the full context: > > Especially over a 67 year period! If she saved about $10k (2018 dollars) annually for the first ten years of her working career, got ~4% after inflation, and never saved another penny that would account for ~$1.2 million of the sum by itself. > > Buy and hold long term; reinvest dividends folks :-). > What if I'm hit by a bus and killed the day before I retire? It's just not responsive to the original comment and doesn't really bring up anything novel. It might be slightly more reasonable if included your elaborations, but it doesn't, and even then it's totally silly. Saving $10k/yr is not a hardship for most tech workers and does not preclude gratification in the present! $90-100k annually is still several standard deviations above median income.
            • lordCarbonFiber 9y ago
              What you, and most people championing the virtues of the slow and steady save, fail to consider is the time value of money (ie why those investments compound so much interest). Money today is worth more than money tomorrow is worth a truck load more than money in 67 years. Combined with the fact that, at least in my opinion, money when I'm young and healthy is also worth multiplicatively more than money post retirement. I think most young people would rather be, and far better off with, saving that 10k annually you suggest to amassing a down payment on city property or equivalent investment in current quality of life rather than prepping for a lonely future.
              • 9y ago
      • ThrowawayR2 9y ago
        > What if I'm hit by a bus and killed the day before I retire? Isn't that question backwards? What we should be asking is: What are we going to do if we _aren't_ hit by a bus and killed the day before we retire?
      • post_break 9y ago
        You're getting down voted but it's true. My mom was a few years away from retirement. Was cutting trees in the back yard and had a pain in her shoulder. Cancer in her lung. She died 8 months later. My dad and her were about to retire and just travel the world. Now I call my dad every other day because he is slowly starting to lose it.
        • kalleboo 9y ago
          Same thing for my grandparents. Saved and made grand plans for travel. Then grandpa got lung cancer and grandma got to travel solo instead... I'm getting my ya-yas out in my youth.
      • eeZah7Ux 9y ago
        This is, quite literally, an example of survivor bias. Some people might be able to amass a fortune by the time they are 96 unless you die before / your index funds & co tank / you, or somebody close, need expensive treatments.
      • Cthulhu_ 9y ago
        That's the crooked part about the US retirement system, as far as I could gather it. On my side of the pond, your employer deposits an X amount per month / paycheck into your retirement fund. That fund will play with it, invest it to get interest and make sure it keeps its value over time despite inflation. When you quit your job, that retirement fund will continue to manage your money. When you get a new job, either the fund continues or it's done in another pension fund - you are given the option to either have what's in the old fund paid out, or transferred to your new one. When you are fired before your retirement, no worries - the retirement fund is yours, not your employer's. And TBF everyone should fight for that. There's nobody that will hire anyone until they retire anymore. US employment laws are too lax to enforce that. And if your retirement is directly linked to you having a job at age 65 or whatever the age is, you'll get fucked over one way or another.
        • mercutio2 9y ago
          I can’t tell what part of that you think is different in the US. The US has three major retirement regimes: - Defined contribution retirement funds, owned by the employee, managed by employer designated group - Defined benefit retirement funds, which are going away or nearly gone for non-public-employees, and are causing the bankruptcy of various states because governments thought it was clever to offer public employees most of their compensation in the distant future to deceive present taxpayers about the cost of government - An income distributing safety net for the elderly which is dressed up to pretend it’s a retirement program Doesn’t sound so different from most European systems I’m familiar with, except for the much better health care (which dominates costs in old age, of course)
    • ReallyAnonymous 9y ago
      my parents have always been frugal and wise with their money. My dad lost his job at age 51 and couldn't find another job so he retired. His last salary, in 1981, was 30K a year. But he's good at the stock market. My mom says they've never touched the principal. In addition, tax laws are written to benefit those who earn without working. The first $75k in qualified dividends is tax free. In 2017 he grossed about $120k, $80k in qualified dividends. With deductions, etc... his federal tax bill was $2k. And no social security. With their expenses about $50k, it compounds rather quickly. He's now 86.
      • vladsanchez 9y ago
        I must talk to your dad... Please!
    • jiveturkey 9y ago
      4% after inflation is not easy
      • dannyw 9y ago
        A S&P 500 index fund will get you that.
        • ghazak 9y ago
          At fees of 4/100ths of a percent. Vanguard has created a simply enormous consumer surplus. Thank you Bogle.
        • adrianN 9y ago
          Starting in what year?
          • dannyw 9y ago
            Starting in any >25 year period since 1903, I think.
            • adrianN 9y ago
              I looked it up. There are long periods where it performed just above inflation. http://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/interactive/2011/01/02/business/20110102-metrics-graphic.html?ref=business http://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/interactive/2011/...
              • loeg 9y ago
                Nope. That graph is incredibly misleading. Note that the middle color represents 3-7% inflation-adjusted returns after "fees and taxes" (how are those calculated?) and the light red color represents 0-3% inflation-adjusted returns (again after fees and taxes). 6.2% is the claimed average inflation-adjusted return. A lump sum invested for 67 years at 6.2% is something like a 5500% return on initial investment. Very few start dates yield poor returns over a 20-year period, and fewer over a 25+ year period. Much less 67 years. I'm also not sure about the methodology of "including fees and taxes," since the average mutual fund fee has been very high until quite recently, despite Vanguard's start in the 70s, and taxes are highly individual. The article is light on details.
  • intrasight 9y ago
    Indeed. You can play out scenarios yourself using this investment calculator app that I built for a client recently. It does ask for contact info before launching, but from what I can tell, they never contact you. https://simulators.gibsoncapital.com/total-simulator/ https://simulators.gibsoncapital.com/total-simulator/
    • betterworldb 9y ago
      There's this awesome free tool from Dave Ramsey as well that's good and doesn't take your contact info https://www.daveramsey.com/smartvestor/investment-calculator https://www.daveramsey.com/smartvestor/investment-calculator
  • marnett 9y ago
    and the irony that no modern day receptionist would have a job long enough to benefit from the exact system that made it possible in this one case.
• klochner 9y ago
  Lawyers aren't known for their stock picking, I wonder if she was piggybacking on insider trading by M&A lawyers.
  • jandrese 9y ago
    I think it's more the fact that they were a two income family and never had kids. Their apartment was probably paid off and they were one of those couples that was perfectly happy not taking expensive vacations or buying expensive things. Combine that with smart investing and you an amass quite a fortune over a lifetime. Of course then you are 95 and realize that without descendants about the only thing you can do with the money is give it to a charity and hope they don't squander it.
    • greenyoda 9y ago
      > without descendants about the only thing you can do with the money is give it to a charity and hope they don't squander it A reputable charity is less likely to squander $8M than one's descendants are.
    • emdubs 9y ago
      Dink dink dink! We have a winner!
  • meric 9y ago
    She had many years to compound.
    • wjn0 9y ago
      Quick script, to show some example numbers on how this could happen (assumes she worked for 75 years, that her salary kept up with annual rate of inflation and she always invested 10%, and a very high annual rate of return of 10%) [1]. [1] https://gist.github.com/wjn0/67641a83d61e2fe74f8729f65fe4bdb4 https://gist.github.com/wjn0/67641a83d61e2fe74f8729f65fe4bdb...
      • 9y ago
• deleted 9y ago
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• aaronharnly 9y ago
  What this shows to me is that a life can have a profound impact through long, careful and modest dedication; rhetoric of disruption and youthful riches can be profound too, but we shouldn’t lose sight of other possibilities.
  • wpietri 9y ago
    Absolutely. I love this bit: > Just before she retired, Mr. Hyams said he saw the 96-year-old Ms. Bloom trudging out of the subway and headed to work in the middle of a fierce snowstorm. “I said, ‘What are you doing here?’ and she said, ‘Why, where should I be?’” he recalled. It reminds me of a favorite bit from "Zen Flesh, Zen Bones": > Hyakujo, the Chinese Zen master, used to labor with his pupils even at the age of eighty, trimming the gardens, cleaning the grounds, and pruning the trees. > The pupils felt sorry to see the old teacher working so hard, but they knew he would not listen to their advice to stop, so they hid away his tools. > That day the master did not eat. The next day he did not eat, nor the next. "He may be angry because we have hidden his tools," the pupils surmised. "We had better put them back." > The day they did, the teacher worked and ate the same as before. In the evening he instructed them: "No work, no food."
    • Crontab 9y ago
      I've never heard of "Zen Flesh, Zen Bones" before. Thanks for bringing it up.
    • dvtrn 9y ago
      That's a beautiful allegory, and reminds me a lot of a lesson passed down from my father: "doing what you must today makes it easier to do what you want tomorrow".
    • Dragonai 9y ago
      This excerpt is wonderful. Thanks so much for sharing.
    • chii 9y ago
      > ... The day they did, the teacher worked and ate the same as before. In the evening he instructed them: "No work, no food." Isn't this very contrary to the belief that people shouldn't have to work for their basic necessities?
• fmax30 9y ago
  Is it common for secretaries to be working until they are in their 90's? Because 96 is really old. I am amazed that she didn't quit earlier. In an era where the retirement age is around 60-65 and most tech workers plan to retire by their 40's. It is truly astounding to see someone work well into their mid 90's. Props to the lady for that!
  • andrewprock 9y ago
    "most tech workers plan to retire by their 40's" Most tech workers who plan to retire by their 40s will be working into their 50s.
    • loeg 9y ago
      It really depends on what you mean by "plan" and how realistic your expectations are. And "most," I guess. Check out the reddit sub FinancialIndependence if you want to discuss or learn. If your income is high enough (tech workers are commonly several standard deviations above median income) and your cost of living / lifestyle expenses low enough (SFBA makes this harder, but may come with more income), it is definitely possible to retire in your 40s.
      • emdubs 9y ago
        Saying something is possible is a far cry from saying it is something "most" are planning.
        • loeg 9y ago
          I didn't say that. I agree that most tech workers are not (realistically, anyway) planning to retire in their 40s. Most in their 20s probably do not have concrete retirement plans. The claim I was responding to is andrewprock's statement: > Most tech workers who plan to retire by their 40s will be working into their 50s. Which makes a specific claim about the specific subset of tech workers who are planning to retire in their 40s.
    • imnotadoctor999 9y ago
• icantdrive55 9y ago
  Just looked up the nonprofits 990's and it looks like a decent nonprofit. I only looked at the three highest paid employees though. I didn't calculate adverting, and company expenses to money sent out to the cause. I never used to be this leary of nonprofits. I guess I'm just getting old, and seen way too many people abusing nonprofit status? (Waystar takes public information and makes it easy for the user to evaluate a 501c3. Waystar recently made it harder to access the financials, but they are still Free with registration. You can see the last three years usually. Use a throwaway email because they do like to market.)
• chubot 9y ago
  What a great story! I imagine she must have been profoundly content in life. She had no need to show off her wealth or even to acquire material things beyond what she needed.
• dang 9y ago
  This is fabulous: After retiring, Ms. Bloom agreed to move to a senior residence mainly because “she wanted to find a good bridge game,” said Ms. Bornstein, a retired social worker. To scout them out, and finally to move into one on the Upper West Side, she insisted on taking the subway, Ms. Bornstein said.
  • sharonzhou 9y ago
    Sounds like she knows her priorities and adamantly avoids wasting money and chasing things for reputation's sake. I aspire to be like that.
    • IncRnd 9y ago
      It's because she lived through the Depression.
• lopmotr 9y ago
  This is why I don't have sympathy for chronically poor people in developed countries. Apart from serious disabilities, most poor people actually have high incomes but can't stop spending money every day on luxuries to entertain themselves.
  • k3d 9y ago
    > most poor people actually have high incomes what is your evidence for this? take america as a "developed country"
    • lopmotr 9y ago
      Here are some stats I just looked up for the US: $7.25 minimum wage 90% of households own a car [1]. In many cities, rent is about 15% of income, and median rent is less than minimum wage [2]. 0.64/100000 malnutrition deaths [3]. [1] https://qz.com/873704/no-car-households-are-becoming-more-common-in-the-us-after-decades-of-decline/ https://qz.com/873704/no-car-households-are-becoming-more-co... [2] https://www.cnbc.com/2017/11/02/best-cities-for-cheap-rent.html https://www.cnbc.com/2017/11/02/best-cities-for-cheap-rent.h... [3] http://www.worldlifeexpectancy.com/cause-of-death/malnutrition/by-country/ http://www.worldlifeexpectancy.com/cause-of-death/malnutriti...
      • k3d 9y ago
        literally none of that meaningfully indicates that "most [american] poor people actually have high incomes". minimum wage means nothing without considering cost of living which outpaces a 40 hour work week at 7.25 (or even the potentially higher state minimum wage) basically everywhere in the country [1] as per your article, a) car ownership is dropping, b) a household having a car can mean sharing it with a number of other people c) 90% of households having a car is not relevant to a discussion only about those in poverty and d) in most non-urban environments, having a car is a necessity, not a luxury, if you want to be able to, y'know, get to work and the grocery store [2][3] sure, some cities are more affordable than others. what percentage of the country lives in those cities? do you expect everyone to move there? if so, do you think those affordable rents will stay affordable? additionally, please explain, in detail, your full plan for moving when you have no savings, and for mitigating the effects of leaving your job, the place you know, as well as all your friends and family who provide a vital safety net in case of emergency. i literally do not know what you're trying to say with the malnutrition deaths note- do you think that having access to a social safety network in the form of foodstamps means you're not poor or something? lol [1] https://www.citylab.com/life/2015/09/mapping-the-difference-between-minimum-wage-and-cost-of-living/404644/ https://www.citylab.com/life/2015/09/mapping-the-difference-... [2] https://www.ers.usda.gov/amber-waves/2018/march/distance-to-grocery-stores-and-vehicle-access-influence-food-spending-by-low-income-households-at-convenience-stores/ https://www.ers.usda.gov/amber-waves/2018/march/distance-to-... [3] https://nhts.ornl.gov/briefs/PovertyBrief.pdf https://nhts.ornl.gov/briefs/PovertyBrief.pdf
• ggm 9y ago
  Is this technically "insider trading" in as much as she had privileged information to inform her buys, which were not general market exposed? I think not, they were personal buys from her line bosses, but I'm scratching my head a bit, if this would have been ethical had the buys being made in the office been for clients, and not her direct employers personal benefit.
  • mstade 9y ago
    Unless her bosses traded on insider information I don’t think it is. I work for a bank and get training in this sort of stuff every three months, but I’m certainly no lawyer so don’t take my word for it – I may well be wrong.
    • prklmn 9y ago
      It’s not uncommon for trades to be made in the wake of outsized unusual options trading activity in a stock on the theory that the unusual options activity is made by someone trading on insider knowledge. I’m not a lawyer either but I don’t think that qualifies as insider trading.
  • papercrane 9y ago
    No, only if he was trading on insider information and she was aware of that. Maybe if his orders were so large as to affect the stock price, but I doubt that.
  • IncRnd 9y ago
    Unless she got insider information, then it was not insider trading. Even so, not all insider trading is illegal.
• toadi 9y ago
  What strikes me most is that there is a need for benefactors to make sure people can get a proper education. Locking education for people with a disadvantage in life which is not their own doing is baffling for me. Especially in a developed country... Not everyone can win the parent lottery.
  • deleted 9y ago
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  • fred_is_fred 9y ago
    Or the rent controlled apartment lottery. A secretary now in NY in a non-rent control apartment would have $0 to put into any stocks after paying rent.
    • pvg 9y ago
      It's a pretty big town.
  • sundvor 9y ago
    Define developed? Properly developed countries such as Norway and Australia have quality public education systems. Sure, parentage always helps with the outcome, but the facilities are there for all children to do well - should they choose to do so. These countries also have universal health care. But I guess it's more important that your ultra rich stay ultra rich, to ensure a proper social divide between them and those unfortunate enough to be born to the poor. (Debating whether to use a snark mark here, landing on not).
    • adventured 9y ago
      You could consume the total wealth of the entire Forbes 400 and fund healthcare in the US for eight months. It will cost $45 trillion over the next ten years to fund US healthcare, conservatively - equal to nearly half of all household wealth. What's your next idea?
• e19293001 9y ago
  Stoics believe that this is more impressive than the lifestyles of rich people. José Mujica was once the president of Uruguay gave 90% of his presidential salary to the charity and driving a very old car. Stuffs like this is more impressive because not everyone can do that. [0] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jos%C3%A9_Mujica https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jos%C3%A9_Mujica
  • MoBattah 9y ago
    "He concluded his talk by adding: 'I see that there are many young people here; as an old man, a little advice... Life can set us a lot of snares, a lot of bumps, we can fail a thousand times, in life, in love, in the social struggle, but if we search for it we'll have the strength to get up again and start over. The most beautiful thing about the day is that it dawns. There is always a dawn after the night has passed. Don't forget it, kids. The only losers are the ones who stop fighting.'"
    • sireat 9y ago
      Only problem is that you do not see the new dawn. You need to sell yourself a broken bit of goods(that you will see that dawn) every real morning. We are quite good at local min-max because there is no global one.
      • moretai 9y ago
        There might be a global min-max.
      • kamaal 9y ago
        Its very important to look at life as phases. I think almost every one will go through at least one cycle of fail, struggle, rise, plateau. Sometimes there could be only one of such cycle all life, sometime they could be several. Despite your best efforts you will fail, falter and struggle. And sometimes, without doing anything at all you will win a lot. The best case scenario for people would be to have the failure stages early in life and success later so that one can have the maturity to handle things, save up and retire with new acquired wisdom from failure. The worst would be to have early success then failure all life. Regardless you just have to keep trying.
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• verelo 9y ago
  Is it just me or do you get the feeling it's possible her bosses may have been doing inside trades and she just got lucky by a) not knowing what was going on and b) copying the trades? I love the story either way, it just jumped out to me that she obviously 'beat the market' which typically means you knew something others in the market didn't.
  • MoBattah 9y ago
    It certainly would have been beneficial if she had written down her financial planning and published it upon her death via her will.
  • chubot 9y ago
    Why do you say she "obviously beat the market"? Estimate that the stock market has returned 7% a year for last 67 years (counting inflation, counting dividends). Then if she saved $6,300 per year for 67 years, she would have ended up with over $8.2M if she used an indexing strategy (no insider trading necessary). rate = 1.07 num_years = 67 yearly_savings = 6300 # dollars net_worth = 0 for _ in xrange(num_years): net_worth *= rate net_worth += yearly_savings print '{:,.2f}'.format(net_worth) 8,284,436.90 If you change it to 6% return, she would have have to save $10,200 a year. I'm sure 90% of the people reading this can save $6,000 - $10,000 a year. All you need is a regular job. Yes there are some things wrong with this analysis, but the point is: compound interest !!! (Feel free to post a better analysis, using real data instead of the annualized return. The results shouldn't be substantially different. The returns are adjusted for inflation but the amount of savings per year amount probably should be too. $6K is easy to save today, probably wasn't in 1955. Also probably take into account that fees were higher in 1955 and index funds have gotten better.)
    • woolvalley 9y ago
      The lady also worked until her 90s and died soon after her retirement. Working an extra 25 years past typical retirement age and barely drawing on principal helps also.
• volgo 9y ago
  The power of compounding interest. If you're 26 years old right now, then you have 70 years to compound your money. Assuming an average of 7% annual return: > x * 1.07 ^ 70 = 8200000 > x = 82000 / 114 > x = 72000 Essentially if you sock away $70k at age 26, that's how much you'll have when you're 96
  • 8note 9y ago
    I'm a 27 yo with $70k to sock away who's confused by your units.
    • MoBattah 9y ago
      I'm a 21 yo with $70k to sock away who's confused as to getting a solid 7% guaranteed year over year. But obviously that's not what's stopping us from socking away $70k at 7%.
      • YZF 9y ago
        Stocks. Not an every year guarantee but over 20-50 years you'll be fine... If you want 40% you can apparently get Argentinian bonds at the moment ... [EDIT: This last bit is a joke, if it's not clear]
        • greeneggs 9y ago
          Of course Japan's Nikkei index is still well below its peak in 1989. It isn't smart to assume that 7% will continue forever, particularly since developed economies' growth rates have all slowed, and without massive immigration slowed demographic growth makes it unlikely the rates will increase again. In any case, if you believe your charitable donations are better off invested in the stock market than being put to charitable work today, then why bother donating? That means you don't believe in the charity. It would be better to find a more effective charity!
          • YZF 9y ago
            Japan now appears to be a special case (also what about dividends reinvested?)... But by all means, diversify. I admit to not having a crystal ball. As to putting money to charity today I agree that might be a better idea. [EDIT: Even with dividends this particular time period in Japan yielded terrible returns. Investing in the stock market for long periods doesn't guarantee returns, nothing does, but it's a pretty good probability.]
• somequestions 9y ago
  This is no doubt a very selfless act, however, I don't agree with people of such wealth living in a rent controlled apartment for so many years and denying a genuinely underprivileged person/family the opportunity to live there.
  • fdr 9y ago
    The problem is this style of rent control, not her.
    • somequestions 9y ago
      So you disagree with means-testing social welfare? At all times she had the option to use her substantial wealth and live somewhere that wasn't subsidised.
      • fdr 8y ago
        No, I agree with means-testing it. Rent control is not means-tested. That's my problem with it.
• burntrelish1273 9y ago
  The manager (not owner) of a local storage facility lives extremely frugally: eats bananas, oatmeal, an apple and sandwich he brings from home. He has a number of stocks he watches daily after he finishes various tasks. He's the prototypical "millionaire next door."
• flashman 9y ago
  Compare and contrast with Jeff Bezos: "The only way that I can see to deploy this much financial resource is by converting my Amazon winnings into space travel." A stunning failure of imagination.
  • oceanman888 9y ago
    What would you do with that much money then? Pepole like Jeff Bezos and Elon musk probably find charity ognizaiton's efficiency not to their liking. If you can change the world once? why not twice. I personally feel like educating young leaders a good choice.
    • trumped 9y ago
      Better batteries and better solar panels would be nice... not sure how much it would cost though... Tesla improved the form factor of solar panels, but maybe not so much the efficiency or cost.
  • thefounder 9y ago
    If his space travel project works out it won't be a such bad thing for humanity. Some like to give it to charity, others like to do stuff that couldn't otherwise. What makes you think that x charity would create more value than its space program? Personally, to live a humble life is not very inspiring or interesting to me. I would spare a part of my fortune for something like the Nobel prize though.
    • lev99 9y ago
      > Personally, to live a humble life is not very inspiring or interesting to me. Personally, Blue Origin has not done work that inspires me. Specifically Blue Origin's New Shepard spacecraft seems to be reaching for the wrong benchmarks. They claim to enter space, and they do, but going straight up and down isn't nearly as valuable as orbital rockets. Blue Origin's timeline for entering orbit puts them years after Nasa's SLS, meaning they will be third to market for US based orbital launches, while competing with a large number of international competitors. New Shepard, Blue Origin's best success story, has less thrust than a North Korean ICBM. Many charities are doing more impressive and inspiring work than Blue Origin.
• Reedx 9y ago
  She worked at the same company for 67 years! That's worth an article itself. How many people have managed that?
• ivanhoe 9y ago
  Really shocking part of the story to me was that she retired at 96 years old?!
  • eXpl0it3r 9y ago
    I found that quite odd as well, but I mean if someone loves doing what they're doing and are bringing value to the table, why not? For many elderly people it might be better if they keep working on something, instead of losing all connection to reality just sitting at home.
    • ivanhoe 9y ago
      I meant it's crazy impressive. Three of four grandparents I had lived quite long lives, and I witnessed first-person how their once exceptional mental capabilities quickly deteriorated once they've crossed 88-90 years threshold. Being able to still work regularly at that age is just an amazing achievement.
• IkmoIkmo 9y ago
  Anyone inspired by this should look into the Giving what we can idea: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giving_What_We_Can https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giving_What_We_Can It's far from easy but they propose to give 10% of earnings. A lot of people who intend to give 'once they're rich' end up with lifestyle creep and never end up giving much and ultimately find it very difficult to make large cuts in their spending. Whereas those who grow up with it and only consider 90% of the extra earnings from promotions of their own, do much better.
  • psaniko 9y ago
    They have a calculator on their website [0] to compare your wealth ranking in the world with and without donating 10%. I believe for many people in IT it barely makes a difference (whereas for the recipients it's oftentimes life-changing). [0] https://www.givingwhatwecan.org/#how-rich-am-i https://www.givingwhatwecan.org/#how-rich-am-i
    • AstralStorm 9y ago
      And if you cannot donate money, you might be able to donate time and work if you have spare.
• matt4077 9y ago
  Let’s not ignore that she was clearly capable of much more than being a secretary, and that she was denied realizing her potential because of her gender.
• gcb0 9y ago
  if this is legal, what prevents google from reading emails and investing on the same stocks as one economist that happens to use gmail?
  • betterworldb 9y ago
    per A Random Walk Down Wall Street (https://www.amazon.com/Random-Walk-Down-Wall-Street/dp/0393330338 https://www.amazon.com/Random-Walk-Down-Wall-Street/dp/03933...) 99+% of people are best off not picking individual stocks and just investing in index funds.
• zhyder 9y ago
  Dilemma for those of us considering donating: 1. Donate (50) years from now: our investments will grow substantially on a compounded basis, and we'll give much more in dollars, even after adjusting for inflation 2. Donate now: we'll give much less, but -if donated to the right causes- the beneficiaries will see compounded benefits. E.g. this lady helped educate beneficiaries via college scholarships, and these beneficiaries will benefit from that education throughout their lifetime, from today till (50) years from now, with increased pay. (If a college scholarship seems to necessitate only big donations, and you can't imagine fractional scholarships being useful, imagine smaller donations for buying books for poor kids, etc) I don't know the answer myself, and sincerely could use debate here.
  • bo0tzz 9y ago
    I think a nuance here is that #2 will still hold later, say the 50 years from now that you mention in #1. It will just be other beneficiaries.
    • zhyder 9y ago
      True. One can make nuanced arguments around #1 as well. What if we were talking about saving kids from preventable fatal diseases by donating vaccines (or donating to research efforts that are developing non-profitable vaccines); those kids won't even be alive in 50 years. Or what if it was something that'd make kids more literate; in 50 years (hopefully!) literacy won't be a problem anymore, and higher education might be massively disrupted by MOOCs, etc.
      • hundt 9y ago
        I also think that, when I think of the beneficiaries of the giving as real people and not abstract "lives improved/saved," then "donate now" seems more compelling. Certainly I could not tell a potential beneficiary to their face that I'm saving the money for the unlikely possibility that I need it myself, but it's fine because if it is too late for them by the time I donate I will probably be able to help someone else just as much or more at that time. Along that same line of thinking: if my siblings desperately needed financial help and I could afford to give it to them, I would surely not keep the money out of a desire to have more later that I could give to my nieces and nephews.
• cascom 9y ago
  There are are a lot of laudable things in this story, but it seems rather odd to attribute so much of the wealth accumulation to just Ms. Bloom. She had a husband who seems to have had three careers, two of which potentially had very generous pension benefits, and a third that often pays quite well.
  • djrogers 9y ago
    TFA specifically says the accounts were soleley in her name, she made the investments, and that it's possible he didn't even know about them.
    • sidlls 9y ago
      I think the point of the comment you responded to is that she was able to do what you say primarily because she and her husband didn't need (most) of her income at all: it was (almost) entirely disposable.
    • cascom 9y ago
      Her husband died over a decade ago - the accounts being in just her name is literally proof of nothing, if they maintained separate finances prior to his death in most cases the assets would all be re-titled in her name. For all we know her husband inherited $10m before he died, and she blew the difference in Vegas one weekend... My point is that there is a lot of speculation in this article and not much in the way of facts
• thomk 9y ago
  I know it's a story about giving, but I find it kid of sad that she didn't enjoy that money more. I can't believe she enjoyed not spending it so much that would have compared to traveling or building something? Not that giving is bad, I'm sure it felt good, but man waiting until you are in your 90s to have that big effect seems like such an unnecessary delay. I'm not trolling, just a gut reaction here. Anyone else feel that way? Maybe it's because I'm an American consumer and consumerism is all I know.
  • quadyeast 9y ago
    For me buying stuff is anxiety making and not fun. If the cost is > $100 there is sure to follow a good bout of buyers remorse and often a returned item.
    • therealdrag0 9y ago
      On the other from personal experience and research I have heard of, buying "experiences" is more rewarding. Take trips, go bungie jumping, have a fancy meal, and doing it with friends the better. These things are less prone to buyer's remorse.
  • JustSomeNobody 9y ago
    > ...but I find it kid of sad that she didn't enjoy that money more. I think she enjoyed that money tremendously. It's such a great feeling to give and to have the heart to give so generously, wow, what an amazing woman.
    • thomk 9y ago
      Alright, fair enough. I can see that too. Thank you.