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Your long rant basically says don't invest money at all, just keep cash in your mattress? Who in their right mind would follow this advice? Let's say we don't

Your long rant basically says don't invest money at all, just keep cash in your mattress? Who in their right mind would follow this advice? Let's say we don't worry at all about saving money, and just funnel our energy into "creative endeavors." If those creative endeavors are profitable, what are you going to do with the money? It doesn't take a lot of energy to setup a 401k or Roth IRA. It doesn't take a lot of energy to pick an asset allocation that protects you from most risks. For example, a bond allocation will protect your money during a period of deflation, while a gold allocation will protect your money during periods of inflation. A stock allocation will grow your money during periods of prosperity. Just pick a good allocation and rebalance yearly. It should only take you a couple hours a year to worry about it, and you'll be exponentially better off at retirement than someone who stuck all their cash in a mattress.

evilduck 16y ago
Your long rant basically says don't invest money at all, just keep cash in your mattress? That's pretty clearly not what was said. The upshot is that you are better off taking the mental energy you would have expended on "investing" and subsequently worrying about your money, and instead funneling it into your creative endeavors
jblow 16y ago
I actually do have a 401k (as well as an additional retirement fund), but I only have those things because I have surplus money sitting around. The problem with something like a 401k is that there is a heavy opportunity cost: you don't get to use that money, ever, until you retire. If there were something productive you could have done with the money instead, that were still relatively safe, maybe you should have done that! (Especially in the current climate of seemingly-perpetually-low interest rates). If creative endeavors are profitable, you can use the resulting money to fuel more creative endeavors, thus making the world a better place. Keeping money in a bank account or publicly-traded stock does not particularly make the world a better place. Once I got approximately into the f-you money level of income, it became crystal clear how fictitious money is in the first place. I wake up one morning, and bam, I am wealthy! Why? Because someone said so and typed a number into a computer. Okay... that's kind of weird. Given that money is so fictitious and somewhat meaningless, it is a shame to give into primal hoarding impulses, just so one can see the number in one's bank account go up like a high score in a video game. It's much better to make like Elon Musk and use your money for what it is: a way to wield influence to make the world more like you would like it to be.
- bretthoerner 16y ago
  > you don't get to use that money, ever, until you retire You can typically loan to yourself, especially for things like first home ownership (considering the average age here, most of us are probably in that bucket).

evilduck 16y ago

Your long rant basically says don't invest money at all, just keep cash in your mattress? That's pretty clearly not what was said. The upshot is that you are better off taking the mental energy you would have expended on "investing" and subsequently worrying about your money, and instead funneling it into your creative endeavors

jblow 16y ago

I actually do have a 401k (as well as an additional retirement fund), but I only have those things because I have surplus money sitting around. The problem with something like a 401k is that there is a heavy opportunity cost: you don't get to use that money, ever, until you retire. If there were something productive you could have done with the money instead, that were still relatively safe, maybe you should have done that! (Especially in the current climate of seemingly-perpetually-low interest rates). If creative endeavors are profitable, you can use the resulting money to fuel more creative endeavors, thus making the world a better place. Keeping money in a bank account or publicly-traded stock does not particularly make the world a better place. Once I got approximately into the f-you money level of income, it became crystal clear how fictitious money is in the first place. I wake up one morning, and bam, I am wealthy! Why? Because someone said so and typed a number into a computer. Okay... that's kind of weird. Given that money is so fictitious and somewhat meaningless, it is a shame to give into primal hoarding impulses, just so one can see the number in one's bank account go up like a high score in a video game. It's much better to make like Elon Musk and use your money for what it is: a way to wield influence to make the world more like you would like it to be.

bretthoerner 16y ago
> you don't get to use that money, ever, until you retire You can typically loan to yourself, especially for things like first home ownership (considering the average age here, most of us are probably in that bucket).