dtcwee: The Value of Nothing

Is ending a financially draining relationship worth the hit to assets? Some tools to price staying vs going. via GIPHY

Is having children to care for you in old age a good strategy? The social contract, particularly in Confucian societies, is that adults are expected to care for their elderly, reciprocating the care received as children. But how well is this expectation played out in fact?

Why you should want to work. The fable of the 'The Ant and the Grasshopper' is often used to prime the work-shy for shame and deprivation.

Will having children make marriages last? Children, it is supposed, so enrich a marriage that it is more likely to endure over time. They bring a unique stimulus, necessitate close teamwork, and foster intimate communication. While some would argue that they could seek such stimuli elsewhere, and others would say that they can do without that sort of personal development, the naysayers are not strong enough to displace a nuclear family ideal that has persisted despite change in the 20th and 21st centuries.

Help stop the spread of social anxiety. A fact sheet.  FOMO (fear of missing out) and status anxiety are highly contagious social anxieties. 😨 What are they? The fear of being excluded from knowledge, experiences, and interactions (FOMO), and consequentially being considered unsuccessful by society (status anxiety). What Are the Symptoms?

Can testaments be created that outlast heirs? The Native American practice of looking forward seven generations sounds noble but is essentially vague. Still, it seeds the idea for an investment math exercise that could provide not just for seven generations, but the generations beyond. (Fund Manager Conference Call)

Australia's Productivity Commission estimates that the baby boomer generation (born between 1946 and 1964, aged 56 - 74 in 2020) will pass $3.5 trillion dollars in wealth to their heirs by 2050. The distribution will not be even.

What if it's actually the houses? I spent the last six months in Australia without a car, looking to do some travel, home repairs, and a little blogging about life without a car. That's all come to an end.

What are the odds my will gets challenged? My dad's making a big deal now that he's done his will, telling us kids that we had better accept what we're given (though giving zero details about the actual split). Why? 

The cost of kids vs residential care. It used to be that children were a retirement strategy. You'd gently pass away in your mortgage-free bed surrounded by loved ones. Old folks' homes were for lonely deviants who failed at family formation. Let's compare ...

I used to agree with the mainstream view that an aging population was deflationary. The logic: old people don't buy new stuff. Real world examples: Japan, Singapore, Germany, etc. If inflation did pop its head up, governments would reflexively smash it with higher interest rates, never mind the resultant unemployment. Why? Well, the US did it in the 1970s. Since then, much of the neo-liberal project has been to transfer power from workers to consumers. Voters were happy with that trade-off then, so they probably would be again. The numbers stack up politically. Inflation affects everyone. Unemployment only affects workers. I don't work. I'm team higher unemployment. Anticipating a future of stable or falling prices, I relaxed going into the COVID pandemic.

Why are Middle-Aged Men Missing from the Labor Market? ( NY TImes ) Men ages 35 to 44 are staging a lackluster rebound from pandemic job loss, despite a strong economy.

Household formation was dullishly ordinary before it became the Australian 'dream'.

To aid division of assets under Australian Family Law. There are many resources to aid understanding of the property division/settlement process, the SA Law Handbook comes to mind, but few help with the calculations or how they map onto various elements in the court forms. As a result, parties risk negotiating without a clear idea of the assets in play, or how the division can be achieved. Closer to finalisation, the draft orders may be difficult to understand. After finalisation a poorly communicated division may lead parties to convince themselves that it was unfair.  So here's a Google Sheet: Family Law - Property Division Calculator (AU)   ... to help people reconceptualize the negotiations. It is, of course, free and you don't need to create a login (unlike some other online aids.)

Australian houses have gotten larger while Australian families have gotten smaller.

They've been using social media for centuries. My wife is an academic and constantly in fear of: Senior peers ignoring and not citing her work; Younger peers publishing more, faster; Anticipated critiques of her papers. She's not alone. Her colleagues also live in dread, and academia as a whole has long been described as 'Publish or PERISH.'

Q: How can you tell if someone has an investment property? A: Don't worry, they'll tell you.

Don't hate on spenders. "What, like those folks who brag about taking the entire family to Disney World?" Yeah. Them. Those status-signalling conspicuous-consuming early-adopting aspirational arrivistes. They wanna flex buying SUVs on credit rather than a used station wagon with cash? Let 'em.

The future of Japan's national pension (国民年金/Kokumin Nenkin), and that of Japan. Japan is at the vanguard of indebted aging societies, so there's a lot of debate about whether it's going to be OK, seeing as more than a few developed nations will also Japan-ify. Team "Prep for Armageddon" points to the huge national debt. Team "Shrug" points to that debt being overwhelmingly yen-denominated and domestically held. If indeed  each Japanese citizen is owed 9 million yen  (about USD90,000) what realistic claim do they have to it? Because how they might access it has ramifications not just for citizens, but the future of the country. That's what we're here to tease out.

You are probably selling your time for less than it is worth. The personal value of your time gets scarcer as you age and therefore more valuable. However employers and everyone else values what you output with your time, so unless you (spend time to) increase your effectiveness, the value of your time to them stays the same. Let's dive into this.