dtcwee: The Value of Nothing

I've been wrong. Many times. Often for the 'right' reasons. 

Moving back in with Mum and Dad: Is it rational for unemployed and discouraged workers to return to or stay at the family home? This boy's too young to be singing the blues Lost generation , discouraged worker , hikikomori . We view them with pity if not derision, as if they, and the millenial/Gen Y/X-er we know still living with their parents just aren't trying hard enough . We'd love to help them but we have no time left from our busy professional lives except to throw them some tips, proof read their C.V.s, and feel a little smug that at least we're on the right side of the dole queue. But money is money and unless explicitly disclosed, it is impossible to distinguish between corporate largesse and family indulgence. Who is to know whether your salary, work, or your uncle got you that smartphone? Lest we forget, patronage existed long before employment. Neither Da Vinci nor Michelangelo were subjected to psychometric evaluations by HR.

Why do people try to beat the market? Barry Ritholtz interviews Burton Malkiel in this podcast . I'm a big fan of both, but felt uneasy when they seemed to chuckle at investors who seek consistent market-beating returns despite decades of evidence that such a feat is incredibly rare. I don't subscribe to the idea that the markets are wise while investors are dummies. Knowledge of the returns you can expect is only a Google away. People wouldn't swing for the fences if they could live with hitting a few grounders. Could average market returns then provide for the man on the street? More specifically, would it enable him a decent retirement?

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.

It's not the size, it's the growth. As the world ages, it's worth wondering if retiree benefits will increasingly drive inflation through supporting elderly buying power and enabling them to exit the labour supply. Let's plot pension replacement rates , a measure of pension generosity, against 2023 inflation for the G20, the world's largest economies. In short, countries' circumstances and systems are too diverse for a strong relationship between pension generosity and inflation, but let's break it down further.