HTDay red riding hood Dino, make sure you hold on tight while riding on that hood to Aunt Pam's house!

Happy Thanksgiving all! Waiting all morning for relatives to pick me at 12:15 to ride over the river and through the woods for over an hour to Aunt Pam's house we go.

Glad the Turkey's got a Non Autopen Pardon!

Ditto! and to prove it, I just posted a Thanksgiving Day EDITION of IN THE MEME TYME.
Have a GREAT DAY.

Agreed! Me (Grandpa) and Grandma did it for decades. Now the "kids" are taking over and all we have to do is show up - AWESOME!

Once they win it will take generations of pain, suffering, and gulags before it changes - could be centuries as there is no America to rescue America.

And here in The Gulch, I'm surrounded by people who still know how to think critically, and who have enough self-awareness to know exactly who and what they are. I just hope we aren't a dying breed.

Yeah...it's all based on bullshit. It's like saying, "You can't come to the hospital if you're sick because you might make somebody else sick." I design hospitals, by the way...so I think that's funny.

It's over. Their game will only work on the truly ignorant now that the Ford Cohort study is out.

My dad was a boomer. They had it pretty damn good...all (emphasis on "all") things considered. I'm very close to your age, Jack. We are really getting hammered and the economics in effect now are CLEARLY threatening to make our "retirements" worse than what the boomers faced. Me...personally...it's inflation that looms very large. I signed paperwork just yesterday to acquire another rental property. The stock market has gotten pretty volatile. I've had to go from the old classic of "60% equities, 40% bonds and HODL!", to trend-following (something that did very well for a long time), to just buying dips for short term gains here and there. It's a joke. In light of the fact that America has decided to let rapists and child molesters run free, open our borders to MILLIONS of undocumented men of military age...and given them free housing, food, clothes and phones...I'm really looking forward to paying very little taxes soon. Compiling receipts and logging expenses has become a new favorite hobby as I fight back this next tax season - all legal, all legit. Wait till our kids get to our age. They won't be able to retire. Retirement is going to cease in America for the middle class...unless you came here illegally. Big, dysfunctional, perverted government is all that will be left for the next generation.

Happy Thanksgiving. I love this holiday. Family and food. A little drink and relaxation. Can't beat it!

Right - I didn't directly say that but everything is risky when the dollar crashes, even metals. I just see metals recovering (or more to the point, the dollar devaluing)

Jack. Yeah, my best friend is just like you. I've been there as well (Owning MCI and NorTel when I shouldn't have).

Yep, the government is INSOLVENT and needs to PRINT it's way out. I have metals as well.

But isn't it sad that there is no "basic" investment to make, so that as you get to retirement, you can draw an income from it. Decades ago, retired people owned stocks with dividends, and CDs which were paying okay rates. Those days are long gone. (Although, in hindsight, considering the TRUE inflation, they were NEVER there, because inflation was ALWAYS worse than the returns. LOL).

Hopefully some of the OTHER INFO about how to extract your money with the smallest tax burden can help others that are here.

Agreed! THE Producers Holiday.
This year seems so much brighter than the last four.

And football...

I get it... No thanks... I've avoided Bitcoin and everything related to crypto currency as it has no value on its own. I get it, I know you have made a ton of money. Good for you, I'm truly happy for you. You see, you don't want me to invest in this stock because as soon as I do, it will go to zero. You see, with any thing like crypto currency, everyone gets rich besides the last few that pay for the whole thing, I'd be the last person or the patsy. Metals can go down but will never go to zero. I've more then doubled my holdings this year alone and the event I invested in metals haven't even happened yet. Its the debasement triad.

agreed - its a ponzi scheme

The leftist motto.
I make up for my incompetence by having high confidence that I am right, and anyone who disagrees with me is simply Evil!

Yep, the communists knew. Once we can get ahold of 2-3 generations. You will NEVER get them back.

On the other hand, TRUMP is trying to de-woke the Universities... Because we will need new teachers without the woke crap to start replacing the old guard.

Personally, it is too late. I would homeschool children. Talking to my daughter, I told her. Don't vaccinate them. Homeschool them. Find/build a community of like minded parents, and get the kids to know each other, and organize activities to replace gym, and maybe trade "Classes" (Daughter is AMAZING with words/writing. Find someone who can engage children in Numbers, Math, Science). Because the next couple of generations that DO NOT DO this are basically cooked.

Jack... I am in the same boat, doing the same analysis. (Born in 1967).

You are not wrong. But Soc Sec was not just malinvested. It was overspent.
Disability payments? Payments to children of Dead parents? Outright Fraud with people collecting on dead parents whose death never gets reported.

Then we "taxed" this as income.

This is NOT Financial Advice. But a few things I learned. I mentioned STRC in another post, as an investment.
It is paying ~10% dividends as RoC (Return of Capital). No income tax due until your cost basis hits zero. After that, it is LTCG. I bought some this week b/c it was "on sale". It is DRIP Eligible. With DRIP, 7 years for a doubling?

Next up. Since this does not count as ordinary income. You can earn a lot of this at 0% LTCG tax rate in retirement. (All things are subject to change). I can pull enough of this to LIVE w/o triggering a taxable event.
After that, it's 15%

Finally. Once you can DROP your income, BEFORE taking SocSec... You have a WINDOW of NO income.
This is the time to move your 401(k) or IRA into a ROTH Conversion. I forget the actual numbers, but you can do like $60K/yr of conversion at about a 13% tax rate, avoiding penalties.

Conversion is based on the CURRENT value of the stocks, and in many cases, you can transfer the actual stock.
So, let's say you owned IBIT at $64/share, and it's now trading at $38/share, but you want to hold it.
This would be one of the assets to transfer to the ROTH as SHARES.

Now, this takes a bit longer to do it this way. But this is the basis for my approach. As my income will slowly decline as I turn off the business/work. I will survive on my STRC dividends. As my income drops, I will calculate what I can pull out of the Retirement Accounts into a ROTH IRA. Driving my living expenses out of the ROTH IRA and the Dividends, avoiding as much tax as I can. Cycle that from 62 to either 65 or 67. My normal IRA will be depleted. My dependency on the SocSec will be diminished, but there to fallback on to.

But this is heavily optimized to reduce income taxes into my retirement.
I have a friend who has MILLIONS in a 401(k), and he just realized when he gets to RMDs, he will be pretty much taxed to death. Worse, he has a huge exposure if our "crooked government" decides to RENEG on not taxing that money, or not letting wall street bail him "in"...

He is now looking at the same type of system to extricate his funds.

Throwing in my 2 cents (pennies not made anymore) the SS Ponzi never should have been started in the first place. However, since it has, keep in mind it should/could have been more solvent if the politicians, starting with LBJ (D), had not raided the fund every chance they got. Also, over time the politicians fixed it so more and more freeloaders have been allowed to take from a pot they never paid into - the latest was auto-pen Biden opening the spigot to certain retired federal employees who already have government pensions (I know one such person, who was ecstatic to be getting his first SS checks starting in January). He never paid a single dime into the SS Ponzi. This means those of us who did pay in will now get less out to make up the shortfall. My wife and I are in our 70s and paid in (along with our employers) our entire working lives since we were teenagers. Our ROI is being squandered before we even get it. Actually it's ROFI - Return On Forced Investment.

Yes, but that form of taxation would be felt by everyone. And God knows that is NOT how things work. LOL

Thor, I lost an uncle LEO in the line of duty.
In many cases, they were required to carry at all times, so they could be called upon, at all times.
And there were stupid laws in some places that made this illegal, creating the problems. Going into a School, for example. IMAGINE having to disarm yourself, while off duty, picking up your kid.

We have had friends picking up their kids, and they had CCWs licenses. An overzealous COP had them pop the trunk, took both weapons partially disassembled them, emptied the cartridges (carelessly into the trunk) and threatened to ticket them over it. (He had no right).

BUT I LOVE "Overturned by SCOTUS, you at least get a Demerit, eventually a pay cut, and ultimately fired". But SCOTUS needs to find some of these judges as "Being an Activist Judge". Immediate removal (a death penalty if I were in charge, LOL, but SCOTUS would never apply it then).

LibertyPen, this is an extraordinarily well made argument! No way around the bartender analogy, which is spot on. Thank you! As I read it all that came to mind is the recent incident in Chicago where the lady on the train was set on fire by a perpetrator that had been let loose 72 (that's SEVENTY TWO!) prior times. You'd think after 72 beers or shots that "bartender" would have taken the keys!

In this particular "bar" some of the patrons (lawyers) that helped convince the bartender to let him go ought to be held accountable as well.

Agreed. I think it falls under both RICO statutes, as well as Conspiracy Statutes!

Maybe this got you?

"This coupled with the facts that my generation made sure we worked our asses off paying into the system to support the baby boomers, even though my generation is tiny in comparison, gen-x did our part and we pulled it off."

I'm saying my generation made good on the social contract, while being a much smaller generation. I think you're sensitive.

If anything, I think you should say Thank You.