this post was submitted on 26 Nov 2023
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A Boring Dystopia
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What's critical is where the stock market is at when you retire. Stock market crashes coming with general economic problems mean older people lose their jobs, can't find another one, and are forced to retire with 40% of their 401k value knocked out. This is exactly what happened to people in 2008 and '09.
Conversely, the stock market did really well in the years after that. The people who were able to hold out past 2012 were able to get a nice nest egg saved up.
It's a dice roll. It can work as one part of a larger system, but not on its own.
40% of the value before the crash, I assume? In that case, what's the difference between their contributions and the total value even with that 40% gone? Remember that the real value of an investment is how much money is there now vs how much you put in, not how much money is there at peak value vs how much money is there now.