Happy 21st birthday Refalm

[worker201]

What the hell are 16, 25, 40, 55, and 65 for? :confused:

16: US driver's license (sorry e7, but everyone else in the US learns to drive at 15 and then either gets a car or borrows mom's)

18: US purchase cigarettes, become a stripper, make an adult video

21: US purchase beer and liquor (many people get their first case of alcohol poisoning on this night)

25: US car insurance rates drop (being a young driver is expensive)

40: you're fucking 40-FORTY-40

55: officially a US senior citizen, entitled to 10% off at many restaurants

65: if you aren't retired already, you can retire now

(back in the hyper-prosperous 50s, you could retire at 55 and live off of social security, but these days, most people can't afford to survive off of SS alone, so they keep working and retire later)

[Pathos]

pretty much the same in NZ except you can purchase alcoholic beverages at 18, use a motor vehicle at 15, once you're 16 you are permitted to conduct sexual behaviour with other over 16+'s...relationships between under 16 year olds is rather a grey/shady area. Can be legally responsible for themselves.

I bet you $100 that 65 will go up in our life times. In the past 65's may have had to retire because they were decrepid, now with modern medicine we are living longer than ever.

[xyle_one]

Invest young, and save/invest aggresivley. I am not going to be stuck at 65 with nothing. I want to at least be able to retire and live a modest life until I die.

Happy late bday Refalm

[pofnlice]

Get a good mutual fund or 2, build it up to about 2000 - 2500 in investments, then let it ride...or put in more...then get a great IRA. You'll be set on retirement...

[worker201]

Get a good mutual fund or 2, build it up to about 2000 - 2500 in investments, then let it ride...or put in more...then get a great IRA. You'll be set on retirement...

Many of the economic problems in the US are based on the fact that local/state govts and public institutions (universities, hospitals, libraries) invested in dotcoms, which later crashed, leaving the victims bankrupt.  So make sure to diversify your investments.

[Orethrius]

Many of the economic problems in the US are based on the fact that local/state govts and public institutions (universities, hospitals, libraries) invested in dotcoms, which later crashed, leaving the victims bankrupt.  So make sure to diversify your investments.

 I suspect you already know this, but there's a significant difference between stocks and mutuals.  Either way, the best possible advice is actually NOT to diversify (but it's a close second); it's actually to keep an active eye on your portfolio and drop any fund that mismanages your assets.  Let's put it this way: those lawsuits surrounding the Dot-Bomb had less to do with diversification than with brokers that were told to "sell now" and rode tech stocks into the ground anyway.  I believe that's called "securities fraud" but I might be a tad off there.

[worker201]

I suspect you already know this, but there's a significant difference between stocks and mutuals.

Of course I was oversimplifying.  I certainly did not mean to imply that the state of Oregon (the first to go bankrupt) invested its pension money in Excite.

As a matter of fact, the companies that got invested in are not a matter of public record.  A couple years ago, the Texas State University System basically bankrupted itself, because it squandered all its money on high-risk investments.  There was a bit of a public outcry, demanding that the TSUS open its records of where it was investing.  Which of course went nowhere.  But you would assume that the investment strategists learned to work a little more safely - even if that only means more secretly.

[Orethrius]

Of course I was oversimplifying.  I certainly did not mean to imply that the state of Oregon (the first to go bankrupt) invested its pension money in Excite.

As a matter of fact, the companies that got invested in are not a matter of public record.  A couple years ago, the Texas State University System basically bankrupted itself, because it squandered all its money on high-risk investments.  There was a bit of a public outcry, demanding that the TSUS open its records of where it was investing.  Which of course went nowhere.  But you would assume that the investment strategists learned to work a little more safely - even if that only means more secretly.

 All things considered, if someone misinvested my funds then refused to tell me how, the initial "investigation" would involve human intelligence.  The follow-up would involve a Louisville.  

[Pathos]

or you could start the next ms/google ... :/