All those figures tossed around by the financial planning community are a little screwy based on my observations. They like to use things in their models like a bond yield at 2.5% to show why you should have more invested so it pumps their management fees. But they don't actually put most of your money there, otherwise why would you need them?

Once my kids are out of college and the house is paid for I expect my 'need' to drop rather dramatically. But all the planners start with your current income to estimate what you will 'need' in retirement.

If you think about the amount they are saying we will need to live on, I have to wonder what lifestyle they are expecting you to have at 75+? My parents and in-laws are in decent health, but they're long past constantly jetting about on vacations. Their homes are paid for and they aren't driving to work or running kids around any more so they get new cars when they feel like it, not because it's ragged out and unreliable. Meals out a few nights a week, property taxes and household expenses don't add up to much.

That doesn't mean I'm still not planning for that sum as I can dream of wondering the world in my old age, but I suspect my kids are going to be the real recipients of decades of saving and investing.

I think you've been reading someone's fairy tale. Every dairy farm I've ever been to feeds them chopped corn, i.e. the whole plant, along with alfalfa and other grassy crops. It's commonly called silage. Yes grain corn is part of the feed mix, but they certainly don't eat mostly grain. With corn at $7 a bushel last year all dairy products would have been luxury items if they were fed mostly grain.

No problem, the Hitchhikers Guide provides the answer: http://hitchhikers.wikia.com/w...

My point was that companies are almost encouraged to move operations overseas to avoid taxes as you indicate, however the US now wants to involve the financial industry around the world in making sure that any "US Persons" report and pay taxes on any income earned from overseas business or investments.

My contention is that individuals should be treated the same as the multinationals.

Spot on. Wish I had mod points for this.

They do. That the US is spreading their net wider and wider is troubling. How much longer before the more middle of the road ex-pat countries get roped into this. Say Mexico, Belize or Costa Rica? Right now our retirees are welcomed down there, but I wonder if that will be the case if this happens.

Basically it's becoming more and more evident that US citizens are being viewed as property by the government. And they want a piece of everything that property makes, no matter where it is.

Well yes, but by what stretch of the imagination do people believe this money grab is right? I see multiple posters agreeing with it. For the tax jurisdiction the business is in anyone can see the point, you're operating a business there like anyone else.

I'm at the age where retirement is in sight and have spent a lot of years bitching about US taxes. I've definitely considered moving somewhere that won't take 50+ cents of every dollar I earn, the thought of owning a beach bar in a tropical location not that many years from now is getting me through this winter.

One of the reasons companies move overseas is to avoid US taxes on anything they don't bring back to the US, why should actual citizens be any different?

I decide to move to NZ in my retirement. After a lifetime of working sitting on the porch and watching life go by isn't for me so I start or buy a local business. I hire local employees and pay all the required taxes in NZ for the income made there. I pay US taxes on my retirement income derived from US accounts. Why if I'm not sending money back to the US for deposit (which would have to be reported) does the US need to know anything about income derived from the NZ business?

Go tell that to the Amish. Or any number of other groups that eschew a reliance on some outside entity to enable them to continue their livelyhood.

Yes, your general big grain farmer isn't doing this, but a lot of the folks selling produce down at your farmers market do.

The creaping featuritis thing amazes me to this day. I am a codeslinger, if you want it I'll write it. But I will tell you if I think you're making a mistake.

One of my old bosses put it well when a customer was questioning my opinion on some of their stuff I was pushing back on.

"If he thinks it's a bad enough idea to tell you that you shouldn't have him do it, you should f'ing listen. You do remember he bills by the hour? If he's telling you it's not something you want him to do he's doing you a favor. And if he won't do it there's no way in hell we'll do it for you, he's the guy we send people to for crazy shit."

That's not the way businesses operate, and the larger they are the more layers of BS things filter through. The person who champions the project hands it off to a subordinate, who hands it off again, etc. By the time it gets to the poor sap who had to bid out the project you're lucky if you get a cocktail napkin sketch of a UI concept and a few vague notes about what it should do.

There is another form of this that I deal with quite often, where upper management concieves of something that is totally impractical for the people who will actually need to use it. You go through all the look, feel and features stuff to get what the corporte folks envision and then install it only to find that the operations people won't use it.

It can be extremely frustrating, but if you were smart about collecting your money you've gotten paid and you're never going to have to support the code.

I almost wonder if they're counting on it, that's why they're stoking the fires dividing the haves and have nots. Rather than banding together and marching on Washington there will just be rioting where the local business owners houses are assaulted by the former recipients of the nanny state handouts when the system goes belly up.

I used to worry about my buddy the police officer and his stockpile of guns and ammo. He's positively convinced in the next few years we're going to see widespread rioting and looting. Lately I'm not so sure he's wrong.

Farmers spread the manure from their animals back on the fields as a way to maintain field fertility. They're not likely to want it shipped off and used to power a server farm, as that will just increase their chemical fertilizer costs.