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Comment by ryandrake | Hacker News Reader

That and the trend that the avenues frequently cited as ways to achieve this status (hard work, education, dump your money into the stocks and pray) are increasingly being exposed as obvious bullshit.

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> dump your money into the stocks and pray) are increasingly being exposed as obvious bullshit.

I'm not exactly sure how stocks have been exposed as bullshit given they've produced above average returns, especially for young people who have gotten in after 2008.

Because they all remember 2008? The depression had a lasting influence on the people who lived through it, they hoarded, kept money under their beds, stuff like that because they knew what it was like when the banks failed. The great recession is obviously much milder but it did expose to many young people that stocks aren't as safe as they think.

For me the takeaway has been the exact opposite. I was skittish about putting retirement money into the stock market circa 2010 cuz I saw ten years of no net gains and feared that was a new normal. But I was doubly wrong - I hadn't factored in dividends, and a few years later stocks were double their pre-2008 peak. The bottom ended up being a rare chance (for the still-employed majority) to quadruple those upcoming returns. Even now, another 50%-bottom from peak would be double the previous bottom. The fundamentals behind the expectations of capitalistic returns seem less shaken than ever.

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