Early Retirement Extreme

Financial independence, frugality, self-sufficiency, ecology, capitalism, and voluntary simplicity

Which morals are most useful for personal finance?

Published in June 26th, 2008

If you’re new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!There are, as far as I know, two sets of morals which have dominated thought for the past century.

Postmodernistic interpersonal value acceptance. Basically, the widely spread “I’m okay, you’re okay” approach to interpersonal acceptance. Followers believe that it is [...]

Quotes relevant to extreme early retirement

Published in June 16th, 2008

Posted by Jacob in culture, economy

2 Comments

“Thus, when the marginal cost of participating in a complex society becomes too high, productive units across the economic spectrum increase resistance (passive or active) to the demands of the hierarchy, or overtly attempt to break away. Both the lower ranking strata (the peasant producers of agricultural commodities) and upper ranking strata of wealthy merchants [...]

Accident by construction - why technology and regulations increase risk

Published in May 28th, 2008

Posted by Jacob in culture, education, insurance, sub-prime

4 Comments

In retrospect it is amazing how subprime loans could go so wrong? Who in their right mind could believe that real estate always goes up? For that matter, what about the dot.com craze and the new era? What makes people appear so stupid in retrospect?
Here’s why.
Accidents does not happen by chance (by “accident”). They [...]

You are not irreplaceable

Published in May 27th, 2008

Posted by Jacob in blogging, culture, motivation

4 Comments

According to google I am now the second highest ranked authority on extreme early retirement. I suppose this comes about because I have a “google ranking” of 4 which again comes about because I have yet to bother with monetizing this site as it would require advertising it in the local paper for 4 weeks [...]

The vehicle dependent mindset

Published in May 26th, 2008

Posted by Jacob in culture

18 Comments

I am convinced we could live without a car. Granted, there are certain conveniences we would have to go without, but having given it some thought, I think going without a car would not be an unsolvable problem.
Reading a post on AL6400 about the vehicle lifestyle got me thinking. I don’t think it’s a lifestyle [...]

The Gamesmen

Published in May 11th, 2008

Posted by Jacob in culture, economy, planning

1 Comment

I was inspired to post the following by a recent mail from T. and some earlier writings on the ecology of society. I would like to draw your attention to The Gamesman by Michael Maccoby. In this book, which I have not read yet but I got a summary from Thoughts of a Philosophical Fighter [...]

Row, row, row your boat — On the law of comparative advantage

Published in April 8th, 2008

Posted by Jacob in DIY, culture

7 Comments

According to the economic law of comparative advantage two parties are economically better off if they both focus on their advantage and trade for everything else. For instance, if Adam can make 4 widgets/hour or 3 gadgets/hour while Bob can make 1 widget/hour but 2 gadgets/hour, Adam should focus solely on making widgets, while Bob [...]

Living aboard

Published in April 3rd, 2008

Posted by Jacob in DIY, cost of living, culture, household, planning, rat race, standard of living

13 Comments

As mentioned in last Saturday’s roundup, I had some ideas regarding the future last week, specifically how to spend retirement and how to live. I’m the type that sees life itself as an adventure. I left my home country almost 10 years to go to grad school in another country. When I finished, I left [...]

A modest prediction for the next 20 years

Published in March 28th, 2008

Posted by Jacob in culture, economy, planning

8 Comments

Predicting the future always provides an excellent opportunity to make a fool out of oneself. One is almost destined to be wrong on some part or the other. If nothing else, the timing might be off, or the details may not be exactly right.
I have noted that whereas pre-1980 predictions mostly envisioned the future as [...]

How to do original research

Published in March 26th, 2008

Posted by Jacob in blogging, culture, rat race

8 Comments

I have a confession to make. I write a personal finance blog, but I rarely read other personal finance blogs. There is a reason for that. Here is the reason. I find that once anyone get actively involved in any community, they will start to (subconsciously) adopt the thinking modes of the community almost like [...]

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