this post was submitted on 28 May 2026
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All the "just save $X per month" advice hinges on this, but for some reason, finance "gurus" take our current longest bull run in history and pretend high returns are guaranteed.
Anyway, it's funny that you call for $500 a month when, according to this article: 63% of workers are unable to pay a $500 emergency expense
If so many can't come up with $500 for an emergency, what makes you think they'll have $500 every month to save? What makes you think $2-4 million will be enough to retire on by the time, given the rate of inflation we've been experiencing?
I never said it was enough to retire on, just pointing out what compounding interest does, and how waiting makes basically impossible to catch up. If you can't save $500/month in your 20's, you won't be saving 10k a month in the 40's.
And you don't need 500 a month in your 20's. You can save $300 a month from 20-65 and still have 2.5 million.
It's not impossible, that's less than $100 a week. If you see a kid driving a new car, his average payments are 800 plus insurance. He could drive a used car for half the money and retire. That new car in your 20's is basically saying you don't want to retire. Unless you got it like that of course, but like you said most people don't, and that will still choose a dumb decision. I had friends finance a 30k wedding in there 20's. There goes that retirement. Or going on an expressive trip that costs 10-20k. That one trip is no retirement. It really adds up like that.
Most of the estimates I see are the opposite, they assume the worst such investing everything right before the 2008 Great Recession crash. As in investing $10k in the S&P500 on Jan 1 of 2007 (before the crash) would give you $75,670 today. That's a 656.70% total return or a 10.65% compound annual growth rate. So yes, the great bull market is in there, but the start included is the absolute worst time to invest, but the returns are still good. Most projections are more conservative with only expecting a 7% return (over time).
Again, that's assuming the "worst time to invest" will be followed by the greatest bull run in history. Now try a situation where the government and Fed aren't pumping trillions of dollars to help the market.
Sure thing, lets eliminate anything from the current bull market that starts at the bottom of the 2007 crash. Lets end in 2006, and begin 19 years early in 1987 (to keep the same sample length from the prior example).
The same $10k in the S&P500 on Jan 1 of 1987 ending in 2006 would be $91,857. This would be a 818.57% total return and a 11.73% compounded annual growth.
You're welcome to run your own numbers. Here's the simple S&P500 calculator I've used for our discussion here.
You're missing the point. Ever since Reagan, "the economy" has been in service of the stock market and shareholder primacy has been the rule of the land. This isn't something that should be assumed natural.
I'm missing the point? I'm contradicting your point from your first post where you said this:
I demonstrated your "longest bull [market] in history" point was irrelevant by completely excluding that bull market and showing coincidentally even higher returns from the period before. Simple investing in the S&P500 has been historically shown to produce consistent returns over time. Does that guarantee it will forever? Of course not, but its much more likely it will produce that not compared to all the other choices for investing.
Here's the entire history of the S&P 500 from its inception in 1926:
source
You're welcome to argue against that line for investing in something else, and in the short term, you may even be right. However, so far there isn't a more consistent performer for growth over a long period of time.
Reagan sucks for lots of reasons, but that condition about the stock market and the economy you're describing existed long before Reagan. The Great Depression during the Hoover administration (also a shitty president for the time) shows that clearly.
Natural? All of these rules and economies are human constructs. There's nothing natural about nearly anything humanity does. I find it odd that "isn't natural" is even a criticism in this conversation.