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Musk Says Retirement Saving May Soon Be Irrelevant. · Elon Musk Podcast

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  Elon Musk recently suggested that in 10 to 20 years, saving
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  for retirement will not matter, arguing that advantages in AI,
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  energy and robotics could usher in an era of abundance that
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  renders traditional nest eggs obsolete.
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  Comments prompted swift pushback from retirement scholars and
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  wealth managers who said the vision overlooks stubborn real
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  world constraints and household risks.
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  Now Musk's case rests on a sweeping productivity boom,
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  smarter software, cheaper power and ambitious automation,
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  driving down the cost of goods and services from healthcare to
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  education, until scarcity fades. Even if parts of that prospect
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  materialize, it does not follow that workers can safely stop
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  building financial reserves today.
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  Now, researchers at leading retirement centers note that
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  near term risks remain unavoidable market volatility,
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  job loss, illness and potential changes to public benefits.
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  Several emphasized that Social Security faces funding
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  challenges that, absent legislative fixes, could
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  increase the burden on personal savings rather than eliminate
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  it. Advisors also stressed a basic
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  point. Future abundance is just an
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  idea. Rent, groceries and medical
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  bills are always going to be there.
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  Now. Some critics focused on
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  distribution rather than technology.
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  They argue that whether abundance translates into broad
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  financial security depends on political choices, taxation
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  transfers and the design of social insurance, which rarely
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  move in lockstep with engineering breakthroughs.
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  Innovation can arrive quickly. Equitable systems to share its
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  gains typically take decades now.
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  Others pointed to history. Past technology waves lifted
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  productivity without reliably shortening work weeks or even
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  distributing wealth. One researcher recalled that in
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  the 1950s, some employees at a defense think tank skipped
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  pension contributions because nuclear war felt inevitable.
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  That never came. The retirement shortfalls
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  definitely did, though. Now, for households deciding
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  what to do now, the guidance from academics and practitioners
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  is consistent. Keep continuing to do what
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  you're doing. Contribute to workplace plans,
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  at least enough to capture an employer match.
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  Maintain an emergency fund so short term shocks don't force
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  withdrawals. Revisit portfolio risk.
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  As retirement approaches and assumes Social Security will
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  remain an important but incomplete pillar of support, it
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  might go away. And if a world of abundance
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  arrives on an aggressive timetable, accumulated savings
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  will become an extra margin of freedom in a cheaper economy, an
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  outcome few would regret. The broader debate remains
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  unresolved. Though technological optimism
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  imagines a future or scarcity receipts, the personal finance
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  discipline recognizes the bills come due on schedule.
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  Until policy catches up with the promise of abundance, most
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  households are just better off to save.
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  And you treat abundance as a potential upside just in case.
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  So you'll have this nest egg. Let's say you save up to
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  $100,000. And the abundance does come.
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  You know, we've been promised abundance in the past.
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  Henry Ford for one. Let's just talk about that.
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  Henry Ford talked about how everybody would be able to
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  afford pretty much everything because cars would make it
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  cheaper to transport goods, which it did.
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  Of course, that's much easier than a train or a plane.
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  But the vehicles transporting, they needed drivers.
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  Those drivers needed jobs, so those drivers got paid.
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  The abundance never came though. We still work long hours.
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  Some of us don't make enough money to survive.
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  The abundance never came. It's tried to happen a bunch of
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  times. Basically, it's rich people
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  saying that abundance is coming because of what rich people do.
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  They already have abundance, they already have everything
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  they'll ever need. And for us, we have to fall back
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  on the same old ideas. We never know what's going to
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  happen after the next paycheck. Your employer could fire you.
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  No matter how secure you think you are, your employer could
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  just pull the plug on you. They might give you a little bit
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  of notice, but also you don't know how the financials are
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  doing at your company unless you're in that department.
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  Case in point, recently I was hired on as a contract worker.
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  I had a three month contract with the company.
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  After 2 1/2 months, the company said hey, we ran out of money.
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  We did 2 giant acquisitions. Everybody that's a contractor is
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  not a contractor anymore. So I didn't have that extra half
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  a month to work. And after that it was a
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  contractor to hire position. So now they're not going to hire
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  me full time because of that. You never know what's going to
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  happen and because of things like that, I need your support.
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  I've been doing this show for six or seven years straight and
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  I will continue doing this for the next 10 years.
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  And all I need is one minute of your time, one second, actually
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  hit the subscribe or follow button.
• 5:27
  You don't even know how much that means to the show, how much
• 5:30
  that means to me personally. And if you have been listening
• 5:32
  to the show for a while, I get it.
• 5:35
  Sometimes you forget to hit the subscribe or follow button.
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  I do it all the time on YouTube. I do it all the time on podcasts
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  and I every once in a while I'm like, Oh yeah, this show is
• 5:43
  great. I don't know why I have not
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  followed it. It's in my recommendations,
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  sure. But on podcasting it's very
• 5:49
  important to follow or subscribe to a show because that's how we
• 5:54
  get our audience. And if we have a bigger
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  audience, it means I can continue doing this and making
• 6:00
  this podcast better. Also, let me know in the
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  comments if you have comments on your podcast player.
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  What do you think of this? Do you think there's going to be
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  over abundance with robo taxis? You're still going to need money
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  to do all the things that you need to do.
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  You're still going to need to eat food.
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  You'll be able to, of course. You'll still be able to own a
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  car, you'll be able to own a home.
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  But if the price is so expensive for you where you live, there
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  might be time to think about living someplace else, someplace
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  with a lower threshold to buy a home.
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  There are plenty of places outside of the United States
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  that are much cheaper than the United States.
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  I mean, if you go to the grocery store and you have one bag of
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  groceries and it cost $200, that's a problem.
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  And if this abundance is a promise that Elon Musk and the
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  ultra mega wealthy can predict and they can actually make this
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  promise come true, that's great. It's never happened in the past
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  and it will never happen. How many thousands of years have
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  humans been humans? The rich people get richer and
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  the poor people stay poor. Sometimes there's a nice middle
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  class some places all over the world, there is a nice middle
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  class in the United States right now, there's not really a middle
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  class anymore. You can't have a regular nine to
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  five job and feed a family of four.
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  So if you have two kids, two parents and you may have a dog,
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  might have a cat, white pick a fence, the American dream, you
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  know, you can have that big house.
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  You could buy a house with that wage and also buy a car and also
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  go on vacation and have some time off.
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  That doesn't exist anymore. You have to have a side hustle
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  and your side hustles have to have side hustles just to get
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  by. You can't just have one person
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  making the money anymore. You have to have two people in
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  the household making money, and that's just the normal life of a
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  normal person. I'm not saying some people are
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  outside of that, because of course there are.
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  There's some people that make a bunch of money and live in a
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  place where it doesn't cost as much.
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  But for the most of us, most people here, the abundance,
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  according to these experts, is not going to come.
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  But if it does, that's great. That's great.
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  Maybe it's another bubble. Maybe people are going to start
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  making a bunch of money. But also remember that Elon Musk
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  says a lot of things. And I'm here as the podcaster,
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  as the podcast about Elon Musk, the original Elon Musk podcast.
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  Take everything he says with a grain of salt because I know
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  I've been covering him for almost 10 years now.
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  FSD, Remember when that was going to happen?
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  Almost a decade ago and it still hasn't happened.
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  And not actual FSD. It's a still driver assist.
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  So remember, when he says something, don't take it to
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  heart, just remember it's a great idea.
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  He has some great ideas, and eventually maybe it might
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  happen, but the overabundance of power, overabundance of food,
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  overabundance of wealth, take it all with a grain of salt.
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  So that's it for today. Everybody take care of
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  yourselves and each other, and I'll see you in the next one.