From the article: the Moneypoint plant will continue to serve a limited backup role, burning heavy fuel oil under emergency instruction from Ireland’s transmission system operator EirGrid until 2029.
The top comment currently on this post is talking about the cost impacts being transferred to the poor and middle class with lots of discussion. I think people are well aware of and discuss the social impacts.
They discuss "social impacts" from the point of view that dirtier power is cheaper, supposedly, hypothetically, net of externalities, while ignoring the cost dirty power inflicts on the people living near the dirty power generation.
FIRE doesn't depend on having a tech job. Its all about income to expense ratio. Planning for medical events is something that gets talked to death in these communities.
Good insurance is one aspect including long term disability coverage if you haven’t retired.
That’s the thing medical expenses when young are unlikely enough insurance is a viable strategy. Long term it’s worthwhile to move to a country with a less expensive medical system. You can move basically anywhere in retirement and be better off.
Again like I have been saying, good insurance is predicated on the open market and ACA being around and not being killed by Republicans. Even if they don’t outright kill it, they are trying to put in a “death spiral” where only sick people use it and insurance companies don’t want to participate.
LTC not discriminating against pre-existing conditions is also post ACA.
In a hypothetical universe with different laws people would make different decisions, like abandoning the US. But you’re asking about medical conditions which rarely apply and laws that don’t exist. That’s not a failing of FIRE for the vast majority of people.
Further FIRE doesn’t mean crap if you get something serious and die at 23, that’s just the reality of human existence.
People didn’t abandoned the US before the ACA was the law in 2011-2012. And if there were an influx of US citizens to foreign countries, I can guarantee you other countries wouldn’t be as welcoming.
There are plenty of conditions where the difference between life and death is being able to get health care
Some did. The US expat community has been quite large for decades.
Most people didn’t do FIRE style early retirement while dealing with pre existing medical conditions. There however was plenty of expats pre ACA who very much left the country for early retirement.
US healthcare is ruinously expensive but on average it’s not particularly good if you’re in the income bracket where 1/4 million over a few years is a serious issue.
There is absolutely no significant number of Americans who left without ties to other countries. I find it rich that Americans who leave the US call themselves “ex-pats” instead of “immigrants”
There’s over 1/2 million former Americans living in Canada or the UK which doesn’t require learning a foreign language. You really can’t make those kinds of sweeping statements about populations that large. Many Americans without any prior connections fled to Canada to avoid the Vietnam war for example and then made a home there.
There's a difference in intention between ex-pat and immigrant. Ex-pat's tend to think of themselves as being wherever they are temporarily, but intending to return to their home country. Immigrants desire is to make wherever they are their new home country.
If you're saying that people who have permanently left the US call themselves ex-pats, that is news to me, and I can understand the confusion.
To account for possible changes in package sizes, we focused on the price per unit, whether it was an ounce of salsa or a square foot of aluminum foil.
It doesn't say that they accounted for possible changes in item quality. Tide detergent claims that their new 80-oz bottle of laundry detergent can wash 64 loads just like the previous 100-oz bottle because it's more concentrated, and I suppose NPR (if they'd retained a sample of the previous product) could have brought that to a chemistry lab to test and verify that claim, but I have no idea how you'd objectively prove that an ounce of salsa had truly remained the same product.
Sure, but they are accounting for size shrinkage which the original poster was saying they didn't.
I don't really know how you can account for quality either. User surveys? Ingredient sourcing? But then again I think this kind of reporting is just a general barometer. Some other comments are pointing to data sources that might do more of this.
The amount of detergent per load is set by the manufacturer, who can injection mold that measuring cup in whatever size they want. FTA:
> The amount of liquid had shrunk to 92 ounces from 100 ounces before the pandemic, and the price had risen by a dollar. After that, the cost stayed the same, but the contents shrank to 84 ounces in 2024 and then to 80 ounces in December.
> The label continuously promised enough detergent for 64 loads of laundry.
> ...Tide specifically got the "most significant upgrade to its liquid formula in over 20 years," according to the company, with a "boosted" level of active cleaning ingredients and updated dosage instructions.
> "The result is superior cleaning performance in a smaller dose," a Procter & Gamble representative said.
Do you take them at their word for that? I'm specifically wondering whether the 84 ounce, 64-load bottle with a cap that measures out 1.3125 ounces per load contains the exact same liquid as the 80 ounce, 64-load bottle with a cap that measures out 1.25 ounces per load. I prefer powder detergent with a prewash dose, I know my clothes get clean, but I don't know that anyone outside a lab would be able to inspect clothes post-wash and notice the difference in cleanliness caused by the removal of 0.0625 ounces of detergent.
They have three ways to protect or boost profits: Raise prices, decrease quantities, or decrease quality. NPR and the
I might have missed it, but I don't see this quote in the article. Either way, it feels disingenuous when a place like business insider posts these criticisms of FIRE like it is the ultimate gotcha.
Finding a purpose outside of work seems like the main issue most people struggle with when doing FIRE. Once you get going, the saving is automatic and addictive to some, but figuring out what to do with your life to give it meaning outside of a traditional work context is not just an issue with FIRE.
I’ve recently learned to downvote/flag and not respond to green names. The number of new accounts coming in hot with inflammatory takes lately has seemed higher to me, but admittedly this is purely a “vibe,” I have no numbers to back it up.
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