735 karma · joined December 15, 2015
Edit: Apologies, I think I mean his documentary: Can't Get You Out of My Head. Essentially it asserts that all revolutions fail, because the people who attempt to overthrow simply become the new guard.
In retrospect, I wish I had built it with C#/.NET
I'm actually not sure in your case. My guess is that it's something you wouldn't need to worry about, but I don't know.
Hedging is all about diversification at the end of the day. So it makes sense to hedge if you're coming close to retirement age.
Ultimately the point of hedging is to diversify. So the degree you should hedge is relative to the degree with which you have exposure to your home currency. So for example, if you already own a home in that country + you already own lots of shares in that home currency, then hedging might be less important.
The recommendation I've seen is around 25% of your portfolio in hedged global equities, assuming you have another 25-30% in non-hedged global equities.
Taking Vanguard for example, VGS is global equities, but VGAD is global equities that are AUD-hedged (my home country).
The only downside is that you pay more in fees (and they're less tax efficient). People generally don't bother with it though, because on a long enough time-line currencies usually revert to their long-term average, so if you're holding for retirement there's generally little point.
The fact that you need a driver's licence to drive a car, or a document to identify yourself to open a bank account is also surveillance. Yet it seems perfectly reasonable?
So I think the reason why this doesn't make sense (in my mind) is because in a state of retirement i.e. financial independence, you're still just as conscious of money as you were when you were accumulating wealth. You still need to manage money no different to when you were accumulating, it's just now you're not earning.
To me the freedom I'm referring to is similar to that of childhood - where you're not worried/concerned about "the system". You're just doing your own thing in your own world. That kind of purity no amount of money can resolve, even in an early retirement scenario.
The other issue is that a lot of stuff only makes sense when you're younger. Like it's a lot difficult for example to become a travelling musician or even to travel etc.
Now of course, early retirement provides it's own kind of freedom. But I would say that it's not equivalent to the kind of "freedom" that I'm referring to, which is basically being carefree.
This is where I disagree. I think there's a certain amount of naivety required to pursue meaningful things. There's so much in life that makes no financial sense that creates meaning. The moment you start having to think sensibly from a financial perspective, is when so many of these things no longer make sense.
Once you're plugged into the system there's almost no turning back.