This. And I think that I’m rich. And I think most actuaries are rich. And I think it’s great to be rich. I’m very happy that I can buy fresh blueberries out of season because I like them, and not have to budget my food. And we just got a new color laser printer because our old laser printer died. We didn’t check to see if we had enough cash, we just picked one out and bought it. And most of you can do the same.
that’s largely true. I mean, not all Americans can buy whatever food they want, but very few have to worry about going to bed with an empty stomach.
Hmmm. I could. They have excellent internet in Vietnam. I haven’t been in the office in more than a year. I suppose I’d have to be up all night working, which would sort of suck, since I like to be up in the daytime. But I could do it.
Maybe you could temporarily during the pandemic. What about in 2022?
I’m already physically in the office quite a bit, and will be more as Covid gets less scary.
I wouldn’t have wanted to move to Vietnam for one-two years and then move back, but YMMV.
If your job can be permanently done from Vietnam or India then at some point your employer will figure this out and hire an Indian or Vietnamese person at 1/4 your salary or less.
I’m actually paraphrasing an AOer who several years ago commented that if your job can be done 100% from home then it can be done 100% from India.
A lot of people agreed at the time.
I mean, maybe there are legal exceptions. I believe that the state of New York requires (or at least used to require) that certain types of claims must be paid by people physically working with state lines. My employer had to open up a claims office in New York when we started selling policies there, but I no longer remember which product line(s) that requirement was attached to. And that was claims, not actuarial work.
I guess reserves must be certified by MAAAs and pension valuations need EA… not sure if there are residency or citizenship requirements attached to those designations, but if there are then that might protect a few jobs. A lot of US-based actuaries don’t actually need the MAAA designation though.
Even if it’s not strictly true for Lucy, specifically, it’s probably a lot truer for a lot of us than we’d care to admit. But also, probably a lot of our employers don’t actually want people working from India / Vietnam. I think that’s a far bigger deal than whether it’s technologically feasible. The “if” was a key component of that statement.
You’re living in your own place, in what is likely the greatest city in the world (and one of the most expensive), full of every type of person, food, culture, on the planet. All right outside your door. So if you’re not rich, you’re at least fortunate.
Any minimum size where a boat makes the leap from “pleasure craft” to “yacht”?
I imagine my income to be in the same range as ao fan’s (probably a little lower because I’m in a lower COL area, but same general ballpark).
I can’t go buy a brand new 150’ yacht for cash tomorrow… or probably ever. (I think that’s in the vicinity of $40-50 million.)
Most of us could easily buy a 15 year old 35’ boat tomorrow if we got a boat loan. That would be in the vicinity of $30,000 but varying a lot depending on the condition. Many of us spend that or more on our cars. Sometimes for cash.
Hubby & I could probably sell our house and go live on the boat for those prices, but not next week. We’d have to do some repairs on the house and get the proceeds first and line up a mortgage to cover a portion of the boat price as our equity in the house plus liquid assets are less than $500,000. But I guess if we were hell bent on living on this boat we could do that. $4K a month plus the mortgage is more than we’re paying now, but we could probably swing it.
That’s more than we could afford if we had to pay cash and/or if you stipulated that we had to keep our current home though. I don’t think too many actuaries have an extra $500K plus $4K/month lying around unused.
I guess that would be not counting the principle in our Roth accounts as liquid. I guess that technically is liquid but I’m not liquidating the principle in our Roth accounts to buy a yacht.
My employer is already outsourcing some jobs to India. I happen to have very specialized knowledge, and training vietnamese me will take a long time, and that person will still be a moderately expensive employee. And realistically, part of their cost would be flying them to the US a couple times a year. But yes, they would be cheaper than me, and they may well replace me ultimately.
Mine has geographical pay bands, too, although they are only public to managers. And like yours, our employees in low COL places get lower salaries but have more disposable income than those in high COL locations. I’m pretty sure we work for different employers.
