Financial Independence revisited...

There isn't a day that the subject of FIRA (Financial Independence Retire Early) is thrown at us as the new desirable lifestyle.

While we applaud frugality and appreciate a relatively early retirement, we remain skeptical about retiring at 40 or even earlier. This must feel terribly devaluating and boring to cut oneself from the productive side of society.

We simply don't believe that around $1 million stashed away can possibly last a lifetime as life expectancy keeps on growing; this is a very dangerous proposition with no margin of safety. 

We also don't like the fact that to survive on a limited income, young retirees must scheme and somehow take shortcuts that are costly to certain elements of society; there's a sense that this strategy of financial independence somehow cheats society.

Finally, if everyone adopted this way of living, it would collapse our economy as we know it, since 70% of our GDP is made of consumption of goods and services.