You definitely can max both a 401k and IRA you can also max an HSA. All these combined allow for an individual (not family) to save $34,150 (there are some edge cases I’m ignoring). Someone who can afford to save almost the US median salary amount is almost certainly going to have a higher benefit from traditional than Roth.

Also, the math completely changes if you aren’t maxing because if you aren’t maxing the contribution than adding more to the contribution gives you more tax advantaged investments (instead of taxable brokerage investments).

You seem to be using many different assumptions separately. In the first you assume you are maxing a Roth IRA (in my initial response I was also considering 401ks as many of them have Roth options nowadays). If you are maxing your Roth 401k and Roth IRA you are likely a high earner and therefore likely in a higher tax bracket than you will be in retirement. This means that kind of person will likely prefer traditional investments.

Your assumption there is someone maxing out their retirement options and in a relatively low tax bracket doesn’t seem like reality. So in your math example they wouldn’t be putting the extra in a taxable brokerage account but in the same tax advantaged account.

Quick edit: also I’m confused on the extra $400/year into taxable account. It should be $1,250 per year (25% of the 5,000) which would be closer to $600,000 before the capital gains tax.

I largely agree with all the points made here however I think the overall message is a bit misleading. I would disagree that Roth investments are the preferred for long term investments. You aren’t accounting for the opportunity cost of the taxes paid in the initial investment year. Those taxes, while small compared to what you will withdraw tax free are also losing out on 8x-ing themselves (as you would have invested that amount in a traditional tax advantaged account).

What this means is Roth is the preferable savings method if you are in a lower marginal tax rate than you expect to be in retirement. However traditional is better if you are in a higher marginal rate than you expect to be in retirement. If the marginal tax rate was the same when you invest and retire then the difference between Roth and traditional would be nil.

I see no evidence to suggest that the majority of posters here are not debating in good faith, most posters here seem to me just normal humans who have biases and emotions - but I’d hardly call that bad faith. If you think this low of lemmy and its users I don’t really understand why you are spending time here.

Even if your assumptions of lemmy users where true I don’t see how that affords you the opportunity to discuss without nuance. Discussing in absolutes and without nuance would categorize you in the “weaponize nuance to try and shift goalposts” crowd I’d say.

But you do you

I find it funny you claim there is clearly no debate while having a debate about this. The reason the person linked that article because of a different section:

Unrelated to the economic philosophy described in this article, the term “neoliberalism” is also used to describe a centrist political movement from modern American liberalism in the 1970s. According to political commentator David Brooks, prominent neoliberal politicians included Al Gore and Bill Clinton of the Democratic Party of the United States.[48]

Aha! You might say, it clearly says it is unrelated to the economic philosophy, but the point is that the word can often refer to different things, including Democrats.

Here is another quote from that link:

Neoliberalism is distinct from liberalism insofar as it does not advocate laissez-faire economic policy, but instead is highly constructivist and advocates a strong state to bring about market-like reforms in every aspect of society.

Sounds a lot like the Democrats to me.

As for your talk of comparing European liberals to American liberals being “propaganda” I disagree. I don’t know if this specific movement in lemmy that you speak, but I don’t think it is propaganda to show that one could want to shrink a gigantic government to medium one (European liberal) and they would be the same as someone who wants to expand a small government to medium one (American liberals). Healthcare being an obvious example here: the United Kingdom wanting to privatize NHS could be considered similar to Democrats who want to just regulate an already privatized system. The end state is the similarity not the action taken to get there.

I think this is an interesting discussion and am not trying to prove that European libs are the same as American libs, just proving that there is clearly debate here.