No. Unless you had a ton of money in the account and you were already very close to retirement it just wouldn’t make sense. There are a lot of penalties when you pull an account early. I made a hardship withdrawal back in 2023 to make the down payment on my first home and that made sense for me, but even that type of thing isn’t right for everyone.

Your 401k will rebound eventually, retirement investment requires you to play the long game. If things get bad enough that your 401k is wiped out entirely then it really won’t matter whether or not you pulled the money out because it would likely be worthless in that situation.

It may be wise to change your elections so that the investments are less aggressive/volatile if you have that option, but otherwise try not to think about the total dollar amount as the economy shits the bed. It’s not like a bank account where the dollars equal dollars directly, the value of the investments can change quickly.

That ship may have already sailed before this administration took over, but my hope was that society could restructure itself in a way that would still sustain human life. At this point we may even be on an extinction track if nothing changes. The world is chaotic enough at 1.5C. I shutter to imagine a world at 4C.

The article was not paywalled, also I think the term we like to use for this phenomenon is “brain drain.”

The climate research community has been gutted by what’s happening with the US government. NOAA and NWS collected some of the most important and valuable data in the world for this and now that’s pretty much over. It will take decades to undo what has been done in only a few months and I’m being hopeful.

I’ll stop calling and emailing when they start doing their damn job. The status quo bullshit has to end, now.

This is the type of shit we need right now. You give an inch and they will take a mile, don’t let them.