I agree, that in another time, taking the lump sum would’t make sense. Especially, with the annuity, you could make mistakes for the first couple of years without worrying because you’d have another cheque coming.
But since I have absolutely no faith in most states being financially solvent, with their pension payouts or infrastructure, I’d rather have the bird in the hand than a promise in the bush.
I don’t want to line up as a creditor at any point in time.
I think I could live almost as well on $105 million (subtract taxes) than I could on $213 million (minus taxes).
if what you say is true, then municipal bonds would have to pay 12% to be sold on the secondary markets ... and their yield is less than corporates ... which means munis are seen as safer than corporate bonds and stocks.
the solution is to short the muni market or buy puts on something like a muni ETF.
The loss you are concerned about is not seen as real by the markets and if you think it is you can buy ‘insurance’ real cheap cuz the markets are underpricing the ‘insurance’.