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Rethinking 'Fuck You' money

tonywright.com

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Re: Rethinking 'Fuck You' money

#131

Post by ahoyhere »

tomjen3 wrote: post #112
jacquesm wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I get sick & tired of all this doom talk about a worldwide depression. It's depressing. If you play it smart then this 'depression' is an opportunity in disguise, more of a correction than a true depression. The 1929 stock market crash set the stage for World War II, and it took until well after World War II before the world had finally recovered from it. That was a depression. The current situation is, compared to t…

During the depression people lived in shacks made of cardboard, did have any money for clothing or even toilet paper and where in many cases starving. And you are telling me we are in a depression now?

Google "tent cities":

http://www.google.com/search?q=tent%20cities

And the reason you don't see it every day? The criminalization of homelessness:

http://www.google.com/search?q=criminalization%20homelessnes...

The cushion is slightly greater because the lifestyles before this depression were higher than in the Great Depression (e.g. people have tents), there are more laws to protect lessees from landlords, and, of course, many people have credit.

But those are just cushioning. Cushioning slows the fall, it doesn't stop it.

It seems like about 25% of all children live in poverty - and the US' lines for poverty are lower than in many other countries:

http://www.google.com/search?q=US%20percentage%20of%20childr...

Re: Rethinking 'Fuck You' money

#132

Post by brc »

roel_v wrote: post #113
brc wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Improvement on that is avoid family housing and go for industrial/commercial. You can get a quality property with minimal leverage for your $2million. You will get a blue chip tenant like a national retailer or even a government department, and they'll sign a 10 year lease with mandated, upwards only, CPI-indexed increases each year. You won't even have to fork over 8-10% on a property manager because the tenant will…

Commercial property is much more sensitive to cyclical downturns than family housing. 10 or 15 year leases are mostly in either downtown, prime location property (with very limited supply) or in new developments, where you only get them once. After that you're left to the market. As usual, I think diversification if best for a stable portfolio. Mix various types of property, in various locations with various target m…

Yes, I'm talking about a prime location property. That's why you are putting down $2million with leverage (say $4 million total buy).

Of course there are cyclical downturns, and also upturns. The idea is to get a low risk passive income, not to flip it and make money. Any blue chip property is going to stay blue chip regardless of market conditions, unless the location goes sour. But that's part of your due diligence.

Re: Rethinking 'Fuck You' money

#133

Post by jimbokun »

euccastro wrote: post #95
Eliezer wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, I think "top money manager at a major Wall Street firm" and otherwise unattributed actually is random people.

Bernard Lietaer (former central banker, successful currency speculator, one of the architects of what today is the Euro, and nowadays complementary currency advocate) starts most of his post-crisis conferences by asking the public to raise their hands if they believe that the worst of the crisis is past/ahead of us. Generally, most people will raise their hand to state their belief that the worst is still to come. He…

That doesn't necessarily mean you shouldn't buy stocks.

It is extremely unlikely that you will time the bottom of the market just right. So even if it will continue to get worse for a while, it might still be a good decision to continue buying into the market so that when the bottom does hit, you will have bought some stocks right around that time.

This all depends on your investment horizon, etc. etc.

Re: Rethinking 'Fuck You' money

#134

Post by run4yourlives »

hugh3 wrote: post #62

If you ask me, the best way to invest the $2 million mentioned in the article in order to retire comfortably would be rental property. Take your $2 million and buy four $500K houses (or eight $250K houses, or whatever's appropriate). Pay an agent to take care of them, or do it yourself, depending on how much involvement you want. That should yield maybe $8,000 a month in rent, which after you've taken care of all the…

Rentals are a shit-ton of work, even if you have an agent. If you always had dreams of being a landlord, I suppose this is the retirement for you, but for the rest of us, there's no way in hell this is a good idea.

You will have issues with tenants. You will invest heavily in maintenance, possibly due to your tenants. You will be hogtied by municipal and regional laws that heavily favour the rights of the tenant.

What you inevitably find is that if rent differs greatly from the amount of your mortgage (i.e this is profitable), all the good tenants have bought a house of their own. If it doesn't, you'll basically have a holding property that is gambling all your earnings on the property market. This isn't a very good strategy.

Re: Rethinking 'Fuck You' money

#135

Post by brc »

rmc wrote: post #127
brc wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Improvement on that is avoid family housing and go for industrial/commercial. You can get a quality property with minimal leverage for your $2million. You will get a blue chip tenant like a national retailer or even a government department, and they'll sign a 10 year lease with mandated, upwards only, CPI-indexed increases each year. You won't even have to fork over 8-10% on a property manager because the tenant will…

> And at the end of it, you'll have a property worth much, much more than what you paid for it. Unless there was a property bubble. Ireland recently had a massive property crash. Properties that were sold for €200million are now worth €20mil or less. Lots of people are stuck owning empty hotels and business centres with no tenants.

Well, obviously you don't buy an overvalued or speculative property. I'm talking about the dirt and building underneath an established business, like a fast food retailer, or, like I said, a government department.

For all the overvalued properties out there, there are still plenty which have maintained solid value based on solid cashflow from solid leases. As long as the lease is still going, then the value of the property is a function of the cashflow of the lease. The value of the lease is a function of the value of the tenant. If you do your due diligence all these mistakes can be avoided.

Re: Rethinking 'Fuck You' money

#136

Post by jimbokun »

nostrademons wrote: post #105
Eliezer wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most of my friends on Wall Street say you shouldn't trust random top money managers at major Wall Street firms - that's not over the interesting competence threshold. I am, obviously, paraphrasing, but it's the impression I get.

Why trust your friends on Wall Street then? ;-)

Basically, his friends on Wall Street are telling him to not trust his friends on Wall Street when it comes to financial advice.

I'm struggling to determine whether this fits the Liar's Paradox, or not.

Re: Rethinking 'Fuck You' money

#137

Post by ahoyhere »

SamAtt wrote: post #5

His premise seems flawed to me. He says people should forget about F@#$ You Money because you can't depend on it to grow in this bad economy. That's reasonable. But then he suggests you aim for “f@#$ you influence and credibility” because it "allows you to charge $30k+ for a 1 hour speaking engagement". But I know people who used to make $10k per speaking engagement and they aren't getting much work lately. In my exp…

I wouldn't base your career change on the experience of your friends. You assume that because your friends are cheaper, that they'd have more business. I'd argue the opposite:

1. If you are bottom-end expensive, you get cut quickly. (e.g. $10k speaking engagement)

2. If you are middle-end expensive, you get cut... but not as quickly. (e.g. $20-30k)

3. If you are high-end expensive, you get cut dead last.

My husband and I did very specific, highly sought-after freelance services in the realm of visualization design/JavaScript. We are definitely high-end expensive.

As the economy went into the shitter, we only got more and more work.

Why? Because clients/customers often feel that the low-end and mid-end expensive people don't fully pay for themselves. Those people are basically getting "excess" budget, as opposed to being truly sought after.

Or they are a consolation prize: "Well, we could get Tony Robbins but he's $80k, then again, there's this dude, he's kinda interesting, how do you feel about $10K?"

Once even that $10k may be a stretch, they decide not to hire anyone at all.

Re: Rethinking 'Fuck You' money

#138

Post by varjag »

die_sekte wrote: post #87
megablast wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have found Germany to be one of the most expensive places in Europe, certainly much more expensive than the US. It seems the further south you head, and the further east you head, Europe gets cheaper, with a few exceptions. Curious to know what is cheaper in Berlin compared with Copenhagen, I am surprised there is much difference. Did not find much difference in Denmark when I passed through, and spent quite a bit…

The Nordic countries are quite a bit more expensive than Germany (and have worse bread). Which stems from the slightly lower VAT in Germany, less regulations and taxes on the sale of alcoholic beverages and the fact that Germany has Aldi, Lidl, Penny, Plus, Netto, etc. (all of them competing discount stores).

Median income also tend to be less in Germany than in Nordic states, and welfare safety net less extensive. All adds up to cost of living.

Re: Rethinking 'Fuck You' money

#139

Post by jimbokun »

roel_v wrote: post #109
jbooth wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, it's not, but the current situation smacks of systemic job loss rather than cyclical job loss. It's a problem. What happens when people absolutely can't find new jobs? Self-feeding demand destruction?

"No, it's not, but the current situation smacks of systemic job loss rather than cyclical job loss." Sounds like we're back in the 80's - 'the Japanese are taking our jobs! The robots did it!' and then we went into the 20 most prosperous years humankind has ever known. I hear people cry left and right that today's job loss is systemic, but I hardly see any factual arguments to support that position. Jobs were cut ove…

"I'm sure that's no consolation for a welfare mom who has to put her children to bed some nights crying because they're hungry"

The weird thing is that it is more likely that mom and those kids suffer from chronic obesity, at least in the U.S. Doesn't change the fact, though, that the poor face much greater health risks than the affluent when it comes to nutrition. Just that the nature of those risks has changed, and take longer to manifest themselves.

Re: Rethinking 'Fuck You' money

#140

Post by run4yourlives »

loewenskind wrote: post #116
nostrademons wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which country? Europe is worse-off than America, China likely has their own bubble. Japan has been in a funk for 20 years. Russia has recently been cracking down on political freedoms in a worrisome way, there's no guarantee that you'll be able to take your money out once you put it in. Same for many Latin American countries.

>Europe is worse-off than America Citation and qualification needed (e.g. Switzerland certainly isn't worse off than America).

Greece, Spain, Italy and to a lesser extent France are essentially bankrupt.
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