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Rethinking 'Fuck You' money

tonywright.com

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Re: Rethinking 'Fuck You' money

#141

Post by jacquesm »

jimbokun wrote: post #139
roel_v wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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…

When I was driving around in Northern Michigan in 2002 I realised that I'd been 'had' by hollywood and their depiction of rural America. Poverty was pretty common, people living in trailers rather than houses, bad education etc.

The difference between then and now is that some of the people that were affluent then are feeling a little bit of the heat right now and they're scared shitless. But given a slight economic upturn they'll forget about all that and it's back to business as usual. Except for the people that had it bad in 2002, they'll continue to live in a way that a civilised country ought to be ashamed off.

There is no crisis, there is only a totally weird distribution of wealth that has temporarily gotten a bit weirder. If we really wanted then we could solve this problem, but all the majority wants is to return to the situation of 5 years ago.

Re: Rethinking 'Fuck You' money

#142

Post by ahoyhere »

Oh yes, you shouldn't sit on your ass after banking a wad of cash and expect to live forever, not doing a thing.

But neither should you rely on influence and credibility, because those things still imply gatekeepers. You have to have influence and credibility... to convince somebody else.

Why not just rely on yourself? Why not foster the ability to make money in any circumstance?

I cashed out my IRA because, so far, the money I've put into my SaaS has paid back itself 1000%, not 10%.

Based on that, and my other efforts/products, I know I could easily earn 7K euros a month just by working a few days. Training is lucrative. My information products are lucrative. I'm about to open my "your first product" launch class again - last time it made $25k (as I was building it!), this time I aim to double that. Shouldn't be too hard.

Sometimes I sit back and think about it, and I can't help but laugh (in a nervous way), that I can earn more in a few weeks than one of my parents' yearly salaries from when I was a kid.

Now, back to my influence/credibilty/gatekeepers argument - the perceptive HNer will point out that I am using my credibility to bring in customers. That's true, at a few hundred bucks a pop -- which is a far cry from hoping somebody will hire you for a sweet job (which means, of course, that you have to work that job), and miles away from trying to use your credibility to get millions in investment.

My way is very do-able for a normal person, the other is incredibly hard and requires much luck in addition to a full-out effort.

Re: Rethinking 'Fuck You' money

#143

Post by loewenskind »

run4yourlives wrote: post #140
loewenskind wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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.

Initial citations/qualifications still needed and citations for these new claims needed as well.

The countries you listed (aside from Greece of course) are having some issues, which they are addressing. So what. From where I sit (live in Europe, have family and friends still in the US) the US looks much worse off.

Re: Rethinking 'Fuck You' money

#144

Post by illumin8 »

strlen wrote: post #51
btilly wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

8% ROI is unrealistic, but a 2-4% is certainly possible especially with municipal bonds and insurance annuities. Amusingly, municipal bonds are in the top 4 likely candidates for our next set of major financial problems. The others are default on consumer ARM mortgages, debt on commercial real estate, and repayment on private equity. Interestingly, the largest class of investors in private equity funds this time arou…

> Amusingly, municipal bonds are in the top 4 likely candidates for our next set of major financial problem There's several kind of muni bonds, however, each with their own set of trade offs. The higher yield, the higher the risk. Some are guarantees, but only offer a very low yield. If the guarantees lapse, the problems are likely to be very deep, irrespective. For what it's worth, I'm sticking with FDIC insured ban…

Insurance annuities are not as risky as municipal bonds. What's more, your state's insurance commissioner guarantees them, similar to the FDIC guarantee on deposit accounts, up to a certain dollar amount (I think it's something like $100K).

So you have $2 million in F-you money? Stick $100K each into 20 different insurance company annuities (staying below the guaranteed amount and diversifying your risk) and enjoy guaranteed monthly (inflation adjusted) checks for the rest of your life.

The only thing that will stop your income stream is the complete destruction of the entire US financial system. I suppose that is possible, but if that happens your money won't be safe anywhere, except perhaps gold bars buried in your back yard...

Re: Rethinking 'Fuck You' money

#145

Post by GBond »

jimbokun wrote: post #136
nostrademons wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hostile_witness more so than Liar's Paradox.

Re: Rethinking 'Fuck You' money

#146

Post by yummyfajitas »

nostrademons wrote: post #55
pg wrote: post #41

Does the rule that you should get out of the stock market when random people tell you stocks are sure to go up apply in reverse? If so, this is a pretty encouraging sign.

Top money manager at major Wall Street firm != random people. It doesn't necessarily mean stocks are about to go down either (Wall Street has certainly been wrong too, eg. 2000 or 2007), but it's a far cry from having a shoe-shine boy tell you to buy stocks.

Wall St was right in 2000 and 2007. It was 1995-1999 and 1998-2006 when Wall St (and everyone else) was wrong (on tech stocks and housing, respectively).

Re: Rethinking 'Fuck You' money

#147

Post by run4yourlives »

loewenskind wrote: post #143
run4yourlives wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Initial citations/qualifications still needed and citations for these new claims needed as well. The countries you listed (aside from Greece of course) are having some issues, which they are addressing. So what. From where I sit (live in Europe, have family and friends still in the US) the US looks much worse off.

The initial argument was that investing in Europe as opposed to the US wasn't going to get you anywhere. While we could debate ad-infinitum which economy is "worse", the point stands.

It's easy to establish that Europe is in at least as bad a position as the US. Your point as to Switzerland's health points exactly to why many (including myself) think this means that it is actually worse overall: Because of the Euro, each of these problem countries can't control their own interest rate, and so the likelihood of actually defaulting is greater.

http://www.moneyweek.com/news-and-charts/economics/europes-e...

Re: Rethinking 'Fuck You' money

#148

Post by illumin8 »

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…

This is a terrible idea, unless you want a full time job. You didn't deduct from the $8,000 a month income - repairs, taxes, upkeep, insurance, potential loss of income due to bad tenants, tenants that damage your property - a bad tenant could cause $100K+ damage to your property and stop paying rent entirely. Also, property value loss due to deflation of the housing market, and other risks.

The average price of maintenance on a house is 1-3% of its value per year - this takes $20-60K per year off the top of your income. Be sure to take taxes off that as well as deadbeat tenants.

You could actually be in a negative situation, especially if you get a bad tenant that damages your property.

Re: Rethinking 'Fuck You' money

#149

Post by illumin8 »

ehsanul wrote: post #93

Two words: permanent portfolio. http://crawlingroad.com/blog/2008/12/22/permanent-portfolio-... http://crawlingroad.com/blog/tag/permanent-portfolio/

I haven't heard of this before, but thanks for sharing. This is a remarkably simple yet well balanced portfolio that should work for retirement at any age.

Re: Rethinking 'Fuck You' money

#150

Post by mattmaroon »

Eliezer wrote: post #86
nostrademons wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Top money manager at major Wall Street firm != random people. It doesn't necessarily mean stocks are about to go down either (Wall Street has certainly been wrong too, eg. 2000 or 2007), but it's a far cry from having a shoe-shine boy tell you to buy stocks.

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

Even attributed it's still basically random people. The underperformance of mutual and hedge funds pretty much shows that the professionals are no better at predicting the future of the market than a monkey with a dart board.
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