731–740 of 898 posts
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> You can expect around 1.5% in the US for IG bonds. Sure, but the fed's target inflation rate is around 2%. That means you're in fact losing 0.5% of your purchasing power per annum. That's just losing money slower. There is in fact, no alternative.
Also the interest will be taxed.
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I feel like there is a decade of guillotines in the future that they are either not seeing or are looking way past. But then I've always been cynical about the growing divide between the uber-wealthy and the other 99% of this country.
I don't see how they would help. There's a common refrain among Reddit socialists and whatnot about the rich sitting on some mythical "pile of resources" that needs to be redistributed, but even if you suppose that we guillotine the rich I don't think the poor can eat stock certificates. What are they going to do if they dismantle, say, Wal-Mart? Now all the people who worked there have no jobs and the people who sho…
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It should be in proportion to how many % of the wealth they own. So more like 90%
They will simply leave, or destroy the system.
Destroying the system would do more damage, but so far it's been their system that enables their accumulation of wealth. There are a lot of poor people who want to destroy that system.
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If you allow me to complement your breakdown: - bonds: Definitely not 0% interest rate, definitely better than cash. You can expect around 1.5% in the US for IG bonds. This is all relative to the default risk of course, the stronger your central bank, the less risky are the bonds, the less interests you earn. - Real estate: you don't have to own it directly. This exposes yourself to a huge idiosyncratic risk. You can…
Isn't currency (and many others) more of a zero sum bet -- useful for hedging if you are a business with expenditures in one currency and income in another. But if you're looking to invest cash on hand, and looking for a long-term upside. I'm not sure currency is good idea.
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If you allow me to complement your breakdown: - bonds: Definitely not 0% interest rate, definitely better than cash. You can expect around 1.5% in the US for IG bonds. This is all relative to the default risk of course, the stronger your central bank, the less risky are the bonds, the less interests you earn. - Real estate: you don't have to own it directly. This exposes yourself to a huge idiosyncratic risk. You can…
Most bonds in the EU are below 0% interest rate.
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If you allow me to complement your breakdown: - bonds: Definitely not 0% interest rate, definitely better than cash. You can expect around 1.5% in the US for IG bonds. This is all relative to the default risk of course, the stronger your central bank, the less risky are the bonds, the less interests you earn. - Real estate: you don't have to own it directly. This exposes yourself to a huge idiosyncratic risk. You can…
High interest savings accounts are still beating bonds.
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Like Sanders says, when half a million people are homeless, our healthcare system is a joke, and our infrastructure is unmaintained, we have a LOT of work to do. And a lot of spending. There is a far-left opinion that there should be no such thing as a billionaire, that a single human's marginal tax rate should hit 100% at some point. I wouldn't say "never" to the idea at this point.
> our infrastructure is unmaintained Bernie supporters are generally the least likely to get their hands dirty and do the kind of work necessary to build and maintain infrastructure. Pretty much everyone I meet that does that kind of work is Republican. Not saying this is a universal truth, but it's a somewhat accurate generalization. Source for party affiliation by a sampling of occupations: http://verdantlabs.com/p…
https://archive.is/cmMx5 It's a decent article. Here are their 5 reasons: 1. Bets on a “V-Shaped” Recovery 2. Market Leaders Keep Rising 3. Corporate-Earnings Expectations Remain High 4. Old Habits Die Hard 5. The Fed’s Backing Personally, I'm betting we're still headed to a bloodbath, but slowly. This quarter's earnings are expected to be terrible, so this is already priced in. But the market is expecting a recovery…
There's still a real possibility that there might actually be a full recovery - what's closing is small businesses, not megacorporations. The rich seem to do just fine even now. Even if most individual restaurants close, some will open back up, and more chains will move back in. In every scenario I can imagine, one thing seems inevitable - most people in this world are going to get poorer and suffer more. But I'm not…
$megacorps arent dying, they're thriving. The economies of scale they have built are doing great right now, since all the smaller players are essentially stopped, and people still need their stuff.
I honestly believe that every recession, the economy gets a little more inequal.
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> I'm surprised the average Americans (the 90%) don't get that they are providing insurance to the 86% wealth of the top 10%, but get almost none of the gains. Are you so sure that they don't get this? I guess that many do understand it and either would like a much more inequality-reducing tax structure, or envision themselves as (somehow!) becoming part of the top 10%.
> or envision themselves as (somehow!) becoming part of the top 10% I don't disagree with you but want to add some insight to this... My entire life I've been told the lie that if I "just work harder" I can be rich etc. Most of America thinks about themselves in this same way, and it's taken me years of traditional employment + risky startup opportunities to realize that no, success is not guaranteed if you "just wor…
After WWII the situation basically got reversed: Europe experienced such a shock and disruption to the existing social order/redistribution of wealth etc., that it went really left-wing/"social democratic". In the meantime, the US saw a greater and greater concentration of wealth and the division between the rich and the poor got increasingly stark, and social mobility is much worse than that in, say, Northern Europe. The American Dream as people knew it is pretty much dead. This is also one huge reason behind the polarization in politics that we see nowadays.
Unfortunately, a lot of narratives in the US don't seem to realize/willingly ignore this situation and still seem to talk about the old idea of "bootstrapping" and American exceptionalism in this regard, which is really kinda one century out of date already.
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How is that any different from the proposition offered by your local Mafia muscle?
All governments are Mafias to some extent. That's what it means to have police. The difference is that we expect the government to leverage its Mafia-like power in a manner that best suits its citizens.
It's the democratic basis that gives a government its legitimacy.