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Buy payphones and retire

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Re: Buy payphones and retire

#121

Post by jayd16 »

notatoad wrote: post #65
andrewla wrote: post #57

The concept of "passive income" is almost a scissor concept. Or maybe only if you couple it with the categorical imperitive. On the one hand, it's so obviously true that it would be great to have passive income. Draw the salary you're drawing now, with some growth, and not have to work. On the other hand, if everyone had access to this capability then society and civilization would grind to a halt. People make things…

"passive income", in it's original iteration, wasn't the idea that you could make money by doing nothing. The idea was that you made something or did something that you were uniquely able to make or do, and then the result of your labour would make money for you while you put in minimal continued effort. the version of passive income where you don't do anything productive at all, ever, and just put up some initial ca…

> more people will lose than win.

It's not necessarily zero sum. If money is invested to produce value instead of simply moving it around then everyone can benefit.

Re: Buy payphones and retire

#122

Post by edm0nd »

crooked-v wrote: post #40
hyperhopper wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then why are there so few? And containing such a small variety of goods? In Japan anywhere from a busy subway to a remote park, there will be rows of vending machines everywhere, with more varieties of sodas, coffees, soups, ice creams, candies, hell even clothes or meat! And those are just the common types. You're never far from what you want in an automated fashion. Why are we so behind in America when there seemin…

There are many huge contextual differences between the US and Japan when it comes to vending machines, but the most obvious one is that Japan is eminently walkable, while the US is so pedestrian-unfriendly that there's no guarantee that people will even be around your row of vending machines in the first place.

>but the most obvious one is that Japan is eminently walkable, while the US is so pedestrian-unfriendly

Japan is also extremely tiny compared to the US.

Japan is also something like ~70% mountainous where things cant even be built.

It also helps a lot with planning/building if parts of your country were bombed into oblivion and gave you a chance to rebuild and rethink everything from the ground up.

Re: Buy payphones and retire

#123

Post by sokoloff »

thrance wrote: post #120
andrewla wrote: post #57

The concept of "passive income" is almost a scissor concept. Or maybe only if you couple it with the categorical imperitive. On the one hand, it's so obviously true that it would be great to have passive income. Draw the salary you're drawing now, with some growth, and not have to work. On the other hand, if everyone had access to this capability then society and civilization would grind to a halt. People make things…

It's funny how often you hear "put your money to work". Money doesn't work, people do! If you receive a monthly income by doing nothing, you're taking from someone else's work.

While technically true, this could still be a great trade for all involved.

If you invest in shares in a company, you are a link in the chain to that company existing at all, employing people, serving customers, and paying a dividend to shareholders. Employees have a job and income without the need to come up with the initial capital to start the venture and the associated risk of no income for a while.

If you invest in real estate, you are providing the capital that allows someone to have shelter (and maybe allowing a property management firm to also employ people). Tenants have shelter without the need to buy an entire lifetime of a house that they only want to live in for a few years and without the hassles of being tied down to a specific address (in the event their relationship status or family size evolves or a job improvement arrives 50 or 200 miles away) or buying and selling houses frequently as these changes tend to happen frequently early in adult life.

Neither is something that you had to wipe sweat off your brow this particular month, but it is a deployment of foregone consumption in the past that allowed you to make those investments. Now that previously foregone consumption is being returned to you.

Re: Buy payphones and retire

#124

Post by Ekaros »

apeescape wrote: post #85
andai wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>just put up some initial capital in exchange for even more money back Isn't that how index funds work?

It's not guaranteed that you get more money back from an index fund (unless you've found an arbitrage, but that's a corner case). Even the bigger and stabler indexes like the S&P500 have their ups and downs, both on a daily level but also over longer time spans. The long-term trend has been positive for these types of indexes, but remember that past performance doesn't guarantee future profits :)

One needs to look at multiple markets like for example Japan. Which really points that future growth is not guaranteed.

Re: Buy payphones and retire

#125

Post by stonemetal12 »

SirMaster wrote: post #90
markus_zhang wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, nowadays "passive income" is basically debt interests (like bonds) or rental income, both of which actually need a lot of work. I rarely traded financial instruments so cannot say for that, but as a small landlord I wish I never entered the business. Like, all businesses need initial investment AND a lot of continuous effort and learning, and are probably boring (or VERY barricaded) because otherwise people are…

Rental income doesn't need any work if you are just an investor though. I don't do a single thing. The people who are managing the deal are the ones who do the work and hire the workers to work on site and such. They of course get an even better return during the sale, but I am happy with what I get for doing nothing. My rental properties are paying me a decent passive income of about 6%, and additionally the total i…

The rule of 72 suggest 6% doubles in 12 years not 5. Meaning you have ~400K at 50 making 24 grand a year.

Re: Buy payphones and retire

#126

Post by QuadmasterXLII »

Terr_ wrote: post #115
andrewla wrote: post #57

The concept of "passive income" is almost a scissor concept. Or maybe only if you couple it with the categorical imperitive. On the one hand, it's so obviously true that it would be great to have passive income. Draw the salary you're drawing now, with some growth, and not have to work. On the other hand, if everyone had access to this capability then society and civilization would grind to a halt. People make things…

> is almost a scissor concept I was curious but can't seem to find much on that phrase except as a player-movement tactic in US Football. Perhaps autocorrect-gone-wrong from something else?

It comes from this short story: https://slatestarcodex.com/2018/10/30/sort-by-controversial/

Basically, a scissor statement is a series of words optimized to split a group of people along a novel faultline, and then make them fight.

Re: Buy payphones and retire

#127

Post by thrance »

andai wrote: post #74
andrewla wrote: post #57

The concept of "passive income" is almost a scissor concept. Or maybe only if you couple it with the categorical imperitive. On the one hand, it's so obviously true that it would be great to have passive income. Draw the salary you're drawing now, with some growth, and not have to work. On the other hand, if everyone had access to this capability then society and civilization would grind to a halt. People make things…

>If the goal is to have a system where everyone can have passive income, then achieving that goal is the end of the world. If AI and robotics continue to be developed, then eventually most human labor becomes uneconomical by comparison. At that point, the system provides passive income on a mass scale (UBI) to prevent its own violent destruction. At least, that's the good ending.

My good ending would be to redistribute equitably the wealth generated by the machines labor, and maybe even abolish currency, once (if) we reach such a point.

Re: Buy payphones and retire

#128

Post by schmidtleonard »

jayd16 wrote: post #121
notatoad wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"passive income", in it's original iteration, wasn't the idea that you could make money by doing nothing. The idea was that you made something or did something that you were uniquely able to make or do, and then the result of your labour would make money for you while you put in minimal continued effort. the version of passive income where you don't do anything productive at all, ever, and just put up some initial ca…

> more people will lose than win. It's not necessarily zero sum. If money is invested to produce value instead of simply moving it around then everyone can benefit.

Yes, though it's important to note that the economic notion of value is weighted according to wealth and therefore more than a bit weird. Feeding an orphan creates no "value" because they have no money to pay you with, while merging companies into a mega-monopoly that can shake down the rest of the economy creates loads of "value" because it pays rich investors huge dividends. Of course, there are plenty of honest ways to create value and get paid for it, and that's pretty cool. Both extremes exist, most things are in the messy middle, and reasonable minds can differ about which way the system leans and what should be done about it, if anything.

Another piece of important context is that the US is a developed economy, not a growth economy. If the pie is growing at 2% and the capital slice of the pie is growing at 10%, anyone who lives in the remainder and argues that their slice is being grown is a fool.

Re: Buy payphones and retire

#129

Post by thrance »

seizethecheese wrote: post #89
andrewla wrote: post #57

The concept of "passive income" is almost a scissor concept. Or maybe only if you couple it with the categorical imperitive. On the one hand, it's so obviously true that it would be great to have passive income. Draw the salary you're drawing now, with some growth, and not have to work. On the other hand, if everyone had access to this capability then society and civilization would grind to a halt. People make things…

> The categorical imperative roughly says that something is moral only if its universal adoption would benefit society. Really? I actually don’t think that’s right at all. For example: nobody should be a philosopher, because if I everyone were, society would collapse. Surely, Kant did not believe that. My understanding is that the categorical imperative is more like: it’s only moral if you would accept a random roll…

Kant's moral system is by no means perfect. His own definition is: "Act only according to that maxim whereby you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law."

Obviously we'd all starve to death if everyone became full time philosophers, but wouldn't the world be a better place if everyone took some time to ponder the big questions?

Re: Buy payphones and retire

#130

Post by xmprt »

hifromwork wrote: post #78
notatoad wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"passive income", in it's original iteration, wasn't the idea that you could make money by doing nothing. The idea was that you made something or did something that you were uniquely able to make or do, and then the result of your labour would make money for you while you put in minimal continued effort. the version of passive income where you don't do anything productive at all, ever, and just put up some initial ca…

>just put up some initial capital in exchange for even more money back, is always a scam. some people might come out ahead sometimes, but more people will lose than win. How so? My all-world index funds are doing pretty well. For more risk averse, almost every buyer of USA governmental bonds gets "even more money back" in exchange for the initial capital. I don't think that's a scam either.

It's not a scam for you but rather a scam for society at large. Making money purely by owning some revenue generating asset, while not providing any service yourself is doesn't work if every single person does it. Many people who work at companies on the S&P500 aren't paid enough to having savings to invest. The money the company saves on employee salaries are shown as profits which result in the "passive income" that you're making.

I don't 100% agree with the logic because it doesn't account for improvements in productivity but I think it roughly translates especially in some late stage capitalism cases where company profits grow despite lower productivity (eg. layoffs).

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