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Buy payphones and retire

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Re: Buy payphones and retire

#131

Post by lotsofpulp »

markus_zhang wrote: post #83
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?

People believe in index funds because of multi-decades of globalization and (in general) cheaper money, which has been less and less true since 10 years ago. Even if you bought some during the 90s, you still need a tremendous belief in yourself and the market to hold them for 30 years. It's not that easy. I know many people put the fund into a retirement fund, but 1) is every body consistently doing that for 30 years…

> what if the market sucks when you retire?

You don’t have to liquidate all of your investments on your retirement date.

If the market sucks so much for 5+ years and your government can’t get it pumped back up, you probably have a bigger problem than your retirement savings, such as food and energy and security shortages.

It would be bold to bet against a government not constantly decreasing the purchasing power of its currency to prop up asset prices, especially with declining proportions of young people. The political apparatus will want to maintain old people’s position at the top of the social hierarchy, and if their purchasing power isn’t maintained so they can keep buying the fruits of others’ labor, it means the country is dissolving.

Re: Buy payphones and retire

#132

Post by wongarsu »

hifromwork wrote: post #79
crooked-v wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I agree, but in my very walkable european neighbourhood I don't see any vending machines either (except on the train stations, in waiting rooms, etc). Granted, there are small shops every corner, so vending machines don't feel necessary, but sometimes it would be useful to have some.

In Germany a lot of vending machines have appeared over the last ~10 years, and there are a lot more popping up all the time. And not just in the big cities. Nowhere as many as in Japan, but for example in my area there's a farmer selling fresh eggs in a vending machine, a meat packaging plant selling meat and sausages, an ice cream/frozen yoghurt vending machine (some local Ben & Jerry's competitor), a bunch of vending machines for CBD stuff, a pizza vending machine at the local university (it makes hot pizza), multiple old shops in pedestrian areas converted to house 5-10 vending machines, etc.

Especially the model of renting shops to fill them with vending machines seems to be getting popular. They regularly get into fights with the city whether they have to obey the legally allowed opening times for stores or can be open 24/7. That and farm shops putting up vending machines.

Re: Buy payphones and retire

#134

Post by ForHackernews »

markus_zhang wrote: post #83
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?

People believe in index funds because of multi-decades of globalization and (in general) cheaper money, which has been less and less true since 10 years ago. Even if you bought some during the 90s, you still need a tremendous belief in yourself and the market to hold them for 30 years. It's not that easy. I know many people put the fund into a retirement fund, but 1) is every body consistently doing that for 30 years…

I don't think you need tremendous belief. What else are you going to do with your money? I can't think of any other proposition that compares with investing in the US economy.

https://apollowealth.com/one-chart-120-years-of-the-dow-jone...

Re: Buy payphones and retire

#135

Post by williamdclt »

markus_zhang wrote: post #83
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?

People believe in index funds because of multi-decades of globalization and (in general) cheaper money, which has been less and less true since 10 years ago. Even if you bought some during the 90s, you still need a tremendous belief in yourself and the market to hold them for 30 years. It's not that easy. I know many people put the fund into a retirement fund, but 1) is every body consistently doing that for 30 years…

> what if the market sucks when you retire?

if it's been good (on average) for 30y but then sucks when you're about to retire, you still probably accumulated a lot of money from these 30y of interest

Re: Buy payphones and retire

#136

Post by KK7NIL »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #131
markus_zhang wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People believe in index funds because of multi-decades of globalization and (in general) cheaper money, which has been less and less true since 10 years ago. Even if you bought some during the 90s, you still need a tremendous belief in yourself and the market to hold them for 30 years. It's not that easy. I know many people put the fund into a retirement fund, but 1) is every body consistently doing that for 30 years…

> what if the market sucks when you retire? You don’t have to liquidate all of your investments on your retirement date. If the market sucks so much for 5+ years and your government can’t get it pumped back up, you probably have a bigger problem than your retirement savings, such as food and energy and security shortages. It would be bold to bet against a government not constantly decreasing the purchasing power of i…

> If the market sucks so much for 5+ years and your government can’t get it pumped back up, you probably have a bigger problem than your retirement savings, such as food and energy and security shortages.

The S&P500 was flat or negative from 2000 to 2012. And this isn't unusual.

> It would be bold to bet against a government not constantly decreasing the purchasing power of its currency to prop up asset prices, especially with declining proportions of young people. The political apparatus will want to maintain old people’s position at the top of the social hierarchy, and if their purchasing power isn’t maintained so they can keep buying the fruits of others’ labor, it means the country is dissolving.

How does the government decreasing the purchasing power help old people?

This is quite the opposite, retirees survive off of a fixed income (mainly from welfare and pensions but also fixed income investments since they shouldn't risk the stock market) and are the most hurt by inflation.

Re: Buy payphones and retire

#137

Post by user90131313 »

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.

When market crashes (march 2020) they created trillions in debt. Who works for that amount? They literally gave away some small part of it. Try to learn how debt based MMT works.

Re: Buy payphones and retire

#138

Post by tgv »

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…

I think the categorical imperative stops you from harming others, but not from profiting. It is based on free will, after all, so it's not against the individual per se.

But to continue your other line of reasoning: there's always someone who profits, and obviously not everybody can profit. There is always a difference. Therefor it cannot be immoral, because it is unavoidable. It is however right to strive for minimal consequences of this difference (in wealth).

Re: Buy payphones and retire

#139

Post by lotsofpulp »

KK7NIL wrote: post #136
lotsofpulp wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> what if the market sucks when you retire? You don’t have to liquidate all of your investments on your retirement date. If the market sucks so much for 5+ years and your government can’t get it pumped back up, you probably have a bigger problem than your retirement savings, such as food and energy and security shortages. It would be bold to bet against a government not constantly decreasing the purchasing power of i…

> If the market sucks so much for 5+ years and your government can’t get it pumped back up, you probably have a bigger problem than your retirement savings, such as food and energy and security shortages. The S&P500 was flat or negative from 2000 to 2012. And this isn't unusual. > It would be bold to bet against a government not constantly decreasing the purchasing power of its currency to prop up asset prices, espec…

> The S&P500 was flat or negative from 2000 to 2012. And this isn't unusual.

At its worst, 1999 to 2009, SP500 total annual return was only -0.2%, per dqdyj. Thats really good considering the upside (which has since been realized), and it shows that the government is willing to pull out all the stops if the market is down just -0.2%.

> How does the government decreasing the purchasing power help old people?

Old people are likelier to have assets and/or fixed income from assets (such as defined benefit pension funds). The government can also increase Social Security benefits quicker than wages in the market. The government also can maintain current benefits and reduce them for younger people by increasing the retirement age and adjusting the “bend points” in the benefit formula.

Of course, the poorest old people won’t benefit as much, but there’s a solid contingent of old people who do have at least real estate in their home, if not investments in the broader market that are very politically active.

> mainly from welfare and pensions but also fixed income investments since they shouldn't risk the stock market) and are the most hurt by inflation.

They shouldn’t be in fixed income for expenses needed beyond 10 years. I’d even be so bullish as to say 5 years. The demographic changes of the population pyramid flattening and turning down just started hitting economies in the 2000s. I don’t see any other way out for governments, so your goal is to tread water, you at least want to be invested in whatever the politicians are going to backstop (which is evidently not USD or fixed income, but rather equities).

Re: Buy payphones and retire

#140

Post by eigenvalue »

You should basically always be very suspicious when someone is trying to sell you a way to earn very attractive returns without a lot of risk or without time and effort intensive management. There is a lot of capital out there in the world looking for a return. If the returns really were so attractive on a risk-adjusted basis, and you could deploy a fair amount of capital without building a large organization and incurring a bunch of fixed operating expenses, why wouldn't someone who is a proven successful operator in that field just raise more capital themselves and keep more of the profits?

Even when the propositions look plausible on the surface, there is usually some hidden gotcha that prevents it from being scalable. For example, the economics only work if you can find a really good location that meets a bunch of requirements, and there simply aren't that many of those "good" locations left. Or it turns out that it requires very intensive management to deal with broken equipment, theft, vandalism, etc.

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