Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Buy payphones and retire

computer.rip

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

201–210 of 365 posts

Re: Buy payphones and retire

#201

Post by ipaddr »

ochoseis wrote: post #175
miki123211 wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the version of passive income where you don't do anything productive at all, ever, and just put up some initial capital in exchange for even more money back, is always a scam No, that's just investing. This is how savings accounts work, this is how CDs work, this is how treasury bonds work, this is how passive investing (e.g. via ETFs on index funds) works, and there are many, many more examples. If you're keeping…

> Bonds have (relatively) low returns but almost 0 risk Each of the asset classes you listed has risks. Bonds are subject to term (i.e. inflation) and credit (i.e. default) risk. Bonds may be less volatile than equities and commodities, but they can definitely go down (e.g. 2022). The only free lunch in investing is diversification.

Some bonds go down and others have floors.

Re: Buy payphones and retire

#202

Post by caturopath »

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 everyone had access to this capability then society and civilization would grind to a halt

No it wouldn't. The scenario is not an actual one.

Passive income comes from someone benefiting from something you own and paying for it. It must still be benefiting for them to pay for it. If things had ground to a halt, no one would be getting anything, so they wouldn't pay for it.

It's like if I said that people running faster and faster would eventually result in them running faster than the speed of light. No it wouldn't: I'm just extrapolating a model out of its domain of applicability.

> Or maybe only if you couple it with the categorical imperitive.

It also requires taking 'collecting passive income' as a moral act. If I took 'being a car mechanic' as a moral act, I could explain how awful it would be if everyone became car mechanics: there would be no farmers or nurses. But that's a poor analysis of the morality of occupation. This application is absurd and your application is not, but there is a decision on your part that wasn't among your premises.

Re: Buy payphones and retire

#203

Post by ac29 »

khuey wrote: post #102
hifromwork wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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.

> For more risk averse, almost every buyer of USA governmental bonds gets "even more money back" in exchange for the initial capital. In nominal terms, sure. In real terms, ask the banks that bought 30 year treasuries in Spring 2020 how that's going for them.

Inflation adjusted bonds are a thing in the US (though at least with TIPS, the real return has occasionally been negative).

Re: Buy payphones and retire

#204

Post by thrance »

BurningFrog wrote: post #179
thrance wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The money is given voluntarily, so no one is "taking" anything.

No one is giving up anything voluntarily. Do you think workers in the global South are willingly working for meager wages (i.e. giving away most of the wealth they generate) or do you think they are somehow constrained into it?

Re: Buy payphones and retire

#205

Post by farts_mckensy »

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…

Just call it what it is, rent seeking behavior. It's parasitic.

Re: Buy payphones and retire

#206

Post by ac29 »

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…

>additionally the total investment about doubles in roughly 5 years

According to data at FRED (https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MSPUS), the median US home price has gone from $320k to $420k in the past 5 years (an increase of around 30%).

So, I guess good for you that you happen to have done so much better than the median, but your results are atypical at best, and misleading at worst.

Re: Buy payphones and retire

#207

Post by Gigachad »

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…

Most "passive income" schemes are really just front loading all of the work. Producing way more than you consume in return, and then collecting the benefit later.

Re: Buy payphones and retire

#208

Post by thrance »

spacebanana7 wrote: post #166
sokoloff wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Another tangible example is renting a tractor to a farmer that couldn’t otherwise afford one. Their income from crop production goes up (even after tractor rental expenses) and society also gets more food.

But wouldn't it be even better if the farmer bought the tractor on a loan? Now the farmer keeps the entirety of his production and the guy that would have rented the tractor also has to work, further improving society.

Re: Buy payphones and retire

#209

Post by alexjm »

warner25 wrote: post #88
WalterBright wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I once had a storage unit, and lost the key to the padlock. The manager said no problem, and we went to the unit. He pulled out a battery operated angle grinder, and cut through the hasp in a few seconds.

This reminds me of storing equipment and supplies at the platoon level in the Army. The Army owns a huge number of shipping containers, like they're pervasive on any Army base, just part of the landscape. Basically every platoon keeps most of its stuff in these containers instead of proper buildings (minus weapons and ammunition, unless deployed somewhere, and then the shipping containers become arms rooms too). It a…

I saw one city park where they took this one step farther. They had a small wooden structure (I think the cover to a water valve, from years ago when they used to set up an ice skating rink). The open it so rarely they don't even padlock it - they just bend open an S shaped link of chain, put that where the lock would go, and bend it shut. When someone needs to access it, they cut the one link of chain with a pair of bolt cutters, and then put on a new one.

Re: Buy payphones and retire

#210

Post by lotsofpulp »

KK7NIL wrote: post #170
lotsofpulp wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>You're also forgetting that inflation doesn't just affect assets, it also affects living necessities (and that's how it's defined in fact), so it's unclear how this is a net gain for asset holders. Because the rate of increase of asset prices is quicker than that of other prices, namely labor. Hence the griping by young people about wages not keeping up with costs over the past many decades. Again, it’s not all old…

> Because the rate of increase of asset prices is quicker than that of other prices, namely labor. This totally depends on the asset and is nowhere near as straightforward as you make it seem. For example, companies who mainly sell to consumers and require constant capex will generally be negatively impacted by inflation. Your idea that the government will hold up the stock market just doesn't up to historical data.…

2020 was far from an exception.

https://www.thoughtco.com/government-financial-bailout-histo...

Push comes to shove, the only question about whether or not a bailout will happen (since there is no technical hurdle to issuing more money, just changing numbers in a database) is are the parties receiving a bailout sufficiently influential.

And I argue that people exposed to SP500, whether it be by holding it directly or facing the prospects of higher taxes because the government pension fund holding SP500 is not meeting its returns, are now sufficiently influential that it is a given that leaders won’t allow the broad market to be negative for more than a couple years.

2020 isn’t even the most recent one. Here’s a multi employer pension fund bailout from Mar 2021:

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/07/business/dealbook/bailout...

As an aside, the irony of this specific bailout is the main beneficiary, Teamsters’ union, came out in support of Trump after Democrats saved them.

Post reply on HN