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Buy payphones and retire

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Re: Buy payphones and retire

#211

Post by jancsika »

KK7NIL wrote: post #199
jancsika wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Your average retiree should not hold stocks as they usually can't survive a 10+ year drawdown (which, as I just showed you, happens a lot more than people think, even in the survivor biased S&P500 example). This is why target retirement funds transition to safer fixed income assets as the target date approaches. Target retirement funds transition to a safer mix of bonds and stocks as the target date approaches. Eve…

> Even VTINX has a conservative mix of 30% stocks. Your average retiree does not live off of VTINX. > I'd say if you cannot afford to hold any stocks you're probably not yet ready to retire. There's so many variables here that it's really not worth discussing. I'll just say that investing in stocks for retirement is a pretty recent fascination that is far less common outside of the US and in poorer regions in the US.…

> There's so many variables here that it's really not worth discussing.

Fair enough. I only want to clarify what you wrote: "the average retiree should not hold stocks." To be crystal clear:

1. don't go out and buy individual stocks on a lark (good advice)

2. get all worried because your 401k is a conservative mix of mutual funds (hopefully index funds, probably managed mutual funds) and bonds (bad advice)

> Plenty of American retirees (maybe even a majority) own little to no stocks and live on a fixed income

The logically necessary flip-side is all I'm addressing: plenty of American retirees hold stocks in a 401k. To them I reiterate: don't fuss around with your target retirement fund.

Re: Buy payphones and retire

#212

Post by lotsofpulp »

__turbobrew__ wrote: post #194
lotsofpulp wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Real estate is special because of multiple federal government and state government policies limiting (subsidizing) borrowers’ risk, allowing borrowers to lever without commensurate increases in risk. The federal government taxpayers (especially future ones) provide enormous subsidies in the way of 30 year fixed rate loans with no prepayment penalty, and no risk of having the loan be called. Many state governments mak…

Yea I think that is the crux of it. You are using social programs designed to keep a roof over people’s head for financial gain.

If the social program was designed to keep a roof over people’s head, then it would simply give people cash, or a roof.

The fact that the social program involves extending lines of credit means that the design was not to keep a roof over people’s head, but rather enrich existing asset owners and indebt future ones to get them chained to the treadmill. Similar to cutting funding for higher education and replacing it with student loans.

Re: Buy payphones and retire

#213

Post by opo »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #139
KK7NIL wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 peopl…

>At its worst, 1999 to 2009, SP500 total annual return was only -0.2%, per dqdyj.

That might not be adjusting for inflation. According to the calculator on moneychimp, with adjusting for inflation, the cagr for the S&P 500 over that time period was -3.42%. (i.e. $1.00 shrank to 71 cents if invested in S&P 500 Jan 1, 2000 to Dec 31, 2009.

>...and it shows that the government is willing to pull out all the stops if the market is down just -0.2%.

I imagine the potential collapse of the financial markets, was maybe a more important cause of monetary and fiscal policy around that time.

http://www.moneychimp.com/features/market_cagr.htm

Re: Buy payphones and retire

#214

Post by [deleted] »

mcmoor wrote: post #198
spacebanana7 wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Communists will say this is still rent seeking and the tractor should be seized and given to the farmer.

[deleted]

Re: Buy payphones and retire

#215

Post by __turbobrew__ »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #212
__turbobrew__ wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yea I think that is the crux of it. You are using social programs designed to keep a roof over people’s head for financial gain.

If the social program was designed to keep a roof over people’s head, then it would simply give people cash, or a roof. The fact that the social program involves extending lines of credit means that the design was not to keep a roof over people’s head, but rather enrich existing asset owners and indebt future ones to get them chained to the treadmill. Similar to cutting funding for higher education and replacing it w…

Maybe I am wrong about the purpose of subsidized loans for housing but the result is the same — public costs, private profits.

Will gen Z see they are at the bottom of a pyramid that ceases to exist with their generation?

Re: Buy payphones and retire

#216

Post by kortilla »

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…

With this narrow definition nearly any income is “immoral”. If everyone became a heart surgeon society would grind to a halt as well.

The amount of labor, active or passive, isn’t really relevant in an absolute sense. It’s about meeting society’s demands.

I happily pay for electricity that is fully generated by machines. Yet if everyone built solar or wind we’d be fucked.

Your argument is really trying to push the “income without direct labor is immoral” narrative. But there is nothing there to really support it other than an example of a massive imbalance wiping out society, which is not specific to labor.

Re: Buy payphones and retire

#217

Post by hyperhopper »

ndarray wrote: post #96
hyperhopper wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not a Pyramid scheme, that's for sure because that's a concept, which means it's not 3D.

The world is 3D and instances of pyramid schemes exist in the world, making them 3D.

By your logic your comment is red, since it's written in words and words can be read.

Re: Buy payphones and retire

#218

Post by xivzgrev »

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…

Imagine a future where every person owns a personal robot who does their current job for them, and the person gets paid.

That’s not inherently evil is it? It sounds pretty nice.

The evil comes in people squeezing others. Whoever make the robots obviously have a lot of power, corporations would quickly find ways to cut out the “parasitic” humans and get the robot labor, etc.

Re: Buy payphones and retire

#219

Post by llm_trw »

btilly wrote: post #67
cies wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Buffett lies. He had much better investments. I likes to tell us all stories. The big-finance reality is much more inside-tradingish than he wants us all to believe.

What investments do you think were better? He's had far more income from other investments. But he turned $25 into $2000 in 3 years. That's around 331% profit per year, compounding annually. Given that he likes to invest in relatively mature companies, I can easily believe that no other investment ever showed a greater annualized return. (Of course this calculation discounts his personal investment of time to run the…

>But he turned $25 into $2000 in 3 years. That's around 331% profit per year, compounding annually.

You run out of barbers rather quickly.

Re: Buy payphones and retire

#220

Post by hyperhopper »

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.

NYC is arguably more walkable than anywhere in Japan outside of Tokyo, or in my opinion including Tokyo, but it doesn't have 0.1% of the vending machines as suburban Japan.

Also, what we would call non walkable suburbs or rural areas in Japan have more vending machines than anywhere in America as well.

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