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Buy payphones and retire

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Re: Buy payphones and retire

#271

Post by throwaway2037 »

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 like your point. When I see the term "passive income", I immediately convert it to "rent seeking". _Some_ amount of rent seeking will always exist in any capitalist system, but there is a limit where it becomes inefficient. However, most capitalist systems are self-adapting enough, such that when too much of one type of rent seeking appears, eventually new joiners are priced out with zero or negative returns. A simple example to understand is rental property: In many big cities, the ROE on rental cashflow can be nearly zero. (However, there is still a good chance for capital appreciation.)

Re: Buy payphones and retire

#272

Post by throwaway2037 »

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…

About your second paragraph, to be fair, most passive income schemes involve starting capital (a large amount). Then, this capital is invested into _relatively_ safe or low-vol assets (investment property, gov't bonds, utility stocks for divs), and passive income is received. Alternatively, you could buy something like a stable, middle-aged oil or natural gas rig. Or managed, commercial forest. Or rights to media to receive royalties. Yes, scams can exist in any investment scheme, but the previously mentioned ones are accessible, and safe for 1-5% of people with sufficient capital.

What bothers me the most about the endless YouTube videos and "financial advice" blog posts about passive income: They fail to explain how you acquire the initial capital! Frequently, they saved millions from a previous job, like a Wall Street trader/salesperson or a senior FAANG engineer.

I liked this video from Plain Bagel, "The Passive Income Scam": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AqZbO8Ojhmw

Re: Buy payphones and retire

#273

Post by throwaway2037 »

eru wrote: post #242
aiforecastthway wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> No, that's just investing. Yes. Investing is passive income. If you have $20M and your lifestyle requires no more than $800K/yr of income taxed a waaaaay lower rates than the working stiffs pay on the same, then a 4% return more than suffices to live off of income that is waaaaay more passive than most passive income frauds even come close to promising. The difference between "investing" and "passive income" is mos…

Why would working men of the world uniting be a disaster for my ETF? Don't the working men need machines and capital to work? > If you have $20M and your lifestyle requires no more than $800K/yr of income taxed a waaaaay lower rates than the working stiffs pay on the same, then a 4% return more than suffices to live off of income that is waaaaay more passive than most passive income frauds even come close to promisin…

My comment is very specific about the ultra rich who use tax sheltering to reduce taxable burden on passive income from bonds: In the US, there is (was?) a special class of municipal (state/local) bonds call "triple tax-free"/TTF, where the owner can receive interest, but pay no federal, state, or local taxes. Of course, there are limits, but it is a big business, and the buyers are almost always ultra rich. To be clear, under the Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT) rules in the US, I doubt you can pay zero taxes, but you can certainly greatly reduce your taxable burden using TTF muni bonds.

Ref: https://www.investopedia.com/terms/t/tripletaxfree.asp

Re: Buy payphones and retire

#274

Post by gorbypark »

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.

I think it has to do with available space, as other commenters have mentioned. Here in Valencia, Spain, there's a huge amount of unused "retail" space. Most of the city is 5-7 floor apartment buildings with the ground floor being designed for retail / parking / etc. There are many building, outside of the city center that were built years ago with their ground floors sitting empty since day 1. Many spots that were occupied at some point are sitting empty as well. It's pretty cheap to buy or lease a space. Anyways, in the last 5 years or so there has been a lot of spots being converted into vending machine spots. Basically a small area of retail space, no front door or wall, and maybe 4 or more vending machines in it. I've noticed sometimes even some cafes are carving out a little spot of their frontage to install a few machines.

Re: Buy payphones and retire

#275

Post by throwaway2037 »

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 total investment about doubles in roughly 5 years
And:

    > start with an initial $100K investment. That pays back about 6K a year for 5 years and then turns into about 200K after 5 years
5 years * 6K/year is 30K profit rental income. That leaves 70k in capital gains. ROI calculator tells me that is 11+% per year: 100K->170K in 5 years. Jesus, what market? And, how sustainable is that level of return? And, will this continue for 25+ years. You make it sound so simple. If any of this were true, then (I guess) a miniscule number of people could afford to buy homes after 25+ years!

Re: Buy payphones and retire

#276

Post by tonyhart7 »

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.

I think you overcomplicate stuff, its just boil down to the culture

Any technical or laws difficulties is just the "easy" part

Re: Buy payphones and retire

#277

Post by ElFitz »

morgante wrote: post #189
ElFitz wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To me, a major obstacle on the path to UBI is that it seems to conflict with the interests of those who benefit from the current status quo. If everyone receives a sufficient basic income, who will fix their toilets or clean their yachts? If the answer is ’no one’, then I’m afraid we’ll need significant advances in automation and robotics—or pitchforks—before we see UBI implemented. But my point of view may be simpli…

> If everyone receives a sufficient basic income, who will fix their toilets or clean their yachts? Obviously in this scenario we have robots that fix toilets and clean yachts. That's not even farfetched.

> If the answer is ’no one’, then I’m afraid we’ll need significant advances in automation and robotics […]

I would also add that many activities would seem much simpler to automate, even today. Such as cobalt mining. And yet, we can’t seem to be bothered.

Re: Buy payphones and retire

#278

Post by throwaway2037 »

SirMaster wrote: post #101
__turbobrew__ wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> and additionally the total investment about doubles in roughly 5 years That is a big assumption. What happens during the next real estate bust and your real estate value goes down to 1/4 of its prior worth? You are now set back 10 years. I think residential real estate is a bad bet long term. As real estate gets more expensive and more and more young people cannot afford to buy there is going to be more political c…

They have insurances for downturns built into the cost of the deal. Even if the value of the property doesn't increase as much as expected, you are still making a decent amount in income from the rent being paid. 6% maybe doesn't sound like much, but it's tax free income due to being able to deduct from that income the depreciation from the property and appliances and such which in my experience always is more than e…

Have you looked at the return from S&P 500 in the last 10 years? 1,964 -> 5,823 is about 11.5% per annum, compounded. It is one of the biggest bull markets in 100 years. And you are telling us that your investment properties are sustaining the same returns? Unbelievable. Neither is sustainable.

Re: Buy payphones and retire

#279

Post by ElFitz »

andai wrote: post #168
ElFitz wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To me, a major obstacle on the path to UBI is that it seems to conflict with the interests of those who benefit from the current status quo. If everyone receives a sufficient basic income, who will fix their toilets or clean their yachts? If the answer is ’no one’, then I’m afraid we’ll need significant advances in automation and robotics—or pitchforks—before we see UBI implemented. But my point of view may be simpli…

To clarify, the "human labor no longer exists in a meaningful way" thing depends (as far as I can tell) on "robots are able to perform all human labor", so their yacht would be cleaned by robots. Though I imagine they might hire humans anyway, as some kind of status symbol! (Artisanal, like hand-crafted items today.)

Yes. But I’d be afraid we might reach mass unemployment before we get to robots performing well on infinite variations of what would otherwise be simple tasks, but in wide arrays of utterly unpredictable environments and situations.

Re: Buy payphones and retire

#280

Post by Dalewyn »

Jach wrote: post #185
nostromo wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Crime and theft is why. Japan has a whole host of nice things we can’t have in the US because we let bad actors run wild.

On a roadtrip a few years ago I was struck by the design of a row of vending machines at a rest stop: entirely walled off / caged off by a solid metal security mesh, with small holes to just barely let people operate them. Very much like this picture: https://s3-media0.fl.yelpcdn.com/bphoto/NudVpPKiq1AsWL1CSAa_... So I agree crime and theft is a big factor. But it's not enough of an explanation, as other high-trust s…

Here's something to blow your mind: Out in the countryside, farmers have stalls where they put some of the day's harvest for sale. It's completely unmanned without surveillance and operates on the honor system; customers leave cash in a nearby container and take the produce they bought.

Yes, it works beautifully because there are literally no bloody assholes uncivilized enough to be thieves.

Vending machines are abundant for the same reason: There simply aren't any assholes fucking uncivilized enough to loot or otherwise damage/destroy them. The supremely civilized culture of Japan manifests in superb security and all the good things that are only possible in such an environment.

You leave a vending machine outside somewhere in the United States of America? Son, that thing is going to get freedom'd faster than the US military goes bombing deserts for oil. I say that as an American and yes it is fucking shameful, but that is the state of affairs.

As an aside, Japan really likes the warm glow of a vending machine at night: Dutifully serving its customers without complaining and lighting the way; some of them come with features to remember repeat customers and their preferences, recommend products based on their expressions, and some still might even make small talk. Yes, Japan loves vending machines.

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