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Buy payphones and retire

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Re: Buy payphones and retire

#301

Post by lotsofpulp »

eru wrote: post #249
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…

> It would be bold to bet against a government not constantly decreasing the purchasing power of its currency to prop up asset prices, [...] That would only prop up assets prices in nominal terms, but doesn't have much to do with your retirement planning. (Unless your only alternative to index funds is sticking local money under your mattress; and you can't even think of sticking gold coins or foreign currencies unde…

Correct, but that accomplishes the goal of having a hidden tax (although more people are aware of it now) on earning income (since labor price increases lag asset prices increases).

Just look at who the biggest winners pre and post Covid are. If you owned assets pre Covid, you are golden. The more you owned, the more guilded you became. Pretty much all government policy I see starts with the basis of how do we ensure existing asset owners stay ahead of the rest.

It’s a mechanism to ensure the social order/hierarchy persists (which is a combination of wealthier/older/soon to be older/beneficiaries of older at the top and labor sellers/young/poor at the bottom). Because that is what is politically possible (until a catalyst prompts revolution).

Reducing purchasing power of currency is one way, but another is also replacing goods and services in defined benefits with inferior goods and services. For example, Medicare/Medicaid used to provide for seeing a doctor, whereas now and in the future, you are likely to have to see a Nurse Practitioner or Physician Assistant, unless you cough up more money for concierge care or direct primary care.!

Re: Buy payphones and retire

#302

Post by NeoTar »

eru wrote: post #282
throwaway2037 wrote: post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 cl…

Well, you can also use the buy-borrow-die strategy in the US to avoid capital gains taxes. Here in my adopted home of Singapore we don't have such silly things as capital gains taxes. Makes things a lot simpler for the average person who doesn't want to pay for the lawyers and accountants.

The average person doesn't pay capital gains tax - at least in the UK; there is a 12 3000 GBP allowance per year of gains which means that you need to have significant assets (think top 10% of the country) before it becomes an issue.

Re: Buy payphones and retire

#303

Post by snarfy »

In the mid 90's I knew a guy with a few soda machines. I recall him saying he would buy soda from Costco and made about 8-10k/yr from each machine. The machines were about 2k each. I think he had 4 machines for about 40k/yr passive revenue.

Re: Buy payphones and retire

#304

Post by sWW26 »

snarfy wrote: post #303

In the mid 90's I knew a guy with a few soda machines. I recall him saying he would buy soda from Costco and made about 8-10k/yr from each machine. The machines were about 2k each. I think he had 4 machines for about 40k/yr passive revenue.

How did the soda get from Costco to the machines, how was the cash collected? Might be low effort but don't think you can call it passive revenue.

Re: Buy payphones and retire

#305

Post by toyg »

mtnGoat wrote: post #35
stult wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's easier to launder money with services than goods anyway because you don't need to dispose of excess merchandise to make the books balance. Like if you want to claim to have sold 10000 cans of soda despite only selling 1000, you need to buy 10000 cans of soda or even the most superficial review of your accounts will reveal the scheme. The ideal laundering mechanism is a service with a high ratio of price to varia…

Great theory lesson, but… You are basing all of this on a non cash world. Cash is still king in many parts of society that aren’t entirely on the up and up. These are the OGs of this sport and definitely aren’t incompetent. Plus sale of goods is very easy to fake if you have multiple parts of the vertical covered. things don’t make sense if you’ve never done them.

This. Once the money is digital, in most cases it has already been washed - or it didn't really need to be washed in the first place.

Re: Buy payphones and retire

#306

Post by LightBug1 »

Dalewyn wrote: post #280
Jach wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 abun…

I've seen that on a trip to New Zealand actually. Was quite sweet.

A tent full of strawberry punnets, with a little lockbox outside to put money in.

Re: Buy payphones and retire

#307

Post by lazyasciiart »

Dalewyn wrote: post #280
Jach wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 abun…

You’ve really never seen unattended farm stands in the rural US?

Re: Buy payphones and retire

#308

Post by [deleted] »

aiforecastthway wrote: post #173
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…

> 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…

[deleted]

Re: Buy payphones and retire

#309

Post by le-mark »

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…

The keys oh god the keys. Adding to this the hatches on armored vehicles are also padlocked (sincgar radios stayed in the vehicle). Keeping track of the keys was always a massive pita. A lot of privates did a lot of push ups over misplaced keys.

Re: Buy payphones and retire

#310

Post by QuarterReptile »

aiforecastthway wrote: post #173
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…

> 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…

>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,

Won't somebody think of the "working stiffs" who have to slave away for their $800k/yr!?

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