131–140 of 166 posts
One thing to remember - when you stop in a layby for the night, you will get on average 2-3 people think it is HILARIOUS to drive past with hand on their car horn.
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You were lied to. There are virtually no lamborghinis that have ever increased in value over their original purchase price. This might work if you live in a country with exceptionally high inflation - although you're still losing money (in real terms) the re-sale price might be nominally higher. Exotic car speculation is the sport of kings - from time to time, it pays off (an orignal McLaren F1 is worth approximately…
The idea was this. You buy a new [expensive car] and have it on loan. You pay off the loan steadily. Then, a few years down the road, you'll make it so that your loan is less than the amount of money you could sell the car for; then you sell the car. The difference is the amount of money you've made. I did the math and you wouldn't be getting all of your money back; but at the end you made a profit and you did get to…
In order for your plan to work, you'd need said car to increase in value more than the combined amount of: - taxes paid - storage costs - service costs - insurance costs - interest costs on the loan
The car would have to do what 99.9999% of all cars on the planet fail to do - increase in value once it was purchased.
Now, if you live in a high inflation country, then the car may nominally increase in value more than the loan - but you're still losing money. You wouldn't be able to, say, swap the used car for a new one, so it's not really worth more.
>I did the math and you wouldn't be getting all of your money back; but at the end you made a profit and you did get to drive a rather expensive car.
If you didn't get your money back, by definition you didn't make a profit. You made a loss. A profit would be where you got all of your original capital back, and then some extra after all the expenses paid.
It just doesn't happen. Especially with brand new supercars.
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"Glib is the word I would use, for romanticizing a scenario" I would use glib in the same way that people romanticize people living in poverty. Particularly single moms with good kids living in the ghetto. Single mom works so hard holding down 3 jobs cleaning offices and her kids all work hard if only they were given a chance and didn't live in the projects. (Watch http://www.pruitt-igoe.com/ on netflix to see a litt…
I grew up in extreme poverty on a very dangerous street. My father died when I was a child, and with half an income, my mom was forced to work several jobs to support herself and 5 children. The only place we could afford to live was the "ghetto". My siblings and I worked hard each day, with no electricity on some days, no running water on others. Even with this hard work, only 2 of my siblings have managed to excel…
My favorite is this RV built by 3 Japanese students: http://www.treehugger.com/sustainable-product-design/tiny-tr... More details: http://www1.ttcn.ne.jp/~gyo/English/index.htm
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You were lied to. There are virtually no lamborghinis that have ever increased in value over their original purchase price. This might work if you live in a country with exceptionally high inflation - although you're still losing money (in real terms) the re-sale price might be nominally higher. Exotic car speculation is the sport of kings - from time to time, it pays off (an orignal McLaren F1 is worth approximately…
The idea was this. You buy a new [expensive car] and have it on loan. You pay off the loan steadily. Then, a few years down the road, you'll make it so that your loan is less than the amount of money you could sell the car for; then you sell the car. The difference is the amount of money you've made. I did the math and you wouldn't be getting all of your money back; but at the end you made a profit and you did get to…
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"Non-snarkily, I think people are the same everywhere, mostly good and hard working" If that is the case then why do I keep my windows up when I drive through those neighborhoods. Are you saying I have nothing to fear driving my new expensive car through, say, many areas of Newark NJ or areas such as the "Badlands" in Phila PA? Or that I am safe to walk the streets in those areas? And if those areas are so great and…
Let's suppose, for the sake or argument, that 40% of the population of the "Badlands" are truly evil murderous thieves, who have no compunction firing a pistol into your car as you drive by, and suppose further that every day each one of them partakes of this pastime. A horrible, dangerous place, seething with evil, yes? Far worse than the reality, no doubt, but let's go with it. What do you make of the other 60%?
That they're good people who allowed evil to triumph by doing nothing to stop it?
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Good to know we shouldn't have pleasure so long as there is any man who can't share in it. [EDIT] single father/middle class technocrat here, living paycheck to paycheck. Many of my friends make less than I do. By this measure of hubris, I should not go out to eat so long as fellow engineers are looking for work.
As anyone who has had my comments inflicted on them long enough can tell you, if I had meant to point out that people shouldn't enjoy living out of a van (if that's there thing), I would have made that point, repeatedly, in painful detail. That's not what I was saying.
I meant to draw attention to you writing that living in a van was an insincere (glib) and unrealistic (romantic) undertaking.
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> It is interesting also to note that the ability to lead any kind of normal or predictable life in this fashion is itself a privilege. My brother's definition of rich is the ability to control your own schedule.
And yours?
This seems like a romantically bohemian way to approximate a pampered middle class kid's idea of how poor people live. If you want to save money, you can try what they actually do, which is move to a less desirable neighborhood and spend one third what you do on rent for an apartment. You live in a crazy expensive neck of the woods? Nice to meet you; I live in Japan, cry me a river. There's old folks on social securi…
I find the idea attractive without any money savings. I find it very odd it's much easier to find a large crappy apartment than a small well-maintained one; I feel like it should be possible to get an apartment at any point in the 2d space of (quality, size) with the cost being some function of that, in reality the apartment seems to only be available around some tight distribution around a line in that space. Moving…
Leaves a lot of the old (and therefor small) apartments in the old (and therefor central) part of town available for rent at a semi-decent rate.