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Buy payphones and retire

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Re: Buy payphones and retire

#141

Post by bluehatbrit »

0cf8612b2e1e wrote: post #104
bbarn wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a non-technical friend that runs a vending machine business. He targets exclusively small locations like gas stations, bodegas, etc. He makes a great living, but he's also started farming out filling and collection to employees now because it's a lot of driving and work to do it.

That makes no sense to me. Why would a gas station or bodega invite an automated competitor onto their property? Unless the vending machines offer some merchandise the store is unable/unwilling to carry?

They're renting out the space or making a royalty from the sales. So it's not really competing with them, it's a way to make money with absolutely no maintenance or stock management. It'll be less profitable for them, but the rock bottom overhead makes it worth it.

Re: Buy payphones and retire

#142

Post by KK7NIL »

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…

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.

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.

TL;DR: Inflation doesn't magically make asset holders richer and retirees would be some of the worst affected people anyways.

You're wrong on both fronts and your whole idea that the stock market is politically propped up by old people doesn't pass the sniff test.

Re: Buy payphones and retire

#143

Post by hunter2_ »

williamdclt wrote: post #135
markus_zhang wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People believe in index funds because of multi-decades of globalization and (in general) cheaper money, which has been less and less true since 10 years ago. Even if you bought some during the 90s, you still need a tremendous belief in yourself and the market to hold them for 30 years. It's not that easy. I know many people put the fund into a retirement fund, but 1) is every body consistently doing that for 30 years…

> what if the market sucks when you retire? if it's been good (on average) for 30y but then sucks when you're about to retire, you still probably accumulated a lot of money from these 30y of interest

I wonder what the longest duration has been, in the history of let's just say S&P500 or similar, between [a low so bad that people would say "sucks that I'm retiring now"] and [the point in time prior to that, where it had the same exact value but as an all-time high]. A decade maybe? So basically one would conclude that they could've begun taking withdrawals a decade ago with the same size of retirement account (well, except for all the contributions throughout that decade, and except for the extra decade of remaining life expectancy, and prevailing wisdom to reduce risk as retirement approaches, each extremely significant, but the point remains to some extent).

Re: Buy payphones and retire

#144

Post by lotsofpulp »

KK7NIL wrote: post #142
lotsofpulp wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

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. You're also forgetting that inflation doesn't just affect assets, it also affects living necessities (and…

>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 people, but a significant proportion are going to be pissed if their 401k show declines or even stagnation at this point. You can even include soon to be old people here, the 50+ year olds that are invested.

Re: Buy payphones and retire

#145

Post by immibis »

miki123211 wrote: post #109
notatoad wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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…

> 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…

If everyone does it, the world grinds to a halt and everyone dies.

Re: Buy payphones and retire

#146

Post by pezezin »

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.

> but the most obvious one is that Japan is eminently walkable

Big cities like Tokyo or Osaka are walkable; outside of them, Japan quickly devolves into very pedestrian-unfriendly urban sprawl (I know because I live in one such place). But somehow you still find plenty of vending machines everywhere, even besides a road in an otherwise empty field.

Re: Buy payphones and retire

#147

Post by moffkalast »

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…

That's only true if things like you know, automation, don't exist.

The payphone example isn't that bad honestly. What people are paying for is sending around information. You could pay a person to run around and tell it in person, or you could build a network of telephones and charge for their usage. The latter is faster, easier, cheaper, more convenient, and doesn't take any people to run despite being a major boon to society. Yet it's completely passive outside occasional maintenance.

I suppose the question is if it's ethically correct to pay the maintainer vastly more than it actually takes to maintain the public good just because they "own" it. At least currently in our society it seems we've collectively decided it's worth overpaying for the benefit since the rewards tend to be good enough (otherwise everything would be nationalized).

Re: Buy payphones and retire

#148

Post by pezezin »

edm0nd wrote: post #122
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.

>but the most obvious one is that Japan is eminently walkable, while the US is so pedestrian-unfriendly Japan is also extremely tiny compared to the US. Japan is also something like ~70% mountainous where things cant even be built. It also helps a lot with planning/building if parts of your country were bombed into oblivion and gave you a chance to rebuild and rethink everything from the ground up.

> It also helps a lot with planning/building if parts of your country were bombed into oblivion and gave you a chance to rebuild and rethink everything from the ground up.

Hahaha, now this is a good joke. Japanese cities are notoriously chaotic and urban planning is almost non-existant; my guess is that they didn't rethink anything, they just rebuilt everything in a hurry, and afterwards, shoganai.

Re: Buy payphones and retire

#149

Post by lotsofpulp »

__turbobrew__ wrote: post #97
SirMaster wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> 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…

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 make home mortgages non recourse as well. And then there’s the federal 1031 tax exchange benefit. And there are county/state limits on property tax increases, like California’s famous prop 13.

Re: Buy payphones and retire

#150

Post by immibis »

__turbobrew__ wrote: post #97
SirMaster wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> 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…

I see betting on residential real estate as a bet that power structures have ossified and the CURRENT (not future - that was 20 years ago!) generation will not be able to gain any significant power.
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