511–520 of 612 posts
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For reference, this is the house: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warren_Buffett#/media/File:Dun...
That's a very misleading photo. An aerial view shows the multiple large buildings much better. https://presidenthouse.org/entry-18
Buffet seems to be on top. Eric Schmidts condo is also worth a look.
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That’s because you haven’t tried buying better bicycles. I assure you that every new bike I buy makes me happier.
It doesn't make you happier, it's just that you became unhappy and the new bike was necessary to temporarily make you happy again. Happiness is binary. You're either happy with where you are or where you're heading or you're not.
It sounds to me like you haven’t rode a bike in a long time. I recommend you try it and get back to me.
Is this article written by a child? "he grew Berkshire from a struggling New England textile mill that he starting buying up for $7.60 a share in 1962"
I will never undertand this people that live all their life working, when they clearly have the chance to retire much sooner. I will retire right away if I had 10 millions. Maybe 50 millions if I was younger than 40.
He sat around talking to people, reading, betting on stocks/financial markets, playing games and occasionally buying a business.... that is many people's dream retirement.
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>>none of your logic makes any sense to me. Compounding is a function of time. More time you are alive, more you see in that time. This follows from definition of compounding itself.
Nobody doubts how compounding works. They doubt the logic of using that to argue that someone achieving a sustained CAGR of nearly 20% over decades and being recognised by peers as the greatest money manager of the twentieth century when he was already one of the world's richest man in his sixties actually achieved "fairly normal" performance mostly down to living a long time.
Buffet does this better. He basically takes the float from insurance business(Geico) and invests in the index his company manages. This basically sets you up for a long compounding cycle. Translation- You are basically investing in the US economy.
Apart from this there are some base businesses in an economy that's under long term multi year climb. Now anybody who is staring at stock charts(weekly) will tell you eventually you do learn to 'Pyramid upwards' on stocks that are clear winners. Lots of literature has been written on this.
All said and done, you can be rest assured there only at best 10 such stocks in any economy. Once you find them, you do periodic audit if the companies are holding up good and just keep putting in money as time passes.
I don't remember where- but I remember reading, Fidelity found out the most profitable accounts belonged to people who were dead. That says two things. 1) You have to hold stocks for long periods of time, like really long periods of time(Index, and some of its constituents that are carrying most of the freight) . Most people won't make it. 2) Live long enough.
Quite literally once you gain the skills to pick stock. Next single biggest skill you can master is to be healthy and live long. These things take lots of time to work.
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I agree, however I don’t think the last two of your bullets are necessarily something to learn from on the surface.
Disagree. The last one is important. You can buy a bigger and bigger house car tv stereo whatever, but it will not make you happy.
Hard disagree here.
Ask a 4 person family stuffed into a one bedroom condo if buying a larger 3 bedroom home would make them happier, I'd imagine to 99.99999% of them the answer is yes.
I upgraded my road bike 2 years ago from an entry level one to a nice racing bike and each weekend I ride a 100km route, that sure as heck makes me happier than riding the old slower and heavier bike.
We just took our extended family on a vacation for a week. Money sure as heck made us happier in that instance.
It is true that cash can't fix all issues in life but any one who says money can't make you happy is either lying or doesn't have money.
Run a simple thought experiment in your head. If you woke up tomorrow under crushing credit card and medical debt and it was suddenly paid off, would that make you happier?
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> what is heroic about those two things? America threw off a king and founded a republic. Equality is a founding value and one we still respect. A rich man keeping his habits despite his wealth, and doing so next to the rest of us, is a role model for other up and comers. (The Romans had a similar thing about pastoral farmers. Every culture has its myth, and we like it when those in power try to live up to it.)
> Equality is a founding value and one we still respect. Easily stated by someone who was not a slave. Equality had fuck all to do with the founding of this country. Some people were *literaly* slaves. You *literally* could not vote unless you were a male land owner. Fuck this nonsense propaganda. Every bit of freedom in this country had to be fought for against this country and against the majority of white men. And…
p.s. Because this probably matters to you, this is said by a non-white son of immigrants.
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I agree, however I don’t think the last two of your bullets are necessarily something to learn from on the surface.
His inspiration is a big reason why I still drive my 1993 Honda Civic after owning it for 15 years. I bought it for $1000 after graduating college. I say a little prayer every time I turn the key that it actually starts. I gave it its own github repo where I track the maintenance I do on it. It reminds me where I come from, and that I don't need shiny shit to be happy. I believe this to be a virtue. My girlfriend yea…
Personally, I buy new, and keep putting my car payment into a savings account once it is paid off. If I can't afford to put that money into savings, I can't afford a new car payment. I'm only allowed to do non-routine repairs from those funds. It's amazing how much you don't want to crack into that for a car once it grows to a few thousand. It's the most powerful visual impact of savings I've come across.
Car payments have a way of disappearing into an upgraded lifestyle when you don't have to make them, and then they come out of savings when you take a loan for the car.
Honda Civic may be the ultimate car for that. I bought a pickup 8 years ago that I hope will be a 20 year car. Buy something with a reputation for 200k+ miles.