Jump to content
Washington Football Team Logo
Extremeskins

Corcaigh

Members
  • Posts

    808
  • Joined

  • Last visited

  • Days Won

    3

Everything posted by Corcaigh

  1. It’s not likely ever going to be a significant part of our overall net worth and so it doesn’t provide any diversification benefit. It’s analogous to investing a few $10s of k in iBonds versus just putting more in a total bond fund. There's a lot to be said for simplification and having a smaller number of broad diversified index funds.
  2. I never sold my modest stake bought back in 2017/2018 which is currently up about 6x. I am in two minds at this point whether to just let it ride to the moon (or zero), or with the goal of simplifying my life a little just sell it all and stick the proceeds in an existing stock index fund account, delete my crypto wallet and never think about it again.
  3. It seems like one area that the Internet and buyers/sellers having immeasurably more information has not made a dramatic change unlike in many other industries. I think Redfin uses a commission of 1.5% versus 3% and yet has not blown up the traditional realtor industry. People in the business have for years offered to waive the buyers fee in return for a discount. I can imagine that there will be different pricing packages but traditional realtors will still end up with similar total comp. Their biggest asset is a somewhat warm database of sellers and buyers who they nurture with holiday pies and tchotchkes and as their clients have a transaction no more than once a decade they are more willing to pay for ‘white glove’ service.
  4. The Census is a pretty sophisticated operation uses various techniques to estimate undocumented including data from at least 30 other government agencies. I wonder if this complaint is real or they are whining because the results they got aren’t what they like. The Earth could support about 20 billion in a sustainable manner if we lived in a more resource conscious way. So Elon and Jeff can ditch their super yachts and space tourism. if humans don’t want to do that then we would do better of the Earth’s population was about half current levels.
  5. If you are in Scotland or Northern Ireland and you are given local bank notes, ask for English ones instead. It’s understood that people who are visiting Scotland or Northern Ireland don’t want the local bank notes when they leave and the establishment giving you the notes should be happy to oblige.
  6. The billboard was poorly worded. It would have been more accurate to say: ”You have no musical talent and your only commercial worth is as a sexual fantasy to your loser incel fans. Having a partner bursts our pathetic bubble and you are no longer interesting to us.”
  7. I'm pretty sure that a 'K-pop Star' must be a breakfast cereal influencer.
  8. Yeah, RMDs kick in at 75 for someone born after 1960 and so between the time when you retire and when you start taking Social Security and later RMDs there potentially are a number of years when your income with be at its lowest and so you can withdraw from your tax deferred IRA and convert a chunk into Roth. Dependent on how your work retirement plan is set up there is the possibility of backdoor and mega backdoor Roth conversions, but probably prohibitive tax-wise. The Bogleheads forum is a great place where you can post your current assets (anonymously of course) and ask about strategies that make sense to you specifically to avoid unnecessary taxes in retirement.
  9. I’m sure most people don’t realize how much cost they are incurring by working with an advisor managing their investments. It’s pretty well proven that a balanced equity and fixed income portfolio appropriate for your risk tolerance and timeline when you will want to make withdrawals (such as the allocation in one of the target date funds) will outperform most active management, even without taking into account fees. But people don’t do the math to realize how much the advisor is costing them. Take a scenario where someone invests 1000 per month over 40 years and gets a 10% return (S&P historic average). You will have about $5M after your 40 years of saving. If you get lucky and an advisor is getting similar performance (after their meddling in order to justify their fees), with their 1% fee creating a drag on the returns you will end up with a sum more than a million less. And many advisors charge above 1%, especially until you have a multi-million dollar portfolio.
  10. This is the S&P performance for the past decade. In only three years out of ten investors have not done well, and in some years they’ve done exceptionally well. Better than historical averages. But for most of us we remember losses more than gains. And because of volatility you see on the chart, trying to pick when to enter and when to exit the market is very inefficient.
  11. $2975, unless you are getting the family discount. https://shop.tesla.com/product/cybertruck-basecamp
  12. I’d like to see a diverse approach: (1) more renewable, including home solar (2) better energy efficiency - my utilities are a third now in a properly constructed and insulated home compared to the ****ty construction late-1980s McMansion I used to live in. And the square footage is higher in our new home. (3) increase nuclear (4) more reservoirs that can serve to smooth out the peaks and troughs of rainfall with climate change, and also to act as pump storage for when renewables are producing more than we can use.
  13. I think we are still a few years away from commercial SMR offerings and until then it’s hard to evaluate the economics. Because of complexity, nuclear reactors are currently about 50% higher than wind/solar and natural gas. Reducing the size of a reactor might reduce some costs but would increase others such as security and waste management given there would be more of them and spread out geographically.
  14. Nice quote from William Bernstein who has written a number of highly regarded books on investing and financial independence: "People do not seek employment in investment banks, brokerage houses, and mutual fund companies with the same motivations as those who choose to work in fire departments or elementary schools. Whether investors know it or not, they are engaged in an ongoing zero-sum, life-and-death struggle with piranhas, and if rigorous precautions are not taken, the financial services industry will strip investors of their wealth faster than they can say 'Bernie Madoff'".
  15. Bogleheads.org - a message board with fabulous advice on investing and personal finance for people who want to self manage their finances. Incredibly knowledgeable and helpful people there.
  16. So far it’s worked. The cartridge status is monitored and they have supplied several new ones even though our use is very infrequent. Alexa, which manages a bunch of devices in our home, including lights, plugs, doors etc., offered to connect to it and without thinking about it I agreed, and now Alexa is offering to ship me replacement printer cartridges via Amazon. 🤣
  17. Normally when people go to an abandoned warehouse for raves they take drugs and hallucinate colorful psychedelic experiences. The problem here was that the children and their helicopter parents didn’t load up on MDMA before entering the warehouse.
  18. Shame on everyone … … for not commenting that the only acceptable way for an American male to eat ice cream in public is from a miniature plastic baseball cap.
  19. Most of our printing is with a BW laser printer. I haven’t read the article but I also have a color HP printer that I agree to pay $1 per month for ink that meets our infrequent color printing needs. Occasionally I get shipped a new cartridge without needing to request it. In the few years I’ve had the cheapo HP printer I’ve never found that I was out of ink because the ****ing cartridges were either out of ink or dried up. This contrasts with prior decades where home color printing was often just a source of frustration. i guess HP’s profitability model is based around people printing all sorts of **** they don’t need on a color printer.
  20. Teichmann said ”Chess is 99% tactics”. That’s going to be the single activity that will give the greatest improvement until you get to 1500 or higher. Work on puzzles and you will start to see these themes in your games.
  21. The next argument for immunity will be “Stupid Earthlings, I have no time for your puny Earth Laws.”
  22. In terms of a simple thinking process in chess: (1) understand your opponent’s last move. Is it threatening a check or a capture? Did it leave a piece or square unguarded (2) look at your own options; first checks (forcing move), then captures, then threats If you take a little time to do this each move your vision of the board will improve dramatically. If you play under time controls where you don’t have time to do this you won’t improve. You have to play slow in order to develop the quick recognition that will allow you to play faster and at a higher level of analysis. Swiss GM Noel Studer has a really good blog and free newsletter about chess improvement. Here is one short blog post about thinking. https://nextlevelchess.blog/how-to-think-during-a-chess-game/
×
×
  • Create New...