justjohn
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Dr Diablo: thanks for the bitcoin comments. As an amateur miner, it all seemed quite accurate.
I started CPU mining a long time ago (should dig out the date) because my kid wanted a “Bought it with Bitcoins” badge. Cost 1 bitcoin, took about 3 days to mine it back then. Was somewhat fun, so I continued on, thru GPU mining and even bought some low end Butterfly ASIC equipment.
Of course, I’m somewhat kicking myself now, for example the $200 gift card I bought for 40 BTC. Seemed like a good idea at the time! Oh well, we are doing OK.
“Please allow me to insert a graph. This one is from Tyler Durden the other day, and it paints a clear picture as much as it raises a big question. …”
Could you link to the original article, please? I spent about an hour looking at Zerohedge, trying to find it. Just curious what “hard economic data” is.
thanksGBV/Variable81: you asked about source material… the previous version of TAE home page had a sidebar of books. I was just looking around the current site and don’t see that information. Other than the ones that are commonly mentioned, the only one I remember is called “The Upside of Down”. Possibly the book list was elaborated on in one of the primers?
LiveSmallLocal: you think of several possible downsides to renting. I think that perhaps Nicole is expecting a large crash event. That would likely destroy enough people’s budgets that the common experience would be moving in with others (sort of like what happened with young adults in 2008-…). So it would be a renter’s market and the evil landlords would be priced out of the system. But I must say that I don’t follow her advice about mortgages. Partly because I was already about twenty years thru the loan when I first heard her. The other aspect for me is that I like watching land over long time periods. Apple trees that I planted 25+ years ago finally starting bearing two years ago. Last year not much, but then another banner year now.
Also, your idea of a travel trailer could be a good one. Assuming they want to live in a trailer (not sure your climate) and the local authorities don’t have a problem with it. Other options might be a “mother-in-law” apartment behind a garage, or the accessory dwellings that have become popular in high real estate price areas (Vancouver?)
Regarding the “reduced Social Security benefits”: I’m actually happy to see that 75% of Americans are taking the more sensible option (at least the one I think is sensible for most people). The way the system is currently arranged, if you take it at 62, the cross over point where you would get more by waiting doesn’t happen until about age 78. If you were to die anytime in that ~16 year period, you would have definitely come out ahead by collecting sooner.
There is an academic who discusses maximizing your SS, and tries to push people toward waiting, I think that is an option more open to upper income people. His argument is good, if you can afford it. But the academic department I work in has starting salaries of about $130k/year, I think life might be a little harder for people down around median household income (~$50k)
Nice picture up top. Looks like car salesmen headed to Detroit to see the new 1937 Pontiac intro. Curious what those were like, I found this:
https://www.hemmings.com/hcc/stories/2005/02/01/hmn_feature4.html” … evokes the trim that adorned the early diesel locomotives built by GM’s Electro-Motive Division that powered the Union Pacific’s passenger streamliners, the City of Los Angeles and City of San Francisco.” Weird that the locomotive pictured is also a GM product, I never knew they were into those too.
An amazing item about the Detroit city pensions is the strange way they were managed:
Currently about 12,000 retirees, drawing an average of $19,200. (so about 228 million) But the trustees were just giving away an additional 100 million per year to the retirees, not based on any law or mathematical reality.
I think I know what the answer would be if I told Fidelity that I was running short and could they please give me an end of year bonus.
General agreement with your essay, the only faint hope is that this is a patent (20 year life) and not a copyright (extended for eternity, unless Mickey Mouse loses all value). I thought I saw in some of the coverage that the patent was already ~15 years old, so that particular seed would be fair game in a few more years.
The typical way for the corporation to avoid the “short” lifetime is to keep doing minor improvements (new patents) every few years, so the old patents have little value.
I guess these soybeans aren’t hybrids, otherwise the saved seed wouldn’t be true. Most corn seed is hybrid and the seed has to be crossed and recreated every year, so there is no value for commercial farmers to save it.
