Bobzilla wrote: I'm'a say guns. I've never lost money on guns. In fact I've made money on just about every transaction.
I've often said Glocks sell like, well, Glockwork. Any gen 3 at least is always 400-450 around here. I got my G19 with 4 mags, special glowy sight thingys and a CT holster for 450... That's stupid chunk of Kydex is 69 bucks, so I think I did ok
But weren't we supposed to have hyperinflation in 2009. Sarcasm
I pulled my money out of a stagnant mutual fund about 4 years ago to buy an air-cooled porsche. It's worked out so far. That said, I'm in an economy now where getting 5% in a savings account isn't difficult, but mortgages are 5.8% and car loans are 9%...
Marjorie Suddard wrote: This seems like as good a place as any to mention that Tim and I watched "The Big Short" the other night, and cannot recommend it highly enough. Turns out bankers, regulators, consumers... pretty much all of these people (and most others) are so stupid, greedy, self-involved, shortsighted and criminally selfish–but mostly stupid–that it's a wonder the economy functions at all. Who knew?....
I still need to see the movie, but I have seen a few documentaries on the subject I can recommend. Inside Job is a particularly good one. The Warning (Frontline) focuses on a rather bad decision by a very important person that had a lot to do with the situation (after the collapse, his response was essentially "oops, guess I was wrong" )
The basics:
In reply to aircooled:
Actually, point 4 needs to be - insure those derivatives with a counterparty that massively underprices the risk...
Cue AIG and black hole jokes.
In the 90s I put all my money in POGs & Beanie Babies. The market should turn around any day now.
logdog wrote: In the 90s I put all my money in POGs & Beanie Babies. The market should turn around any day now.
genius. don't get divorced.
http://articles.latimes.com/1999/nov/06/news/mn-30725
I'm rather partial to my precious metals and guns. Sure, you can complain all you want about metals, but until the entire worlds economy collapses beyond repair, metals are a hell of a lot easier to get across borders, and can be exchanged for any currency on the planet.
Banks are inherently evil as far as I'm concerned, although it's a great scam if you can get in on it. Fractional reserve banking? Sign me up. Give me a grand, and it magically turn into two? Awesome scam, awesome depreciator of value.
There are no safe investments though, through banks or other means. See all those rap cats with diamonds everywhere? Cost a E36 M3ton to buy, but worthless as far as secondary market goes, because they're shiny rocks with inflated artificial value.Same as selling the ex wifes engagement and wedding ring. There are good strategies though. Look at what everyone is getting at a premium price, and purchase the opposite. Without fail, the bubble will bust, and the opposite you acquire becomes the priceless commododity.
Maybe I didn't explain that well, thanks to the screaming poop machine and a seemingly phantom brake fluid leak, I haven't been sleeping much lately.
I had a friend for a while who collected watches. Limited run (less than 300 made) designer watches. No one batted an eye when he left town with his watch collection, where as the few hundred thousand that had been spent on it would have been redflagged and taxed from here to Venus if he'd tried moving it as cash. And rich idiots will pay dearly for limited production, well, anything if they are from good designers. Case in point, a Countach costs more than a Huracan, despite the age and miles.
Nathan JansenvanDoorn wrote: I pulled my money out of a stagnant mutual fund about 4 years ago to buy an air-cooled porsche. It's worked out so far. That said, I'm in an economy now where getting 5% in a savings account isn't difficult, but mortgages are 5.8% and car loans are 9%...
5% on a savings account? Are you back in the 90s before the tech bubble?
logdog wrote: In the 90s I put all my money in POGs & Beanie Babies. The market should turn around any day now.
True story: One of my aunts has enough Barbies to retire on.
Look up what, say, Princess Diana Barbies are going for. She has pretty much EVERY Barbie that has been made since 1980-ish, in pristine unboxed condition. Now take in the fact that they are apparently going to retool the whole Barbie line to reflect that maybe being 7' tall and 85lb isn't a healthy self-image goal, and you can see the potential collector value.
Hell, I have a shirt with a rebel flag on it that I happened to buy a year ago. I could probably sell it on eBay for $150-250 right now, if I didn't feel queasy about accepting money from the kind of person who would spend that kind of money on a shirt with a rebel flag on it.
revrico wrote:Nathan JansenvanDoorn wrote: I pulled my money out of a stagnant mutual fund about 4 years ago to buy an air-cooled porsche. It's worked out so far. That said, I'm in an economy now where getting 5% in a savings account isn't difficult, but mortgages are 5.8% and car loans are 9%...5% on a savings account? Are you back in the 90s before the tech bubble?
My savings account pays something like .1% interest if I have more than $20k in the account.
On the other hand, I have no-fee checking, so I'm not actively losing money, which is better than what I had before.
Knurled wrote: Hell, I have a shirt with a rebel flag on it that I happened to buy a year ago. I could probably sell it on eBay for $150-250 right now, if I didn't feel queasy about accepting money from the kind of person who would spend that kind of money on a shirt with a rebel flag on it.
What size is the shirt?
Western Australia- so, yes, we're back in the 90's. They don't call WA "wait awhile" for nothing!
revrico wrote:Nathan JansenvanDoorn wrote: I pulled my money out of a stagnant mutual fund about 4 years ago to buy an air-cooled porsche. It's worked out so far. That said, I'm in an economy now where getting 5% in a savings account isn't difficult, but mortgages are 5.8% and car loans are 9%...5% on a savings account? Are you back in the 90s before the tech bubble?
NOHOME wrote: I am starting to consider micro-loans as a possible source of income.
Micro-loans as in the typical, third-world "help with starting your family business" type micro loans (ie, the original meaning), or the Canadian equivalent of prosper/lending club?
With the former, I'd be very careful, my wife was interested in investing some of her money into micro loans until we went through the paperwork...
Obviously with peer-to-peer lending you'll get better returns on your money, but risk free it isn't. Not to mention that, say, compared to an investment grade bond mutual fund, you won't be able to get the money out if you need it. That said, it can help with diversification - I'm actually planning to put a small part of our portfolio in there as an alternative to longer-term high yield (aka junk) bond funds.
Dr. Hess wrote:Knurled wrote: Hell, I have a shirt with a rebel flag on it that I happened to buy a year ago. I could probably sell it on eBay for $150-250 right now, if I didn't feel queasy about accepting money from the kind of person who would spend that kind of money on a shirt with a rebel flag on it.What size is the shirt?
It's either an XL or 2XL. Long sleeve. Tell you what, we ever meet up anytime, I give it to you for free.
BoxheadTim wrote:NOHOME wrote: I am starting to consider micro-loans as a possible source of income.Micro-loans as in the typical, third-world "help with starting your family business" type micro loans (ie, the original meaning), or the Canadian equivalent of prosper/lending club? With the former, I'd be very careful, my wife was interested in investing some of her money into micro loans until we went through the paperwork...
I started to get interested in that recently. It came to my attention that, on a global scale, I'm in the 1%, and I'm pretty privileged, and I should use that for at least some form of good instead of just lazing about racing and generally being an elitist shiny happy person.
I wouldn't expect to see any money back. If there were returns, then great. If not, then at least some guy in East Wherever got a chance to start their own goat farm or something... seems like a better way to spend money than subsidizing various entertainment and petroleum companies.
Knurled wrote: I wouldn't expect to see any money back. If there were returns, then great. If not, then at least some guy in East Wherever got a chance to start their own goat farm or something... seems like a better way to spend money than subsidizing various entertainment and petroleum companies.
I think that's the right approach. In our case it was billed as an investment, not a donation - that particular place had hit us up for donations before, but recently switched to "investments" because they couldn't find donors. Problem was that the deal was so structured in their favour it looked like a donation unless you got extraordinarily lucky and they felt generous enough to maybe give you some money back.
Pretty much textbook in how not to solicit investments from people who read the paperwork you give them.
More like I lend you $100 and you pay back $110 at the end of the month.
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