Mikenhe

I've read the MMM blog.. but not ERE - from what I've seen its a little - er, Extreme!! (and too late for me) I've incorporated some of the thing they espouse into my life style but its a gradual procees, not a magic wand to wave. Technically I could retire now - but the wife not so much... so that isn't gonna work.... The MMM level of budgeting isn;t going to work for us - but we aren;t too far out.

rubs are the answer. you could try making a sauce with Maple syrup - at tleast it'll be as natural as you can get!! for poultry then try brining - still need a little salt and sugar though. Or just do brisket with a rub - it's a longer cook but well worth it.

that only assists with income issues. I don;t have that problem - I have a short sale in my past which indicates that i can't get a HELOC. own the house outright and have a decent income and net worth but theres no lender willing to look past the short sale.

you found someone to lend to you dispite being such a bad unemployed risk????? Nice Work... I tried for a heloc but couldn;t do it.. owning the house outright and having a serious net worth plus a well paid job counts for nothing if you don;t tick all the boxes in their system... Oh for lending based on common sense....

It’s a problem that never goes away – but not really much of an impact on the bottom line. You can see from the article that TIG has been very active in pursuing the debt and has known about it for years as well. I’m sure that, as a reinsurance recovery, it is listed as zero so that if they don’t collect its no impact to the bottom line – if they do collect anything then it’s a bonus. As they have been suing Caja and the Argentine government for 14 years I don’t think you can use it as a stick to beat Fairfax with. And it has nothing to do with vulture funds and bonds. It’s a reinsurance recovery. You know Fairfax is serious when they try to stop Malbec being sold in the USA.. that was the most disturbing potential outcome of this for me :D

Nice. SEPP withdraws are in my future thinking.. possible the 5 years before 59 1/2 to get me to that I plan on having about 3 year expenses in cash type investments. additionally I think I'll just step back from full time, carry on investing and see what jobs pop up that interest me. I don;t have the need to feel measured by the work I do - its just the means to obtaining the tool I want (cash). I like the idea of the volunteer work too. Well done sir!

I'd drop cable tv like a shot but they show the premierleague.. and that's my one tv blindspot... whats really annoying is that nbc stream everygame - but in order to get the stream you have to also be a subscriber to the tv service...... as soon as they break that model......

the bible is probably a good place to start... ;D ;D ;D

Crap - I’m getting dragged into an argument about nothing. Prove that your nothing is actually substance and there might be a discussion to be had. Until then, there is no God and religion is merely a tool for those that wish to manipulate others. And that’s it.

It'll feel better when you stop.... Yes, it's always good to stop once you don't have a decent answer. ;) That’s an incredibly rude answer from the person who doesn’t have a shred of evidence for the “sky buddies” that you claim exist. You have as much proof for God as there is for the Flying spaghetti monster. And if, as you seemed to claim earlier, the bible is in anyway accurate then I don’t want to have anything to do with a God that did what he did to Job just to prove a point. Total scumbag.

It'll feel better when you stop....

;D So is a deity a value investment??

being touched by his noodly Appendage is the way forward. Seriously - if there is a diety - can you prove that it isn't the flying spaghetti monster?

luckily that doesn't seem to bother politicians.....

Surely its nothing more than a manufacturing an answer to the unexplained. A deity can be anything you want so you can shape it to fill the vacuum that your knowledge cannot fill. Possibly but why is that vacuum there? I don't see another animals with that vacuum. are you claiming to know their thought process? I don;t see how you can possibley try to draw parallels there. I'm claiming that I see no evidence of other animals worshiping a deity, yes. So is that your argument for or against deity’s? Sounds dumb and obscure enough to be used by either ends of the believe spectrum.

Surely its nothing more than a manufacturing an answer to the unexplained. A deity can be anything you want so you can shape it to fill the vacuum that your knowledge cannot fill. Possibly but why is that vacuum there? I don't see another animals with that vacuum. are you claiming to know their thought process? I don;t see how you can possibley try to draw parallels there.

Surely its nothing more than a manufacturing an answer to the unexplained. A deity can be anything you want so you can shape it to fill the vacuum that your knowledge cannot fill.

That's exactly right. Because alcohol is legal for those over 21, there is therefore no black market for alcohol. Therefore, it's harder for teens to get alcohol vs acid or coke. and yet the 21 laws is only because the federal government blackmails every state over it... but that's ok...

gotta have religion to be moral huh? http://gawker.com/baptist-church-leader-arrested-for-soliciting-dog-sex-o-1617858449?utm_campaign=socialflow_gawker_facebook&utm_source=gawker_facebook&utm_medium=socialflow

I never saw that before thanks. I've always thought the characters from the Bible would make some good books or movies. It is clear that the most evil villain in the book is God (the Father) where the good guy is Jesus. A great plot would be if Jesus decided to make a deal with the devil (as a lesser of two evils) to team up and overthrow their common enemy (his a-hole father). Maybe there can be some drama as both sides try to win over the loyalty of the holy ghost. In the end it turns out that the Father, Son, and Ghost are just one being with multiple personality disorder which ends up killing itself leaving, Satan who turns out not to be such a bad guy (just misunderstood stemming from some of the bad things he did when he used to drink), with the universe all to himself. I remember reading a book a long time ago, maybe when I was a teenager or in my early 20s called The Jehovah Contract where a hit man was hired to take out god. I'm going to have to re-read it sometime, I remember loving it. Here it is on Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/The-Jehovah-Contract-Victor-Koman/dp/0977764907 Also try "God Knows" by Joseph Heller. very good book... Reiligion is nothing more than a ponzi scheme...

I totally agree. Time for a ban on Lawyers.

Learn the art of Procrastination! I should have posted that earlier....

Sarcasm doesn't carry over too well on the net does it.. :D

I think you missed my point.. Which means I didn’t make it very well. There always seems to be something at Fairfax to point the finger at. Including (but not limited to ) the items I listed. Every single time FFH has a hot topic (trendy thing to blame from people looking at it) it ends up being resolved and disappears into the background - and then people find something else to say “if it wasn’t for the…..” They deal with it and carry o9n – and its not like everyone at Fairfax says that topic X is an issue lets all fix that and ignore everything else. All of those things that I mentioned have been issues at some point from the outside looking in. And all of them have now “disappeared” or something else becomes the hot topic to blame. Fairfax covers a lot of ground. You’ll always find something that you don’t like about it. If you can look at the rest and find enough to encourage you that as a shareholder your money is under good , safe stewardship then you have to live with the fact that a company with so many fingers in so many pies will always have some issues that need to be addressed. And they do address them. Don’t fret so much about the one issue that pops up – it’s a complex , worldwide corporation with a lot of things on its plate that sometimes won’t look so rosy… Lets not treat Fairfax hot button issues like Whack a mole… Just let them get on with it. Overall I like Fairfax in general and I think that it leads the component parts of its organization pretty well. Its not perfect and there are areas that could do with improvement. Then again I don’t know of a perfect organization. From my point of view (and its just an opinion) to focus on one area and highlight it saying you don’t like it does an injustice to Fairfax as a whole. I know its happened before (hence my sarcastic post) and it’ll happen again – but I think you need to look at the “issue” areas and balance it against what Fairfax is doing as an organization overall. (Disclosure – I may be slightly biased as I used to work for Fairfax)

Fairfax would already be well north of $1,000 if their underwriting/run off/ asbestos/environmental claim/ blackberry/ hedges/ aquisitions/ exchange rateinvesting results over the last 7 or so years wasn't so awful.