wachtwoord

I love this response. Just unabashedly shout it from the rooftops: "Your data is irrelevant! The world is black or white. My ideology is far too important to be refuted by something as banal as reality!" No? He just told you you have no data. He's the kid from The Emperor's New Clothes. That kid's brilliant btw :)

This, unfortunately, is true. Yes, but it's not like any of the 2 primary parties had a decent candidate. At least the US has a libertarian party with more than 6 members ...

I used to think that I was too, but then I realized that they are not as orthogonal as it seems from the first glance. Usually the first thing "fiscal conservatives" aim their knife at is social programs. I agree however that the waste and graft in government and its contractors should be cut and controlled. It's not as trivial as the Orange T suggests. Some pressure is probably good though. Socially liberal means that you allow people to do whatever the hell they want (marry someone of the same sex, abort an unborn child, kill themselves etc) as long as it doesn't impose on the freedom of others. The financially conservative part makes sure that those government run social programs you talk of don't exist in the first place as to pay for them you need to violate the property rights of people who do not wish to contribute. Perfect combo :)

I think there are a lot of us. We are lacking a party to represent us. Libertarian.

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Thanks for your post. It made me Google the company and find their annual report http://ir.investorab.com/files/press/investor/201604059657-1.pdf I only read the first few pages (yet) but very nice overview of the companies history and investment values. Thanks! Interesting read.

Your so living in the past.... :-) Hilary is gone, gone, gone..... Yes she is :) and there are no smiley faces large enough for that. I don't know. I wouldn't write her of yet, she's like a cockroach .... Plus there's many others just like her ready to take her place. Surprisingly fitting for the cockroach analogy ;)

Selling of the fund but not the underlying? Market makers will make a killing arbitraging by buying units, converting to the underlying and dumping at market.

You're welcome :) One for the road: http://www.drkwamebrown.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/cognitive-dissonance.png

Umm, Syria? Lebanon? Iran? Those weren't uprisings but US/France financed proxy wars with Russia.

You mean like North Korea, Iraq under Hussein, Saudi Arabia? I've read some history. From what I recall, there were quite a few states over quite a big time period. Maybe even more than I can count on fingers and toes. So can you help me out a bit, since it's so obvious to you, and you're clearly so well read? Which state do you consider stable, with big inequality, that you consider the best role model to compare your nirvana to? We were only discussing stability here as that was the counterargument. Want some examples? Sure: Roman empire, Hittite Empire, Assyrian Empire, Mesopotamia, Mitanni Empire, Minoan civilization, Mycenaean civilization, Mongol Empire, Persia etc. All very unequal yet 'surprisingly' stable.

Just out of curiosity, why do you think this will save the wealthy from the poor people with guns? Or is it kind of like, those who pay taxes can choose for those taxes to go toward locking up or digging graves for any poor people who are upset that a tiny fraction of the population controls everything? Pick up a history book. There have been extremely unequal states, countries, kingdoms etc in history that were surprisingly stable ;)

Last time I checked Munger wasn't a candidate. Of course he's not (no rational thinker would be...) I agree fully.

Last time I checked Munger wasn't a candidate.

I predict you're wrong. Bieber is Canadian. But whatever. Us Canadians are just glad he moved to the US. He's your problem now. Make with him what you wish. Sure but that won't matter after the U.S. and Canada merger in 2038. A joke I hope... or I will be getting my guns out. I don't care either way, because New Hampshire will secede in 2029 (shortly after Texas). I will seriously living in either of those 2 states (live free or die!). But only after they secede. I have zero desire to live in the USA thank you very much.

I love the saying: who pays decides ("wie betaald, bepaald" in Dutch). Everyone can vote but you're vote is weighted based on your tax-payment. I'd even make it possible to voluntarily increase your tax if you so wish (maybe we can even make taxes optional like this as there is finally an incentive (other than fear of prosecution) to pay taxes?)

Well, taking out 10% a year will kill you. As Jurgis said, something on the order of 3-4%. Of course, when you are making sure you are fine in the bottom 1-5% of outcomes, that means most of your actual outcomes will go exponential. That's why I feel like you either barely make it (or not) or you are incredibly wealthy. And the difference is a pretty thin line, so might as well be on the other side of it. Not taking out 10+%, but long term absolute returns. So with 2M you'll make $200k a year of which a portion is reinvested. I was saying that at that point the vast majority can be reinvested (do you need more than $40k spending money?) so you can stop earlier.

He's likely the best US president in my lifetime. Is that because he's so good? Nah, it's just that all the other ones have been complete crap. 1 foot hurdles ;)

And there we have the prisoner's dilemma ;)

+1. Not to restart my soapbox, but I pretty much stay with opinion that in US you need 500K-1M just to be on the safe side of medical/long-term care. Also assuming 3% withdrawal 500K gives you only 15K per year income... Isn't 4% more conventional? 20k USD buys you a pretty decent life in many places in the world (but not a very rich one) How much are you planning to spend? 10% on $2M is $200k. Compounding will go on at a lower net wealth than that. I do like the $2M figure though to take out all risk. If you stop working and need to restart again because of a large unseen event that will be quite hard emotionally.

Yes I can't do it as I never have access to perfect information, even after my investment end or many years after. There is a serious risk of acting on results here. You can make an investment and lose money (or not make the maximum) while having acted completely optimal and vice versa you can make money (even lots of it) with a stupid investment (and blind luck on your side). Of course try to do a retrospective but I wouldn't count it this exact. The only exact thing to measure is rate of return (over a decade at least).

It shouldn't but it looks like it does. The only way to reach 50% annual is by limiting your holding time (otherwise you'll regress to the mean return) so people talking about stocks they would hold forever don't get what Buffet is saying. Also people proposing stocks without multi-bagger potential don't. I expect Buffet would focus on special situations.

I think you can go with top 1% of India there https://www.quora.com/What-are-the-income-levels-for-the-top-1-in-India

I'm looking at ffh too (never owned them before) but would need to make room in my portfolio. Will very likely do so when it goes below book.

Yup, politics is extremely polarized right now.