DTEJD1997

Hey all: For computer related stuff, "Tom's Hardware" is very good. They have hundreds of reviews of different products, articles on industry trends, tech support forums, etc. "The Register" is good for higher level scuttlebut in the IT industry. "AppleInsider" is a very good Apple resource, but they sometimes have IT industry articles/reports too. I am debating the value of "BiggerPockets" for real estate. There are some good articles/features there, but it is mainly newbies, most of their members/contributors are not very sophisticated.

What happens if one HQ decides one thing, and the other decides something else? Will the AMZN empire split in two? Will there be an Eastern AMZN and a Western AMZN? What happens if one of them is overrun?

Hey all: In my area of the country (Detroit/midwest) I see LESS than 1% electric cars. Teslas are more common than Ferrari's, but NOT as common as Porsches. I see a Volt from time to time and sometimes even a Leaf, and once in a great while something I can't identify. I will sometimes travel to OH, WV, IN, PA, NC and the ratios of electric cars don't change much. Hybrid cars are much more common. I wonder if other board members are in NYC, LA, or other spots where electric cars are much more common than in other parts of the country? I am further going to speculate that most other board members/financial analysts are relatively well off and an electric car would be a realistic purchase. Not to make this a political discussion...but is this a similar situation as to the Presidential election? That is, media/coastal elites think that the rest of the country is following them closely, when in reality, that is not the case. Electric/self driving cars may be coming one day....but I just don't see it anytime soon (next 5 years).

My associate is an elderly man. I don't think he has EVER used the toilet in the basement in 15+ years...he had no knowledge it was running. Here in Detroit, the water is most certainly expensive...but so is the sewer charge. My associate maintains that he should be given a "pass" on the sewer charge as 99.9% of the water going into the sewer was "clean" water. He did not use the toilet 45,000 times in one month. It also boggles the mind how much water could POSSIBLY have gone through a running toilet? It further boggles the mind that the Detroit/Michigan area is sitting on something like 1/3 of the world's fresh water supply. YET, we have MORE expensive water than Texas and Las Vegas. As time passes our local politicians & civil servants get more & more stupider....more & more corrupt!

Generally speaking, things have moderately improved in Detroit since the bankruptcy. Some areas have improved more than others though (downtown, midtown). Some areas have gotten somewhat worse though? The far Eastside is my area....and that part of Detroit has gotten rougher in some respects....but the good news is that some of the liquor stores that shut down have reopened! The river front has also improved moderately...along with East English Village and Indian Village. As for the West side? Hard to say, I don't get out there too much. Industry and business is generally doing better. It seems thought that it has really only started to get substantially better in the last 12-18 months. Detroit is a deeply cyclical place, so it frequently lags behind the rest of the country. Real estate prices are up EVERYWHERE here...there are some houses selling for $25k-$50k in Detroit!!!!!!!! Hard to believe that prices could get that high...prices in the suburbs have gone up drastically too. Not back to pre-crash levels...but getting close. So everyone is doing better here, some areas more than others.

No notice was given here. It is a 1 month bill. My associate does not do the "electronic mails". I seem to recall reading/hearing somewhere that the average American family has LESS than $500 in liquid assets. Thus, for an "average" family, a $3k monthly water bill would be a financial catastrophe.

Hey all: Another crazy story from the wilds of Detroit! A running toilet can lead to financial RUIN! A very close associate of mine has a house with several toilets in it. One of them is in the basement and is seldom used. Turns out this toilet was probably running for several weeks. This person has "automated bill pay" for their water & sewer bills, which are normally about $80 a month. So this month he has a $3,000 water bill. This bill is automatically deducted from his checking account. He was not expecting anything like this...so it leads to a cascade of "bounced" checks & fees & hassle. This is a good reason NEVER to set up automated bill payment. The municipality has his money now. Good luck in contesting the bill and getting his money back. In Detroit, water & sewer is SUPER expensive. So expensive that some cities can't even pay for it. So the suburbs have to have increased rates to pay for the cities that can't pay their water http://www.fox2detroit.com/news/local-news/water-authority-suburbs-to-pay-highland-parks-unpaid-water-bills-of-30m At one point, residents of Detroit were $90mm behind on their water bills. https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2014/07/27/detroit-not-alone-in-shutting-off-water-for-unpaid-bills/13228207/ There were also reports that about 60% of Detroit residents were 90+ days behind on their water bills. This was before the big "crackdown". Anyway, my associate has lost a tremendous amount of money. Fortunately, he has the financial wherewithal to deal with the bill & it's cleanup. I wonder though how many others out there that have had a situation like this that are financially ruined?

Dozens of companies in the resource space make wild assertions about their asset value. of course, few are accurate or pay off. A $5mm market cap company will be worth BILLIONS in a few years? Color me skeptical...

One of the options should have been: "I plan to acquire crypto-currency by MINING IT" I have no doubt that some crypto currencies will have value over time. I think there is a definite place for it. I think BTC at over $10k is kind of silly at this point. I looked into mining BTC back when it was about $500 per BTC...but passed on it as that was the time that it was starting to move from GPU's to ASIC's... Other upcoming cryptos might be able to be mined using high end GPU's and I might be interested in taking a speculative gamble at mining some of those. For me, acquiring crypto by mining seems to be the way to go.

hey all: I started a new thread today. It was in the general category. The topic was "grocery stores" and was started around lunch time on the East coast of the USA. I would think that this is not a particularly exciting or inflammatory topic. In 10 minutes there were about 70 hits. 3 of those were mine. Obviously other members are looking, but I am sure there are automated bots watching too!

The Mega Kroger was branded as a "normal" Kroger. It was located in NW Ohio. There is a Mega Kroger not too far from me in Metro Detroit. It opened less than a year ago. I seem to remember that the "average" grocery store was about 35K sq. ft. of space. These new Mega Krogers are probably double that in size (or more)!

Hey all: I did some traveling over the Christmas Holiday and I think I've seen the future of grocery stores, as I went into several of them. A). Kroger is building MEGA grocery stores. These stores are almost the size of a Wal-Mart, but they sell mainly groceries. The one I went into had a health clinic in it. It had 52 isles of food for sale. The selection was pretty good, just about as good as anything outside of ethnic grocers or specialty places. Prices were decent. Store was simply MASSIVE, bordering on insane. Arguably the best grocery outside of Wegman's. B). I have seen and shopped in Lidl's. This is an upscale German competitor of Aldi. These guys are going to be a big threat to everyone else. There prices are almost as low as Aldi, but they have a larger selection. They have a small in store bakery. I don't think their distribution network is built out yet in the USA. They had a bunch of name brand frozen foods, I think they don't have their generic manufacturers fully up to speed. Store was maybe 2-3X larger than the typical Aldi. Very open & clean. C). I went into an Aldi down the street from a Lidl. This store is about 2X the size of a typical Aldi up North. They have a slightly larger selection of products. The store is also looking more upscale. For instance, the isles are wider, there is somewhat softer & better lighting, there is exposed brick. They also have an expanded and better produce section. Employees seem more engaged. So I think the days of "regular" grocery stores are rapidly coming to an end. The low end is going to get taken up by Lidl & Aldi. The mid-range is going to go to Kroger & Wal-Mart & regional "super stores". The high end is going towards Whole Foods & Trader Joes. The thing that really surprised me is the entrance of Lidl & reaction of Aldi. These guys are really going to take market share.

Just analyze them like most other companies. How much money do they make? Do they have a good capital structure? How big is the dividend? What are their future prospects? What is management's track record? Jurisdiction they operate in? There are some good ones out there that may be excellent investments! HOWEVER, they are RARE (just like other good investments)!

Hey all: Like with so many things in life...there are MANY causes for the heroine/opoid problem. Many different factors/people are at fault. One factor is certainly depression at one's lot in life. Up until the 90's...there were certainly jobs in the Midwest. There still are, but they are harder to come by though. Somebody may have been making $50k a year, had a good job, but they hurt their back. The factory closes. They lose their job. They still have pain. Through a series of unfortunate events/poor choices, they are broke, unemployed, can't find good work and eventually wind up on heroin. Some things they could control/influence, some they couldn't.

There are a few different things going on as I understand them. A). There was a sighting 100 miles off of San Diego. Radar picked it up, interceptors sent sent out, pilots saw it(them), gun camera picks it up & records it. Pilots kinda of sorta interact with it as it seems to react to presence of the interceptors. This is not absolute proof of it being an alien presence...and it might be human in origin...and it is not conclusive...but it is very, Very, VERY interesting. I don't think it is swamp gas, weather balloon, bird, ball lighting, or things such as that. The object was obviously moving at a VERY high speed. It was initially picked up by radar. Radar saw it moving fast/oddly. Pilots confirmed same thing. Same thing with the gun camera. I don't think it is likely drone....it was clearly moving faster/better than an F-18 interceptor. It was not moving marginally better than F-18, it was WAY faster/better than F-18. Then the other thing is really making me scratch my head is the report that the government has "weird materials" from UFO's out in Vegas? Once again, this is not conclusive proof...but it is worlds away from a bunch of hillbillies in a trailer park being tormented after a night of drinking/carousing.

Very interesting. Could have wide ranging impact on economies, industry, energy usage etc if they could identify what these technologies & materials are. OK, now things are starting to get crazy. We've got everything discussed before....and now there are "materials" coming off/from UFO's? Materials that scientists have no idea what they are and reportedly have strange effects on people? How did these materials come off UFO's? Was it a UFO broken down by the side of the ride and a panel fell off when it took off? OR was it maybe a shootdown? Or was it a crash? This isn't getting more coverage in the papers? If it is indeed true, I would think this would be pretty big news? Of course, we've got a lot of news with maniac perverts and the political circus to capture the public's attention.

TwoCitiesCapital: I've been working on/off with commercial real estate ever since I was in graduate school. Every project I've worked on, I've made money in the end....BUT that doesn't always make it a worthwhile investment. The 1st project I worked on was a complete gutting and re-purposing of a building in a downtown location. It took SUBSTANTIALLY more time & capital that what was initially budgeted/planned. My partner and I also spent many more hours doing personal labor at the project. It was a 1st project for both of us...so our inexperience was a major problem. Of course, everybody has to have a 1st time. I made money...but in retrospect, I probably would have made more on an hourly basis in a "regular" job! 2nd project was a similar but even MORE ambitious project. The building was in even WORSE shape and was substantially larger. This project actually turned out to be pretty good. The reason it worked well was that personal time was almost all intellectual work and very little physical labor. We were also working under VERY strict time constraints. These time constraints forced us to move along. We wound up selling out quickly (less than a year), and actually made pretty decent money when you factor in labor, capital and time. The group that wound up actually completing the second project was MUCH more experienced, much better capitalized...and wound up making out like bandits. They made the REALLY good money. The 3rd project had a decent amount of personal labor in it...and a much longer time frame...but it housed a business that I was running. So when you factor that in, it was OK. My 4th project I am currently working on. It is a better project I think then any of the 1st 3 that I've done. I am the owner, no partners or investors, so I get to keep all the upside. Of course, I've got to do all the work! I was very fortunate to get this project. Real estate in my corner of the world has gone up, and my timing was very fortunate. I also have a business that I run based in the building. So I would say that: A). Everything takes more time/labor than you initially budget for...almost always. As time goes by and you get more experience, you will get better at estimating this, but it is ALWAYS difficult. B). You really need to be well capitalized. I simply can't emphasize this enough! Thinking that you will be able to work with banks/mortgage companies when the time calls for it, is a very dangerous assumption! Try to have ALL your financing lined up BEFORE you take the project on. C). Working with contractors is VERY difficult and a real skill. You can get good contractors who know EXACTLY what they are doing and do a good job...but you will pay TOP dollar to do so. So if your capital is tight...you go further down the chain of contractors and that is where the problems start. Contractors don't always show on time...their work takes longer than they tell you...they run into unforeseen problems and on and on. D). I highly recommend working with a more experienced partner, especially at first. It is better to own a small part of something good, than all or most of something that is a turkey. E). The more complex and lengthy projects will frequently be the largest gainers...but have more risk. I might suggest working with the simple stuff first, and then going into more complex projects as you gain experience. I did this the wrong way :( In the end, you have to work with what is available to you, and you've got get started somewhere. If you can, make sure you've got plenty of capital, time and energy. Work with good people. Good luck to you. Let us know how things work out.

Yes, I know about the Google & Yahoo!. Obviously those are crawling/watching all the time... I would also think that those would go without even saying.... As someone else pointed out, the general "indexing bots" should be fairly limited. Give maybe a dozen hits to those? Also, would those general indexing bots hit a new post within seconds/minutes? The point I was trying to make is that I suspect that there are SPECIFIC bots that watch "The Corner". We may not be their only target...but I would not be surprised if hedge funds/investment firms/investors are watching this forum (and others).

Yes, I am just so shocked on TWO levels about this thing: A). I created a thread about this VERY subject just a week or two before it has come out. Just lucky timing on my part. B). I am in EVEN GREATER SHOCK that there is not more news/discussion about this! These reports are not a bunch of "Hillbillies" being hassled by aliens & flying saucers in the trailer park. A USA aircraft carrier sees something "odd" on it's radars. It sends out two jet interceptors to investigate. The pilots are incredulous at what they see. They record part of the encounter on camera! You've got qualified witnesses, you've got tape of something, you've got radar impressions of something. This is a UFO sighting on MULTIPLE levels (radar, witness, video camera). While this is certainly not conclusive proof of anything other than something odd, I would sure as hell be investigating it very thoroughly. I could very well see it being "swamp gas" but for the radar signatures...That is one of the key things. Of course, now would be the perfect time to release "news" about "flying saucers"...almost everybody is pre-occupied by "sex pervert maniacs" and the political circus, the economy, North Korea and on and on. Great way to hide something in plain sight...

Hey all: I've noticed something for quite a while that I never made mention of... From time to time, I will start a new thread. These new threads may get 100 views in a matter of a few minutes. Certainly there are a lot of members at all times, looking & watching. I suspect that there are also a goodly amount of guests. I also like to think that people like to see what I have to say... BUT such a high number of views in such a short time leads me to think that there may be "bots" scanning this board. Perhaps they are looking/watching for certain things. Perhaps some really sharp investors have bots programmed to look for certain companies, ticker symbols, addresses, phrases and so on. Anybody have any knowledge/information on this?

Hey all: Crazy that I just started this discussion thread...THEN TODAY there are 2 big stories in the NYT about UFO's! I simply don't understand why this 1st story is not making news headlines across the world...2 F-18's see something flying around that simply can't be explained. They have some tape of it...there is at least ONE ship's radar that is picking it up. Simply explained as we don't know what it is...experts caution that it very could have an earthly explanation...WTF! I'll let you guys judge for yourself: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/16/us/politics/unidentified-flying-object-navy.html Why this is listed in the "politics" section, I have no idea... Then you've also got this story: https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/12/16/pentagon-ufo-search-harry-reid-216111 I am very surprised that first story is not making more news.

Hey all: There is already a little bit of this going here in the USA. For example, In Michigan, your auto insurance is partially based on your edukation level, credit score, and a myriad of other questionable factors. Of course, some parts of Michigan have the most expensive auto insurance in the whole of the USA. I suspect there is all sorts of goofiness going on that there is no general knowledge of. This is one of the reasons that I have a very limited "social media" profile.

Hey all: Similar to my thread on UFO's, where is the artificial intelligence? In my day to day life and activities, I see almost no hint of it. For example, my credit cards is frequently declined, even though I have TONS of capacity on it. Turns out it is a "safety" thing. The crazy thing is that if whatever program/algorithm is running this had even a modicum of "intelligence", it would be IMMEDIATELY apparent that it is me, and a "normal" level of activity. For example, I will visit merchants across town, at roughly the same time of day, and in the same order. I have done this NUMEROUS times over the years...any human, with any level of comprehension could see the pattern and understand that I am guying things for my business...but the algorithm running the fraud detection throws a fit. Conversely, Ebay & PayPal have had MASSIVE breaches of their accounts/databases in the past couple of months. It seems to be dying down now, but at some points I was having more fraudulent sales than legitimate sales. The real problem was that it was STUPIDLY OBVIOUS that the sales were fraudulent (well 95%+ of the time). The fraudulent transactions had many similarities that even a 1st grade human could easily see & detect. The most glaring of which was that the scammers were requesting delivery to the same address! To further add to the idiocy, this address is well known to the interwebs as being a nest of thieves. If you were to Google that address, the first page of search results comes back loaded with sellers on Ebay, Amazon, and others sites complaining of a similar thing to what I experienced. If you look at the times stamps for some of those websites, some of them are a year+ old! If you call "law enforcement" in the city in which these thieves are based, they know all about it. In fact, they are deluged with angry callers. I would think that they could do something about it, but I guess that is not high on their list of priorities.... There were other glaringly obvious "tells" that these transactions were fake: A). user account almost always has a "Yahoo!" email. All Yahoo! accounts have been hacked... B). user account on Ebay is "guest" account C). user account on Ebay is very new...less than a week old. D). fraudsters are trying to buy similar things, which are small electronics with high dollar to weight ratio E). Delivery name is different than account holder name. F). Delivery name is almost always FSU in origin (Former Soviet Union). For example, account holder name is "James White", delivery name is Svetlana Orichinko. G). Ebay user account has zero or 1 feedback. H). and of course, delivery all to the same address! There may be other similarities that I am missing...but it is immediately obvious. Perhaps the simplest of all, is to not allow any business to be conducted at that problematic address. I had DOZENS & DOZENS of problem transactions in a six week period. I doubt I was the only one. I let Ebay & PayPal know about this problem every time it happened. Another example of AI being asleep at the switch is banner ads. Most of the time, the banner ads that I see are of NO INTEREST at all to me OR wildly inappropriate. Another example is that no computer has passed a Turing test. Or final example is that there are well known intellectuals screaming about how AI is going to exterminate humans. Well, if you ever find yourself being chased down by a HK, simply go through a doorway and close it. There was a DARPA challenge for bots to walk up stairs, open an unlocked door, and then walk through it. Nobody could do it...not even close. So in my experience, I would posit that AI is a long way away. I think it is being "hyped" and I just don't see it coming, not anytime soon.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again. If I could only pick one gold mining stock, it would have to be Caledonia Mining in Zimbabwe (CAL.to, CMCL). I challenge anyone to give a gold stock with better fundamentals, financial metrics, and near term (12-36 months) growth prospects than CMCL. I also think that Zimbabwe is going to re-rate higher. Heck, it could be a heck of story and have good prospects in front of it! Mugabe is gone...There is a good chance the country is going to want to open up to outside investors and grow the economy. Finally, think about this...I bet you would be the ONLY investor in your circle of compatriots to have direct investments in Zimbabwe!

Hey all: I think that there very well might be "shenanigans" going on with recent bitcoin price movement: I know a couple of hapless dudes who have had their computers locked up with ransomware. The hijackers were demanding payment in bitcoin. One person paid it, the other did not... That is certainly driving demand to some degree. Is is 1% or 20% of bitcoin demand? Hard to say.... I also wonder how much/how vulnerable bitcoin is frontrunning/promotion/churning. That is, a group of scam artists buy up some bitcoin....then they start trading among themselves, always agreeing to buy it higher. Thus, their false demand/trading is moving the price higher. They agree to do this for a set period of time, drive the price up, then quickly liquidate. I also know there is some demand from people in China. They are trying to move their assets OUT of China. China has capital controls to some degree. Bitcoin is an effective way to get $$$$ out of China, without the government knowing. How much other demand is coming from Zimbabwe, Venezuela, Syria, Yemen, other trouble spots? Bitcoin can help people get capital out of these trouble spots. How long though until there are other widely used crypto currencies? Ethereum has also made a move...but what is to stop there from being 5, 10, 20, or even more crypto currencies in the near to intermediate future? That will put downward pressure on Bitcoin, as there are more options to move capital. Sure seems like a bubble and that nefarious activities might be going under the surface. Crazy that bitcoin has moved as high as it has, as quickly as it has. Got to wonder where this all ends up...