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"admitted"? a more accurate verb might be "volunteered" or "boasted".

at the risk of stating the obvious: the only reason to carry a passport on a suicidal attack is so that passport can be found. and the only reason to have a foreign refugee participate in an attack on a country that has seen over three thousand citizens and legal residents emigrate to join ISIS is so that a refugee can be discovered to have participated.

thanks for sharing your thoughts re. vs. bam. i'm not sure if interest rates are the most complete explanation. bep declined substantially more than the other brookfield family income vehicles. i'd guess that the difference is likely due to fear of cheap hydrocarbons.

may i ask why you prefer bep over bam?

bam is already my largest holding, i have a lot of confidence in the mgmt. i'm trying to position myself to be a little more defensive (probably foolishly, but it feels good) and bam has come down a little, presumably off the news that they're raising capital. i think they'll put the capital to good use, so i have no problem with them raising money.

bam.

i'd be very interested to read about karelia. but i probably wouldn't post in its thread, because i don't think i'd have anything useful to say.

a big difference between alfalfa/corn, etc and almonds is that in drought years you don't have to plant the annual crops. almonds need water every year. it might be a workable model for some valley farmers with senior water rights to plant annual crops in years with good snows and to fallow everything and sell their water in drought years.

... So if you are on a Tiered system, the payoff is better if you are an energy "pig". as a middle income bracket california resident, i can attest that you don't need to be in the upper income brackets for home solar to make sense in california. my energy statements suggest i use much less energy than the median similar-sized house, and my house is probably around median size (or smaller), but i still pay through the nose for energy in the summer when both the ac and the pool pump are running frequently. with the tiered pricing schedule, installing enough solar to replace those expensive tiers of use would be a no brainer for me - and hence likely for the majority of californians (at least non coastal, non far northern californians).

hoping and praying.

it's depressing.

i've spent a little time in that general area. unless the land is subject to severe zoning restrictions or is burdened with easements, it is worth much more than $1500 an acre. it's not easy to get a permit to develop anything in SLO county, but still.

thanks. you may not think of yourself as an expert, but everything is relative. you're far more informed than am i, so in relative terms, you offer very useful thoughts. i don't think your views on agnc are outdated, if anything they currently seem to be even more willing to take on duration, while the others (at least nly, i guess i never really pay attention to any others besides those two) are doing everything to avoid it. your mention of the preferreds is interesting. the last time the price to book of the common was around this level was december 2013. i should check and see if the preferreds have declined along with the common (my guess is probably not, but worth checking).

thepupil, do you have thoughts on the AGNC (and/or other mreits) right now? the discount to book is pretty dramatic.

it surprises me that bam isn't more discussed here.

i don't believe many of the shale producers can maintain current production from cash flow. they have to borrow in order to maintain production. i don't think it will be easy to borrow money to fund drilling at current prices.

thank you for posting this.

if you don't mind a little effort, you don't need to pay annual fees. just cancel the card before or right after the first year of holding a card where the fee is waived for that year and open a new account. you'll benefit from signup bonuses as well.

if you don't care about points/miles, it doesn't matter too much. you might prefer to get a couple of cards to optimize your use (for example one card that doesn't charge transaction fees for charges in foreign currencies, another that has primary insurance on car rentals). chase has good customer service. barclays has horrible customer service. now if you want to get into maximizing points, it's a whole other world.

i agree, i didn't feel i could answer the question. is it what % of aftertax income is saved, or what % of all income (including employer match?) is saved, but using aftertax income as the denominator? is mortgage principal included as savings? for many posters, i'm sure it wouldn't change their answer much, but in my case it would.

i've become very partial to BAM. i basically have my BAM position on autopilot (my largest position by a substantial margin). if there is a reason i shouldn't, I'd like to hear it.

it was several years back - 2005-2010 or so. inflation was pretty noticeable then, so i doubt if i could still live there now in the same way for the same money. i lived in atlacomulco, north of toluca. as a poor grad student, just my girlfriend and myself, so it was pretty easy to keep expenses minimal. we basically just paid for rent, gasoline, food and internet.

heh. i used to live near mexico city. but my annual expenses at the time were more like 10k.

move to a smallish college/university town. the public schools will be dominated by the children of the university employees and will be of high quality. real estate prices are usually reasonable, at least in relation to coastal us cities.

thepupil, are you still short the russell 2000? just curious.