rkbabang

You have to talk to the farmer. I do business with a couple of farmers who have told me that they don't even call themselves organic, because 1) it is too expensive to be certified, and 2) they would never use the chemicals most organic farmers use.

This article is written by someone I know who has visited North Korea and smuggled a bunch of books out. http://reason.com/archives/2013/07/23/my-week-in-north-korea He wrote a book called "Dear Reader: The Unauthorized Autobiography of Kim Jong Il", he calls it an "unauthorized autobiography", because he writes it as if he was Kim Jong Il writing his own autobiography. Sort of an inside joke, because Malice ghost-writes celebrity autobiographies for a living. Anyway he wrote it as if it was Kim Jong II writing for the North Korean people to read. It is all the history and propaganda that they are told and are supposed to believe. It's an interesting book and well worth the read.

I spend most of my free time figuring out how to make this happen for myself. Started a blog about it to help myself focus on making it happen yesterday. This ties back into healthcare as health insurance being tied to employment is what is keeping a lot of people in jobs they don't like. Imagine if you couldn't really buy car insurance or home insurance on your own, or from out of state companies, or with the exact level of coverage that you wanted because of stupid government regulations.

I think you have found the answer to your question. Maybe do an instructional youtube video on how to rotate your hand 90° for better videos. You'll probably get a lot of views. "Most people would rather die than think; many do." --Bertrand Russell

Another secular trend will be the legalization of Marijuana in all 50 states and eventually at the federal level. The profit will be made catering to the Whole Foods crowd with boutique brands and strains, as well as vaporizers and food products/oils/additives. People will want to know that their weed was grown organically and they will want a customized experience for different situations with known levels of THC and CBD. There's a difference between after dinner weed, medicinal weed, and "I want get totally stoned and watch Pink Floyd The Wall" weed. Here's a good article: http://www.fastcoexist.com/3043513/world-changing-ideas/here-comes-the-whole-foods-ification-of-marijuana

I think the health industry is ripe for disruption in a big way. Less focused on human averages and more focused on individualized care tailored to each persons individual genetic needs with a focus on influencing their epigenetic gene expression through lifestyle changes, diet, supplementation, and individualized drugs. Genetic research, antiaging research, and big data are all going to play a big role. I'm not sure how to turn this into investing advice though, it is too early in the game. But I know it doesn't bode well for existing drug companies and the rules they currently play by. Some will adopt, others won't, and some will try to use politics to ban new ways of doing things (new treatments, types of practitioners, distribution of certain types of medical information, etc), which will fail due to the increasing difficulty with controlling information and travel.

Yes, but then Apple replaced RIMM in the horsemen index.

Scudbucket, Thanks for your notes. This seems like an interesting read.

For anyone who can't get enough of this topic be sure to read through all of these threads too: :) Seduced by Food: Obesity and the Human Brain Losing weight - resurrecting the old thread Do You Really Need This?

+1! I can tell you exactly why I'm fat and overweight. It has nothing to do with sugar, gluten, etc, but the fact that I do not eat a balanced diet and do not get enough exercise. You eat too many calories and don't exercise at least three times a week, your body will slowly, if not over years, become unbalanced and your health will deteriorate. It's as simple as that! Not that sugar is toxic, or whatever smoke people are blowing up your ass these days. Anything in a large enough dose will kill you...even water! Your body is self-regulating and a prime piece of technology...to call it a marvel of engineering is an understatement. Yes, processed foods over the years have increased the amount of sugar and sodium levels in them. But it all still comes down to a balanced diet, watching your total caloric intake and a moderate amount of exercise. Those three things will take care of a whole host of other ills. 15 years ago, scientists and doctors said you shouldn't consume more than a few eggs a week. Now, doctors and scientists are saying that eating a couple of eggs a day isn't an issue. Red meat, coffee, sugar, salt, butter, alcohol, and whatever else go in and out of favour every decade. The real problem isn't sugar or fat, but the sheer size of the portions we get these days. It all started with Big Gulps and Supersized...7/11, Costco and McDonalds should all get the same amount of blame! If you went to a restaurant 20-30 years ago, their dinner plate is today's appetizer plate, and today's dinner plate can hold twice as much food as back then. A Big Mac used to be the biggest burger you could eat when I was a teenager...today it's about the same size as a fully-loaded "L'il Buddy Burger" at Five Guys! That's the little burger at Five Guys...the one children order these days! Even if you order something healthy at a restaurant, the portion size is huge. So while you may be eating a nice salad, the total caloric value of that salad may be well over 1,000 calories. A 7 oz steak, with vegetables and mashed potatoes is healthier and less than 2/3rds of the calories. You could add a Coke and still come in under the salad. And then you have all of the food porn that people love! Inundated with food culture, and the fact that acquiring food gets easier and easier, while lifestyles are more and more sedentary, you can easily see why the world is becoming fat...and it isn't due to the sugar, salt, fat or gluten. Cheers! Sorry Sanjeev, but I disagree with you here. I have a desk job, spend an hour in my car, and don't exercise, yet I am no longer fat, no longer have typeII diabetes, no longer have fatty liver disease, no longer have high cholesterol, no longer have low HDL, no longer have high triglycerides, and I weight about what I did when I graduated high school after being obese for almost 20 years. I lost 65 lbs in 2010-2011 and kept it off simply by changing what I was eating. I haven't yet tried rocks or dirt, but I switched from an atrocious SAD (Standard American Diet) to a lowish carb paleo type diet. I eat organic vegetables, quality meats (grass fed beef, local heritage breed pork, free range chicken, etc), my own free range eggs from my chickens, good fats (grass fed butter, MCT oil, non-hydrogenated lard, coconut oil, palm oil, olive oil), very little fruits, nuts, seeds, and legumes, and no grains. I drink only unsweetened coffee/tea or water. If you change your diet without exercising you can get healthy, if you exercise without changing your diet you can't. EDIT: Of course it is probably better to do both.

If you steal books by torrenting them, make sure not to use uTorrent. Apparently (http://www.theverge.com/2015/3/6/8161251/utorrents-secret-bitcoin-miner-adware-malware) they install a hidden bitcoin miner on your computer that runs even when you don't have uTorrent open. No honor among thieves. It seems that this rumor is unsubstantiated as it isn't reproducible, (maybe it was just a rumor, maybe it was a download from a third party distro site, or maybe utorrent changed their installer after word got out), but if you are worried about it as this articles says you can check to see if EpicScale is installed on your PC and uninstall it if it is. uTorrent caught installing a Bitcoin miner "BitTorrent replied later to the thread saying that they’d tested their installer and verified that EpicScale couldn’t be installed without user permission. I tested the install this morning, too: neither an upgrade nor a clean install pushed EpicScale onto my PC. This may have simply been a screw-up by a distribution partner. Maybe someone at BitTorrent forgot to check a box somewhere? Whatever the case may be, the problem appears to be fixed for now. However, if you’re noticing your fan running a little loud, you might want to pop into add/remove programs and make sure that EpicScale didn’t sneak onto your system."

Thanks for the link. I'm up to 3 now. I may keep buying them on the dips. By the way I just figured out that you can track your bitcoins in your Yahoo finance portfolio with the symbol BTCUSD=X.

If you are ok with extralegally downloading there is always The Pirate Bay. If your ISP blocks access (Comcast does) use the TOR browser, and it is a good idea to use a VPN such as Private Internet Access when using bit torrent. More legally, I've used Half.com a lot to buy used books. You can get softcover books for about $1 and hardcover for a couple of dollars. If you can buy multiple books from the same seller you can usually save on shipping.

I suspect mortgages last longer when the general trend is rising rates and shorter when the trend is decreasing rates. In a rising rate environment people would not refinance as often. Amen Brother! Negative convexity at work. Increasing duration when you don't want it (rates rising) and decreasing duration when you don't want it (rates falling). I forget who said it but the no prepayment penalty fixed rate 30 yr mortgage "would not exist in nature". all the optionality is in the borrower's hands. Another way to prepay is to default. I agree. But even if the no prepayment penalty 30 year fixed rate mortgage has to exist because of government regulations, I always wondered why there wasn't an enormous difference in rates between the fixed rate products and the ARMs? You would think the market would set the rates in general and on average to make all types of mortgages an equally attractive deal to both the buyers and the sellers. It seems to me that the fixed rate mortgages are always cheap compared with the ARMs (unless you know for sure that you will have the mortgage less than 7-8 years), which leads me to think that some form of government regulation is also involved somewhere in skewing the rates in an unnatural direction to the consumers benefit. empirical studies show that most people are better off taking the floating rate, actually (I'm once again spouting generalizations from memory, feel free to fact check this). What free market? A non-economic buyer has been waving in the issuance coupon for the past 3 yrs. The Fed is the one who loves buying 30 yr maturity mortgages at 3% coupons after g+s fees. It's huge stimulus. I suppose that would be the case if the average mortgage is ~5 years. For the person who intends to hold the mortgage to maturity or until rates drop enough to make refinancing worth it, the 30 year fixed rate mortgage is an an incredible deal.

I suspect mortgages last longer when the general trend is rising rates and shorter when the trend is decreasing rates. In a rising rate environment people would not refinance as often. Amen Brother! Negative convexity at work. Increasing duration when you don't want it (rates rising) and decreasing duration when you don't want it (rates falling). I forget who said it but the no prepayment penalty fixed rate 30 yr mortgage "would not exist in nature". all the optionality is in the borrower's hands. Another way to prepay is to default. I agree. But even if the no prepayment penalty 30 year fixed rate mortgage has to exist because of government regulations, I always wondered why there wasn't an enormous difference in rates between the fixed rate products and the ARMs? You would think the market would set the rates in general and on average to make all types of mortgages an equally attractive deal to both the buyers and the sellers. It seems to me that the fixed rate mortgages are always cheap compared with the ARMs (unless you know for sure that you will have the mortgage less than 7-8 years), which leads me to think that some form of government regulation is also involved somewhere in skewing the rates in an unnatural direction to the consumers benefit.

The other reason people pay off their mortgages is to refinance it, either to take cash out or to lower their interest rate. I think I remember reading somewhere that the average life of a mortgage was around 5-7 years, the first thing I found with a google search says 3-5 years. I suspect mortgages last longer when the general trend is rising rates and shorter when the trend is decreasing rates. In a rising rate environment people would not refinance as often. "The average life of a mortgage is just three to five years, estimates Douglas Duncan , chief economist at the Mortgage Bankers Association of America."

LOL. Maybe you guys can ask him how can he lead a fairly stress free life while running one of the largest companies in USA and periodically running into near-death corporate situations (Washington Post strike in 70s, SEC investigation in 70s, Salomon Brothers debacle, Gen Re debacle, Net Jets debacle, death of all the "made in America" brands he bought, Lubrizol and Sokol, etc.). I would have killed myself multiple times during his career. "Stress free" my a** ??? ::) :-X :'( :o Yes, but different people handle stress differently. There are people who can handle an enormous amount of stress and sleep soundly and then there are the people who stress out over every little thing until it kills them. Stress doesn't kill, handling stress badly kills.

Bitcoin is being stolen at gunpoint in New York "The most recent Bitcoin robbery reported to police is typical for this new breed of crime. New York City firefighter Dwayne Richards headed to Brooklyn to meet up with someone who apparently wanted to exchange Bitcoins for cash. Instead he was mugged and stabbed, but survived and is recovering well. The thief made off with the Bitcoins and it’s unlikely they will be seen again..."

Two scenarios both give investors a choice. With buybacks you can do nothing and keep re-purchase of shares in the company (at no tax cost) or you can sell shares in equivalent value to the amount of the buyback. With dividends you pay tax and you can choose to do nothing and thus keep your yield or you can use the dividend to buy more shares. Buybacks give you a choice whether or not to pay taxes, dividends give you no choice and force you to pay taxes. If you choose to use your dividend to buy more shares, you would have been better off with a buyback.

https://www.gmo.com/America/CMSAttachmentDownload.aspx?target=JUBRxi51IIBoe1yul9uERnfCmQoglFl9k5qwJSfHx8w%2fWCnFLmEb2MC9GoFnZVlslR5NzCRY1ajgn503icBv67VQg%2fNVUMWsYvi3A2%2fL%2bS28A7Pthjp7LmOfLYQfHMJc The World’s Dumbest Idea James Montier Should be called "The worlds dumbest white paper". This is how it is supposed to work. If shareholders never got their money back, and then some, why would anyone invest? Just like people take on a lot of debt when they are young and need less when they are established, the same is true with companies. Capital is needed during the growth stage and investors are payed back later. The fact that a company has the potential to eventually payback shareholders many times its initial capital needs is what makes capital available on the markets in the first place. It is what makes the system work. TANSTAAFL.

So you can get the same neurons to fire as if it was your first ever shot of heroin and do it whenever you want? You could also simulate the feeling of winning huge at gambling, simulate sex, or any other feeling you wish to have. There may be a lot of unproductive people around, but very little depression. If you start having a bad though, just turn it off and plug in a happy one.

Even if you don't like what you do, learn how to do something else. What is 4 or 8 years of school and/or 15-20 years of on the job experience when you have hundreds of years left to live. A person could very well have 6 or 10 or 20+ different careers over a lifetime where they reached expert/senior/master level in each field. Technical obsolescence will likely force this on you eventually even if you would like to do your job for 400+ years. This will certainly have an effect on marriage as well. "'Till death do us part" will be a long long time. The divorce rate is already above 50%, how many marriages would last 300 or 600 years, possibly raising multiple groups of children separated by decades or centuries? It will be interesting for sure.

Of course you only need to live until they can expand life expectancy out 3 or 4 decades to make it until they cure aging completely. I think large gains in life expectancy will come before 2050, in which case you will likely live to 2050-2070. Anyone under 60 today has a good chance I think of living for hundred years. Note I didn't say "forever". I forgot where I read it, but I read a good analysis of what life expectancy without aging would be and just counting the probability the average person has of dying an accidental death on any given year, the average life expectancy would be about 700 years. I'm assuming with things like space tourism and everyone having more time on our hands because of technology to travel or do stupid things the rate of accidental death will probably remain about where it is now.

Well I don't know about genius, but you've sure got evil covered.

If you look at the standard of living in the United States, then take a look at the other 6.9 billion people, I think there is a lot of potential growth left.