rkbabang

That can be said for anything that has ever existed. Exactly. Even looking at the poll question at the top of this thread. I voted "no", but I'm trying to think what you could replace "bitcoin" with to make me vote "yes". Nothing is a perfectly safe store of value. There are many things safer than bitcoin for the short and medium term, but nothing that is absolutely safe. Things change, black swans happen. The past is no guarantee of the future.

the previous articles didn't even say how he got the money. just that he left canada and had a bugatti. do you honestly think he advertised only on "penny stocks" searches? if i was running a pump and dump i would also advertise on searches smart(high income) people use. it was just an industry comment that advertising on "penny stocks" searches got super expensive because of this guy. it's like saying madoff is innocent because people didn't do their research. his investors were greedy too, but it wasn't probably the wrong greedy like in penny stocks. or that he's innocent because banks or someone else has done something similar. it's still wrong and should be punishable. He was just having people sign up for an email list and suggesting stocks to them. Maybe he had some "high income" subscribers, but not many "smart" people sign up for a pennystock email newsletter and buy anything it suggests. They were buying the stocks on their own with their own brokers. Madoff was running a fund, taking people's money, and lying about his investors money for years. He was sending people fraudulent statements. These people thought they owned something they didn't own. They thought he was earning them money all the while he was stealing it. There is a very big difference. If I email a bunch of people and tell them I think stock X is going to go up and it does, then I sell. Why is that a crime? I was correct that the stock was going to go up. However if I tell a bunch of people to give me money and I'll invest it for them, I then spend the money and send them a fraudulent statement implying that I invested it and it is earning a return, that is much worse. No comparison. This Buggatti driving 26 year old wasn't having anyone send him money. He didn't manage anyone's money. He wasn't selling investments. He ran an email newsletter giving advice. Should everyone involved with the Motley Fool be thrown in jail?

There was nothing in that article that described an innocent victim of this guy. If the article is correct his "victims" deserved everything they got and more. What he did isn't even close to as bad (not even in the same ballpark) as the whole life companies or annuities companies who do cold-call grandma and get her to turn over her entire life savings. And that is somehow legal. Involving dumb people who search for "penny stocks" on google in a pump and dump because they searched you out and are willing to invest in anything you tell them to, doesn't seem all that bad to me.

A quote from the article: "People just get an e-mail and they buy these things without doing any fundamental analysis... AwesomePennyStocks built a list of subscribers with keyword advertising on search engines, bidding up the price of phrases like “penny stocks” to more than $2 a click, Nicosia said. Its e-mails generated the most stock buying in the industry" They were targeting people searching Google for "penny stocks". So, these people would search Google for "penny stocks", click on the ad, join the e-mail list, then simply buy whatever they told them to buy. This isn't targeting the 90 year old widow with dementia, it is targeting people who are actively looking for a scam artist to steal their money from them. You shouldn't prosecute someone if they are simply giving people exactly what they are looking for.

Which restaurants offer anything under 3$? BeerBaron I bring my lunch. ;) I do it for a couple reason. Obviously, to save money, but also to avoid crap like hormones, antibiotics and GMOs. Exactly. This is one of the reasons I bring my lunch and almost never go out to eat period. You just never know exactly what you are consuming. Not only hormones, antibiotics and GMOs, but also, pesticides, high omega 6 oils, transfats, added sugars/corn syrups, grain fed meets, farmed fish, ..... on and on and on. 99% of it is junk food even at the most expensive restaurants. I don't want any of that crap in my body (or my kids' bodies) on a regular basis. Once in a while is fine, but not every day, or even every week. All that and you pay more for it.

It is better to trade in your Hyundai and Toyota to something like a Volvo. It is really unsafe, especially Toyota. I would never put my own life at risk. :) http://www.iihs.org/iihs/ratings/vehicle/v/toyota/camry/2013 Volvo is the only car in the small overlap test that didn't collapse the passenger structure. I only drive used cars, but I buy a 1-2 year old certified pre-owned Volvo and intend to drive it for the next 200k miles. A one year old certified pre-owned Volvo is just 60-70% of the price of a new, but it has 10 year 100k mile bumper to bumper warranty. I think it is a very good deal. My Toyota is a Sequoia SUV. Does Volvo make something that can seat 7 and pull a 5500lb camper? Yeah. Volvo XC 90 does that. I wouldn't recommend buying XC 90 though. The technology is way out of date. I am not sure about Sequoia's safety, so I can't comment on that. What is your MPG when towing? I bet it is like 5-7 MPG? I think it is best to use a diesel SUV for towing because that can increase your MPG to 15 or more. No XC90 max towing capacity 3790lbs. I wish there was a large diesel SUV available in the US. I don't want a pickup truck, because it has to double as a family car for around town. My Hyundai Elantra is my commuting car that gets the miles put on it. And yes, my mileage is horrible when towing, somewhere well bellow 10mpg and only about 15-16mpg highway when not towing. I'd love something the size of a Sequoia or Chevy Suburban with a massive amount of seating and towing capacity with a diesel engine. I don't know of one, but it has been a few years since I've shopped for a vehicle, so maybe there is one now.

It is better to trade in your Hyundai and Toyota to something like a Volvo. It is really unsafe, especially Toyota. I would never put my own life at risk. :) http://www.iihs.org/iihs/ratings/vehicle/v/toyota/camry/2013 Volvo is the only car in the small overlap test that didn't collapse the passenger structure. I only drive used cars, but I buy a 1-2 year old certified pre-owned Volvo and intend to drive it for the next 200k miles. A one year old certified pre-owned Volvo is just 60-70% of the price of a new, but it has 10 year 100k mile bumper to bumper warranty. I think it is a very good deal. My Toyota is a Sequoia SUV. Does Volvo make something that can seat 7 and pull a 5500lb camper?

5 years? All of our sofas are much older than that. We have one that is over 30 years old and one antique chaise lounge that is well over 80 years old (although we don't sit on it very often). We have an IKEA sofa that gets daily use that is over 5 years old and doing just fine. What exactly do you do on your sofas?.... wait ... maybe I don't want to know.

++++ Well said as always SD. I used to have the same mind set, brought up by an especially frugal father who wrote down every expense to the cent in agenda's. That changed when I found my current SO and started enjoying live more and when I learned about the uncertainties in life. As you said, use it as a servant as you can't take it with you in the end. If I would end up with almost nothing, I honestly believe I would adapt as well. The traveling, being generous to others, eating out, .. all experiences that you can't replace by hoarding all that cash and I wouldn't change them for any amount of money! I'm not a real big spender, but holy hell it is FUN to be free of the shackles cheapness and greed! (Not that I look down on others here that prefer a cheaper lifestyle. as long as it fits your personality, go for it!) I agree with you somewhat. We do splerge on things that are important to us. I pay about $18/lb for my coffee for instance. I justify this by never buying coffee by the cup outside the home (it is inferior anyway) and it is something I enjoy, so I spend the money. Luckily my wife and I aren't wine people, the only wine we buy is the cheap screw on cap variety for cooking. A $1000/bottle of wine has no appeal to me as I wouldn't be able to tell the difference anyway. If you gave it to me as a gift I'd probably cook with it. :)

-Nobel laureate, and behavioral investing pioneer, Daniel Kahneman 50 REASONS WE’RE LIVING THROUGH THE GREATEST PERIOD IN WORLD HISTORY "You need an annual income of $34,000 a year to be in the richest 1% of the world, according to World Bank economist Branko Milanovic’s 2010 book The Haves and the Have-Nots ... To be included in the top 0.1% requires an annual income of $70,000" This puts things into perspective. Most of the people a few years ago holding signs and wearing shirts claiming to be the "99%" in fact weren't.

Your wife is an angel! Does she have a sister? ;) 2, but unfortunately, let's just say they weren't born with the frugal gene.

Everything you just said. +1. My wife feels the same way about cards. When she buys someone a gift, she'll spend an extra $4 or $5 on the gift and skip the useless card (price is what you spend, value is what you get, or give in this case). And when sending someone a card is necessary, a $0.99 card gets the job done just as well as a $4.50 card. Every store has a $0.99 card section if you look.

Your wife is an angel! Absolutely! When it comes to marriage you want to get it right the first time, no 20 punch cards. I met her when I was 17 and I wasn't going to let that one get away.

I'm pretty cheap for most things, but not with others. I guess you could say my wife and I pick what is important to us and we're cheap about everything else. I live in a 3900 sqft house with a 3 story barn that is bigger than the house, we put in Viking, sub-zero appliances, marble counters, (not cheap), but my wife makes her own curtains, decorates with yard sale finds, some of our furniture is second hand and even a few pieces from IKEA. We grow a lot of our own food, we have a huge vegetable garden (45ft by 45ft), we have 18 chickens (we eat a lot of eggs), but we also spend a lot on things like grass fed beef, grass fed butter, pastured heritage breed pork, wild caught salmon, etc. We never go out to eat, I mean almost never. My kids ask to go out to eat as part of their birthday presents, because it's something they almost never get to do. If I eat lunch at all during the week, I pack it. I never even buy coffee outside the house. When we go away, we use the camper, so that we can stay cheaply and bring our own food. I drive older cars (a Hyundai and a Toyota), I've never owned anything like a BMW, Mercedes, Lexus, etc. Our main TV is still a 32" tube TV. I have computers that are close to state of the art, but I build them myself and upgrade them a component at a time. My wife is actually much cheaper than I am, and will keep me in line if I suggest buying some kind of electronic device or something. We have tracphones. My current phone I paid $149 for the phone and a year of minutes, my wife's phone was even cheaper it's a flip phone with no touch screen. If I ever did something stupid, like buying her roses for valentines day, I'd get holy-hell for it. I bought her a potted plant (tulips) and she was even happier when I told her I paid $4 for it.

<sigh> It is a lucky thing for all of humanity that markets do not require its participants to even begin to understand them in order to positively contribute. The reason capitalism works is that people can act in their own self interest and the vast majority of the time society's interests are aligned with it. This alignment of interests is crucial, since people in general will act in their own self interest anyway, regardless of the position they are in or the system they live under. Which is why socialism/communism/or any other statism can't work, those in power will always act in their own self interest rather than in the interest of those they "serve" ("It's a cookbook!"). Anyway, this lack of understanding, and lack of ability to think more than one or two steps through a process, however does put the entire system in constant jeopardy in any democracy.

There is a fallacy to what your saying Eric, you are saying you produced this money and the government gets a cut, as well as those who produce goods that you buy. But what about the capacity that you took it away from. What you said could apply to playing poker. I don't think poker is doing good in the sense of the title of this thread, although it seems to be digressing. Now I am not saying you aren't doing any good. I just asked you and all here what they think of themselves. It is subjective. I just find your argument puzzling. I mean, you could have taken it away from some hedge fund that manages some old lady's pension. Mind you still in a perverse way I feel that hedge fund and even that old lady deserved it! Perhaps I'm a better capital allocator than that hedge fund manager and I've done society a favor by boosting the return on that capital? Therefore, society will get an inproved return on capital if I keep the money rather than having it taken from me by the tax authorities. I agree completely. Maybe we should all be buying property in Detroit while it's still cheap. "Economic Freedom Zones would see federal income and corporate taxes cut to 5%, and federal payroll taxes reduced to 2% for employers and employees... areas designated Economic Freedom Zones would carry no capital gains taxes" Sen. Rand Paul makes good on Detroit promise, unveils plan for hard hit cities

It depends on what "adds value to society" means to you. It clearly adds value to you (and I'll guess) your family. Again there are 7 Billion people on Earth, I have no delusions that anything I do will "move the needle" as far as value to society goes. If I can add value to my own life and the lives of those in my family, without causing anyone else harm. Then at the end of the day, what I've done has been a net positive to society. I'm not superman, Mother Teresa, or even Elon Musk. The original question wasn't "Are value investors carrying the entire world on our shoulders and should everyone else humbly bow down to our greatness?" It was "Are we doing any good?".

I just edited out the ad hominem attack from my last post. That was uncalled for and I apologize. I find many on this thread are not thinking things through past more than one step. This is the same mistake Marx made thinking that management, capitalists, property owners were all unnecessary only workers mattered. In reality the whole economy is intertwined and almost every job is necessary in someway. The best way to know that is if it is profitable. Yes, of course government laws/regulations/protectionism/etc get in the way of this somewhat, but in general it is still the case. Saying that value investors are not necessary because only venture capitalists give money to young startups and contribute to our society is not thinking things all the way through. If there were no functioning stock market on earth, would there exist any venture capitalists willing to fund startups? What would motivate them to do so? Altruism? It is the wheels that move the car, so are all the other components superfluous?

When has Google raised equity after its IPO though? I do not believe their IPO was driven by need for cash either...but the fact that you have to become a public company once the number of shareholders reaches a certain point. Furthermore, value investors are not really investing in these fast growing young tech companies. <edited> This is like saying the CEO of Starbucks doesn't play a role, because he doesn't make anyone coffee. In order for fast growing young tech companies to have access to the capital markets, the capital markets have to both exist and function somewhat efficiently. There is an important role for value investors, growth speculators, and short sellers in making this happen and keeping it running. Many investors play more than one of those roles with different investments or at different times. I've invested in companies such as Netflix, which has never been a good value investment, yet I've made money on it. I've never shorted a stock, but I know some on this board do. It is obvious to anyone who pays attention that the market that it isn't always efficient and rational. Investors taking advantage of those inefficiencies when they show up is what helps make the market more efficient. Before you object and scream that I'm generalizing, notice I didn't say "efficient" I said "more efficient". Efficient markets only exist in textbooks.

I don't agree. Beneficial is just beneficial. This reminds me of the Nietzschean discussion of "virtue." After Christianity, people believed something "virtuous" had to be something "good" according to Christian values. But, for the Greeks, virtue was excellence. So if you were, say, an excellent liar, you were virtuous. We now have a new religion in much of the world called capitalism and for this new religion, virtue is benefit. Not to speak ill of the dead but Steve Jobs might be an example of such a thing. He was pretty much a selfish asshole for most of his life but he was rich and created benefit for society. So he is virtuous. You can sometimes label actions as good/bad, or beneficial/harmful, or virtuous/non-virtuous, but you can never label individual people with those terms and be 100% correct. We all have our good and bad points. Some more than others in both directions, of course.

I think your right in that goodness doesn't equal beneficial, but beneficial is a subset of goodness. I disagree that you can have something beneficial, but not good. 1) I'll ignore the going back in time thing, because that isn't possible and it wouldn't necessarily be beneficial. You don't know what would have happened if someone had killed Hitler, it could have been worse. And most certainly wouldn't be beneficial for those who are alive today, but would never be born if this happened. Also I highly object to your Native American example. I don't think you can call the massacring Native Americans any more beneficial than you can call massacring Jews. I disagree that the US's existence is a net positive on the world and I disagree that it is can be described as a benevolent empire. I understand why you would think that, having been educated in your formative years by the very same regime and not personally knowing anyone the regime's bombs have killed. 2) While certainly possible, something that is good, can rarely be said to have no benefit. The person who set out to cure cancer, probably supported himself and his family with that job and it had benefits for all of them. Also it added to the whole of human knowledge, if you have to try 10000 things before something works, the 10000 other things were not wasted, they were learning experiences and added to the knowledge of what doesn't work. Even if you never find something that works, you have given humanity the knowledge of one more thing that doesn't, so someone else can know not to repeat your mistakes. Research is never a complete waste. So while "beneficial" is a subset of "goodness" there are very few things that are good, but not in at least some small way beneficial to someone.

The answer to the original question asked in the first post is "Yes". True there exists politics, there also exists private thieves, gangsters, and murderers. That doesn't change good and bad, nor right from wrong. There seems to be two objections to what I've said. 1) "Investors are no better than cab drivers". My answer to that is yes, but so what? The world doesn't need more heroes, it just needs more people to go from doing net negative things to net positive. If you draw a line in the sand and put everything on one side that is a net positive and everything on the other side that is a net negative. Investors are on the net positive side with the cab drivers and landscapers, not on the net negative side with the con-artists, thieves, murderers, tax collectors, and politicians. 2) "Profits are good is too general a statement". Yes, which is why I qualified it with profiting without initiating violence against others. If you profit by lobbying the government to protect you from competitors or to protect you from being held liable to those you harm, then you are initiating violence to get your profits and are clearly on the "net negative" side of the line. This could be applied to shareholders as well, which is why there are companies which I won't invest in. I want to try to stay away from that line if I can. What about martial arts :( , MMA is bad? ;D Agree with you tho, but i think this issue is somewhat complicated and can't be wrapped up in one nice looking quote. OK how about: "Profiting without initiating violence against others who don't wish to have violence initiated against them". :) It is complicated, but not nearly as complicated as people want to think it is. There is nothing wrong with violence if it is wanted and consented to by all parties involved, such as MMA, boxing, assisted suicide, BSDM, etc. Anything goes between consenting adults.

I don't know, I'd need more information. Is buffett's barber donating $Billions to charity? Again, we all do what we can do. I don't think the question of who is doing more good is a very valuable thing to focus on. This isn't a pissing contest, we're all just trying to get by the best we can. Don't do evil, anything else goes, IMHO.

The answer to the original question asked in the first post is "Yes". True there exists politics, there also exists private thieves, gangsters, and murderers. That doesn't change good and bad, nor right from wrong. There seems to be two objections to what I've said. 1) "Investors are no better than cab drivers". My answer to that is yes, but so what? The world doesn't need more heroes, it just needs more people to go from doing net negative things to net positive. If you draw a line in the sand and put everything on one side that is a net positive and everything on the other side that is a net negative. Investors are on the net positive side with the cab drivers and landscapers, not on the net negative side with the con-artists, thieves, murderers, tax collectors, and politicians. 2) "Profits are good is too general a statement". Yes, which is why I qualified it with profiting without initiating violence against others. If you profit by lobbying the government to protect you from competitors or to protect you from being held liable to those you harm, then you are initiating violence to get your profits and are clearly on the "net negative" side of the line. This could be applied to shareholders as well, which is why there are companies which I won't invest in. I want to try to stay away from that line if I can.

I'd be interested in any book recommendations. If you read just one book make it: The Problem of Political Authority, by Michael Huemer This goes into how law might/could work in the absence of Political Authority a bit in the second half of the book, but the first half is probably the best explanation I've ever read (and I've read hundreds of such books) of why Political solutions to these problems haven't worked and can't work, and even if they did work are not moral by even the most liberal use of the term. Other good reads that go into this area (in order) are: The Machinery of Freedom: Guide to a Radical Capitalism, by David D. Friedman or Pre-Order the 2014 version Law's Order: What Economics Has to Do with Law and Why It Matters, by David D. Friedman The Market for Liberty, by Morris Tannehill also: (free ebook versions) For a New Liberty: The Libertarian Manifesto, by Murray N. Rothbard also: (Free audiobook version) and (Free ebook versions) Anarchy and the Law: The Political Economy of Choice (Independent Studies in Political Economy), by Edward P. Stringham The Conscience of an Anarchist: Why It's Time to Say Good-Bye to the State and Build a Free Society, by Gary Chartier Other Books good books to read (and they are free): Everyday Anarchy: The Freedom of Now, by Stefan Monyneux Practical Anarchy: The Freedom of the Future, by Stefan Monyneux Both available here in multiple formats: FreeDomainRadio.com/FreeBooks.aspx. A few of his other books are good as well. I highly recommend this book to the "Drug dealers are bad" types, if nothing else it will make you think about many types of people you previously dismissed as unquestionably bad in a different way: Defending the Undefendable, by Walter Block Also: ((Audio book version) Anything else by Walter Block is good as well: Author: Walter-Block