rkbabang

As a father of two now adult children, I agree that you need to put in the time with your children. But in the US, especially among the upper middle class to wealthy, some people take this way too far. Children need unsupervised time without you or other adult supervision to play, both alone and with friends. You shouldn't be hovering around your kids at all times and scheduling their every waking hour with activities. There is a balance to this that is hard to achieve. You need to make the time that you do spend with your children count, but you also need to give them space and room to grow and learn how to make their own way.

A kindergarten teacher asks her class "Can anyone tell me what the Superbowl is?" One little boy raises his hand and says "Yes, that's when the Patriots play their last game of their season."

That's nuts. Don't hold your bitcoin at an exchange.

I'm sure I have some video of them somewhere. I'll have to look and I'll post it if I find it. In the mean time, this is Landon and Bailey all dressed up for the Christmas card pictures.

Thanks, they were tough though. They are incredibly smart and stubborn, two qualities that make it very tough to keep them. That fence was my first attempt at keeping them in and it failed miserably. I thought I could just put up some electric wires and that would hold them. Nope. Then I drove posts into the ground and used a heavy gauge chicken wire. They just climbed over it. Then I put the electric fence on the inside of that fence, they tunneled under it. Then I buried the wire fence 1 ft into the ground, but they pulled it out and got under it. Then I drove 6 foot steal re-bar every 2 ft and tied the wire to it. That stopped them for the most part, but they still climbed out once in a while electric shocks be damned. And the horse gate I had, they learned how to unlatch it with their mouth just by watching me, I had to put a spring loaded clip on the chain to make it secure. It was a constant battle. Sometimes they would refuse to go in at night and it would literally take hours. Other times they were sweet and lovable and you could walk them around the neighborhood on leashes like dogs. If they got mad at you though, they'd hold a grudge and not listen to you for days. If they were angry at me, I'd have to have my wife put them out in the morning and bring them in at night. And when they were angry at her I'd have to do it. We had 30 chickens, 2 rabbits, and a dog, which were all easy as can be, but the goats where just a constant headache. They ate everything too. All that grass and the trees you see inside that fenced area was completely gone the first summer. Every time they got out they would demolish our vegetable garden and flower gardens. As fun as they are at times, I wouldn't recommend anyone keep goats.

Great story, it is so true. One day in 2012 I came home from work and my wife told me that she bought two goats on craigslist and they were being dropped off in about 20 minutes. She wasn't kidding either. I spent that 20 minutes clearing about a space in the barn for them (we had just moved into the house and the barn was a complete mess). We had the goats for about two years then donated them to a local farm. I really liked the goats, they were like pets. But I also hated them as much as I liked them. Only a goat owner could understand. In the end we just had to get rid of them. Attached is a photo of the goats shortly after we got them playing near the chicken-house, eating from the apple tree (that they would shortly kill) inside the electric fence that wouldn't even come close to keeping them in.

Didn't Peter Lynch call technical analysts "Wiggle Watchers"? (I always thought that was funny.) and then there's this, "Technical analysis is to trading what astrology is to science" from https://www.fscomeau.com/why-technical-analysis-is-bullshit/ ;) Humans are pattern seekers. If you believe that patterns exist in the data, then you can easily convince yourself that you see them. And humans are social creatures, so if other people tell you that there are patterns in the data, then you can easily convince yourself that you see them too. No different than seeing Jesus on toast. EDIT: The fascinating thing about technical analysis, is that if enough people believe that such and such a pattern means that the stock will go up and they start to buy, the stock will go up. And conversely if enough people think that the stock will go down because of the pattern and thus they sell and/or short it, the stock will go down. It has a self-fulfilling aspect to it.

Wow, how old are you?

rkbabang - Just look to see who is buying IDB's. That will show you who is the best. Prem is the expert in India, so he'd be my guess.

This has been said every year for the last 7 years or so. It also has been claimed that value investors will outperform when market goes down. Which has pretty much shown to be wrong in the years like 2018 when market went down. (Yeah, I know there's a ton of superinvestors on CoBF who outperform every year. More power to them.) I disagree that value investors, as a group, largely outperform on years when the market goes way down. When fear dominates it causes a sinking tide which lowers all boats (for the most part). But value investors start buying when everyone else is selling, so they do outperform when the market goes back up. By the time everyone else starts pouring money into the market in a big way you are more than halfway to the next top.

This is undoubtedly true. The reason I only hold 5% in BRK now is that I have asked myself: Is BRK worth more, less, or the same without WEB? The only answer I can come up with every time is: LESS. The only questions now are: How much less? And is that already priced in?

Yes, I knew about it in advance as well and there is quite a bit more to the story than that article lets on. But it was a good time and I wouldn't hesitate to meetup with you or Eric again. As far as John’s objection to the name change, that puzzles me. I've been on this board since it was on the orher platform way back when. That was the pre-facebook days when almost no one used their real names online. That is why my username isn't my teal name. I don't see the issue with changing usernames or going anonymous.

I am slightly under 5% for the reasons you and LC have articulated. I wonder if when WEB retires or can otherwise no longer be CEO what will happen in the short term to the price? Will there be panic selling? At the right price I'd increase my position, but probably not higher than 10-15% unless the price was really crazy low.

What are you talking about man? None of these supercomputers are double sha256 asics and wouldn't make a dent in the hash rate. Complete hogwash. When people talk about (peta)flops as a unit in the context of Bitcoin mining they don't know what they are talking about (on this topic at least). His larger point still holds that it is physically possible to spend $X to build a system that could 51% attack Bitcoin. My point was that you would never be able to cash out and earn a return on your investment if you did that, because the $X you would have to spend is so high and the price of Bitcoin would plummet immediately upon your attack. The danger is that a state actor does this not to profit, but to destroy Bitcoin.

I'm not so sure. If you find a way to steal a ton of gold, you have that gold and it is just as valuable as it alway was. The same with Bitcoin, if you steal it (hack an exchange for example). But if you acquire bitcoin with a 51% attack I don't see how you expect to cash out, because once the news hits that Bitcoin has been successfully attacked the price will plummet. You will have spent many tens of millions of dollars on a supercomputer to steal a crypto currency that is now almost worthless because of how you stole it. You would have to attack bitcoin, make your changes, and cash out before anyone notices. I don't think that is possible.

I'm surprised no one else has commented on this, as a non-expert on this stuff it seems like a big deal, are the other cryptos at risk for this? Ethereum (the real Ethereum) was forked years ago to undo some theft (it gave of up immutability). The article you linked is about Ethereum classic, some small (but still top 20, showing there isn't much serious crypto short of Bitcoin) fork of Ethereum that was created at the time for people that thought giving up immutability was stupid (they were right of course but never got traction as the public followed the Vitalik messiah). Neither of these things will happen in Bitcoin. The culture will not break immutability and a 51% attack is economically unviable (Eth classic had a pittyfull hash rate protecting the network because of the low value and overall lack of interest in it). It's also unlikely (but not impossible) to happen to other serious crypto (e.g. LTC and XMR). Of course a shit show like Ripple already has no immutability (it's not a cryptocurrency but a centralized database so Ripple Labs can do whatever it wants), bcash does all sorts of retardation (hard fork every few months) and most of the token crap everyone seems to like so much is on the Ethereum blockchain to start with. So no not a big deal at all. Crypto is Bitcoin and Bitcoin is fine. Exactly. This just shows how dangerous it is to hold altcoins. The strength of crypto is that a 51% attack is insanely expensive bordering on impossible, but that is only true for Bitcoin. This is why the store of value function of crypto is a winner take all market and that winner is Bitcoin. I'd be willing to bet this won't be the last such attack we hear about, so buy shitcoins/altcoins at your own risk.

The Devil shows up in a crowed church and everyone runs out screaming except one old man. The Devil says to the man "Why don't you run? Aren't you afraid of me?" The man replies, "Nope, I married your sister!"

The fed controls the supply of base money, so how can the market ever truly be setting rates? If you're going to have a national currency, someone has to decide how quickly to grow money supply, no? Bingo. Money should also be a market phenomenon.

I took my wife to a skating rink with a half-off coupon. She called me a cheap skate. ;D ;) 8) not on a first date (I don't think dating is usual in my country, most people never had a first date), but I did buy my wife´s engagement ring with a coupon (she thought I was taking too long and she bought the magazine herself just for the coupon ;D...) however even with the coupon it did cost about 100$ so it doesn't qualify for the thread best sub 50 buys? I would go for the wearables: food, water, shelter, a long warm daily bath... Other than those I wasn't able to remember a single one since this thread has started. Interesting. I'm curious, if there is no dating, how do you go from not knowing someone to knowing that you wish to marry them? A short while after my wife and I started dating I bought her roses (less than $50 back in 1990) and she yelled at me about how much I spent. Saying it was stupid because they were just going to die in a few days and she doesn't need gifts anyway. I knew then that I'd end up marrying her. It was my first value investment which is still paying dividends to this day.

It's outside the feds circle of competence too. Interests rates, the time value of money, are a market phenomenon. You might as well have a government board set the daily price of Avocados. Can I ask your opinion on the Fed slashing interest rates in the 2009-2013 period. This was most certainly not a market phenomenon, as credit was drying up. The Fed's action essentially re-started the US economy and prevented a depression. Beautiful deleveraging and all that. Do you think they were wrong, or lucky, or something else? Nothing the fed does is a market phenomenon. It is government setting rates. No different from the USSR setting prices in their economy either by their own opinions or sometimes by looking at ads in London Newspapers. If the rate is set by the fed then it isn't being set by the market. If the price of Avocados was set by a government board and you asked me "What do you think about the Federal Avocado Board reducing prices in 2009-2013? Did they do the right thing?" My answer would be the same. I don't know. The market should be setting the rate not some board of bureaucrats/experts.

It's outside the feds circle of competence too. Interests rates, the time value of money, are a market phenomenon. You might as well have a government board set the daily price of Avocados.

Mr Singh walks into a bank London and asks for the loan officer. He says he's going to Europe on business for two weeks and needs to borrow £5000. The bank officer says the bank will need some kind of security for the loan, so Mr Singh hands over the keys to a new Rolls Royce, which costs quarter of a million pounds. “The car is parked on the street in front of the bank,” says Mr Singh, “and I have all the necessary papers.” The bank officer agrees to accept the car as collateral for the loan. After Mr Singh leaves, the loan officer, the bank's president and all their colleagues enjoy a good laugh at the man for using a £250,000 Rolls Royce as collateral against a £5,000 loan. One of the employees drives the Rolls into the bank's underground garage and parks it there. Two weeks later, Mr Singh returns, repays the £5000 and the interest, which comes to £15.41. The loan officer says, "Sir, I must tell you, we’re all a little puzzled. While you were away, we checked you out and discovered that you’re a multimillionaire. Why would you bother to borrow £5,000?" The man replies, "Where else in London can I park my car for two weeks for only £15.41?"

Please keep me out of this. [sorry, I couldn't help it.] [<- What smiley is appropriate here?] Just keep creating the demand and we'll leave you alone.

But Netflix does produce TV shows and movies... a lot of them. A Netflix "clone" who doesn't produce TV shows and movies isn't really a Netflix clone is it? Such a "clone" is simply a streaming service, not a media company, and probably shouldn't be compared to Netflix at all, never mind be called a "clone". I don't envision there ever being 100s of true Netflix clones each producing billions to tens of billions of dollars per year of new content.

A tough one. I don't like trying to time the markets, but I have been trying raising cash in my taxable accounts for the last 6 months or so, mostly by not buying anything when I have new cash. And I sold a small amount of AAPL and AMZN in September. Just lucky good timing, because I thought they were getting a little ahead of themselves. I have about 10% cash in my taxable accounts now. In my retirement accounts I have over 20% cash which was also just lucky timing. My retirement accounts are broken up into over 70% in IRAs and a little over 20% in my current employer's 401K. My company told us in November that they were moving our 401Ks from where it is now to Fidelity. So in anticipation of that move I moved everything into cash and pretty much missed the worst of the large recent drop. My new Fidelity 401k will have a brokerage link option (where I will be able to invest in individual stocks), so I plan on holding that in cash and waiting until stage 3 of the bear market to deploy it. If the market crashes I will think I'm a genus, if it recovers and shoots to the moon I will kick myself and think I'm an idiot for letting all that cash sit there idle. We'll see.