rkbabang

But why would it be? I have no idea, ask SharperDingaan, he is the one who used this weird equivalence to argue that BTC was overpriced.

:o But are you sure you're comparing an ounce of gold with an ounce of bitcoin? There are more than 21M oz of gold in the world. In fact there is 190,040 tonnes of gold that has been mined which is (if my calculation is correct) 6,703,470,960 oz of gold. So there is 320.21 times more oz of gold than there is bitcoins. So for BTC to be equal in price to gold at $1222/oz it would be $390,074.62 per BTC. EDIT: Actually that calculation is wrong, because I converted from metric tons to oz instead of troy oz. So there is 6,109,919,028 troy oz of gold, which means there are 290.95X more troy oz of gold than Bitcoins and the equivalent price to gold at $1222 would be BTC at $355,540.90

I don't know about pounding the tables, but I'm still dollar cost averaging in. If there is a more significant drop (BTC < $1K) I will put larger amounts in.

I haven't read this yet, but it is on my to read list. I have read his "The Myth of the Rational Voter: Why Democracies Choose Bad Policies" and it is excellent. I also read his blog regularly: http://www.econlib.org/econlog/

This is the largest reason that this is going to happen. I don't know about the rest of the country, but up here in New Hampshire all everyone talks about is the lack of people to fill jobs. There was just a new local restaurant built that hasn't opened because they can't hire enough people to work there and another one that was only open a short while and closed for the same reason. My kids have had no problem finding jobs that pay way over minimum wage for bagging groceries or working at restaurants, anything. We can't get our furnace cleaned for the season until January, the company told my wife that they are severely short staffed and can't find anyone to hire. Every McDonalds in the area has one person working the register and 4 automated ordering stations. They all remodeled this year to install them. It is the same everywhere you go, big "hiring" signs in the windows of most businesses. Finding contractors to do anything is close to impossible, because they are all short staffed and booked for months. I know it isn't just New Hampshire, my daughter just moved to FL a month ago, she applied for 3 jobs the first day and got all three. She took two of them and the 3rd one begged her to not refuse the job, the hiring manager kept calling her and even texting her, and even offered her more money. She's 18 with just a high school diploma and some restaurant experience. One article I read quoted someone who said "what are teenagers doing with their time", I don't know, but it's great for the ones who do want to work. https://www.wmur.com/article/portsmouth-restaurant-closes-due-to-lack-of-workers/24192393 https://www.sentinelsource.com/business_journal/the-labor-shortage-good-help-is-hard-to-find-in/article_740cee2c-9897-11e7-bea7-d78d275357cf.html https://www.laconiadailysun.com/news/local/good-jobs-few-workers/article_3ec3fcdd-9265-5208-b4f0-5d1df7e36033.html https://www.marketplace.org/2016/12/12/economy/low-unemployment-rate-new-hampshire-creates-labor-shortage Automation, wherever it's possible do to, is going to be a necessity. I think the pace of automation in the short to medium term is going to be surprising to many.

I have not heard of ANY self driving vehicles on American roads being used in regular commerce. It is all R&D at this point, unless I am tremendously mistaken. Are you in USA? Could this perhaps be a TEST to see if consumers are willing to do this? Much like automated vehicles for Uber & Lyft, I wonder if there is really a commercial market for this. How much of a savings will a typical Domino's franchisee save by having self driving vehicles for pizza delivery? A pizza delivery driver provides their own vehicle and makes about minimum wage from the franchisee. Tips provide the rest of his earnings. In my area of the world, the pizza delivery driver almost always provides their own vehicle. For an automated delivery, the franchisee is going to have to buy the vehicle. How much will that cost? I would guess at least 50k. How much cheaper will it be to run than having a delivery driver? What will the savings be if any? $50K outlay for a delivery vehicle is going to be a HUGE percentage outlay for the typical franchisee. The typical Dominos would probably also need MORE than 1 vehicle. I would think they would need at least 2, if not 3 or 4 (more?). I've heard rumors that the typical Domino's franchise costs as little as $150k to about $350k in investment. Way back when, I used to be a delivery driver when in college. On busy nights, which were usually Thursday, Friday and Saturday (sometimes Sunday), we would have up to about 10 drivers. On slower weekday nights, we would have 3-4. Drivers would also not usually work 8 hour stretches. Drivers would typically be promised a minimum of 4 hours, and then those who wanted to leave earlier could (if business was slow). So the franchisee could adjust labor pretty quickly. With self driving vehicles, you've got a constant expense, can't let a robot go. Delivery is a pizza place's bread and butter, so I think they might be the last to convert to driverless delivery. But there are a ton of other restaurants who do not deliver today. What if a company say Uber, who had a large fleet of driverless cars already, offered restaurants a delivery service that they could subscribe to for less than it would cost them to hire delivery drivers and not have the hassle of having more employees to manage, and had a pricing scheme where it would be cost effective even if customers only seldom ordered for delivery? Right now delivery is basically just pizza places or using Uber Eats and other services in which the customer pays extra for a service to go and pick up takeout for them. Most sit down restaurants don't hire delivery drivers because the vast majority of their customers eat in the restaurant rather than order takeout. But in the above subscription service scenario where offering delivery would be cheap and easy for any restaurant to offer, a restaurant could be at a serious disadvantage if it didn't offer delivery when almost all other places do. My wife and I order takeout all the time from restaurants which are usually too crowded to get a table on the weekends on short notice, it would sure be nice to just have it delivered rather than need to go and pick it up.

I've held MIDD since 2005. I've sold a lot along the way and added back on dips, but I've had some amount of MIDD in my portfolio for over 13 years. I really cleaned up when they aquired Turbochef and CHEF was trading as if the acquisition was not going to happen (this was right after the financial crisis and a lot of announced mergers where being cancelled), I bought a ton of CHEF and even converted most of my MIDD to CHEF only to get it back and then some after the acquisition. I had held MIDD for a while by then and knew that MIDD had the cash and that they would go through with the acquisition even if the market was skeptical. What I like about MIDD is its CEO Selim Bassoul. He's a serial acquirer, only unlike most CEOs who try to do this, he makes it work every time. He is a master of making acquisitions work, integrating the companies, finding synergies, and getting them to add to earnings quickly (most of the time in under a year). He's been doing this again and again, multiple times per year, successfully at MIDD since (IIRC) 2003 or so. It's definitely a bet on management. It's not like everybody in that industry is doing that well. Yes, 100% a bet on management. They are the best operators in the business. They have a nack for buying mediocre companies cheap and making them profitable. My two worries is that Bassoul gets hit by a bus or at some point they will just get too big and will need huge acquisitions just to move the needle at all. I’m not sure at what size that is.

I've held MIDD since 2005. I've sold a lot along the way and added back on dips, but I've had some amount of MIDD in my portfolio for over 13 years. I really cleaned up when they aquired Turbochef and CHEF was trading as if the acquisition was not going to happen (this was right after the financial crisis and a lot of announced mergers where being cancelled), I bought a ton of CHEF and even converted most of my MIDD to CHEF only to get it back and then some after the acquisition. I had held MIDD for a while by then and knew that MIDD had the cash and that they would go through with the acquisition even if the market was skeptical. What I like about MIDD is its CEO Selim Bassoul. He's a serial acquirer, only unlike most CEOs who try to do this, he makes it work every time. He is a master of making acquisitions work, integrating the companies, finding synergies, and getting them to add to earnings quickly (most of the time in under a year). He's been doing this again and again, multiple times per year, successfully at MIDD since (IIRC) 2003 or so.

I'll start off since no one else is. I'm not going to spend the time to figure out percentages, because I hold some of these in multiple accounts and others in just one account. My largest holding right now is: BAM Other stocks which I'll just say are large percentage holdings are: (in no order) APPL, AMZN, BAC-WSA, BRKB, MIDD, SYTE Stocks which I hold a moderate amount in: (in no order) MKL, POEFF, UBNT, WFCF Other stocks I own which range from very little to almost as large as the above category: (in no order) CLWY, JD, LAACZ, TDW-WSB, SHOP, JOE, NEWR, ANET, DATA, OSTK, SAIL, SINA, PRDGF I also own crypto: (in order) BTC, ETH, XMR, DASH, XTZ, tZERO And my 401K at work only offers mutual funds, so I have it in mostly foreign stock funds to diversify away from the mostly US stocks in the rest of my portfolio. I also have some in a midcap fund, because I notice that my portfolio is mosty either large companies or tiny ones. And finally, I own restricted stock in the company I work for, both vested and unvested. I try to keep the vested stock to about 10% of my portfolio, so I sell when it gets too large because of increase in price or when more vests.

Wouldn't it be interesting if TSLA bought FCAU or some other automaker and started selling the cars online bypassing the dealers. I'm not sure if there is some kind of contractual thing that would prevent it from doing that, I've never looked much into the auto industry and how it works (or doesn't work). Also it could offer its selfdriving feature on every car as a $5K option. Cars need maintenance. If you look at dealership's financial reports, like AN, they don't make much money from selling cars. Their biggest recurring rev is from maintenance rip offs. Margin was ridiculously high. Therefore I don't see the point of by-passing dealerships for selling cars. Also, doing this would piss off these dealership, and how would you handle after sale services? Go to google maps and search for "mechanic". What you will find is that there are a lot of them near you. Many of them do as good or better work than the dealership and most of them are cheaper.

Wouldn't it be interesting if TSLA bought FCAU or some other automaker and started selling the cars online bypassing the dealers. I'm not sure if there is some kind of contractual thing that would prevent it from doing that, I've never looked much into the auto industry and how it works (or doesn't work). Also it could offer its selfdriving feature on every car as a $5K option.

Yes that was big news at the time. This is the latest with Fidelity: Fidelity Launches Institutional Platform For Bitcoin And Ethereum https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaeldelcastillo/2018/10/15/fidelity-launches-institutional-platform-for-bitcoin-and-ethereum/#66982bb493c4 Now that we've had our bubble and our crash and the media hype machine has moved on to other things. Just like the internet after 2000, crypto/blockchain will slowly just become a part of how a growing number of things are done.

"Bruce Wayne. Elon Musk. Tony Stark. Three men worth billions of dollars who care more about solving important problems than living comfortably, but only one of them is real"

I agree. He also provided the sole funding for SpaceShipOne. I know he died young, but to say he was first diagnosed with cancer in 1983 he got to live a relatively long time. And it seems he made the most of it.

Yes. Last week I think it was I watched the live feed of him announcing the manned moon mission purchase by the Japanese billionaire and I thought Musk just looked extremely tired and exhausted. He needs a vacation. He should take a month off and relax. Then maybe never go back to Tesla. Focus on SpaceX and getting us off this rock.

#4 baffles me. Why woyld you say that? Gates made a great, and sometimes ruthless, leader of a software company, but how is that anything like Buffett and Munger, or a combination of the two? Buffett was far from a benign leader. He could be ruthless when he needed to be...Sokol's firing, Salmon Brothers incident, the original takeover of Berkshire because he got screwed over on 1/8th of a dollar. I can't imagine a better Chairman than Gates. Howard is a very nice fellow, but really I think shareholder's would be best served with Gates as non-executive Chairman. Who else in the world would better understand how to maintain a moat through thick and thin? He became the richest person in the world when he was a little older than Zuckerberg, and remained so for most of the last 30 years once Sam Walton's wealth was split up and until all of the other tech wonderkinds took over the world. In this type of environment he has not only endured, but survived and maintained his wealth, all the while creating the greatest philanthropic foundation in history, funded by his best friend who was often the 2nd richest man in the world over the same 30 years! And he's still young enough to Chair Berkshire for another 30 years! Cheers! Chairman certainly, CEO no. Berkshire is a different animal than Microsoft. Different skills and talents are needed.

#4 baffles me. Why woyld you say that? Gates made a great, and sometimes ruthless, leader of a software company, but how is that anything like Buffett and Munger, or a combination of the two?

You must be a broker. If he's not, he's gonna be soon. ::) You nerds need to live a little. It's ok to have some drinks, even if Warren doesn't. :) Not a broker. Business owner. Original post was a joke, but since you care... :) I live just fine TYVM. :) Couple drinks per day is a way to alcoholism and other medical problems. It's your life though. We care and we wish you well, but it's your choice after all. ;) And yeah maybe you gonna be just fine. Have fun and good luck. Update. I quit drinking. Was using it as a crutch. I'm not opposed to it in the future in moderation, but done for now. Good for you LR. There was a time in my 20s that I was drinking too much and just decided that I wasn't going to anymore. I was only drinking on the weekends, but I was getting drunk, not just having a few drinks. Now I only drink socially when offered it at other people's houses (and limit myself to 2) or a beer with a restaurant meal. I never buy it for home and rarely drink it even on those other occasions. Even at restaurants I usually order unsweetened ice tea. I said earlier in this discussion that I have about 6-12 beers per year and that is still true only probably less than that lately. It is September and I don't think I've had 6 beers this year, I can only think of 2 occasions that I had 1. You will find that you don't miss it.

The rise of crypto in higher education ". 42 percent of the world’s top 50 universities now offer at least one course on crypto or blockchain . Students from a range of majors are interested in crypto and blockchain courses — and universities are adding courses across a variety of departments . Original Coinbase research includes a Qriously survey of 675 U.S. students, a comprehensive review of courses at 50 international universities, and interviews with professors and students When David Yermack, the finance department chair at New York University Stern School of Business, first offered his course on blockchain and financial services in 2014, 35 students signed up, eight fewer than the school’s typical elective. By spring 2018, the number of enrolled students climbed to 230, forcing Stern to move the class to its largest auditorium. This academic year, Yermack will teach the blockchain course both semesters to meet interest from students."

"Robot, go get me some venison".

There are a little over 100 people who work in my building and there are exactly 3 women. One is the secretary and the other 2 are engineers. My son is starting in computer science this year at a 2-year school with plans to transfer to a 4 year school afterwards and all of the incoming freshmen in his major are male. When we were touring the school earlier this year they showed us the Dental Hygienist building and they had pictures of all of the graduating classes in one of the hallways and there was 1-2 males in each picture (out of maybe 200 students) and they told us that the program started in the early 1960s and that they didn't have their first male graduate until the 1980s. It is strange how the sexes separate themselves into and away from certain professions. You are correct here, which goes against the "women have no time theory". There is a local "concerned parents" FB group in my town and my wife and I are both members. I never post and rarely read it, because every time I look at it there are tens or hundreds of new posts each with hundreds of comments (almost exclusively by women) and I am not interested enough in any of the topics to spend any time reading it. Also from what I have read there, they are not nice to each other at all in the comments. It makes the politics section here look like a bunch of people holding hands singing kumbaya.

I was being sarcastic. One or two ladies on this and other financial forums does not change the overwhelming sausage-festedness. The thing is you see women on Twitter engage in political debate which can be as contentious or even more nasty than exchanges on financial forums. Which begs the question - Why don't women engage in financial forums? Avoidance of mansplaining? General disinterest? I know this is VERY un-PC to say these days, but just as the Google memo author was correct about the lack of women in Computer Science and other tech fields is simply general disinterest, I believe the same is true for finance. It has nothing to do with intelligence or aptitude, it is simply that women don't pursue these as interests. Not only professionally but as hobbies either. There are many like me for whom investing is a hobby, not a profession, but not many women. There are many for whom tinkering with programming or electronics is a hobby not a profession, but not many women. Now whether this is nurture or nature I don't know. I suspect to some extent it is both. The same reason you don't see very many men teaching Kindergarten. Here is a role model for men to be Kindergarten teachers, https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0099938/ As you can see I have nothing better to do than to try to post humorous things on a message board. Being alone in a room with 15-30 5 year-olds has to be one of the hardest jobs there is. I wouldn't last an hour.

You change tires for the winter? :o Yeah, I know my relatives do this in Lithuania where it is required. I think you're the first person I've heard to do this in US. I live in W. Canada, where this is pretty much a requirement for anyone who drives in the winter. I would have thought lots of places in the US would be similar (Colorado, Montana, Minnesota, Vermont, etc). I haven't lived in any of the states above. It's not a requirement in MA (or NH AFAIK). Personally I don't drive if there's snow and it hasn't been cleaned from the roads/streets. It seems that in Europe (even rich(er) countries like Finland) they don't clean the roads as much as in US. In MA next day after snow it's all clean asphalt pretty much even on minor streets (Boston area, might be different in western MA, I don't know). In Helsinki, for example, you have snow and slush on the streets even if it hasn't snowed for a while (?). So I don't use winter tires although I agree that they would be needed if you had to drive during snow (e.g. have to get to work even on snow days, etc.). Studded tires are allowed/banned per state, so check state laws. More discussion: https://community.cartalk.com/t/do-i-need-studded-snow-tires-in-ma/82516/21 I'm in NH and the only change I make is that if it snows I drive my Sequoia in 4WD mode and once the streets are clear, the next day like you said, I will switch back to my Hyundai. I usually go to work regardless of the snow unless there is over 15-20+ inches on the streets.

You change tires for the winter? :o Yeah, I know my relatives do this in Lithuania where it is required. I think you're the first person I've heard to do this in US. I've never changed my tires, but after my son totaled his car his first winter driving a few years ago shortly after turning 16, my wife insisted that we buy him a Subaru Forester and put winter tires on it for him every winter.

Of course. That goes without saying.