Gregmal

Thats kinds of what Im reading at the moment. Things economy wise right now are pretty good. With a lot of cash/people on the sidelines. When their comfort level and quality of life starts declining(or god forbid they get ambitious), I think the terms in which they come back will be quite favorable. Where does this bleed into? Rentals and housing probably. Strip clubs. Probably a bunch of others LOL

haha I think the main thing here, is to let the politics influence where they will, but ultimately figure out what this means and how to make money from it. What Im leaning to is that its going to be incredibly good for the consumer and especially the lower-middle end. RICK probably benefits a ton!

Haha yea throw in ALCO and you're pretty much there. Whats amazing to me is the similarities which support the market dislocation aspect. In general, as an investor I have trouble trusting others to create value. So sure, Buffett has earned it, but generally, I just prefer investing in the discount to NAV stuff because not only does something have to go wrong for you to get bruised, but you also need no growth in addition to the negligence or value destruction. Whats crazy to me is if you look at APTS, CLPR, AIV...you have so many different things cruising in your favor. You have the SAFEST(make a joke about Flatbush Gardens, go ahead) sub-asset class one can buy as far as real estate goes...MF rental. But then you also have best in class assets in many cases or highly desirable luxury facilities in booming markets. You also have these stress tested; you just saw covid and how the worst case scenario looks, but to boot, you're buying a discount to a NAV that is predicated in many cases, still, on those covid infested NAVs when unbelievably, you have gotten rip roaring rental growth everywhere with only parts of it reflected due to the rolls. So to me its seems like(and has been now since November, a total gift to be able to buy these things still close to the covid lows(APTS for instance is a $5B+ asset with ease and the equity implies only a mid single digit % valuation improvement; CLPR like maybe 10%, and AIV who knows but in that case thats the point) AND trading significantly off of current mark to market, let alone where they should go as rents keep soaring and rates stay low. But who knows, maybe these will be the end of me....will be fun either way.

So that issue comes down to...are there just not enough workers, or are lazy people being leeches. I am not talking about the types of folks who put in more work trying to avoid actually working than they would if they just got a damn job...those will always be there. What the million dollar question is IMO is...drumroll, are there simply not enough workers out there? Because the narrative is that its freeloaders but I am not really sure thats the case. I agree there seems to be a lot of anecdotal evidence that something changed with a reasonably sized group of people. We may have what I think is a very healthy situation for people, but not exactly companies. More workers than jobs is brutal, but the opposite may actually promote some economic benefits in certain areas.

So Im trying to make sense of this and curious if anyone has a take on what is going on here... The past couple months there have been experiments with some states cutting the additional unemployment benefits and a lot of press about how it didnt improve the jobs figures at all. I dont know if this is accurate but thats what Ive heard. Recently, I saw a couple articles talking about further federal benefits ending. I also saw a bunch lambasting Ted Cruz for tweeting something to the extent of "get a job" to people complaining about benefits ending. However every single place I go, whether a Main Street town center or big highway, there's "Now Hiring!" signs up, literally EVERYWHERE. So what is going on? Where are the people? I recall a decade ago how folks considered it an honor to have a job, period. Didnt matter where it was and even bank teller or restaurant work was highly sought. This was with minimum wage at what? $9??? Now even the clerks are making $14-$17 an hour and I see plenty of entry level stuff offering $20-25. Are there not enough people to work? Or is Ted right because theres an inherent craziness to refusing employment but whining about losing freebies? Or is it a bunch of things? Literally every business owner I know needs labor. I dont know anyone out of work. But thats all anecdotal. Whats up here?

Schools are locally funded generally. Same with much of the roads. But generally, I would be all for it if those were the things the money went to. Unfortunately, we've been hearing the "paying their fair share" argument in perpetuity and 1) its never just schools, roads, weapons and bridges. They always have to chuck in the "other" shit. And 2) why are the majority of those things currently in such terrible shape if thats where the funds go/need to go? Its not like the US doesnt generate any tax revenue...Its a game and a scheme designed to keep people oppressed and reliant on big brother.

Its the same thing as Ive raised a million times before about property taxes and their absurdity. You and I both own an acre of land. Why in the fuck does we have different property taxes? What business is it of any politician what I put on my land if its of no threat to anyone else's freedom? If Im using more sewer/water resources, sure, charge me. But what business do you have robbing me because I have a 3,000 sq ft home on it vs a 1200 sq ft one? Or when I need a new water heater? Why am I paying them $70 for a permit? Its all nonsense however they've pitted it so people are either complacent or view it as an "us vs them" issue, which is the case with estate taxes. Keep the number high enough for the lemmings not to care and you can bully everyone else.

I just try to stick to things that come easy to me. And if they arent easy, things that I understand or can handicap. There's like 8,000 public companies out there that dont have anything to do with China so I dont really see why the average person thinks this is their best playground.

I dont think "fighting" anything is worth it. You want to be a contrarian, but in the sense of seeing a turn or pivot before others. You could have made fortunes buying REITs, especially retail related stuff during covid. It was ugly. You were "fighting" the tape. But you also knew the world would go back to normal, that they had vaccines coming; they in fact told everyone when the vaccines would likely be here, and even indications in more democratic cities/states that people wanted to return to normal regardless. Was just a matter of time. With China, where's your catalyst for the situation turning? Shorting the market bc of the Fed or "valuations"..why??? Same with malls. What causes the turn. Same with office? Who flips a switch, en masse, to get everyone back? Cable? Who wants it anymore? This is not to say China is a secular decliner, but the worthwhile question is...what causes the fundamental change, when, and how long does it take the narrative to follow? There in lies the money.

Started a little VICI AH.

started some VWTR and added a few to JOE

Find a Jewish housewife type prime broker. Otherwise, next to impossible.

The "consequence" is that the elitists who employ expensive lawyers and accountants get around the taxes(or greatly reduce them) and the normal folks who just try to play by what they can understand get screwed.

I think theres a lot working against her and those funds right now. But I also get a kick out of the stupidity out there. Value investor (insert name) returns -20 or -30% for a year and everyones like "oh but he's bound to turn it around"...Cathy does -20% after crushing it for half a decade and "thats the end of her" and "she's finished".....quite amusing.

I would pretty liberally say this is almost always true. In a growing and civilized society, the relevance ring as I call it is always expanding. I always point to the NYC suburb halo effect. Areas the were boondocks 2-3 decades ago are now multi million dollar mansion lined suburbs. Areas that were 20 minutes outside of those areas are now upper middle class enclaves. I dont see how this doesnt apply across the board, in the majority of RE based asset classes. Look at Orlando over time. Spare space in an OK or better location is basically just next generation's uncovered land play.

I consider myself an employee of the family. Both my wife and I at this point realize that everything revolves around the kids. Theyre the number 1 in our lives. Everything we do is for them. Which includes earning to ensure their future prosperity and quality of life. The notion that an unfortunate event(death), entitles a freeloading 3rd party to some windfall, at our expense, is ludicrous.

Yea IDK, but having grown up around the ilk, Westchester and Bergen County were kind of always regarded as the places people who made lots of money working in NYC went to raise families if they valued having a yard, a good school system, and a place where your kids could congregate safely in the town center/parks. And this was back when NYC was safe LOL

Yea no you do make a good point there. My brother does a lot fo that stuff currently. Was at Stony Brook and now at Penn with their genetics team. Nothing but respect there. Many of his friends are the ones doing a lot of the covid research thats been making news. There was one recently about possible links to snake venom which was neat. The academic end I'm talking about the English and History professors making investment banker base salaries....Those estates IMO should be taxed higher than the estates of farmers who worked 5ams to 8pms for 60 years. The latter still not making any money but simply leaving a huge piece of valuable land at a low basis that their kids could not afford on market to market resets.

Its just another scam to screw the aspiring middle- upper middle class people. If your family already paid taxes on it, why does the government deserve anymore? Personally I think the estate tax should be 80% on any income earned as a result of being a "public servant" or government employee. Same for working at a public school/university. Do these tenured teachers really earn the $200k a year plus benefits? How much of it comes at the expense of those outrageous tuitions and bogus student loan programs? For the rest, anything over maybe $25M or $50M I think is a reasonable threshold. But $3.5M or whatever theyre proposing right now? What a crock.

I dont really have an opinion on Cathy other than kudos to her for making a name and so far a killing doing something different. Otherwise, I'd point out that she had a $4,000 price target, pre-split, when Tesla was trading at $200 and all the TeslaQ geniuses said fraud and had 0 targets...So she has already been right as split adjusted TSLA remarkably touched her targets...and she certainly has more credibility than the ones who were bearish because of their Excel sheets. Maybe they can show us where they called 5-10 baggers but most cant. And otherwise what good is all their "research" if it just results in massive losses? Disclosure, I am currently short Tesla and a few ARK funds.

~15 years.

Yea I think you've got the right idea. My entire investing life there have been people saying stocks are expensive and theres been people claiming they cant find anything to buy. Never in my life have I not been able to find something worth buying. Just gotta look and too many people are lazy or just too cheap to be well suited for stocks. Last month there were repeated concerns about "the top" and you had people selling stuff like MSGE and CLPR at straight dumb valuations LOL. You need those people to make a market I guess. But as far as "the top", and what it means?....top, schmop...yawn.

Also shorted some BRG Jan $10 puts for 65c. Not really an endorsement of the company AT ALL, but just a logic trade backed by what seems like a fat compensation check for taking stock at a price the may warrant another activist takeout offer or two....

Your timeline seems perfect for some PSTH. I also agree on selling OTM puts.

Haha we meet again. I had some Dec but just started the March 5s as well. Got 80 last week. 100 yesterday. 100 more today. Tangentially, the AIV spinoff was now 3 Qs ago. They still dont even have their website fully updated, no IR efforts, and not even a simple investor deck.....why would that be? The evidence continues to point to this being a deliberate act...ask oneself, if I had to make a spin off as ugly and unattractive as possible, what would I do? Answer? Pretty much everything they did and are continuing to do. Would be something if they even duped loud mouth Litt and his attention seeking antics into sticking with plain vanilla AIRC at the expense of where all the value was hidden.... Forgot to mention as well...best part of the calls here? No dividend on this one, and a good possibility of buybacks.