Castanza

My wife and I became completely debt free this past year. (Mortgage free, owned vehicles, school debt free, etc.). I know that's generally not the most efficient method but we still also both fully fund Roth IRAs, HSA, 401ks and stack quite a bit in the brokerage account every year. We are still in our late 20's with no kids. Honestly from a life perspective I think the benefit of this approach is often overlooked. We will probably have kids in the next two years and my wife will likely cut her work hours by 2/3rds. Being debt free gives us flexibility, focus, and removes the fear of having one primary income. Could I have made more investing? Yeah probably. But now I'm not tied me to my job. I can do what I want Add a few rental properties to the mix, maybe a side gig etc. To me financial freedom = flexibility and retirement = the ability to do what you want on your own terms. Frankly I have zero desire to stare at a computer screen my whole life. Say what you want about tech it pays well, is flexible and generally interesting enough. But at the end of the day staring at a screen for 30 years is soul sucking. I have zero desire to do this forever. Much rather lower my income, and do something interesting/more fulfilling. Not going to lie, some days I miss the ol Brown UPS truck....Cruising around the country side with the doors open on a sunny day doing physical work...LOL

You can still read his posts over on SiliconInvestor. Thought process is interesting to read through. The dude definitely can approach investing from multiple angles which a lot of guys don't or can't do.

Look for a Local Coin Shop that deals in bullion. Some Pawn shops can be used but good ones that don't try to rip you off with premiums are hard to come by. Otherwise online is your best bet. LCS will get you the best price. Whatever way you slice it, you'll be paying a premium. The more convenient the more premium. Three places in Nashville that seem to have solid reviews and service. - Nashville Coin Gallery - Nashville Gold & Coin Buyers Coin Dealer - Coin Purse Edit: I will add that owning physical gold can be a real PITA. If you're looking to own it simply because you like coins or bars etc. fine makes sense. But if you're looking for some items to barter with or something there are probably better things (ammo, alcohol, tobacco). Good luck!

Sold ATCO in non-taxable accounts.

No but I think it would have been reasonable to pivot who needs to be protected. Could have easily isolated old individuals and that would have taken care of the majority of the high risk folks. Would have cost society far less or at least been more efficient. we can agree to disagree not worries

Did you not see all those kids and young healthy adults under 40 flooding the system? A message to everyone. Not very PC but the truth. STOP BEING FAT. 30% of covid hospitalization were because of obesity. Add in comorbidities due to oversight and it goes wayyy up. We all had to put our lives on hold and care about these peoples health more than they do on a daily basis. Then instead of pivoting once we identified the vulnerable groups, we doubled down and paid them to stay home and become even more unhealthy. Not trying to toot my own horn, but I am in good shape. Been in the 1000lb club for years, can run a sub 6 mile and do 10mil trail runs a couple times a week. Had covid three weeks ago. One day of 101 fever next day fatigued and maybe two more days of feeling “off”. Stayed home and was running again on day 5 (alone in the middle of nowhere) and hitting the gym day 10 after contagious period was over. JNJ vaxxed that’s it. And yeah before anyone says so I know there are outliers.

The hypocrisy can't be ignored. Remember your grandfather died alone in a retirement home and your kids were kept home for well over a year. If you happened to walk by a random person with Covid yet showed no signs of symptoms yourself you still needed to stay home and quarantine for 14 days. Ban people and basically lynch them on in the media for saying the vaccine and boosters don't prevent spread or prevent you from contracting it ONLY to find out that they were right! Lambaste America and say we need to take an approach more like China if we want to stop it (there were a lot of you on here). Tell restaurant and bar owners that they can't server alcohol unless they serve food as well, basically putting them out of business ("Does a chicken sandwich prevent Covid?!") But they let this happen in a primary hotspot and say "just wear long sleeves or cover it with a band-aid.". Look idc if your gay, straight, or bisexual. But I do care if you're a hypocrite. If you're going to talk the talk then you need to walk the walk. So if this one gets bad nah, I'll be doing my own thing. https://www.kron4.com/monkeypox/annual-dore-alley-fair-held-in-sf-amid-growing-monkeypox-concerns/ Here is the official guide utilized by the aids foundation. https://www.sfaf.org/collections/beta/douchies-guide-to-a-dore-alley-without-fear-of-monkeypox/ Take a friend to the dungeon Going to sex parties with people you know (and planning on who you’ll hook up with) can be one way to reduce your risk if you’re able to have open and honest conversations about monkeypox symptoms and possible exposures. Talk to the people you’ll play with ahead of time about monkeypox, but also things like HIV, PrEP and sexual health testing. Move to less crowded areas Consider skipping the dark, back rooms at parties if they’re super crowded and there’s no way to control who you’re bumping up against and rubbing skin-to-skin with. Cover up your own bumps See a bump on your skin and worried that it might be monkeypox? If you’re not sure, and you still want to go out tonight, cover it up with a bandaid or clothing before you go out. If you feel like it’s likely to be monkeypox (for instance if you know you may have been exposed), it makes sense to stay home and wait on going out until you can get it checked out by your healthcare provider.

GOOGL, ALCO

Litmus test will be how the Dutch Farmers shake out. They are probably the most efficient farmers in the country. They have found ways to reduce fertilizer drastically and for some major crops were able to figure out ways to reduce water usage by 90%. Dutch farmers have been at for forefront of Agriculture innovation for decades. Something tells me that when the "best" are out there protesting the new legislation surrounding their industry, the bureaucrats should re-evaluate their policy. Just because food production may be boosted by innovation long term does not mean that the policies/outcomes in the short term are advantageous. Famine leads to more famine, and places like Sri Lanka and other South East Asian countries are going through the ringer. A lot of it is due to poor policy in the short term. ________ The adoption of "Green policy" in general has been terrible. The best way to hurt the poor is to drive up energy prices. The best way to get people to care about the environment is to shoot for a 5k GDP per capita (USD equivalent). Current green policy is "out of sight out of mind." We have Australia cracking down on coal use, but shipping it to China for use. We've got Biden cracking down on pipelines in the US while quietly lobbying for off shore drilling in Brazil and Venezuela. I'm hoping the pendulum swings and the globalists realize their missteps. It may take some time though as we still have politicians saying "$8/gal gas is actually good!" *cough *cough Ms. Freeman.

It's not "stigmatizing a group". It's naming it based on origin....It was immediately known where it came from. It was weeks before they type of virus was determined and it was almost two months before it was named. Would have been a good black eye for the CCP imo. You know damn well there was pressure from them to not have it names China virus. What the left has forgotten is that you can address things factually without being a condescending asshole. I'd argue that you can go too far with trying NOT to call something out that it could result in being harmful (obviously topic specific).

Shift them goal posts!

Thought there was some good discussion here.

China Hustle 2.0?

Realistically it probably should have been named Wuhan Virus or something

Nonsense. Viruses have been named from their place or origin forever. People who committed hate crimes against Asians would probably have done it regardless because they're pos human beings. Did the offenders bother to stop and ask if individuals were actually Chinese? Maybe they were Japanese, Korean, Lao, etc. No, they chose to assault them because they looked "Chinese". They don;t give a shit if it's called China Virus, Xi Virus or Covid-19. It's not a mystery where the virus came from. Every human on Earth knew this before SHTF. The ONLY reason it wasn't called "china virus" is because of woke political posturing. Zika Virus = Zika Forest Ebola = Ebola River Hantavirus = Hantan River West Nile Virus = West Nile Uganda Guinea worm = Guinea Africa Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever = Self explanatory Spanish Flu = Spain MERS = Middle Easters Respiratory Syndrome The state of society

How and winners of what? I guess I don't know enough about it. But from what I've read and the docs I've seen, it seems like it's not just in tech. It's also factory workers, middle and lower middle class. It seems like people are getting burnt out and they make less comparatively to their counterparts in the US. Both White and Blue collar workers. It seems like the only motivation for doing this is because they have to because they have to support their family. There is nothing positive about that as it's purely desperation. The 9-9-6 also seems to be evolving into forced overtime and 24x7 support. Elon Musk is not a normal human. There are very few people who want to work that much. You average Joe wants to work to live not live to work. That belief has been held by the majority in every country all throughout history. It just reeks of CCP and Corporate propaganda. Again, just my observation so I could very well be wrong.

9-9-6 = guarantee to succeed as a society? That's a bold statement. Historically being overworked and having no time for social life is a guarantee for failure. Why would China be any different. That type of environment just sows dissent, anger, jealousy and ultimately corruption as people look for ways to climb the ladder and beat the grind. Humans are humans.

I think you're right that RIO is the best play on copper right now. The Cuajone mine for SCCO took a turn for the worse this week. Grupo reported 12% drop in production with a further drop expected. Bodes well for other companies though, as demand for copper remains high. I wonder if we will see any political pressure from the US put on down there to get things moving. Biden admin has already been flexing a bit with Brazil and Venezuela when it comes to offshore oil. SCCO or Grupo could still be a solid way to play copper but it's going to take some effort, timing and luck.

Yup, the US is stretching itself thin on resources and sentiment. This country is already war weary, recruitment was down 40%, the military has gone woke and people who actually do the hard shit in the military feel ostracized. US needs to take a step back and get its own house in order first. China is a bigger deal long term. And getting drug into a 10-15 year land war is not beneficial in any capacity.

agree with this take! US needs to get back to its roots of noninterventionism. We have enough problems at home. M.K. Bhadrakumar (former Indian ambassador) has had a lot of good articles on the subject. “US went into this with a 4 pillar approach and every single one has failed” https://www.indianpunchline.com/ukraine-grain-deal-is-a-feel-good-event-but-road-to-peace-is-long-and-winding/

Queue the lawyer backed “Military Advisors”. No more sure fire way to get drug into a long drawn out conflict than lawyers pushing for military advisors being sent down range. war is a racket

Putin has been trying to negotiate with NATO since what 2008? Fell on deaf ears and now here we are. Idk if it will work or not now but what I do know is an approach that ends the bloodshed should be at the forefront of every politicians mind. Russia HAS to feel like they've won something or this gets worse. What does Putin have to lose if the West cripples his economy, sanctions everything they export indefinitely, and lets it be known that Putin will never have a seat at the table again. Nothing... Some of you guys act like the ones calling for negotiations are rooting for Putin which couldn't be further from the case. Who was Qasem Soleimani and why did the US hate him so much? Well he was aiding another force and supplying weapons. Taking him out was advantageous to the US but the caveat/lesson here is that is what we are doing with Ukraine is the same thing Soleimani was doing. Russia likely views us this way (and has made it known) That's something we shouldn't take lightly. Tempt not a desperate man. Unlike North Korea, Russia actually has nuclear capability of working and if backed into a corner with nowhere to go for the next 30 years that option seems more likely now than it ever did before.

They don't have to be committed to the cause to continue to fight. They are committed to their buddies next to them in the trench. This is pretty common in most wars. Even with US troops in Afghanistan or Iraq there were plenty of troops not fully behind what they were doing. But at the eod they were committed to each other and carried on. Same thing for every military throughout all of history. Have some defect and you'll have strict punishment (bullet to the back of the head) that will put a quick end to any further defectors. Macros is quite right. People seem to forget that Nuclear weapons are primarily defensive options, not offensive. Back Putin into a corner with no out and that risk goes up imo.

You can also drill holes or find natural cavities and pump it in for storage. This is done pretty frequently here in the US.

Agreed, would be better if they didn’t take it in the first place.