Castanza

Nice, been holding for some time now as well. Probably maxed out on position size personally but the future looks bright.

Is this still your top holding?

Take a page out of @thepupil's book and getting a some more exposure to tech. Nibbling at some new positions NVDA, INTC, TSM Adding to BX, MMM, VZ

BX

It must just depend where you are because my wife has worked at three hospitals in two different states over the last four years and every single one of them has had gobs of travel nurses. She works in the NICU and travel nurses are definitely not just sent to Covid wards. Just off hand I know two who work at CHOP in Philly (pediatrics unit), 2 who work at UPMC Pitt in standard adult care, two who work at Hershey in NICU, and One who works at University Maryland NICU. The girl at Maryland is headed to San Diego next month and will be getting 6k "crisis pay" even though she is going to be in a NICU. I can only speak to assignments in the NICU, but my wife said at all three places she has been the last few years, Travel nurses are excluded from mandatory overtime and typically get the "feeder" assignments in the NICU. basically a baby almost ready to go home. Probably has to do with liability, not sure about skillset and the hospital reputation for care quality. There are shortages everywhere and it seems like it's accelerating. If you're young and single and like to travel a bit, why would you not quit and take a travel position? This is why her hospital implemented a no-rehire policy because people were quitting, traveling just far enough to get "travel status", staying in hotels and cashing in on the big payments. They have also been upping their contracts with nurses they do hire. Incentive is 25-35k forgivable loan with a 3.5 year (was 2 year) commit. What incentive is there to be a normal nurse in a specific location? I'd be willing to bet the turnover is higher than software engineering. People just accept signing bonus after signing bonus and follow the money. https://www.travelnursing.org/the-truth-about-travel-nursing-do-travel-nurses-get-the-worst-assignments/

The whole travel nursing situation is quite the catch 22. Hospitals are required to keep certain ratios of nurses to patients. Nurses quit their jobs and take travel positions. In turn they get more pay, easier assignments and in general less forced overtime compared to hospital specific employees. My wife’s hospital has issued a “no rehire list for nurses who quit and join travel agencies.” It’s a real problem right now. My wife’s unit is 60% travel nurses and growing. It’s a trend they can’t seem to stop. My question is where does all the money come from?! How do these travel agencies afford to pay these nurses the wages they get? Average nurses are making right around $40/hr and bring home around 2k bi weekly. I know multiple travel nurses in the same state who are bringing home 6k a week. Some percentage of this is tax free. The lowest I’ve seen is 4K weekly. Who the heck is paying this? Travel nursing trend was also growing pre covid.

Bingo "The Transformation of charity into legal entitlement has produced donors without love and recipients without gratitude" - Justice Scalia "What exactly is your fair share of something someone else earned?" - Sowell

What's your GoTo golf or yard work cigar? Looking for something cheap that's still a decent smoke. Probably on the mild/medium side.

Yup it's crazy. Had a friend put in a new furnace and ac system this past summer. Changed me unit cost and a case of beer. Came to 3,100 for both...Mid range systems that would have easily cost me 8k if I hired someone. @Morgan I agree that inflation is way higher than 7% in real terms. I've reduced product spend and my budget is still up like 15% this past year. CPI is fudged to no end.

But you also have laws and the court system backing up claim to your money. I do get the sentiment though and I largely agree, I'm just not convinced crypto offers a truly sound fool proof solution yet. "The Man" still has a lot of power when it comes to regulation and potential implications on crypto. The current monetary system and pipelines are simply easer to use. My parents are not going to run a node in their basement to keep their money out of the hands of "the man". They also wont be buying BTC and storing it on a Ledger Nano hardware wallet. They can barely manage their own Gmail accounts and cell phones. Crypto is simply far too risky for most individuals at this point. It doesn't have the same "assurance" you get from existing system wide structures. And I get you can make the argument it's more secure etc. But that's from the perspective of someone technically inclined, who has an interest in it, and actually cares. You have to think to be involved with crypto. With traditional banking, there is almost ZERO thinking needed.

At this point it feels like the proverbial "wheel" of crypto is userbase and not tech. Trying to kill BTC and get everyone to adopt an entirely new coin is unlikely and probably would be very detrimental to trust and future growth of crypto in general. So I agree that it's likely just new tech being added onto existing ETH and BTC. However, doesn't this also pose a major risk factor? I'm not super well versed in the fork process so bear with me.....But don't the miners decide which future chain to follow? Miners of 2021 are very different than 2011 and it's hard for me to look past the monopolistic structure they have on BTC direction. If you're an individual holder you carry about as much weight as someone who holds a single share of class A $F. What prevents miners from doing what's in their own best interest from here on out? It's a majority decides but having a large player disagree certainly would cause problems no? It seems like one big disagreement could cause permanent impairment. That being said, I don't understand the process fully so I'll defer to the resident experts 0.1% of all miners control half of BTC mining capacity https://fortune.com/2021/10/26/bitcoin-mining-capacity-ownership-concentration-top-investors-nber-study/

$C

Agree, the guys skill or opinions is irrelevant

Stores have been closing everywhere here. First is was reduced hours and now it's "we aren't opening due to staffing shortages". 2/3 Dunkin Donuts in my immediate area are closed. Burger King, Starbucks, Panera Bread and a bunch of other chains are the same way. Even some hardware stores are closed or working on reduced hours.

I thought I had it about two weeks ago. Sore throat, fever, chills, developed a dry cough. Did an at-home test (inconclusive results), then did CVS PCR the next day and tested negative. Likely just the flu which is also going around in my neck of the woods. Only about 3 days total. My FIL did have it and had nothing but mild cold symptoms. No fever or chills, just a slight cough and a runny nose for a few days. My coworker had it recently and said the same thing...weird. I think he had Moderna though.

C ATCO

I agree with the above sentiment but it does seem like there is growing speculation. Even on this forum there has been a rash of threads discussing speculative/riskier positions. Feels a bit like a race to the top. A good balance imo is staying invested but say instead of being 90/10, move to 80/20 or 75/25 by raising more cash. Barely hurts your upside while giving you some fire sale cash if we get a pullback.

More people died from being evacuated at Fukushima than from any type of radiation. As for Chernobyl estimates are all over the map. Both of these were terrible designs and one was run by a terrible government that had basically zero oversight. The Safety/HW generated includes those numbers as far as I'm aware. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_nuclear_and_radiation_accidents_by_death_toll Add in better planning, better oversight, modern designs and nuclear is very attractive. Some modern designs also have easy to dispose of, short half life, or very little waste (thorium). I don't often say this, but China is smart by pushing nuclear. Could they F it up? Maybe, CCP worries me but one thing they seem to be good at in the past 50 years is skating to where the puck is going and not where it is.

That's a good point about adoption and you're probably correct. Although If memory servers me right, Germany had some power issues last year and still doubled down on shuttering nuclear. I was thinking the same thing about your last point. Half the EU countries are equivalent to states in the US. Whether to or not to use nuclear is a global decision which as of now is unlikely. Either way, I guess this discussion is fruitless since investing in nuclear is moot and everything renewable is sky high. Plus by the time nuclear gets adopted (if it does), I'll either be dead or it will be some new tech which uses different resources which make long term investments from here almost impossible. @SharperDingaan appreciate your responses though as you always have unique perspectives.

I don't see how the last part is "obvious" regarding nuclear, since it historically is the safest energy we have. Even stacked up against solar and wind it kills less people per unit of energy created. Or were you referring to the view of ESG crowd?

Can you even get to that point and what does it look like? Currently wind and solar are the backup for O&G. If you disregard peak efficiency and go with the typical 20% Solar 30% wind, the costs are more than fossil fuels in many cases. You also have the massive scale and land area needed for wind and solar farms. I'd much rather have 25 modern fission plants scattered across the country, then see every mountain from NY to Washington scalped and topped with wind mills. Cost can only come down so much and efficiency can only go so high. Viable solar and wind land locations are limited. Batteries require a lot of resources and are difficult to recycle (so are solar panels). How do you scale Solar and Wind when energy demands grow 100% or 150% from here? I can't help but think red tape and bureaucracy is the key factor keeping nuclear out of the conversation. Perhaps you are right that NOW it is the most practical. But at some point it seems obvious that humanity will need to find another way.

Yeah I get that for sure, I mean optics play a larger role than logic for many governmental decisions. But if humanity ever wants to solve the energy crisis/climate change thing; nuclear or some type of nuclear is really the only way forward.

Nuclear is by far the safest energy historically. Anyone saying otherwise really hasn't looked at the numbers. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_nuclear_and_radiation_accidents_by_death_toll Chernobyl was a poor design and poor management. Modern designs are ridiculously safe with more redundancy, fail over, better disposal etc. Not going to rehash what RK said or derail the thread anymore so I'll leave with that. https://www.engineering.com/story/whats-the-death-toll-of-nuclear-vs-other-energy-sources Nuclear 90 death per 1000TWh Rooftop Solar 440 death per 1000TWh Wind 150 death per 1000TWh Hydro 1500 death per 1000TWh O&G/Coal Who knows but it's probably high if you factor pollution into it.