crs223

How can housing drop when mortgage rates are below CPI?

@elliott if you’re coming up with your own thesis that does not agree with the guru — then by definition you are not “shameless cloning”

Who am i to read WEB’s mind… but hasn’t he said on several occasions that he doesn’t know which directions rates are headed? A few months ago he said “I would have bought more AAPL if it dropped more”. He was talking about AAPL share price dropping and not his guess about future interest rates.

The best thing about the United States is that some can experiment. If this turns out to be a huge success the rest of the states will copy it. It’s like a free option. Sounds moronic.

Great points. Thank you. Not only great points but what a welcome relief from 10 years of “right vs left” vitriol. Imagine if the news media and politicians spoke like this.

I believe China should be punished for killing 1M Americans with COVID and another 100k/year from fentanyl. Even if China is blowing this out of proportion to hide internal problems: what did we gain from the photo op? China now launching missiles over Taiwan.

IMO too soon to conclude “US won, China lost” on this issue. Particularly when we don’t know what China is hoping to gain. For example, perhaps there were other future visits planned by other leaders that will now not happen. might be better to wait until 2032 before deciding if China is going about this all wrong. Of course I hope that US is acting to strengthen itself in the long run.

I might just have "grump old man syndrome", but: US: students focus on race/inequality/mouthing_off/no_homework. China: math/engineering/beatings US: Glued to tik-tok 7 hours per day. China: working 9-9-6 US: Theft, drugs, decriminalized. China: executions galore US: guilty are let free. China: innocent are punished US: companies regulated by lobbyists. China: companies regulated by party US: propaganda says opposite political party is the enemy. China: propaganda says americans are the enemy ... we'll see how things go after ~20 years... hopefully US is doing the right thing... for our kids' sake. PS: never been to China... so I'm just imagining what it's like over there.

This is interesting. Reminiscent of Buffett/Dimon/Bezos trying (and failing) to redo healthcare. For real estate transactions: the buyers “don’t pay” the commission so they might as well use the trusty Realtor. But what about the seller? When your home goes from $400k to $700k… do you really care about spending an extra $15k to use a trusty realtor over some website? No. There is just too much profit for sellers to care. Everybody is gorging at the trough and everybody is happy. Perhaps if/when the gravy train stops, then the transformation can begin. Consumers love credit card “points”. consumers/buyers don’t see/know/careabout the markup as long as they get their airline miles. So perhaps another transformation to watch out for is a new style of commission that focuses on a buyer kickback. This is a great thread. A website with pictures and maps of homes evidently is not going to transform this industry. I bet the fanciest pictures and maps (drones/3D/VR) won’t do it either.

reading this again I sound snarky - not my intention and I cannot edit it now - thank you all for your responses! I have a lot to learn!

Thank you. I normally recommend people understand why a particular bond is paying an unusually high rate. In The case of iBonds I assumed that it was just a free giveaway. Apparently I’m overthinking it. Carvana bonds are also offered at high rates. Okay to “overthink” that one - probably not a free giveaway!

If that is the reason: 1. why doesn’t a riskier CD, with the same price-improvement limitation, match (or exceed) the iBond rate? 2. Why would the USG offer these “no price improvement” bonds for sale given that they are so much costlier than normal bonds? thank you!

When you say “gimmick” are you saying that it is indeed subsidized/above_market return? Clearly I made a huge mistake using the “R” word — everyone wants to jump on the bandwagon about how rich people would not waste their time buying iBonds vs address my question. I learned that in an efficient market, higher yield means higher risk. Obviously iBonds are not risky. So why is the yield so high? And why can’t anyone give an answer to that specific question that makes sense? Perhaps it is because I am a moron. Or perhaps the board is in denial that they are subsidized — but I would expect that all the smart people here could provide an answer that makes sense to a moron like me.

Why does USG limit iBond purchases to $10k/year? a) USG is trying to reduce debt outstanding. Why not start with iBonds? b) iBonds are subsidized and pay above-market yields; and USG doesn’t want them to turn into a transfer of wealth to the rich

Why does the US Govt sell iBonds at 9% when it could just sell regular 10 year bonds at 3%? a) USG pays a penalty rate because iBond holders can call back the loan at any time b) iBonds are a gift/subsidy to those who purchase if I were selling a bond, why would I sell a callable iBond at 9% vs a fixed rate bond at 3%?? Thank you!

Why do iBonds pay so much more than other bonds? a) iBonds are risky and the extra yield compensates for this risk b) iBonds are welfare for the rich, subsidized by the US Govt Thank you!

Which prices do you believe have peaked? I assume you're not talking about CPI... or North Florida real estate!

Coinbase is more like TDameritrade. You don’t give TDAmeritrade your checking acct password… you give them your money. Using their website you “buy” stock which TDameritrade holds. And you assume TDAmeritrade really has your money and really has your stock.

When you have this macro bearish/pessimist/doom mindset you will never buy. Not in the depths of the GFC. Not in the depths of Covid. It's a mental sickness and zerohedge/Schiff capitalize off it. The problem with this bearish line of thinking: if the market goes down you say "I'm right; market is going down... and it's got a lot further to go". When the market goes up you say "I'm right; we're in a bubble; market is going to go down". You can't win.

@LazarusI had/have the same permabear disease. I "foresaw" the housing/fannie/subprime and pulled all my money out in 2007 and bought gold. I bought a ton of WFC (copying BRK) at the bottom in March 2009 and tripled up in a few months. Turns out I was just a lucky broken clock. I thought I figured it all out: 1) govt printing money means gold is the only beneficiary and 2) buy when there is utter panic and fear. From May 2009 until COVID I was all in cash/gold waiting for another panic. Awful. Thank God I got my head out of my ass enough to buy a house in 2012 (again lucky at the bottom). Eventually I decided to trade my cash and gold for BRK. WEB's essay on "the gold cube" helped change my mind. However, I was/am still convinced that all this govt printing is not going to end well. Nevertheless I committed to just start buying BRK -- after all they have a bunch of cash too -- so it's sort of like trading my dumb-cash for BRK smart-cash. I couldn't stomach the though of going suddenly all in on BRK (from cash/gold) because I was "convinced" that a massive drop was right around the corner. So I committed to DCA my way in over five years. Well I lucked out again because COVID gave me a chance to move most of my money into BRK. I'm still about 20% cash/gold. I went from 25%->20% cash a few weeks ago to buy more BRK at the 52 week low. ... so if you are committed to converting your cash to BRK, I recommend picking a time horizon ("I will be fully invested in 10 years") and just start buying on the first of every month. And if you get lucky and there is a major panic along the way just buy more. I'm hoping for more panic. But if there is no panic, I will still be buying -- unlike the past decade.

"I didn't murder him. But if I did, it was in self defense." [I have no position on this issue... I just enjoyed the logic]

isn’t it glorious? Gives all of us smart folks a chance to buy quality companies for cheap. I wish the dumb dumbs were pricing in 20% inflation instead of 8%

Your bitcoin is stored in the blockchain… “in the cloud”. All you keep is the “password”. This is not a password that you make up rather it is essentially given to you to keep safe. It is very long and complex and is stored as a file on your hard drive. You can keep this “password” on your computer hard drive — where it can be stolen by hackers. You can also put this file on an external USB drive and keep that external drive In a safe place such as a safe deposit box. Or, you can even print out the password and keep the paper printout in a safe place.

I wish crypto traders the best of luck. Consider furnishing your mansions with Restoration Hardware and insuring your Ferraris with Geico.

I hope the market continues to go down. I’ll be buying stocks for another 2-3 decades.