Red Lion

I'd agree when it comes to earning capacity, but from a capital perspective I think investment selection is much more important for those who already have (close to) enough to live on their capital.

No idea if a federal judge will throw it out (or if the higher courts will reverse any of these rulings on appeal), but it must be a serious uphill battle to get a conviction at trial if the evidence is really so weak that none of the AUSA's want to touch it. I honestly haven't followed closely enough, nor do I know how much of the evidence is in the public domain.

Time to do a fat secondary offering?

As an outsider this seems like one of the biggest arguments against regulation of AI. It feels like we are going to enter into an AI arms race with China, and if the west (USA) is hobbled by red tape, it leaves us with the prospect of China taking quantum leaps forward in technology while we fail to keep up. It seems like ASI presents great potential danger, but even greater if your adversaries have it and you don't.

This seems like a reasonable prediction, but there are some huge differences between now and the dot com bubble. A lot of these huge investments in data centers and AI are coming from companies that have insane cash balances and high current taxable income. I'm obviously thinking of GOOGL, META, and AAPL. That might lead to a bubble in the Capex cycle, but if its well funded through actual cash on hand and investment grade financings, I think this puts us in a very different situation than the Dotcom days since the vast majority of the investment is coming from the bluest chips this time around. It also seems like even if this huge Capex cycle is a bust from a ROI standpoint, it's likely going to supercharge the infrastructure for AI advancement and research. Just seeing the enormous use applications after a couple years, it's hard to imagine where the limit might be once these systems get scaled up and benefit from the ecosystem getting setup with this huge Capex boom.

I don't know much about her, but it's almost like you wrote an ad for why she should be the next billionaire plaintiff's billboard lawyer if she goes into private practice. Maybe vaccine injury practice area But seriously, she sounds like a great lawyer to just pop in and secure a grand jury indictment all on her own on a marginal case with only a few days of prosecutorial experience under her belt.

Totally. I fully agree there are other risks and hassles that go along with it. Lack of liquidity, possible legal liability, problem tenants, etc. Even in the stagflation of the 70s, real estate massively outperformed stocks and bonds, and threw of some income in the process. I'd agree that you can't take land with you. So it's not the investment you want if shit hits the fan, regime change, etc. Multi-pronged inflation resistance makes sense, and covers some of these other issues (lack of liquidity and portability with real estate). Gold (and maybe some bitcoin?) just in case the shit really hits the fan, some commodity exposure somehow. One thing that's great about real estate though, the long term fixed rate mortgages would allow you to hold 50-100% of your net worth in rental real estate while still having 60-80% in other investments. If we have really bad inflation, nominal prices will likely keep up with inflation in the long run, a 6.5% mortgage looks like a steal, and rents will hopefully rise faster than your taxes and insurance. If rates go down or if nominal prices go up with inflation, there's the kicker of being able to play the refinance game to raise liquidity without selling. I've got about 65% of my net worth in investment real estate, but have mortgages for about 50% LTV which free up capital to still let me have 50% of my net worth in equity (stocks and private business ventures) and ~15% in my primary residence. I definitely need to consider having a bucket for gold/commodities (still can't see myself buying crypto). And it's something I plan to incorporate in the future. Maybe up to 20%.

I think rental real estate has been a good hedge over the long term for inflation. Especially with some fixed rate mortgages.

+1

That's an interesting point of view, and it kind of reminds me of the situation with real estate right now where there's historically low sales volume which creates more intense supply/demand issues for the available transactions. But at some level, the actual underlying investment in your case isn't leveraged 2x or 3x, but maybe the trading of active value conscious shareholders is leveraged at 2x-3x in the short term. Maybe this is the ultimate long term setup for value investors when we have our next huge market drawdown at some point in the future.

The 1st amendment doesn't provide a blanket protection to defamation. I haven't even had time to read about the Kimmel thing yet other than what I've seen here, but if he's making outright lies then this very well may not even be a "free speech" issue.

I do actually get this, at least on an amateur level. But I was talking about hypotheticals since we were talking about French government debt trading at a higher yield than French corporate debt. I think it's a very different situation than France which isn't borrowing in a currency where it maintains complete control. You said it way better, the only thing the government accepts is their own IOU. In a theoretical world Congress can just say, screw it, we are going to coin money to pay IOUs instead of refinancing them. I don't think this is actually going to happen, but I don't think France has the same flexibility.

All this makes sense, and I hope you’re right about tightening mortgage spreads. I agree congress won’t cut spending, but it seems more likely to me than allowing the country to default. The new populist maga crowd might not be so opposed to printing money to payoff the national debt. Maybe the one thing we could get bipartisan support for in this day and age.

Wouldn't the US just print more dollars if it ever came to a default? I don't think France has such an easy out with the Euro. Why would mortgages yield less than a treasury obligation? Or would the theory be that Congress just refuses to coin money and lets the country default? It seems like if the Congress was willing to let the country default to avoid printing money, it would be more likely to cut spending and prevent a default in the first place. I feel like the most likely scenario would be Congress continuing spending, letting the treasury and fed pull off any financial maneuvering, and then print money as a last resort. I feel like mortgages and treasuries would both be a bad investment under these scenarios, but I'm sure someone smarter than I am could make a bunch of money playing derivatives.

I threw some extra dividends at a small add to JOE. Just slowly building this position out over time.

+1 As @Parsad and some others mentioned, it feels like we had a similar level of political violence in the 60s and 70s. I wasn’t around, and I’m not a historian. What did we do to turn the corner? It seems like when I was a kid in the 80s and 90s, Americans were on the same team with different ideas about the best game plan. How do we get back to that?

I just put in a pool and wonder why I didn’t do it sooner.

I agree it’s been upheld on numerous appeals so far and will see if that continues. I’d also think there’s a very ambitious prosecutor, since they stand to make ~$30 million in fees if the award stands. There’s a reason that lawyers try to shop venue. I’m not discounting your point though, Trump should have had good enough lawyers to challenge any jury misconduct. I never found the allegations very persuasive here, not because I doubt trump is/was a creep, but because sexual assault at a department store seems far fetched especially for a billionaire that has had no problem getting laid as soon as the lawyers sign off on the NDA. I think it was pretty much a he says she says situation as well, which are always more dubious in my mind. Just to be crystal clear, I think Donald trump is an unsavory character, and I personally think he was the lesser of two evils for policy reasons. I wish there was an alternative, other than the progressive left. I also don’t think he’s a rapist or a pedo. More like a John with lawyers to cover his ass. I’m not a huge fan of Kamala Harris the person, but if it weren’t for policy concerns I’d take her hands down over Donald trump. On the other hand, I probably wouldn’t care about politics at all if it weren’t for policy concerns.

Not to quibble but liable, not guilty. There’s a huge difference as one requires a unanimous verdict with proof beyond a reasonable doubt and the other requires a preponderance of evidence and does not require a unanimous verdict.

+1

This is the irrefutable point I keep coming back to.

100%. Maybe it’s because I’m not on the east coast.

I had a good laugh just thinking about it. Reminds me of the gladiator quote, “are you not entertained?!”

My previous google search also referenced studies saying 80-90% of millionaires are self made. I think it’s even higher among billionaires. But I think I misunderstood your post since I thought you were implying the rich somehow inherited their wealth, and it seems like you’re saying the bottom 10% are more likely to stay poor. Makes sense, and I’ll defer to the Harvard study since I certainly don’t have any knowledge about this. Also most of my anecdotal evidence is from the west coast, which apparently offers more opportunity for poor kids.