Dinar

Yes, they ought to. They have done some - Salt Lake City, et all, but not enough.

According to NY Post, Goldman Sachs sent out an email earlier today telling people to go back to the office 5 days a week. The question is whether it will stick. In my opinion, there are three problems as far as GS is concerned: a) a lot of people who work for the firm do not need to work, and treasure the absence of commute, so how many will actually comply? b) Economically speaking, people may decide that it is no longer worth working for the firm (not on the business side, but support staff). NYC/Jersey city has seen rents rise 15-20% in the past year and probably 30%+ from pre-pandemic levels, GS has not raised compensation 30% since 2019. Given that most of the staff lives in the suburbs, when it costs $3600 per year to commute from Bergen County to 200 West or $4800 from Scarsdale and one is saving 15-20 hours per week by working from home, some people may decide it no longer makes economic sense to work for GS and look either for jobs that allow remote full time, or several days a week, or are in mid-town or even in the suburbs. c) People have changed their lifestyle in the last couple of years - acquired pets, for instance, which will require dog walkers if nobody is home to walk them. Working during the winter from say Florida or Hawaii and in the summer from Europe or Long Island or Maine is plenty attractive. Sure, if GS pays me $2MM per year, I will be in the office 5 days a week, although if I do not need the money since I am say 35-40, then the calculus may change. However, if I work in the back office and get $120-$150K, and now you are telling me that I need to be in the office 5 days a week, which means $3-5K annual commuting costs, say another $2-3K in extra lunch/dry cleaning costs and on top of that, I need to be spending 15-20 hours per week on the train/bus, then may be I look for another gig. After all, there are 11MM jobs available. I think this will spectacularly backfire unless GS significantly boosts comp particularly for the lower paid part of the workforce, and I guarantee you that ain't going to happen.

The consequences will be very bad when 100+ million of people living in corrupt countries join. Corruption and the culture of corruption is breathtaking in Ukraine, Moldova, and Georgia. Oh, and majority voting on tax and foreign policy - that will work out real well. Be careful what you wish for. I am sure a 20% excise tax on Germans to fund help for the poor (aka corruption in the EU) will prove popular with Spain, Portugal, Italy, Ukraine, Moldova and Georgia. Oh, and and majority rules, so you Germans work while we drink wine at your expense.

I would like to make two points: a) there is no way that US has 3-4% annual productivity growth, were are lucky if we have 1% per annum b) the biggest driver of inflation is very loose fiscal policy pursued by the US, not monetary policy. For instance, Biden's 30% increase in food stamps in 2021, two stimulus bills by Trump, the 2nd one absolutely unnecessary, Biden's third round of stimulus and now his build back better bill recently passed. There is not much monetary policy can do when gov't gives out 10% of GDP over two years in additional welfare/fiscal subsidies/etc... We will not get inflation under control until Federal government stops acting like a drunken sailor on leave.

In Manhattan, for roughly half a dozen apartments I looked at, it was off by 15% on average.

What a pity, thank you very much for the heads up.

KJP, thank you very much. Newtown/Buck County was a choice due to its Russian community, which values education and abhors political correctness.

Agreed, I ideally would buy in Oradell since it is a bit less snobbish than Ridgewood, but there is nothing for sale. I mean Oradell, Woodcliff Lake, Haworth, Glen Rock, Ridgewood, Upper Saddle and Franklin lakes all work, but my preference is for Oradell/Glen Rock/Haworth due to much lower snobbism. I came to this country with nothing, and I do not want to raise greenhouse kids. I would walk two miles carrying 40 pounds of stuff in college to save a dollar on a bus fare, I would at least like my kids to not expect a BMW for sixteenth birthday.

Thank you, but the marathon is not over. I need to be able to raise three kids as productive, hard working, honest citizens with grit, also kind and well rounded. That is a very hard part, and motivating them is a bit of a problem... I also was very lucky in that I have wise parents who guided me well, and I got lucky with my choice of a career - thanks to parental advice.

I probably should add it to the list, but could it be too high end? Gladwyne seems to be a bit snobby.

I hope that Shepherdson is correct, however in the markets that I track, suburbs of NY (Westchester, Manhasset, Darien, Bergen County, Millburn, Chatham), suburbs of Phily (Radnor Township School District, Tredy- school district, Newton Bucks County, Richboro), Boca Pointe (in Boca Raton, FL) and Maui, there is essentially no inventory and from my recollection it is less than half of what it was three years ago. Prices however in Boca & Maui are probably up 50-100% since 2019. In Manhattan, there is NO inventory either 3+ bedroom apartments. So if the market cracks, great, but I have not seen it in the markets I track. I am in the market for: 1) three/four bedroom in Manhattan; 2) house on Maui; 3) house in Boca Pointe; 4) house in the suburbs of NYC. I am flexible if I get number one, I do not need number four. If I get number two I do not need number three.

Greg, why do you like Fairfax here? Thank you.

What do you do about health insurance? I am in your situation, but wife still has to work to provide the family with health insurance. Thank you for any tips/advice re acquiring health insurance.

Do not put 100% of the fund into the macro bet. May be lose 1% per annum via option premium on a position that can go up 40-100x, and keep the rest in other investments/bets/strategies.

No. Clearly a company with 20 years worth of production reserves will be worth more than a company with 3 years left. Also depends on marginal costs - some fields are much cheaper to produce than others, pipeline capacity esp for nat gas. I know analysts have used price paid per barrel of production but it is not an intellectually correct way of approaching the problem and can have massive errors.

Greg, this may be the wrong forum, but would you consider a house with a drain easement? I am looking at a house in Woodcliff Lake and it has a drain easement, and I am trying to understand the potential implications of the drainage easement. (I googled the stuff on the web, so I have an "academic" understanding, but practical knowledge is lacking.) Thank you.

Your leap put that you are long will lose more than the short-term put that you are short. Your long term call leap will go up less than the short-term call that you are long. That's correct, you lose if there is a sharp sudden move early on.

Here is how you lose: say there is a 20%+ move in the stock, even worse a 30% due to a take-out. You lost money on both sides. You are effectively short gamma in this strategy.

That does not prove that they contribute positively.

All animals are equal but some are more equal than others...

I would rather be governed by plumbers than by Harvard faculty. Lack of book learning does not imply absence of common sense. Plenty of book smart fools at Yale.

See your Sergei Brin and raise with tens of thousands of Russian immigrants on Brighton Beach collecting welfare/supplemental security income + food stamps + receiving Medicaid + receiving Section 8 housing. Don't forget the massive home attendant fraud - nothing wrong with your 68 year old mother/father, but you get a sympathetic doctor to write a note that she/he needs 40 hours a week of home care, and voila - Medicaid pays you for forty hours of "work" + health insurance. Indian immigrants like Satya Nadela & Sundar Pichai (and the list goes on) obviously add a great deal, however in many cases Indians in IT (just like Russians & Chinese immigrants) only hire their own, care to put a value on that? We need a well thought out immigration policy - get people with the right skills, deal with negative externalities, exclude people with few skills, end chain migration, and limit it. If we let 100MM Russians or Chinese or Indians or Africans or pick your favorite nationality/ethnic group in, we will turn the US into the same unpleasant place that these immigrants are fleeing from. Small numbers of immigrants will assimilate, large numbers will change the country.

Then why doesn't Canada or US hold a nationwide referendum and see if the masses agree with you? Also what exactly are the positives of a Russian computer scientist depressing wages or Haitian construction worker destroying job prospects of African Americans?

The world has changed. There is no need for unskilled labor anymore. Just because something worked two hundred years ago does not mean it works today. Cavalry was great for millenia until tanks and automatic weapons made it useless. Interesting that you do not address the costs that I have outlined. Or does the plight of the poor/unskilled in US and Canada not matter to you?

There is a real cost to immigration that nobody talks about. Lower wages, higher traffic, higher stress on environment, higher rent and housing prices, higher economic inequality which leads to all sorts of social problems. Lower wages in our welfare state encourage people to stay on the dole with very negative consequence for the society as a whole. I am all for welcoming Einsteins/Fermi/, but not millions of unskilled people with two grades of education who will have ten children that taxpayers will have to educate. You want labor force growth? Reduce welfare benefits (welfare, food stamps, section 8, medicaid, free phones & internet and the list goes on). Fix public schools so that kids can get a good education rather than propaganda, so that middle class is comfortable having 2-3 kids rather than have one because they need to send him to public school.