Ross812

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My wife was in the industry for several years and I have a lot chem. e. and MBA friends who still work for various companies. The bourbon industry in Ky is still pretty old school entertaining clients at fancy catered house parties and after hours meet ups at old haunts. The real "good stuff" is held back for "R&D" and gets passed around the industry for "testing". Have your friend buy a few barrel picks from local small liquor stores for you. The master distiller/taster will pull better barrels for the local guys with a decades long relationship. The distiller knows the big stores are going to buy 6 barrels regardless of how good they are. The saying goes "There's bourbon made for sellin and bourbon made for drinkin."

I think digital currency in its current iteration would threaten the power of government if it was too widely adopted. Those with the power make the rules and those with guns (military) have the power. BTC and the like can be traded around as long as the sandbox remains small, but its value is determined by a relatively small number of people trading it back and forth at ever higher prices. Lasting digital currency will be backed with guns.

If you want a treat - pay $50 or $60 for a bottle of John J. Bowman Single Barrel (available most often at Total Wine) that knocks the socks off anything else BT distills for under $100 including Blanton's and all the Weller products. If you want something sweet get a bottle of Four Roses Small Batch Select. For the adults who like a kick in the mouth - go Old Forester 1920 or a Knob Creek 120. I have a whisky/ey and wine hobby but I'm not about to enter lotteries or sit at 3am and wait for a liquor store to open to buy hard to find bottles. I have abused my liver enough to know what's good.

Angel's envy is one of the "barrel finished" products similar to Makers 46, Woodford Double Oaked, and Old Forester 1910 but it's port finished like some scotches. Look for some Isaac Bowman Pioneer Spirit - it's port finished and readily available shadow Buffalo Trace product. BT distills the Juice for Bowman and ships it by rail car to Virginia for barreling and aging. I really like Knob Creek 120 barrel picks. Under $45 all day and a good sipper. The burn is part of the appeal - and if you don't like it - add water down to 80-100 proof like a lot of other bourbon on the shelf.

Our local Costco has Michters bourbon right now for $40. I really like some of the new distilleries around the area. Two of the good ones are New Riff and Wilderness Trail right now. Wilderness Trail was started by two consultants who have developed yeast strains for most of the distilleries in Ky. They are super sharp and know more about fermentation than your average master distiller.

I'll preface that I live in Kentucky and bourbon demand is very regional. There is a glut of a lot of lower end bourbon with Makers products, Old Forester, and Woodford etc. selling for less than it was on the shelves for in 2019. Exports really fell off with reciprocal tariffs in response to Trump's tariff party and the lower end bourbons are used in bars and restaurants saw demand fall off during the pandemic. Many of the distilleries held onto their better stock during the pandemic and demand for liquor stayed high making the higher end stuff harder to find. Kentucky was later than the south coming out of covid restrictions so you are just now seeing distilleries spinning capacity back up. Bourbon exemplifies the inflation we are seeing being the supply chain and taters willing to pay up for "the good stuff". On a side not, bourbon drinkers and reddit have had a hard on for Buffalo Trace products for 5 or 6 years which includes Blanton's and Eagle Rare. They are still hard to find and I haven't seen Blanton's at MSRP for years. I will say very very few bourbons are worth $80 a bottle. Ten years ago all these "unicorn" bottles were cheap and available for $40 and under including Old-Fo Birthday bourbon, Pappy 15, Weller 12 ($18 all-day until December 2013), and Stagg Jr. Eagle Rare was a mixing bourbon. I switched to scotch years ago for bottles I would pay up for.

Snapchat brought GOOG down 8%+ and FB 10%+ today. That is pretty astonishing really.

Same. Increased FB 25% today and GOOGL 40% today. Both are 12.5% positions now.

The military has always had civilian leadership (the president) and big decisions like going to war are always political decisions. The military has also always implemented "radical" social change - integration, women on the front lines, etc. The military implements the changes because, in the long run, it makes the military more cohesive and better. Our Afghan allies weren't the first to see what happens when the military is ready to pull out; I remember the same outrage when we pulled out of Iraq in the 90's and let the Kurds fend for themselves. You seem to really be advocation for the military changing up the way they have always done things. Very progressive of you . Wasn't Trump the one who wanted our allies to arm up and quit relying on the US to subsidize their low defense spending? I'm confused, you either want to pull out of NATO because the US is pulling all the weight, but when NATO gets stronger with increased allied defense spending and new members you throw a tantrum? It's almost like "woke" politics got Trump the NATO he wanted - that right there is a mind fuck!

The military racially integrated in 1948, women were allowed in combat roles in 2004, openly gay soldiers could enlist in 2011, natural hair in 2014 - radical changes over time. I'm not sure where you are thinking Article 88 is not enforced. I would argue our enemies respect the military as there is no real bad behavior other than saber rattling. The military is capable of enacting radical social change and efficiently killing huge numbers of people at the same time - don't worry.

If you assume the average mortgage is 4% - you hit 13B/month in P&I. The average length of home ownership is 7 years so there is around 194B in turnover a year - 16.2B/month. The natural run-off rate is 4.5B/month this year - That is 33.7B/month. I suspect the average mortgage is over 4% considering average credit and a 10% down payment adds around half a point to the prime rate; add in people who could not take advantage of lower rates - those with mortgages under 100k, and many manufactured homes and those with higher interest rates on rentals and second homes.

The president an congress are responsible for the use of the US military so of course moves are driven by politics. They always have been, just look at WWII. The US has a list of Major non-NATO allies - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Major_non-NATO_ally MNNA status does not come with a mutual defense pact, but messing with a MNNA country would be a big deal. Who is not on the MNNA list? Ukraine, Finland, and Sweden; hence why you see Finland and Sweden joining NATO. The US military, woke or not, is one hell of a deterrent. Russia is still playing by the rules. If Russia uses a nuke and NATO does not step in with a no fly zone and DMZ, I'll eat my words.

Did you check with your mortgage lender? I've used margin loans from IB and Fidelity (they will negotiate rates) for short term borrowing like a car purchase or remodeling and a cash out refi for longer term borrowing (real-estate). HELOCs haven't been attractive to me with dirt cheap mortgage rates.

More 2024 AIV $5s and $7.5s. FB, LBRDK, TMUS, C.

I've had a Treasury Direct account since 2010 or 11 and have some paper bonds from the mid 2000's with 1%+ fixed rates. I've always viewed iBonds as a good alternative to a savings account. Word of warning - don't try to do anything too fancy with the website. I tried to add a new funding source and the site hung. I refreshed my browser and it locked my account. A three minute phone prompt to unlock my account lead to a message to call back later and a hang up; I tried maybe once or twice a week to get through for several weeks. I got through the prompt one morning two weeks ago and spent 5 hours on hold to get the account unlocked.

Supply and demand is out of balance; there are 2 job openings for every worker right now looking for a job. The Fed is trying to thread the needle with QT and rate increases. Suck the oxygen out of the economy to the point of full employment without tipping into job destruction and growth in unemployment. We are probably heading for a balance sheet recession where the real economy is doing well with full employment, but earnings contract. The cause of inflation is coming from the supply side, but inflation turns into an accelerating positive feedback loop regardless of what started it if it is not contained. Sure a smart driven individual can capitalize on the current environment, but on a societal level it is a zero sum game. The velocity of rise and fall at the individual level has just increased. If there is no soft landing for those who are falling, we are going to end up with a lot of unrest and further class stratification.

Nabbed 20 of the 42 AIV 2024 $7.50 calls today (big spender). @rkbabang must have got the rest!

Added some LBRDK and Little more GOOGL.

I was making the point that the bubble started with a huge tax cut in 2018 when the economy was doing well then another shot in the arm in 2019 when the fed cut interest rates and turned on the tap of QE reversing course from slowly letting assets roll of the balance sheet and raising rates. I agree tech was just looking for a reason to sell off. The late 90's tech bubble inflated when the fed funds rate was 5%+.

Let's not forget the rate cut from 2.4 to 1.5 and quantitative easing in 2019 at the behest of a president to coincide with a huge tax cut to juice a 10 year bull run.

Bought back into ATCO today. I sold my entire position in three accounts of March 31st (one taxable). It's been on my watchlist waiting for the wash period to be over. Added to google and traded some gold for QLD (ultra QQQ).

I'm not a big fan of sugary drinks, buffet food, and faux restaurants. All inclusive resorts are nice from a planning perspective, but the food and drinks are typically better when you have to pay full fare. My family is pretty active and we have fun booking a nice boutique hotel and renting a car. The last full service resort we stayed at was the Andaz Papagayo in Costa Rica which was very nice, but I wouldn't say it was more fun or relaxing than a beach hotel with a single restaurant and a car to go wherever you would like.

We recently sold a rental and vacation property (summer/fall 2021) and bought a larger vacation property ( winter 2022) in a cash deal. We are going to be trying out renting the larger place on AirBnB.

Doubled my NFLX Starter position at $205.5 this morning. Now a 3% position.