ScottHall

They charge all 2-3 years in advance? Or annually? The drawback of the SAAS companies is that they are investing heavily in Customer Acquisition Costs. So the float dynamics are burdened by the customer acquisition costs. Assume you spend $1500 to acquire a 3 year contract at $500 per, billed annually in advance. Technically, the float would be $500. But in reality, net cash is -$1000. I'd say that's a feature, not a bug. Having float is meaningless if it's sitting in the bank account earning 0.1%... you want to reinvest it and earn good returns on it.

I am not, unfortunately. I'm from way NorCal. It's hard to complain, though; beautiful up here!

This is interesting, why do you think this will be a great investment? Germany historically has had low ownership rates and stable prices. So number one there is a large rental market. 2. RE is quite cheap in German cities. 3. Due to the interest rate situation ownership rates and prices have started to tick up in recent years. I think situation will continue. 4. Cap rates are pretty good by themselves so you don't need a lot of price appreciation. 5. There are some reits that are trading around book. Also they don't take a chunk of money out for their private "administration company" which is nice. This is really interesting to me as well. Any REITs you like over there in particular?

I was up around 11% when I did this on Twitter back in December. In 2015 it was 25%.

Great to hear DTEJD1997. This is an interesting story and I'm excited to hear how it plays out.

I don't really think this matters. If accelerated depreciation is axed and/or interest expense is no longer deductible if you elect that, it will harm Berkshire's utility operations which pay no net cash taxes in aggregate and in fact MidAmerican has substantial tax receivables on its books because of the "losses" it shows under current tax law. It's not quite as simple as lower tax rates = good, particularly for companies that are very capital intensive. We will see what the deal is but I wouldn't necessarily be happy about it if I was a Berkshire shareholder. I think it's too early to tell what the net effect will be for a company like Berkshire. For many companies it may be very good. It may even be good for Berkshire. I just don't think we should be celebrating a reduction of deferred taxes that will never be realized if it means taxes currently payable goes up.

I don't know about you guys but the quality of that stream is awful over here. CNBC needs to get on their game, like YouTube!

Don't take this personally, but I wanted to call this out because I find this is so typical. So many people are so entranced by the mainstream media mudslinging that they didn't evaluate the candidates on their proposed policies. After the fact, the elections over, and now people are saying "I didnt vote for the guy, but when I look at his proposed policies they're not that bad". How can you cast a vote and without having evaluated the candidates actual policies? Because your vote will not decide the election. It won't even decide who gets the electoral votes in your state, never mind who wins the presidency. It is a waste of effort to do a lot of research on a situation in which you are powerless to change. How much effort do you put into researching the ins and outs of Russian politics or Cambodian politics? Why would you? But you have about the same likelihood of effecting US politics as you do some foreign country's (Approximately 0%). People are doing the logical thing when they spend their time and effort elsewhere. Once someone _is_ elected however, it might be a good idea to see where he stands because that is what you will be dealing with. Edit: I just wanted to add that whenever I say stuff like this I inevitably get a response that goes something like "but what if everyone behaved like this?" The answer of course is that almost everyone does. I agree with everything you wrote and have articulated similar thoughts to people - but what's the solution? The current voting system gives everyone an equal vote irrespective of their prejudice or ignorance. As long as voting remains as easy and mindless as picking your nose, the ignorant and selfish public (George Carlin was right) will continue to vote nonsensically. It's quite apparent that a large percentage of the voting population cannot name one senator or one house representative up for election prior to entering the voting booth - arguably this is more important than the president himself. How do we solve this? Unfortunately I agree, there's very little an individual can do simply due to population size and immateriality. But it seems to me that something to the effect of a reading comprehension test designed to ensure that voters understand the system and politicians they are voting for should be a bare minimum. An exam of sorts whereby a reading prompt provides an elementary level explanation of the US government branches, explains each of the candidates views (documented and audited by multiple third parties) without naming the candidates names/genders/race/religion, and then a quiz asking very simple and basic questions about the reading prompts to verify the reader has a simple understanding of the structure of the system / candidates views irrespective of high level ideologies that excuse people from reading/thinking (republican/democrat choices). Voting should then occur based on anonymous labels consistent with the reading prompts - e.g. candidate x, candidate y, candidate z. You'd obviously get into complexities surrounding fairness - but there's no question that something IQ-independent could be developed to partially mitigate the mindlessness and ignorance surrounding the majority of the public. It's a radical idea, but I think having a population of the willfully uninformed, lazy, and ignorant is also quite radical and is unsustainable. The test would take time, two hours? Make the day a national holiday. Don't want to spend two hours to take the test? You probably fall under the bucket of the lazy citizen who doesn't want to spend time critically thinking or independently arriving at conclusions rather than having CNN/Fox fill in the blanks for you. Don't vote. Then again, this could be an arrogant and elitist view and I'm not detached from that. Happy for a reality check here if someone thinks I'm totally off base. But the fact of the matter is, it's evident that the majority of voters do not have a clue (whether it's rational/irrational to "have a clue" is a separate debate). Ultimately, I (and likely most people on this board) stand by the mantra of accepting personal responsibility and working hard on activities within the realm of individual control. I don't think doing so is mutually exclusive with watching/caring about the countries politics though. Trigger Warning: This isn't going to be politically correct. How about requiring skin in the game to vote? You must pay net taxes above $0 AND own either property or a business in order to vote. It used to be that only white male property owners could vote. I'm fine with getting rid of the white-male requirement, but a property ownership requirement could only be a good thing. If I buy one share of Sytestar does that count?

That's the difference between 2 times margin and 10 times margin. At 2 times margin, the bank owns you. At 10 times margin you own the bank!!!

Yea - most people are going to move to cheaper cost district just so they can retire with fewer dollars. Hell, outside of moving to Florida there's not many people who consider moving states, let alone countries, for retirement. I agree. It's important not to settle for what is reasonable and practical; we should strive to live the lifestyle we dream of because some moderate pressure is good for us as a species.

Yeah man, I time traveled back in time to 1902 and bought some of that Standard Oil. Now I could retire if I could just persuade idiots at JP Morgan that the safe deposit box with stock certificates is really mine. Not planning to sell anytime soon in the next couple hundred years. We'll need oil to go to the stars I'm sure. Another miracle of 2016. Jurgis and I agreeing on something. This is the exact right way to think about building the foundation for dynastic wealth. We should all invest in long term assets like the endowments buying timber and highly-levered private equity funds. That's the way real dynasty-building wealth is obtained. You have to have the "capacity to suffer" to get ahead long term.

That is only if you don't want to live like a bum off of rice and lentils for the rest of your life, if you dare to dream about travelling the world or partaking in any expensive hobbies with your well-earned twilight years. Most people are total slobs and so many just want to sit in front of FOX News and complain about how GREAT we USED to be. Oh bother!

You guys are fucking idiots for thinking about selling. If you're not thinking of holding for at least 100 years out, you're not a real investor. Real investors don't sell; they pick long-term winners.

If you could go back in time and tell the people of the year 1992 what was going to happen in 2016, you would have been locked up as a nutcase and seen unfit to handle your own finances. But after getting high I began to see a few similarities. Imagine telling a crowd of people that Donald Trump would win the Republican primary, in part, by marginalizing the son of incumbent President George H.W. Bush by calling him names. Then imagine telling them that he would go on to win the election against the wife of the current Democratic presidential nominee Bill Clinton. And that he would do so by running on a platform seemingly bastardized from fellow billionaire Ross Perot's 1992 run and with the - publicly known - aid of a former KGB agent who is now in charge of Russia. Imagine the looks you would get at how far fetched of a scheme that is. Then imagine the response you'd get from informing them that in 2016, people from all over the world are perfectly happy to PAY for the privilege of having the government take their money for five years. The world really is unpredictable. Those who try to fit the world into a spreadsheet don't have any appreciation for the broader chaos of human existence.

What's the problem with talking about how a woman is sexy??? Damn Puritans, I swear. Or maybe a discussion of David Faber's impressive jawline is more up your alley? ;D For what it's worth I've got a thing for redheads...Stephanie Ruhle and Julia Boorstin are sultry as hell. ] FYI I am asexual, but the one relationship I've had in my life was in fact a homosexual one as a teenager.

BTW shit like this is a big reason why there aren't more women who acknowledge themselves on here, IMO.

I think this sort of attitude is nasty and unbecoming of gentlemen.

Who the hell is Friedrich Weimar? Is this some kind of fan fiction that I'm not privy to. Spot on there. If there is anything this man knows, it is to leverage, blow up and then bankrupt his investors. I mean the guy lost money owning a Casino. Hillary Clinton knows how to make money, her net worth was zero in 2000 and now its in hundreds of millions. And she did it without getting prosecuted. I just can't believe that we are so lucky that this kind soul agreed to rule over us and to help us get out of the mess that Bush got us in. I explain all about Friedrich Weimar in my review of Hillary's America, available to view in my signature. I agree that Donald Trump has been selfless to risk reputation damage to his businesses in order to bring America back from insolvency.

Oh, you've got an anecdote. I didn't realize that. Consider your point proven--your ironclad evidence refutes anything I could possibly say. As opposed to conflating causal and correlative effects of formal education? I'm sorry for you that you feel bad enough about yourself to think that you wouldn't have amounted to anything without the government and the education system babying you. Maybe it is true in your case, but I hope not for your sake.

Not me, a fellow Motley Fool writer. :) A huge part of what I accomplished was because of the education system and the support of my government. I wouldn't be even close to where I am without those two things. Thanks goodness those things are there, because pretty well everyone in my country would be so much worse off if they weren't. Richard (the amply brainwashed) That's probably true if you went to school for something you need a license for, otherwise it's probably not. I dropped out of the 4th grade and have done fine, and I don't view myself as an exceptionally bright person.

Hielko's blog is very good. I am upset I did not see it before.

Schooling is a fraudulent transfer of wealth & money laundering scheme from working and wealthy Americans to liberal professors and educators who would otherwise not be capable of making it in the real world. In return, children are brainwashed to support Democrats and Democrat causes. This has been going on for decades. It's no wonder that the higher the level of education, the bigger a Democrat you are likely to be. Anything that takes away from public schools and gives to private or alternative solutions is good by me. I think it's so amazing that everyone is up in arms about the for-profit universities that figured out how to turn a profit off of a corrupt and horribly gamed system, and yet not a peep about the public of universities that provide education to millions of people who will never be able to pay back their student loans. At least the for-profits were honest about their intentions; but, classic Democrats, the real universities didn't want them shining a lot on the industry and figured that sending the Feds after them would be a good way to get competitors' mouths out of the trough at the same time. I have made to sure to vote against all of the funding measures on the California ballot as far as the schools are concerned; if I had my way there would be no money spent on public education. It is a waste that goes to fat cats, pension benefits and what amounts to a giant make-work project.

I think you guys are talking past each other.

WOW! I don't even know where to begin with this one. First you accuse Obama of bankrupting the country. Never mind the fact that when he took over the country was in a full blown financial crisis and now things don't look too bad. But then your cure to all that is to put Trump in charge in order to default on US bonds, which would be literally bankrupting the country. Nice thinking! It is clear to me that your reading comprehension skills are at a rudimentary level. I guess I should expect no less from a Hillary Clinton fan. I clearly said that Obama and Hillary are the cause of the national bankruptcy both here and on my YouTube review of Hillary's America. Donald Trump needs to be the man to clean up their big mess by navigating our own national bankruptcy, just as he has navigated so many bankruptcies of his own. No other candidate in this race knows 1/10th as much about financial restructurings. Not Hillary and certainly not for Gary ALLEPO Johnson.

I'm glad to see that you've watched my Review of Hillary's America and have come to the same conclusion about the fate of the country as I have. The liberals have had 8 years in charge and have nearly bankrupted the country in the process.We need someone with Donald Trump's experience in handling credit negotiations and skill in navigating bankruptcy to manage our impending national debt default that Obama has gotten us into. Donald Trump's skillset is very unique and it is also uniquely tailored to this nasty era in America's history. I don't think Hillary has what it takes to sit across the table from the Chineses and stare them straight in the eye and tell them, your bonds are worth zero and are only good as toilet paper from here on out. Trump has been to the rodeo enough times to be able to get the point across in a way that they'll know who is boss. If I owe $100k the bank owns me, if I owe $100 trillion I own the bank.