Have We Hit The Top?

[John Hjorth]

3 minutes ago, RedLion said:

... I think our bigger problem right now is that the entire younger generation want to be influencers rather than pickup any of the highly paid trades right in front of them.  ...

 

@RedLion, this one is almost killing me!  - Here you have the palmes for the post of this week : 

[fareastwarriors]

17 minutes ago, RedLion said:

I think our bigger problem right now is that the entire younger generation want to be influencers rather than pickup any of the highly paid trades right in front of them. 

 

Where are the parents in all this? Most of my family are in construction, mainly residential. None of them want their kids in construction. They rather their kids work at a mall in a clean environment and make minimum wage than work in their own line of work.  They are almost all sending their kids to college instead of having them come join the trade. For the non-college route, those "kids" are mostly chilling at home.

 

None of them doing bad either. Pretty much everyone is making $100k+ in mostly cash/checks but none of their kids are even close to a construction site.

[ValueArb]

12 hours ago, bargainman said:

 

Well there's all sorts of jobs that have been created that one would never have even imagined.  would you believe there are people making millions of dollars getting a ball and running it to the end of a field?  and then there's also people making not quite as many million dollars trying to stop those people from getting the ball to the end of the field   heck there's even folks making millions of dollars playing video games!   And get this, there are people travelling around the world living like royalty,  making their living by telling others how ...   They travel the world living like royalty for under 50K/year.   I mean I'm not even kidding.  https://www.youtube.com/@GroundedLifeFinances/videos

 

Anyway with regards to someone's comment about dermatologists,  I read somewhere of that the main medical body of the USA  very specifically limits supply  because they don't want too many doctors  because of well you can imagine...   Supply demand right? 

 

There also seems to be an undercurrent ifyounger folks leaving the us a for  some of the european countries because they are tired of the work work work culture and would rather work to live than live to work.         

 

There are 500 men in the US who are paid $200K a year to just practice with the 1,200 men who dress for game days in the NFL. Then there are 3,000 people who work as trainers, coaches, medical, front office and support staff for those teams, at very high median salaries. Then there is the NFL itself, with thousands of other high paying jobs organizing and managing games, broadcasts, operations, drafts, etc including 120 full time refs making $200k/year. And that's just a single sport.

 

Anyone who tries to simplify the US economy down to Finance, Tech and the rest bullshit service jobs is doing it to avoid dealing with the real complexity and strength of our economy. If I stood by the bathroom line at our local NBA games, and asked the men in line what they did for a living, I guarantee I'd find out about a number of jobs that I'd never heard of before, and some making insane amounts of money. Of the friends I know who have become wealthy, they all did it in incredibly different ways.

 

1) Placing and caring for plants at offices and restaurants, employs 40-50 people from account managers to accounting.

2) An SaaS that insurance agents use to reduce the work of bidding out small business medical coverage by many hours, created a half dozen jobs.

3) A mobile apps company that securely stores passwords and other private information on your phone/computer, created about a dozen jobs.

4) Another mobile apps company that securely stores passwords and other private information on your phone/computer. Parlayed that into a mobile software development company where he hired 30 people. 

5) Studied to be a chiropractor, pivoted to mortgage broker, built an office where he employed a half dozen brokers working for him (until the market collapsed), along the way poured all the profits into buying single family homes to rent and now owns 30 of them.

6) Specialized into product marketing, led key marketing initiatives at various tech firms until he retired as head of mobile at Ebay.

7) Bought a ranch in Colorado with money he made as a male stripper in Vegas and started mining aggregates from it making him many millions of dollars and bought a five million dollar home in Scottsdale he flys back and forth to on his private plane.

8 ) Moved to Phoenix as a bricklayer to get away from cold Detroit, he and his wife saved every penny until they could buy his own property, used the income to buy more properties, died at 86 owning a good amount of downtown Sedona, Arizona. 

9) CFO for tech companies, was the key man in getting a very important one sold for $20M before it went bankrupt (thank you forever Doug), took over as CFO for a Healthcare VC where he added value to every single investment they made by helping them manage costs and investments intelligently, retired to live in a massive home on top of a mountain overlooking downtown Bend Oregon while he fly fishes every day.

10) Led marketing teams at tech startups, when his last one was sold he started his own to sell organisational tools to Mac and iPhone users, creating about a dozen jobs.

11) Took bets as an illegal bookie for decades making millions. Stiffed other friends of mine for hundreds of thousands when he realized they were sharps.

12) Parlayed a few thousand dollars into roughly one million by playing poker, and arbitraging other opportunities in NFTs, sports cards, etc.

13) Parleyed a few thousand dollars into at least a half million by playing poker, ended up playing at the highest levels in Bobby's Room, then rolled it all into creating a startup to sell healthy breakfast drinks where he just raised $20M. Employs over 100 people now in production, marketing, testing and foods research.

14) Made hundreds of thousands of dollars playing poker, when boom faded he took a web development bootcamp, now makes six figures in web development.

 

Obviously these people are all well above the median in terms of income. But some of them have also created a lot of six figure jobs. 

[thepupil]

@ValueArb damn...I'm really very boring. 

[changegonnacome]

 

 

 

 

Kuppy and El-Erian on the same page......feels like a one legged black cat crossing the road or something

 

Short version is I probably agree with them both - we are entering the last mile and its full of sticky goo....in a election year no less....very curious to see how it plays out.

 

Edited January 12 by changegonnacome

[brobro777]

Prices of eggs and used Toyotas in southern California are not falling anymore

 

Uh oh

[Gregmal]

People still thought COVID was a big deal in late 2021 as well. Knowing when the keg is kicked is an underrated skill set. 

[Spekulatius]

19 minutes ago, Gregmal said:

People still thought COVID was a big deal in late 2021 as well. Knowing when the keg is kicked is an underrated skill set. 

On to the next calamity.

My wife told me flu season is pretty bad. Nurses have to wear masks again.

[Gregmal]

All throughout the last 12-18 months we heard about how much trouble the market was in; supposedly because it was detached from reality with a recession “already underway” with the only thing holding it together being the “hopium” that there would be rate cuts. And how expensive everything was, and how everyone is “asleep at the wheel” because we “better listen to Powell” when he says there won’t be rate cuts this year. And there weren’t any rate cuts in 2023 and everything did fine anyway. 

[mattee2264]

I don't think the Fed really care about the last mile. Financial stability and getting Biden re-elected (so Powell keeps his job) are more important priorities. 

Although I do expect them to start QE again before they start cutting rates. 

 

Also the Fed have already covered themselves by saying that the path to 2% will be "lumpy and bumpy" so they will continue to focus on the past trend of disinflation and will only consider raising rates when the cat is out of the bag again. 

 

But I agree that 2024 is likely to see higher inflation. The economy is resilient and consumers keep spending and the fiscal impulse continues to add fuel to the fire and the Democrats will do everything they can to pump up the economy pre-election. Everyone is hoping for a big wage increase in 2024 and while there are some layoffs especially in technology they aren't on a sufficient scale that workers feel happy just to keep their job and accept whatever crappy pay increase they receive. All the conflict in the world is going to cause supply chain issues. Shipping costs already are rocketing. And if China shows any signs of recovering then commodity prices will take off. 

 

As I said Big Tech and long bonds are probably not where you want to be. Commodities, cyclicals and value and small stocks might do very well especially if you believe there will be no-landing or a take-off. 

 

 

[bargainman]

On 1/12/2024 at 1:28 PM, Spekulatius said:

On to the next calamity.

My wife told me flu season is pretty bad. Nurses have to wear masks again.

Yup wastewater is showing covid high spikes again.  Lots of friends and coworkers sick all over.

[bargainman]

On 1/12/2024 at 9:06 AM, ValueArb said:

 

There are 500 men in the US who are paid $200K a year to just practice with the 1,200 men who dress for game days in the NFL. Then there are 3,000 people who work as trainers, coaches, medical, front office and support staff for those teams, at very high median salaries. Then there is the NFL itself, with thousands of other high paying jobs organizing and managing games, broadcasts, operations, drafts, etc including 120 full time refs making $200k/year. And that's just a single sport.

 

Anyone who tries to simplify the US economy down to Finance, Tech and the rest bullshit service jobs is doing it to avoid dealing with the real complexity and strength of our economy. If I stood by the bathroom line at our local NBA games, and asked the men in line what they did for a living, I guarantee I'd find out about a number of jobs that I'd never heard of before, and some making insane amounts of money. Of the friends I know who have become wealthy, they all did it in incredibly different ways.

 

1) Placing and caring for plants at offices and restaurants, employs 40-50 people from account managers to accounting.

2) An SaaS that insurance agents use to reduce the work of bidding out small business medical coverage by many hours, created a half dozen jobs.

3) A mobile apps company that securely stores passwords and other private information on your phone/computer, created about a dozen jobs.

4) Another mobile apps company that securely stores passwords and other private information on your phone/computer. Parlayed that into a mobile software development company where he hired 30 people. 

5) Studied to be a chiropractor, pivoted to mortgage broker, built an office where he employed a half dozen brokers working for him (until the market collapsed), along the way poured all the profits into buying single family homes to rent and now owns 30 of them.

6) Specialized into product marketing, led key marketing initiatives at various tech firms until he retired as head of mobile at Ebay.

7) Bought a ranch in Colorado with money he made as a male stripper in Vegas and started mining aggregates from it making him many millions of dollars and bought a five million dollar home in Scottsdale he flys back and forth to on his private plane.

8 ) Moved to Phoenix as a bricklayer to get away from cold Detroit, he and his wife saved every penny until they could buy his own property, used the income to buy more properties, died at 86 owning a good amount of downtown Sedona, Arizona. 

9) CFO for tech companies, was the key man in getting a very important one sold for $20M before it went bankrupt (thank you forever Doug), took over as CFO for a Healthcare VC where he added value to every single investment they made by helping them manage costs and investments intelligently, retired to live in a massive home on top of a mountain overlooking downtown Bend Oregon while he fly fishes every day.

10) Led marketing teams at tech startups, when his last one was sold he started his own to sell organisational tools to Mac and iPhone users, creating about a dozen jobs.

11) Took bets as an illegal bookie for decades making millions. Stiffed other friends of mine for hundreds of thousands when he realized they were sharps.

12) Parlayed a few thousand dollars into roughly one million by playing poker, and arbitraging other opportunities in NFTs, sports cards, etc.

13) Parleyed a few thousand dollars into at least a half million by playing poker, ended up playing at the highest levels in Bobby's Room, then rolled it all into creating a startup to sell healthy breakfast drinks where he just raised $20M. Employs over 100 people now in production, marketing, testing and foods research.

14) Made hundreds of thousands of dollars playing poker, when boom faded he took a web development bootcamp, now makes six figures in web development.

 

Obviously these people are all well above the median in terms of income. But some of them have also created a lot of six figure jobs. 

 

Ha that's a great list.  Years ago I read that the entertainment industry was the USA's greatest export, more so than manufacturing.

 

I know lots of rich people but lots of poor and struggling folks as well, so I never take things for granted.  We are all fortunate to have time and money to invest.

 

I think a big challenge will be just the mathematical nature of inequality.  Once you have 10 million, you can can sit on your butt all day and just earn about a million a year for doing nothing.  The next year it's 1.1 million and onwards.  Got a billion?  ok, you earn 100 million a year for sitting around.. and so on.  You can claim that those folks might build jobs but I don't think that always happens especially for passive investors.  But time will tell how this shakes out.

 

I agree about the dirty jobs/construction jobs.  I was just talking with folks in Vancouver about how hard it is to find trades people, plumbers, electricians etc.  No one wants to do those jobs apparently, and the ones who do only want the big contracts with large construction projects.  It'll be tough to automate those things with robots etc....

[Dinar]

@bargainman, actually the math is worse than you say.  Say you have a $10MM portfolio, say you make a million a year.  You can NOT spend a million a year.  First, assuming that you live in CA/NY/NJ where most of these people live, you only have $500K post tax.  Even if all income is long term capital gains, tax burden is 35% (assuming no job) and hence $650K post tax.  $300K needs to be redeployed into the portfolio to keep up with inflation.  So you can spend $350K per annum.  Not bad, but hardly rich, and if you have a family in say NYC, you cannot afford luxuries once you spend $50K on health insurance (since neither of the parents work) and housing is another $150-$200K per annum.  So yes, a retired couple in Pennsylvania is rich with a $10MM portfolio, but a young family cannot retire in NYC or even suburbs on a $10MM portfolio assuming a 10% return.  (A house in a nice suburb of NYC can easily run you 1.5MM with a $35-50K annual property tax.)  

[TwoCitiesCapital]

8 hours ago, Dinar said:

@bargainman, actually the math is worse than you say.  Say you have a $10MM portfolio, say you make a million a year.  You can NOT spend a million a year.  First, assuming that you live in CA/NY/NJ where most of these people live, you only have $500K post tax.  Even if all income is long term capital gains, tax burden is 35% (assuming no job) and hence $650K post tax.  $300K needs to be redeployed into the portfolio to keep up with inflation.  So you can spend $350K per annum.  Not bad, but hardly rich, and if you have a family in say NYC, you cannot afford luxuries once you spend $50K on health insurance (since neither of the parents work) and housing is another $150-$200K per annum.  So yes, a retired couple in Pennsylvania is rich with a $10MM portfolio, but a young family cannot retire in NYC or even suburbs on a $10MM portfolio assuming a 10% return.  (A house in a nice suburb of NYC can easily run you 1.5MM with a $35-50K annual property tax.)  

 

Hardly rich? After tax, you're still spending 5x what the average FAMILY takes home in a year (pre-tax) while you're passively sitting around. 

 

I think we need to redefine rich in this country. If you don't think you're rich while passively earning 350k, I think you're completely out of touch with the average person and what life is like for them. 

Edited January 14 by TwoCitiesCapital

[Sweet]

lol, I did smile at spending $350k a year and not thinking you’re rich comment Dinar.

 

I wouldn’t even know how to spend $350k a year, most of it would just be invested again I reckon.

[Luca]

On 1/12/2024 at 5:51 PM, John Hjorth said:

 

@RedLion, this one is almost killing me!  - Here you have the palmes for the post of this week : 

 

[Luca]

9 hours ago, Dinar said:

 A young family cannot retire in NYC or even suburbs on a $10MM portfolio assuming a 10% return.  (A house in a nice suburb of NYC can easily run you 1.5MM with a $35-50K annual property tax.)  

Speak miles about what an insane bubble that area is. 

 

Not rich with 1m a year passive income, with that you are far above the 99th percentile earner, top 0.5% and still can not retire! 

 

Maybe 2m people in the whole US make that much or more, 8m people live in new york so yeah, there is of course a highly concentrated collection of very wealthy people and well paid managers. 

Edited January 14 by Luca

[Dinar]

34 minutes ago, TwoCitiesCapital said:

 

Hardly rich? After tax, you're still spending 5x what the average FAMILY takes home in a year (pre-tax) while you're passively sitting around. 

 

I think we need to redefine rich in this country. If you don't think you're rich while passively earning 350k, I think you're completely out of touch with the average person and what life is like for them. 

Given that I came to this country penniless at the age of 13, and worked as a garbage man in college to pay bills, and know quite a few people who live on less than $40K a year today, I have a feeling that I am in touch with reality. 

I do not know where you take your family income statistics from, but I would be shocked if they were accurate.  I highly doubt that the statistics account for cash income, which for many people double or more their reported income, as well as government transfers.  You cannot imagine how many nannies in NYC, Boston, DC & LA/San Fran who make $50-$80K per year in cash and report zero income.  Barbers that take cash only.  A guy runs a neighborhood barbershop in Staten Island, makes $5K a week cash, how much do you think he reports?  A neighborhood fruit stand clears $600K in cash revenue, and roughly $300K per year in cash income, what do you think this guy reports?  Dog walkers, waiters, bartenders, tradesmen - electricians, carpenters, plumbers, and the list goes on.  Similarly, how do you account for welfare, Medicaid - worth 10-50K per year, Section 8 housing, food stamps, free cell phone, broadband, gas/electricity, and the list goes on.

You clearly do not take into account regional differences.   In NYC, where there are plenty of unskilled jobs paying $25 per hour, a two adult household is hard pressed not to receive $100K per annum income if both adults work 40 hours per week, 50 weeks a year.  A non-union doorman gets paid $55K a year in NYC, plus another $10k per year in cash.  I am sure that the situation is different in rural Pennsylvania, and it is hard to find an unskilled job for $20 per hour.  

Similarly, there is a difference in cost of living by region.  When a rent for a 3 bedroom apartment in Manhattan in a safe neighborhood starts at $9K per month, utilities are another $600 a month (that includes gas, electric, internet, cell phones) and medical insurance for a family is call it $50K per year, and shopping bill at Costco is $2000 a month for a family of six (the wife cooks), kids clothes and shoes that have to be replaced monthly, pray tell me how $350K per year to spend in Manhattan with a family of six is rich.  It is in Kansas.  It is in Boca Raton.  It is not in Boston, Manhattan/Brooklyn Heights, San Fran.   

Passively sitting around is very hard.    I did not know that making 10% per year on your investments was so easy.  I wonder why the entire country just doesn't do it?  Actually, it is quite difficult to do, at least for me.    I have been investing since 1994, and I can tell you that I have compounded at around 18% per annum.  To say that this was easy would be a complete lie.  It was hard to sit in the market in 1994 invested in Mexican stocks and see a 90% drop in the Bolsa and not to sell.  It was hard not to be scared in fall of 2008 and spring of 2009.  Really hard not to panic in 2020.   It was hard to be long Tel Aviv stock exchange on October 7th and not panic.  But damn, I admire your balls of steel.

Perhaps we have a different definition of rich.  For me,  it is not just being able to put food on the table, provide a roof, and medical insurance.  It includes being able to live in a nice apartment where every kid has his/her own bedroom, pay for enrichment classes for kids, being able to take kids on vacation twice year and fly business class, being able to keep a car in Manhattan, being able to go to nice restaurants once a week, being able to go to opera/ballet/Carnegie hall/jazz club once a week, to send kids to private school in Manhattan, being able to gift a nephew a trip to African Safari for his 18th birthday, being able to help friends/relatives in their hour of need.  You can NOT do this on $350K per annum in Manhattan.  This lifestyle is $700K+ after-tax per annum in Manhattan.  

 

[Dinar]

1 hour ago, Sweet said:

lol, I did smile at spending $350k a year and not thinking you’re rich comment Dinar.

 

I wouldn’t even know how to spend $350k a year, most of it would just be invested again I reckon.

When I was 24, single and living in Manhattan, I spent $20K per annum, and could not comprehend how senior colleagues would complain about not being able to make ends meet on $200K a year.  The difference, aside from the fact that I was and am very frugal, was family.  They had it, and I did not.  Kids and wife tend to be very, very expensive in Manhattan.

[Gregmal]

Well the other issue is, and I dont mean to offend anyone cuz I have plenty of friends in Manhattan, but like WTF are you still doing in Manhattan at that point? Theres plenty of more appropriate and safe places to raise a family that are within 50 miles of NYC. So if things are tight on that income, its kinda your own fault. 

[Dinar]

1 hour ago, Luca said:

Speak miles about what an insane bubble that area is. 

 

Not rich with 1m a year passive income, with that you are far above the 99th percentile earner, top 0.5% and still can not retire! 

 

Maybe 2m people in the whole US make that much or more, 8m people live in new york so yeah, there is of course a highly concentrated collection of very wealthy people and well paid managers. 

Luca, I guarantee you that there a lot of people with plenty of cash flow which is not considered taxable income.  Real estate is a perfect example.  

[Dinar]

8 minutes ago, Gregmal said:

Well the other issue is, and I dont mean to offend anyone cuz I have plenty of friends in Manhattan, but like WTF are you still doing in Manhattan at that point? Theres plenty of more appropriate and safe places to raise a family that are within 50 miles of NYC. So if things are tight on that income, its kinda your own fault. 

You are not offending anyone.  It is a very good question, and yes, 100% my fault, and nobody else's.  

[TwoCitiesCapital]

52 minutes ago, Dinar said:

Given that I came to this country penniless at the age of 13, and worked as a garbage man in college to pay bills, and know quite a few people who live on less than $40K a year today, I have a feeling that I am in touch with reality. 

I do not know where you take your family income statistics from, but I would be shocked if they were accurate.  I highly doubt that the statistics account for cash income, which for many people double or more their reported income, as well as government transfers.  You cannot imagine how many nannies in NYC, Boston, DC & LA/San Fran who make $50-$80K per year in cash and report zero income.  Barbers that take cash only.  A guy runs a neighborhood barbershop in Staten Island, makes $5K a week cash, how much do you think he reports?  A neighborhood fruit stand clears $600K in cash revenue, and roughly $300K per year in cash income, what do you think this guy reports?  Dog walkers, waiters, bartenders, tradesmen - electricians, carpenters, plumbers, and the list goes on.  Similarly, how do you account for welfare, Medicaid - worth 10-50K per year, Section 8 housing, food stamps, free cell phone, broadband, gas/electricity, and the list goes on.

You clearly do not take into account regional differences.   In NYC, where there are plenty of unskilled jobs paying $25 per hour, a two adult household is hard pressed not to receive $100K per annum income if both adults work 40 hours per week, 50 weeks a year.  A non-union doorman gets paid $55K a year in NYC, plus another $10k per year in cash.  I am sure that the situation is different in rural Pennsylvania, and it is hard to find an unskilled job for $20 per hour.  

Similarly, there is a difference in cost of living by region.  When a rent for a 3 bedroom apartment in Manhattan in a safe neighborhood starts at $9K per month, utilities are another $600 a month (that includes gas, electric, internet, cell phones) and medical insurance for a family is call it $50K per year, and shopping bill at Costco is $2000 a month for a family of six (the wife cooks), kids clothes and shoes that have to be replaced monthly, pray tell me how $350K per year to spend in Manhattan with a family of six is rich.  It is in Kansas.  It is in Boca Raton.  It is not in Boston, Manhattan/Brooklyn Heights, San Fran.   

Passively sitting around is very hard.    I did not know that making 10% per year on your investments was so easy.  I wonder why the entire country just doesn't do it?  Actually, it is quite difficult to do, at least for me.    I have been investing since 1994, and I can tell you that I have compounded at around 18% per annum.  To say that this was easy would be a complete lie.  It was hard to sit in the market in 1994 invested in Mexican stocks and see a 90% drop in the Bolsa and not to sell.  It was hard not to be scared in fall of 2008 and spring of 2009.  Really hard not to panic in 2020.   It was hard to be long Tel Aviv stock exchange on October 7th and not panic.  But damn, I admire your balls of steel.

Perhaps we have a different definition of rich.  For me,  it is not just being able to put food on the table, provide a roof, and medical insurance.  It includes being able to live in a nice apartment where every kid has his/her own bedroom, pay for enrichment classes for kids, being able to take kids on vacation twice year and fly business class, being able to keep a car in Manhattan, being able to go to nice restaurants once a week, being able to go to opera/ballet/Carnegie hall/jazz club once a week, to send kids to private school in Manhattan, being able to gift a nephew a trip to African Safari for his 18th birthday, being able to help friends/relatives in their hour of need.  You can NOT do this on $350K per annum in Manhattan.  This lifestyle is $700K+ after-tax per annum in Manhattan.  

 

 

I do take all of that into account. The median of 70k in household income does for me. 

 

If you want to take into consideration regional differences, the median income in the Midwest is probably closer to 50k. 

 

And as someone who lived in NYC for 7 years, you can do VERY, VERY well on 350k post-tax. Especially if it's passive. I did well on significantly less pre-tax. 

 

There's definitely something wrong with the barometer if 350k in post-tax, passive income doesn't register as wealthy. It literally puts you in the top 1-2% of people and you're not even working for it....

Edited January 15 by TwoCitiesCapital

[RedLion]

350k is fine if you already own a home but good luck buying one in a hcola without that type of income. 

[Dinar]

18 minutes ago, TwoCitiesCapital said:

 

I do take all of that into account. The median of 70k in household income does for me. 

 

If you want to take into consideration regional differences, the median income in the Midwest is probably closer to 50k. 

 

And as someone who lived in NYC for 7 years, you can do VERY, VERY well on 350k post-tax. Especially if it's passive. I did well on significantly less pre-tax. 

 

There's definitely something wrong with the barometer if 350k in post-tax, passive income doesn't register as wealthy. It literally puts you in the top 1-2% of people and you're not even working for it....

You clearly take nothing into account, since you accept government statistics that have nothing to do with reality at face value.  

You lived in Manhattan (in the past 5 years) with four kids and you spent less than $350K per year in a nice apartment, kids in good schools, nice travel, etc?  Care to share the budget?  I know a lot of people in my kids' public school who would like to know your secret.  I know people who live in Manhattan with four kids on $100K post-tax, but they sure as hell don't describe their lifestyle as luxurious (6 people in a 700 sq foot 2 bdr apartment.)

Again, you are telling me that making 10% year in year out in investment returns is not working?  What % of the population actually achieves that?  One other thing, since there are drawdowns, and sequence of returns matters, clearly your investment returns need to be higher than 10%.  Again, how do you achieve that by literally doing nothing?  Again, I'd like to know how I can make a guaranteed 10% per year not working, thank you.