Have We Hit The Top?

[SharperDingaan]

5 hours ago, stahleyp said:

Are you like 100% short, dude?

 

Nah - 100% long as always! We just try not to drink much of the latest cool aid.

We're always in a mix of equity/bonds/cash; we just view the components differently. Cash = T-Bills, & mostly BTC/UBS. Bonds = Canada's held to maturity, distressed/zero-coupons, and mortgage repayment. Equities = o/g, utilities, etc. We do nothing; cash/bonds pretty much double by themselves, the gain pays off mortgage, & we're left with our money back plus fully paid off housing that we can easily rent to cover operating costs.

 

Should UBS oblige with a spin-off of the former CS bank branches, our London(UK) redevelopment will be fully paid off, we'll still have all 3 units versus just 2 as originally planned, & there will just be a small tax-bill.

 

However it is only feasible 'cause we have the risk tolerance, and the risk management expertise to do it; and view the whole thing as on par with running a business. As with all business people, we hope to be good at it, and we're not in it for charity. 

 

SD

Edited September 16, 2023 by SharperDingaan

[dealraker]

2 hours ago, Gregmal said:

There is also just kinda that whole “thinking like an owner” thingy. To some I guess it’s natural, to most though I’ve gandered it’s hard to be there, mentally. The drawdowns on money you don’t need aren’t really troubling because I’m enthusiastic about my ownership in great businesses growing 10/20/1000%. Last year wasn’t troublesome at all. It was peaceful and even downright boner inducing being able to buy MSG entities at sub 10x earnings and fractions of a growing NAV. Because IDK Sphere was gonna cost $8b or something dumb. Or Joe at similarly spectacular and exciting metrics because people are land deniers or wanted to make up all these crazy things that were going to happen to one years earnings(which are shaping up to be spectacular).
 

You look at why so many people have done so well in Berkshire and outside of the obvious, and I think it’s because it draws in people who think long term, like owners. They appreciate the good and get giddy about the bad because the bad is where and when the magic happens and the long term value gets amplified. There is this feeling I get that most people have little to no real desire to own a business that trades publicly if they think it will go down 20% in the short term. They show up to a game that is almost 100% certain to be won playing it over the long haul and then on day 2 decide they’re going to guess black or red and then hedge the green zeros. Of course they convince themselves that they don’t always do this, just on exceptional occasions(I’ve over time had to catch myself with this sort thing) but then you realize that there’s always an exceptional scenario or risk in the markets, 100% of the time. 

Yea Greg, my step-sister inherited my step-mom's Berkshire stock.  She lives in Raleigh now with her lawyer husband, children, and grandchildren.  She's 2 years younger than me.  She's flipping out in joyous praise that "we" - that's all of us - that got dad's 100 shares (my part worth less than $5,000 at his death - never sold.  The praise isn't really so applicable to me given I could not sell for nearly two decades (the trust came at age 30) and by then I was off into the la la land of busy and had attained a lifestyle of both knowledge of how to life well cheaply and an understanding of who this Buffett guy was.  But my older siblings, quite a bit older, didn't sell either.  

 

In the end in taxable money if you have good compounding businesses that you don't sell you are literally making many superb decisions all the time, literally constantly, without ever thinking or actually making a decision at all.  Sometimes, or really all the time, others just do not accept this way of seeing it.  But I do.  I am astonished at some of the things that have occurred with holding stocks.  Some here keep telling me that I'd have done better in bonds, yet I inherited $47,000 in 1975 and I get several hundred thousand dollars of dividends on that stuff today?  Then the AJG merger where I guess I could have taken cash and bought bonds, we get $136,000 in div's on that?  And the largest holding is still BRK...that doesn't pay a div at all?

 

Oh my!  Bonds here we come!

Edited September 16, 2023 by dealraker

[dealraker]

I'd love to be able to go back to the (I guess) 1996-1997 or whatever it was time frame and re-connect with all those that were writing on the Berkshire forum at that time.  I'd like to get an honest comparison as to outcome from those blasting in and out of stocks, those buying bonds when things got expensive looking, and those like me that simply posted up their stock holdings and said, "Ain't sellin'."  

 

Some of you might be surprised that on the Berkshire forum back then the least popular individual wasn't those like me posting buy-and-hold (which we normally are the least admired and liked) it was ole Warren Buffett himself.  The insults were near unanimous, the rants of buy drug stock rushed to buy all tech, and the intensity of it all was outrageous.  The "dominant" poster, yea there's always a dominant poster when that like tab is available, was huge into Jack Welch and John Chambers.  This lady manages money independently today, I follow her firm and its results.  Babyb ruled the roost!

 

But that's a sideline to what I'm stating is that the forums, not COBF, just can't fathom long term investing - it simply isn't available to the psyche.  If you state something like, "Well, I've simply held x and y since x year" you'll get two versions of replies.  One is, "So you're some rich guy who..." or "So you claim that..."   But there are a few who do really enjoy the forums who have held stocks for literally decades, they message you, but they don't want to openly disclose their game, it isn't one to gain popularity from.

 

So that Berkshire forum became a day trading "post your boast" of huge claims of successes, and the downturns brought out huge claims of cash.   

 

Time passes...and I wonder.  On a yearly "post and boast" thread I'm always in the bottom bunch.  Never fails.  

 

Rambling.  Off to the Charlotte (that school that doesn't exist) football game to join our Senior great-nephew Pax who will graduate this year and then do the one-year architecture graduate school.  The other child of my sister's daughter and husband, overly religious types who lost their kids from their narrow minded intolerances.

 

Life is great...if you can stand it!  Posting a bunch lately.  On the deck overlooking the lake with Angela (who proof reads me while doing her book club things) and typing away with joy!  

[SharperDingaan]

Long term investing thing. 

 

Almost  everyone will be told they should get on the property ladder; as soon as possible! For the tradesman/handyman that's typically the 'fixer-upper', flipped for a gain, and repeated. For us less gifted, it's typically buy the small house in an appreciating neighborhood, rent/share the place, progressively flip, and repeat. The ultimate goal being ownership of a house that is debt free, some years before retirement. Carry a mortgage, pay it off via forced monthly saving, use gains to accelerate the mortgage burning date.  

 

But ...... propose to pay down that same mortgage via stock-market gains, & you're a heretic! Even though if you simply compounded at an average 12%/yr, your house would be paid off at the end of year 12. [at 12% it's a 2-bag in 6 years, and a 4-bag in 12. A Day1 20% DP, plus a 20% investment that grows to 80% in year 12, pays off the mortgage]. And the better you are at this ... or the luckier, the sooner you can burn the mortgage.

 

Learnt this trick from Greek friends who used their sovereign debt crises to advantage. 250K in 25year zero-coupons, 1.25M purchase of a villa that would normally sell at 4M, and a brutal carry on a 1M mortgage. Yields went their way, the mortgage was repaid 2 years later, & there was enough left over to also buy a celebratory boat. Sadly I'm still mocked for passing on it!  

 

The reality is that the ability to 'apply' vs parrot [the CFA way] is not that common, and those that are good at it whisper. Stray out of the accepted swim lanes, and you will feel pressure; not a bad thing.

 

SD

 

 

Edited September 16, 2023 by SharperDingaan

[thepupil]

10 hours ago, Gregmal said:

This is pretty consistent with what I feel. Bond returns are mediocre based on historical levels. With no shortage of stocks that offer a whole lot more, it’s just hard to even consider them, let alone get excited. But like the virgin nerd who starts making six figures and realizes he can now get laid, initially it’s an exciting new world. 
 

5-7% rates are pretty much normal. We had the housing bubble on the back of these same mortgage rates, following a tech boom/burst, and you can go back even further to see the world existed under these conditions and even higher rates, actually. 
 

Over time too, I’ve found that there’s two types of investors. Ones who can not tolerate volatility and feel like world beaters avoiding drawdowns even if they fail to participate in eventual upside, and then people who just stay the course. During COVID and in 2022 really highlighted this to me. There’s two sides to the coin of “I didn’t lose much” and “I got some really great investments”. They almost always are happening at the same time. And your perspective will really shape everything in terms of your eventual fortunes. If you like something at $100 and are ok with it there, you should be elated if it’s presented at $70 or $40. Not sobbing about “most lost” that you shouldn’t have even needed if you were investing the right way it in the first place. 

@Gregmal , don’t you live off your investments? Or so you have a job? How is your money, “money you don’t need”? 
 

it you’re living off your nut, then volatility and drawdowns have deleterious effect on your wealth and impair capital. 
 

I know I’ve said this before, but you often say things like volatility doesn’t matter, it’s just an opportunity, but then also say “you don’t need that much to retire” or “the 4% rule is bullshit”. In my view it’s completely contradictory. 
 

you either aren’t living off your investments and have other sources of income in which case volatility is a feature not a bug, or you are living off investment in which case volatility and sustained drawdowns impair your capital.

I have a job that pays for the household expenses, but still don’t want to impair capital. I lost about 40% in a month during covid. For me the traumatic part was not the volatility/drawdown itself, but rather how quickly the fundamental outlook of that which I owned changed. What I thought were good investment with a margin of safety were not. I was very poorly positioned. I made some changes and survived and had my best 3 years after it, both relative and absolute, but it absolutely shook my confidence, and am much more diversified now (my Nw is also about 4x as much in nominal terms so that also impacts my thinking).

 

I feel like there are alternative histories where if the fed acted differently, I would have lost a huge amount of my money and been severely underwater on my (at the time) 98% levered house. Instead it all worked out swimmingly. 

 

[Gregmal]

27 minutes ago, thepupil said:

@Gregmal , don’t you live off your investments? Or so you have a job? How is your money, “money you don’t need”? 
 

it you’re living off your nut, then volatility and drawdowns have deleterious effect on your wealth and impair capital. 
 

I know I’ve said this before, but you often say things like volatility doesn’t matter, it’s just an opportunity, but then also say “you don’t need that much to retire” or “the 4% rule is bullshit”. In my view it’s completely contradictory. 
 

you either aren’t living off your investments and have other sources of income in which case volatility is a feature not a bug, or you are living off investment in which case volatility and sustained drawdowns impair your capital.

I have a job that pays for the household expenses, but still don’t want to impair capital. I lost about 40% in a month during covid. For me the traumatic part was not the volatility/drawdown itself, but rather how quickly the fundamental outlook of that which I owned changed. What I thought were good investment with a margin of safety were not. I was very poorly positioned. I made some changes and survived and had my best 3 years after it, both relative and absolute, but it absolutely shook my confidence, and am much more diversified now (my Nw is also about 4x as much in nominal terms so that also impacts my thinking).

 

I feel like there are alternative histories where if the fed acted differently, I would have lost a huge amount of my money and been severely underwater on my (at the time) 98% levered house. Instead it all worked out swimmingly. 

 

Kinda but its complicated. I still have residual business income. Have some private investments that will randomly surprise with a distribution. I have income properties. My wife has a rinky dink W2 for insurance and fun money. I focus on growing the family pile full time. The key is we basically have total discretion with our spending and when necessary could drop it to the bone. All the properties I have are underlevered. So I just dont ever really need to tap into investments and if I do its just not meaningful. Jokingly I mentioned in the other thread a few weeks ago I sold a few JOE shares to pay for Watersound Membership. If we needed a new car or had a big one off Id evaluate financing options and then make a judgment call. If I buy a new property Id probably fund some with an equity sales and most with cash pulled from other properties. But mainly the lifestyle is full funded with minimal need for withdrawal. The investment landscape really determines everything else from where we allocate to how we live. 

 

As to your last sentence, I think you and a lot of smart people really short change yourself thinking like this. Sure, its true in theory. But if you're also a fan of numbers and statistics, if that happened to YOU, given where you fall on the genetically gifted/aptitude/place in the societal bell curve.....I mean how bad would it have to be for everyone else? Other call them top 1-5% folks? All the lesser thans? Let alone the average peasant? And under what scenario would things get that bad, and overall what would the implications be for the rest of the country/world? In other words, I just dont think the system is designed to every allow for, lets say 97% of the population to be totally up a shit creek without a paddle. Call it incentives, call it a bailout, call it whatever, it just doesnt happen. So being afraid of that would kind of be like being afraid of your flight crashing or getting struck by lightning. Even if shits hits the fan, folks that fall into a certain part of the bell curve will end up fine, especially in due time. 

[dealraker]

57 minutes ago, Gregmal said:

Kinda but its complicated. I still have residual business income. Have some private investments that will randomly surprise with a distribution. I have income properties. My wife has a rinky dink W2 for insurance and fun money. I focus on growing the family pile full time. The key is we basically have total discretion with our spending and when necessary could drop it to the bone. All the properties I have are underlevered. So I just dont ever really need to tap into investments and if I do its just not meaningful. Jokingly I mentioned in the other thread a few weeks ago I sold a few JOE shares to pay for Watersound Membership. If we needed a new car or had a big one off Id evaluate financing options and then make a judgment call. If I buy a new property Id probably fund some with an equity sales and most with cash pulled from other properties. But mainly the lifestyle is full funded with minimal need for withdrawal. The investment landscape really determines everything else from where we allocate to how we live. 

 

As to your last sentence, I think you and a lot of smart people really short change yourself thinking like this. Sure, its true in theory. But if you're also a fan of numbers and statistics, if that happened to YOU, given where you fall on the genetically gifted/aptitude/place in the societal bell curve.....I mean how bad would it have to be for everyone else? Other call them top 1-5% folks? All the lesser thans? Let alone the average peasant? And under what scenario would things get that bad, and overall what would the implications be for the rest of the country/world? In other words, I just dont think the system is designed to every allow for, lets say 97% of the population to be totally up a shit creek without a paddle. Call it incentives, call it a bailout, call it whatever, it just doesnt happen. So being afraid of that would kind of be like being afraid of your flight crashing or getting struck by lightning. Even if shits hits the fan, folks that fall into a certain part of the bell curve will end up fine, especially in due time. 

 

1 hour ago, thepupil said:

@Gregmal , don’t you live off your investments? Or so you have a job? How is your money, “money you don’t need”? 
 

it you’re living off your nut, then volatility and drawdowns have deleterious effect on your wealth and impair capital. 
 

I know I’ve said this before, but you often say things like volatility doesn’t matter, it’s just an opportunity, but then also say “you don’t need that much to retire” or “the 4% rule is bullshit”. In my view it’s completely contradictory. 
 

you either aren’t living off your investments and have other sources of income in which case volatility is a feature not a bug, or you are living off investment in which case volatility and sustained drawdowns impair your capital.

I have a job that pays for the household expenses, but still don’t want to impair capital. I lost about 40% in a month during covid. For me the traumatic part was not the volatility/drawdown itself, but rather how quickly the fundamental outlook of that which I owned changed. What I thought were good investment with a margin of safety were not. I was very poorly positioned. I made some changes and survived and had my best 3 years after it, both relative and absolute, but it absolutely shook my confidence, and am much more diversified now (my Nw is also about 4x as much in nominal terms so that also impacts my thinking).

 

I feel like there are alternative histories where if the fed acted differently, I would have lost a huge amount of my money and been severely underwater on my (at the time) 98% levered house. Instead it all worked out swimmingly. 

 

 

Pupil, I'll counter that by stating we actually spend very small amounts of our "money" - that's both investments and income - each year or even over three years.  So much depends on how often you are forced to talley up or keep score.

[Gregmal]

23 minutes ago, dealraker said:

 

 

Pupil, I'll counter that by stating we actually spend very small amounts of our "money" - that's both investments and income - each year or even over three years.  So much depends on how often you are forced to talley up or keep score.

I would also say that if the spending is under control, the “fear of demise” is greatly exaggerated. My parents and a couple friends are perfects examples. They claim they aren’t “scared” but rather “prepared”. Really the two are one and the same to me if the preparedness walks and quacks like a duck. Many financially dependent folks think it’s all about freedom. I agree. But so many of these folks would also view having to get a run of the mill job as wholly unacceptable. For me and the wife, if worst case scenario is the world ends and for a short period of time, one or even both of us have to go get shitty $50k a year jobs to let the investments heal….ok! So what? Even $100k which one can do now driving for UPS, is what? Equivalent to NOI on 7 figures? 

[Gregmal]

A family friend is actually another good example. He was a doomsdayer at heart. But he wasn’t “scared”. He was “preparing”. And every time I saw him for 5 years he was buying gold. He was buying guns. He even spent six figures building a nuke proof bunker at his country house I found out. This was from 2012-2017….

[thepupil]

well I'm not building any bunkers, but our childcare / future education / lifestyle expenditures are probably equivalent to a bunker....the life we choose to lead is expensive which I think constitutes much of our difference in outlook. could move to the hinterlands/make different choices in a pinch, but for now, I'll be moderately drawdown sensitive and keep "preparing". 

I'm definitely one of those people. assuming it'd be available in bad times where everyone wants such a job. being a UPS drivers seems MUCH MUCH more stressful than our current jobs for signficantly less pay. if you google around, it seems quite common for UPS drivers to work 12 hours / day. 

 

 

Edited September 17, 2023 by thepupil

[Gregmal]

29 minutes ago, thepupil said:

well I'm not building any bunkers, but our childcare / future education / lifestyle expenditures are probably equivalent to a bunker....the life we choose to lead is expensive which I think constitutes much of our difference in outlook. could move to the hinterlands/make different choices in a pinch, but for now, I'll be moderately drawdown sensitive and keep "preparing". 

I'm definitely one of those people. assuming it'd be available in bad times where everyone wants such a job. being a UPS drivers seems MUCH MUCH more stressful than our current jobs for signficantly less pay

 

 

 

But then isn’t the answer to just do the current job a few years longer and keep compounding the safest? 
 

My father is a great example that has probably influenced me in ways I don’t even fully appreciate. Made good money as a pre IPO partner at a good financial firm after doing his time at GS. He assumed 5% treasuries minimum forever based on “historical” data and retired in 2005 because his company wanted to relocate him and a couple NEOs to Louisiana to run a spin-off. Said fuck it and basically kept most of the stuff in fixed income and company stock. Company(not spin-off) got crushed in 08, and then he became one of the bitter “fuck the Fed they stole my interest” poster boys the past decade. Devastated from the “drawdown” and refused to go higher than 20% equites because of “fear of loss”. 
 

Granted, he’s definitely ok. No need to feel bad. Just became a super duper cheapskate but eats well and has enough to be comfortable. But guess what happened to the guys who went to Louisiana? Company got bought out in 2011 and all his friends and even underlings made 8 figures! In addition to the six/seven figure salaries and bonus that would have easily compensated for lower rates!

 

So look to each their own. I’ve been stupid enough to learn from the mistakes of others and autistic enough to be comfortable doing things most people are afraid of or deem too risky. If I make a long term investment I view it as such; agnostic to what it does short term unless I wanna double dip. Real estate has been a blessing and one of the things I’ve heard over the years that’s always really resonated was from wise old @thepupil in that real estate is basically a perfect hybrid of stocks and bonds. Without it I’d be an indexer or some piker rooting for higher rates so I get more free money. I just wouldn’t take for granted being young, having a long runway and a top 5% skill set. That’s what enables you to take risk others can’t.

[Gregmal]

I have a ton of friends and family who are doctors or high end medical people. Don’t know why. Just the way it went. Most are younger than me and every one I gave the same advice and everyone has come back and thanked me or told me it was some of the best advice they’d ever gotten despite at the time sounding super risky(a theme in my life, finding things that are safe but seem risky and are thus mispriced like hell). The advice was simply to lever yourself hard while ascending to your mid 30-40s. Everywhere and anywhere it can be done sensibly. Because in your 20s and 30s, $20k, $50k, $100k, even $500k is gonna seem like a lot of money. But by the time it matters and you really start earning what you can reliably expect to earn doing what you do? It’s gonna be peanuts. But the cool thing is you can take these later life peanuts and grow them into entire peanut farms if you start young enough. House, stocks, whatever. Own shit. Skip the starter home crap unless it’s an eventual rental. Buy big houses you plan to raise your kids in and live in for 30 years. Take your comfortable equity allocation and double it. Worst case, as long as you stay within your expected future income range…worst case, unless you’re a moron masquerading as a top 5%er or a drug addict, the cost won’t be more than whatever you woulda wasted the money on when you have your mid life crisis…base case it speeds up retirement and freedom substantially. Best case…..don’t even worry about. It will be glorious.

[SharperDingaan]

Couple of takeaways from the 'risk shop' ....

 

The business ownership approach isn't just the longer term view on the market; business owners see capital and income as interchangeable, Joe Investor typically does not. The owners objective is a healthy/growing business capable of spinning off more profit every year; if the business profit is 500K this year, whatever money taken out as salary/dividends > what is needed to live, is a capital allocation decision. If you decide to live well; your business profit needs to be either a lot higher than 500K, or you are slowly running the business down (sometimes not a bad thing).

 

Volatility is not an issue if you are 'prepared' for it (as you repeatedly hear); 'preparation' takes many forms, but it is fundamentally about access to cash. There's the 'cash' pile, and the 'debt free' assets pile; the first preparatory $ coming from higher debt (tax deductible interest), the last $ coming from the 'cash' pile. There's also the 2nd job/go back to work pile; everyone doing what works best for their risk tolerance/family situation. Hence high quality marginable assets, assumption of a 50% loan-capacity haircut, and a cash pile as 'insurance'. 

 

Occasionally you will encounter the opportunity to step up to the plate. It comes down to doing your numbers, being comfortable with/able to survive the adverse consequences assuming it blows up, and having the strength to 'walk away'. It might suck at the time, but there's often a consolation prize that is nearly as good.

 

Continually do this well & eventually you will run up against the corrosive effects of wealth; if you are against the general concept of 'trust fund babies', you need to give some of it away. It is not charity, it is simply an exchange of monetary for social wealth; the better you can do it, the better your 'exchange rate' will be.

 

So what? Everybody eventually croaks, & you can't take your wealth with you. Hence your 'mission', should you choose to accept it; is to lead a happy/healthy life well past 100, & demonstrate to those behind you, a life well lived. No sweat!

 

SD 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Castanza]

11 hours ago, thepupil said:

I'm definitely one of those people. assuming it'd be available in bad times where everyone wants such a job. being a UPS drivers seems MUCH MUCH more stressful than our current jobs for signficantly less pay. if you google around, it seems quite common for UPS drivers to work 12 hours / day. 

As someone who’s done it I’d find something else. Hours suck and you don’t start till 8:30-9 so that 10-12hr shift hits worse with the home life. Pay and benefits were great for a normal job. Stress is relative and subjective. During 08-09 every banker and financial advisor from here to Timbuktu was shaking like a dog crapping a peach seed. But those Union drivers say pretty. So stress is different pending the macro environment for sure. 
 

But I do get @Gregmal point. I think we share pretty similar frameworks but I’m maybe a bit more risk averse since I paid off my house early. I think Greg is also a bit older than me so probably at different stops on the route; and frankly probably better off/more financially savvy. 
 

Now that my monthly cash flow is less intensive I’ve definitely dialed back the savings requirements, intending to make that money work more for me etc. 

 

Whatever let’s you sleep at night 

[Gamecock-YT]

Pretty sure you aren't getting a driving gig right off the bat too? Usually have to build enough seniority working at the distro center to transfer into a driving gig. And from what I've heard those package stacking jobs suck. 

 

Also don't necessarily need to increase your revenue, can always decrease your expenses. Your dollar can go a helluva way longer in southeast asia or eastern europe. 

Edited September 17, 2023 by Gamecock-YT

[Whensthepaintdry?]

What a great diverse thread! It goes from millionaires talking about decade long holdings to the pluses and minuses of working at UPS! 

[james22]

From a boating forum I frequent:

 

Well after 20+ years of doing this job my body hurts in ways I never thought. it’s not just driving around delivering shoe boxes Like most people think. Covid really changed so many things for us also. Not only because everyone started ordering online, but many of these shippers started putting everything from furniture to appliance to gym equipment into boxes.

people are looking at what our total compensation package is valued at now and thinking that it’s bullshit and that we are way over paid. But another thing they don’t understand is we are the only carrier in the industry that has the production standards that we do, vehical Telematics and safety standards that we have to answer for on a daily basis, and service expectations that’s we do. Believe me when I say we earn our pay and benefits.

as far as what it takes to get to a top scale pay driving position, it really depends on alot of factors. What area you live, what hub you work at, seniority employees ahead of you, job creation, retirees, current volume, ect. Everyone starts at part time and is promoted based on seniority. when I started it at $8.50 an hour it took me about 4 1/2 years to go full time, then another year or so to get top scale pay. There were some guys who waited upwards of 10 years to get promoted .

 

it’s just the way it goes sometime. but nobody is hired as a driver and even if you do start driving within a couple of years you still have a pay progression to go though. What you are seeing on the news as far as us making $49 an hour for top scale drivers is at the 5th year of our new contract. So for those wanting to come work for us with the hopes of getting that right off the bat be ready to be very disappointed

 

https://www.riverdavesplace.com/forums/threads/what-can-brown-do-for-you.272887/#post-4898167

[Castanza]

37 minutes ago, Gamecock-YT said:

Pretty sure you aren't getting a driving gig right off the bat too? Usually have to build enough seniority working at the distro center to transfer into a driving gig. And from what I've heard those package stacking jobs suck. 

 

Also don't necessarily need to increase your revenue, can always decrease your expenses. Your dollar can go a helluva way longer in southeast asia or eastern europe. 

Ratio when I was there was 6 to 1 insiders vs off street hire. 4 years till you hit top pay rate. Worked out well for me and paid for the rest of education. Def wouldn’t want to do it as a career. Every guy there had back surgery, elbow, shoulder, knee you name it. Divorce rate was through the roof. 

 

 

[Gregmal]

Working for UPS was just an off the cuff, half drunk Saturday night example. Bottom line is, especially for a person or family thinking of retiring with kids clearly half or more through their development course, needing for more than $100k pretax means you’re not willing to make sacrifices and if you need to live lavishly and excessively then no shit you need to work more. But if $100k is the number….there’s no reason you should need to draw substantially on your assets, let alone in excess of a reasonable appreciation rate, and if you get to the point where you do, a bullshit no responsibility part time job should more than subsidize it. 

[Gregmal]

Put another way, if you make the pursuit of money or material crap your career, nothing, let alone a job will ever satisfy you. If you value your time and freedom, it’s just a cog that needs to be accounted for the same way, back in the day, hunters and gatherers would just go out and do their thing when necessary but otherwise live simply and enjoyably. 

[Blugolds]

@SharperDingaan Good post above, I agree. "Everybody eventually croaks, & you can't take your wealth with you. Hence your 'mission', should you choose to accept it; is to lead a happy/healthy life well past 100, & demonstrate to those behind you, a life well lived. "

 

I think of all the people I've known personally in my life and really really admired (so nobody from Omaha in this instance).... by any reasonable standard, they didnt have much/any financial wealth. Had nothing to do with what I admired. It can be tricky to remember that sometimes. 

 

I remember reading a book on Andrew Carnegie, at age 33 he wrote a note to himself:

 

Man must have an idol — The amassing of wealth is one of the worst species of idolatry. No idol more debasing than the worship of money. Whatever I engage in I must push inordinately therefore should I be careful to choose the life which will be the most elevating in character. To continue much longer overwhelmed by business cares and with most of my thoughts wholly upon the way to make more money in the shortest time, must degrade me beyond hope of permanent recovery. I will resign business at Thirty five, but during the ensuing two years, I wish to spend the afternoons in securing instruction , and in reading systematically.

 

When a guy has that much wealth (it was staggering)to then be that self aware, I found that impressive. Basically saying making money consumed his life to that point and if he doesnt turn it around hes gonna lose himself. WOW.  With examples from Warren and the excerpt from Carnegie, I think its why I struggle with those ultra wealthy that are making $50-100M/yr, those already Billionaires,  that always want more, even if it means sticking it to their workers,  wages and purchasing power has gone down for the last 4 decades while the gap widens...what does more get you? When you already have more wealth than some countries GDP, you've already "won the game" and secured your own future and that of future generations, how do you transition to making a positive impact in the world? Many at that level I think view political funding/power as a way to push the changes they think need to happen and that takes more money, I think thats the only conclusion I come to, that and human nature that its "never enough". 

 

Stumbled on this video the other day, just thought it was interesting. 

 

 

As for the UPS drivers making $170k/yr. If you look at the data, and the charts/graphs posted in this forum regarding cost of living, wealth gap, purchasing power, income of the avg worker I dont think that $170k is too high for the job, I think that everyone else THINKS its too high because they have been conditioned over the decades to think struggle is normal. I'm happy they are making that much and hope they make more! Them making a decent living isnt the problem, the problem is that the majority in the country arent making a decent living. These arent jobs they got from connections at an Ivy league school, or because of their last name etc. They are blue collar jobs that earn their wages and IMO they deserve it, and so do many others that work/create value that is not reflected in their yearly income (teachers come to mind). 

 

My thinking is "play the game" as a necessary evil (and it can be enjoyable along the way) and when you have enough to be comfortable with a margin of safety, start to focus on other things that are more important with your time, time limited for all of us. Charlie said he never wanted to be wealthy to buy Ferraris, he wanted the freedom, why? Because the time you have in your life with days comprised of what YOU dictate is relatively short, super short for many folks who have to work till they are 70+ Set yourself up and then spend time with family/friends/volunteer/ something positive and enjoyable. If I had a family negatively impacted by my relentless pursuit of more financial assets than needed I would feel like I messed up, and that is time you cant get back, damage would already be done. If that means there is a slight chance that I have to pull the parachute cord and go back to work at some point for an extra margin of safety I'd be ok with that. It's also different I think if you went back to "work" to not have to dip into your savings but you didnt really "need" to work. For instance maybe it isnt UPS, maybe its something fun, maybe you like the outdoors so you get a gig at a sporting goods store, maybe you work at a marine dealership, maybe you find something else that you have an interest in and work doing it to combine making a couple bucks and a hobby at the same time. I did this for a while myself in addition to my normal career. I found a guy in my area that restores antique boats, Chris Craft, Hacker Craft etc all wood boats and after some discussion started working for him on the side. I love every minute of it. I didnt have room for my own woodworking shop, but got my fix for woodworking and the wooden boat scene and made a couple bucks that I just put into more tools. Wasnt even about the money (he paid me way more than I would have taken to do the job) I genuinely enjoy it. Plenty of options out there if you are creative and have a diverse skillset, makes the possibility of an encore less scary. 

 

 

[SharperDingaan]

Quick word, then let the thread resume ....

 

A major issue is the lack of a relevant benchmark/comparable. If you're from another country, & had a life totally different from most all others around you, you're the one-off outlier .... there just aren't any other benchmarks. You take away the best you've seen in various people you've met along the way, & try to adapt it.

 

I learnt brewing/bootlegging in Africa at the feet of an enormous black women, & thoroughly enjoyed the experience. Turned out she was the 'black sheep' of one of the Zulu households; and via her, I got to spend time with one of Africa's more far-sighted Induna's - all while under apartheid, in an extended civil war, with people routinely getting killed everywhere, everyday. As in wars everywhere, time accelerates, & the lessons learnt at the feet of both masters were incredible.

 

Zulu culture celebrates 'bastards', as long as they are 'good at their job' & the cycle of life prevails (limited time engagement); hence the soft spot for the Robber Barons of their time, the friends in low places, etc. Along the way you will invariably meet some of them, the exchange of views raises your game, & you'll learn various 'management' techniques. Again; learning at the feet of masters, all of whom are paying it forward.

 

The take away from all this is that 'wealth' isn't money; it's your relationships with people, & your confidence/ability to make/accept/trust in your own decisions. You need 'wealth' to eat/live; but after that - it's what you choose to do with it. Making money is pretty straight forward; the use of it .... not so much! 

 

Now back to the thread ... and the making of that money!

 

SD

 

 

Edited September 19, 2023 by SharperDingaan

[Spooky]

On 9/16/2023 at 6:58 PM, dealraker said:

Some of you might be surprised that on the Berkshire forum back then the least popular individual wasn't those like me posting buy-and-hold (which we normally are the least admired and liked) it was ole Warren Buffett himself.

 

I love it when this happens and the market narrative is that Buffett is washed up. That's when I try and buy as much as possible. Back during the 2021 craziness a friend of mine of who is an investment banker in the tech industry told me that Buffett and Berkshire were irrelevant. I just look at how everything played out since then and chuckle.

[mcliu]

The economists are starting to do whatever they can to justify not raising rates.

This is like the EBITDA version of CPI lol:

Edited September 19, 2023 by mcliu

[dealraker]

2 hours ago, Spooky said:

 

I love it when this happens and the market narrative is that Buffett is washed up. That's when I try and buy as much as possible. Back during the 2021 craziness a friend of mine of who is an investment banker in the tech industry told me that Buffett and Berkshire were irrelevant. I just look at how everything played out since then and chuckle.

I have to give Andrew Bary credit given he wrote this tongue-in-cheek.  It wasn't just total success vs total collapse, it was jolting beyond imagination what happened slowly but surely almost immediately after this was published.  Buffett vs Welch and Greenberg!

 

 

Edited September 19, 2023 by dealraker