Jurgis

Color me skeptic. Likely nothing will be done, nothing will be changed, Equifax settles class action for pennies and that's pretty much it. Do you guys really think that govt can push through a reform? Or that credit bureaus + financial companies will try to change the credit check solution voluntarily?

Wouldn't these events be good for pricing over the longer term? There's a thread on that in general forum: http://www.cornerofberkshireandfairfax.ca/forum/general-discussion/hurricane-losses-and-forward-looking-insurance-premiums/ There's also a Barron's article: http://www.barrons.com/articles/harvey-losses-wont-sink-insurers-1504319278 Short answer: not much good for pricing after Harvey; still unknown after Irma.

My drones will contact your drones. 8)

I have played bridge in the past. Not very well. Might be fun to play it again, but don't have time. On the other hand, I'm either too tired to deep think in the evenings or if I'm not tired, then I might as well do investing/work/courses/etc.

I don't have a suggestion. A comment though: you also have to budget/plan for long term care, which is different from health insurance and is also very costly for old people.

The other great thing about working from home is nobody knows how much you are working! You could be up 18 hours working, or 3 hours. Nobody really knows. As long as the work is delivered on-time and in good standing, no problemo! Yea. Basically the idea of work in the US is being horribly twisted and it's making people miserable. The new ideas are also leaking out of your borders and it's also making other people miserable. Fake news! 8) Seriously. OK, I haven't worked in Silly Valley. But I have friends there. Even ones who did startups. Nobody worked 80 hour work weeks. And in the big companies pretty much everyone works 40 hour work weeks, maybe a bit more once in a while. Yeah, I guess there really are companies (startups) where people work 80 hour weeks. Facebook in the past. Tesla/Space-X likely. Yeah, sometimes people overwork and burn out, etc. But most of this is Silly Valley macho myths that are then taken by press as admirable or deplorable depending on the author. Of course, I could also say that I work 80 hours per week if I counted my official work + investing. 8)

My wife works from home full time. I work from home some days (and nights and weekends). I would not want to do it 100% though. Lack of direct contact with colleagues and socialization sucks. But yeah for some this is the way to go. Our company is very spread out and mostly work-at-home friendly. We have people working from home in Alaska, boondocks of Maine, various Euro countries, etc.

Thanks for mentioning this. I was going to write that I'd probably prefer to work 32 hour work weeks and then I forgot it. Like you say that's tough to come by in USA. Perhaps I should move to France... ::) Would I work in my present job if they did not pay me? Good question and tough question. If I could pick any job (for free or for pay), there are jobs a bit more attractive than mine. Not solo, self driven jobs but jobs at companies or universities. Why am I not there then? Not enough motivation, not being fond of banging on doors and interviewing, not being fond of changes, not driven enough, not having enough expertise (see "I wish I spent more time in the office" ;) - yeah, I know this contradicts the 32 hour work week - so sue me 8) ). Yeah, these might sound like excuses and perhaps they are. ./shrug 8) "Retirement" would not solve these though. 8) On the other hand, this question is a bit slippery and misleading. Is it bad if job has partial monetary motivation? Would I or any of you invest if the investment results were just leaderboard/fun/fame/whatever without financial payment? 8) Yeah, some people would still do it - some people do it via games. I wouldn't though. So I'd guess I like investing less than I like my job. ;) Edit: I forgot to mention one other thing. Everything I wrote is subject to change. 20 years ago I would have said something very different, 10 years ago too. It's likely I will say something different in 10 years. If nothing changes, it's boring, no? 8)

Perhaps we should start a new "life and meaning of life" thread... 8) Anyway, frugality/early-retirement/spending-money/meaning-of-life. I mostly could retire if I wanted to. (The "mostly" part is US healthcare system and future implications of it.). I probably would not do it even if it was a sure thing and not "mostly". I don't see what retirement would give me. I already can read/watch-TV/invest/play as much as I'd want. Yeah, sure I would have even more time for these things, but not sure it would change much in my life or make me happier. In terms of contribution to society and this world, I'm probably making more contribution working where I am than striking out on my own and doing investing/whatever. I have very little interest in entrepreneurship. I have in the past done work for non-profits and I prefer arms-length involvement: I might be interested in their goals, but I am not interested in the day-to-day issues of running physical plant, doing fundraising, resolving internal issues, etc. I'd rather work at a company on things that I know how to do and are sometimes/mostly interesting. Yeah, sure there's stress sometimes, but it's like the guy who sold Buffett his company: 360 days a year it's OK and then 5 days a year I'd "sell my company and retire" (or "quit my job and retire"). So far I haven't met my Waterloo (to mix metaphors) and did not quit and retire. I am not super-frugal and I am not super spendthrift. Cars are 14+ years and 5+ years old. House is too big, but nicely located and nice overall. We go out for food once in a week or so. We travel internationally probably once a year (parents are not in US + plus other vacation trips). I buy used books on Amazon if it's cheaper than Kindle. My TV is probably 7 years old by now, but it's 60" plasma... I buy clothes at TJ Maxx and wear them for ages. Anyway, there are things where I spend money and there are things where I don't. I have very little interest in doing the manual work around the house. I fix some things, but I'm not interested in doing MMM type of repairs/etc. We have spent a bunch of money on house fixing/renovations, but possibly way less than some people who renovate constantly at 50K per room/whatever. Overall, we are definitely not super frugal, likely middle of the road. Unlike some would claim, the fact that our salaries are high + investing has resulted in pretty nice "nest egg". And that's considering that we started from zero and started late in our lives. Yeah, $0 at age of 30. Not that this makes me a hero. Infotech salaries are rather obscene (though still quite lower than the WallStreet $2M in 5 years ;) ). Which reminds me. You guys know that saying "Nobody said on the death bed 'I wish I spent more time at the office'"? Well, I wish I spent more time at the office. Maybe I should start a blog about that and get cult following and ... profit! 8) Peace.

Come on. CEO who dresses like a Musketeer, carries a sabre, rides in on a horse and yells "All for one and one for all!". Serious hotness and man crush right there! :-* Can I get his phone number? ::)

I'd guess the difficulty is not finding the cannibals, but rather distinguishing the value building ones from value destroying ones... in foresight and not hindsight.

I'm actually curious about this, because pretty well every time I've seen financial independence discussed on an Internet forum, it has a certain percentage of people violently opposed to the idea, with sound and fury way out of proportion to the topic. I mean, the core idea is to spend money on the things that you consider valuable and will genuinely improve your life, and eliminate expenditures on things that don't meet these criteria. I'm not sure why that would be a controversial idea at all. So where's the anger coming from? Envy? Fear over people choosing to live a different life? Shame that one didn't make the same decisions? A feeling of being judged? I find it fascinating. I think you are way exaggerating "sound and fury way out of proportion to the topic". Even in this topic most discussion was not opposing the idea itself. Most of the discussion was about possible/alleged misrepresentation of some claims and about the proponents of idea ignoring some issues (mostly medical costs in US). The misrepresentation discussion becomes quite heated because both sides feel that they are misrepresented (haha), attacked , etc. Edit: I would agree that both sides get defensive and dismissive about the other side's claims and issues raised. Peace and beautiful retirement. 8)

Is there anything interesting in this book beyond the "platforms"/"ecosystems" vs. products spiel (that I personally find quite old news)? I tried to look inside book on Amazon, but they only give the intro/chapter with worn out Nokia/RIM example... ::)

I would suggest Ad Blocker (ABP?) and Privacy Badger. But maybe Sanjeev is gonna object that I am depriving him from revenues. 8)

For people who cannot (for whatever reasons) do individual stock investing, I often suggest Graham approach for "defensive" investors (chapter 4 of Intelligent Investor): stock/bond portfolio with allocation varying from 75%/25% to 25%/75% based on whatever reasons (valuation/macro/whatever). It's likely that most of these people would be better off with even more restricted Graham: 50%/50% or classical asset allocation 60%/40%. But if someone wants to play with market, the 75/25-25/75 swings may satisfy their hunger for "active investing". (BTW, what the heck you do when both stocks and bonds are overpriced? I guess still the same... 8) ) I don't suggest racemize's 100% stocks, since people who ask for suggestion usually are afraid of stock market (or its valuation) already. Then 100% is just a recipe for either them not listening to me at all or for buy-high-sell-low-never-again disaster IMO. I don't have any results of these suggestions though. I think most people don't listen to me anyway... 8) Personally I have been at ~80/20 since ~2009-2010 or so, with 20 in cash and not bonds most of the time even. Yeah, I think now that I shoulda gone racemize 100% but I can't say I am unhappy with where I was/am. FWIW.

Above thread without any hindsight:

There was a thread on this already and Nate/oddball pretty much said that it varies and it could go from "info freely available to anyone on website" to yours "file papework, sign NDA, get crappy info maybe".

And doesn't this sight pay for the pool? 8) :D I have a bird bath. Does this count?

I haven't read the book, so also not certain what level his comments about were loneliness were either, but I can attest that it can occur at levels of wealth significantly below that. It's probably not simply a function of wealth - i.e. loneliness of having no friends who can afford to do the same things as you (which is something I'm newly starting to experience at levels significantly less than $1). You can also get intellectual loneliness from not having like minded peers to discuss opportunities/investments/businesses etc. with. Hardly any of my friends care about entrepreneurship, running their own businesses, investing, etc. They all think about the world differently and think a lot of what I do is absolutely nuts to them. It actually gets really frustrating sometimes to attempt to discuss these things because it's almost as if we're speaking two different languages - they don't get me and I don't get them. I have about 4 friends that have similar levels of interest in wealth/investing/entrepreneurship/etc. It took me 10+ years to accumulate that many and none are local. Maybe that says something about my networking skills - but, I certainly understand the loneliness trade off from the intellectual capacity. (I have since read the book and the loneliness is barely mentioned there, so I think loneliness discussion should perhaps be moved to a separate thread if it continues). Ah, but what you describe is not a function of wealth. It's a function of ... not being mainstream, perhaps. Plus perhaps being introverted and/or having not great networking skills and/or being busy and/or having family and/or other factors. I can't really say what factors are biggest contributors for you. I agree that finding "true friends" is very hard. Maybe it's not hard for some people, but it is for me. If I guess that you're "not mainstream", then I think I'm probably 4x less mainstream. 8) And I have perhaps 2.5 true friends, one of whom is my wife and another one is non-local which completely sucks. This is not to say that I can only talk to 2.5 people. I can talk to a lot of people. And with some of them I possibly could talk hours and possibly even become closer/truer friends. It's just that somehow that does not happen much/often/enough. And yeah there are also tons of people with whom discussions are mostly boring or not matching my views/interests/etc. And sometimes I think the same way you do "almost as if we're speaking two different languages". I mostly don't try to talk to them about things that they are not interested in or have a strong but possibly completely messed up point of view about. So we end up talking movies at best and weather at worst. Anyway, for me none of the above is caused by my wealth or the wealth of people I talk to. For me the loneliness factor is mostly being non-mainstream (with a lot of interests that separately may not be super rare, but in conjunction end up being quite a tough match against what other people are interested in), being not American (cultural milieu matters a lot IMO), being somewhat introverted (depends on situation), being somewhat stuck up with my opinions/viewpoints, being somewhat antisocial (which is different from being introverted IMO - social/antisocial is more about going way out to set up opportunities to socialize with whatever social circle you socialize with), being busy, being not knowledgeable enough in some topics and not interested in deeper knowledge in other topics. Not wealth at all. Maybe you feel differently and you think that wealth is a factor of loneliness for you. BTW, from the book Felix seemed to have had at least 4+ friends, so ... par for the course? 8) Take care 8)

Isn't Rocketfinancial another alternative to Dataroma?

It is sad when a Harvard educated person spends their time on clickbait blog. But I guess that's their choice. ::)

In Fortune's Formula (page 322-325 hardcover) there's a story of Ed Thorp's crowd making multimillions in sports (horce racing mostly) in 1980s using stats and Kelly. Not clear if inefficiencies are still there on large scale. Like the author says, if someone finds inefficiency that can make millions they are smart not to talk about it. 8)

OTOH, even if you have self-driving trucks, the likely transportation model will be something like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RORO for long distance onto BNSF and then self-drive remaining shorter distance. Why not?

Yes, that too. For us, grocery stores have some moat: 1. Closest supermarket - geographical moat as long as they have reasonably wide selection and there's not a second one within <3-5 minutes drive. (That's currently the situation for me.) 2. Trader Joe's, Wegman's, Russian store, H-mart - specific item moat. "Can't get this stuff in local supermarket and/or the other stores in the list" But moat-for-me is not moat-for-everyone. Other people have their own preferences and for them grocery chains might not have moats. 8) Currently WFM does not even list in my grocery shopping.

We haven't shopped at Whole Foods for ages, but I think we gonna go there to check it out once they have Prime discounts. Not that this gonna somehow crush our usual grocery shopping, so... ::) Disclaimer: I don't invest in grocery chains or much retail. We have tiny positions in AMZN and TJX.