Daniel_Doyce

Theodore Roosevelt documented much of this. He almost went bankrupt as a rancher due to the blizzard and took more than a decade to pay off his creditors. I've read Edmund Morris' biography, but don't have it handy at the moment, but I remember a passage from a boy who remembered the blizzard and the mass death of cattle and bison and the gruesome sight of a plethora of animal carcasses blocking the river when the thaw came.

I dunno man, Gun Nac poops on the chest of Twin Cobra all day. TGL is pretty sweet, but this is about the awesomeness of Gun Nac

Top 100? That's not saying much, even though there are 9 Koei games in the top 10... Right @Reed Rothchild?

It doesn't even seem possible to program on the NES. Gun Nac rocks ass.

I unironically love that song. Christmas music is best enjoyed in short doses. That Paul McCartney song and Do They Know It's Christmas are the worst, though.

Damnit I knew that! Sorry for accidentally besmirching his good name with a suggested Canadian inhabitance!

Is Tupperware "boxes" a Canadian thing? I've always heard them called Tupperware containers or just Tupperware.

Today (Dec 10) is the 200th anniversary of Cesar Franck's birth. He was well-known during his career as one of the best organists alive, and was a highly regarded and influential teacher as the Paris Conservatoire from 1872 until his death. His music wasn't well appreciated during his lifetime, but he's now recognized as one of the greatest 19th century composers. Today I'll listen to his famous Violin Sonata, Symphonic Variations, and the Six Pièces pour Grand Orgue in commemoration of the mutton-chopped "Père Franck", as nicknamed by his beloved circle of students.

Don't have Netflix, so I can't watch the new one, but the Richard Thomas / Ernest Borgnine version from 1979 is really good.

I definitely have moved a lot, mostly due to expat positions for a couple years at a time with spans in the US between them, but lots of people relocate for jobs at least a few times in their lives. Owning a house until the mortgage is paid down in 30 years is more the exception than the rule nowadays, hence the ~8 year average ownership stat. I did own a hours for 7 years at one point, and definitely appreciate the feeling of ownership, so I'll buy again when I retire in a few years and settle down in one place.

Yeah, your original post makes sense if everyone lives in the house they buy for 25-30 years until it's paid off. But that's not the norm at all. As I mentioned, in the US at least, average home ownership time is 5-8 years. So the friction costs of buying/selling/maintenance and paying mostly interest on the mortgage in early years makes it more of a tossup vs. renting. This is also ignoring nightmare scenarios like 2007-2009 where lots of people made bad decisions and got themselves severely underwater on houses that had no business buying. I've moved 7 times in the last 12 years. If I bought a house every time I moved, it would have been a nightmare. That's the "premium of mobility" I'm referring to that renting allows. But a lot of people don't want to have to deal with a landlord, so that's a point in favor of ownership for many. Also, instead of having a tantrum about the mean rich people and evil banks, etc., buy some REIT stock or bank stock and become an investor too.

Renting isn't throwing money away. It buys you the freedom to not have to deal with home maintenance and the premium of mobility if you want to relocate quickly compared to owning a house. Most people drastically underestimate the friction costs of buying / selling / maintaining a property. The average time period of home ownership is 5-8 years, and 5 is about the breakeven point on the friction costs, assuming you sell your property for at least the price you paid for it, which is definitely not guaranteed. The other benefits of home ownership vs. renting are harder to value monetarily. I may buy again once I retire in a couple of years and know I'm definitely going to stay in one place for 30-40 years until I croak, though.

Those are some top notch greens and Brussels sprouts man.

That goes back to my earlier point that if you're not seriously doing a realistic cash flow analysis before buying a rental property to see if the investment is sufficiently profitable or even profitable at all, then it's not going to end well.

Man that looks awesome, but seems like a serious pain in the ass for whichever poor Arby's employee has to assemble all those parts for one stupid sandwich.

What are your specific criteria for evaluating how well it will do?

If you're eating Arby's, then you've already given up. Besides, I find regular soda too sweet and I need a couple of gallons of DC to get through the day

if you're going to eat Arby's, the lamb gyro, 3-4 beef cheddars and a large curly fries and diet coke is the way to go. McRib can suck it

I finally closed a few big positions last week. I feel the housing market is turning so I got out of my mortgage insurance stock at a pretty big profit. Also finally dumped AIG. I'm going to keep it all in cash to make some hopefully strategic decisions when the recession finally comes. I'm going down with the ship on GE. Down a solid 6 figure amount and hoping I can eventually break even if Culp's turnaround eventually bears fruit. ROOT's slow demise is interesting to watch. LMND is doing the same, but more slowly. Despite all the handwaving and flashy apps, Insurtechs aren't immune from negative combined ratios, as the market seems to finally realize.

I don't think I've ever had a McRib. Maybe I should get one. How sweet is the sauce? I like BBQ sauce on the savory side, not like NC-style, which is atrocious, but also not very sugary or generally nasty like Cincinnati chili

derp dupe

You can always sell, but that doesn't mean you'll make a profit off it. Even if you are more sanguine than I am on the current housing market, there are a lot of friction costs involved in selling. It sounds like you really haven't done the math to see if the return on equity makes sense. Cold hard cash flow projections in an Excel spreadsheet are a necessity for real estate investment.

Sounds like a recipe for disaster. Have you looked into REITs? That's a safer way to generate rental income by proxy without all the headaches and lack of diversification implicit in owning properties yourself. This is (IMO) a bad time to buy any real estate. Mortgage delinquencies are going up slightly and higher interest rates all point to house prices going south in the next few years.

I'm impressed. I've tried it a few times and the game doesn't beat me, my old man fingers do. Level 4 or 5 is when I say "no mas." I guess I could play it one level at a time, but that last level is intimidating as hell.

oh sure, just taking all the easy 1 pointers