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by Pointedstick
Sun Feb 09, 2025 2:34 pm
Forum: Other Discussions
Topic: Harry Dent: ‘Crash of a Lifetime’ Coming in 2024
Replies: 32
Views: 116298

Re: Harry Dent: ‘Crash of a Lifetime’ Coming in 2024

Stepping back, deflation is really just a decline in demand for something relative to its supply. In general supply and demand are elastic and adjust to one another, one needs to be less elastic than the other. Food is something whose demand is quite inelastic, since there's only so much food people...
by Pointedstick
Sun Feb 09, 2025 2:14 pm
Forum: Other Discussions
Topic: Harry Dent: ‘Crash of a Lifetime’ Coming in 2024
Replies: 32
Views: 116298

Re: Harry Dent: ‘Crash of a Lifetime’ Coming in 2024

At least according to https://dqydj.com/average-median-top-income-by-age-percentiles, the median income doesn't materially change between age 35 and 65. However 65 year-olds have had decades more to accumulate wealth, so they're certainly richer on average than younger folks. Therefore I would expec...
by Pointedstick
Sun Feb 09, 2025 12:48 pm
Forum: Other Discussions
Topic: Harry Dent: ‘Crash of a Lifetime’ Coming in 2024
Replies: 32
Views: 116298

Re: Harry Dent: ‘Crash of a Lifetime’ Coming in 2024

As I wrote, global birth rates are dropping, but global population continues to rise, and that's what matters. More people means more demand, which is inflationary. The fact that the rate of "more people" growth itself is falling only means that this inflationary pressure is less inflation...
by Pointedstick
Sat Feb 08, 2025 11:00 am
Forum: Other Discussions
Topic: Harry Dent: ‘Crash of a Lifetime’ Coming in 2024
Replies: 32
Views: 116298

Re: Harry Dent: ‘Crash of a Lifetime’ Coming in 2024

To me it does not look like the world is deflationary. What I see is that every relevant metric is still going up practically everywhere: population, GDP, per capita income, per capita consumption, per capita number of vehicle miles travelled, and so on. What's not going up is average number of babi...
by Pointedstick
Thu Feb 06, 2025 11:46 pm
Forum: Other Discussions
Topic: Harry Dent: ‘Crash of a Lifetime’ Coming in 2024
Replies: 32
Views: 116298

Re: Harry Dent: ‘Crash of a Lifetime’ Coming in 2024

For posterity's sake, this is how VTI did in 2024:

Image
by Pointedstick
Wed Jan 29, 2025 10:28 pm
Forum: Other Discussions
Topic: How the money system actually works
Replies: 2
Views: 672

How the money system actually works

Apropos of https://www.gyroscopicinvesting.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=255997#p255997, which I kind of hijacked that thread with, I was forwarded this video and thought it did a pretty decent job of explaining how things actually work today: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RygikaUoRU4 The just-so stor...
by Pointedstick
Tue Jan 28, 2025 10:49 am
Forum: Other Discussions
Topic: Good summary of Passive Investing
Replies: 2
Views: 860

Re: Good summary of Passive Investing

Lots of countries do have a tax treaty with the USA though. A list can be found at https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-lbi/tax-treaty-table-3.pdf, and you can read their text at https://www.irs.gov/businesses/international-businesses/united-states-income-tax-treaties-a-to-z. Having done so recently for eigh...
by Pointedstick
Mon Jan 20, 2025 4:03 pm
Forum: Bonds
Topic: Moving up to 4.9%
Replies: 120
Views: 18043

Re: Moving up to 4.9%

In the end I have to admit that my perspective is mostly based on my own observations, and any 3rd-party sources I can provide are mostly after-the-fact rationalizations offering support for what I already concluded. I don't have the ability or desire to defend them. Mostly I think the economy is re...
by Pointedstick
Sun Jan 19, 2025 11:55 am
Forum: Bonds
Topic: Moving up to 4.9%
Replies: 120
Views: 18043

Re: Moving up to 4.9%

Thanks for the reading materials. Sadly, I don’t think we have a reasonably representative government. You're welcome. I'll probably be right there with you on subjects like gerrymandering and term limits (and maybe money-in-politics as well?), but personally I feel like our government is quite rep...
by Pointedstick
Sun Jan 19, 2025 10:57 am
Forum: Bonds
Topic: Moving up to 4.9%
Replies: 120
Views: 18043

Re: Moving up to 4.9%

Deflation is not a significant risk in modern economies; they simply don't work that way any more. You wouldn't buy flood insurance if you live at the top of a hill in the desert. Insure against the risks you actually face. Would you please provide some basis for these claims? A book you read on th...
by Pointedstick
Sat Jan 18, 2025 8:05 pm
Forum: Bonds
Topic: Moving up to 4.9%
Replies: 120
Views: 18043

Re: Moving up to 4.9%

I see Japan as evidence for my supposition that "you can't economically outrun the collapse of your country's economy." Because that's what happened to Japan: they went from the world's biggest rising star to being outcompeted at every turn, with the scars of a falling GDP and population t...
by Pointedstick
Sat Jan 18, 2025 4:19 pm
Forum: Bonds
Topic: Moving up to 4.9%
Replies: 120
Views: 18043

Re: Moving up to 4.9%

Deflation is not a significant risk in modern economies; they simply don't work that way any more.

You wouldn't buy flood insurance if you live at the top of a hill in the desert. Insure against the risks you actually face.
by Pointedstick
Tue Jan 14, 2025 12:30 pm
Forum: Bonds
Topic: Moving up to 4.9%
Replies: 120
Views: 18043

Re: Moving up to 4.9%

Also, buying government bonds depends upon if you are in the accumulation phase or decumulation phase of your investing life. You are clearly in the former while I am in the latter. Indeed. Ultimately my conclusion was that if starting young, go for 100% stocks for your whole career, and by the tim...
by Pointedstick
Tue Jan 14, 2025 11:14 am
Forum: Other Discussions
Topic: Renewable electricity sources are now a no-brainer
Replies: 139
Views: 106328

Re: Renewable electricity sources are now a no-brainer

Oh, I didn't realize you had changed your username; I thought you were a different person. Given that I now know we already had prior discussions about this, I don't think there's any more I can offer. You seem to know all the facts and are deep in analysis paralysis mode, but it also sounds like yo...
by Pointedstick
Mon Jan 13, 2025 11:20 pm
Forum: Bonds
Topic: Moving up to 4.9%
Replies: 120
Views: 18043

Re: Moving up to 4.9%

It feels like it should be the perfect time to back up the truck for long-duration government bond funds: share prices are in the toilet and the Fed has already told us they plan to continue cutting rates over the next few years, which we know benefits bond values. Buy low, right? And yet... why bot...
by Pointedstick
Mon Jan 13, 2025 7:15 pm
Forum: Other Discussions
Topic: Renewable electricity sources are now a no-brainer
Replies: 139
Views: 106328

Re: Renewable electricity sources are now a no-brainer

I'm still around and still chuckling quietly when people tell me it's a scam, it won't work, it isn't possible. My house's utility bills have been zero (well, the $5 monthly electric company base charge) for the past 6 years, and I've been driving for free with a solar-charged EV for 5. The net $17,...
by Pointedstick
Sat Apr 27, 2024 9:37 am
Forum: Politics
Topic: Taxes
Replies: 28
Views: 18707

Re: Taxes

Exactly. All in all I think we complainy Americans get a pretty good deal. The taxes we pay are significantly lower than what many of our peers pay in other 1st world countries, but we get domestic services that are as nice or almost as nice. Could they be better? Sure. Are we willing to pay more ta...
by Pointedstick
Sun Apr 14, 2024 11:08 pm
Forum: Politics
Topic: Taxes
Replies: 28
Views: 18707

Re: Taxes

If you're self-employed and therefore paying both halves of the FICA taxes, don't forget to deduct the employer half of it. That should reduce the effective tax rate a bit.
by Pointedstick
Sat Apr 13, 2024 11:08 am
Forum: Politics
Topic: Taxes
Replies: 28
Views: 18707

Re: Taxes

Hi, Welcome to the United States of America. You're free here, but you'll need some money. Go get a job. ...Two weeks go by. Here's your pay, but you only get half of it because you gotta do your part. The highest federal marginal income tax bracket is 37% for incomes over $578k/yr--and due to the ...
by Pointedstick
Sat Jan 20, 2024 9:35 am
Forum: Other Discussions
Topic: Windows 11 PSA
Replies: 17
Views: 8507

Re: Windows 11 PSA

There's always Linux. :) In KDE-land we're making a push right now to pitch our software to people tempted to throw out their Windows 10 PCs that aren't eligible for the upgrade to Windows 11. I was just interviewed by a journalist last week regarding a deployment in Rhode Island. It's a real option...
by Pointedstick
Sat Dec 30, 2023 1:37 pm
Forum: Other Discussions
Topic: Harry Dent: ‘Crash of a Lifetime’ Coming in 2024
Replies: 32
Views: 116298

Re: Harry Dent: ‘Crash of a Lifetime’ Coming in 2024

Is there a reason to take this guy seriously? From what I can tell, here's the reason he gives for his prediction: I didn’t think it would be possible to keep pumping up something [the economy] on pure fumes — just printing money, throwing money into the markets, which keeps the rich, rich and spend...
by Pointedstick
Wed Dec 20, 2023 11:53 am
Forum: Other Discussions
Topic: Optimal Diet
Replies: 149
Views: 139289

Re: Optimal Diet

It's not necessarily reducing your food intake. Yeah, I mean in the end it's just calories in and calories out. But my point is that if having fewer of the former and more of the latter were easy, everyone would be slim. In reality what matters most is finding the techniques and tricks that work fo...
by Pointedstick
Mon Dec 18, 2023 10:36 am
Forum: Other Discussions
Topic: Optimal Diet
Replies: 149
Views: 139289

Re: Optimal Diet

I think it's fairly obvious that if you want to lose weight, you have to eat less food relative to your energy expenditure. The challenge is doing it, because the body doesn't seem like it really wants you to lose weight! Not an evolutionary advantage for most of the history of homo sapiens, or some...
by Pointedstick
Sun Dec 17, 2023 1:24 pm
Forum: Other Discussions
Topic: Optimal Diet
Replies: 149
Views: 139289

Re: Optimal Diet

I found this thread a while ago and it inspired me to try to lose some weight. I wasn't overweight, but I was heavier than I wanted to be by about 15 pounds. In the past, I'd tried all sorts of diets and exercise regimes and nothing really worked, or I couldn't manage to keep it up. So inspired by t...
by Pointedstick
Wed Sep 20, 2023 10:16 pm
Forum: Permanent Portfolio Discussion
Topic: PP Mistakes
Replies: 43
Views: 123795

Re: PP Mistakes

Canada and the USA are exceptionally economically and politically aligned. If Canada is getting nuked, it's probably because the USA is getting nuked too, in which case I think my point still stands. But are we really worried about 1st world countries getting nuked? And if we are, isn't mere surviva...