Search found 8862 matches

by Pointedstick
Wed Feb 01, 2023 11:31 pm
Forum: Bonds
Topic: When is it time to load up on bonds.
Replies: 40
Views: 33757

Re: When is it time to load up on bonds.

FWIW I'm not actually planning to buy any bonds unless a clearly amazing opportunity arises. My plan is to just keep buying 100% stocks. Last year offered some great discounts! ^-^
by Pointedstick
Wed Feb 01, 2023 9:22 pm
Forum: Bonds
Topic: When is it time to load up on bonds.
Replies: 40
Views: 33757

Re: When is it time to load up on bonds.

I’m not sure why you wouldn’t want to get into LT bonds if you believe rates will fall? The underlying would go up significantly as rates drop. Rates will definitely fall, but the Fed will tell us when they intend to make it happen. Today Powell told us he intends to continue raising rates. More sl...
by Pointedstick
Wed Feb 01, 2023 9:14 pm
Forum: Other Discussions
Topic: Renewable electricity sources are now a no-brainer
Replies: 131
Views: 60914

Re: Renewable electricity sources are now a no-brainer

I agree, PHEVs are pretty great. They're not optimized for mechanical reliability with their more complex dual powetrains, though. They're also not optimized for zero tailpipe emissions. They still need oil changes. They still have sludgy automatic transmissions. They still need fuel, which means tr...
by Pointedstick
Wed Feb 01, 2023 7:27 pm
Forum: Bonds
Topic: When is it time to load up on bonds.
Replies: 40
Views: 33757

Re: When is it time to load up on bonds.

My view of the inverted yield curve situation is that the market thinks high inflation is just a short-term blip, so that interest rates will fall again within just a few years, dashing hopes of 30-year treasuries that return more than 3% and change. As a result I don't anticipate getting back into ...
by Pointedstick
Wed Feb 01, 2023 7:24 pm
Forum: Other Discussions
Topic: Renewable electricity sources are now a no-brainer
Replies: 131
Views: 60914

Re: Renewable electricity sources are now a no-brainer

That's marketing talk. :) A company selling PCs with only 2 GB of RAM could try to justify it by promoting the idea that "unused RAM is wasted RAM" but people who understand computers can see through that kind of nonsense. Toyota wants people to buy PHEVs because the bread and butter of their busine...
by Pointedstick
Thu Jan 26, 2023 8:07 pm
Forum: Other Discussions
Topic: Renewable electricity sources are now a no-brainer
Replies: 131
Views: 60914

Re: Renewable electricity sources are now a no-brainer

+1 for a wood stove, for sure. We have one of those too. We got religion during a winter power outage back while we still had a gas furnace and ICE vehicle, and despite the availability of natural gas, the furnace didn't work because its blower and electronics needed electricity. No generator, no ba...
by Pointedstick
Thu Jan 26, 2023 11:52 am
Forum: Other Discussions
Topic: Renewable electricity sources are now a no-brainer
Replies: 131
Views: 60914

Re: Renewable electricity sources are now a no-brainer

Looks like your project is coming along nicely. The ground-mount array idea sounds like it makes a lot of sense! Also notable that replacing old electric appliances with new ones delivered such a massive energy savings. Some things do get better over time. :) I've said it before but it bears repeati...
by Pointedstick
Sat Oct 22, 2022 12:02 pm
Forum: Politics
Topic: Mosler on current inflation...the MMT response
Replies: 6
Views: 2237

Re: Mosler on current inflation...the MMT response

I think it's quite clear that a lot of the inflation we see today is caused by shortages in labor and materials. Practically every business is complaining about this. But all the money printing during the pandemic definitely goosed demand. Tons of evidence for that as well. The war in Ukraine has al...
by Pointedstick
Tue Oct 11, 2022 5:02 pm
Forum: Permanent Portfolio Discussion
Topic: Are most people here sticking with Treasuries?
Replies: 341
Views: 141523

Re: Are most people here sticking with Treasuries?

Has anyone here actually purchased anything with gold directly, or accepted payment in gold for delivery of goods or services? I can say that I have not. I have on the other hand participated in money-like transactions using cryptocurrencies before, in which they were exchanged for goods or services...
by Pointedstick
Sat Oct 08, 2022 1:40 pm
Forum: Other Discussions
Topic: Linux, continued
Replies: 44
Views: 10773

Re: Linux, continued

I have always preferred KDE since the early days of SUSE but am now wondering if my computer is too slow. I have an i5 processor and 8 gigs of memory which I could upgrade. Should be totally fine; KDE Plasma is quite lightweight these days. At the moment my favorite KDE distro is Fedora KDE, which ...
by Pointedstick
Sat Oct 08, 2022 1:38 pm
Forum: Other Discussions
Topic: Linux, continued
Replies: 44
Views: 10773

Re: Linux, continued

GNOME and KDE are the big kahunas of the open-source software world, but neither have huge offices of people working on them--mostly geographically dispersed volunteers plus some sponsored work from companies that use them or find them to be strategically important. This is something I'm working on ...
by Pointedstick
Sat Oct 08, 2022 11:21 am
Forum: Other Discussions
Topic: Linux, continued
Replies: 44
Views: 10773

Re: Linux, continued

Pop!_OS is unfortunately likely about to go through some rough times. Its authors at System76 finally got tired with fighting with the GNOME people to make their GNOME fork work well enough for their tastes, and instead of migrating to KDE Plasma which is flexible enough for their customization need...
by Pointedstick
Fri Oct 07, 2022 1:22 am
Forum: Other Discussions
Topic: Linux, continued
Replies: 44
Views: 10773

Re: Linux, continued

Pretty much anything will be reasonably robust if you're barely using it, so you want a distro that minimizes built-in faults in its choice of package management. That's not Mint, as it the end, Mint always breaks upon upgrade, at some point. That's typically why people stop using it. I would probab...
by Pointedstick
Thu Oct 06, 2022 2:58 am
Forum: Other Discussions
Topic: Linux, continued
Replies: 44
Views: 10773

Re: Linux, continued

You want Kinoite, which is the KDE version of Silverblue. It is an experimental distro, but quite exciting.
by Pointedstick
Fri Sep 23, 2022 2:31 pm
Forum: Cash
Topic: More Money != More Inflation
Replies: 12
Views: 2940

Re: More Money != More Inflation

I meant feds as in the elites in Washington. It doesn't matter to me if it's the Fed or Congress, some people are allowed to create money out of thin air and distribute it as they choose. Those who are closest to the fount benefit the most because the money they receive is "fresh". They can spend i...
by Pointedstick
Thu Sep 22, 2022 1:40 pm
Forum: Cash
Topic: More Money != More Inflation
Replies: 12
Views: 2940

Re: More Money != More Inflation

So how do we feel about the money supply expansion during COVID-19? Was it money well spent? I know I received money when I didn't need it. I agree, me too. I would have been fine with some kind of means-testing. Of course the political problem with means-testing is that you get complaints from peo...
by Pointedstick
Sun Sep 11, 2022 3:22 pm
Forum: Cash
Topic: More Money != More Inflation
Replies: 12
Views: 2940

Re: More Money != More Inflation

The gap between excess demand and constrained supply showed up as sharply higher prices. Yeah, the money supply alone was always only part of the story; the balance of supply and demand determines inflation, with the money supply simply being a proxy for demand in most cases. The money supply can b...
by Pointedstick
Sun Sep 11, 2022 11:05 am
Forum: Permanent Portfolio Discussion
Topic: 2nd asset in tax deferred?
Replies: 17
Views: 4380

Re: 2nd asset in tax deferred?

I tried for many years to split assets across account types but ultimately found it much too complicated to integrate property into the PP concept because the different tax treatments interfere at rebalancing time, and the contribution restrictions in certain account types complicate your ability to...
by Pointedstick
Sat Sep 10, 2022 11:31 pm
Forum: Other Discussions
Topic: Scarce and high priced energy in Europe
Replies: 76
Views: 8334

Re: Scarce and high priced energy in Europe

Honestly, I'm so divorced from the lifestyle of these people that I don't really know how they think. That much is pretty clear, given the caricature being painted of hypocritical hyper-consuming anti-work authoritarians who approve of centrally-controlled sources of energy production (???????). If...
by Pointedstick
Thu Sep 08, 2022 6:34 pm
Forum: Other Discussions
Topic: Scarce and high priced energy in Europe
Replies: 76
Views: 8334

Re: Scarce and high priced energy in Europe

I've posted it before, but even if you still don't believe that global warming is happening, and that it's our fault...

Image
by Pointedstick
Thu Sep 08, 2022 5:31 pm
Forum: Other Discussions
Topic: Scarce and high priced energy in Europe
Replies: 76
Views: 8334

Re: Scarce and high priced energy in Europe

Whenever environmentalists did total lifecycle cost analysis of fossil fuels and pointed out externalities like causing global warning (i.e. sea level rise, extreme heat waves and drought, stronger hurricanes and floods, etc), giving hundreds of millions of people asthma and other lung diseases, and...
by Pointedstick
Wed Sep 07, 2022 10:00 pm
Forum: Other Discussions
Topic: Scarce and high priced energy in Europe
Replies: 76
Views: 8334

Re: Scarce and high priced energy in Europe

Every action has side effects. Life has side effects. If you don't want to potentially have any negative side effects on anything, you can always jump off a cliff--a suggestion as absurd as suggesting to account for every photon or gust of wind.
by Pointedstick
Wed Sep 07, 2022 8:06 pm
Forum: Other Discussions
Topic: Scarce and high priced energy in Europe
Replies: 76
Views: 8334

Re: Scarce and high priced energy in Europe

At the moment EVs are not as good as gas cars for long trips. Used to be the bottleneck was the car but now that's mostly fixed with the current and emerging crop of long-range fast charging EVs, and now the bottleneck is the charging network. Tesla's is the best but it's still not as ubiquitous and...
by Pointedstick
Tue Sep 06, 2022 9:44 pm
Forum: Other Discussions
Topic: Scarce and high priced energy in Europe
Replies: 76
Views: 8334

Re: Scarce and high priced energy in Europe

France went all in on nukes a few decades ago, which was a good geopolitical bet during a time when solar and wind weren't yet economically practical. And even today, nukes are great in the same way fossil fuels remain great: they have an absurdly high power to weight ratio. That's why both of them ...
by Pointedstick
Sat Sep 03, 2022 5:48 pm
Forum: Permanent Portfolio Discussion
Topic: Are most people here sticking with Treasuries?
Replies: 341
Views: 141523

Re: Are most people here sticking with Treasuries?

Right, and that's true of all assets. But like the fundamental value of a stock is based on the value of its company, the fundamental value of a long-duration treasury bond is based the current interest rate compared to its coupon rate. And the future direction of "the current interest rate" is some...