Agreed! I hate to pick apart your article regarding Mitt Romeny's IRA, but you stated..."For example, assuming Mr. Romney made a maximum $5,000 contribution each year for 30 years and achieved an annual 35% return, he would still only have $40 million"
Have you ever heard of a 401k rollover? Or a SEP IRA (the contribution max is 25% of income up to $49k). I can't speak to how Mitt got his funds into that IRA, likely a bunch of deferred comp but here is some simple back of the envelope math:
If I contribute the 401k max ($15,500) for 30 years and get 8% growth you get figure in the $3.1M range pretty damn close to the president's proposed IRA limit.
How And Why Zero Interest Rates Ended Last Time [View article]
Thank you. Very insightful article, which goes against this mantra in the financial services industry that continues to predict (wrongly) that interest rates are going to rise..."next year".
Back in 2009, EVERYONE (except for PIMCO) was calling for rates to rise in 2010, Gross was the only one beating the drum of financial repression saying rates weren't going anywhere until at least 2013.
Well, here we are in 2013, and the FED has proven even Bill was overly optimistic in his estimates. Ever since I started understanding what happened in the 1950's I have lived under the assumption that an "Extended Period of Time" was pretty much going to last forever, since unlike the 1950's we are not seeing pent up demand for everything, nor is the rest of the world the bombed out shell it was in 1946.
As you said in the article, endless QE both here and in Japan has proven that the FED can not engineer a recovery out of thin air if the conditions for a recovery do not exist on their own.
Lets not forget that the next generation of homebuyers are underemployed and saddled with debt. Anyone who thinks that $1T of student debt out there isn'tgoing to come back to haunt the housing market is kidding themselves.
I've never looked at my primary residence as an investment because (1) Rent or Own I need somewhere to live; and (2) If my mortgage is 95% LTV, I certainly don't own it!
That being said, I plan on being here for the next 20+ years, and if when it is time to sell I've gotten all the money I put into it (Mortgage+Interest+Ins... I will be content.
I am agreed with the three of you (and in a different metro area). What minute credibility CNBC had with me previously, has been totally shot with this Rah!Rah! Cheering they have been engaging in for the last six months or so.
I knew what they have been reporting is certainly not what I am seeing. I have no skin in the game other than my primary residence, but I do like to keep a breast of things. I live in the western exurbs of NJ and I can tell you I had 3 homes sell in my neighborhood, and all three of them lingered, saw 1-3 price drops and finally sold at prices that were virtually giving them away.
Additionally, I am the executor for my mom's estate which has a house on in Nassau County, NY, and I can tell you that since the court paperwork was filed not a week goes by that I do not get something in the mail from someone looking to buy my mom's house. Investor driven INDEED! Around the corner from my mom a house in mint condition was listed at $369K sat for six months, dropped to $325K for another 3 months and was taken down.
I was very surprised by the fact that all three of you live in FLA and you too are not seeing what CNBC is reporting, since they had me convinced that you guys were in full blown recovery mode. But just goes to show you, they are fully entertainment now, if you want serious news go to Bloomberg.
Apartment REIT Home Properties Is Rewarding Shareholders [View article]
Thank you for the article. I have owned HME since Q1 2010, and was just looking at its performance vs. the other contenders at the time (ESS, ACC, AVB). I admit I was concerned when I saw that HME lagged all three (especially ESS and ACC).
However, this article helped me keep the faith, and I did noticed on several other apt REITs have had worse income growth, so the 2010 cut doesn't concern me as it appears to be heading back in the right direction.
Fracking, Climate Change And What Gets Lost In The Shuffle [View article]
Great point! Not to mention, the acurate data that we do have begins right when the "Little Ice Age" (i.e 1650-1850) was ending in the Northern Hemisphere. So of course the earth is getting warmer when you take that fact into account.
I too consider myself a good steward of the environment (if I had to guess I recycle by weight as much if not more than goes in the trash) but, I do NOT take that stewardship to mean I have to go out and buy an electric car, stop using the A/C, and switching to vegetarianism. To steal a quote from Jurassic Park..."Nature ALWAYS finds a way".
Has Paul Krugman Gone Too Far This Time? [View article]
The problem with Keynesian Economics is that pols only remember half the equation (namely deficit spending in the bad times) and forget that the government is suppossed to be running surpluses during times of plenty (ostensibly to pay back the extra debt from before).
However, in real life this virtually never seems to happen.
Surviving And Prospering Over The Next 4 Years Of Economic Darkness [View article]
Agreed...that seems to be the thing all these Euros and their admirers always seem to forget. They're able to have there wonderful social democracies because the U.S. fought a war to free them from the Nazis, and then gave them money to rebuild their nations, and then spent trillions of dollars protecting them from the Soviets.
Imagine the society we could've built here if we hadn't spent trillions upon trillions protecting the world for the last 70 years.
Surviving And Prospering Over The Next 4 Years Of Economic Darkness [View article]
hey lucky,
first off I have an IQ of 136 so "more intelligent than you" is highly unlikely.
as for "had a job to do while campaigning" I beleive Obama has taken more globe trotting vacations than even Bush spent relaxing on his ranch. Don't even get me started on the $775K his wife spent of TAXPAYER money to attend the Nickelodeon Kids Choice Awards. (For the record I think Bush was a buffon as well. If anything you can always count on Americans to be distracted by bread, circuses and bling than substance.)
As for Mr. Obama's qualifications...Please tell me how 2 years as a State Senator, and 2 years as a Junior Senator from a bileagured state that is fiscally bankrupt and bleeding population faster than a hemopheliac qualify one to be the most powerful person in the world?
For the record I do not watch FoxNews, so if you're looking for someone who's fallen victim to drinking the "Kool-Aid" maybe you need to look in the mirror my friend.
Surviving And Prospering Over The Next 4 Years Of Economic Darkness [View article]
Great comment James,
The two biggest stats that are take aways from this election that prove you right are this...
Romney won the vote in household of $100K+ by a margin of 54-44...yet Obama won 9 of the 10 wealthiest counties in the USA.
That tells me one thing...The Elite's will continue to stay elite, while those of us in the "Next 19" as I like to call us (income $100K to $300K) will gradually face more and more of the burdens of this redistribution, since we are well off enough to have assets to tax, but don't have enough connections (i.e. lawyers, CPA's and Congressmen) nor funds to buy vacation homes in tax havens or create corporate structures to launder our earnings in low tax lands like GE, GOOG and MSFT can.
The end result being those of us that have busted our asses to do the "right thing" and "save for our future" will gradually see our lifestyle errode, and our savings taxed until there is no one left for the government to come and take from. And too boot the SSI trust fund will go broke the year I turn 68 so I won't even get the measley $1700 check the SSA is promising me.
One final middle finger goes out to the 60,346,821 of you idiots who voted with your heart and not your brains for this unqualified in-over-his head buffon who is now goes down in history as the first 2 term president who got LESS votes in his re-election than he did in his first.
Canadian Housing: It Actually Is Different This Time [View article]
Thank you for a very well written and informative article. As someone from South of the Border who owns a Canadian bank (BNS) and banks at a Canadian Bank (TD) this is a topic I follow with great interest. If the situation on the ground changes, please provide a status update.
Treasuries: If You're Going To Do It, Do It Right [View article]
Thanks for the article. I am a big proponent of doing research and buying individual bonds and holding them until maturity. To me that is the whole purpose of buying a bond...I give you X today, you promise to pay me Y two times per year for Z years, and at maturity you return my original X back to me.
As one of my former colleague used to say..."The thing that amazes me about bond funds, is that when yields go up, fund prices go down. And when yields go down, fund prices still find a way to go down."
To me investing in a bond fund that is trading bonds, is just like investing in stocks only without the potential for significant capital appreciation (i.e. all the bad, and none of the good).
Shame On You, Apple [View article]
Have you ever heard of a 401k rollover? Or a SEP IRA (the contribution max is 25% of income up to $49k). I can't speak to how Mitt got his funds into that IRA, likely a bunch of deferred comp but here is some simple back of the envelope math:
If I contribute the 401k max ($15,500) for 30 years and get 8% growth you get figure in the $3.1M range pretty damn close to the president's proposed IRA limit.
How And Why Zero Interest Rates Ended Last Time [View article]
Back in 2009, EVERYONE (except for PIMCO) was calling for rates to rise in 2010, Gross was the only one beating the drum of financial repression saying rates weren't going anywhere until at least 2013.
Well, here we are in 2013, and the FED has proven even Bill was overly optimistic in his estimates. Ever since I started understanding what happened in the 1950's I have lived under the assumption that an "Extended Period of Time" was pretty much going to last forever, since unlike the 1950's we are not seeing pent up demand for everything, nor is the rest of the world the bombed out shell it was in 1946.
As you said in the article, endless QE both here and in Japan has proven that the FED can not engineer a recovery out of thin air if the conditions for a recovery do not exist on their own.
Housing - Misguided Optimism Continues Unabated [View article]
I've never looked at my primary residence as an investment because (1) Rent or Own I need somewhere to live; and (2) If my mortgage is 95% LTV, I certainly don't own it!
That being said, I plan on being here for the next 20+ years, and if when it is time to sell I've gotten all the money I put into it (Mortgage+Interest+Ins... I will be content.
Housing - Misguided Optimism Continues Unabated [View article]
I knew what they have been reporting is certainly not what I am seeing. I have no skin in the game other than my primary residence, but I do like to keep a breast of things. I live in the western exurbs of NJ and I can tell you I had 3 homes sell in my neighborhood, and all three of them lingered, saw 1-3 price drops and finally sold at prices that were virtually giving them away.
Additionally, I am the executor for my mom's estate which has a house on in Nassau County, NY, and I can tell you that since the court paperwork was filed not a week goes by that I do not get something in the mail from someone looking to buy my mom's house. Investor driven INDEED! Around the corner from my mom a house in mint condition was listed at $369K sat for six months, dropped to $325K for another 3 months and was taken down.
I was very surprised by the fact that all three of you live in FLA and you too are not seeing what CNBC is reporting, since they had me convinced that you guys were in full blown recovery mode. But just goes to show you, they are fully entertainment now, if you want serious news go to Bloomberg.
Apartment REIT Home Properties Is Rewarding Shareholders [View article]
However, this article helped me keep the faith, and I did noticed on several other apt REITs have had worse income growth, so the 2010 cut doesn't concern me as it appears to be heading back in the right direction.
Investing In 2013: Remember 1977 [View article]
The Keynesian Depression [View article]
Fantastic article, couldn't have said it better. Nothing else to say, look forward to seeing further articles from you.
Fracking, Climate Change And What Gets Lost In The Shuffle [View article]
I too consider myself a good steward of the environment (if I had to guess I recycle by weight as much if not more than goes in the trash) but, I do NOT take that stewardship to mean I have to go out and buy an electric car, stop using the A/C, and switching to vegetarianism. To steal a quote from Jurassic Park..."Nature ALWAYS finds a way".
Has Paul Krugman Gone Too Far This Time? [View article]
However, in real life this virtually never seems to happen.
Surviving And Prospering Over The Next 4 Years Of Economic Darkness [View article]
Imagine the society we could've built here if we hadn't spent trillions upon trillions protecting the world for the last 70 years.
Surviving And Prospering Over The Next 4 Years Of Economic Darkness [View article]
first off I have an IQ of 136 so "more intelligent than you" is highly unlikely.
as for "had a job to do while campaigning" I beleive Obama has taken more globe trotting vacations than even Bush spent relaxing on his ranch. Don't even get me started on the $775K his wife spent of TAXPAYER money to attend the Nickelodeon Kids Choice Awards. (For the record I think Bush was a buffon as well. If anything you can always count on Americans to be distracted by bread, circuses and bling than substance.)
As for Mr. Obama's qualifications...Please tell me how 2 years as a State Senator, and 2 years as a Junior Senator from a bileagured state that is fiscally bankrupt and bleeding population faster than a hemopheliac qualify one to be the most powerful person in the world?
For the record I do not watch FoxNews, so if you're looking for someone who's fallen victim to drinking the "Kool-Aid" maybe you need to look in the mirror my friend.
Surviving And Prospering Over The Next 4 Years Of Economic Darkness [View article]
The two biggest stats that are take aways from this election that prove you right are this...
Romney won the vote in household of $100K+ by a margin of 54-44...yet Obama won 9 of the 10 wealthiest counties in the USA.
That tells me one thing...The Elite's will continue to stay elite, while those of us in the "Next 19" as I like to call us (income $100K to $300K) will gradually face more and more of the burdens of this redistribution, since we are well off enough to have assets to tax, but don't have enough connections (i.e. lawyers, CPA's and Congressmen) nor funds to buy vacation homes in tax havens or create corporate structures to launder our earnings in low tax lands like GE, GOOG and MSFT can.
The end result being those of us that have busted our asses to do the "right thing" and "save for our future" will gradually see our lifestyle errode, and our savings taxed until there is no one left for the government to come and take from. And too boot the SSI trust fund will go broke the year I turn 68 so I won't even get the measley $1700 check the SSA is promising me.
One final middle finger goes out to the 60,346,821 of you idiots who voted with your heart and not your brains for this unqualified in-over-his head buffon who is now goes down in history as the first 2 term president who got LESS votes in his re-election than he did in his first.
Canadian Housing: It Actually Is Different This Time [View article]
One question...How many Canadians earning $40K are able to buy $600K McMansions? Better yet how many NINJA loans do they write in CAN?
Those two questions can easily determine if the frenzy in Canada has reached the excesses of the USA market.
Canadian Housing: It Actually Is Different This Time [View article]
Treasuries: If You're Going To Do It, Do It Right [View article]
As one of my former colleague used to say..."The thing that amazes me about bond funds, is that when yields go up, fund prices go down. And when yields go down, fund prices still find a way to go down."
To me investing in a bond fund that is trading bonds, is just like investing in stocks only without the potential for significant capital appreciation (i.e. all the bad, and none of the good).