What does Elaine’s mink jacket have to do with government? The link is subtle, but important. Transactional economics not monetary. Elaine owns the mink. Government owns us all.
Today, we follow the 250-year trend towards “renting your life.” It’s a movement that has been gaining ground a lot lately. That’s because absent new tech breakthroughs, we’ve been reduced to monetizing sex, the weather, and all the while, government pressure builds as we lurch towards depletion of the planet’s resources.
Cheery stuff to serve up at mid-week, don’t you think? After charts and some headlines as our “warm-up act.”
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Double edge sword of Consumer Price increases. Oil is at $64.44 & going up. Each time I visit the gas pump, it costs me more. On the other hand, my oil stocks are going up. So I am even steven, my life story continues.
Medical expenses, creditors, and landlords become the real “end of the world as we know it” for large numbers of American families. Save ahead for purchases, save for retirement, and always live well within your means, to the point of ridicule by your contemporaries. If you have any skills at all, build your own home on land you own, for cash. Rent is the worst form of debt. At worst, go Tiny for cash. Hold your nose and pay the health, home and car insurers. This doesn’t mean that you can’t eat out or buy the new TV, it means that when you get blacklisted and burned by external adversaries, you don’t end up living in a really bad tent on public land, and don’t end up in jail trying to live a lifestyle which you can no longer sustain. When I go into town, I am seeing guys in wheelchairs sleeping next to commercial dumpsters. You can get by living on a cash basis a lot more cheaply than living the debt slave lifestyle. Living the debt slave lifestyle requires cash flow; when the cash flow cuts off, you are screwed.
Renting makes sense for a month or two – sometimes longer, IF you have a plan. Buying land with a shack and fixing it is the best plan, IF you have a cooperative local government. If they leave you alone, you can do wonders. If not, you’re best off doing what you can and moving asap.
Credit ratings are overrated. They keep you on the treadmill – always needing income.
Zero debt leads to remarkable peace of mind!
Well said N…..
We already spend just under thirty grand a year on insurance and medical expenses.. if I had to go and get a new doctor I would have to spend another twenty grand on insurance..
on the doctors side though my new doctor sees what some private physicians make.. and thinks gee the grass is greener over there.. what he isn’t taking into account.. is his schooling is paid off by working in the clinic.. he doesn’t have to pay his nurses salary and benefit package he doesn’t have to pay the three grand per square foot of clinic space he has or the utilities.. all of his resources are covered as well.. considering a nurses education that is through school loans is right about fife hundred plus a month in payments … he is making a decent salary.. the hours are good.. we use to call the clinic where he works the gravy train I tried to get a job there for decades.. getting in was extremely hard and there was a lot of applicants wanting the job or they would be on no hire status…. you get to take a vacation great benefits.. etc.. where I worked they went by point system you were hired at usually a point five.. that meant they only had to offer you five days in a two week period.. you had to be there on your weekends rotation.. so you couldn’t take a vacation.. in the end I was giving up forty hours a year in vacation time to employees that got sick.. ( you call in sick you just quit… that simple)
I don’t know Mike.. I built our home. I have skills..worked in so many fields I actually feel secure that way.
The house is virtually paid off…. Income has stalled most companies have held back increasing wages because their expenses have increased. Household necessity expenses have increased at the same time.
Renting a lot of those expenses are absorbed and distributed by apartment facilities.
Its cheaper overall per apartment. Those savings are distributed to the tenants.
That’s what makes the Amish the survivors.. They still have old world skills and as a group they can buy in bulk at a greatly reduced cost.
Obviously you don’t own.. But seriously..do you really own what you have in the end
JMHO… If there is a break in income for us.. There isn’t any way we could keep our place. This is hitting people on set incomes all over the USA
G- now that you “might” hold a small Market “hedge” – its time to Buy a small upside “hedge” to Straddle this Market – optionality w/Stops. The Bandicoot is Long the Market – looking out for New All Time Highs.
G – why does Saudi ARAMCO need a $12 Billion Bond Deal? Arent the they like most profitable Oil company on the planet? Perhaps MBS has more expensive tastes than we knew…or not.
Just a thought. We have a Neurosurgeon here in Abq that says when she operates on you she has to use the drugs the hospital requires. After that you can go to her private office and she will get you off the drugs and work on getting you well. Quiet a Doc I say.
Speaking of food have you factored in the disruption to the food supply that will result from the flooding of farms in the mid=west and the bankruptcies that are coming? Many people do not know how paltry a living most farmers make, in 1990 I ran an orchard that got a price of $160 per ton for prunes, the same price that was paid in 1965. I would not be surprised if the price per ton is the same today. Most farms make only $1-200 dollars per acre before costs. I would further speculate that most family farms only survive because they have been passed down from previous generations including the land, and equipment. As with many businesses it is the middle man and the trader that is making the most money.
Hmmm.. Mickey.. that use to be that way.. today.. the farmers all drive tractors that make the price of a Ferrari look like a cheap ride. and the tractors have real simulated leather for the seat covers LOL LOL LOL…
I have told my kids when asking what I thought they should invest in.. that they should get a group of investors and invest in one farmer.. at a drastically reduced rate of interest than what he would get at the bank.. on the stipulation that they set aside one acre for them to plant in garden goods and one cow , pig or whatever livestock they produce.. not only do they have their years garden goods.. and meat but they make a good return if the climate is good.. the farmer makes money from the reduced interest and they make more than what the bank would give them..
I hope this doesn’t offend, but I’ve begun reading “The Naked Future” by Patrick Tucker. It’s subtitled “what happens in a world that anticipates your every move?”. The book is big on the predictive value of big data.
Interestingly the author is connected with the World Future Society which since 2016 has been run by a daughter of a major windy city real estate developer who is allegedly revered by some as a defacto mayor. Curious and curiouser include said developer’s alleged connections to the Mrs. Clinton ’16 campaign, and an international trade mission to Asia with windy city elected officials not seemingly acting at the behest of the federally elected Trump administration.
The previously mentioned World Future Society ceo is described on Wikipedia as a “social entrepreneur”. One of her documentaries had participation from David Duchovny.
I guess “the truth is out there”?
“The Naked Future”
Anymore at My naked future just gets a few chuckles…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=80fQ2gm761Y
Now this is a WooWoo…
Quarter to 4 am.. Out for my morning constitutional..dog dragging my FA along.. I hear my grandkids.. Plain as day through the wind and snow screaming and crying.. I am looking all around me wondering where are they.. What is wrong that they would be crying like that..the dog heard something to she was looking all around … Then I hear as plain as day..Run Papa Run… I GTFOOT…. And the power line snaps and comes down right where I was standing.. If I hadn’t gotten out of there at that moment that line would have been on top of me.
Now the power is out..
wow – serious woo woo!
there is no doubt in my mind at all that if I hadn’t heard that and got out of there at that very moment.. that I wouldn’t be typing this right now.. It was as scary as the time I went to New York city to see a Broadway play.. in dress whites.. got separated from the guy that was going to show me around NYC on the subway.. ended up on Harlem Blvd. in the middle of the night all alone.. had to hoof it sixteen blocks.. thought for sure I was a dead man.. a gang following close behind not sure what to make of the idiot white man in dress whites.. turned the corner and there was what seemed like a million sailors in dress whites.. swore I wouldn’t ever go back and I haven’t..they can keep NYC