[carlsbadworker]

OK. Thank you all for the response.

paramount: yes, precious metal may play some roles as it is a hedge against inflation/deflation scenario. I don’t know how though.

masayako: I don’t know how diversification would help if they are somehow all correlated altogether.

simonbart: yes, low cost indexing works if you are happy with the returns. However, it is argued by Rich that value-based investing can out-perform your method.

sdsurfer: I don’t really agree with your number on ROI but I agree with your points. If one can find an absolute return scenario that meets the standard, who cares if the value drops or not? I have not taken that into account and I should think more about it. There is pockets of values even in the most over-valued market, that can be exploited to an informed investor.

Now let’s look at the issue from another angle. So we are saying that the policy makers have some enormous power in destroying the attractive of cash from a normal valuation point of view (I mean normally, you move money from over-valued assets to under-valued assets in your asset allocation, but currently I think cash is under-valued but policy makers are a threat to that asset class). In fact, US tax code & monetary policy have been rewarding debt accumulation and consumption, punishing savings and capital investment, as long as I can remember. You thought it would take a huge crisis such as the one we witnessed few years ago to change them, but they are still just kicking the can down the road.

So the question is, do they truly have that power? Wouldn’t such policy come back to hurt themselves because at the end of the day, only savings and capital investment by entrepreneurs can save the day. The government’s Keynesian policies encourage people to spend, or even take the initiative itself and start disposing huge public public spending–all this to get rid off the lack of demand and make businesses sell their products. But they destroyed savings in the process, forsake future higher productivity resulted from creative destructive in favor of selling products created at the current time that is not aligned to people’s need.

So it is apparently folly. The question then becomes in the presence of a mad crowd, is it only sensible to join them to keep alive?

[carlsbadworker]

OK. Thank you all for the response.

paramount: yes, precious metal may play some roles as it is a hedge against inflation/deflation scenario. I don’t know how though.

masayako: I don’t know how diversification would help if they are somehow all correlated altogether.

simonbart: yes, low cost indexing works if you are happy with the returns. However, it is argued by Rich that value-based investing can out-perform your method.

sdsurfer: I don’t really agree with your number on ROI but I agree with your points. If one can find an absolute return scenario that meets the standard, who cares if the value drops or not? I have not taken that into account and I should think more about it. There is pockets of values even in the most over-valued market, that can be exploited to an informed investor.

Now let’s look at the issue from another angle. So we are saying that the policy makers have some enormous power in destroying the attractive of cash from a normal valuation point of view (I mean normally, you move money from over-valued assets to under-valued assets in your asset allocation, but currently I think cash is under-valued but policy makers are a threat to that asset class). In fact, US tax code & monetary policy have been rewarding debt accumulation and consumption, punishing savings and capital investment, as long as I can remember. You thought it would take a huge crisis such as the one we witnessed few years ago to change them, but they are still just kicking the can down the road.

So the question is, do they truly have that power? Wouldn’t such policy come back to hurt themselves because at the end of the day, only savings and capital investment by entrepreneurs can save the day. The government’s Keynesian policies encourage people to spend, or even take the initiative itself and start disposing huge public public spending–all this to get rid off the lack of demand and make businesses sell their products. But they destroyed savings in the process, forsake future higher productivity resulted from creative destructive in favor of selling products created at the current time that is not aligned to people’s need.

So it is apparently folly. The question then becomes in the presence of a mad crowd, is it only sensible to join them to keep alive?

[carlsbadworker]

OK. Thank you all for the response.

paramount: yes, precious metal may play some roles as it is a hedge against inflation/deflation scenario. I don’t know how though.

masayako: I don’t know how diversification would help if they are somehow all correlated altogether.

simonbart: yes, low cost indexing works if you are happy with the returns. However, it is argued by Rich that value-based investing can out-perform your method.

sdsurfer: I don’t really agree with your number on ROI but I agree with your points. If one can find an absolute return scenario that meets the standard, who cares if the value drops or not? I have not taken that into account and I should think more about it. There is pockets of values even in the most over-valued market, that can be exploited to an informed investor.

Now let’s look at the issue from another angle. So we are saying that the policy makers have some enormous power in destroying the attractive of cash from a normal valuation point of view (I mean normally, you move money from over-valued assets to under-valued assets in your asset allocation, but currently I think cash is under-valued but policy makers are a threat to that asset class). In fact, US tax code & monetary policy have been rewarding debt accumulation and consumption, punishing savings and capital investment, as long as I can remember. You thought it would take a huge crisis such as the one we witnessed few years ago to change them, but they are still just kicking the can down the road.

So the question is, do they truly have that power? Wouldn’t such policy come back to hurt themselves because at the end of the day, only savings and capital investment by entrepreneurs can save the day. The government’s Keynesian policies encourage people to spend, or even take the initiative itself and start disposing huge public public spending–all this to get rid off the lack of demand and make businesses sell their products. But they destroyed savings in the process, forsake future higher productivity resulted from creative destructive in favor of selling products created at the current time that is not aligned to people’s need.

So it is apparently folly. The question then becomes in the presence of a mad crowd, is it only sensible to join them to keep alive?

[carlsbadworker]

OK. Thank you all for the response.

paramount: yes, precious metal may play some roles as it is a hedge against inflation/deflation scenario. I don’t know how though.

masayako: I don’t know how diversification would help if they are somehow all correlated altogether.

simonbart: yes, low cost indexing works if you are happy with the returns. However, it is argued by Rich that value-based investing can out-perform your method.

sdsurfer: I don’t really agree with your number on ROI but I agree with your points. If one can find an absolute return scenario that meets the standard, who cares if the value drops or not? I have not taken that into account and I should think more about it. There is pockets of values even in the most over-valued market, that can be exploited to an informed investor.

Now let’s look at the issue from another angle. So we are saying that the policy makers have some enormous power in destroying the attractive of cash from a normal valuation point of view (I mean normally, you move money from over-valued assets to under-valued assets in your asset allocation, but currently I think cash is under-valued but policy makers are a threat to that asset class). In fact, US tax code & monetary policy have been rewarding debt accumulation and consumption, punishing savings and capital investment, as long as I can remember. You thought it would take a huge crisis such as the one we witnessed few years ago to change them, but they are still just kicking the can down the road.

So the question is, do they truly have that power? Wouldn’t such policy come back to hurt themselves because at the end of the day, only savings and capital investment by entrepreneurs can save the day. The government’s Keynesian policies encourage people to spend, or even take the initiative itself and start disposing huge public public spending–all this to get rid off the lack of demand and make businesses sell their products. But they destroyed savings in the process, forsake future higher productivity resulted from creative destructive in favor of selling products created at the current time that is not aligned to people’s need.

So it is apparently folly. The question then becomes in the presence of a mad crowd, is it only sensible to join them to keep alive?

[carlsbadworker]

OK. Thank you all for the response.

paramount: yes, precious metal may play some roles as it is a hedge against inflation/deflation scenario. I don’t know how though.

masayako: I don’t know how diversification would help if they are somehow all correlated altogether.

simonbart: yes, low cost indexing works if you are happy with the returns. However, it is argued by Rich that value-based investing can out-perform your method.

sdsurfer: I don’t really agree with your number on ROI but I agree with your points. If one can find an absolute return scenario that meets the standard, who cares if the value drops or not? I have not taken that into account and I should think more about it. There is pockets of values even in the most over-valued market, that can be exploited to an informed investor.

Now let’s look at the issue from another angle. So we are saying that the policy makers have some enormous power in destroying the attractive of cash from a normal valuation point of view (I mean normally, you move money from over-valued assets to under-valued assets in your asset allocation, but currently I think cash is under-valued but policy makers are a threat to that asset class). In fact, US tax code & monetary policy have been rewarding debt accumulation and consumption, punishing savings and capital investment, as long as I can remember. You thought it would take a huge crisis such as the one we witnessed few years ago to change them, but they are still just kicking the can down the road.

So the question is, do they truly have that power? Wouldn’t such policy come back to hurt themselves because at the end of the day, only savings and capital investment by entrepreneurs can save the day. The government’s Keynesian policies encourage people to spend, or even take the initiative itself and start disposing huge public public spending–all this to get rid off the lack of demand and make businesses sell their products. But they destroyed savings in the process, forsake future higher productivity resulted from creative destructive in favor of selling products created at the current time that is not aligned to people’s need.

So it is apparently folly. The question then becomes in the presence of a mad crowd, is it only sensible to join them to keep alive?

[carlsbadworker]

I agree with scaredy on this. I think it is an asset allocation issue. You want to treat mortgage repayment as part of your bond portfolio and have the right asset mixes in your overall plan. Even if you think the stock market is over-valued at this point (which I think it is), you should take part of your money and ear-mark it as equity-fund rather than paying off the house with it. The stock market will return back to fair value once in a while and increasingly likely to do so in the next few years. You don’t want to tie all your cashes into the house.

[carlsbadworker]

I agree with scaredy on this. I think it is an asset allocation issue. You want to treat mortgage repayment as part of your bond portfolio and have the right asset mixes in your overall plan. Even if you think the stock market is over-valued at this point (which I think it is), you should take part of your money and ear-mark it as equity-fund rather than paying off the house with it. The stock market will return back to fair value once in a while and increasingly likely to do so in the next few years. You don’t want to tie all your cashes into the house.

[carlsbadworker]

I agree with scaredy on this. I think it is an asset allocation issue. You want to treat mortgage repayment as part of your bond portfolio and have the right asset mixes in your overall plan. Even if you think the stock market is over-valued at this point (which I think it is), you should take part of your money and ear-mark it as equity-fund rather than paying off the house with it. The stock market will return back to fair value once in a while and increasingly likely to do so in the next few years. You don’t want to tie all your cashes into the house.

[carlsbadworker]

I agree with scaredy on this. I think it is an asset allocation issue. You want to treat mortgage repayment as part of your bond portfolio and have the right asset mixes in your overall plan. Even if you think the stock market is over-valued at this point (which I think it is), you should take part of your money and ear-mark it as equity-fund rather than paying off the house with it. The stock market will return back to fair value once in a while and increasingly likely to do so in the next few years. You don’t want to tie all your cashes into the house.

[carlsbadworker]

I agree with scaredy on this. I think it is an asset allocation issue. You want to treat mortgage repayment as part of your bond portfolio and have the right asset mixes in your overall plan. Even if you think the stock market is over-valued at this point (which I think it is), you should take part of your money and ear-mark it as equity-fund rather than paying off the house with it. The stock market will return back to fair value once in a while and increasingly likely to do so in the next few years. You don’t want to tie all your cashes into the house.

[carlsbadworker]

[quote=temeculaguy]I am a recent convert but haven’t made the jump to their computers yet. I freaking love my iphone 3G, I can’t say enough about it and I’m never going back to blackberry/palm or other phones. I don’t even want to look at macs because I know i’ll want one and they are considerably more expensive. I understand why people love their macs, if my computer was as ingenius and innovative as my phone (while being more user friendly and reliable) then I’ll never look back and become a mac person, and I’ll pay through the nose. I am going to hold off as long as I can.[/quote]

I guess I am different comparing to all of your guys, because up until now nobody mentions iPad, which is the only product that I love from Apple. I own/use iPod but I really prefer to use cheap no-name generic MP3 players because I really hate iTune. I use iPhone 4 at work but I see no extra premium value that it should be charging comparing to the HTC smartphone that I have. I have been using mac mini as well and I really like Mac air if they can half their price, but I won’t convert all my PCs to mac. I am pretty sure lots of software that I use routinely doesn’t have a mac version. On top of that, Ubuntu is more straightforward in their configuration and I don’t really like the GUI wrapped around the unix OS by Apple.

But iPad is really really cool. It is lightweight and the competition has not caught up with it (except eepad transformer was rumored to be good, but I couldn’t find one in store. Bestbuy only carries it online). I went to Apple store to buy another iPad yesterday and was told it was still out of stock. The sales person says that they couldn’t order the iPad but get whatever was shipped to them and people buy whatever version is available. If one is in the computer business, that’s the market position you want to lock yourself in.

[carlsbadworker]

[quote=temeculaguy]I am a recent convert but haven’t made the jump to their computers yet. I freaking love my iphone 3G, I can’t say enough about it and I’m never going back to blackberry/palm or other phones. I don’t even want to look at macs because I know i’ll want one and they are considerably more expensive. I understand why people love their macs, if my computer was as ingenius and innovative as my phone (while being more user friendly and reliable) then I’ll never look back and become a mac person, and I’ll pay through the nose. I am going to hold off as long as I can.[/quote]

I guess I am different comparing to all of your guys, because up until now nobody mentions iPad, which is the only product that I love from Apple. I own/use iPod but I really prefer to use cheap no-name generic MP3 players because I really hate iTune. I use iPhone 4 at work but I see no extra premium value that it should be charging comparing to the HTC smartphone that I have. I have been using mac mini as well and I really like Mac air if they can half their price, but I won’t convert all my PCs to mac. I am pretty sure lots of software that I use routinely doesn’t have a mac version. On top of that, Ubuntu is more straightforward in their configuration and I don’t really like the GUI wrapped around the unix OS by Apple.

But iPad is really really cool. It is lightweight and the competition has not caught up with it (except eepad transformer was rumored to be good, but I couldn’t find one in store. Bestbuy only carries it online). I went to Apple store to buy another iPad yesterday and was told it was still out of stock. The sales person says that they couldn’t order the iPad but get whatever was shipped to them and people buy whatever version is available. If one is in the computer business, that’s the market position you want to lock yourself in.

[carlsbadworker]

[quote=temeculaguy]I am a recent convert but haven’t made the jump to their computers yet. I freaking love my iphone 3G, I can’t say enough about it and I’m never going back to blackberry/palm or other phones. I don’t even want to look at macs because I know i’ll want one and they are considerably more expensive. I understand why people love their macs, if my computer was as ingenius and innovative as my phone (while being more user friendly and reliable) then I’ll never look back and become a mac person, and I’ll pay through the nose. I am going to hold off as long as I can.[/quote]

I guess I am different comparing to all of your guys, because up until now nobody mentions iPad, which is the only product that I love from Apple. I own/use iPod but I really prefer to use cheap no-name generic MP3 players because I really hate iTune. I use iPhone 4 at work but I see no extra premium value that it should be charging comparing to the HTC smartphone that I have. I have been using mac mini as well and I really like Mac air if they can half their price, but I won’t convert all my PCs to mac. I am pretty sure lots of software that I use routinely doesn’t have a mac version. On top of that, Ubuntu is more straightforward in their configuration and I don’t really like the GUI wrapped around the unix OS by Apple.

But iPad is really really cool. It is lightweight and the competition has not caught up with it (except eepad transformer was rumored to be good, but I couldn’t find one in store. Bestbuy only carries it online). I went to Apple store to buy another iPad yesterday and was told it was still out of stock. The sales person says that they couldn’t order the iPad but get whatever was shipped to them and people buy whatever version is available. If one is in the computer business, that’s the market position you want to lock yourself in.

[carlsbadworker]

[quote=temeculaguy]I am a recent convert but haven’t made the jump to their computers yet. I freaking love my iphone 3G, I can’t say enough about it and I’m never going back to blackberry/palm or other phones. I don’t even want to look at macs because I know i’ll want one and they are considerably more expensive. I understand why people love their macs, if my computer was as ingenius and innovative as my phone (while being more user friendly and reliable) then I’ll never look back and become a mac person, and I’ll pay through the nose. I am going to hold off as long as I can.[/quote]

I guess I am different comparing to all of your guys, because up until now nobody mentions iPad, which is the only product that I love from Apple. I own/use iPod but I really prefer to use cheap no-name generic MP3 players because I really hate iTune. I use iPhone 4 at work but I see no extra premium value that it should be charging comparing to the HTC smartphone that I have. I have been using mac mini as well and I really like Mac air if they can half their price, but I won’t convert all my PCs to mac. I am pretty sure lots of software that I use routinely doesn’t have a mac version. On top of that, Ubuntu is more straightforward in their configuration and I don’t really like the GUI wrapped around the unix OS by Apple.

But iPad is really really cool. It is lightweight and the competition has not caught up with it (except eepad transformer was rumored to be good, but I couldn’t find one in store. Bestbuy only carries it online). I went to Apple store to buy another iPad yesterday and was told it was still out of stock. The sales person says that they couldn’t order the iPad but get whatever was shipped to them and people buy whatever version is available. If one is in the computer business, that’s the market position you want to lock yourself in.

[carlsbadworker]

[quote=temeculaguy]I am a recent convert but haven’t made the jump to their computers yet. I freaking love my iphone 3G, I can’t say enough about it and I’m never going back to blackberry/palm or other phones. I don’t even want to look at macs because I know i’ll want one and they are considerably more expensive. I understand why people love their macs, if my computer was as ingenius and innovative as my phone (while being more user friendly and reliable) then I’ll never look back and become a mac person, and I’ll pay through the nose. I am going to hold off as long as I can.[/quote]

I guess I am different comparing to all of your guys, because up until now nobody mentions iPad, which is the only product that I love from Apple. I own/use iPod but I really prefer to use cheap no-name generic MP3 players because I really hate iTune. I use iPhone 4 at work but I see no extra premium value that it should be charging comparing to the HTC smartphone that I have. I have been using mac mini as well and I really like Mac air if they can half their price, but I won’t convert all my PCs to mac. I am pretty sure lots of software that I use routinely doesn’t have a mac version. On top of that, Ubuntu is more straightforward in their configuration and I don’t really like the GUI wrapped around the unix OS by Apple.

But iPad is really really cool. It is lightweight and the competition has not caught up with it (except eepad transformer was rumored to be good, but I couldn’t find one in store. Bestbuy only carries it online). I went to Apple store to buy another iPad yesterday and was told it was still out of stock. The sales person says that they couldn’t order the iPad but get whatever was shipped to them and people buy whatever version is available. If one is in the computer business, that’s the market position you want to lock yourself in.

[Author]

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