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livinincali
Participant[quote=AN][quote=livinincali][quote=AN]I think we’re still far far away from the 90s bubble. I remember buying anything with a .com and your “investment” would go up 50% in a few months.[/quote]
You mean like these recent IPOs
GPRO
KITE
ARDX
ZSPH
VNOM
MRD
ANET
RDUS
AGRX
SDPI
JD
SEMI
TRUE
ZEN[/quote]Back then, you can pick almost any stock (not just IPO) that have a .com and you can easily double your money in a few months. I’m not saying there aren’t overvalued stocks today. I’m just saying the irrational exuberance were much much more obvious back then. You know you’re in bubble territory when everybody is talking about how much money they made from stocks.Ariba, Inc. went up over 4X in 4 months.
JDSU went up over 4X in 4 months.
QCOM went up 3X in 2 months.I can go on and on. But you get the point. Not only start up were seeing 3x increase in stock price in a span of a few months. To be in the same scale today as it was in 1999-2000, FB has to be ~200, TWTR has to be ~180, etc.[/quote]
QCOM in 1999 had a market cap of about 75 billion and annual revenues of about 4 billion. So there price to revenue was 18.75. FB has a market cap of 167 billion and revenues of roughly 10 billion = 16.7 price to revenue. TWTR is 23 billion market with revenue projected to be about 1 billion = 23.0 price to revenue. So in valuation terms FB and TWTR are pretty close to where QCOM was at the peak of the 1999 bubble. TWTR is higher, FB is slightly lower. The biggest difference is when they IPO QCOM was a IPO well before the bubble FB and TWTR have both IPOed somewhere in the middle of this bubble.
Participant[quote=AN]I think we’re still far far away from the 90s bubble. I remember buying anything with a .com and your “investment” would go up 50% in a few months.[/quote]
You mean like these recent IPOs
GPRO
KITE
ARDX
ZSPH
VNOM
MRD
ANET
RDUS
AGRX
SDPI
JD
SEMI
TRUE
ZENParticipant[quote=FlyerInHi]I’ve recently noticed something weird with Facebook.
I started getting all kinds of friends suggestions and I was wondering how facebook found them. There is only one way. On my iPhone, they accessed my contacts and cross-referenced by phone number.
How do I know? there are contractors I don’t even have email address for. I only call them but they got suggested as my friends. I don’t even have their full names input in. I had something like “Juan drywall San Diego.”
Am I correct that Facebook is not supposed to do that? there should be some kind of lawsuit to make them pay for violating privacy.
Or they should be forced to shutdown altogether as a deterrent to future violators.[/quote]
You pressed I accept on the terms and conditions. Obviously you have a choice. You can stop using Facebook on your phone. For Facebook you are the product. You have a choice to stop being their product.
Here’s a list of the things Facebook has requested permission for and you agreed to when clicking I accept.
http://www.infowars.com/facebook-wants-to-listen-to-your-phone-calls/
If you don’t want to click the link
[quote]As the screenshot above illustrates (click for enlargement), users are made to accept an agreement that allows Facebook to “record audio with the microphone….at any time without your confirmation.”
The TOS also authorizes Facebook to take videos and pictures using the phone’s camera at any time without permission, as well as directly calling numbers, again without permission, that could incur charges.
But wait, there’s more! Facebook can also “read your phone’s call log” and “read data about contacts stored on your phone, including the frequency with which you’ve called, emailed or communicated in other ways with specific individuals.”
[/quote]Or if you prefer a more liberal source.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/sam-fiorella/the-insidiousness-of-face_b_4365645.html
[quote]
Allows the app to change the state of network connectivityAllows the app to call phone numbers without your intervention. This may result in unexpected charges or calls. Malicious apps may cost you money by making calls without your confirmation.
Allows the app to send SMS messages. This may result in unexpected charges. Malicious apps may cost you money by sending messages without your confirmation.
Allows the app to record audio with microphone. This permission allows the app to record audio at any time without your confirmation.
Allows the app to take pictures and videos with the camera. This permission allows the app to use the camera at any time without your confirmation.
Allows the app to read you phone’s call log, including data about incoming and outgoing calls. This permission allows apps to save your call log data, and malicious apps may share call log data without your knowledge.
Allows the app to read data about your contacts stored on your phone, including the frequency with which you’ve called, emailed, or communicated in other ways with specific individuals.
Allows the app to read personal profile information stored on your device, such as your name and contact information. This means the app can identify you and may send your profile information to others.
Allows the app to access the phone features of the device. This permission allows the app to determine the phone number and device IDs, whether a call is active, and the remote number connected by a call.
Allows the app to get a list of accounts known by the phone. This may include any accounts created by applications you have installed.
[/quote]ParticipantIf your time to fight the tax assessor is worth less than $162.50 then sure.
Participant[quote=FlyerInHi]
I like real estate more then stocks because in a financial collapse, real estate that’s paid off will always generate rents to allow you to live comfortably. I was reading about some German families who survived WWI and WWII thanks to real estate. Even in the dark days of Communism, families in China who didn’t have their real estate expropriated did well.[/quote]Paid off real estate is certainly a good thing to have in a financial collapse but so few people actually have paid off real estate. Prices in real estate are set at the margin and they are highly dependent on leverage. As a place to stay, as a place to produce some income from rent, yeah. A store a value not so much because a lot of the value is established by the next guy being able to leverage up.
Stocks are probably the first thing to get hammered. They’re highly discretionary. Dividend paying stocks probably have some kind of floor but it’s easy to envision a stock market that is at least 50% and perhaps 90% off in a financial collapse. Japan’s stock market is still trading at less than 50% of it’s bubble level 25 years later.
Participant[quote=HLS]Tax laws can change at any time. IRA/401K is not a guarantee of anything other than risk.
The stock market is a legalized casino.
I’m amazed in the faith that exists believing that
this manipulated, unproven system is the security blanket for tens of millions of people.There is a chance that the stock market will collapse and the fallout will be far, far worse than what happened in 2008, which to me was no surprise and expected.
Most of the experts would just say that ‘nobody saw this coming'[/quote]
At the macro level the demographics say everybody should see the coming issues. The stock market at a macro level will fall because the supply demand imbalance caused by boomers in 401Ks is going to switch from net inflows to net outflows. It’s just a matter of time. When that shift occurs there will be a much higher supply of assets for sale versus the demand for the next generation to purchase them.
It will probably occur in real estate as well.Boomers are in the peak asset collection years right now. Asset prices are high because of that demand. Leverage makes the problem worse but even without it the problem would still exist.
ParticipantWeeeeee. $46+/sh now.
I wonder how far this bubble is going to go before it pops.
Participant[quote=flu]
Well if WhatsApp is worth $3billion, clearly “Yo” is worth 10million at least.Welcome to .com 3.0? Is it 3.0… I lost count…[/quote]
What’s app sold to Facebook for $19 billion. It was Beats that was worth $3 billion to AAPL.
Same stuff happened in the last bubble. It probably gets crazier but I don’t think there’s that much rope left. These things happen suddenly. You go from a headhunter calling you every week with a new opportunity to a disconnected phone number when you try to return that call. There isn’t much time in between.
Participant[quote=SK in CV]
Is the expectation that the “401K system” has unique risks associated with it that are different from risks associated with other retirement plans or other financial investments?[/quote]The risks are the same. 401K aren’t as good as a public sector pension because of the assumed taxpayer backstop, but who knows if that holds up. The reality is that as the boomer demographic has moved through the system there has been demand and supply imbalances. Right now there’s large demand for assets to fund retirement. Down the road there will be a large supply of assets wanting to be sold to fund retirement. The demand to buy all those assets just isn’t going to be there when that time comes and asset prices are likely to fall.
Participant[quote=AN]Rent in Mira Mesa only went up about $100-200 for a 1/1 and 2/2 over the last 15 years. QCOM was much smaller than than it is today. So, I don’t see rent in MM dropping $700/month anytime soon. If rent drop $700/month, then you’re talking about a 2/2 rent @ $800 and a 1/1 rent @500/month. I don’t see that ever happening. Rent for a 2/2 in MM hasn’t been that cheap for 20 years. At that time, QCOM was still in a startup mode and a lot of the QCOM buildings today were just empty land and UTC area was pretty empty compare to how it is today. If we do see that kind of rent drop, then there are much much worse thing to worry about. After all, rent was flat between 2005-2010, during the whole financial crisis.[/quote]
I didn’t really say anything about rents. It’s the months of vacancy you might have to endure. Can you immediately undercut the rents of everybody else in the market and get a new tenant? Most likely you probably could. Basically the question is how long can you carry leveraged rental property without collecting the rent and how quickly are you willing to lower the rental price.
ParticipantI can think of a scenario where this type of situation would apply here in San Diego. Suppose for a moment you gobbled up 3-4 cash flowing rental properties in a place like Mira Mesa and rented them out to young Qualcomm engineers or some people that were in related fields. Suppose then that mobile slows down and Qualcomm decides to layoff 5K people. 2 or 3 of your tenants get laid off and decide to leave your properties. Now you went from you nice 5% cap and the $500/month to a negative $2000/month situation. How long can you handle that situation and how long will it take you to find new tenants?
Participant[quote=CA renter]
Also, you’re underestimating how important classroom management is, especially if students are going to be working on their own. An aide will not be able to deal with all of the questions and situations that will arise in the classroom, especially if students are left to their own devices.[/quote]But if kids are working on their own through content at their own pace then you don’t need to put 30 kids in a room with 1 aide. You could take 100 of the kids that this type of teaching works really well for and put then in a room without the disruptive kids. You could put disruptive kids in isolation or in smaller groups. You’re not forced to commit to this 30 people in a room dynamic.
The biggest problem I have with the education system is there has been absolutely 0 improvement in efficiency or effectiveness with the technological advancements we’ve made over the years. In my opinion I think there would have been some improvements if the School Districts weren’t so resistant to change. A private company that resistant to change would have failed by now, but because it’s public and supported by tax dollars they don’t have to change. That is where the biggest problem lies. Tenure is just one of the numerous barriers that protect the school district from having to change.
Say something that’s been fairly successful like the Preuss school. Naysayers want to dismiss those results because they don’t have to deal with the challenges that exist in poorer neighborhood schools. But maybe that’s exactly what the public schools should be doing. Take the smart kids in the poor schools and put them together with good teachers and accelerate their learning process rather than just teaching to the middle with disruptive kids causing problems for everybody. Segregate the students not by race, color or background but by IQ or desire to learn.
Participant[quote=CA renter]
There is a bell curve in every profession. Some teachers are Mensa (or even Triple Nine Society) material, and some are of average intellect. Very few are below-average because they all have college degrees, and most districts do look at college records and GPAs.As for the Masters or PhD, some teachers have an advanced degree in their core teaching subject, especially at the secondary level. Others might have an advanced degree in education, with many of them specializing in a particular niche like curriculum and instruction (specializing in a particular subject like reading or math), special education, neuroscience/cognitive studies (especially how it relates to the learning process), technology in the classroom, administration, or school counseling (for those who want to move up and out of the classroom), etc.
What many people don’t understand is that how to teach is every bit as important as what to teach. A teacher with a Masters or PhD has studied different teaching methods and learned about the best ways to reach different types of students in different settings and situations.[/quote]
I agree that how to teach is probably more important that what you teach. Seriously any college kid should be able to know the material that is learned in K-12 education. Can they effectively teach it is a different question?
The problem in my eyes is the public school district does a really bad job at utilizing resources. For example let’s talk about the all-star mensa teacher that does it for the love of the job. At a high school level maybe 150 kids can be exposed to that teacher per semester under the current system. Thousands of other kids are not exposed to that star performer and a couple thousand more are exposed to the bottom 10% performers.
So now we have this star teacher that is likely teaching kids that could learn the material from any average teacher getting the advantage of learning it from one of the best. How do you get that star teacher into more classrooms. Why aren’t school district adopting and using technology to make that happen. If you could accomplish that successfully, you could give the star teacher a big raise and replace a bunch of the ineffectively classroom teachers. If I could prove massive increases in student performance by going down this path it would be rejected unfortunately.
That’s the fundamental issue. Public education and especially the representing unions isn’t about how to do public education better it’s about how to protect teachers and administrator jobs.
Fortunately we are finally seeing some investment in a better way of teaching content, i.e. the Khan Adamedy’s of the world. It’s likely inevitable that eventually better teaching technologies will make it into the classroom and replace the average classroom teacher but it’s not going to happen peacefully. You’ll have lower costs aides managing the classroom, with content coming from star content providers. Those aides might get paid petty well and they’ll have to do less work (grading and lesson planing will be centralized). There will be challenges and obstacles to overcome. Some kids might do worse in a system like this but I think it’s eventually coming.
Participant[quote=FlyerInHi]I’m surprised at the valuation of AirBNB and Uber.[/quote]
Welcome to technology/internet bubble 2.0. When it ends is anybody’s guess.
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