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Al Capone

"Еж" - possibly yes, "БФ" - don't know this one.

добавлено через 5 минут
Glad to hear you are OK. I use index funds as a core as well but there are some areas (energy, precious metals, real estate) that I target with small portions of my money. I may be flattering myself hoping I can anticipate trends in asset class prices. What's life without some fun?

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Мне очень не нравится внешняя политика США, поэтому я предпочитаю жить внутри.

Свидетель

- do you know that forum of "Еж" works again ?

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... не проворным достается успешный бег, не храбрым - победа, не мудрым - хлеб, и не у разумных - богатство, и не искусным - благорасположение, но время и случай для всех их.

Al Capone

I had no idea it wasn't working. That tells you how often I visit it these days.

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Мне очень не нравится внешняя политика США, поэтому я предпочитаю жить внутри.

Вітя

Lottery is for people who are bad at math. I know enough about finance to know that unless I make playing the market a full-time job, I am a mark (hence 'mark-to-market', hehe). So, it's index funds for me. I am not a gambling personality.

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Ceterum Censeo: Veritas et Libertas Ultra Omnis Sunto!

Свидетель

Yes ... probably you are the very busy man

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... не проворным достается успешный бег, не храбрым - победа, не мудрым - хлеб, и не у разумных - богатство, и не искусным - благорасположение, но время и случай для всех их.

Al Capone

Agreed. But, don't you think that there are some trends that are fairly easy to anticipate?

1. Inflation. Fed is flooding the market with "cheap" money trying to
reverse deflationary trends. I can guarantee they'll succeed eventually,
so some moves to take advantage of inflation are prudent: natural
resources, TIPs, investment properties, etc.

2. Lower dollar. It is not hard to see that dollar will depreciate vs. many
other currencies over the long term. Considering that our incomes are
in $$ some anti-dollar hedging is necessary - foreign stocks and bonds,
gold, silver, platinum, currencies, etc.

If it turns out I am wrong about these long term trends my index fund holdings will do quite well. But it is hard to imagine that these scenarios will not play out eventually.

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Мне очень не нравится внешняя политика США, поэтому я предпочитаю жить внутри.

Вітя

But then everyone anticipates them, countering it thereby; and then others anticipate this counter-effect, and bet on it, etc. As a result, any easily predictable behavior turns into a constrained random walk.

Oh, they probably will -- but because everyone will also plan to take advantage of them, their utility will be reduced to, at best, approximately market average.

The way to beat the market is to seize and predict the trends which aren't obvious. People who can actually do that -- Lynch, Buffet, etc. -- are incredibly wealthy thereby. Otherwise, at best, you will simply do about as well as the index anyway, in the long run.

If you make this your full-time job, you might beat the index a little, but 5 out of 7 managed mutual funds underperform the index, and they are all run by full-time professionals.

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Ceterum Censeo: Veritas et Libertas Ultra Omnis Sunto!

Al Capone

I wholeheartedly agree with what you say and fully subscribe to this theory. Your assessment would be 100% accurate if only the market forces were at play.

However, there are very powerful non-market forces at work here.

The government is raising taxes and promoting these anti-market policies, it is printing money, selling obscene amounts of treasuries trying to keep interest rates artificially low. It is not hard to see that this will eventually lead to inflation and much higher "real" interest rates. The dollar will depreciate against some currencies (this is the only way we can return to "normal" debt levels and have sustainable growth). US will buy less foreign goods, produce more domestically, people will save more, US exporters will benefit from a lower dollar, other countries will have to generate the global demand, etc.

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Мне очень не нравится внешняя политика США, поэтому я предпочитаю жить внутри.

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Вітя

I am not disagreeing with any of it, Al. I am just saying you won't get a ten-bagger out of it, in all likelihood, or anything significantly over index, except perhaps by luck, precisely because everyone else can see the same trends. So in expected earnings, you will likely at best match the index.

I take it you are not a big fan of the bailout?

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Ceterum Censeo: Veritas et Libertas Ultra Omnis Sunto!

Al Capone

I understand that some form of the bailout may have been necessary, but I don't understand many of the bailout details.

I am against political correctness that made banks lend to people that don't have the means to repay just because it wanted to "promote homeownership". That's how we got into this mess in the first place.

I am definitely against courts reducing mortgage amounts for people that irresponsibly bought houses without sufficient incomes, with "interest only", "reverse amortisation", adjustable rate mortgages just to "keep them in their houses".

I am against the unions that suck the life out of american corporations.
I am against higher taxes "for the rich" especially at the time of resession.
I am against socialized healthcare, against socialised anything, against socialism as a concept.
I am against "spreading the wealth".

Here we are, talking about politics again.

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Мне очень не нравится внешняя политика США, поэтому я предпочитаю жить внутри.

Вітя

No, it's not. You are talking about CRA -- but the entities not subject to CRA in fact initiated the subprime loans at twice the rate of the entities subject to CRA. So bad loans are a problem, but CRA had nothing to do with it.

The core problem, IMO was the fact that credit derivatives, e.g. Credit Default Swaps, made risk ludicrously cheap; so the lenders figured -- why not lend out bad loans, if the risk is covered on the cheap anyway? except that it was all a house of cards, "you are covered as long as you don't make any claims" sort of thing.

I am against doing it via courts at well. This is much better handled via incentivized loan restructuring.

These higher taxes would be the same rate as during Clinton times.

I am against socialism too, but 'socialized' doesn't entail 'socialism'. What about police? military? highways? CDC? Libraries? etc.

Indeed. And i take it you voted against Obama?

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Ceterum Censeo: Veritas et Libertas Ultra Omnis Sunto!

Al Capone

Right.

Yes, but we were growing like crazy during Clinton times. We could afford higher taxes then.

There are areas that have to be in the hands of the government: police, military, etc. But healthcare, for example, is not one of those areas.
"Socialized" means - government takes from the "rich" (productive) to give to the "poor" (non-productive). It is much better to encourage productivity and innovation which will result in more jobs which turns poor into middle class, provided they are willing to work and leaves enough to pay the minimum to those that can't (or won't) work.

Yes. But McCain was not a viable candidate for many reasons, age being one of them. I would have voted for Gingrich but he wasn't in the race.

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Мне очень не нравится внешняя политика США, поэтому я предпочитаю жить внутри.

Вітя

Not a pleasant time to be a republican (or supporter), I imagine.

I voted for Obama both in primary and general.

Not necessarily, though it can mean that. Are you familiar with the Nash equilibria, or with Prisoner's Dilemma? There are things which can only be handled on societal level, for purely mathematical reasons.

Private healthcare insurance (insurance, not healthcare itself) suffers from two market failures simultaneously: moral hazard and adverse selection. It's not very amendable to the free market because of that. There's a reason why we spend the greatest percentage of GDP on healthcare, yet achieve subpar systemic results.

Except that over the last three decades, the exact opposite has happened -- with the exception of a brief spike during the Clinton years, the median wage has remained basically stagnant. The American Dream has been running idle.

historically, the economy has done better under Dems than under GOP in virtually all respects, and both WRT Presidency and Congress. Trickle-down has proven itself to not work.

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Ceterum Censeo: Veritas et Libertas Ultra Omnis Sunto!

Chizhune4ka

Hello! I'm glad to see so nice topic....
I don't speak english very well but i can tell about different diseases and it's clinical manifistations.... but only if you asked me

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В страну моей души нельзя без виз… Граница охраняется надежно, попасть в неё без искренней любви, и настоящей дружбы не возможно....

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Al Capone

I am not a republican. Republican Party betrayed its principals and discredited itself by running up huge deficits (failed to be fiscally conservative), advocated giving amnesty to illegal aliens, etc.

I fail to see how socialized healthcare system (like in Canada, for ex.) is better. I have relatives in Canada. There are horror stories when people that have serious ilnesses or are in pain are forced to wait for months for an appointment with a specialist or for an elective surgery. I agree that our system is not perfect but I do not trust the government to "fix" it.

Wages remained stagnant for objective reasons - the rise of emerging markets, outsourcing, etc. We should use tax policy to encourage companies to keep their operations in the US or bring them back instead of taxing them and making it prudent to leave the US and go to places where taxes are lower.

The American Dream has not been running idle, it's very much alive and well. The Bill of Rights guarantees the right to the pursuit of happiness, not happiness itself. If your wages are low - work extra hours, study at night to aquire a new profession, improve your skills and you will succeed.
That's the american way! Just sitting on your butt waiting for your wages to grow does not work and never did. We now have billions of people competing with us for our wages, we have to be better in what we do to prosper! I see lots of people around that were able to achieve extraordinary success against all odds. I also see a lot of losers who don't want to lift their a** off a chair but complain constantly about life not being fair to them.

There also are 12 million illegal aliens in the country keeping wages low. We have to pay more taxes for their kids to go to school, they get free healthcare raising its cost for people who pay. Why don't we address this issue? I'll tell you why - because illegal aliens are potential democratic voters. Because unions that bancrupt US corporations by demanding $38/hr wages, huge pensions and healthcare benefits are democratic voters. Because millions on public assistance are democratic voters. Because millions of government employees that couldn't care less about
private corporations - the only engine of growth - are democratic voters, and we will dramatically increase the number of government employees that wouldn't give a rat's behind about productivity.

добавлено через 3 минуты
Hello and welcome! I don't know much about deseases (though my wife can talk for hours about childhood ilnesses) but I'll be sure to ask you if I have a question. Thanks!

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Мне очень не нравится внешняя политика США, поэтому я предпочитаю жить внутри.

Сказавших "Спасибо!": 1 (показать список)