LSU82BILL

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Our government has always been great at spending money on things that do not benefit american citizens

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There’s a whole bunch of American citizens who are executives/employees/shareholders of a whole bunch of US defense contractors that benefited nicely.

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Lmao. The bear is definitely not England and without us there is no nato

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I don’t disagree with any of that but as of this moment, your second assertion is a moot point.

The depleted Russian military apparatus is feckless.
The UK and France are members of NATO.

You need to re-think who the Bear is.

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Not sure stealing from a Wal-Mart is always going to be a felony

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Trying to run over a cop with your vehicle should be every time.

She's right. If there were justice, they would have taken the dude out back after the guilty verdit, buried a knife in his heart and make the kid's family pay court costs. That would be a better lesson.

You used to be able to drop your car off at Sears for a new battery, oil change and 4 new tires, go inside and buy clothing, footware, toys, sporting goods, a new appliance, riding mower, paint and every conceivable hand or power tool.Good times!

20 shares of GOOGL in March 2010.
20 shares of AAPL in March 2010.

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Try to wrap your head around this one, if you can.

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Pretty simple. Just another attention whore.

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I think you are correct.

Am curious, how do think about cost when taking investing decisions? Not only capital gains but your personal time & effort spent researching, etc? Presume you are not a financial trader professional and are doing so on your personal time.

If love it / good at it, salute! For me, I started to value time very differently (and ironically) once I turned 40. Just curious how you think about it. Thx!

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It's stupid to spend so much time and effort researching companies. Hell, a company can have a great earnings call and beat every metric necessary to get analysts to jack up their target price but if they project weak guidance, sometimes that will trigger a sell off. I watch a lot of Bloomberg and CNBC and online content on Yahoo Finance. I'll listen to all these executives, fund managers, analysts and economists opinions and when almost every person thinks highly of a company, who the hell am I to disagree? Just go on Yahoo Finance and look up a company - it will have a few drop down menus until you get to "Analyst Insights". A company will have been analyzed by numerous professional analysts. Google, for instance has 64 total analyst recomendations with 43 of the being "Buy" and 14 of them being "Strong Buy". The rest are "Hold". Nobody recommends selling. That's good enough for me. I've given and gotten great tips from friends, family and brokers.

I've given and gotten horsehit tips from friends, family and brokers. I've learned that I'm not as smart as I think but I firmly believe that a strong mix of blue chips is better than index funds over the long haul. And patience can't be overstated.

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It is much more akin to a wealth tax than a capital gains/unrealized gains tax. The value could only go down and you'd still owe a property tax on whatever the value is every year, even though it has never appreciated.

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Your second sentence is accurate. But you aren't describing what a wealth tax. EVERY property has an assessed value and a millage rate. Any increase in a yearly assesed value is basically another cost of inflation. Your assessed value generally increases based on housing prices the same way your property insurance increases but different from how your HOA dues and utilities increase.Almost every "wealth tax" proposal I've ever seen is aimed specifically at the wealthiest citizens - not every citizen.

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Now do after tax returns over long term (>20yrs), as risk sensitivity heightens (to/thru retirement).

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Since it's hard to go back 20 years, how about I just do my own holdings over the past 5 years and all time?


State Street SPDR Dow Jones Industrial Average ETF Trust (DIA) 47% (5Y) and 548% since 1998 (28 years)

State Street SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust (SPY) 79% (5Y) and 1,604% since 1998 (28 years)

Vanguard 500 Index Mutual Fund (VFIAX) 79% (5Y) and 453% since 2000 (26 years)



Berkshire Hathaway Inc. (BRK-B) 69% (5Y) and 2,080% since 1996 (30 years)

Alphabet Inc. (GOOGL) 225% (5Y) and 15,366% since 2004 (22 years)

Apple Inc. (AAPL) 144% (5Y) and 241,341% since 1980 (36 years)

Microsoft Corporation (MSFT) 65% (5Y) and 468,575% since 1986 (40 years)

Amazon.com, Inc. (AMZN) 61% (5Y) and 215,809% since 1997 (29 years)

Walmart Inc. (WMT) 151% (5Y) and 559,35% since 1970 (56 years)