I listened to it a while back and had no issues on Podcast Addict.

Assuming legally married or sufficient confidence to not have a break-up be a risk factor here. Gotta say that part.

To me, 4.5% and 5% (taxed) is not sufficiently different to be worth the mind space. If the world was perfect, you should do the CD thing. In real life, there could be a glitch or a mistake of timing that causes an issue with payment of a loan or an auto draft or something, you have to think about it and make sure it’s still paying and your CD is re-upping at a high enough interest rate etc. Not worth it in the slightest to me.

You have control by default. If you hire a financial advisor to manage your funds, you’re giving them control but you can tell them not to sell ever and they will do what you say.

I usually wait until Feb to be sure I got all my forms but I wouldn’t think now is that early.

It’s doing fine. There are many free trade deals in the works around the world, the WTO is still chugging along as normal.

I’d actually say the idea of minimal government control over the economy is still the majority opinion in the US, Biden’s Child Tax Credits are tax cuts, Trump had tax cuts. UBI which has been growing in popularity on the Left is really a neoliberal solution to welfare.

And on trade we just renegotiated NAFTA and kept it and we’re working on a trade deal with the UK. You think the trade barriers to China are this big turn against neoliberalism but nobody has even had the ability to pass a law about it, the sanctions law is all repurposed from the Cold War.

Personally I had way too many quality issues at that price range. An earbud would be randomly quieter than the other, the battery of an earbud would die, the Bluetooth would suck, or they would be unusable for phone calls. I bought refurbished $100-something headphones for $70 and haven’t needed to buy any more since.

There’s a famous example of the poverty trap that uses boots that fall apart every season vs quality boots that last, and I think there is a quality level that is so bad it’s more expensive in the long run. So I do buy shoes that cost money. But I’m not buying fashion shoes or luxury brand shoes which I think is what you’re saying too.

Say you have $7000 day 1. Option 1 is to invest it all immediately. Option 2 is to invest only a portion and just keep the rest in cash until you invest later.

In the long run, the invested side always does better than the cash side, interest rates on a savings account by definition never match the long run gains in the stock market. You get a premium for your money in the stock market because it can go negative in the short term.

There is a reason to do Option 2, if you’re saving for a house or a car or something you probably don’t want to risk the market going down right before you want to make that purchase. Or if you are very sensitive to losses and you would he anxious or devastated if you put the money in and saw the value drop.

But for retirement funds, you want to maximize long term gains so it makes the most sense to put it in Day 1.

This comment did not go where I thought it was going but very interesting. You’re clearly making the right call for your personal finances.

I assumed you were going to say something about like expensive composting equipment or aluminum straws.

That ‘immigration is bad’ would actually be the vastly more common incorrect belief.

Let’s check in on what was going on 100 years ago, see if weekends are doing any good…

Oh yeah https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revolutions_of_1917–1923

It’s basically the gold standard. The country not having the ability to devalue is exactly the point.

The monetary trilemma is that you have to choose 2: monetary independence, exchange rate stability, and free capital flow. Dollarizing picks exchange rate stability over monetary independence. There are downsides but it’s a legitimate choice, there are upsides too.

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LES1252881600Q

What a puff piece. Cherry pick the highest inflation numbers, discount the equally-relevant wage side of the equation, end with a single person’s story instead of numbers.

Wages have been growing faster than inflation for a year and a half. They’re not caught up to all the inflation we have seen since the pandemic (yet) but they’re on the way. Completely ignoring that is bad reporting.

Article from 2019 is very 2019.

1 million posts per day. Whoa.

We are so used to basically zero interest that it has lost its power as a market signal. It will come back eventually, but we were at basically zero for a decade and a half and rates are high enough to support 1%+ interest rates for maybe a year? Just takes time to adjust.

I don’t know the rules about wash sales but surely you could just buy S&P 500 index funds to truly diversify. Only thing to consider for ESPP is that you get taxed at the income tax rate (probably higher) if you sell ESPP funds you received within 12 months, and you get taxed as capital gains (probably lower) for anything held longer. So sell the longer-held stock first.

A second round RB from last year isn’t like a hidden gem but I expect James Cook will be the clear RB1 over Harris on the Bills, with a ton more snaps and production. He looked great in spurts last year, McD is always limiting rookies, and Singletary is secretly pretty good and he’s gone. I think Cook will be a top 10 RB by total yardage if he stays healthy the whole year.

I believe the idea is that you’re using the personal API at a low enough volume that it’s free.