Benformation
think. act. clarity.
Mar 31
Feb 26
Throwing money away
Was just speaking with a friend the other day, and the old saying came up of “If you’re renting, you’re just throwing your money away.” This has always felt incorrect, but I never really did the math. I now have done it, and if you do, you’ll realize that it comes down to a really basic understanding of what you want in a house, not so much in terms of money being spent. Here’s how it went:
I have very basic parameters to start from. The type of house that I am interested in living in is around $350,000. From there, here are my loose estimates:
Interesting eh. With the new home, I’m spending about a million when all is said and done. So basically, I can “throw” my money away for 30 years, pay the $350,000, and still have a little over $30k for spending money.
This is obviously not a specific study that I’m performing to determine how I’m going to go about my life, but it makes the point that you can’t make your decisions based on money going in the garbage can. Well, maybe you can actually think about the candidates before voting…like our past president…like our current president…Ron Paul?… I digress…
Feb 24
Wow, this is amazing.
This is why you’re broke.
Feb 23
So that’s a bubble?!
Feb 19
“ If you put a tax cut into the hands of a business or family, there’s no guarantee that they’re going to invest that or invest it in America.
— John Kerry - meh
“ The latest spending, signed into law yesterday by President Obama, came on top of $300 billion committed to Citigroup, $700 billion for TARP 1, $300 billion for the FHA, $200 billion for TAF and some $300 billion for Fannie and Freddy. Just over the last six months, which excludes the initial Bush stimulus and several massive, unfunded Federal guarantees, nearly $5 trillion has been committed by the government to the financial industry. Rational observers cannot be faulted for concluding, despite Administration claims to the contrary, that the government is merely throwing money at the problem.
— John Browne more
What is a recession?
When you hear people on tv talk about recession, specifically they can say that we are not in a recession… or that we haven’t been in a recession… because we haven’t had 2 straight quarters with a reduction in our GDP. That’s a great definition for tv people, but not very accurate for real life. A basic way to think of a recession, or more specifically the US’s current recession, is to think of a balloon returning to it’s original state. Most people agree that there was a housing “bubble”. That bubble, despite how it was created, was an artificial inflation of our economy. Now, the economy wants to correct itself. It wants to get back to a natural state. How then can we escape the reality that this economy must contract. Furthermore, the housing bubble was not the problem, it was a symptom. Our economy as a whole has been sick for quite some time. Apart from massive cuts in government spending, we simply must let it be.
Feb 18
Looks like inflation to me — well done Ron Paul, well done.
