dualstow wrote: ↑Thu Apr 18, 2024 10:35 am Sounds like you’re not losing out buying insurance because your house has not yet caught fire.

I do not accept that as being an apt analogy.

dualstow wrote: ↑Thu Apr 18, 2024 8:38 am More importantly, are you buying 30-year treasuries?

Not yet. But my main point was that at this point I'm not losing out in locking in the long-term rates because they've still been available.

dualstow wrote: ↑Wed Apr 17, 2024 9:03 pm Depends on how far back you go.

I converted all my cash holdings to it in March 2020. From then until about January 2023 it paid nothing. I had owned some of it prior to then.

But prior to January 2023 and starting around October 2008 did any money market fund pay anything much above 0.0%?

dualstow wrote: ↑Wed Apr 17, 2024 9:05 pm

Amazing!

dualstow wrote: ↑Wed Apr 17, 2024 3:51 pm VUSXX is king

For 1+ years it has been. Prior to then all it offered was safety with near zero return.

ppnewbie wrote: ↑Tue Apr 16, 2024 9:24 pm Yield is going up!

So far at this point my ever-present investing procrastinating inertia is paying off. I am still get big-time returns off my significant cash holding by having it all in the Vanguard Treasury Money Market Fund (VUSXX), which I've got a lot of other people into.

Hey I didn't know about AVUV, thanks for mentioning! It looks like FISVX (Fidelity's small cap value mutual fund) is lagging it quite significantly, and it gets worse and worse over time. What is everyone's favorite small cap value investment??? After lots of research it seems to be the new consens...

dualstow wrote: ↑Tue Apr 16, 2024 6:58 pm

CLASSIC cat behavior!

Hey I didn't know about AVUV, thanks for mentioning! It looks like FISVX (Fidelity's small cap value mutual fund) is lagging it quite significantly, and it gets worse and worse over time. What is everyone's favorite small cap value investment??? I have been in Vanguard's Small Cap Value Index conti...

Good level-headed piece criticizing NPR, by a veteran insider. https://www.thefp.com/p/npr-editor-how-npr-lost-americas-trust …and they just suspended him. Read what he'd written. Did not know that. Gave up listening to them decades ago. They seemed to also become irrelevant once the internet took ...

I submitted my tax return on Sunday with a $5,000 purchase for iBonds. So far it's only worked half the times. 2 times they have been bought. The other two times they've refunded my $5,000.

There is a term for this as you can see from the below article. I assume you are somewhat unaware of this because you are not yet collecting Social Security. I was also oblivious to it until it became a reality for me. Ah, right, the dreaded SS tax torpedo that I see discussed on Bogleheads and for...

Vinny, You should also consider donating your RMD. That avoids the taxes if I'm understanding correctly. You understand correctly. However, that is not in my future for two main reasons. 1) I already have a significant amount in my Vanguard Charitable Donor Fund. 2) From being intimately involved i...

Vinny, You seem to be saying that if you have $10,000 taxed at 22% and another $10,000 also taxed at 22% that you now have $20,000 being taxed at 44%. The tax on that $20,000 is $4,400, not $8,800. Remember that you have $11,600 that is only taxed at 10% and that the next $35,550 is only taxed at 1...

If you're self-employed and therefore paying both halves of the FICA taxes, don't forget to deduct the employer half of it. That should reduce the effective tax rate a bit. I never forget that. In absolute terms the $$$ amount of taxes saved would be: Business Income X 13.5% X 0.5 X Marginal Tax Ra...

https://www.mauldineconomics.com/global ... te-garbage

McBride: “99% of crypto is absolute garbage.”
Ed D'Agostino Ed D'Agostino
|
April 12, 2024

I suspect that the paper-gold to physical gold ratio will further increase from recent 122:1 levels. Looks like a big buyer, 100Bn, perhaps Russia, buying 1500 tonnes of physical gold, via Options (expiry settlement in physical gold rather than cash). With current sanctions those trades being appli...

dualstow wrote: ↑Sun Apr 14, 2024 11:57 amWho knows

Well, I think we can all agree that the possibilities are higher that they do something toward Israel if Israel does as you suggest?

The whole Social Security thing is a double tax as not only will those Require Minimum Distributions push me well into the 22% marginal tax bracket ... it will also result in more Social Security being taxed (at that 22% marginal tax bracket). Seems like that could be viewed as a 44% federal tax ra...

dualstow wrote: ↑Sun Apr 14, 2024 10:46 am It has been said that if Israel takes out Iran’s drone facility in its anticipated response, this will degrade Russia’s ability to use drones against Kyiv.
Wouldn’t mind seeing that.

But then how does Iran respond to Israel?

So maybe this whole "we pay half of our money to the government!" meme is a bunch of baloney pushed by people trying to make you mad and turn off your brain so you'll make bad decisions that just so happen to serve their purposes. What are some examples of these bad decisions? Voting for ...

So I was SUPPOSED to first be completing my tax return. But once I had my Excel tax file open I had to do this more fun task. As usual, nothing is simple, so here is a table of looking at my taxes in different ways. (By the way, I was mistaken earlier. I thought I was in the 22% marginal tax bracket...

You are correct about effective tax rate ...which is different from marginal tax rate, which is the tax rate on your next $$$ earned. For my 2023 tax return I am in the 22% federal tax bracket. State is 5%. Therefore, 27% total for the next $$$ earned. But then there is Social Security / Medicare, ...

We are already making tentative plans for another trip in December 2024, but who knows what the country will be like at that point. With the US clearly indicating that its abandoned Ukraine !!! Did I miss some major breaking news of some new development regarding the United States and where it stan...

You are correct about effective tax rate ...which is different from marginal tax rate, which is the tax rate on your next $$$ earned. For my 2023 tax return I am in the 22% federal tax bracket. State is 5%. Therefore, 27% total for the next $$$ earned. But then there is Social Security / Medicare, w...