The printing press did not make everyone a publisher. The cotton gin did not make everyone a textile mill owner. And robots will not make everyone a manufacturer. The utopia of an "evolved" 100% owners class neglects to recognize that all men are not equal. A machine is only as useful as t...

Is this a false choice? If rates drop that low treasuries will have shot though the roof and (presuming you're already in the PP) you'll be selling LTTs rather than buying and you'll naturally be putting any new money into other lagging assets.  If you're planning to sell them all high before rates ...

dualstow wrote: Maybe she's "worth every dime" like one source says in the article. ;-)

The guy who said that is, of course, a fellow county supervisor. 

And people wonder how a wealthy state like California goes bankrupt.

I think the real question is not "what will robot-replaceable people do for money?" but "what will society look like when increasing numbers of people have nothing to offer?" Just a hypothesis -- Like the Bay Area.  When the workforce skews away from manual labor and all the rem...

No need to worry, Budd.  In my experience, it's human nature for people to constantly be looking for ways to optimize investments.  That goes triple for anyone in engineering or finance, as it's how they're hard wired to think (I struggle with this often). You won't find a single investment in the w...

BTW, your portfolio seems well thought out, Desert.  I can't fault you for being concerned about rising rates. Personally, I like the PP/VP distinction for forcing me into quantifying my confidence in my ability to time the market. The more confident I am, the larger the percentage I put in my VP. F...

But when the math consists solely of poorly-fit regressions of past human decisions, even equations are unpredictable. The stock market is a psychological human construction and not a law of nature.

My general advice would be to first try a different type of company (small versus large, etc.) before giving up on the career.  I've seen some folks really thrive after making such a change.  For me, the dissatisfaction runs a bit deeper, as I don't find the work all that interesting and probably s...

Coffee wrote: As for stress free jobs: I always thought that getting a job working at the front desk of a tanning salon would be about as good as it gets.  Especially one in Malibu, California. 

Ha!  Nice.  I'll have to add that to my list.

I'm considering moving my checking account out of Citibank, and am interested in what banks the people here would recommend for convenience, fees, service, and overall safety (FDIC aside, I'd prefer to work with the bank most unlikely to need a bailout from the Feds). I have a Fidelity brokerage acc...

Same boat, Tortoise.  Engineering can wear you out. If your PP can support you for a while, you might consider taking a sabbatical to decompress.  Evaluating new careers is really difficult when you're stressed about the current one.  Here's my working list for things I may want to try once I'm FI e...

For me, the 5th pillar is a mortgage-free home.  Working on that one.

I'm with AgAuMoney -- the pillars are to support the roof.  The career is to fund building them to the needed height and strength. 

Of course, now I also need to work more to afford my nice new mattress.

My favorite comment:

Curled Latin American horse tail is the BEST kind of curled horse tail! Let the other mattress companies cut corners and use cheaper Canadian or Australian horse tail, some of which is UNCURLED, or worse, given a bad perm. If you want the real thing you gotta go to THESE guys!

So now apparently the Russian gas company Gazprom is offering to bail out cypress banks in exchange for gas exploration rights in Cypress.  And conveniently leave all that Russian money untouched by the EU.  http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/report-russian-company-offers-bailout-cyprus-exchange-ga...

Personally, days like today make me thankful for being diversified and not overweight in any one asset (including cash or gold). The one thing it does make me think about changing, however, is my exposure to credit risk. Watching the government rewrite the finance rules on the fly is a good reminder...

I also have USAA and have been very pleased with their service.  Several years ago a drunk driver hit our car parked in front of our house (luckily we weren't in it) and totaled it.  One call to USAA, and we had a rental car that afternoon.  A appraiser checked out the damage within a day or two, pr...

I've also spent a bit of time and energy the last few years researching and planning for early "retirement".  For me, it's not so much about wanting to abandon all work, but about simplifying my life to the point where I have the financial flexibility to prioritize rewarding work over a tr...

It's all about the timing. Lacking the ability to see the future, an active investor will always make changes a day late and a dollar short. I understand the fear of losing money. But my own experience is that chasing the hot money is ultimately irrational and eventually ends painfully.  Now I may b...

Thanks for starting this thread, rickb.  Great summary on TLT.  When you put it that succinctly, it really makes one question just how risk tolerant they are.  Truthfully, I've been back and forth on the convenience/risk argument for TLT for a while now, and have argued both sides.  But the more I e...

clacy wrote: It's quite a statement about the US electorate that someone as dumb as Maxine Waters can be elected.

Reminds me of Rep. Frank Johnson expressing concern that Guam will tip over and capsize because of overpopulation.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c7m6aewquco

For PP cash in a retirement account I can definitely see the appeal of a simple STT ladder, especially with an auto roll feature like at Fidelity.  If you won't be touching that money for a long time, you don't really care about letting each bill/bond take a year or two to reach maturity.

I used to think that I wanted to be a manager. But as I got older, tried it a bit, and talked to friends who were promoted I quickly realized its not for me. For me, engineering is an interesting challenge but with a high burnout rate. The constant sprinting from deadline to deadline just isn't sust...

RuralEngineer wrote: Salazar said: "That's why we have call boxes, that's why we have safe zones, that's why we have the whistles."!

I can finally sleep better knowing that rape is prohibited in specific zones. 

The state governments are just looking for a new revenue source This. The states just want money.  California will be able to collect sales tax from a mom & pop hardware store in Iowa if they add an online cart, even if those taxes don't benefit the company in any way (roads, infrasturcture, et...

To put the cherry on top of this whole fiasco, it now looks like some or all of the people who helped lead the police to Dorner may not get paid any reward money due to a loophole in the language of the reward notices. Specifically, Dorner was never "apprehended": Ah...  So perhaps the gu...