Mark Davis

We have a large group of people in our country who for political ideology or wanting to believe the best in people don't want to accept the vast majority of that population wants to bring down the West, not join it.

Amazing how that works isn't it? The thing is, the one person in the administration I wouldn't be messing around with is Tom Homan. The man isn't playing.

As a rule I'm all for lower taxes for everyone where we can afford it. But when we discuss things to change in our tax code the politicians never get it right, and my guess is deliberately so. But if you want to have a progressive rate system, it's always been funny to me we do it on incremental rates and not cap gains.

I know this is a pet peeve of mine as an old CPA but it always irks me how the wealthy and taxes becomes a political football. It's never discussed on the level. It's always discussed in the context of raising incremental rates. When you do that, just off the top of my head without stats to back me up, you are going to hit specialist doctors, maybe some people with partnership income from small business flowing through. What you aren't going to hit are the people with large fortunes who are amassing more wealth through capital gains. I'm not villainizing people for however they earn their money, but you can tell who really owns the politicians when it's never or rarely even brought up. The incremental rates at that level are almost a red herring.

Most of them aren't sitting with it flowing through earned income as it is. If there's a way to avoid it, they are already avoiding it hitting in that manner.

Not surprising. The vast majority of earners in that stratosphere do not make their income through earned income and W2 wages. Changing the incremental rate will have very little impact on the super high earners. Long term capital gains rates are where most of their annual income flows through their returns.

We could turn it into the US version of CECOT. I'm pretty sure that was it's Civil War equivalent for conditions.

I get my stories mixed up. How far is this woman away from buying herself a mansion on the proceeds?

Over time, periods like this are to everyone's advantage who stays the course and averages in their investments or 401K contributions along the way.

How's everyone doing in here? Hope we didn't lose anyone off the ledge before it retraced a good bit of the losses. Another example of why you should never sell into the fear.

I agree with this take. The mentally ill have higher suicide rates, it shouldn't be a surprise.

Totally possible. I'm just trying to think of their best chance. If you could sacrifice 20 to blind him it might be worth it. They'll always be near, but it will be much easier to get clean runs at him. The only path is to immobilize/disable him. That would involve limbs, but to get clean runs where he misses most of them he would have to be blinded.

Not a great plan but if they had time to plot strategy, perhaps split in half and try to each take a side to try and immobilize his arms. A few would perish in the effort. But if they can effectively "smother" and restrain movement enough have a few go in for the eyes to try and rip them out to blind him. That's their best path because if they can blind him they can just then attack in force without him being able to efficiently defend himself to the level he would start at.

Father Time catches us all. I was hoping to make bank on my Lakers tickets with a deep playoff run. But you could tell from game 1 this was a bad matchup for them. LeBron’s age is showing. Not a slap to him, he’s held it off a long time.

This is where the two sides get parted. You’re right in that most has been spent with US companies for armaments for the US. However that’s still a significant cost. Yes we gave them the old weapons and upgraded ours with newer models so to speak. But it’s at a cost, and in most cases likely could have been at the least deferred or we would have done it earlier. So the true economic incremental cost lies somewhere in between the two stories we are told.

I don’t know the specifics or details and it sounds like you do. However, someone is going to need to provide the technology they need. I’d rather this be us than China. But what little I do know suggests as you said this is a long term payoff, not short term. Hopefully future administrations hold the course on this deal and make it beneficial for both parties.

The Clintons

My favorite is walking around on a football Saturday in Tuscaloosa and seeing girls, clearly from out of state, that look like they just got pulled off the cast of Jersey Shore crooning to Sweet Home Alabama with their houndstooth hats on. It's pretty funny times.

I understand why the realtors would be for it, I understand why both you and I as property owners of rentals would be for it. And let me be clear that this would benefit me personally in that regard. So if this forgiveness did happen even if I don't like it, I guess I'll take the benefit. But there's zero doubt it would inflationary to prices. I do want to ask though, aren't you concerned that would artificially prop up and inflate the housing market along the lines of some of the low qualification standards ushered in by Clinton and later on we would suffer the washout from it? It also strikes me if I were a welder, an electrician, a barber, or just someone who had some parental help as I worked my way through school that I'd probably be bitter not only at the loan forgiveness, but also that for me to now buy a property I'm going to have to pay more because the market is going to be inflated by this forgiveness. The price those people pay is beyond a fairness or sense of justice. The market by it's nature will force them to pay more for housing as well as a result. I think some of this is why you've seen some realignment politically towards Trump from black and Hispanic men. There's no doubt we still have a racial divide, but to some, we have an even larger class divide.

Yeah, I've never demanded an apology from anyone in my life. If someone feels the need to apologize, that's when it's sincere. If you demand one, you aren't going to be getting a sincere one anyway. But more so it says a lot about the type person who feels the authority to demand one so their feelings aren't hurt. People who live in that head space need to toughen up.

Yeah I don't keep cash sitting within brokerage accounts. I do have a little, but nothing of major consequence. Most of mine is sitting in my overnight sweep account for my business. It's earning north of 4% and on hand when I need it. I just have to take a distribution from the company to move it so it takes a couple business days. I'm not trying to catch an exact bottom so I'm sitting on go if we dip a bit more and just average in some.

Mathematically you are correct, especially if expected returns hold. From my point of view I extinguished my debt because in some ways it freed my mind up for what I could do with my assets once I was debt free. There is an amount that is hard to quantify that you will feel free to invest or otherwise put to work for you if you don't have that looming monthly payment because you have no need for that safety net. Mathematically I think you are still probably better to keep that low rate mortgage if you don't feel the need to keep extra cash reserves, and I have successful friends who have gone either way on keeping that mortgage or paying it off.

Tell me all about it Mr. Buffett. P.S. You can't buy ETFs until funds settle either.

If it does, being in cash wouldn't help you anyway

End of day it closed there twice within two days of each other. There's a thing called clearing of funds that isn't instantaneous. If you had a brokerage account somewhere you would understand.