Open Thread Wednesday
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Your Next Project Starts with BrownstonerMost Recent Articles
Need a Hand?
Your Next Project Starts with Brownstoner
It’ll be a sad day when the Open Thread does not exceed 100, Biff.
“I hope snark or someone is working up a good 12 Days of Brownstoner Christmas that tracks the original.”
The thought has crossed my mind, but the muse has yet to strike. She tends to sneak up behind me and slap me upside the head.
In the first asset bubble
My broker bought for me
A tulip bulb of great rarity…
Hmmmm, no, that’s not it.
100. Ok, we’ve done it again…
Yeah Dave, that is where my head is at right now too. With my rental income I have seriously reduced my monthly nut regardless of the nominal value of the house so I am fine with that. And I have no info that I am close to being underwasder, just that I can see it as a possibility if things are as grim as forecast next few years.
slopefarm–that is also an excellent distinction the ownership factor. Wish our inquisitor would go ahead and reveal his grand pronouncement.
Also, don’t discount Ho-ho-kus, NJ as a place Rob’s x-mas performance.
wasder…i just did the math and added up all the money I put into my brownstone from the point I bought it in early 2007. I started renting the first floor in 2008 so i have to get all the numbers for my taxes. I’m sure that i would be underwasder if I had to sell it but I don’t, so I’m not. And that is the correct way of thinking about it. Now if I had zero equity I’d be more worried!!!
3:07…the casino we call the market closes in 53 minutes
Forgive my totally layman’s approach to this, and for taking the query seriously, but it seems to me that investing involves taking on an ownership of something, whether it is shares of stock, shares of a mutual fund (a corporation), a CD, a bank account, a home, etc. These things all have their attendant risks (the bank may default, the company may go bankrupt, the portfolio manager may be an idiot, the market may go down, etc), but, absent fraud, there is something lying underneath. When you gamble, the thing you bet on — a lottery ticket, the dice, the marble, or the horse — you own nothing of value unless you win. If you lose, there is no market for your lottery ticket. Real investing, as opposed to speculation, only starts to look synonymous with gambling in volatile times like the present, when banks etc. actually fail. My home value may go down (although not yet, based on a very recent appraisal), but we are a long way away from it reaching zero. Not so with a bet on a horse that comes in fifth.
I am sure you will all shoot me down for my naivete, but there it is.
P.S. I hope snark or someone is working up a good 12 Days of Brownstoner Christmas that tracks the original. Seems ripe for the picking. Maybe we can get rob to sing it in his Santa suit from Jersey City. Ho Ho Ho(boken).
Nope, in his earlier phase as Dow8000 (the DOWhat days) he named me that. Not bad really, and quite possibly true before too long, though I think I can deal with that theoretical loss.
Was he the one who gave you that name? I thought it was the What.
Madoffinbedstuy, he has gone to his investment mecca, the Trump Taj Mahal.
Underwasder (as he named me earlier)