Search results

No, I think he gave them to the Iranians. They're closer, after all. Hey, if we declare war on North Korea, maybe Kim Jong Il to give his nukes to the South Koreans. That would save us a lot of trouble. Martin

Here's a quick, back of the envelope calculation. You can put together a big spreadsheet with 30 years of cash flows and discount rates, but you'll get a very similar answer. I know, I've done it. Either you are renting a house, or you are renting the money to buy the house. Thanks to the...

This sounds like a good idea in theory but I am skeptical that it has any value in practice. 1) Learning to program has <i>nothing</i> to do with trading. If everything you need to know to write a useful backtest engine or automated trading system is a thousand pages of information, about...

How does it force fiscal accountability upon Congress? Less pork. How would it prevent the President to allow pork to stay which he agrees with, or has been bribed to overlook? It doesn't. Still, it's less pork. How would it prevent the president from striking out pork simply...

AAA, thanks for the historical context. Very interesting stuff. I'm all for line item veto, or whatever it takes to restore fiscal oversight of Congress. Martin

I can't imagine that too many people would actually sell a house in order to rent instead just because they felt their home was overvalued. Home ownership is a long term proposition and the transaction costs are high, particularly if you include intangible costs. That is why they say housing...

A God with limitless power could certainly choose to impose limits on Himself. After doing so, He would no longer have limitless power. If you consider limitless power to be axiomatic to Godhood, then you could say that God has the power to choose not to be God anymore. I don't see any...

I don't care if he thinks before he makes a casual joke in public. I just wish he'd think before making policy. I think obsessing over every off the cuff remark by politicians does a disservice to real political discourse. Martin

Don't be ridiculous. I think Bush is one of the worst presidents in American history but let's stick to the real issues, not an innocent mistake at a press conference for which he already apologized. Martin

I don't think that follows. If <i>any</i> scientific conclusion is "permanently fixed" and "beyond God's power to change," then God is not limitless. Conversely, if we take God's power as axiomatic, that means that God can influence the course of science at any point, however He wishes. This is...

That's exactly my point, that in much of the US today, buyers are grossly overpaying. If you agree with that, I don't think we have anything to disagree about. I'll happily stipulate that at almost all places and times in postwar America, buying real estate for the long term has been...

First of all, that wasn't my spreadsheet that claimed 8% returns. I'm pretty sure I did post a spreadsheet here many moons ago in another thread. My spreadsheet assumes that all forms of savings earn the risk free rate - home equity, investment, and rent and wage increases. A highly conservative...

<i>For a renter, their payment would remain about 85% of what a new home owner would be expected to pay, so they would pay out 85% of 30% for the duration, or an average of 25.5% of their salary.</i> Look. If you assume that initial rent is 85% of the initial mortgage payment, of course...

If the mortgage will be paid off in 7 years, I assume you've been paying into it for at least 13 years or so? That is hardly relevant to the question of whether to buy or rent <i>now</i>... you've already bought! The question you're asking is completely different - is it cheaper to <i>sell...

What's your point? You can't live in a mortgage either. Mortgages buy houses, rent rents them. Either way you have a roof over your head. The question is which is cheaper in the long run. Martin

[B] Inflation expectations are built into mortgage rates. If the rate of inflation is relatively constant, it helps neither homeowner nor renter. Rising inflation helps an owner with a fixed rate mortgage. If you want to bet on rising inflation, go ahead and buy a house on fixed notes. Or...

That's because of the amortization schedule, which reflects home equity (savings) by the owner. Your father-in-law is paying only $200/month because he has already saved the vast majority of the price of the house. In order to accomplish that, he had to pay a great deal of interest at a time...

lwlee, RAID1 guards against hard drive internal failure but there a lots of other failure modes and lots of other reasons to make backups. User error, by far the most common. Software failures. Theft. Fire. Electrical problems / surge / power supply. All reasons to do an occasional backup of...

Just remember, RAID is not designed for backup, it is designed for performance and availability. If your data is important you should do real backups as well. Martin

There's absolutely no question that in hindsight, home ownership has been a fantastic investment over the last 5 years throughout California. In perfect hindsight, only an idiot would have rented in 2000 or 2002. However, it is precisely the fact that home owners have done so well in the past...