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PaperclipPerfector  3d ago (text post)   2053 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for February 9, 2025

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.

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No question too simple or too silly.

When I have any security set up with DRIP (dividend reinvestment plan), my cost basis on these new fractional shares is showing up as $0.00.

This seems like a visible, tangible difference from how it'd be if I'd “coincidentally bought shares” just afterwards (with the dividends) manually — which would, at least as far as the new shares are concerned, seem to be a better situation since if/when I sell those new shares I'd be realizing less gain.

So… does DRIP actually affect the basis of the shares that issued the dividend? Do I get some adjustment to its basis when the dividends are DRIP'd to compensate me for this zero-basis on the new shares?

Wouldn't you have to pay capital gains tax on the dividends you collect right away, if you were to follow the collect-and-buy-manually algorithm? If you get $1 in dividends and buy $1 in shares which you later sell for $3 from a cost basis of $1, you pay tax on $1 initially and $2 at sale. If you use your DRIP to auto-buy the same shares, you pay no tax initially and later sell an $3 share with $0 cost basis and hence pay tax on $3.

Is there some list of sins the Chinese Communist Party has committed somewhere? I've heard of the widespread general repression and censorship, of Tiananmen Square, of the One Child Policy, and of the Uighur Genocide, and I am wondering if I am missing something. I want to be ensured of their actual level of awfulness before I get into hypothetical arguments with hypothetical tankies, who despite knowing China is capitalist, still seem bent on interpreting them in the most charitable light possible and dismissing the rest as western propaganda.

If you have book suggestions on the subject, that would be good too. I had to read "The Origins of the Modern World" for college non-western civ, and I quite liked it. On that note, if you have any general world history books, that would also be great. I especially have no idea about Korean history.

You have to understand that atrocities committed by the CCP are only considered unique in their sheer scale and numbers due to their desire to centralize and manage power across such a large population. At that scale, what seem like minor screwups in policy and small errors can cause tsunami-like effects. And as usual, the Chinese Politburo makes American political squabbling look small and cute. The meme about political infighting in China causing millions dead every so often is unfortunately quite true, and it's also why Chinese tend to be very sensitive about political instability and will cling desperately to a bad regime for fear of change bringing worse.

Land Reform movement (post ww2) that was basically wholesale looting of land from "landlords", with "landlords" being loosely defined, of course, and the associated forced resettlement.

Four evils campaign that included sparrows (well-meaning, dumb, alongside crackpot wonk agricultural planning caused widespread famine 1959-1961 and approx 15-55 million deaths depending on how you count them).

Anti-rightist campaign is Chinese political infighting that caused the political persecution of around half a million to two million depending on how you count them (but it centralized one-party rule).

Cultural Revolution needs to be understood (as it is within China) as a power play by Mao to grab power within the party by weaponizing the youth. "Four Olds" destruction was a byproduct; Chinese scholars outside China will privately bemoan how the country put its own cultural heritage to the sword just so Mao could win a dick measuring contest within the CCP. Also worth reading about the "five black categories", politically motivated massacres, including the Guangxi Massacre (and attached cannibalism), etc.

I also recommend the book Seeing Like a State if you haven't already read it. The modern state of China can be seen as some kind of mass experiment in what happens when you "See Like a State" at Level 100 or something. They have achieved, and will continue to achieve, things that leave other governments in awe, terror and envy, but they will continue to do this at the expense of their own human capital.

For the events of the Mao era, Frank Dikötter's People's Trilogy will tell you more than you ever wanted to know. I haven't read his more recent book covering the last half century, although I think the focus there is more on the economic side of things. It's hard to find unbiased accounts of the 1989 protests and events since then in English, so your best bet might be to supplement whichever interchangeable mainstream source you choose to consult with something like Carl Zha's Silk and Steel podcast (unfortunately most of his newer stuff is paywalled), which will give you the opposite perspective, and split the difference. I tend to get my own information on these things secondhand from older relatives who are plugged in to the Chinese language media ecosystem.

The main item you left out of your list was the extreme covid lockdowns and subsequent CCP crackdown on anti-lockdown protestors in 2022. This is the proximate cause of the current wave of emigration that has sent hundreds of thousands of their citizens fleeing to Thailand, Singapore, Japan, and the US in the last 3 years. Dan Wang's 2023 letter gives a good rundown of this. There's also the ever-present persecution of religious adherents, though the Falun Gong diaspora take it a bit far with overblown claims of mass executions of prisoners to harvest their organs (though feel free to investigate this yourself). Most of the rest is bog-standard developing country stuff that isn't China-specific e.g. air pollution from factories causing illness, infrastructure projects built too fast that occasionally collapse, lax safety standards in food and consumer products, and so on.

I don't know about general world history books, as that seems a bit too broad of a topic for a single volume that isn't a college textbook, but for pre-modern China, Mote's Imperial China is in the running for best history book I've ever read. For Korea, I have a few books on my list, but haven't gotten around to them yet, so can't give an informed recommendation.

Surely the great leap forward and the cultural revolution must be at the top of that list, or are you absolving the party of responsibility and pinning all that on Mao?

Or do you mean current things? Tienanmen square was 35+ years ago and most of the people responsible are dead.

I think I did mean something more current? Something you can use to criticize the current government. The undercurrents that caused Tiananmen Square are surely still there. The undercurrents that caused the Great Leap Forward seem to be mostly gone, since China embraced capitalism after some decades of struggling with the whole socialism thing.

The current government still hasn't condemned the GLF and the CR so you can use this fact to criticize them and compare it with how the US celebrates the dismantlement of Jim Crow legislation.

You can also criticize the social credit system, which has a massive chilling effect on the freedom of expression.

Can somebody explain Blagojevich pardon to me? Like, why Trump feels the need to pardon him and what justification is for that? Frankly, I didn't bother to look into the matter back when he was arrested because I assumed it's pretty usual stuff for Chicago, he's just one of corrupt politicians that Chicago is full of - was I wrong? Is he somehow useful for Trump? How?

I always had the impression that Blago took the fall for Obama, and got hung out to dry rather than rewarded for it. I wouldn't be surprised if Trump had dealings with people on his side of the business.

It seems like there’s a pattern in what forms of corruption are acceptable on the right -

  • Diverting taxpayer money to family members or pet causes: Evil, ought to get you thrown out of a helicopter.

  • Selling the performance of official acts to private interests for money or other services: No big deal. Everybody does it. Just an excuse to railroad somebody like they did to Trump.

Selling the performance of official acts to private interests for money or other services

Could you mention more examples of this? I am not sure what to think of Blago case, because bribery cases may be very subjective if there's no hard evidence, and it's easy to abuse it, especially given how politics work - people always work with people that align with their interests, and often profit from that, at which point does it turn to bribery? Of course, "I'll pay you $1M and you appoint me the senator" is bribery, but is that what happened in Blago case? A lot of people say it's not so I'm not so sure anymore, I didn't dig deeper into it. But is Trump really OK with bribery, excepting this case - what other cases support this?

Eric Adams is the big one in the news lately. He instructed fire marshals to look the other way on Turkey's NYC skyscraper in exchange for free first-class Turkish Airlines flights. Trump told the Justice Department to drop the case.

There was also the first impeachment of Trump himself. If wikipedia is to be believed, Trump tried to exchange military aid for political favors from Ukraine.

“It was a sort of a terrible injustice,” Trump said. “They just were after him. They go after a lot of people. These are bad people, the other side.”

Sounds to me like Trump feels like Blago is a kindred spirit unjustly persecuted by his political enemies. I don't think it goes much beyond that but you could make the argument that he's sending a message about lawfare. Blago has said in the past that he's a "Trumpocrat" so he's a supporter

I'm sure there are a lot of people who got railroaded for one reason or another. In the environment like Chicago politics, there's a lot of mutual back scratching happening, and with certain prosecutorial creativity it's probably not hard to convert it into a criminal case. Trump is not going to pardon all of them, is he? And despite what Blago says now about Trump - which he has a lot of motive to say, as it profits him - he seems to be a pretty run of the mill Democrat, and one with zero power as it seems currently. Is that really just personal sentiment on Trump's side? I didn't place him as an overly sentimental person.

I’m confused on what someone blocking me on this site does. It’s novel I can see the blocker, but as blockee Idk what they’re blocking. Is it all posts/comments/replies?

Blocking means you don't see their comments, just "You are blocking @blocked_dude" instead. It's useful if somebody regularly writes something that you'd rather not read. AFAIR it used to be that the blocked party is notified about the block, but I'm not sure it's still the case.

Grazzi grazzi

The blocked party sees a red icon next to the blocker's name. On mouse-over, a tooltip states "This user is blocking you".

I know this because @aaa blocks me, though I know not why.

If I get a certain number of blocks do I get an achievement lol

There is a leader board, that AFAIK only mods can view. Last time I checked, which was a while back, I think I was tied first for most blocked user. Not that I mind, I prefer high variance and strong appeal to a minority over blandness in an effort to be slightly liked by everyone.

Watch me racket right up there with you lol. We can be blocked buddies.

I feel I have a similar stance to you. In my opinion I don’t consider upvotes and downvotes relevant on a site that is trying to be a debate club because the spirit is in the arguing not the applause. Plus, everyone was praying to the stars for some liberals on here and the blue in my blood heard the call.

This stance is incongruous with your previously stated objectives:

I myself have very little interest in “pushing back”; I find it would be absolute waste of time, and likely why you won’t find the discourse you are looking for. In my opinion, the value of a forum like this is that it allows progressives, at least such as myself, to observe a rich diversity of right-winged thinking to identify the more insidious and subtle dogwhistles indicating the traits of a conservative, so one may steer clear of them in IRL interactions.

Taking that comment into consideration, the rational course of action, whatever the site is trying to be, is to minimize communication with you as much as possible.

Then block me? I don’t know what to tell you. Those are my opinions, yes. I still have to follow the rules here anyway.

My best move is not to block you, but to remind anybody who wishes to interact with you of your opinions such as:

I do think conservatives are uniquely repugnant, and therefore do not consider discrimination against them bigotry, much less in a similar vein as sexism and homophobia.

More comments

IIRC, it just alters their UI so none of your content shows up. You can just try blocking someone and seeing what the site looks like afterwards.

A request for financial advice:

For the majority of my career, I've made such a small pittance in Western terms that I had no strong impetus or incentive to save any of it.

While the UK is certainly not as wealthy as the US, and doctor's wages are comparatively meager (and have been devalued considerably by inflation), I have a respectable sum already in my bank account. Part of this is that I simply don't have a life outside of work, and couldn't spend the money if I wanted to.

I'd like to invest the majority of it, around 10k GBP. My risk appetite is decent, but I also think the market is more efficient than I am in most regards (when I had forewarning that Nvidia would skyrocket, I didn't have any money to bet with). I don't want to see it get eaten away by inflation.

I believe the default course of action would be to buy index or mutual funds. I've been eyeing the S&P500.

I do intend to hold on to a few thousand GBP for expenses like buying a second hand car, expensive exams and the like. In the longer term, I'd need ~40k for a mortgage, assuming I choose to continue working and training in the NHS when my contract is up.

As you're in the UK, you can put 20k a year into a stocks and shares ISA and any gains you make are tax free. Just go open one with Vanguard and then you can pick the stock indexes to follow

Thank you! I doubt I'll be maxing that out anytime soon, so it's good to know.

When your personal contributions are greater than your investment gains: total stock market index funds. Doesn't matter which, just pick one.

When your investment gains are greater than your personal contributions: diversify from index funds into a mix following the "efficient frontier". Here's a calculator, though the free version is capped at 10 years of historical records.

Thank you! I'll try and make good use of it.

I believe the default course of action would be to buy index or mutual funds. I've been eyeing the S&P 500.

More specifically, the default course of action is to implement a glide path, starting with a high proportion of stock funds and a low proportion of bond funds when you're young, and gradually transitioning to a high proportion of bond funds and a low proportion of stock funds when you're old. Vanguard provides Target Retirement 20XX funds that implement glide paths automatically, both in the US and in the UKGBNI. Alternatively, you can just manually allocate your savings between a stock fund and a bond fund.

I agree that's sensible in a vacuum, but I sincerely doubt I'll be growing old and retiring the old-fashioned way. I'm willing to put my money where my mouth is in that regard.

(I really should opt out of the NHS pension, like hell that's going to be relevant in the thirty or so years till I could plausibly retire)

If it's 2030 and AI progress seems stalled at levels not significantly more advanced than it stands today, I could be persuaded otherwise. But for now, I'm more concerned with preparing for a singularity (with a decent risk appetite as I have little to lose) as opposed to saving for retirement.

Pick out some tech stocks you like. Nvidia or ARM or whatever you believe in. Make a thesis.

Index funds are boring, guaranteed mediocrity and it is very possible to beat them. I beat the NASDAQ by 78% over the last two years and probably much more over a longer period (the chart my bank gives me stops in September 2023), mostly thanks to being early on NVIDIA and crypto last cycle. It's not impossible to make those calls and beat index funds. You don't need to read reports, outsmarting the giga-quants at hedge funds isn't about doing more work or being smarter than them, it's just about deducing the right thesis from having the right vibes. The numbers are already priced in, vibes are where the alpha is.

Of course I've made lots of mistakes and lost lots of money in various errors. That is inevitable if you make aggressive moves and control your own money. I encourage against using leverage. I encourage patience. But risks are needed to earn rewards.

You don't need to read reports, outsmarting the giga-quants at hedge funds isn't about doing more work or being smarter than them, it's just about deducing the right thesis from having the right vibes. The numbers are already priced in, vibes are where the alpha is.

Heavily seconded. My best gains have been in stocks from companies whose business I have known and occasionally patronised over a half-decade.

You really, really shouldn't put your money where your mouth is on this one. You are gambling away your future for something which not only probably won't happen soon, but you don't even get any rewards from the gambling! There's no upside for you here, only downside.

I appreciate your concern, but if it helps, I'm willing to explain my stance.

I strongly expect widespread technological upheaval and even widespread unemployment by the turn of the century. If that does not come to pass, and human skilled labor retains its value, then a more standard portfolio that sacrifices returns for stability would be something I would be willing to pivot to. In hindsight, that would represent half a decade of suboptimal investment.

I don't intend to YOLO onto tech stocks, I seek to invest heavily in American index funds, which I am happy to hear is more or less sensible according to the responses. I intend to spend only a few thousands, per year, on more volatile actions like stock picking.

Even if I suddenly realize, oh shit, I need to save for retirement and college for my (future) kids, that realization would take hold in my early 30s. I would only need to liquidate some of my holdings and reinvest them. I'm not advocating for taking short timelines as an excuse to put * all* financial planning out the window, but I think that a 5 year cutoff is reasonable according to my beliefs about the future of technology and its ramifications on industry. Some might want to withdraw into unchecked hedonism, content in hopes that a post-scarcity civilization will bail everyone out, but I acknowledge that as a possibility while not forgetting that hey, it's good to hold onto your money and grow it for now.

Ok, I misunderstood. I thought you were going for full on YOLO hedonism/risky high payout bet as a strategy, but if you're hedging your bets that's fair.

One reason to be part of a pension like the NHS is that it puts you in an alliance with a large constituency who might plausibly have enough political power between them to keep the gravy train going down the road.

If you're going to invest in the stock market, put the money in an index fund as suggested. I've been making around 10% annual returns doing this. You're not going to beat the market making risky bets because you don't have better information than the market. Trying to pick stocks is just gambling.

If you are truly dead set on out-performing index funds, then you need to invest in something that you have more direct control over, like a business you own or a property you manage.

Remember to take advantage of ISAs for tax free saving. You can put 4k a year into a lifetime isa with a government bonus of 1k, that's huge. You can withdraw that to buy your first house too, and keep it in bonds or something if you just want the money parked safe.

The UK has a ton of stupid little programs for saving and borrowing that you need to learn about by word of mouth. My dad made a tidy profit on a super low-interest loan through a government program when he bought his first house, even though he paid cash for it.

Thanks! I think I dimly recall someone mentioning them, but it had entirely slipped my mind before you reminded me.

I believe the default course of action would be to buy index or mutual funds. I've been eyeing the S&P500.

Yup. It really is that simple. I hold VFFSX, although there are a number of similar low-to-zero fee large-cap US stock indices that are all "S&P500".

Even if you think you could beat the market, you have to decide if it's worth the stress/effort. I think it's very much not. Surely, if optimizing for dollars, your effort is better put into advancing your medical career. Similarly, if you find yourself cleaning toilets at home, either a) capitalism is fundamentally broken or b) you should hire a housekeeper.

Some mix of VFFSX + safer or anti/un correlated asset classes makes sense if you are either particularly risk averse or particularly concerned with timescales shorter than 10-15 years. But, this leaves expected value gains on the table, and requires more thinking, so I'd advise mildly against. See e.g. Butterfly Portfolio.

Beyond that, two notes:

  1. Obviously pay off debts that are higher than expected returns (~8% in nominal dollars) before investing
  2. Rent vs buy is nontrivial. Do not assume buy is the better answer, even if you are certain you will never move. Owning is a headache and a risk. The reasons it has historically been better to own are: a) laws that have driven up house values, but could change; b) people are too stupid to invest the cashflow saved by renting, whereas owning forces you to invest (in a single asset class!), making owning correlate with net worth (amongst many reasons)

Surely, if optimizing for dollars, your effort is better put into advancing your medical career.

Sadly the NHS mostly operates on assigned hours put in = seniority = more money paradigm.

As a trainee, I get predictable and fixed yearly increments, which are nice enough, especially since I could get away with spending less than half my monthly salary if I wasn't so fond of takeout.

Speaking broadly, in most other places, doctors, especially in surgical fields, can double or triple their salaries if they put in the hours. This is much harder to do if you're an early-stages trainee. Completion of training would take about 6 more years, and that's when the opportunity to work private and make bank begins.

I've also missed the glory days when locum roles weren't grossly over subscribed, and you could rely on picking up an odd 3 or 4 shifts a month to almost match your base pay. There are too many underemployed fresh grads and international medical graduates like yours truly clawing at the door.

If I were to attempt to "beat the market", it would likely take the form of buying tech stocks.* And I wouldn't put more in than I could afford to lose! I doubt I'm going to be forced to liquidate anytime soon, so I would have little issue with holding a dip.

*You can't really price-in a technological singularity, and unless everything goes sideways, I expect broad slices of the market to soar and not just MANGA.

On the topic of renting or buying, the only real reason I'd buy is if I was convinced I wanted to tie myself down geographically (and had a family), especially since you point out that re-investing the difference between rent and home loans would obviate most of the difference. It's too early to make that call, and I prefer my money relatively liquid.

I've been hearing calls to abolish pennies for my whole life. Apparently, Trump is finally doing it by executive order. Is that within presidential authority? In the past I've always seen it presented as a call for legislation.

I'd be glad to be done with British pennies. All they do is accumulate in my wallet, God knows you can't spend them if you want to most of the time.

Ah for the days of buying 10p mixes at the shop down the street with 1p coins I found on the street. Finding a pound in those days made one wealthy beyond measure!

My old school shop used to sell marshmallows for one a penny and gummies for 10p. Greedy little pig that I was, I would go down there with a pound and get a weekend’s worth of snacks.

Trump seems to have entered his 2nd term with the goal of testing every possible interpretation that favors his executive authority. Most will probably ultimately fail, but some will probably succeed, and some may indirectly succeed (where a temporary change that's later rescinded has follow on effects that accomplish the spirit of the original act). As an example if you take away a grant program for a month and during that month the recipient fails and is liquidated restoring the grant making authority doesn't really restore the recipient.

The Associated Press cites an article that features an economics professor's statement that the president's authority is uncertain.

“The process of discontinuing the penny in the U.S. is a little unclear. It would likely require an act of Congress, but the Secretary of the Treasury might be able to simply stop the minting of new pennies,” Triest says.

I don't know how much weight an economics professor's opinion carries on this question of law, though.

US Mint is part of Treasury, so the President would be in control of it. I think the difference is between stopping making new pennies (easy) and taking the penny out of circulation as a legal tender (complicated, but also ultimately not necessary since it doesn't cost much to keep it as legal tender).

Low stakes small scale idle curiosity question for the network engineers here: Why does my router (edit for clarity: ADSL router-modem) take so long to connect to the internet? I don't mean a full reboot of the system, just <disconnect> <reconnect>. It takes about 5 minutes. Feels like I could reboot my phone and connect to wireless internet faster than a simple hang-up-redial cycle on a wired connection.

To my naive mind the process should consist of authentication over what is effectively LAN, and then connection/access to the WAN, like connecting to a network switch but with many more users. My little consumer grade network switch doesn't take 5 minutes to start up, it's been a long time since I rebooted it but if I had to guess I'd say it takes less than 30 seconds from a cold start, and reconnecting after pulling the cable and replugging it takes less time than sitting back down. What processes are actually happening?

If you're referring to a cable modem (possibly integrated into a single device with your router), the protocol to complain about is called DOCSIS. I'm not an expert on that one, but searching suggests connection times on the order of minutes regardless of connection speed.

Yes, integrated router-modem. ADSL/standard wired landline telephone connection to the cabinet though, not coax cable which appears to be what DOCSIS is used for.

My practical and theoretical knowledge of the *DSL family is rusty by many years, but I'm certain that by itself DSL is mostly transparent and instantaneous, and the problem is with whatever happens on the levels above. If you have a desire to experiment, you could try to see if you can make the box into a pure dumb modem, and then if you're able to establish a connection from a full PC.

How does your router connect to the wider internet? It takes my whole router (virtualized on an x64 box) around 5-10 seconds to reboot and reconnect to my ISP and my VPN.

The router is an integrated modem-router, ~20Mbs ADSL, copper to the cabinet then fibre to the exchange.

I realise it's low powered hardware but that should be offset by being specialised to the task, right? Rebooting takes <30 seconds. It's not the best router but it's less than 5 years old, and when it's connected it works without any issues.

It could be a couple of things, but the most likely in my estimation is either:

  1. It is attempting to pull provisioning files that your ISP is, for some reason, failing to provide, resulting in lengthy sequential timeouts, or
  2. Your ISP is for some reason imposing the delay in authentication deliberately, causing the modem to have to repeatedly retry authentication until your ISP finally permits it.

It seems very likely to me that the issue is on the ISP side.

I am super unfamiliar with ADSL, all my providers just wired a twisted pair Ethernet cable into the apartment.

I know essentially nothing about investing, but I want to invest in a specific index fund. I understand I need to open an account with a broker to do this, and there are many brokers to choose from. Before selecting a broker, how do I know that I'll be able to invest in that specific index fund via the broker? Secondarily, which broker would you recommend I use?

Before selecting a broker, how do I know that I'll be able to invest in that specific index fund via the broker?

You can generally invest in any fund at any broker. However, most brokers will charge a fee to invest in a mutual fund run by another broker. Some don't. You have to read the schedule of fees. You can also buy ETFs for free, and there are often ETF versions of mutual funds. But ETFs are more annoying to trade, since you have to buy and sell shares of the ETF on the market, instead of just buying $X of a mutual fund at NAV.

The bogleheads wiki is a good resource.

Vanguard is one of the more popular in the US. I use Schwab, whose good customer service isn't really making up for everything else these days.

Would enjoy hearing what everyone here uses

I also use Schwab. Out of all the brokerage platforms, I think it has a decent application, good customer service, low fees, and provides access to a cheaper/more feature-rich Amex platinum.

Their checking account is always free with unlimited ATM reimbursement and no foreign transaction fees. It's a gateway drug to the brokerage and it works.

I moved my rollover retirement accounts to Robinhood to make 3% on all of them last year and will move them back once I can.

I'm getting a bit sick of a few things. The end of automatic money market rollover for one, the half-functional phone app, the loss of their old 2% cash back card (I don't understand the point of an Amex plat). The home loan company they partner with (rocket whatever) is notoriously scummy too.

The lack of any exchange fees is nice, but it's not like I buy or sell more than a few times a month anyway.

Their half-ass international system is a huge pain. Had to move a few hundred k over from Europe, and all incoming transfers go through citi, to Schwab's citi account, and you have to write "pay to Steve @schwab acct #694201488" on the bottom and hope the euros know what the fuck they're doing. they didn't, so it took over a month to finally get it sorted out.
A brokerage should be capable of handling international transfers better than that. Not having their own system is amateur hour.

What’s the “everything else”? I use Schwab ever since they absorbed TD Ameritrade (or at least its app?) and I haven’t noticed much difference. But then, I’m doing pretty boring buy-and-hold.

Degiro is a pretty standard choice if you're based in Europe - low transaction fees, good interface, reputable, and decent KYC (identity verification) process. I'd think they're fine for small retail investing, ie <€1m, beyond that point you might find a better experience elsewhere (not a concern for me lol)

Also, from your username you're based in Ireland right? Bear in mind that the taxation process on shares in Ireland is DREADFUL - it's both much dearer than a normal EU country and more cumbersome. An ETF specifically is taxed differently to ordinary single-share investment - for some ludicrous reason ETFs are taxed identically to ordinary income, not like a normal capital gain. This means if you're already at the highest rate (52% cumulative) all of your gains will be taxed at this rate. You're also hit with deemed disposal every seven years.

To bypass this there are a few UK products (eg Scottish Widows' Trust, can't recall the ticker) that basically mirror an ETF investment basket but are assessed as individual ordinary shares (ie 33% capital gains).

It's worth highlighting that you're unlikely to be audited any individual year, but if you're investing for the long haul the likelihood of you being hit at some point over eg a 20-year investing span is pretty unfavourable.

Bonne chance!

Wow. Those numbers are blowing my mind as an American currently applying for Irish citizenship. I'd have to do some serious tax planning prior to spending a few years over there, lest I end up paying 42% additional tax on capital gains. This must have been how my great uncle felt when I explained you can just purchase rifles at some Walmarts with no class or license, just a digital background check.

A Google returned this article: https://nationalpensionhelpline.ie/taxation/etf-tax-in-ireland-might-be-changing/

I don't know if this is the same information you were reporting to me. It may be of interest.

I actually participated in the department submissions they're talking about!

Yeah it's very much a maybe, maybe proposition. The egregious taxation of ETFs is just not high on the govt's priorities, though it's been talked about for years. Complex question that resonates with very few voters; Irish people with cash to invest tend disproportionately to put in property, precisely because of the complexity and crap taxation of normal investment in equities. Easy for the opposition to spin into "tax cuts for the wealthy", because it kind of would be.

I wouldn't hold my breath, basically

This is funny to read about, given that there's a growing industry of Ireland based ETFs due to its more favorable tax considerations (compared to the US) for non-resident aliens.

Yeah, I think given Ireland's reputation as a low-tax jurisdiction it's often surprising to those abroad to learn how selectively this low-tax regime applies.

Income tax is genuinely super low for low earners, but the technical "higher band" of income tax (42%) kicks in at just €35k, and increases incrementally up to 52% at €70k - ie every euro over that is taxed at 52% for most workers. Most people working in the tech sector are paying quite high income tax in Ireland, and very high (by European standards) tax on financial products and investments. Even though the corporate tax rate is one of the lowest in Europe, that's just to get companies in the door - we are certainly NOT Dubai on like a personal scale, contrary to what some of our peer countries imagine.

Also the weather is shit and there are too many foreigners (25% approx foreign-born), in a sort of Canadian social-anomie sense.

So is that why Ireland's policies just turned it into an offshore tax haven rather than attracted foreign businesses?

Can you suggest some of these Irish ETFs? Would I be charged at the upper tax band if I invested in an Irish ETF, as opposed to an American one?

There's no distinction in taxation of ETFs based on their location for people currently living in Ireland. There ARE distinctions between Irish, UK, EU and global individual shares which I can't recall off-hand - something about reporting cadences though I might well be wrong on that. In practice it has made very little difference for me. There are no specific incentives to hold Irish shares, for example - though there are some "investment schemes" that amount to an incentive for Irish investment in practice. Not an expert and they get kind of complicated

Can you suggest some of these Irish ETFs?

They are called UCITS funds, the best known ones are CSPX and CSNDX, which are S&P500 and Nasdaq funds, respectively, there is also some which replicate the indexes through total return swaps, which have different tax implications.

It's also worth considering that these funds have higher fees and lower liquidity than the typical ones.

Would I be charged at the upper tax band if I invested in an Irish ETF, as opposed to an American one?

My knowledge of Irish tax law is insufficient for me to help you here, sorry. The biggest implication for me (as a non-american, non-irish) is the lack of inheritance tax (which is brutal in the US for non-citizens).

Thanks for the advice.

I know essentially nothing about investing, but I want to invest in a specific index fund.

Hey, if you want to buy a 3x leveraged Microstrategy ETF please let us know beforehand.

Hey, if you want to buy a 3x leveraged Microstrategy ETF please let us know beforehand.

It's Strategy ₿ now :)

In general it really doesnt matter, you can buy almost any fund from almost any broker these days. Unless you're looking for something weird and exotic? But they should all offer the same broad market funds. You can also reach out to then and ask- the customer service should help you decide which broker you like.

What's up with the Epstein client list? I thought it was supposed to be released? Is there any impediment to that, did everybody just forgot it in midst of the whole international payola scandals? Is there such a document at all, or it's just a fantasy?

That reminds me, what's happening with the JFK assassination files?

I always assumed that was the kind of stuff he had in his desk at Mar-a-Lago.

The executive order says only that, within 15 days of January 23 (i. e., by Friday of last week), a plan for "full and complete release" is to be presented to the president. It does not provide a deadline for the release itself.

(The deadline for the separate plan for release of the RFK and MLK files is 45 days from January 23—i. e., March 9.)

what's the bull case for Elon's plan to delete the CFPB?

(aside from "infuriate Elizabeth Warren" which I can sympathize with)

I consider it bad that some section of the population is too stupid not to wind up paying all of their future income to banks in the form of interest and fees and good that one agency exists to push back on them a little

“Bull case”? Do you mean the case for why-it-would-be-a-good-thing for the market, or just generally a good thing?

I had an issue with my (now former) HSA provider, National Benefit Services, debiting my account weeks before the payment (never) arrived; they refused to send me any documentation such as an image of the check or the name of the party that actually did cash it, if any; when I eventually filed a case with the CFPB they closed it with this weird, vague-ass message:

We reviewed your complaint and weren't able to forward it to the company for a response either because the company is not on our complaint system, or because we do not currently handle complaints about this product or issue.

like, “either we totally can't help you, or you misfiled your complaint (we had many near matches to that account category, hope you picked the right one!), or that company isn't on a freaking WHITELIST of companies we will consider chastising” is just so damn useless…

here's an argument for shutting it down from the CFPB director during Trump's first term

https://nypost.com/2025/02/03/opinion/consumer-watchdog-hounded-us-businesses-lets-shut-it-down/

CFPB is a weird thing. It's basically a power of it's own, which is supposed to be independent from all the executive and controlling a lot of aspects in US financial system. I'm not sure how it is supposed to work in the republican (not Republican) form of government in the US. I mean, if there's an agency that can order banks around, and the President and the Congress have absolutely no control over it, how the President and the Congress can execute their policies that the People elected them to do?

Moreover, aren't there other bank regulators already? I mean there's OCC, the Fed, FTC, FDIC, FinCEN, SEC, CFTC, HUD, Treasury, and that's just on federal level, each state probably has their own stuff. Couldn't all those guys do their job without creating yet another agency?

That independence got a severe neutering when the 5 year term of the director (without Presidential oversight was declared unconstitutional).

CFPB:

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) helps consumers by providing educational materials and accepting complaints. It supervises banks, lenders, and large non-bank entities, such as credit reporting agencies and debt collection companies.

(Not a response, just adding context)

All my groceries seem to have “best by” dates, what happened to actual expiration dates? The wife wants to toss everything after the best by date, even when it’s obviously fine for consumption.

I'm lucky my wife is reasonable about these dates. We sometimes have to have discussions about what I would consider to be common sense: Stuff suspended in olive oil and in the fridge is going to be OK to eat for a long time, a sauce that's almost all vinegar and salt is the same way, etc.

Over the years I've discovered some manufacturers are too aggressive with these dates, but the vast majority are too conservative. I would get frustrated quickly at someone throwing out food that's still good all the time.

There has been a bit of political pressure against rigid "expiration" dates on groceries because of concern that manufacturers are overly conservative on the dates leading to excess waste. On one hand, there is some wiggle room on many foods that become less desirable but still edible (brown spots on my bananas! Stale bread!) and manufacturers are assumed to gain from incentivising consumer waste (buying new loaves of bread to replace the stale one). Using "best by" (I often also see "sell by") is seen to better express best freshness without implying unusability.

I'm sure it's even more complicated for things that need refrigeration. I've had milk in the fridge curdle before the date on the package, but sometimes be fine a week after. Ultimately "is it still good" at the consumer level is best answered with a Mark I Human Nose (and eyes, and taste), although the date makes sense if you're managing sealed packages in bulk in the supply chain.

A lot of goods have hard to define, far off and greatly varying expiration dates but easily defined and useful best by dates.

Lets say you're buying a loaf of bread, when does that really expire? It might get mouldy in two weeks or just become harder and drier over weeks/months but otherwise keep and be edible for years. What information do you want on the packaging?

Over here, consume by/expiration dates only really exist for things that reliably and quickly go bad and becomes actively dangerous to consume, like most pre-packaged fresh meat.

Are you saying you consider moldy bread edible? I throw away the whole loaf, and would look at anyone doing otherwise strangely. I'm wondering if this is a geographic/cultural norm - I'm from the US, for context.

For some reason, growing up, for cheese we would cut off the moldy part plus a couple inches, but I've mostly chalked that up to "grew up less well off than I am now" + "Jewish cheapness".

I’m in the US and it’s completely normal to cut off the moldy part and use the rest of the bread for toast.

Are you saying you consider moldy bread edible? I throw away the whole loaf...

That's a waste of perfectly good bread. Cut off the moldy parts, eat the rest. Of course if the bread is completely covered in mold it's different, but I am surprised someone would throw out a loaf of bread over one small mold spot.

Cut off the moldy parts, eat the rest.

This is true for a large number of types of food, but bread is not one of them. Mold on bread goes deep, fast, and eating the deep mycelia is quite toxic.

I've eaten bread that had mold on it many, many times and never once gotten sick. It can't be all that toxic.

the visible part of the mold is only a small part of the whole thing. the toxic parts are the invisible roots that permeate the whole loaf. If you see it, it's already too late.

No, I'm saying that it might get mouldy and it might not. Bread doesn't reliably get mouldy (which would make it inedible) but it does dry out and harden, which doesn't make it inedible and the process is highly variable depending on how you store said bread.

Tons of goods are like this and I think expiration dates make more sense for things that quickly and reliably gets actually inedible/dangerous to consume, especially if it's hard to tell due to the packaging or the nature of the good.

In the US at least there was never a legal requirement or specification for expiration or best by dates for anything but infant formula. Some states have laws banning selling milk and or eggs past their expiration date, but I'm unaware of any regulation of how they are set or legal protection provided based upon them. So they mean nothing besides what the manufacturer would like you to believe.

So, what are you reading?

Still on The End of Faith and The Menace of the Herd. I'm picking up Non-Computable You, a book about AI compared to human minds which takes the non-materialist perspective. It might already be outdated, but I find it interesting. Backlog is not moving at all.

Turns out I'm reading A Memory Called Empire by Arkady Martine. I know nothing about it, but last night a friend lent me a copy and said she really enjoyed it. I'll report back on how I like it (or don't).

Please do. I’ve got it on my shelf for once I finish the current crop.

About halfway through This Inevitable Ruin: Dungeon Crawler Carl Book 7. It's been a ton of fun so far!

Last chapter of Castles of Steel, never thought I'd find WW1 naval warfare interesting enough to read a 900 page book about it. Never thought that so much naval warfare would involve two giant fleets hiding as far away from each other as possible either, or that when they did meet they could spend the whole day trading 12 inch shells and still sail home largely intact.

Thanks to @netstack for the recommendation. Definitely not a book I would have started without seeing his posts about it.

Finished The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress this week. I really enjoyed it. I would say that there were things about the lunar society that I didn't really care for (e.g. the whole polycule thing, which was weird), but they were well realized and I think sci-fi should depict societies that are strange from our perspective. Also thought the plot was well done, especially how he depicted the rebellion as doing morally questionable things in order to achieve their goals. It made me feel like there were no good guys there, just people who were flawed in different ways.

Not sure what will be up next, as I'm out of books in the queue. Might pick up the final Red Rising book from the library, might start rereading The Republic like I have been thinking of.

I would say that there were things about the lunar society that I didn't really care for (e.g. the whole polycule thing, which was weird), but they were well realized and I think sci-fi should depict societies that are strange from our perspective.

Agreed, but in practice this just boils down to "they don't have nuclear families! Isn't that weird?" It's always sex and sexual relationships, very rarely anything at all unique. Even the truly weird stuff is also usually just sex stuff, such as in Three Worlds Collide the acceptability of rape in future earth culture. Yudkowsky explicitly set out to create a world whose morality would be uncomfortable, and that was the best he could do. Better than most attempts (there were a few other good ideas in that story too) but still boring.

I want to see us really pump the gas on weird societies. I want families who grow fond enough of the family dog to uplift it to human intelligence, then compensate for their previous treatment of it by deliberately decreasing their own intelligence. I want attention-based currency, antimemetic math, a government division tasked with tracking down unlicensed simulations (man-made hells), IQ licenses, etc.

Above all I don't want another setting where wow everyone's really promiscuous, but also prudish about some other non-sex thing, isn't that so interesting?

You have to give some allowance to Heinlein for writing this during the sixties when this actually was novel to some extent. Sixty years down the line it seems stale and cringe (and I felt the same way about Stranger in a Strange Land) but that's at least partially a "Seinfeld isn't funny" phenomenon.

Very likely looking to buy a new (to me, at least) car in the next few months. Weirdly, I have almost no starting criteria on which to begin my search. It really will be mostly a Point A to Point B thing, and while I'm not opposed to any features/bells/whistles, I find myself mostly apathetic. Just not really aware of what really nifty features might be out there now that can genuinely provide value. Almost certainly want something <10yrs old, good chance I'd be amenable to something <5yrs old. Last car I bought was 4yrs old at the time, and it's still in pretty great condition after an additional decade. It was near the end of a model run that was still just "basic car, engine makes it go", not a bunch of computers and wiz-bang gizmos in the cabin. I grew up too poor to ever think about buying new, but I know that was almost a better deal in the market for some window in time not too long ago. I have more means now and am not completely opposed to it; it will depend completely on the shape of the market once I really dive in.

Anyway, with that background, I'd like to at least try to focus in on one Small-Scale Question for this Sunday. Any resources for how to find a relatively-recent car that isn't constantly spying on you? Any little communities out there that curate some lists for cars that spy less on you out of the box or have how-to guides for lobotomizing cars that can be lobotomized?

I won't rehash too much of my Friday Fun Thread comment about cars, but some points to consider:

Buying new still kind of sucks from a value proposition. You'll almost always regret the equity you drop for a car being new. That feeling lasts 3-6 months and you pay for it for 3 years. Buy something fresh off lease instead. This is one of the most extreme examples you can think of, but getting a Panamera for $40k (compared to what would be a $238k sticker today) is amazing.

If you want a car to not spy on you, you'll have to get an older car. I have not seen communities to lobotomize modern cars, it seems difficult and would disable features that you only get with new cars. It's much more likely to find communities that modernize older cars with newer features.

I find the nannying and eco/safety features of modern cars infuriating. It's like watching commercials on TV; too infuriating to deal with. However, there are some killer new car features I lust after:

  • Radar Cruise Control
  • Apple/Android Car Play
  • Heated Steering Wheels

If you go after those, I don't think you can go wrong. Getting something with enough space to put stuff in is important.

I know you view these as just an appliance but any other detail at all? Do you go on long drives? Do you go camping? Do you care how it looks? Any brand preference at all?

You could try an old hatchback. The Ford Fiesta I have doesn't even have cruise control or electric windows.

I have a car that's almost two years old. One of the best features is the sideview mirrors can melt the ice and snow. It has a lot of really annoying safety features though which you either can't turn off or they automatically turn back on every time you restart the car. The worst is the seatbelt chime that immediately sounds when the car turns on, even if it's just the electronics. Another really bad one is the automatic emergency braking. This one is actually dangerous. It's always turning on in situations where it isn't needed.

Especially if you do much interstate driving, consider something with adaptive cruise control (i.e. you set max speed and do the steering wheel still, but it does acceleration/breaking). Makes things way less taxing. Something comma.ai compatible is one way to get that in older cars.

I've never understood the point of cruise control. It doesn't really take any effort to maintain a constant speed.

IMO, it depends on what specific kind of freeway driving you do. My commute spends just twenty minutes each way on a busy freeway, where my speed changes all the time and cruise control is worthless. But I once took a drive through the featureless wastes of rural Ohio on US 30, with hardly any traffic on the road, and being able to rest my foot for two hours on an eleven-hour drive (each way) was nice.

Interesting, I like even plain cruise control. Gets tiresome on my ankle otherwise. But adaptive is a whole nother level. Now you don't have to speed up and slow down as people in front of you do things - you are really just setting a max speed. Super great in stop and go traffic.

I think cruise control is useful for those times where it would take the average driver effort to maintain a constant speed- specifically, avoiding fines when the design speed of the road is sufficiently divorced from its limit (especially if those fines can be levied automatically).

Adaptive cruise control (and the lane-keep assists) is mainly so that you don't crash while you're navigating through your car's shitty infotainment menus, keeps you driving straight when you are flash-blinded by modern headlights, or when you are texting.

I was also sceptical but adaptive cruise control actually makes a pretty big difference for a longer drive.

a) Minimal effort is still nonzero. With cruise control it's zero, and that is nice.

b) Adaptive cruise control is a whole new level. It's amazing in particular during traffic jams when you are going to be stopping and starting a lot.

I've been halfheartedly searching for a car for over a year now, and still haven't found anything good. Used prices are still ridiculous, the new ones are bloated messes that slam your brakes for no reason, and I still can't import a Hilux

Used prices are still ridiculous

Buy a Mustang. Ford still makes them, and they're still relatively cheap new; both things that depress their used prices (to the point I'd actually consider them undervalued). They're luxury, but not luxury enough that people are priced out of new.

3.7s are the cheapest models because "muh V8" and "the Ecoboost is faster", but you still get 300HP, 30 MPG on the highway, on 87 octane, with very little tech stupidity.

Used manuals are still reasonable.

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