There's a book that tries to explain why Seattle is Seattle, and ABQ is ABQ: The New Geography of Jobs
The author makes a good point that well educated or highly motivated tech workers have a lot of mobility. And if those workers want to work in a specific technology area, they tend to move to where the notable clusters of that work are. (Software in Seattle or Boston, Space in CA or CO, et cetera.)
Plus in NM's case, we see that when a company shuts its doors here or if there is a recession, people looking for tech work (since SNL and KAFB can't hire everyone) end up having to leave. There's just not a whole lot here compared to Austin, Phoenix or Denver. (I am an engineer who moved here, BTW.)
Then again, maybe that's a selling point to certain people (like me): "Albuquerque: It's not Austin or Phoenix or Denver."
Picketty's <em>Capital in the Twenty-First Century</em> is an excellent read for anyone interested in wealth inequality, the data behind it, and its effects.
> "Since the 1970s technology advance has been arguably more marginal in nature". WTF!? I lost any respect I had for this post at that line. Moving to the digital age is not some marginal improvement.
I'm paraphrasing Robert Gordon; internet is marginal relative to electricity, MRIs are marginal relative to antibiotics, etc. But feel free to respect whoever you want.
> The article makes the general point that the only reason poor countries are poor is because of a lack of property rights (or enforcement thereof). They use a bunch of anecdotes and talking points from a think tank to convince us of this.
FWIW, one of the authors (an economist) also has a pretty well regarded book on this: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00CW0MA1S/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1
> I don't even get why a company would locate themselves there
One explanation I've gleaned from this book: because the majority of the tech industry operates there, so does the majority of its labor force, including those looking for work (where better to expose yourself to all those tech firms?). By situating in the Bay Area, new firms as well as existing ones looking to scale up are in the best position to a.) find best possible hires and b.) continue finding best possible hires. The internet has not countered this dynamic to the degree we would have expected.
What??? Do you think FDR was communist? Do you think Bernie is communist? Do you think Norway and Sweden are communist? Learn what communism is and what it is not.
Again, the USA had its best years when we had 70-90% taxes on the rich. If we want to bring back the good years, we need to pass something like the Green New Deal that has marginal tax rates that max out at 70%. Or a 2% tax on wealth above 50 million would be great too.
Think how much we would free the serfs of the US if we could cancel college loan debt!
Try picking up this book, you may learn something.
https://www.amazon.com/Capital-Twenty-First-Century-Thomas-Piketty-ebook/dp/B074DVRW88
Sorry for your daughter's condition. But your post is vague. Is there some long term expense or just say 2-3 years of cancer expenses? This matters a lot since medical bills rise faster than inflation.
Assuming its 2-3 years you want to do a relatively normal long term growth portfolio with most of this money and a small chunk for rapid depletion. For the normal portfolio my recommended first book is: https://smile.amazon.com/Four-Pillars-Investing-Building-Portfolio-ebook/dp/B0041842TW
If on the other hand it is 10-15k from $300k inflation adjusted or more for decades then entirely different situation. That's an income portfolio. Most of the the book above will still apply but some of it won't. Income is harder but income investing theory assumes you already know growth investing.
I was recommending learning about asset allocation. There are tons of sources but my goto first book recommendation is: https://www.amazon.com/Four-Pillars-Investing-Building-Portfolio-ebook/dp/B0041842TW
Glad you liked it! I'm pursuing my Ph.D. right now and teach undergraduate courses so I enjoy pointing people toward information they find interesting.
For further reading on the topic, you can search for that paper on scholar.google.com and look at what publications have cited to the 2009 article. This will direct you to lots of other papers on the topic.
Additionally, if you're interested at all in the historical and comparative contexts of economics and how economic and social policies can effect national trajectories, I strongly recommend the book Why Nations Fail which is outside of my area of expertise but provides some really interesting perspectives!
P.S. - I promise I'm not the author of this book trying to make $$ lmao
I'd get a book on asset allocation. You'll need to decide on what index. Between mainstream providers tracking similar indexes there isn't much difference.
My advice on a first book is: https://www.amazon.com/Four-Pillars-Investing-Building-Portfolio-ebook/dp/B0041842TW/
1.Liberating the slaves was not their intent, it was a positive externality, other places did get rid of slavery , but did it without needing a war 2 the interstates completely bypassed a lot of small towns, created sprawl and suburbs that wre completely bankrupt due to insufficient density, see " the strong towns" movement for details, the fact our cities are designed in such a car centric manner has also been completely horrible for Humans, see " not just bikes " on youtube, nevermind of how much we likely spent on the interstate system compared to how much cheaper it could have been.
https://www.amazon.com/Strong-Towns-Bottom-Up-Revolution-Prosperity-ebook/dp/B07YGC4K4V/
maybe had government stayed out we would have gotten something better? https://rootsofprogress.org/where-is-my-flying-car
3 public education in the US was never meant to actually educate people,it was meant to make you compliant, it was modeled mostly after the Prussian system whos intent was to make people into more willing cannon fodder,and it has gotten progressively worse since it was initially implemented to the point where many schools in America do not have one kid reading at grade level,ntm sex assault,shootings,bullying,horrible lunches etc etc
That is not a very good argument.
US Constitution, despite being good is not a holy document and can clearly be improved. Even the founding fathers knew it that is why we have amendments.
I doubt I will persuade you but maybe someone else reads this the reason why it is their job is that is it is government's job to arbitrate disputes. To be able to do that law abstraction must be created to support the interaction in the society. I do not have a hundreds of examples but there are imho three points where this happened.
- When we were hunter gatherers term of property (in terms of land) was likely not important. But once people started to tend to their fields and build buildings someone needs to define what it is.
- the corporation and we already covered that
- dawn of intellectual property. It probably started with music but it evolved more and more and maybe even majority of property is intellectual in the age of internet. You can look at the 230 without which the internet would not look like it does.
There is actually an interesting book that documents what happens to countries that failed evolve law to support human interaction. Most of the creation of values moves to illegality and many values are just not created.
> Edit: thank you all for the help! Sounds like my best move is to transfer my IRAs from American Funds to Fidelity as they offer similar to Vanguard and I already have a 401k there
Given you already paid the load American isn't terrible. Moving away from American isn't terrible. What is terrible is flapping around aimlessly on whim / impulse.
If you invested in American via an IRA you likely paid a load to get in. Whether the original choice to go with American was the right choice or not you made it and you have sunk cost. I would breath for a second here and think. American is a good fund company. You paid the load I suspect to get access to advice. You are getting ready to switch because you didn't know what you were buying before you got in. Don't repeat that mistake by jumping without knowing what you are going to do Fidelity / Vanguard.
Don't do anything this month. Go out and buy a book on asset allocation. My general recommendation is: https://www.amazon.com/Four-Pillars-Investing-Building-Portfolio-ebook/dp/B0041842TW . From there get a target allocation.
Next decide on vehicles. Because you are in classic loaded mutual funds you can read one of the all time best books on vehicles that is unfortunately too dated most of the time but that's a plus for you: https://www.amazon.com/Bogle-Mutual-Funds-Perspectives-Intelligent-ebook/dp/B00X6BJ60K
That will help you assess where you are and where you want to be in terms of asset allocation. Talk to whomever put you in American and check your ideas out with him. Capital Group / American has some very good materials on portfolio construction which assume the basics from those two books.
Finally, if you do decide to move you need something which talks you through more modern vehicles and strategies.
There is no rush. Fidelity and Vanguard will be there in 2023. This time do it right.
There are two main "factors" which boost returns over capitalization weighted indexes: smaller stocks and value stocks. Generally the smaller the better. Microcaps do even better than smallish which do better than midcaps which do better than largecap stocks. You are absolutely right that this comes at the expense of even greater volatility in many ways a small cap or microcap fund acts a bit like a large cap fund on leverage. I should mention midcaps historically have slightly higher returns with the same volatility as large cap stocks.
While I think Bogle is very good, as he got older he got too extreme in his opinions. The book I generally recommend for people starting out is: https://www.amazon.com/Four-Pillars-Investing-Building-Portfolio-ebook/dp/B0041842TW
Not Just Bikes collaboration with Strong Towns
Multipart series that's a cliff-notes version of the book by Charles L Marohn Jr. The book is a good read but you get all the bullet points from the video series.
Excellent stuff, and a should out to Strong Towns, a national non profit started by a Brainerd traffic engineer and planner that advocates for better cities and towns that are more fiscally and environmentally sustainable in a way that feels truly post partisan. Their website has a decade or more of really interesting stuff but this recent book is a great place to start. Duluth is an amazing place but I think it could really rise to its full potential with this approach.
>TCH made the claim that the austerity measures didn't save the city, the bailouts did.
But how is this wrong? There is no intrinsic connection between the two.
>Agreed upon by who?
Almost every economist? As far as I'm aware the only people who argue this are right-wing economists, but there is a widespread consensus on this point. Economists have literally written books about it: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B071W7JCKW/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1
Go and read a book: Piketty 'Capital and Ideology'. If you can't face a book, then a short online article that outlines it.
But odds are, it's not a they but you, given yourintense dislike of the idea your ideology may have helped provoke many of the UK's current woes. And cognitive dissonance is hard to reconcile and will probably lead to a refusal to even follow the links ... ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
You're correct that the 'filthy Tory party' doesn't represent working class needs, but wrong to suggest that votes for socially conservative politics is out of hatred. That's merely the justification that "progressives" use for vilifying and othering the people their social policies leave behind. And aren't you just paying the price for that, eh?
Jobs get outsourced to lower-cost countries, but only those jobs that make sense.
The more that jobs require strong social capital and access to near-the-edge technology, the harder it is to simply outsource that away.
Things like IT/Operations, network administration, tech support, and some level of web and mobile development, sure they can be outsourced.
Work that is related to R&D, high-value products/services or mission-critical development, that is extremely difficult to outsource.
In fact, if you look at remote jobs of that type, you'll see that they'll let you work from anywhere, as long as you work at the HQ's office hours (because of the need for tightly coupled collaboration and research.)
This is a very complex topic, and yet it is one superbly discussed Enrico Moretti's "The New Geography of Jobs." It is a book I strongly recommend people of all professions to read.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B008035HQQ/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?\_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1
Depends on what you mean by "ideal" I guess, but unless capitalism is highly regulated and a good portion of profits redistributed, it eventually leads to extreme inequalities of wealth and power (see Capital in the Twenty-First Century).
Commodities especially energy, real estate, EM bonds, high yield bonds, EMs. Then of course there are all sorts of artificial alternatives.
My standard first book on asset allocation recommendation: https://www.amazon.com/Four-Pillars-Investing-Building-Portfolio-ebook/dp/B0041842TW
Ugh how droll. I'd recommend Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty instead. It's not 100+ years old, is loaded with empirical data, and is far more relevant for today's economy.
What you are describing is called glidepathing. Glidepaths are a big negative in terms of returns. The only time it potentially make sense to tolerate a low stock allocation for longer term money is when your risk profile is at its absolute highest level: early in retirement. And even then the need to be additional factors to justify it.
As far as asset allocation if you are scared to invest this $200k pick a balanced asset allocation. Either use a good robo or read a book on asset allocation. ps://www.amazon.com/Four-Pillars-Investing-Building-Portfolio-ebook/dp/B0041842TW is my standard recommendation.
I should do a post on 5 sample portfolios. Because yes that question does come up a lot. Since you seem anxious to learn what I'd suggest since you have time: https://www.amazon.com/Four-Pillars-Investing-Building-Portfolio-ebook/dp/B0041842TW
Anyway if you just want an answer a good approach is
2/3rds equally split between the 6 Schwab funds: FNDA, FNDB, FNDC, FNDE, FNDF, SCHREX
1/3rd in Goldman funds: GSLC, GSIE, GEM, GSSC (I like IWC more for this), DGS, VSS.
You might enjoy The Rise and Fall of American Growth. It makes the argument that the period from the late 1800s to 1970 was one uniquely filled with major technological leaps that is unlikely to be repeated.
A good book to get you started on asset allocation: https://www.amazon.com/Four-Pillars-Investing-Building-Portfolio-ebook/dp/B0041842TW
In terms of TSP completion (the S fund) do a google to "total stock market vs. SP500" the difference is the S fund.
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Lol this book seems cringe as fuck, why do keynes flairs on here like this guy so much
What you should do is not act on impulse this time. You are in a good place to decide on an asset allocation you believe in. And that means believe in enough that when bad things happen you don't freak. But in all honestly you are unlikely to make that same mistake on the next bear. The book I recommend for learning about asset allocation is https://www.amazon.com/Four-Pillars-Investing-Building-Portfolio-ebook/dp/B0041842TW
Give yourself a few weeks to decide on a real plan. There will always be value.
If you don't want to manage your money then I'd pick a good robo. SIP from Schwab and Wealthfront are both good. Ellevest has some nice features if you are female.
My opinion is it is dreadful. Depending on how you count technology is somewhere between 50-70% of QQQ and over 40% of VOO. So then you throw another 17,5% with ARKK and ARKQ? VBK and XMMO are going to have overlap but at least it is small / midcap. You want a portfolio to diversify risk not concentrate them. You have done a great job concentrating your risks.
I don't see anywhere in your post a justification for diverging from a mainstream portfolio balancing domestic with international, growth with value, spreading risk out aggressively between sectors... I'm not sure whether you don't want to do that or don't know that you should. If it is don't know I'd suggest a book on asset allocation something like: https://www.amazon.com/Four-Pillars-Investing-Building-Portfolio-ebook/dp/B0041842TW . If it is don't want to then I'd suggest a book about a sector that rose high and declined like say railroad history.