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9 hours ago, hank213 said:

Don't let any evidence change your mind, even if Faux news has confirmed some of the statements from the Atlantic story. Or keep banging your head against the wall thinking there is any amount of evidence that can come to light that will get SA to change course. If Trump supporters were interested in truth or even intellectual honesty they wouldn't be Trump supporters. 

evidence like people going on record and saying i was there and he didnt say that. that kind of evidence? cause i saw that. i also saw anonymous sources with conflicting reports. i didnt want to bring it up but i have a source who tells me that hank loves to kick puppies in the head for no reason. the source wont go on record becuase they dont want anyone to tweet at them!

he most defintely insulted john mccain. probably all the time. but do i believe he blanket said in a room full of people "i'm not going to a cemetery, veterans are losers. scukers for dying in war."  no fvckin way he said that and it isn't news until 60 days before the election.

probably also a coincidence that they had tv ads ready the next day. definitely not politics 101. 

is this evidence? a photo of trump visiting a vet without the press. does he do that if he thinks all vets are suckers? sure thing bro. 

https://twitter.com/realannapaulina/status/1302080722090504193?s=20

how about a vietnam vet

how about noted trump enemy john bolton

 

 

i could post more people, on the record, saying he did not say that.  

 

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If you are paying $20 for a haircut, I imagine people assume you did it yourself anyway.

and after 3 days, he is risen!

Pocket change cost me my first and only black girlfriend.   It was in the middle of a roaring poker boom and I was flush in ways most men don't even bother dreaming of. Money, it was like dirt to me

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Couldn't agree with you more on the Covid stuff, Suited. And anytime you say what you said about it there's always some dope like Cobalt who knows someone who's "had a really hard time" with it, then you find out they're just sick. We should be using resources to help those at risk while everything else remains normal for most of the population, instead people's businesses and lives are being destroyed so they may or may not get sick for a week.

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Re: lady friend. It’s not going great. She is stressed beyond belief about starting school and hasn’t wanted to hang out much. She is also increasingly preachy for some reason, probably related to the stress. Yesterday was the first day we got together in a week, and she randomly starts talking about loving when other couples show lots of generosity. Tells me about how this couple she knew, the husband spent three hours a week mowing his deployed friend’s acreage for nine months, and how great that was to see. I looked at her and said, mowing anything yourself works out to about $10/hour net saved, and it’s fcking miserable, and what kind of guy deploys with no plan to handle that for his wife?

I’m giving her another week or two to calm down, and if she doesn’t, we are going to split up. I’m not bummed, it was fun, and I now know the realities of dating single moms (and I’m never doing it again).

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6 hours ago, Poppy_Hillis said:

Couldn't agree with you more on the Covid stuff, Suited. And anytime you say what you said about it there's always some dope like Cobalt who knows someone who's "had a really hard time" with it, then you find out they're just sick. We should be using resources to help those at risk while everything else remains normal for most of the population, instead people's businesses and lives are being destroyed so they may or may not get sick for a week.

it's one of those things where i get how personal it can be and i do understand why people are scared. but i also mostly blame the media for that, same as i do this made up trump story. 

take a look at the headline for this article

https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/19/health/teen-death-coronavirus-wellness-partner/index.html

then read the article and get pretty far into it before they tell you that this 'healthy' teenager had undiagnosed diabetes and his blood sugar was TEN times the normal level when he got to the hospital with COVID.  think of all the parents who saw that headline and freaked out for no reason. think of all the people they told about the CNN article where a kid who 'took precautions' got sick and died. it's criminal to call that kid 'healthy' in the headline of the article - i'm sorry but one look at the picture and you know that isn't true. it's terrible that he died, but before you make people close their businesses, perhaps ask that kid's parents why there son had this health problem and they had no idea? how about some level of personal responsibility. i have had terrible eating habits all my life and got sick because of it. and it wasn't until i got sick that i lost 80 pounds and have started to eat better and all that. if i had died from covid two years ago when i was still 240 it wouldnt be because of the virus, it would be from the ten thousand cokes and big macs. america is getting hit relatively hard - though i would dispute that for a few reasons as well - compared to other countries because we are a fat and lazy society. the amount of people struggling to walk around is disgusting. my own brother is well overweight, and i have been talking to him about the relative danger. he is probably 290. if he gets this and dies I'm not going to ask other people to change because our parents and i failed him and he failed himself. we all have to live with the choices we make, but you go way to far when you start aking if other people should be allowed to go outside and breathe without a mask. i

but that is on the individual level. from a macro perspective, this thing is not a population killer. we know who is at serious risk and why, and we needed to advise those people to bunker down for 8 weeks while everyone else goes for herd immunity. if we had done that it would be over by now. instead we're doing a slow burn, which is better than a total lockdown, but still not great. but businesses that are barely hanging on need a chance to survive. one of my clients, his daughter is an engineer and she was just let go. now lucky her she has a huge trust to look to, but most people do not have that. this economic stupidity is going to be felt for years. i can't even imagine the stress on low income families.  i'm more concerned with government interference in our lives than any one individual case of someone getting sick or dying or losing their job. but the totality will be hard to ignore in the years to come. 

 

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The pandemic has created this weird mashup of hard times and irrational behavior.  Enormous unemployment, with home sales (existing+new) hitting levels not seen since 2006.  Some people are literally moving for a home office.  The breeders with huge waiting lists, price increases on puppies. 

Those are 10+ year choices as a reaction to something that started six months ago, and does anyone really think we'll still be doing this for another year?  There is a point at which stimulus starts stoking much worse consequences.  Either we stop murdering the economy, or we go through a very costly reshuffling of the workforce to suit the new normal.  Hotels, travel, entertainment all get reworked, reduced, eliminated, etc.  My money is on the path of least resistance.

A few more people at work are buying houses.  Despite the fed saying inflation would be allowed to run above target, I still think rates are going to be low for a long time.  So the rush to buy with lower borrowing costs, at these elevated prices, still feels dumb to me.  I think prices will eventually (1-2 years) normalize south of here, with borrowing costs staying where they are.  The 50%+ price increase we're seeing in lumber (for example) almost certainly doesn't have staying power.

My attitude is pretty unchanged.  The partnership buy-in at work, I decided to buy about 1/4th the amount I could have--staying debt and stress free.  Many, many people in the firm have been gifted 2.5-10x what I bought, and my attitude shifted to, "why am I paying for this? why can't I just earn it like everyone else did?"  I'm going to continue to work hard on my career, stick with my modest condo, and drip the extra money into the stock market.  I'll be okay.

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40 minutes ago, SuitedAces21 said:

i have had terrible eating habits all my life and got sick because of it. and it wasn't until i got sick that i lost 80 pounds and have started to eat better and all that. if i had died from covid two years ago when i was still 240 it wouldnt be because of the virus, it would be from the ten thousand cokes and big macs. america is getting hit relatively hard - though i would dispute that for a few reasons as well - compared to other countries because we are a fat and lazy society. the amount of people struggling to walk around is disgusting.

Just losing 35 had a dramatic impact on my life.  I think I lost 60-70 a decade ago, but I don't remember feeling this good afterwards.

Figure 4 in this link kinda just tells the story.  https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/products/databriefs/db360.htm

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7 hours ago, The Opulent Gentleman said:

Yeah Cobalt, get better nephews who don't get sick from Covid, you dope.

I had a cold two weeks ago, should've quarantined my whole neighborhood for months and not let anyone go to work so they could lose their jobs.

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5 hours ago, SuitedAces21 said:

it's one of those things where i get how personal it can be and i do understand why people are scared. but i also mostly blame the media for that, same as i do this made up trump story. 

take a look at the headline for this article

https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/19/health/teen-death-coronavirus-wellness-partner/index.html

then read the article and get pretty far into it before they tell you that this 'healthy' teenager had undiagnosed diabetes and his blood sugar was TEN times the normal level when he got to the hospital with COVID.  think of all the parents who saw that headline and freaked out for no reason. think of all the people they told about the CNN article where a kid who 'took precautions' got sick and died. it's criminal to call that kid 'healthy' in the headline of the article - i'm sorry but one look at the picture and you know that isn't true. it's terrible that he died, but before you make people close their businesses, perhaps ask that kid's parents why there son had this health problem and they had no idea? how about some level of personal responsibility. i have had terrible eating habits all my life and got sick because of it. and it wasn't until i got sick that i lost 80 pounds and have started to eat better and all that. if i had died from covid two years ago when i was still 240 it wouldnt be because of the virus, it would be from the ten thousand cokes and big macs. america is getting hit relatively hard - though i would dispute that for a few reasons as well - compared to other countries because we are a fat and lazy society. the amount of people struggling to walk around is disgusting. my own brother is well overweight, and i have been talking to him about the relative danger. he is probably 290. if he gets this and dies I'm not going to ask other people to change because our parents and i failed him and he failed himself. we all have to live with the choices we make, but you go way to far when you start aking if other people should be allowed to go outside and breathe without a mask. i

but that is on the individual level. from a macro perspective, this thing is not a population killer. we know who is at serious risk and why, and we needed to advise those people to bunker down for 8 weeks while everyone else goes for herd immunity. if we had done that it would be over by now. instead we're doing a slow burn, which is better than a total lockdown, but still not great. but businesses that are barely hanging on need a chance to survive. one of my clients, his daughter is an engineer and she was just let go. now lucky her she has a huge trust to look to, but most people do not have that. this economic stupidity is going to be felt for years. i can't even imagine the stress on low income families.  i'm more concerned with government interference in our lives than any one individual case of someone getting sick or dying or losing their job. but the totality will be hard to ignore in the years to come. 

 

Once again, couldn't agree more.

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1 hour ago, Poppy_Hillis said:

I had a cold two weeks ago, should've quarantined my whole neighborhood for months and not let anyone go to work so they could lose their jobs.

I had some symptoms a couple weeks ago. I took a Covid test and got my negative result the next day and while I had symptoms I stayed home and isolated and didn't put anybody else at risk. No lineup at a local hospital so took only about 15 minutes and during Covid they aren't charging to park which is a nice change from the usual $15

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20 hours ago, Poppy_Hillis said:

I had a cold two weeks ago, should've quarantined my whole neighborhood for months and not let anyone go to work so they could lose their jobs.

Before my nephew, I had a few relatives that had it...but it took 4-5 months for it to really reach my circle. I wasn't even advocating for anything policy-wise. I was just saying, "Hey, let's not completely dismiss the notion that this thing is going to only affect old/immuno-compromised people."

As for me, my sister is immuno-compromised, and my wife also doesn't have the best immune system...so we've done the best we've can to be careful and minimize exposure.

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1 hour ago, CobaltBlue said:

Before my nephew, I had a few relatives that had it...but it took 4-5 months for it to really reach my circle. I wasn't even advocating for anything policy-wise. I was just saying, "Hey, let's not completely dismiss the notion that this thing is going to only affect old/immuno-compromised people."

As for me, my sister is immuno-compromised, and my wife also doesn't have the best immune system...so we've done the best we've can to be careful and minimize exposure.

i would never tell someone that they shouldnt stay in if that's what they want. protect yourself and your family how you see fit. my main issue is with the government shutting down certain places - small business, public parks, the beach in states lucky enough to have beaches - but allowing walmart to be open. i remember my brother sent me this 'meme' back in may or so about the beach and walmart, really made me laugh at how crazy we were acting. 

images?q=tbn:ANd9GcROPrCIYFoWde_1NJoEXOn

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Yeah TBH I’m tired of the covid dilemma discussion.

I put in a solid 10 hours at the office yesterday, felt like time flew by. Built a request/processing system in our CRM for one of the service groups. We started with this software at the start of the year, and it has taken me this long to get a good grasp and start customizing. 

I didn’t want to be more technical in my role at this point, it just kinda worked out that this stuff was needed, and no way is my firm going to hire anyone to fill the void. I do have someone helping me with the basic maintenance. I kinda figure I can transition as soon as the heavy lifting is done, and only come back periodically to check in.

This stuff is all critical and capable of helping us be so much better coordinated, but the lack of revenue causes everyone to see it as non-value added, so I kind of have this dumb incentive to short-change it. I am just wanting to see what I can do with the canvas before I move on to the next thing. 

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hey Strat

You made a point about about house prices and other things going way up. Do you think part of it when it comes to assets is just that the risk free rate of return is so low now that a lot of assets (like gold) are naturally more valuable now.

What made me think about this was some preferred shares I bought in mid-May that are 5 year rate resets have gone up by over 20% while the fundamentals haven't changed. Interest rates haven't changed since then and the credit worthiness of the companies hasn't changed. These are blue chip Canadian companies like Manulife and Brookfield Asset Management.

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I think the move in gold has to do with inflation hedging, but it also looks to me like momentum--people herding around a trade that worked recently. I think the very low risk-free rate explains some of the crazy run-up in large cap tech.  Excluding Tesla, they look like extremely safe bets to continue to have healthy balance sheets, etc.  So, rather than the 10 year US treasury at 72bps with little room for rates to go lower, why not Microsoft at 95bps + whatever share buybacks they're doing?

I listen to this podcast, specifically just whenever Siegel is on the show.  I think he nailed it when he said it's not really possible to trade on fundamentals right now.  The market is clearly expecting all of this to be taken in stride for the companies big enough to be publicly listed, but earnings are obviously down and will be for a while, so is P/E a very useful yardstick right now?

https://businessradio.wharton.upenn.edu/behind-the-markets/

I know almost nothing about preferreds, other than they act like an ultra long-term bond in practice, and I personally want nothing to do with a duration over 7 right now.  I think by May, people already knew the Fed wasn't going to let the credit market collapse, so I don't think you caught the tail end of the recovery or anything.  My guess is it's the same trade we see everywhere else: people wanting to avoid equity exposure, even if it involves crazy duration risk in an environment where the fed has pushed out a bunch of liquidity AND said they are going to allow inflation to run above target.

 

I just have a bunch of boring mega caps with a solid average dividend yield.  Stuff like MSFT, WMT, MCD, INTC, T.  I would say WMT is my pick for the next stock to experience huge multiple expansion alongside the tech giants, as they continue to transition into an ecommerce play.

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5 year rate reset preferreds are a good thing to have in your portfolio to hedge against interest rates going up. I own a lot of pipelines and utilites that pay good dividends that are hurt when interest rates will go up. They obviously aren't as liquid as common shares but you can always trade them. I'd much rather own a preferred than bonds right now.

This is one of the ones that I bought 800 shares of. Get a nice $0.25 dividend quarterly for another 4 years before the rate resets so a 7% yield at the price I paid which was $14.20. At the current yield on 5 year Gov't of Canada bonds the dividend will still be around $0.20 per quarter and while 4 years from now interest rates still probably aren't going to be very high they'll probably be higher than they are now.

https://money.tmx.com/en/quote/BAM.PF.F

Some of the crazy tech runup the last few weeks seems to have been fueled by those wild and crazy people at Softbank

https://www.ft.com/content/9e5827e9-893a-453e-b28d-88c1c0adc9d5

 

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Oh, utilities? Yeah that makes sense, typically seen as defensive, didn’t work out that way this time with usage cratering during the toughest part of the lockdown.

Yeah, I don’t know where rates are going to be four years from now, very easily could see them stay flat for that long. Lots of incentive for governments to keep rates low with the current debt load. Don’t know what that’s going to mean for pensions though. Benefit cuts likely.

I am told preferreds as an asset class haven’t been great historically. At least, that’s what the professors on our investment committee always say whenever it gets brought up. These are the weirdest of times though. I have sat in on some of the discussions for our tactical portfolio and it is absolute chaos. 

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All Canadian investors know about Brookfield. Great managers but good luck trying to figure out how the money flows to and from the main holding company Brookfield Asset Management to the subsidiaries. It's all a combination of cross ownership and management fees but they make the shareholders money.

I own common shares in Brookfield Infrastructure and Brookfield Energy. BIPC and BEPC on the Toronto Exchange.

There are big tax advantages for Canadians to holding shares in Canadian companies like Brookfield that pay "eligible" dividends. There are dividend tax credits that lower the tax rate on them a lot especially for modest taxable incomes less than $90K per year. Somebody retired and making say $60K per year is only going to pay a marginal rate of 6.4% on their dividend income.

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I think it would be a tough job, managing retirement assets for Canadians. You want a home bias just for currency reasons but I don’t think you could build a sector-diverse portfolio out of Canadian companies.

We have weird tax treaties with other countries. People here are incentivized to own individual Canadian stocks in an IRA, or else you get hit with a dividend tax, I want to say it was 20%. You can still use it as a foreign tax credit on your return, but still it’s 20% of the total, hung up until April each year. 

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