Show Posts

This section allows you to view all posts made by this member. Note that you can only see posts made in areas you currently have access to.


Messages - bw

Pages: [1] 2
1
Off topic / Re: Question re FIRE future returns
« on: July 13, 2020, 12:35:07 pm »
Thank you for these food for thought replies Bevan. Its interesting how things are developing.

Check out a spot for me in Hogsback so, i too can become a homesteader  ;)

2
Shares / Re: My retirement blog.
« on: June 23, 2020, 12:47:35 pm »
you back!

Great to hear from you Orca.

3
Off topic / Re: Preparation for an Offshore Relocation
« on: January 10, 2020, 02:16:02 pm »
Very topical- also keen to learn

4
Off topic / Re: Question re FIRE future returns
« on: January 10, 2020, 02:10:18 pm »
Hi Patrick,

I'd like to get your opinion on this.... Martin Luther King once said that, "Communism forgets that life is individual. Capitalism forgets that life is social, and the kingdom of brotherhood is found... in a higher synthesis that combines the truths of both."

Unbridled capitalism has enabled market returns on average over the last several decades of around 10-15%. However, the world is realising that this is not only inequitable but also unsustainable. We are seeing the emergence of active investors and ESG and impact investors who are advocating for a fairer world, perhaps leading towards the synthesis mentioned in the quote above. Investors now realise that correcting wage and social inequality, helping protect the environment etc. all involve higher costs that were never previously considered by the rampant, greed driven capitalism.

The world is also struggling with the limits to growth, with negative rates abounding, even as central banks try to stimulate inflation and growth by conjuring up new cash. The problem is that there is not enough real-world growth to "absorb" this new cash and it has found its way into markets, dangerously overheating them, at least from a value-investors perspective.

Thus, I believe that low stock market returns are here to stay for the foreseeable future, of around 3-7% per year if we're lucky. There is also the ever-present risk of a serious market correction if prices trend too high above value. ESG and impact investors seem happy with this sort of return, as the world starts to consider measuring returns in more than just monetary terms.

The question is, what does this type of return do to the FIRE movement? What is the minimum annual return required to keep withdrawing (4%) of your capital and not run out of money?

In a way this whole trend change is making intuitive sense to me.... It's only possible to be a passive investor, adding no productive value to the world (e.g. indulging in travel), when we do not properly value the real factors (i.e. the workers and environment) that help that investment to make outsized returns. The days of rocking up with capital, facilitating an investment in a factory, paying slave wages, not accounting for environmental resources properly (cost of water or cleaning up pollution), and then taking the bulk of profits out, are nearing an end....

Interesting questions Bevan.


An example of a puzzling phenomenon is Japan flat lining for 20 years. I know that their bubble burst in the early 90's, but wow- 20 years without growth in the stock market WITH a very diligent and productive workforce. It boggles my mind.

..i guess the bottom line might be as Buffet says... when everyone is excited be very cautious and when everyone is scared be bold

5
Shares / Re: Buyer: Mind the Gap - Don't Buy the Dip
« on: March 06, 2019, 12:49:01 pm »
subscribed and watching with interest

6
Shares / Re: My retirement blog.
« on: March 06, 2019, 10:06:04 am »
Orca, may your move and especially your adjustment to the new environment go well. 10 out of 10 for your willingness to adapt

7
Off topic / Re: Transferring money overseas, any tips?
« on: July 13, 2018, 11:00:08 am »
Andre, thanks for the tips!
Having a buddy (for an address) in the UK,  i tried to sign up on N26.. no go...it said Join the waiting list.N26 is coming to the United Kingdom.


8
Introductions / Re: New Member
« on: October 24, 2017, 03:48:33 pm »
I see bundu, goliath, and others on the leader board.

9
Introductions / Re: New Member
« on: October 24, 2017, 03:42:03 pm »
Hello Leon,
I often see you on wildogs forum. seems we may have similar tastes. (brianw)

10
Shares / Re: My retirement blog.
« on: October 24, 2017, 03:32:50 pm »
Orca, when the chips are down how do you cope? I hope for you that mrs's health improves

11
Shares / Re: My retirement blog.
« on: October 20, 2017, 09:00:34 am »
Just read the thread from beginning to end,
thanks Orca for your intimate and enlightening comments.. and i hope all is well with you and Mrs

12
Shares / Re: Investment Strategies for Nomads
« on: October 18, 2017, 02:13:23 pm »
Thank you Andre for sharing and well done on the discipline to save as you have.

Have you been travelling the last number of years? i ask as full time travelling can have drawbacks. (missing family and friends etc) 

13
Shares / Re: Investment Strategies for Nomads
« on: October 17, 2017, 11:54:23 am »
back on topic
....possibly even reconsider some of the capital currently 'stuck' in property as I'm not convinced it's the best choice long term...

Andre, i also have the same idea to slowly get out of property,

One of the first barriers is CGT. (As Patrick said... its a tax on inflation :mad:)

Maybe take the time to move into each one ..live a bit and then sell as a primary??

14
Shares / Re: Investment Strategies for Nomads
« on: October 17, 2017, 11:34:22 am »
Here another one for a bit of diversion from a fellow biker from Cape Town (Kamaya)

What else would one do?...

Driving from Jhb. Not sure where to stop to sleep. The GPS - that seductive electronic siren suggested Hopetown would be doable before sundown at the current pace. Hopetown? Hopetown! Now there's a fine place to stay considering all that is going on...

It also suggested a bouquet of guest houses. The Lavender guest house piqued my attention. My logic was that, I am in so deep behind the boerewors curtain that this isn't curtains we're talking about, this is shutters baby, and how does lavender make its way past the plethora of vans, kloofs, tjies and plaase?

A desperately gorgeous sunset of complex purples and pinks was putting itself to bed with me a mere 10k's to go and it looked like if I can locate the local bottle store I might have been able to gate crash natures revelry. Maybe even get a gorgeous picture to feel happy and hopeful to.

Bonus! Hopetown is small enough with an obvious need that the only bottle store is open till 7!

"Do you have an un-oaked Chardonnay?" Says I, keen to have some first world alacrity to make up for my arriving late for the show.

I have often been labelled an optimist. In asking for Chardonnay, un-oaked in Hopetown I might very well have set a new personal best in this discipline!

Asking in English, I'm obviously a "souty", and as such is not a well-known entity round here so I was treated a bit royal. With all the dignity that such a request seems to have required, the owner with creased brows and fat fingers walked around from the till and personally inspected the 3 bottles of white in amongst the motley bunch or reds that looked even sorrier for having robbed precious space from the rows of 6 deep brandies and other powerful spirits.

"No, meneer, I wus sure we had one soon. Must I order?"

You've gotta love small towns. Ernest politeness and smashed language.

I'll make do with the Orange River Cellars, (I'm being a snob, they do a fabulous red and not a bad white. Just not un-oaked)

Before me in the queue was an old white chap. Clearly had seen better days and much easier work. He was still a working man, dirtily obvious that, not because he wanted to, but, he had two demons to serve; poverty and alcohol.

He was the not so shining example of what happens when one isn't fortunate enough to have had a seat belt and air bags in the monstrous traffic smash between the colonial experiment and the new South Africa.

At first I was not sure what he was paying for, then I saw it, the poor man’s poorest drink; a 5 litre box wine with not one label on it. It was just a white box of hope whose fine print, by its omission, promised loss, past and misery.

Sadly, with all this, I missed my sunset by at least a half glass of wine.

Lavender and hope. It was serendipitous and mirrored exactly where I was. Exactly.

A promise of wisdom and soothing and possibility bathed in beauty, but, delivering missed opportunities, pathos and sorrow.

I am so sorry and sad... But tonight I sleep in lavender. Maybe tomorrow truer purple and pink?
 

Compromise!

The truth is that for most, the nomadic journeys must occur in the mind or value must be accorded to random nocturnal sojourns around the suburb or the occasional walk through a park where as one watches one's dog piss against a carefully maintained shrub for which we pay the necessary levy taxes.  The complex strands of any family dynamic do not always allow for the freeist of spirits to take off on whims of self discovery. I have been into a few wildernesses without exiting my front door.


15
Shares / Re: Investment Strategies for Nomads
« on: October 17, 2017, 11:22:00 am »
I love the topic...

excerpt from a book ' the gypsy in me'
Solo travel has a peculiar power for those of us who are suited to it. Along with the discovery of one's own true nature and the opportunities to express it comes a corresponding freedom to think thoughts that may be considered odd, threatening, even reprehensible and lunatic, by ones familiar acquaintances. It is perfectly natural that prophets should come out the wilderness bearing revelations, but all prophets are not created equal. Some are giants, some are mediocre, some are of piddling stature, and some are nuts. The difficulty is that neither they nor those that receive there proclamations can really tell untill much later.

Mine is not pure asceticism of a single-handed yachtsman or a Saint-Exupery.There is no lack of people in my journeys, and they are my principal interest. Nor am I a dispassionate voyeur peering into other peoples lives. Strong connections are formed rapidly, and they nourish me. What distinguishes them from my relationships with friends and family at home is the absence of those expectations which I find burdensome and restrictive, demanding that I behave in certain predictable ways. These emotionable transactions trade too heavily on guilt and obligation for my taste. When I travel alone, I experience a sense of freedom that occasionally comes close to ecstasy.

The physical freedom is an important element - the ability to stay or go as one pleases, to follow whatever the inner voice suggests, is a rare luxury in most lives, and there must be many who have never allowed themselves to experience that inner-directedness -- the compass in the heart. More valuable to me even than that is the freedom to be whoever and whatever you feel yourself to be rather than having to conform to the patterns that others are accustomed to expect. "


Pages: [1] 2