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Post by kevlar on May 15, 2022 15:30:32 GMT -6
I wouldn’t look at buying things like tractors or snowmobiles as a long term investment. More like something you dispose of as soon as it makes you a profit. Cars and trucks and more collectable items are worth holding on to longer, things that have a bigger following. It’s one thing to have a hobby that might make you a dollar, but I’ve seen a lot of failed ventures where people tried to make dollar off their hobbies.
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iamwill
Full Member
Posts: 242 Likes: 159
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Post by iamwill on May 15, 2022 16:28:38 GMT -6
I don't have any real monetary personal investments. Got lots of emotional investment in my family though. As a farm business most of our investment is and will continue to be land and the tools and inputs required to make it productive. The house we live in and the land surrounding it would have taken about 40 years to pay for itself when we bought it a little over a year ago. That is way longer than the remainder of my farming career. Does that make it a bad investment? It's still paying for itself, it still provides my family a home and food on the table. If we have average crops and average prices for them (and also for inputs) it could be paid for in more like 5 years, if no other opportunities come up along the way. Does that make it a good investment? If the government is looking at land transfer taxes as a cash cow in the future we will cross (burn, blow up, otherwise destroy) that bridge when we get there. I seriously think that would be something that would break up this country. Virtually everything I own is tied up in the farm, everyone involved in it takes out what they need and leaves in the extra. If something arises that requires some extra money it is there. The farm benefits from not having as much external debt and we benefit from a more efficient farm. Not trying to say that this is the best way to invest but it has been working for us. As far as tractors from the 70s and 80s are guys buying them as investments or to use? I think it's the latter, even spending 50k on an old tractor that is still be productive seems a lot more efficient to me than running a newer one at 4x the cost. I think a person should invest in whatever makes them happy as long as it's not at the expense of someone else.
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Post by kevlar on May 16, 2022 6:56:24 GMT -6
I’ve read a couple articles this morning where there are a few investment banks, Goldman Sachs being one, predicting a recession. I’m surprised it took this long to even begin talking about it. Now with that making the news, I wonder how much panic that will cause in the market? I’m sure Biden and Trudeau are up for the challenge, pretty sure if they could just pump more worthless money into the economy things would straighten themselves out.
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Post by victory on May 16, 2022 8:11:28 GMT -6
Hey Kevlar, I'm sure that you remember that budgets will balance themselves!
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Post by Beerwiser on May 16, 2022 23:21:58 GMT -6
Hey Kevlar, I'm sure that you remember that budgets will balance themselves! Maybe I should hire Turdeu to do my books, he should be unemployed by now🙄.
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Post by kevlar on May 18, 2022 18:02:59 GMT -6
I see the stock market took a bit of a beating today. I wonder what our great leaders have up their sleeves to get this under control? They have run out of people to blame for this. How bad do you think this is going to get? I still call BS on their claimed rate of inflation, its much higher than they’re saying. People can’t afford the basics and have really pulled back on unnecessary items, this causes a ripple effect, how big the ripples get is anyone’s guess. Is this the beginning of the correction? Steady decline or a drop off the cliff?
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Post by kenmb on May 18, 2022 19:46:12 GMT -6
I tend to agree with Iamwill. I think we have been conditioned to think a certain way, I made posts before about building networth and trading off equipment because it is depreciated and such. Everything we are told must be an "investment" and those are scaled in dollars. But if the dollars are fictional and worthless then what is the purpose of assessing your life as one investment after the other. Yes, you use dollars to get other stuff. So that is important. But I do wonder why a guy needs a $2M net worth and yet keep thinking of everything as the next investment to build more net worth in dollars.
It's perhaps hard to explain because we are conditioned to think of dollars. Then I suggest to stop thinking of dollars.
I suspect part of investing being driven into us is to distract us from how things really work. The stock market goes higher, so does your land, so does your house. Sure, you take more debt but you are investing when buying these things. So no one questions why things go higher, or how things work, or who makes these things happen. Just invest.
What if no one invested and they watched inflation destroy their savings? Would everyone now start asking how things work? I would say so. And so people are told to invest. And the stock market always goes higher. It keeps the peasants distracted from talking about how things actually work.
As for a recession, that happens when they say it does. 15 years of dirt cheap debt has created all kinds of spending. People have taken on unheard of amounts of debt. That is actually not a strong economy. It is a piss poor economy. A healthy economy is one where everyone has savings and no debt. So, how long have we been in a recession if debt keeps expanding.
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Post by kenmb on May 19, 2022 7:20:21 GMT -6
Kind of a random post. I don't know. Its a situation that pulls a lot of things together. Kind of "I wish I understood this 15 years ago". But because I didn't, I am now interested in it as in - need to solve it. I am pretty cranky, not because of not being able to seed, but because I built my new house 10 years ago and about 1/3 of the basement footing hit sand. No big deal, sand is a solid base, carry on. All is well till we get abnormal rainfall like the first two years after building the house and now this spring. Then I have a crap load of water flowing in this sand. I am pumping about 5,000 gallons a day with sump pump and two shallow wells I dug in the yard after finding out my patch of sand is much bigger than a patch. So in the last 10 years I became more aware of the soil around the farm. Some of those sand patches are actually a network. And my house sits on the biggest network we farm it seems. Google Earth from last year shows it well. I knew there was some sand west of the house and digging trenches found most of my water flows from the west. The Arial view shows it well. Snow melt or heavy rains goes into the sand, acts as a reservoir and I pump it out at my house. Nice. So my plan this year is to pull down some clay hills and dump about a 12" layer on the sand that I know of. The hills don't produce much, neither does the sand. And if I can cap that sand I may cut my water issue by 70% or so. If I cap it and that sand stays dry underneath, my basement may actually drain into it. It did initially this spring because the sand was dry from previous years. Anyway, long story short, I have really been paying attention to the land I farm. I don't have many plans yet. Have moved some clay hills off into low spots and taken good dirt from low spots and put on hills. But we lack deep top soil and low spots are generally wet so can't do what I want to do. So sometimes it seems a guy is wasting fuel using the scrapper. But if I can stop listening to my sump pump go every 3 minutes like right now, it will be a good investment.
So call it what you will. A life learning lesson, a land improvement topic, investing in making land productive, or investing in improving my mental outlook. But if dries up this summer I plan to clear some east-west shelterbelts and move some dirt. Try to fix one bad decision.
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Post by kevlar on Jun 13, 2022 17:02:14 GMT -6
Looks like the stock market is taking another pounding, Bitcoin will be all but worthless here shortly. Of course some of the “experts “ are claiming its only going down to what it was before the run up, good luck with that! lol
I have my predictions, but I might just keep them to myself, I don’t want to scare you all!! But here’s a hint, Bitcoin is worthless because it’s literally based on nothing. Our current currency is also based on nothing.........
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Post by SWMan on Jun 13, 2022 23:38:23 GMT -6
Looks like the stock market is taking another pounding, Bitcoin will be all but worthless here shortly. Of course some of the “experts “ are claiming its only going down to what it was before the run up, good luck with that! lol I have my predictions, but I might just keep them to myself, I don’t want to scare you all!! But here’s a hint, Bitcoin is worthless because it’s literally based on nothing. Our current currency is also based on nothing......... Don't hold back on my account. None of this should be a surprise to anyone, and nobody will escape the effects of a very deliberate government created problem. I wonder if a big rate hike will affect farmland the way it appears it will affect the housing bubble? Recently flipping through articles on the business channel and the Canadian central bank is claimed to feel like a "housing slowdown would be healthy". So you know when they are making excuses in advance what is coming. Might feel more like a tranny drop into reverse than a "slowdown" though...lol
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Post by slipclutch on Jun 14, 2022 5:27:17 GMT -6
.75 bases points hike coming shorty. The banks should of raised the interest rates 10 years ago. I know a lot of you guy don’t like to hear this but low interest rates Hurt us more than it helped us. On the long run. We Will see 6/7% mortgages. 2% That’s a pipe dream.
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Post by cptusa on Jun 14, 2022 6:43:55 GMT -6
I don't think interest rates will get too carried away, yes you'll see 6-8% but that could even be short term. These high fuel prices and high food prices are going to kill the economy quicker then anything.
I figure anytime you can borrow money under 5% it's basically free.
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Post by kevlar on Jun 14, 2022 7:13:32 GMT -6
It’s the combination of everything happening at once that’s killing the economy. The prices of land and housing has doubled since interest rates went so low, so now a 1% increase is on a payment that is now double what it was back then. A huge segment of the population is house poor and living hand to mouth, when the tv says that inflation will only increase costs xx dollars a month, that’s more than most regular people can afford. As farmers we think we’re a bit more insulated from this because we know people still need to eat, but in reality, a large portion of what we produce goes into junk food and unnecessary products, when people are forced to cut back to the basics, that directly impacts us. Add a few percent to any lines of credit to pay for ridiculously expensive inputs and things get pretty tough.
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tommo780
Junior Member
Posts: 61 Likes: 61
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Post by tommo780 on Jun 14, 2022 7:30:12 GMT -6
From the bits I see and folks I read there are pretty much two options. Keep raising rates till the quadrillions in the debt and derivative markets implode or when things get a bit wobbly they will turn round and return to QE and inflate everything away. Either way the we peasants are not going to do particularly well in either scenario. I would say the most important thing right now is having no debt or at least if there is debt that it is cash flow positive but as you mention Kevlar, most people are up to their eyeballs in non productive debt like mortgages. Second to that own real things, and companies that produce real things that are basic necessities, everyone here is obviously involved in land and food production but energy as well as without that we are all fecked. The major problem comes when people get desperate, they will turn to the arsonist (government) who started the fire and expect them to "do something" and this will inevitably lead to people either giving up their remaining freedoms or they will be convinced to commit atrocities as history has shown us many times
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Post by kenmb on Jun 16, 2022 7:23:41 GMT -6
People turning even more to the government to solve things is my fear.
There is a plan. It's been in play for decades. Dirt cheap debt since 2008 and all the "experts" saying that is good is indication of a plan being played out. I suspect it resolves with more and more control over your life by government and large corporations to "fix" what is actually an intended result of decades.
People seem to think cheap debt was/is needed to save the economy. No, that is central planning saying that. A free market economy does what it does and people adapt. Government intervention working with corporations controlling the economy in the first place is how people come to beleive these same entities must keep fixing the economy.
Dirt cheap debt for 14 years has created massive expansion of everything. And now people will actually beleive it must be sustained.
What people need to understand is the 14 years up to now. Who did it. Why. What were their objectives. Was it actually good for you.
People need to understand these things before they start saying what will happen next.
The last 14 years has been an abomination. A total farce of people saying it was necessary. Thinking that suddenly the right things will be done is simply people having no clue what has happened till now.
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