Down goes the Dow

Bigfoot Investments wrote:

It is odd that so many internet heroes are amazingly adept at timing the market's ups and downs while it has been proven time and again that the professionals do no better at this game than they would by randomly flipping a coin.

Word! Amen! Pick your favorite.

Man. Lots to respond to here. I will choose the most fun ones.

1) My EXACT strategy is my own, though at the core is a tried and true industry standard...so BASED on that yes.

2) I wouldn't call what I do "passive". It is mostly that, but not entirely. AND, let's be clear here, being passive in this way is not necessarily pejorative. Passively making money is AWESOME actually. Who the hell wants to work hard for it? People (men especially) like to DO something, to feel like they are in control, and this is one reason why too many people hop in an out of the market. Constantly making trades doesn't mean you are doing any better than someone who buys in a diversified way and lets it ride, and in fact, studies show the opposite to be true. I disagree 100% though that none of my gains are due to my initiative. ALL of my gains are due to my initiative. I TOOK the initiative by investing in the first place and by continuing to do so non-stop on a regular basis; as I could change my investing to nothing at a moment's notice, the decision to continue to invest is initiative. I DO put in extra money (above and beyond my set automatic investment percentage) when I have it and if I think it's a good time for me to do it (don't have any immediate expenses on the horizon, have enough in my emergency fund, etc.). So, not really passive.

3) Anyone who "lost their shirt" during the Dot Com bust either was investing in a foolish and risky way or they were investing money that the couldn't afford to invest so they had to take out some when it was all down (example of risky). I was HEAVILY invested in the stock market during the Dot Com bust and didn't lose a freakin' penny...because I didn't sell. AND, I kept buying too so that all those purchases (also ones during the Great Recession) at those lower levels are now worth a TON. AND, the market is NOT the same as a lottery at all. Why isn't the market like the lottery? A) You have MUCH better odds. In fact, over time (assuming diversification in mutual funds, not individual stocks), everyone is a winner in the market; B) Results are NOT random like the lottery. You can research which stock or mutual fund to buy, and you can make that decision based on lots of data. Playing the lottery is 100% random; C) There is no end game with the stock market. When you gamble, if you lose, you lose all the money you bet. With mutual funds, if they lose value, you can just hold until the value returns, and again, if you are diversified as you should be, it ALWAYS will. You can not regain money you lost when gambling. That money is gone forever and you would need to introduce NEW money to make money. Not true with investing.

4) Dude, you are way off base about me not having options in life. I have no idea where you are even coming from with that. I didn't like working for a company, so I struck out on my own. I have such a flexible schedule that I have been to every single one of my kid's athletic and non-athletic events except for one time when they were in different states at the same time. No other working parent I know has been able to do that.

5) You don't have to think your kid is going to be Pavarotti to sacrifice for them. Lots of parents sacrifice for their kids. I don't actually call it that personally, but that's what it is. We bought a more expensive house than we needed (SMALLER and not as nice as we could have gotten elsewhere and yet more expensive) because we wanted the better school system. We have bought them both top-notch musical instruments for school...they are easier to play and sound better. We fenced the yard and got a dog since helping to take care of a pet and learning to love a pet is great for their development. And I could go on and on and on. So, is that all a sacrifice? I don't call it that because it's just providing for your kid the best you can, but MOST parents do put their kids first where appropriate, and most spend a LOT of money on their kids that they could save if they either didn't have kids or they did nothing extra for the kids, so call that what you will.

6) Not sure what you mean by not sacrificing by employing my investment strategy. Of course I sacrifice. The amount I put into retirement accounts each year now is a pretty hefty sum. Lots of super fun things I could do with that money if I weren't investing it. Delaying gratification is ALWAYS a sacrifice...it's just that in this case it is worth it...still a sacrifice though.

7) If left to my own devices I wouldn't know what to do with myself? ??? I educated myself on the best way to invest in the way that was acceptable to me, and I ACTIVELY chose this way; so I was left to my own devices and chose the path to take; no one forced me to. I could have done other things. I could have done nothing and decided to work full-time until age 70 and hope that my SS then would be enough.

8) You wrote - "He (Flagpole) is entirely dependent on the system that embodies this expectation of conduct--without it, he would be screwed." What a load. I utilize an investment strategy that is available to me for my own benefit. This is something that I CHOOSE to do and something I could choose NOT to do if I wanted. If it was not available to me, I would chose another vehicle to prepare for retirement.

9) Regarding the stock market, we were told of "The Death of Equities" in 1979, I personally was told that stocks were bad in 1987, 1989, 1991, all through Clinton's time in office, all through Bush's time in office, all through Obama's time in office...pretty much every day since I started investing in 1989. Damn glad I didn't listen to any of them, and you can be sure I am not going to listen to you now. Investing in stocks is just ONE thing you do to keep your financial house in order. I have positioned myself so that even if ALL of my stock money were taken from me, I could STILL retire (by age 65 instead of 59.5 or earlier) and not have to worry about how to pay the bills. You do this by making sure to be 100% debt free including owning a home outright when you retire, by having as much as 3 YEARS or even more of expenses saved in a liquid form out of the stock market when you retire, and then living in a place where the cost of living is low. Lots of great places to live where the cost of living is at or near what a married couple gets on average in Social Security.

10) You have NEVER seen a person positioned as I am have something big happen and then be befuddled...NEVER. Normal and even extraordinary stock market crashes can NOT derail me at this point. I have enough to retire on right now, yet I choose not to. I am within 18 months of owning my home outright, and in fact could sell it and by a nicer one in a better area for retired people in the south with better weather for less. There would have to be an apocalypse for my planning to not be advantageous to me. I am as insulated as a person could possibly be...and certainly buying stocks in a risky way is NOT something that could or would help my position. No dumb luck of timing. I invest more than I need to and I will have done it LONGER than I needed to simply to continue to minimize the risk. Even though I could retire today, I choose not to. I will work at LEAST until age 55 (~7 more years) and then re-evaluate. Perhaps I will retire then. Perhaps I will cut back my clients and work less. My wife likes to work more than I do (and she took years off to be a stay at home mom), so perhaps she will continue to work...she's a year younger and should work after I retire anyway...though if we decide we have enough to both retire at the same time, we will.

Reality is not what you see.

well it took a while but I found some more pixels after FP's post. They were behind the mustard jar in my fridge.

Anyone else thinkign about buying adidas on this boost phenomenon? It seems to be catching more and more momentum among serious runners.

The problem, I know, is that serious runners are a tiny sliver of adidas' customer base. So somehow casual shoe wearers have to be convinced that a $130 running shoe is worth it. Probably a tough sell, that.

but I will feel very stupid if adidas stock does move up from here based on boost - we saw it at the beginning.

It's a cheap stock - price to sales is .87 vs 2.8 for nike

Hi Flagpole!

Wow, did I bring you out of the bushes, or what?

You apparently didn't realize that I was talking about Flagpoles in general, and have little to no idea about your specific personal situation.

However, given that, I will respond, meantime the DJIA is down trivially.

1) It is entirely likely that apart from a few trivial details, that were in essence selected from an industry-standard catalog of such details, your exact strategy is essentially indistinguishable from the generally-recommended industry standard.

2) I knew this one would get you! Talk about a guy wanting to feel like he's in control, like he's DOING something! I want to be unequivocal that I was not being disparaging when I described being a diversified long-termer as passive. However, your GAINS result from nothing you have done, other than to speculatively hold an asset, the identity and manner of holding of which is prescribed by someone else. You do no work to improve the property, at all. Even if you end up with gain, you did nothing to produce it, you were just in a position to collect it--and it is not you who have put yourself in that position. True, you are in the market, but almost anybody who has ANY disposable income is in the market.

Just talking stocks alone, US participation peaked around 66% in 2008, and was around 52% in 2013--and I believe that number does not include those in the bond market. Almost everyone with any disposable income is in the market. Some have dropped out because they have fallen on hard times and have had to cash in their 401k's. So the fact that you are "in" shows no initiative whatsoever--it is not only the de facto default position for anybody with disposable income, but it is the position recommended, supported, and enabled by law and public policy. So, your being "in" does not show any initiative, nor are the gains attributable to either any initiative or work on the asset, on your part.

3) It was not I, but others I know, who described the market as a "lottery". I agree with you in part that it can be different, but that goes to my other point about information, along with control. But you're aiming at the wrong target here, we do not disagree, and agree that it depends on how one manages one's market activities.

4) I don't know you personally, you might be right--however, people tend to fool themselves into believing that they actually have varied options in life, apart from those narrowly-circumscribed ones that they fall into. Contemporary American society is quite homogenous in terms of the individual, and the fact that you seem to not appreciate this shows me that you don't have much international experience, or much appreciation of history. Again, I don't know you, you may be different--but the chances are overwhelming that you are in fact not different, that given a blank canvas, you will draw a picture that is immediately recognizable by others. That is just a fact, and derives from the fact of socialization. In a salutary way, it describes you as "well-adjusted". You see yourself as your own man, but I see you as the everyman, choosing which corner of your small box to inhabit. Again, I do not mean to be disparaging, I'm just stating facts that are generally true--in fact it is true of every human, including myself, only some of us have larger boxes than others. Again, I don't know to what extent your current situation actually derives from your own choosing, if your "investment strategy" is really one that you have chosen and decided upon from a wide range of practically realizable alternatives. I wouldn't, and don't, take your word for it, extremely few people I have met have any valuable perspective on their own situation. However, the fact that the strategy you employ is the absolutely conventional norm, is to me suggestive. And don't think that having had kids was totally your independent decision, either. It is also the conventional, expected norm.

5) So what are you sacrificing for the bigger house and the instruments? A better car? A bigger boat? A better vacation? That's not sacrifice. Sacrifice is giving up something valued, for the sake of other considerations. At best, it could be said that you have sacrificed some freedom--however, that freedom is hypothetical, and never really existed. You are only imagining that you have given it up, since it is something that you never had. OTOH if you waited until you were in the swing of life, and then actually gave up something of value to have kids, that would be different, and not speculative. As far as saying that you sacrificed the freedom of your youth, that's b.s.--youth is about irresponsibility, learning, exploration, etc., which get tiresome after a while, and one changes, naturally. You lose those things anyway, they are not "sacrificed" because you have kids--in fact, the opposite is often true, where people say that it is their kids who "keep them young". Just by the response you made, the way in which you framed the idea of sacrifice, I can see that you don't understand the basis of my suggestion, which once again tells me that you are utterly conventional in your thinking.

6) Not sure what you are responding to, seems like you misunderstood something.

7) Really? And you just happened, through ACTIVE choice, to choose the most utterly conventional, industry standard route? Let me tell you something--nobody with actual expertise acts in that way. There are ALWAYS advantages that can be had over the conventional industry standard, no matter what the area of endeavor, for those who have both put in the time and the work to both know the landscape and to have practical ability, and who have some creativity, the ability to deal with the blank canvas. The same holds for investing in the markets, UNLESS the system is complete bullcrap and essentially unknowable--in which case, one ignores the investing side and concentrates on the trading side. Not only did you happen to "choose" the utterly conventional, you have restricted yourself to the utterly conventional, recommended markets--equity/bond, and residential RE. No, in view of this fact, I have no faith that you have actual options, and that you actively chose from among them. I could be wrong, of course.

8) LOL. "Prepare for retirement." You don't even realize how you sound. You have been in so long, and are in so deep, that you have absolutely no perspective. The idea that you still believe in the concept of "retirement", whatever that means to you, speaks volumes. It's too late for you, Flagpole. You might get lucky and "enjoy" the "retirement" you were promised, but then again you might not. SS benefits can be altered, tax rates can be altered, Medicare can be altered, exemptions can be altered, insurance can be denied, EVERYTHING upon which your vision is dependent can be altered. And no, you are not in control of these things, you are entirely dependent upon the system that put the guarantees in place, and that maintains them, including the unprovable guarantee that "the markets will always go up over time". If you have, say, $7M in liquid cash and assets, properly held, you will likely be fine, even if it all goes to pot.

9) You do this by absolutely believing that the systems upon which it is dependent will endure, not by the mechanisms you suggested. Nowhere did I say that money cannot be made in equities, and nowhere did I suggest that you or anybody like you should do anything differently than you are currently doing. Quite the contrary--you, and people like you, form the system and define and embody the normative values upon which it rests, and impart a certain amount of stability thereto, which makes it easier for guys like me to do what we do, because the risk analysis turns in our favor.

10) Yes, I have. I do hope that your luck of timing holds as long as you need it to. Just make sure to keep your skills sharp, and your clients on the line, and to somehow stay in the game, just in case.

All in all, I'm rather amused when someone thinks he's his own man because the mass-produced car he owns is red, rather than silver or black.

DJIA now up trivially on the day.

1) No such thing as "Flagpoles in general". I am 100% original and unique, brother.

2) I don't disagree with the fact that my strategy is VERY close to industry standard (which I already mentioned), however, it is still different and doesn't line up exactly with what any one expert or standard would recommend.

3) Your point #2 is inaccurate. NO (ok, very few) investors do anything for the companies they invest in other than to invest their money. Again, I chose to begin investing in 1989, a decision I could have decided NOT to make. I have chosen to invest every other week non-stop since then. It is not a binding agreement, and a few times it was very difficult for me to be able to continue to invest without stopping, but I maintained. I could have stopped at any time. I could stop today. I chose not to, so I CHOOSE to invest...that is something that is my doing, and it is very active and conscious, and of course it shows initiative...the action I take is the very definition of it. You are also incorrect that "almost everyone who has ANY disposable income is in the market". Not true. Currently only HALF of Americans are in the stock market, and that number is dropping like a stone. In 2008, 66% of middle-class Americans were in stock market in some way. Today, just 50% are (hmm, I see you had the same - basically - stats -- you are just not interpreting them correctly if you think 50% or 52% is "almost everyone"). You can harp on what dictates "disposable income", but I maintain that even the very poor have disposable income. If they can buy alcohol and cigarettes (and they DO) and cable television and cell phones, then they have disposable income.

4) If you say that you and I agree about the lottery and investing being different, then you are correct on this point...you sure made it sound like you felt the two were the same though. In any even, either you have come to your senses or you were horrible in explaining yourself initially...either way, glad to see you have it right now.

5) For your point #4, go with your stated fact that you don't know me and that I might be right...well, the former is true and the latter is that I AM right, not that I MIGHT be.

6) What I listed exactly IS sacrifice. We pay more money for a smaller house that we could get in a still safe area because the school system is superior. If we bought the same size house, it would be a LOT less money. That's a monetary sacrifice so that the kids can get a better education and be surrounded by kids who give a damn. Your example is BS. My wife and I lived on two-full-time incomes before the kids came along, and we had a blast with travel, spending a lot of money on entertainment, etc. So, it again is EXACTLY stuff we did have and ceased to have once we had children and moved to a more expensive area. Even if we hadn't experienced the extra disposable income though, it is STILL a sacrifice, because we COULD have made a decision to live in a worse school system and would then WOULD have more money. Doesn't matter if you had experienced it or not. Makes me think you don't do any budgeting or planning to have that attitude. Buddy of mine is about to have his first kid after he and his wife for a while thought they weren't going to. He had plans to buy himself a Lotus Elise (not my cup of tea, but he likes them), but now he isn't going to and is going with an SUV. How is that not sacrifice? It is.

7) There are many ways to invest or prepare for retirement. Can go the mutual funds route that I chose or individual stocks or real estate or collectibles or invest in businesses directly, etc. Tons of ways to invest. I did my research and chose the way that was best for me. That a lot of people invest that way makes no difference. You need not be unique to invest smartly. This is a weird point you are trying to make. We are ALL left to our own devices, and MOST people decide not to take advantage of opportunities that are there for them, because even if 52% DO invest in the stock market, that doesn't tell you how much they do, and currently less than 25% take full advantage of matching from the companies they work for, meaning that if they need to invest 8% to get the full match from their company, only 25% of them actually do.

8) Wow dude, with the retirement thing you are WAY off. I have invested as heavily as I have to ensure that I will be able to retire regardless of whether or not there is ANY Social Security money when I do retire. I believe there will be, but for me, it will be a small portion of my retirement income and not even needed. Are you feeling bad that you haven't done enough? This is USUALLY the kind of thing that people say to or about others who have prepared when they themselves have not properly prepared. I started investing heavily at age 23. We lived cheaply in graduate student housing at Stanford University and owned one car that was paid for. We invested HALF our income for the first 7 years of our marriage, and we still had money left over for some serious fun (living in the SF Bay Area helps with that). We invested in that manner because we knew we wouldn't be buying a house in CA, and we wanted to ensure a great retirement income. The seeds have been planted, brother. Even if SS were gone. Even if Medicare were gone, we will be fine...due to the INITIATIVE I have taken and continue to take every day.

9) Lots of ducking an gobbledegook from you on this point. The market goes up 73% of calendar years. This is not going to change UNLESS there is a fundamental shift in the way the economic system works. IF that happens, then I will make a change then. I don't count on anything, brother. I see what is and what is LIKELY to be and invest accordingly. IF CDs returned to giving 12% annually, I would probably throw a truckload of my stock money into those...depending on the circumstances and my age at the time, maybe even all of it. 12% is pretty damn good. So, I'm not locked into anything, brother. I'm up on the world economy and what is a good way to invest and what way isn't, and those things are subject to change. Right now though, stocks within mutual funds are the way to go.

10) Umm...no you haven't. I am positioned in such a way that only a Mad Max-type world scenario could possibly derail me. Not sure why you feel a need to tell me that I'm not my own man, especially when you already admitted that you don't know me at all. I have no need to meet what ever your definition of "your own man" is, but where I am is just fine for me...I work for myself. I have declined extra clients because I don't need the money and don't want the extra work. I will retire from full-time work much earlier than most people and wealthier than just about all of them who had the same income as me (and I could do that today if I wanted to; not quite ready just yet). My eldest is going to enter an elite college next fall...and we can afford it. I take more vacations annually than anyone I know, and all is well. For some reason you believe that due to regular investing into mutual funds THAT I PICK that I'm not my "own man" -- whatever the hell that's supposed to be. Fact of the matter is most Americans don't invest enough to have a worry-free retirement. I am not in that boat.

Flagpole, I will respond more later.

After a quick skim, you may indeed embody some of the characteristics of he who attempts to be his own man--and at some, you may even succeed.

But you are fooling yourself by making yourself the hero of your own life. In point of fact, as I have stated before, I am your age, and I AM essentially retired--maybe in sort of the same position as you, where I still take clients, but only the ones I choose, and where I won't work at my profession full-time unless it gets me more than I get via my other economic activities.

You sound like a decent guy, but make no mistake--choosing from options presented to you in a small catalog does not make you original, nor does it represent meaningful initiative, arrived at via the exercise of creativity.

I have to laugh at the insularity of your post, thanks. I don't mean that disparagingly, either, it's just amusing to be free on the vast ocean of options, looking over at you on your small island. Although you don't understand it, through your response you have done a good job of proving my contentions. Naturally so. The entire point of this is that being on an island is fine, if and only if you recognize the fact that that is in fact where you are--but you don't. If you didn't sound like a decent guy it would be vexatious, but because you do sound like a decent sort, it is only amusing.

You seem to not understand this, but I really do wish you the best--the better you and other Flagpoles do, the better I do. And make no mistake, there are a great, great many Flagpoles crowding the island, but they are individually thin, and many can fit in a small area.

DJIA up around 20 so far today. I'm still sticking to my high-number predictions in the time frame I specified.

Maserati,

No need for you to comment more later. At this point, I am not really interested in what you have to say. I've never said I was trying to be the "hero of my own life" whatever the hell that is supposed to mean. You are thinking about this way too deep or quite honestly, probably just way too WRONG. I'm simply investing my hard-earned money (and employing a good overall financial plan) in what I believe is the best way. Criteria for me to BE the best is:

Good track record of good to great returns

Little work on my part other than just continuing

Little risk of ever being nervous about my strategy

That's it. I'll gladly take the nearly 11% annual return I've had since I started investing. For me this isn't a chest-thumping exercise like apparently it is for you. I am neither impressed nor interested in you in any way. Your talk of islands and your all-so-knowing laughter doesn't bother me in the slightest, but it does bore me incredibly. I'm investing my money so that I can have (and will have) a comfortable retirement. I've heard naysayers like you ever since I started to invest in mutual funds made up mostly of stocks, and I'm very glad I didn't listen to any of them. So, at this point, you've lost my interest.

And, by the way, you're not retired or even "essentially retired" if you are still taking paying clients.

Wow, you had already established yourself as Pompous Windbag in Chief throughout this thread. But this post really takes it to a whole 'nother level.

You are hereby bestowed with the Dubiously Impressive Pomposity Society's Highest Imaginable Title - DIPSHIT for short.

well two ways to look at it.

He is needlessly insulting to FP - I mean he deserves a punch in the nose for saying that to someone's face.

And it is unlikely that Maserati actually is a global jet setting free man in a world of small people. More likely he is a mid level person like the rest of us.

BUT

he's basically right about how we may feel we are free...but really, we are free only among a small set of alternatives. While I am successful, I am not really free - I follow a very tight set of rules and don't really have a chance to move beyond those rules.

And this is true for almost anyone - it's not a practical or even pleasant life to consider infinite options. I mean, we're not sociopaths.

agip wrote:

BUT

he's basically right about how we may feel we are free...but really, we are free only among a small set of alternatives. While I am successful, I am not really free - I follow a very tight set of rules and don't really have a chance to move beyond those rules.

And this is true for almost anyone - it's not a practical or even pleasant life to consider infinite options. I mean, we're not sociopaths.

Perhaps, but the freedom discussion is bogus and has nothing to do with investing for retirement. Holy crap. There are LOTS of ways we can all say we aren't free. We can't get off this planet. None of us can get out of the confines of our own bodies, but who the hell cares? Also, most of the loss of freedom I have is due to conscious CHOICES I made. I moved around a lot as a kid, because my Dad would get promoted and that meant a new town, but I decided I didn't want my kids to have to do that, so we picked a school system we wanted them to grow up in, and we committed ourselves to staying in it until they were done with high school. Less than 4 years and that will be true. Also, having kids limits your freedom, but we chose to have them. Being married limits a person's freedom, but again, a conscious choice I made.

The people with LESS freedom are those who don't start investing for their future as soon as they possibly can. I will never have the ability to do whatever the hell I want to like Bill Gates or some other multi-billionaire, but having that kind of freedom was never a wish. Even on a very much smaller scale, I could have found a wife who didn't want kids, and we could just have been making tons of money and investing and saving a ton and either have been retired by now or getting ready to live high on the hog in retirement if we waited a bit longer. Not what I wanted. As important as I think investing for retirement is, there are other things that are equally important or more important...family, vacations with family, being able to send my kids to the college of their choice, being able to see pretty much ALL of my kids races, dive meets, band concerts, awards ceremonies, etc. I have put myself in a position to do all of that...and the thing of it is, MOST people could too. It just takes a plan.

Amen brother. Well said.

meanwhile, all time high today for US stocks using ticker VTI

"it does bore me incredibly"

Yes, it would.

And btw on the island, 11% is excellent.

And regarding "retirement", it's an antiquated concept. The only reason I described myself using island language is so that you might understand, but you are too clouded by hurt--and you are hurt because the biggest actual investment you have made is in your self-construct, which has been questioned.

How many businesses have you started? How many that rely on novelty? How many new technologies have you invented or brought to market? How much original research have you done, on anything? Any patents? Have you lived primitively outdoors for a year with no plumbing or electricity? In another part of the world? Have you ever designed your own clothing? Designed and worn your own haircut? Long hair, even? Converted bush into productive use? Used a construct other than "marriage"? Home-schooled? Do you even use a self-directed 401k? etc.

No chance. Utterly conventional, utterly unoriginal--which is why your posts on this thread amount to nothing other than a repetition of the industry-standard mantra.

And of course this bores you, because your interests and inquiry are extremely circumscribed, as is your idea of "investing".

I have had the dumb luck in life of having been exposed to all sorts of lives, from literally living in a dump, to royalty in a palace. The one thing I have is perspective, both on my life, and on yours, as portrayed by you in this thread--which is why, in comparison to you, I can still be interested in what you have to say about life on your island, and in the island itself.

Most of all, you bring to mind Newton's quote, apparently without any of his understanding or insight:

"I do not know what I may appear to the world, but to myself I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the sea-shore, and diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me."

Like it or not, this is how we all are--the only difference is that some of us realize it, and some don't.

DJIA up trivially so far today, not much going on.

Put a sock in it, blowhard.

Reading further, you continue to demonstrate your innocence when you suggest that Gates has "the ability to do whatever the hell he wants"...

...and your utter conventionality when you quite correctly suggest that "most people could do it". That's the point--under the same conditions, everybody could do it, simply by following the prescribed plan.

Again, I don't know you from Adam, but with each successive post, the picture becomes clearer. You are a catalog shopper, selecting from a very small catalog. To preserve your sense of self-worth, you nurture the myth that the catalog is very much bigger than it actually is. In doing the utterly conventional, your suggestion that it has been the result of your active choice from among a wide range of options is not credible. You rely on your immediate society to make the catalog for you, and you choose from it those behaviors you are told would be best.

I will stop, because I know that in your extreme insularity, all of this bores you terribly.

Do you like Christopher Nolan movies, Maserati?

Reading comprehension problems? Either that or I am having memory problems because I don't recall ever even mentioning Gates. And as far as the picture becoming clearer with each successive post that seems a bit odd since (prior to this one) I only had one post.

Seriously, you don't appear to be the sharpest tool in the shed. Honestly, do you have any talent of any kind beyond being a blowhard?

agip is the only poster on this thread who has understood the point, without taking insult.

I would point out that there is a wide range of existences short of sociopathy--although, quite rightly, at their limits they do border it, if we are referencing things to a particular society (which people unconsciously tend to do).

I do not "jet-set" anymore, although up until March of this year, I did. I might get in that loop again but have been able to carve out a nice reprieve. Like others, I am not the entire master of my domain, and it is quite likely, almost certain, that I will have to do it again in the future, likely sooner than I would like. It is good for doing some things, bad for doing others. The issue is balance, which is why I am now trying to stay in one place for a while, to get certain things done.

I came to this thread on the recommendation of a friend, who has been following silently. I now know why he made the recommendation, and I heartily thank him for it. Well done.

To all posters, I bid a fond farewell.

Really? agip is the only one? So now you also have the ability to read everyone's minds! Awesome.

Now I would say that you really shouldn't let the door swat your lame ass on the way out but I know better. Your entire life is lived as a blowhard. This thread is nirvana for you. You WILL be back.

agip of course will love to have you still blowing smoke on here. As Master of the Thread he does need a semi-psychotic foil. K5 filled that role for the first half. And you have been filling in admirably for the second half. Without your hot air this whole thread deflates. So, for agip's sake as well as your own, welcome back. We barely missed you.