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Prediction: 2021 is going to be a total shit show. Place your bets now.

BellaPippin

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not sure if ladies are the same pigs as men

Ask any cleaning crew which bathroom is worse...hint-- it's not the men's.

You think piss everywhere and clogged toilets are bad? Try piss everywhere, clogged toilets and red. A lot of red.
 
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csalvato

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I am ENTP... I just obviously lack a lot of knowledge in economics/finance and never really knew where to start besides my ECON 101 in college lol

As an ENTJ definitely you can see several steps ahead which I struggle with. I'm sort of better at making decisions on the go as things happen.

This is probably the only book you'd need to read to be off to a running start, in that case:


It looks like it'd be boring, but it's a real page turner.
 

j0elsuf

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Back on 12/1/2001, I don't think anyone anticipated that the increased airline security would mean required pat downs and/or x-rays just to get on a plane by 2015, with people happily paying money into a government racket to "fast track" through all the security screens.
That's one "bad" quality of mine that actually holds me back. I always assume for and in some cases, hope for the worst. Especially when it comes to events where governments take action. I always assume that they are going to impart some form of martial law, and in most cases I'm right.

So not only was I anticipating the pat downs and stuff, I was full-on expecting it after 9/11. I was also expecting travel bans after it. Kept saying to people "you won't be able to go anywhere for another five years just watch." I also expected a draft (which we kinda got in the form of Selective Service) as well as lots more spending on war effort.

When COVID19 began spreading, I immediately expected there to be a strict stay-at-home order for 3 months so I prepared accordingly. I immediately got a job at an "essential business" (which was a golf course of all place lol) cuz I had no idea if I was gonna be able to do Uber Eats. Also made sure I had everything I needed to last me until July which was when I thought the stay-at-home order was gonna end. I undershot that by a few weeks lol but still. I also undershot the travel bans by a big margin: I thought the travel bans were going to last 5 whole years. But this is how I think when stuff like this happens.

My distrust for my government to actually protect its citizens as well as make sure they are free to do stuff runs very deep. Like "Start a bloody revolution" type deep, in fact. To me, pretty much any government is a fascist dictatorship (no, I don't support AntiFA since they want to fight fascism with their own version of it; I'm similar to Adam Kokesh if you know who that is). But I'm not willing to throw my life away so that things might be better a quarter-century from now which is pretty much what you need to accept if you do want to start a bloody revolution.

Either way, I've wasted more energy than I wanted to on this. Things are normal-ish where I'm at but I'm not expecting that to last. Never did, tbh.
 
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j0elsuf

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States cannot and will not keep businesses closed forever. At some point, sooner or later, they will start reopening.
They already have, but under restrictions: 25% capacity, no face cover no service, etc (which I don't mind if an establishment wants to enforce that on their own volition, but no way in hell should it be a law; hell I don't even want no shirt no shoes no service to be a law). The restrictions are what are going to last until 2025 not stuff staying closed.

I'll be honest, if this drives these massive stadiums that get insane tax breaks out of business, then I'm good with that lol. It if destroys the concept of public school I'm also good with that haha.
 

csalvato

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I haven't read many of the responses (though the ones I did read were entertaining)... :)

That said, since you specifically asked my opinion, I'm happy to provide it. Consider first that I don't have a crystal ball, and I'm a big believer that even the smartest economists on the planet aren't good at short-term economic predictions. Given that I'm far from the smartest economist on the planet, my opinion is probably worthless.

But I'll give it nonetheless... (Again, it's just a guess...nothing more than that.)

Btw, I've been saying this since around July, and my opinions haven't changed much in the past 6-8 months.

- I think we're going to see a K-shaped recovery, with a continued thinning of the middle class and a much more disparate wealth gap emerging;

- We're going to see those who are economically unstable and disadvantaged become more so. Unemployment is going to hover near the double-digits, wage growth will reverse, GDP will flounder, personal/corporate/national debt will increase, and things will overall suck for a large percentage of the population;

- But, we're going to see those who are economically advantaged become more so. The rich will get richer, and those with the resources and know-how will improve their economic position;

- We will see high asset inflation (the increase in the value of hard assets, like real estate and precious metals) and we will see low CPI inflation (the increase in the value of commodities), at least in the next 12-24 months. As for equities, that's the big unknown -- and I think a lot of that will be determined less by financial factors, and more by social factors;

- If we see an increase in societal unrest (stemming from either political or financial disruptions), I imagine we could see a hit in the equities markets. If we largely avoid societal unrest, I think we could see asset inflation in the equities markets as well. This is the big question mark for me -- it could go either way.

- At some point we're going to see currency issues, and I have a lot of thoughts there. But, I don't believe that's a 2021 issue, so no reason to go down that rabbit hole...

Personally, I am buying assets and leveraging them, and I figure that even if we see an economic downturn, we're likely to see CPI inflation over the next few years/decade, I'll happily pay down the loans with inflated dollars.

Again, just my guess... I could certainly be wrong...

Thanks so much for your insights and replying to the call!

Getting highly leveraged in 2021 makes a lot of sense. As the value of dollar goes down, rent costs should also increase, which would make that a pretty safe and impactful bet.
 

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srodrigo

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We should be free to do as we please, let the paranoid and scared people stay at home while the majority of the population continues on with their life.

I'm curious. Free to do what? Catch covid, pass it on to your neighbours and kill them?

If everyone had had common sense and cared about the rest of us, we wouldn't be in a second (almost third in Europe) wave. But God bless freedom, especially when used to not give a shit about people around. I'm sure all the front line workers who had to cancel their holidays after 9 exhausting months to handle the current wave are very happy. But who cares, right?

freedom.jpg

I still remember some people in this forum talking about "the mythical second wave". It turned out not to be that mythical.

PS - China is already back to hanging out in bars and having concerts, with GDP growth north of 5% (I believe I saw 8% in one report, but don't quote me on that).

I wouldn't believe anything that's coming from China. Having said that, there's a massive difference between countries such as South Korea or Japan, and any of the "I want my freedom back!" Western countries. Compare the number of covid cases relative to population and you'll see who did things right. Some geniuses here thought letting people going to the pub would be amazing for the economy. Tens of thousands of deaths? Bah, all good.

The result of the irresponsibility of politicians and people has been an indecent number of deaths (compared to the countries mentioned above) and a bigger economic impact in some cases (see UK, Spain, etc.) as this is lasting for 9 months and it's not over yet. Had this been properly controlled within the first two months, we probably wouldn't have seen so many people dying and such a never ending economical crisis. But maybe we have what we deserve.
 

sparechange

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I'm curious. Free to do what? Catch covid, pass it on to your neighbours and kill them?

If everyone had had common sense and cared about the rest of us, we wouldn't be in a second (almost third in Europe) wave. But God bless freedom, especially when used to not give a shit about people around. I'm sure all the front line workers who had to cancel their holidays after 9 exhausting months to handle the current wave are very happy. But who cares, right?

View attachment 36186

I still remember some people in this forum talking about "the mythical second wave". It turned out not to be that mythical.



I wouldn't believe anything that's coming from China. Having said that, there's a massive difference between countries such as South Korea or Japan, and any of the "I want my freedom back!" Western countries. Compare the number of covid cases relative to population and you'll see who did things right. Some geniuses here thought letting people going to the pub would be amazing for the economy. Tens of thousands of deaths? Bah, all good.

The result of the irresponsibility of politicians and people has been an indecent number of deaths (compared to the countries mentioned above) and a bigger economic impact in some cases (see UK, Spain, etc.) as this is lasting for 9 months and it's not over yet. Had this been properly controlled within the first two months, we probably wouldn't have seen so many people dying and such a never ending economical crisis. But maybe we have what we deserve.

5 people died in my province last year from the sniffles under the age of 39 years old, with even our PM having it and surviving, and the orange oompa loompa across the border survived it on Mcdonalds & Diet Coke. Total fatality's are at 901 (for BC) out of 5 million people..... I like the odds, I've got a better chance of hitting the lotto 649 for 50 million than dying from a cough.

I'll take my chances, go back to your basement and wear your mask.


1609633409311.png

Credit to MJ (his instagram)
 
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csalvato

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I'm curious. Free to do what? Catch covid, pass it on to your neighbours and kill them?

If everyone had had common sense and cared about the rest of us, we wouldn't be in a second (almost third in Europe) wave. But God bless freedom, especially when used to not give a shit about people around. I'm sure all the front line workers who had to cancel their holidays after 9 exhausting months to handle the current wave are very happy. But who cares, right?

View attachment 36186

I still remember some people in this forum talking about "the mythical second wave". It turned out not to be that mythical.



I wouldn't believe anything that's coming from China. Having said that, there's a massive difference between countries such as South Korea or Japan, and any of the "I want my freedom back!" Western countries. Compare the number of covid cases relative to population and you'll see who did things right. Some geniuses here thought letting people going to the pub would be amazing for the economy. Tens of thousands of deaths? Bah, all good.

The result of the irresponsibility of politicians and people has been an indecent number of deaths (compared to the countries mentioned above) and a bigger economic impact in some cases (see UK, Spain, etc.) as this is lasting for 9 months and it's not over yet. Had this been properly controlled within the first two months, we probably wouldn't have seen so many people dying and such a never ending economical crisis. But maybe we have what we deserve.

5 people died in my province last year from the sniffles under the age of 39 years old, with even our PM having it and surviving, and the orange oompa loompa across the border survived it on Mcdonalds & Diet Coke.

I'll take my chances, go back to your basement and wear your mask.

It might be best if we keep this about objective facts vs opinions on how/when we should open or the freedom to do as we please.

There are plenty of threads (i.e. flame wars) on this forum already where such comments fit into the conversation.

So far, most of the comments here have been about what will happen given the likely response of our governments and market forces.

Discussions about freedom are worth the time, but, like I said, there's already like 10 other threads for that.
 
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Timmy C

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Yes, you want to keep as much of your money as possible.

I don't see 2021 being better at all myself.

I am long BTC and ETH.

I own gold, as well as a supermarket chain COLES in Australia.

I don't get the tribalism and wars between bitcoiners and gold holders.
I see both as having good money properties and a better alternative to government-issued currency.

Fake money backed by nothing and the main use case is an “app coin” used for buying drugs and paying taxes is in a huge bubble, and that's the USD.

I don't see Bitcoin going away; even countries that have already banned it haven't seen much success.

It forces everyone to buy and trade peer-to-peer, it's created a vibrant P2P market that is cheaper, faster, and private, and robbed the government of KYC surveillance data, and banks don't get the fees.

It's hard to know what country is in a better position right now as things are constantly changing due to the COVID stuff.
 

Xeon

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Ask any cleaning crew which bathroom is worse...hint-- it's not the men's.

You think piss everywhere and clogged toilets are bad? Try piss everywhere, clogged toilets and red. A lot of red.

Not sure if I read this on Fastlaneforum or was it on Reddit. There was a guy who worked as a bartender in a small pub and he cleans the toilets before closing the pub. He shared some horrible stories about the state of women's washrooms in that pub and it's not just red....
 

csalvato

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I don't get the tribalism and wars between bitcoiners and gold holders.

For me, both assets serve the same purpose.

Personally, when I look at the Gold vs. BTC chart, it worries me for the future of gold relative to BTC:

IMAGE 2021-01-02 22:05:28.jpg

In general, BTC may be replacing gold as the go-to inflation hedge. I am also invested in Gold and Silver, but they have been huge duds this year overall, especially compared to BTC.

If Gold was being viewed as a hedge against inflation that's just as powerful as BTC, I'd expect to see their charts correlated, not that gold is going down relative to BTC.

People who are long on gold do so because they believe it has utility in-and-of-itself, so BTC, by comparison, looks a lot like the fiat currency they have been shaming for decades.
 
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Timmy C

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For me, both assets serve the same purpose.

Personally, when I look at the Gold vs. BTC chart, it worries me for the future of gold relative to BTC:

View attachment 36192

In general, BTC may be replacing gold as the go-to inflation hedge. I am also invested in Gold and Silver, but they have been huge duds this year overall, especially compared to BTC.

If Gold was being viewed as a hedge against inflation that's just as powerful as BTC, I'd expect to see their charts correlated, not that gold is going down relative to BTC.

People who are long on gold do so because they believe it has utility in-and-of-itself, so BTC, by comparison, looks a lot like the fiat currency they have been shaming for decades.


Yeh, my gold has been an absolute dud as well. But I look at it this way.

If the currency collapses, it won't matter what gold is worth in USD terms, as gold has utility. The same can be said for Bitcoin.

No one will want garbage USD in exchange for their gold.
 

csalvato

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Yeh, my gold has been an absolute dud as well. But I look at it this way.

If the currency collapses, it won't matter what gold is worth in USD terms, as gold has utility. The same can be said for Bitcoin.

No one will want garbage USD in exchange for their gold.
Personally, I see this year being the year where BTC makes massive headway on closing the market cap gap it has with gold (e.g approaching $1T in market cap to get on the same order of magnitude of gold's $9T market cap).

I don't see gold doing much in that same timeframe.

In an end-of-the-world scenario, both will do great, though.

If this thread got me to appreciate anything, though, it's the power of getting heavily leveraged on real estate in 2021; though I'm not sure I want to do that, personally. I feel like it would take more attention than I could afford.
 

Timmy C

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Personally, I see this year being the year where BTC makes massive headway on closing the market cap gap it has with gold (e.g approaching $1T in market cap to get on the same order of magnitude of gold's $9T market cap).

I don't see gold doing much in that same timeframe.

In an end-of-the-world scenario, both will do great, though.

If this thread got me to appreciate anything, though, it's the power of getting heavily leveraged on real estate in 2021; though I'm not sure I want to do that, personally. I feel like it would take more attention than I could afford.


There is too much optimism for Bitcoin in the near term in my opinion.

Although I see the market as a whole moving higher, I don't see Bitcoin stealing gold's market share for at least another 5 - 10 years from now.

I won't be leveraging real estate in Australia, not for some time.

If it can't be cashflow positive I won't do it.

Maybe next year.
 
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biggeemac

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Yup. We added a dozen single family doors and 150 multi-family doors in 2020. Probably overpaid for a few of the single family doors, but they cash flow, and I'm fairly confident that over the next 5-10 years the benefits they provide will FAR outweigh the low cash-on-cash return in the short term.

Even without any cash flow, there are plenty of benefits. As you mentioned, inflation will push rents higher (more cash flow), inflation will push values higher (more appreciation), and there will continue to be tax benefits (depreciation) and the tenants will continue to pay off my mortgages (amortization).

Getting wealthy over 10-20 years really is very easy... People are just too lazy to plan that far in advance.
I should would love to know your management strategy for all these doors. My dad has had several properties and went through absolute hell managing them. I chose a different direction that allowed me to use real estate, but again, high management. It just happened that my route was far more lucrative than my dads.
 

biggeemac

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Nearly all of my buy-and-hold real estate is in a different state from where I live. And that's by design. It forces me to find professional managers to handle the day-to-day issues. My job is to deal with the big problems that come up (they rarely do) and to manage the managers (which, if you choose them wisely, isn't very difficult).

Professional management is inexpensive -- anywhere from 3% to 10% of gross rents, depending on number of doors you own in a particular location. I couldn't imagine trying to do it myself.

Btw, I stay on top of my managers by reviewing my financials every month and getting each of my units inspected at least once every 24 months to ensure that both the tenants and the managers are doing what they should be doing.
Yeah, I am interested in getting into out of state investing. Our current real estate play is a cash flowing beast, but does require a fair amount of hand holding, and its not something we want to do forever. This year will be focused on building our house and then do a cash out refinance. As far as where that cash goes, i'm not entirely sure yet.
 

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I don't know... it's hard to tell.

I'm in Canada so it might be a little different than most of you guys in the USA.

The only thing I see dropping is real estate, WAY overvalued. Again, not expecting a 40% drop, maybe a 5-10% correction.

Besides that, this is not a matter of not having jobs... most people that drive the economy are employed.

I'm actually expecting major city hubs like Downtown Toronto to surge like never seen before and the suburbs to get the real estate price corrections. A lot of people are buying $1million+ homes 30-40 minutes away from the core thinking that they'll work from home forever. Big mistake...

My plan is to buy at least 3-4 condos downtown by mid of this year. We'll see how it goes.
 
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NewManRising

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This thread sounds like a Bitcoin hustle in disguise. The BTC bubble is going to pop soon. Once the sheep run out of money it won't climb any further. I am staying completely out of BTC and Altcoins.

The price of BTC is dependent on people pumping money into it. I have been seeing people all over the internet trying to hype it up for this reason. Sorry, not a sucker. Plus, at any moment, the government can ban it. Not safe if you ask me.
 

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This thread sounds like a Bitcoin hustle in disguise. The BTC bubble is going to pop soon. Once the sheep run out of money it won't climb any further. I am staying completely out of BTC and Altcoins.

The price of BTC is dependent on people pumping money into it. I have been seeing people all over the internet trying to hype it up for this reason. Sorry, not a sucker. Plus, at any moment, the government can ban it. Not safe if you ask me.

Where would you put your money?

It seems like you haven't read the whole thread, where several other alternatives were proposed and considered. And some have changed my (i.e. the OP's) opinion.

It seems like you're so against bitcoin that you couldn't even see that there was a meaningful discussion here. If so, that's your loss, not ours. :happy:
 

Timmy C

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This thread sounds like a Bitcoin hustle in disguise. The BTC bubble is going to pop soon. Once the sheep run out of money it won't climb any further. I am staying completely out of BTC and Altcoins.

The price of BTC is dependent on people pumping money into it. I have been seeing people all over the internet trying to hype it up for this reason. Sorry, not a sucker. Plus, at any moment, the government can ban it. Not safe if you ask me.

It's like you didn't even read the thread.
 
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GoodluckChuck

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This sort of thing might not suit everyone but it worked for me. Back in March when I started feel tiny stinky flecks hitting me in the face from shit starting to hit the fan, I took out an 8k line of credit with an 18 month introductory 0% APR interest rate and bought silver with it. At the time, silver was at about $14/oz and with the premium and shipping, I paid $18/oz.

Today, silver is at ~$27/oz and I still hold the debt. The value of the debt is going down while the value of the metal is going up.

This is a small example of how you can give yourself a little edge even if you don't have a ton of capital. Understanding how money works and taking advantage of little opportunities is fun and profitable!
 

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The government can pretty much ban anything at this point. lol
Or confiscate like they did gold back in the day. This is why Bitcoin is such a popular idea. Supposedly it can't be centrally controlled. We'll see about that!
 
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Why not holding stocks of companies that will stay open during the pandemic and for which business owners may go work for according to you?

-------------------------------------------------------

Predicting the future is a difficult exercise, but I don't believe it will be as bad as you say.
So, here are my bets:

- The pandemic will be over by the end of 2021.
- China will grow increasingly threatening to the free world as everyone will be reassessing their relationships with them (and already are, as brilliantly explained by @Walter Hay ).
- Rents in cities will go down as offices will close since employees won't want to come back to the office and may move out of city centers.
- About that, Greece and Croatia are on the frontline of establishing special visas and tax rules for "digital nomads" that are now digital employees. I believe Southern countries (Europe, America and Asia) are about to witness an invasion of digital workers looking for affordable life, great food, and great weather.
- The "education bubble" will explode (people won't want to go to uni anymore).
- GAFA monopolies will be broken down.
- The bitcoin bubble will explode when people will see the energetic cost to maintain the blockchain while gold is free to own.
- Deflation. Yes, I am betting on deflation, and here is why:
  1. Inflation has little to do with printing money, but is a consequence of a society that consumes more than it produces.
  2. As long as we keep production levels high, we shouldn't see any inflation.
  3. In the developed world, consumption is fueled by credit while in the developing world, it is fueled by rise of income (rise of production per capita). The pandemic outlined how little people needed to survive, and they will change their consumption habits, especially in the US where consumption is most of the time fueled by debt.
  4. Businesses won't go bankrupt because of covid, but because people will consume less because of covid.
  5. Many more people have died than normal, and most of them weren't producing anything since they were old and retired. This adds to the decrease in consumption within society.
  6. People have less money now, which means they will consume less in the upcoming years. Maybe not less, but at least differently. I believe that the trends will shift from quantity (1kg of crappy ice-cream) to quality (200 gr of tasty ice-cream).
- The stock market may decrease to reasonable levels, but I don't think so as all the money we printed will have to end up somewhere. At the moment, people are pouring it into btc, but it's a speculative bubble, not a long-term investment.
- I will find a girlfriend.


Ok that's it happy new year!
I like what you said about deflation. I consider it to be more dangerous than inflation. When prices are going up, people buy before the price goes up further. When prices go down, everyone is waiting for the bottom of the market to buy. The market is strangled during that wait, which pushes prices down more. I consider this type of moment a good one for doing some trading for the stuff that I need.
 

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Supposedly it can't be centrally controlled. We'll see about that!
It can and will. I give it about five or so years. Course it won't be "controlled" it'll just be added to the dying USD as some kind of variation.

We have given our governments waaaaaay too much power. If they wanted to, they could do a REAL "great reset" and turn off all our power for the next year as a form of population control. Not expecting them to go THAT far but something like that is not out of their reach.

It doesn't take a raging Anarcho-Capitalist/"Big L" Libertarian (formerly Anarcho-Communist/Marxist, yes both groups don't want any form of federal or even local government; people get that twisted) like me to notice this.

Fortunately all of this is very telegraphed. Like seeing someone try to punch you in slow motion, just gotta do what you need to do to get out of the way. For me that's paying off all my debt and moving to Southeast Asia. OR staying here but living in a rural area.

I swear, if I had absolutely nothing to live for and wasn't afraid of death so much, I would do all I could to start a bloody revolution. Cuz I'm real passionate about this stuff. It's major action-faking tho. But I could talk about doomsday pr0n all day since it was practially all I talked about until a few years ago.
 

csalvato

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It can and will. I give it about five or so years. Course it won't be "controlled" it'll just be added to the dying USD as some kind of variation.

We have given our governments waaaaaay too much power. If they wanted to, they could do a REAL "great reset" and turn off all our power for the next year as a form of population control. Not expecting them to go THAT far but something like that is not out of their reach.

It doesn't take a raging Anarcho-Capitalist/"Big L" Libertarian (formerly Anarcho-Communist/Marxist, yes both groups don't want any form of federal or even local government; people get that twisted) like me to notice this.

Fortunately all of this is very telegraphed. Like seeing someone try to punch you in slow motion, just gotta do what you need to do to get out of the way. For me that's paying off all my debt and moving to Southeast Asia. OR staying here but living in a rural area.

I swear, if I had absolutely nothing to live for and wasn't afraid of death so much, I would do all I could to start a bloody revolution. Cuz I'm real passionate about this stuff. It's major action-faking tho. But I could talk about doomsday pr0n all day since it was practially all I talked about until a few years ago.

It's going to be impossible to effectively ban BTC, sorry.

It may be illegal to trade or exchange it, but we all know how well that works for something people really want. Just look at, oh, I don't know, marijuana, alcohol prohibition, prostitution, etc...

If it gets "banned" by the US in the most brutal way, the price goes up, not down. Any US citizen holding would be inclined to move for a huge payday to cash out more than cry that their coins are worthless.
 
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j0elsuf

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It may be illegal to trade or exchange it, but we all know how well that works for something people really want. Just look at, oh, I don't know, marijuana, alcohol prohibition, prostitution, etc...
Oh of course there are going to be ways to work around it here in the US because our government is hilariously dumb and don't have the balls to be real authoritarians no matter the party (which is a good thing lol), but it'll definitely be illegal to trade or exchange it at some point before 2025.
 

socaldude

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As you mentioned, inflation will push rents higher (more cash flow), inflation will push values higher (more appreciation), and there will continue to be tax benefits (depreciation) and the tenants will continue to pay off my mortgages (amortization).

Housing will probably be the number one thing to watch with regards to inflation. Wages are probably second. The cigar winning answer will be when. And will it be on target with the expectations of the Fed.
 

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