BCEagle91

["Back in those days"....are you using a cane yet? I'm beginning to feel like I need one.]

I went running with my son last week. Near the end, I diverted his attention and sprinted for the finish line. I think that he caught up anyways. The next morning, I was in agony with back pain. Was gobbling aspirin. It's mostly gone a week later. But getting in and out of the car, getting in or out of bed and getting out of a chair was painful. It's an old weightlifting injury.

There are times when I reach for a crutch after playing tennis. I have a pair from various ankle and knee injuries in the past, mostly sports related. Injuries accumulate over time.

Back in the early 1980s, BC grads were working at the local supermarket (Star Market near the Chestnut Hill mall) waiting for the economy to recover so that they could find employment in their major field. We bought our house later in the 1980s. Interest rates dropped like a rock to 10.25 (we were pretty excited about that great rate) so we pulled the trigger. And paid it off in ten years with one refinance. My wife is from a former third-world country so she knows what poverty is like. Most Americans don't know what real poverty is like.

It is so hard to get kids today to understand how difficult things have been through history. Explaining that a table, dresser or book was a luxury is hard to comprehend when we have instant entertainment, information and learning available.

sueinphilly

Money Leaving Money Market Funds (Breaking News) at SmartMoney.com

my brother is now storing his cash in just that, CASH. I just redeemed some of my Money Market from Dreyfus (I guess I'll miss my 2% interest).

is an FDIC insured bank and CDs really safe? I have (way)less than 100K. I'm very happy with 3.75% interest. I'm not greedy, and I have 0 tolerance for risk.

I have always referred to Wall Street as legalized gambling. I'm not good at it, so I don't bother.

BCEagle91

You should be okay. But keep an eye on the size of their insurance fund. It should be about $45 billion. I'd start to get concerned if it gets down to $10 billion. $8 billion was used up by the Indymac Bank failure alone.

Hanna

"I have always referred to Wall Street as legalized gambling."

Ah, the immortal classic "Trading Places," where two ancient commodities brokers are trying to explain their business to Eddie Murphy.

Eddie: "Sounds like you two are a couple of bookies!"

Broker: "See, Mortimer...I told you he'd understand!"

sueinphilly

I'm like Warren Buffet.. if I don't understand it, I don't buy it ... as he (in)famously sat out the tech bubble.

I know I will never be rich. I'm okay with that.

I owned 1 stock ever. Real Networks, because I knew that the internet and music were going to collide in a big way. and this was back in 1995-97. I listened to audio.net and was amazed. I bought it a few days after IPO and road it up, I mean way up. From a split adjusted 4 to about 50. Made about 10K on a 1K gamble. I could have sold for about 70 at the peak.

When I heard that broadcast.com was bought by Yahoo for 6 billion, I knew that irrational insanity was at play. I took my money out and went home. Took a my first vacation in 20 years. I used some of that money to buy my house.

the craziest part was that streaming music and video didn't really go mainstream until years later. I still can't believe what happened.

BCEagle91

"I'm like Warren Buffet.. if I don't understand it, I don't buy it ... as he (in)famously sat out the tech bubble."

Buffett bought General Re. Seems to me that he didn't fully understand that buy as it had derivative exposure. He later said that derivatives were weapons of mass financial destruction.

Streaming music and video are expensive in terms of compute power and bandwidth. Most people were still on dialup back in the mid-1990s. I recall Real Networks coming out with version after version until their software would no longer run on my system because it didn't have enough memory. Broadband penetration is much, much higher making streaming video easy as do much higher-spec'd machines today.

I think that the problem with music is digital rights. Real Networks was totally beaten to the punch by Apple which provided a device as well as a nice PC interface for listening to and purchasing music. Or even just listening to internet radio. WMP and RNWK were awful with their internet radio station interfaces.

sueinphilly

my point, ahem, was that I made alot of money on a stock whose product didn't really work that well (especially on dialup) and there was sparse content, no video at all. I didn't understand why I could make money like this.

I do like Rhapsody Radio that I get for free with Comcast. My Coby 2gb mp3 player that I got last year for $40 is fine, no fancy Ipods. I wanted something with a AAA battery, not something that you have to plug in to recharge. That's a deal breaker for me.

I don't buy music. I get stuff from archive.org.

BCEagle91

Not having a current product that works well isn't necessarily a reason for a stock not to do well. Many stocks are purchase on anticipation. In fact the market is supposed to be a forward-looking mechanism.

Of course there are a lot of idiots in the market too. Similar to the housing bubble.

sueinphilly

well that was a 1000% ROI for me. Gordon Gecko, internet bubble. It was quite a ride

RNWK: Summary for REALNETWORKS INC - Yahoo! Finance