Wednesday, February 6, 2019

sunk cost calculation


SUNK COST CALCULATION
Sunk costs can really suck, come time to once again try to stay one step ahead of the AmComParty and its Turd World Brown Shirts.  The worst thing is having to move.  For about eighty years, this wasn’t so bad.  About the time that independent farmers were being forced into urban resettlement for factory work, our little buddies at the central bank and federal government introduced the mortgage.  Look, how easy, we’ll help you move!  If we stole all your savings through gold confiscation, well, you simply don’t need any savings because now you have credit!
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Okay, it wasn’t technically a confiscation.  You got Greenbacks in return.  But then they promptly devalued the dollars by 40%.  You might not have noticed because there was a Depression going on and prices were falling, but in the long term you still lost the value.  And if there is one ounce of gold left in Fort Knox, I’ll eat crow out of my own ass ( you know it is long gone, and I’ll wager even the fake gold is gone, sold to Chinese conmen in exchange for opium or equivalent ).  Regardless, we had credit and real estate always increased.
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Almost always.  When rampaging Diversities burned down cities or Rust Belt cities sent all the jobs overseas to any eager Ornamental country willing to work for subsidized Sacramento Delta rice, well, real estate values weren’t so hot.  But that was localized and for the most part you usually had a bit of warning to move the heck away before your property came close to becoming an insurance settlement by arson investment.  Even today, even right after the 2009 implosion, a heck of a lot of areas, even or especially in employment wastelands, retained ridiculously high real estate values. 
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I could belabor this point, talk about the collusion involved in this racket, discuss how the poser One Percenters all try to start their global Doctor Evil empire by becoming slum lords, plus all related topics and write a damn book about it, but I’ll just stop there and point out that for nearly a century the norm was relatively easy credit and the relative ease of moving when you had to.  We’ve all been through a time when we lost huge chunks of cash when we moved, but the norm has been that it was always a manageable amount.
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That system has obviously broken down, although it hasn’t completely collapsed.  If you are presented with the opportunity to cash out and move, I would strongly encourage you to take it, because that paradigm will NOT last too much longer.  The NOL sold her not-over-priced-for-the-area but still quite insane in cost second rental unit and right afterwards ( three weeks ) the second biggest mine here started laying off more than a hundred people.  You cannot time these things and you do NOT want to try to be that lucky.  Just like you buy ammo now and don’t count on future generosity.
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I’ve never had an issue abandoning any shelter investment to move when I regarded it as advantageous, but I’ve never invested much more than months of wages into the equation rather than years.  I imagine most everyone else takes their investment a bit more seriously.  And I can’t fault you there.  But you have already seen the cracks in the real estate market.  After 2008, houses lost half their value ( even as property taxes shot up ).  They have recovered those loses, but now it can be hard to sell as there are no jobs in the area. 
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I drive past the same collection of abandoned ( but not unmaintained ) houses year after year visiting my folks in a ritzy area all the rich bitches from California settled.  The banks proudly proclaim they are worth gobs and oodles of money, yet there they sit.  Real estate inflation could continue for some time.  Or, it is already over.  We can’t know ( I’d wager a jelly filled donut that as the fracking industry goes, so goes the long suburban commute, but we all agree I am just silly with worry and paranoia ).  I’d act as if things are just going to get worse.
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If you don’t want to gamble and speculate now, and are not willing to incur the wraith of Mrs. Kraken, Mrs. Hyde, or just are tired and weary and don’t want to move just yet, not until you have to, at least wargame the scenario of when the crash comes to your community.  At least draw a line in the sand and resolve to NOT try to hang on too long, pissing away your savings trying to save the house you are going to lose anyway eventually.  Have a funded escape plan.
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Automobiles are in another class, not viewed as a sunk cost or investment per se.  A car is more like a pair of shoes, something you know is going to be a worthless hunk of crap one day and must be discarded.  A house is supposed to be a savings plan for retirement.  A car is just something you must keep paying into, and you just try to minimize your cost ( a house has become a car, but not emotionally.  Most people actually believe their house is worth what they paid and will last their lifetime.  Suckers ).
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There is going to come a time when your car is not worth a thimble full of warm spit, a pant load of hot stool or a wet fart in a windstorm.  All that money you invested into it, all the trillions invested in macadam and all the wars fought for oil, all will be for naught.  Of course, a house tied to the grid will have the same value, but cars will become far more worthless far quicker.  You can still camp in a cold dark house, but the cars stop rolling much faster. 
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At least cars are able to be abandoned without penalty, unlike houses in a lot of states where a politician passed a law after a Monica Lewinski nobber and a line of blow that you had to pay off the bank even if you had no job.  I don’t think there were too many states that pressed the issue last time, because I can’t imagine THAT would have done anything keeping the torches and pitchforks at bay, but they WILL be far more desperate next time.  Are you SURE you don’t want to take that loss now and escape while you can? 
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After breaking out in a cold sweat once you realize how screwed you are from having held on to depreciating assets, you probably could care less about the smaller items you’ll made poor decisions on such as arsenals or food storage.  But of course, these are going to be much more important one day.  Not that I’m advising changing or switching, because sometimes embracing sunk costs are better than not.  This is more pointing out how you could be blind to improvements because you use sunk costs as an excuse.  I’ll discuss excuses verses justifications come tomorrow.
( .Y. )
( today's related Amazon link click here )
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note: again, pimping the streaming channel Vudu.  Free movies Contagion ( I hated it, but your mileage may vary ), the original Red Dawn ( Wolverines! ) and the only great one of the bunch Resident Evil Extinction.  Bonus non-PA movie, Coneheads.  
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note: free books.  Zombie here.  
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20 comments:

  1. Following. I refer to sunk costs not as an investment that returns profit above my initial expenditure, but as a "stay of execution" type of stop gap measure. Vehicles that depreciate in values and have costs to operate, maintain, insure (by law), are just an expense so as to be able to get to a J.O.B. effectively and efficiently. I thus am able to avoid bed bugs on city busses, robbery or altercations with unwashed masses, run over walking or on bicycle by drunk, texting, illegal alien drivers. It is a decision necessitated by environment or circumstances. Buying a reasonable dwelling is so as to not have section 8 neighbors and cockroaches in an apartment or meth tweakers in the trailer or r.v. next door 8 feet away. As long a Minionite sinks money with a goal or objective of a survivalist perspective purpose then it should be an acceptable expenditure. Better a pot to piss in and some roof of your own than being a degenerate gambler blowing it in a casino or on bling junk and not having their crap together come collapse.

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    1. Damn, dude. That was argued so well I almost want to go out and buy a car. Seriously-good job. I need a reality check every once in awhile with my rabid stance on some issues ( hey-I finally came around on the AR, and it only took 35 years! But I won't change my mind about FLIR's. Never! )

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    2. Yeah, spend some of that money while your still alive, and it still functions as a currency. The mattress gets overly lumpy if too stuffed with cash, coins, bullion, wheat bundles. Walking and bicycling distances at 60 ish years of age in befouled weather does suck too.

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    3. "if too stuffed with cash, coins, bullion, wheat bundles" or AR's, FLIR scopes, 90 round drum mags.

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    4. I read an argument that said that lack of public transport to an area is a way that wealthier whites insulate themselves from the diversity they espouse for those of us that lack can ill afford the expense of their own cars.

      IOW it's intentional. The commenter also added how these area's get really fired up whenever the city talks about extending the train line or adding a bus route.

      Diversity for thee not for me

      (speaking of diversity I agitated for a refugee centre in a hard left but wealthy electorate (Lexus Lefties / Chardonnay Socialists... think Bernie Sanders but with hair). They weren't very keen on the idea

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    5. "...acceptable expenditure..."

      If you take full charge of your life you write off all of the above and zero out your theft participation. Yes, sales tax is written off too. ALL of it. Pay attention and work diligently, by the time you're 50 or so you are getting money BACK from the thief. In the business mans world every cent spent is a business expense.

      Remember those 2 Ruger 10/22's I bought a few months ago? Just yesterday they were indicated on schedule C as christmas gifts to business clients, yet there they sit in the cabinet against the wall in my office where they belong. Same with the 8k 40gram ammo delivered about the same time.

      You tend to view money differently when it's your employee.
      Up here in the great white north you're not even required to have a business license like I was down in FL. Down there I had to have 5, renewed each year, to do the same thing I am doing now. No big deal, cause they were all written off too, but I'm a glutton for simplicity.

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    6. "But I won't change my mind about FLIR's."

      You know, with a little education and experience, sitting in the woods at night with a .303 and a FLIR a deer will walk right up to you, but you would not know that if you couldn't see it. Everything and everyone gets sloppy when they think they can't be seen.

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    7. You know, I haven't seen a deer here forever. They used to regularly graze at the river.

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    8. Dingo-the rich are special and don't live by our rules. You think they eat their own industrialized foods, for instance? Diversity is good for us because it is used to control us. God, I hate rich humpers.

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  2. I know a thing or two about real estate timing. I purchased my West Point CA property (For a while, the home town of moon landing conspiracy godfather, William “Bill” Kaysing. Say what you will, but that crazy commie bastard actually cranked out a good book or two :D ) in the early 2000s, for $21k. This was as the bubble was rising, and it shot up to $75k. I drug my feet, and didn’t list it, and the bubble burst (circa 2005). I spent the next several years just hoping that someone would buy it, even at a loss, and it was looking pretty grim that it was never going to happen.

    By the grace of the green gods, the green party, the jolly green giant (not sure who to credit here :D ) I was saved. I called the realtor, and was informed that land was moving big time, in large part due to legal marijuana permits. I unloaded it at $30k to some chinamen (They paid a pretty Yuan for it :D ). I still sold at a loss, because by the time I added in the taxes and improvements, I had more into it than that, but I sure as hell wasn’t about to complain.

    Just prior to this I purchased my Elko land, after being laid off from my tech job of 15 years. As a white, heterosexual dude in his 50’s, I knew I was double dog humped, as far as finding another job went, so I needed homeless insurance, and got the junk land. It was a good feeling.

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  3. Never really researched the moon landing hoax in depth. I just assume it has some validity since no one else bothered to duplicate. Read a few Internet articles and some YouTube, but like all theories that take things too far it became rather far fetched. I just don't care enough one way or another. But I might check out 'ol Bill just for craps and giggles. Yeah, just having an escape pod really helps one sleep at night.

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    1. Looking at Amazon, I suppose I read a few of his books way back in the day. Looking at prices, I don't need to read about the moon landings that bad :D

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    2. Yeah, he actually wrote a few good books Jim. His “Great Hideouts Of The West: An Idea Book For Living Free (Loompanics purchase; that’s how long I’ve had that book) is one of my all time favorites. Yeah, those old Loompanics publications that weren’t picked up by Delta Press (Or Paladin Press) are mostly out of publication now, and can be expensive. I think I picked up a few of his books cheap from that Alibris books store.

      https://www.alibris.com/booksearch?keyword=William+Kaysing&mtype=B&hs.x=0&hs.y=0

      As far as the moon landing goes, I tend to be on the side that we did go. The reason I believe this is because the Soviets would have been carefully observing, and I don’t think that there’s any way that we could have pulled the wool over their eyes had we not actually gone. Though contrary to popular belief, we would have made it regardless of those “brilliant black female mathematicians” crunching numbers for the project :D (Referring to that Hidden Figures, bullshit propaganda movie).

      https://www.amazon.com/Great-Hideouts-West-Idea-Living/dp/0915179628

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    3. I recall many happy years spending more on Loompanics books than any other living expense every month. I couldn't help them stay in business in the 90's, but I sure tried in the 80's. I was bored once and added up every book in the big catalog-I could have bought a copy of every single one for something like $12k. Of course, I was making $8k or so a year then. That was my dream then, to own the Loompanics library :)

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  4. For me, the worst thing about sunk cost is the emotional weight it carries.

    I can't recall the movie (think it's from the 90's) and I think it had Al Pacino (before I found out what a fanker he is... seriously, love his movies but sheesh, talk about a loon).

    Anyway the bad guy has a rule to be able to walk away from everything at the drop of a hat (he's a bad guy & people don't like bad guys & kinda want to lock / shoot them up). I like that idea, not the getting shot, but being able to just go whenever you want. When I was back packing in the UK it was fricken awesome. Got a job somewhere, they were less than honest about the conditions. I just grabbed my back pack and walked out the door. Nah, you keep that days money, you're already a fading memory to me. LOL Not now.

    Dang, I'm going to flesh that out as a contribution. Everyone forget that you read this and act all surprised when you read it over the weekend

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    1. The movie was "Heat". The one with the best shoot-out in movie history. I only know since I re-watched it not too long ago. Pre-YouTube you had to rent the thing several times to watch that battle scene, so I watched the movie probably three times when it first came out on video, then again a few months ago streaming. It was actually better than I remember.

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    2. That was pretty much me in 1980-81, living out of my alice ruck, all over north america. I slept on beds, couches, floors, behind the ice machine at the Best Western (warm), and on the dirt in the median strip of I-5 in my army arctic large sleeping bag. Work a day, week, month, then move on. I drove rental cars for enterprise from fort myers to orlando, from miami to buffalo to seattle, squeezed egs out of salmons on a 300' boat off the coast of anchorage, stretched 1300 degree aluminum for lockheed in torrance calif, wrenched on washers for maytag in san diego, and just about anything else I could swap time for coin. Everything I owned went with me. Care free, easy, no worries. I live that time in my mind a lot any more, and I wonder what it would be like to do it again.

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    3. Doing it again? How dare you try to minimize the vig to our overlords. I think freedom is frowned upon even by Joe Six-Pack any more.

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    4. Honestly, the whole hitch hiking thing terrifies me now. It was a little bit scary back in 1980. Plus, Johnny Law tends to target long range hikers along public thoroughfares (ie "First Blood" stuff) and suffice to say it's a different world today. In 1980 the flower power do good to all mantra was still a little bit in effect. No, if I was to take off it'd probably be in the woods. That's how my little day dream always starts out. Put the pack on and start walking through the woods and never come back, just keep going then sit down and die. In a hundred years my skeleton would be found. Yeah, I know.

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    5. Sounds reasonable to me, but hopefully without bears or mountain lions :)

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