patrick.net

Peter P and OO
You guys may have a point with gold. I remember when it was at $600 before(I won a contest for an oz of gold and they kept waiting to pay because the price was so high)
About 3 years ago a friend of mine got divorced. She decided to rent because apparently we were at the top of the housing market. Well, we all know what happened to the market . It grew to extremes we couldn't even imagine. I wonder if that will happen to gold? It's been here before...but not much beyond...maybe it too will break it's own barriers. Hmmmm
I'll have to seriously consider this one......

ryan,

I am just speaking from a general conception point of view. Investors needn't be convinced, they are already in and they usually have the knowledge.

Just from a visual point of view, something that people attach value to must stand out from the crowd. That is just how our mind works. Btw, SLV hits the market tomorrow if you are interested in silver.

astrid,

not quite getting your point. I thought China couldn't invade Taiwan because of the American military power in the Pacific (or the American consumer market that is open for trade). Can you elaborate?

Owneroccupier,

I think at least with the American military presence, there's still bargaining room and the chance of the Chinese pulling a fait accompli before the Americans have a chance to respond. (think Poland 1939) With Taiwan holding essentially the nuclear option over most of China's most productive cities (almost all of them are located next to a major dammed river), I think the threat is much more immediate.

Ladies can also hoard diamonds, which again is something that has no impact on general price level. But, here is the catch. Diamond under a carat has no hoarding value at all, because man-made colorless diamond with absolutely no difference in qualities can do a carat and below. Diamonds below 3 carats don't appreciate much either, because the rarity effect is not there, somehow the supply of diamonds above 3 carats drops off a sharp cliff.

So now is a perfect time to convince your hubby to buy you a big stone.

No, not the raw diamond holding thing again :) I really think that one is designed for war refugees...

Well, if you ladies are looking, definately go to the resale market to avoid the retail/de Beer mark up and pay attention to clarity, cut, and color, in addition to carat.

Fewlesh,

How long is your lease? You really need to be careful about making undocumented improvements on rental property, that may be the basis for them to jack up your rent when your lease comes up.

SFWoman,

I won't wear natural diamonds. Partly because of the expense of anything really nice, and partly because of the way they're extracted and marketed. If I had real money and expertise, I'd be collecting antique jade pieces.

PS - I just realized how standoffish I sounded in the last post :oops:

Thanks for sharing your knowledge about vintage diamonds. They're definitely the place to look for classy and interesting pieces.

@ everyone
A note to say I really enjoy reading the Patrick.net threads in the blog space and can't often comment since I have no internet at work, and am busy with chores, etc. at night, so i usually copy-paste the text into an MS word document and read them when I have an idle moment (which has been infrequent this week). Nice to see Astrid again after that Who is Patrick.net thread lured her out again (yeah, I read your stuff the first time you posted frequently) and always enjoy HARM, Randy H, Zephyr (where is he?) Owneroccupier, SFWoman, Linda and the many other frequent posters. Maybe even Surfer X.

@SF Woman, Astrid: We got my engagement ring from a place that dealt only in vintage and antique jewelry and watches. I went to look at Birks (the equivalent of Tiffany in Canada), Tiffany and a few other big name places. Basically, I got my 1930s to 1950s ring and wedding band between 1/3 and 1/2 of what brand-new-brand-name cost. Less if I were able to bargain. The other nice thing is that most of the big jewelry houses have a paucity of design, whereas the antique jewelery dealers will often have hundreds of different styles, diamond cuts, diamond shapes to pick from. We had much fun choosing from them -- unlike Birks / Tiffany. Three years later I still get lots of compliments for how pretty the set is (best compliment was "that's the most tasteful engagement ring I've ever seen" -- blowback from all the clunky rings with bulky 1 ct+ stones?)

Keep posting, many lurkers are reading you!

@SFWoman, Astrid

Oh yeah, vintage/antique jewelery also means you give a "second" or "aftermarket" to these objects which, for obvious reasons, DeBeers would prefer to not exist. There are plenty of books about how DeBeers does a great deal of marketing to brainwash us into linking diamonds with love and how it would never do to sell your love-token (or buy it second hand, I guess). Balderdash! Also, the labour (particularly in the case of blood-diamonds) required to get a diamond is so immense, that if I were the person expending that effort, I'd want to know it remained valuable after it was purchased and left the "first market" of mall stores, brand-name jewelery houses, etc.

OwnerOccupier,

I was better off in the end not going to MIT. Ohio State gave me the chance to mature and learn to survive outside of smallville. I would have been dog food at MIT. OSU had top-notch computer science facilities, a good business undergrad program, and eventually landed me in an Ivy grad program, so all's well that ends well.

I'm hoping my son favors Cal (that's Berkeley for out of towners) or CalTech. Maybe Stanford as a backup.*

* Not intended as a slight to the elite from "the farm".

TOLurker,

Thank you for your kind words and for sharing your experience. Though, LOL, you can't be a lurker if you've delurked :P

Randy H,

I hope your son will consider other tech schools (cough Harvey Mudd cough MIT cough cough) and liberal arts schools. I've definitely meet happy alumni from HMC and MIT, so it just depends on the sort of person your son is at 18 (if he's an extremely messy and interested in screwing other people, Claremont McKenna College may be just the ticket; if he likes hemp products, Pitzer College and St. Johns College in Annapolis may be good choices).

As for Stanford, yawn. What can be so great about a school that let's its students drop classes right til the end of the semester?

o.t.,

I've been lucky to avoid courts thus far, so I can't comment based on direct experiement. But as I understand it, it's always worthwhile to dispute a speeding ticket while you're in California.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2006/04/27/CALBUDGET.TMP

SACRAMENTO
California coffers fill with $1.5 billion in extra income tax

Where do you think the extra income tax come from? Solid income gains? Flipper capital gains? Anyway that I can find data on the breakdown?

As for Stanford, yawn. What can be so great about a school that let’s its students drop classes right til the end of the semester?

If I'm not mistaken, you can drop after the final at Stanford.

Randy H Says:

"I was better off in the end not going to MIT. I’m hoping my son favors Cal (that’s Berkeley for out of towners) or CalTech. Maybe Stanford as a backup. (Not intended as a slight to the elite from “the farm”)."

As a person who has sat on both sides of the field for the big game the one piece of advice I give kids thinking about going to college is to "graduate from the best school near where you plan to spend the rest of your life" (notice I say "graduate from" since no one ever asks if you graduated from Cal "after 2 years at UCR"). If you plan to work and raise your kids in Austin a degree from UT will open a lot more doors than a degree from "that school in CA with all the left wing protestors" or "the Junior University south of San Francisco started by the railroad guy"...

One of my childhood best friends ended up going to CalTech and I spent a lot of time visiting him down there at the Blacker Hovse (the "v" is not a typo and you can find out more with a Google search). I was only back at MIT once (when I was older and in Grad School), but as a whole CalTech kids seem to have a lot more fun than the kids at MIT. As a clean cut fraternity guy coming down to visit, the CalTech guys did not welcome me with open arms at first but after they found out that I was a closet geek and liked to blow stuff up I became an honorary Blacker Hovse member...

P.S. More advice to parents don't ever tell your kids where you want them to go to school try and get some younger person that they respect to tell them...

With Taiwan holding essentially the nuclear option over most of China’s most productive cities (almost all of them are located next to a major dammed river), I think the threat is much more immediate.

China would not have built that giant dam if it did not think there is sufficient deterrence. On the other hand, both China and US knows no country can beat the American conventionally. Also, both countries know that any naval conflict in the Taiwan Strait *will* involve tactical nuclear weapons. The only discusion is: does anyone think that victory can be had without escalating to a full scale nuclear war with no winners.

But as I understand it, it’s always worthwhile to dispute a speeding ticket while you’re in California.

It is worthwhile to avoid speeding altogether.

He’s got the hutzpa to think he can avoid the next great depression. My hat’s off to him.

So far, his has my respect.

Most of my friends think that it is right to avert recessions. They looked surprised when I said that recessions are necessary to liquidate malinvestments and that pain is unavoidable.

astrid Says:

"As for Stanford, yawn. What can be so great about a school that let’s its students drop classes right til the end of the semester?"

My favorite Stanford comment comes from a grad school classmate who said (after looking around at all the girls walking by that got 4.4 GPAs in High School and grad school girls with 780 GMAT scores) "my mom was the last good looking girl that went to Stanford"...

P.S. You can drop classes at other schools just as late as Stanford if you play the game... (I had more than one call from Cal when I was an East Bay property manager when I had to say "yes as a condition of his continued employment (my fraternity brother's name) must now be here at work from 10:00 to 11:00 on Tuesdays and Thursdays)...

Surfer-X says:

"...Moved to Santa Barbara and lived in a haunted house for a month..."

Bwahahahaaa!

Oh, my!

See any ghosts?

Peter P,

China built the big ole dam over the Yangtze basically on the rash decision of one man, Li Peng. It was a bad idea for numerous reasons, not the least of which is national security. This gives Taiwan the opportunity to do maximum retailiation if China should choose to invade.

Now, I don't want Taiwan to be invaded. That just sucks for everybody. But still, the dams can give the Taiwan government a strategic edge if things get hot over the Taiwan Strait.

The US will be extremely hesitant to go nuclear for any reason, and its forces are stretched awfully thin right now. I think if China can execute a quick invasion of Taiwan, America will be very reluctant to use nuclear weapons to force the Chinese out.

Top Ten Signs of a Precious Metals Bubble

http://news.goldseek.com/EuroCapital/1145987362.php

Peter P,

Oh hell, let's just create a derivative on the collective stupidity of the Baby Boomers. How many bubbles can these guys blow thru?

But still, the dams can give the Taiwan government a strategic edge if things get hot over the Taiwan Strait.

Any strategic weakness is only as vulnerable as the nuclear deterrence.

We have more than 60 years of relative world peace. Let's hope that it continues this way. I still want to retire on a cruise ship sailing around the world with unlimited lobsters.

Oh hell, let’s just create a derivative on the collective stupidity of the Baby Boomers. How many bubbles can these guys blow thru?

Not many more. The next boom is probably in commodities and precious metals.

NOT INVESTMENT ADVICE.

I rather have bubbles than wars.

“As for Stanford, yawn. What can be so great about a school that let’s its students drop classes right til the end of the semester?”

Well, it is very difficult to fail a class. This I can say.

It is a beautiful school and I enjoyed my time there. But MIT and Havard have access to better lobsters.

astrid,

I really don't think there will be a breakout of war between Taiwan and China at least in our lifetime.

The prime purpose of the Chinese gov is to stay in power, invading Taiwan doesn't help that. It has far more fish to fry internally, like sustaining employment feeding 1.3b mouths, mitigating the gap between the rich and poor and dealing with a potential environmental breakdown. Taiwan on the other hand wants a status quo, it can declare independence, but it really doesn't change the status quo, because right now it is a defacto independent country, the mainland Chinese gov has no authority or control over any of Taiwan's affairs. I don't see any side having the urge to change anything soon.

With the regards to the dam, you don't need to be a beaver to tell it is just the stupidest thing in the world. To spread the risk of failure and to make control of water flow more flexible, they should build a series of dams along the waterway instead of concentrating all possible points of failure at one single huge project, which in itself may even be massive enough to induce earthquake. I have no idea what the heck the designer is thinking.

The dam is the contemporary illustration of the French Maginot Line when it comes to flood control.

Owneroccupier,

I agree with your assessment re: Taiwan Strait right now. I don't think the current government wants to change the status quo, they bring up Taiwan mainly to burnish their Communism credentials and to seek the moral high ground in their dealing with Taiwan.

"With the regards to the dam, you don’t need to be a beaver to tell it is just the stupidest thing in the world."

:P The Chinese are still working through their inferiority/superiority complex. There will be one hell of a hangover when they wake up.

Peter P,

Shucks, you should have gone to the CIA for school.

Shucks, you should have gone to the CIA for school.

Culinary Institute of America?

Peter,

I don't think poor students care about access to lobsters, the Legal Seafood lobsters still cost about $20, which was no chump change for us. Also, locationwise Kendall Square is not the best place on earth, and Harvard Square is kind of run down too.

You know in Boston, the Red line was the only line on the T that doesn't smell like urine because allegedly Harvard and MIT paid tons of money to make sure that the Red line looks decent enough to visiting parents who paid through their noses for their kids' tuition.

Well, I do think that Stanford has very good Feng Shui. You can feel the Chi just by walking around.

I don’t think poor students care about access to lobsters, the Legal Seafood lobsters still cost about $20, which was no chump change for us.

But Legal has very good Chowdah...

All Peter P can think of is 1) food, 2) bathroom, which in itself is very logical, where else would you go after good food? :-)

where else would you go after good food?

Or better yet, where else would you go after BAD food?

Peter P,

Yes, CIA = Culinary Inst't of America

You should have gone to Claremont McKenna College and worked for the Athenaeum, they had a genius pastry chef there who was assisted by fairly hot girls.