Investing

[CMRivdogs]

I guess we will always need plumbers, electrician and HVAC engineers. That and someone to babysit us old geezers

[Screwball]

13 minutes ago, CMRivdogs said:

I had a similar conversation with the spouse this afternoon. You and I (and a few others here) are around the same age. We grew up in an era where many of our parents made a decent wage in retail. That's gone. Same with factory work (my very young day were in Western Pa.  remember the steel mills before they moved to places like Indiana, (where are they now)?

My son is a civil engineer, most of his career he's worked with the variations of CAD. With AI what does his career look like? 
What are the new careers in the next 10 years or so? 

How things have changed over the years is nothing less than amazing. When I grew up people made a living making things with their hands. The old world was much more labor intensive and more people needed. Things changed with technology.

First the computers which could do math thousands of times faster than we could, which later brought on the internet and the ability to globalize that labor. It started with the blue collar jobs (I lived though NAFTA) and eventually got the white collar jobs too.

You mention CAD. I remember the days things were made by paper drawings, drawn by talented engineers and draftsmen. They used a table, mechanical arm, and a calculator (or slide rule). We had cars, appliances, bridges, buildings back then - using paper. Then computers came along and many of those jobs were gone. CAD systems changed the game big time.

Where will it go next? I don't know. Where does the human factor get replaced by technology?

Maybe the same place the computer people had trouble, and still do - junk in, junk out.

AI can (maybe) design a really cool part/assembly/machine - but can it be made - and at what cost?

Then again, after 35 years in corporate America, I never understood how they made anything to begin with.

[ewsieg]

10 hours ago, Screwball said:

Then again, after 35 years in corporate America, I never understood how they made anything to begin with.

Had, some big truth in this.  Often move forward despite ourselves it seems.

[gehringer_2]

8 minutes ago, ewsieg said:

Had, some big truth in this.  Often move forward despite ourselves it seems.

there are enough effective (and often mal-adusted!)  people around to pull the rest along with them. Pretty much the way it's always been.

[Screwball]

1 hour ago, ewsieg said:

Had, some big truth in this.  Often move forward despite ourselves it seems.

I haven't been at a multi-national for over 7 years and I can only imagine how f'ed up it is now. It was an utter circus back then. Office Space (the movie) and Dilbert (the cartoon) didn't do it justice.  We had a saying; the only way this place could get anymore ****ed up is if it got bigger.

[Screwball]

NFLX reported earning after close today and killed it.  Up over 10% AH.

And of course shortly after:

 

[Screwball]

And a $15 billion stock buyback. Holy give the CEO a raise Batman.

[Tigeraholic1]

The markets are liking the new administration it seems. 

[Tigeraholic1]

2 hours ago, Screwball said:

And a $15 billion stock buyback. Holy give the CEO a raise Batman.

This could have all been Blockbuster’s if they could have seen the forest through the trees.

[gehringer_2]

52 minutes ago, Tigeraholic1 said:

This could have all been Blockbuster’s if they could have seen the forest through the trees.

Sort of like Sears could/should have been Amazon.

[oblong]

I read a book about the fall of blockbuster.  They had no interest in actually running the business. All they cared about was growth and expansion.  (Stock price). They left so much on the table. No interest in data analysis or inventory management. The author worked for a big competitor in the south and wound up working for a big franchisee. He had to manually hack into their systems and hire a college kid to convert the data to csv files so he could devise a strategy. He would share with the corporate offices and they didn’t care.  You had all this data on who bought what and when and where… they didn’t care.  It’s a quick and fun read. I might revisit if. Lots of slap your forehead moments about things that seemed obvious. 

[Screwball]

There are tons of examples of going public with bad business plans. It's part of the game and makes Wall Street rich. The buybacks make the big wheels a bunch more money than the people holding the same stock. More money, and in options (leverage). A giant scam of trickle up.

NFLX is a stock near and dear to my heart. True story. March 6th, 2009 (not looking it up but I'll bet I'm close) when the S&P hit 666, which turned out to be the bottom of the market after the bankers blew up the financial system.

The next trading day I bought NFLX and BIDU. I rode them for some nice gains and pulled the rip cord. If I would have left the NFLX trade on the table it might be worth millions today.

The market is a whore.

ON EDIT: I checked this. Yep, millionaire. A two grand grand investment gets you 1.25 million, and that only the last 30 years.

Spit

Edited 59 minutes ago by Screwball

[Tiger337]

On 1/16/2025 at 9:17 PM, Screwball said:

I do love the yield on the short term rates though. Safe is good.

 

I've got a good chunk of money in those.  I also have some money in cds which go anywhere from 3 months to 5 years.  I am still invested in the market, but I am increasing my "safe" portion now that I am in my 60s.  Thus, I am not worried about high rates.  I know the high rates are bad for many though, especially those trying to buy homes.  

[Screwball]

5 minutes ago, Tiger337 said:

I've got a good chunk of money in those.  I also have some money in cds which go anywhere from 3 months to 5 years.  I am still invested in the market, but I am increasing my "safe" portion now that I am in my 60s.  Thus, I am not worried about high rates.  I know the high rates are bad for many though, especially those trying to buy homes.  

I've been doing short term stuff with everything. Just did some things the other day. I found some really good corporate bonds, but their ratings were at the bottom end of the safe zone. I'm pretty chicken ****.

ON EDIT: I bought the safe stuff.

Edited 53 minutes ago by Screwball