So if 401k, stocks, IRA's are bad places to invest.

Where can we be financially secure ?

I'm being serious, the older I get (I'm in my late 20's) the more I'm worrying about how to make money.

I'm a newbie when it comes to investing, 401K, IRA, etc.

I'm not sure how I should go about making a business - I did make business cards for repairing and fixing computers. It was nice doing it on the side.

Quote: (06-03-2015 03:22 PM)kaotic Wrote:  

So if 401k, stocks, IRA's are bad places to invest.

Where can we be financially secure ?

I'm being serious, the older I get (I'm in my late 20's) the more I'm worrying about how to make money.

I'm a newbie when it comes to investing, 401K, IRA, etc.

I'm not sure how I should go about making a business - I did make business cards for repairing and fixing computers. It was nice doing it on the side.

They're not bad. What's bad about them is approaching it from a passive perspective. People who get eaten alive in the market don't actively manage their own investments but let some other sucker do it for them. A rising tide raises all boats.

If you want to survive and make money grow, you need to be clicked into current trends. I didn't have any skin in the game, but I knew something was up in 2000 and 2008. I didn't even understand how the "stock" market worked just when major economic events happened.

This forum is the best place to start for investing advice. Do some searching. You should start with understanding the tax implications between a regular brokerage account, a 401K, and an IRA.

Finally, learn to divorce your emotion from money. You haven't made any money until you sell. You will also most likely get burned at least once. Everyone does. Learn from it and don't be discouraged.

Quote: (06-03-2015 03:22 PM)kaotic Wrote:  

So if 401k, stocks, IRA's are bad places to invest.

Where can we be financially secure ?

I'm being serious, the older I get (I'm in my late 20's) the more I'm worrying about how to make money.

I'm a newbie when it comes to investing, 401K, IRA, etc.

I'm not sure how I should go about making a business - I did make business cards for repairing and fixing computers. It was nice doing it on the side.

Gold is a good hedge against inflation. Having 5-10% in gold is a good idea. I would take physical Gold. There was talk a few years back that many Gold ETF's were selling certificates for Gold they didn't physically have.

Real Estate is another good investment that can turn into a stream of income.

The best way to invest your money is in your own education and your own business.

Cash can also be useful if a crash were to hit. Prices would drop and you could pick things up for pennies on the dollar.

Quote: (06-03-2015 03:22 PM)kaotic Wrote:  

So if 401k, stocks, IRA's are bad place to invest.

Where can we be financially secure ?

I'm being serious the older I get (I'm in my late 20's) the more I'm worrying about how to make money.

I'm not how I should go about making a business - I did make business cards for repairing and fixing computers. It was nice doing it on the side.

Fuck, time to be serious today - was enjoying goofing off.

I don't think there is ever a perfectly safe place to be secure. I don't say that to be a downer. The world is evolving so quickly, what you rely on now, may change drastically in the future.

If I may offer some thoughts:

1) Continue to stay educated about your investments, many do the invest and forget thing - but it must be maintained, weeded, etc.
2) Diversify of Asset classes- can't put everything in one place. Even if they have monster returns. Sometimes it may be great but you need to avoid betting it all on one thing. Unless it is a business you are growing.
3) Balance liquidity of your assets (slightly different than above) - some things you just can't sell fast enough, so make sure you have some things you could sell
4) Invest in yourself - be self reliant in many ways - I think this helps with fixings things, but also building willpower. Meaning, "there isn't a problem that can't be solved mentality." It will help you when things don't go your way.
5) If you see a hot opportunity - take it - just remember it may not last
6) I don't think stocks/401k are all terrible things, but you need other assets - real estate can work as long as you are prepared for the long term. Unless you are in the flip it game. But if you are doing the flip it game right, you can buy to flip, refi and rent instead because of all the equity you created
7) Be careful of what you don't understand. I am not saying don't do it, I am saying be responsible
8) Do what you feel comfortable with - sure you can push the edges a bit - but no need to lose sleep because you decided to play the foreign currency game
9) Find a financial mentor - I am cautious putting this here - it isn't like wealthy old guys just sit around waiting to help younger guys - but if you can find a guy that has been around and he likes you, he can help with real life experiences.
10) You will make mistakes - not all life lessons or financial lessons are free - you will pay the price from time to time

Quote: (06-03-2015 01:44 PM)Zelcorpion Wrote:  

Quote: (06-03-2015 11:38 AM)TheFinalEpic Wrote:  

Saving is for losers in the first place, that's what the 99% doesn't know. Your money isn't worth tomorrow what it was today.

The only way to get ahead is entrepreneurship and owning your own shop. There will be no middle class in 15-20 years. Only the elite and the poor.

The thing is this - most people cannot be entrepreneurs. Even in the times of small businesses this was not possible - in our times even less so.

I prefer a system where you don't have to be born in the 1-5% of intelligence, willpower or affluence to have a decent life. Extreme systems always crumble sooner or later or you are left living in militarized compounds and sending your kids offshore.

This is easily the best time to be a business owner. Small business built the country and the world. In the age of technology, anyone can do it, it doesn't take intelligence, it takes willpower, and willpower is in short supply.

Quote:Quote:

That's completely wrong.

Have you achieved any wealth and success yourself? Or are you just repeating stuff you heard online?

I own multiple businesses, I am familiar with multiple investment vehicles, and understand the basic concept that your money should work for you, instead of trading your time for money. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to understand that the rich are getting richer, and to emulate them on whatever scale you can reach.

I agree with a lot that is being said to answer Kaotic's question, and I would recommend in investing in yourself always. Be it your education, your own business, or your career, you need to invest in yourself. 401k and retirement accounts I'm not as familiar with as I'm in Canada so we have TFSA's and RRSP's, but understand these are usually mutual funds unless you control them yourself. I would put my money in an index fund, and play long ball on the stock market.

Real estate is an interesting vehicle as well, but I personally buy only on the principle of cash-flow on a monthly basis. Real estate has traditionally only kept pace with inflation, and I would recommend doing what my partners and I do: multi-family property where you are making money every month.

Great advice from The Beast, emotion and money do not mix. You have to be willing to throw you money in a pit on occasion in order to make the big returns. Understand that money is like energy, it is conserved, so if you lose money on something, it is not gone, it is in someone else's hands; go create value and get it back.

Quote: (06-03-2015 01:47 PM)Tigre Wrote:  

That's completely wrong.

Have you achieved any wealth and success yourself? Or are you just repeating stuff you heard online?

You have to get your facts straight - all those businesses are a ridiculously tiny part of the economy.

Sales of some products have been spread around more and you can move overseas while doing it - the overwhelming bulk of jobs has no chance at all to become entrepreneurs. You are right that it is relatively easy to start something, but this is impossible to reach 50 million small-scale entrepreneurs that way.

In the past with the high amount of small shops, restaurants, local craftsmen and independent farmers you had a by far greater number of entrepreneurs. The internet has given a few opportunities while the centralization and merger of industries has continued without break.

Also many white collar jobs have been pushed into involuntary self-employment while in reality in previous times they would be employed with benefits.

The few entrepreneurs here and there that you mention - those do not even register in the statistics.

http://www.thefiscaltimes.com/Articles/2...Employment

http://www.thefiscaltimes.com/Articles/2...reneurship

This is not entrepreneurship - this is just a different form of exploitation. And if your business makes 50.000-100.000$, then that's more a different lifestyle than a real enterprise.

I highly doubt that was satire - the views espoused there are pretty much how 99% of mainstream economists feel in private. In public, they'll be more polite, but the gist of their thinking is that economic growth is driven by consumers spending nonstop at malls, so anything that hinders that is terrifying to them. Thus removing impediments to consumer spending, even if it means setting ourselves up for certain failure in the future, is always the preferable economic policy. The fact that most households have tons of debt already isn't problematic as long as spending is low. The low interest rates and increase of the money supply is supposed to make that old debt diminish in value, which ostensibly makes it easier to take on new debt and spend more.

Hilsenrath is in league with those views, and his post didn't have any critique of them, like a true satire would. It read like a petulant display of frustration that the supposed engine of economic growth isn't responding to the amazing, supposedly economy-saving QE experiment the Fed cooked up. Only he could write like that because he is merely a reporter, and not a policymaker or academic. After getting eviscerated in the comments, he backpedals immediately in the next column.

Quote: (06-03-2015 03:54 PM)Zelcorpion Wrote:  

You have to get your facts straight - all those businesses are a ridiculously tiny part of the economy.

Sales of some products have been spread around more and you can move overseas while doing it - the overwhelming bulk of jobs has no chance at all to become entrepreneurs. You are right that it is relatively easy to start something, but this is impossible to reach 50 million small-scale entrepreneurs that way.

In the past with the high amount of small shops, restaurants, local craftsmen and independent farmers you had a by far greater number of entrepreneurs. The internet has given a few opportunities while the centralization and merger of industries has continued without break.

Also many white collar jobs have been pushed into involuntary self-employment while in reality in previous times they would be employed with benefits.

The few entrepreneurs here and there that you mention - those do not even register in the statistics.

http://www.thefiscaltimes.com/Articles/2...Employment

http://www.thefiscaltimes.com/Articles/2...reneurship

This is not entrepreneurship - this is just a different form of exploitation. And if your business makes 50.000-100.000$, then that's more a different lifestyle than a real enterprise.

https://www.sba.gov/content/small-busine...-2002-2010

http://www.sbecouncil.org/about-us/facts-and-data/

Small businesses continue to be the creator of most new jobs.

So while most big businesses are offloading jobs, it is small businesses that are picking up the slack.

If it wasn't for the internet and small businesses the situation in the US would be much worse than it currently is.

Take Roosh for example. He is looking to take on two new writers. He also provides a platform for people to start a business and/or provide a platform to get their name/message out.

Small business continues to employ the vast majority of people.

In Canada in 2012, 70% of the entire labour force (7.7 million individuals) were employed by small businesses.

edit: Zelcorpion, what if I have 4 or 5 businesses that run themselves that generate 50-100k each? Your comment is irrelevant, whether you make 40k a year or 3m a year, you're an entrepreneur if you own your own shop and don't answer to anyone above you except for the government in taxation.

Quote: (06-03-2015 03:35 PM)Darius Wrote:  

Quote: (06-03-2015 03:22 PM)kaotic Wrote:  

So if 401k, stocks, IRA's are bad places to invest.

Where can we be financially secure ?

I'm being serious, the older I get (I'm in my late 20's) the more I'm worrying about how to make money.

I'm a newbie when it comes to investing, 401K, IRA, etc.

I'm not sure how I should go about making a business - I did make business cards for repairing and fixing computers. It was nice doing it on the side.

Gold is a good hedge against inflation. Having 5-10% in gold is a good idea. I would take physical Gold. There was talk a few years back that many Gold ETF's were selling certificates for Gold they didn't physically have.

Real Estate is another good investment that can turn into a stream of income.

The best way to invest your money is in your own education and your own business.

Cash can also be useful if a crash were to hit. Prices would drop and you could pick things up for pennies on the dollar.

The bold is often said, but it's not entirely accurate. It is more accurate to say that gold is a hedge against falling and negative real interest rates. The place gold has in a portfolio is the 'cash' portion, which is in line with what you said at the end of your post about a crash hitting. You always need to have some 'dry powder' in order to be able to be in the position to pick up undervalued assets when the time comes, as you've said.

The only issue is the form in which you hold that dry powder. It could be in dollars, euros, yen, etc, or it could be in gold. If real interest rates (nominal interest rate minus inflation) are positive, or more importantly you anticipate them rising, the better option would be to hold cash. A falling rate, or a real interest rate below the rough line in the sand of 2%, and gold is a better place to be. Since 2000, real interest rates have been constant below 2%, with the corrections in price coinciding with sharp rises in the real interest rate. Indeed the correction since 2011 has come along side a rise in real interest rates from -4% to 0%.

In the upper middle class suburb where I live, a used instrument/record store opened around 15 years ago called Music-Go-Round.

And then it closed about a year later. But I noticed the branch of the store in a nearby blue collar town was staying open. So on closing day, I asked the owner why.

He said that in the upper class area, couples had so much debt from their massive McMansions and luxury cars that they had little discretionary income to spend. But in the lower class area, where houses were cheaper, people spent money on things like guitars and records.

His observations remain correct. If Americans don't have money to spend, it's because they're neck-deep in debt. It's their own choice.

Of course entrepreneurship is good, but it doesn't mean shit if incentives aren't aligned.

The fact of the matter is technology is replacing jobs and that we need to start thinking differently about how the middle class is going to thrive going forward.

I stand by what I said. The answer to our problems isn't more small business crap. The competitive landscape isn't conducive to it.

Quote: (06-03-2015 03:20 AM)Darius Wrote:  

Quote: (06-03-2015 03:03 AM)magellan Wrote:  

What really annoys me is when these same talking heads evangelize entrepreneurship as the answer to our woes. Like, oh great, more dumb shit to buy. Exactly what the doctor ordered.

Without entrepreneurship there is is no economy in a capitalist society.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy

Why are you even on this website since Roosh just sells "dumb shit" for you to buy?

Nice wikipedia link. Time to pull your head out of your ass and look a little more closely at where jobs and wage growth are actually going. Roosh is for the most part a solopreneur. He's carved out a nice living for himself. This isn't the type of sustainable job creation that will restore the middle class.

EDIT:

Sorry for the snark. I work in early stage venture capital and see this kind of thing more closely than 99% of this board, so I guess I should appreciate that fact when I see what I know as very obviously given being attacked by those less in the know.

An example: companies like Warby Parker and Amazon have single handedly decimated more small businesses than most. Job creation at the top end of the cognitive spectrum for tech workers. Job destruction for everybody else. They're selling more "crap" but I'd hardly call it a win for the middle class. The pie is being grown, but it's still being concentrated at the top and will continue to do so.

Quote: (06-03-2015 05:21 PM)magellan Wrote:  

Of course entrepreneurship is good, but it doesn't mean shit if incentives aren't aligned.

The fact of the matter is technology is replacing jobs and that we need to start thinking differently about how the middle class is going to thrive going forward.

I stand by what I said. The answer to our problems isn't more small business crap. The competitive landscape isn't conducive to it.

Technology is taking away low skill jobs and creating jobs elsewhere. Someone already posted a picture of a mcDonalds in which you order at a touch screen. These are the kind of jobs that are being taken away. Small business will continue to create the majority of jobs in the country, its been generating 65% of the new jobs in America since 1995.

I take back what I said in the "Who would you fight" thread. I no longer want to punch Dick Cheney, I want to fight this guy.

Quote: (06-03-2015 05:25 PM)magellan Wrote:  

Nice wikipedia link. Time to pull your head out of your ass and look a little more closely at where jobs and wage growth are actually going. Roosh is for the most part a solopreneur. He's carved out a nice living for himself. This isn't the type of sustainable job creation that will restore the middle class.

EDIT:

Sorry for the snark. I work in early stage venture capital and see this kind of thing more closely than 99% of this board, so I guess I should appreciate that fact when I see what I know as very obviously given being attacked by those less in the know.

An example: companies like Warby Parker and Amazon have single handedly decimated more small businesses than most. Job creation at the top end of the cognitive spectrum for tech workers. Job destruction for everybody else. They're selling more "crap" but I'd hardly call it a win for the middle class. The pie is being grown, but it's still being concentrated at the top and will continue to do so.

Nice Ad Hom.

Followed up by false equivalence.

Implying that because one company destroys jobs that all entrepreneurs are destroying the economy.

Then implying that all products that are sold are crap. (As you type this post from a phone or computer.)

Maybe you should pull your head out of your own ass before you make any recommendations. I imagine the view from there isn't as clear as you imagine.

Quote: (06-03-2015 05:34 PM)TheFinalEpic Wrote:  

Quote: (06-03-2015 05:21 PM)magellan Wrote:  

Of course entrepreneurship is good, but it doesn't mean shit if incentives aren't aligned.

The fact of the matter is technology is replacing jobs and that we need to start thinking differently about how the middle class is going to thrive going forward.

I stand by what I said. The answer to our problems isn't more small business crap. The competitive landscape isn't conducive to it.

Technology is taking away low skill jobs and creating jobs elsewhere. Someone already posted a picture of a mcDonalds in which you order at a touch screen. These are the kind of jobs that are being taken away. Small business will continue to create the majority of jobs in the country, its been generating 65% of the new jobs in America since 1995.

Yes, technology has replaced and will continue to replace the walking dead. What has lead you to conclude that it stops there?

It's all speculation from this point on. The truth is that we have always lived in an inherently unpredictable and chaotic system, and it's gotten exponentially more unpredictable with the rise of technology. What's worked in the past is unlikely to work in the future. "Since 1995" is not a large enough sample to conclude anything, and a good chunk of that was leading up to the biggest financial meltdown since the great depression, so we can go ahead and throw that part of the sample out.

Uber today has created minipreneurs out of drivers, some making a pretty decent wage. The same company has estimated that by 2035 they will be rolling out self driving cars effectively destroying the majority of the jobs they've created along with the majority of new motorvehicle purchases I'd imagine.

What about companies like DeepMind? Google thought of their AI capabilities highly enough to purchase a young, medium sized upstart for half a billion dollars. Why can't the Excel jockeys of the middle class be up next on the chopping block?

If what you do isn't creative, I don't think you can reasonably expect your line of work to last. The question isn't whether it will go, the questions are when and whether or not a comparable opportunity will present itself in its place. Not everybody has the cognitive ability to be a software engineer or a halfway decent designer. Most adults I know personally have had the luxury of not needing to make any big pivots in their careers that might require learning a completely new skillset. Our mental model of how the economy will operate in the future is flawed because we're biased to think that the past can be extrapolated.

Nobody knows. We can only guess. Saying "produce more" and "spend more" is ignorant in my opinion.

My opinion might be unpopula

Quote: (06-03-2015 05:48 PM)Darius Wrote:  

Quote: (06-03-2015 05:25 PM)magellan Wrote:  

Nice wikipedia link. Time to pull your head out of your ass and look a little more closely at where jobs and wage growth are actually going. Roosh is for the most part a solopreneur. He's carved out a nice living for himself. This isn't the type of sustainable job creation that will restore the middle class.

EDIT:

Sorry for the snark. I work in early stage venture capital and see this kind of thing more closely than 99% of this board, so I guess I should appreciate that fact when I see what I know as very obviously given being attacked by those less in the know.

An example: companies like Warby Parker and Amazon have single handedly decimated more small businesses than most. Job creation at the top end of the cognitive spectrum for tech workers. Job destruction for everybody else. They're selling more "crap" but I'd hardly call it a win for the middle class. The pie is being grown, but it's still being concentrated at the top and will continue to do so.

Nice Ad Hom.

Followed up by false equivalence.

Implying that because one company destroys jobs that all entrepreneurs are destroying the economy.

Then implying that all products that are sold are crap. (As you type this post from a phone or computer.)

Maybe you should pull your head out of your own ass before you make any recommendations. I imagine the view from there isn't as clear as you imagine.

It's clearly too late for us to communicate like men. I shouldn't have responded in anger to what I saw as a pretty snarky response from yourself. A link to a wikipedia article titled "Economy" was entirely unnecessary, as was my response. I'll agree to disagree and end our discourse here.

Quote: (06-03-2015 05:34 PM)TheFinalEpic Wrote:  

Technology is taking away low skill jobs and creating jobs elsewhere. Someone already posted a picture of a mcDonalds in which you order at a touch screen. These are the kind of jobs that are being taken away. Small business will continue to create the majority of jobs in the country, its been generating 65% of the new jobs in America since 1995.

Look - the data from those small and medium companies are for employees of 20-500. I can tell you that for example that some of the banks and insurance companies I worked for were owning thousands of those "small and mid-level" companies. They owned hundreds of real estate smaller companies, print shops, rental agencies, financial services, employment agencies. Most were dealing with their own stuff, but in the statistics it would all show up at the "small and medium level".

Until you take a good hard look at those statistics, then you know nothing. I am an economist who has studied conventional economics since age 16 as a passion. Too bad I only realized much later that most of it is bogus, suppression of by far superior alternatives and clever marketing to mask the real long-term goals. With economics it's even easier to do than with medicine.

Many mid-level companies can reach 300 mio. + in revenue with 300 employees or less. And as I said before you have to take a look at the statistics - for example the millions of franchise owners of fast food outlets all being counted as "entrepreneurs" and small business owners.

There is a simple reason why small to mid-level companies are not prospering. The reason is that disposable income and real unemployment (statistics calculated as 1980 and incl. labor participation) is absolutely terrible. You cannot at one side claim that small businesses and entrepreneurs are booming while the average American is getting poorer. That's not how our current economic system works at all, since most countries are not having an intrinsic supply and demand chain - producing and consuming everything within their own country. They depend on external input like massive exports coupled with palpable income distribution. Currently small businesses are dying, the few internet ones are not picking up the slack, people are getting poorer.

You can come back to that post in 10 years and find my statements becoming reality - see the movie Looper to get a whiff of the times to come.

The US in many cities except for the power-centers:



China in most cities after more of the world's manufacturing has moved there:



Unless something unforeseen happens like an Alien fleet attacking against which we have an actual chance - thus creating full employment through a war economy - unless nothing like that happens it will go this way.

One may still be able to make a fortune, but most won't participate in any bonanza.


Real unemployment accounting also for labor participation.

Also - I might add - I don't disagree that entrepreneurs and small and mid-level companies were creating most jobs in the last decades. But you see - most of them were doing so hitching their wagons to bigger wagons - suppliers for big corporations, tourism, petroleum industry, government agencies etc. One city becoming a mid-level tourist attraction might create hundreds of small businesses catering to that single economic input. I have no disagreement with that assumption.

I just disagree that it is getting better and rosier just because you can create a company faster nowadays and make money over the internet.

Quote: (06-03-2015 06:10 PM)Zelcorpion Wrote:  

I just disagree that it is getting better and rosier just because you can create a company faster nowadays and make money over the internet.

It is rosier for those that can create a company and make money over the internet.

It isn't for those that think this is the end of the world.

Quote: (06-03-2015 05:37 PM)teh_skeeze Wrote:  

I take back what I said in the "Who would you fight" thread. I no longer want to punch Dick Cheney, I want to fight this guy.

Haha you wanted to fight president darth vader. Not a bad choice but he is like the terminator nothing stops him. I have always noticed the meanest people live the longest.

I was reading this at work the other day and my reaction was:



Hilsenrath can come out later and say it was "tongue-in-cheek", but that's like calling someone's mom a whore and then saying "chill it was a joke" when they get mad.

Maybe Yellen is genuinely confused as to why Joe Plumber isn't spending and told her mouthpiece to ask.

Quote: (06-03-2015 05:25 PM)magellan Wrote:  

Quote: (06-03-2015 03:20 AM)Darius Wrote:  

Quote: (06-03-2015 03:03 AM)magellan Wrote:  

What really annoys me is when these same talking heads evangelize entrepreneurship as the answer to our woes. Like, oh great, more dumb shit to buy. Exactly what the doctor ordered.

Without entrepreneurship there is is no economy in a capitalist society.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy

Why are you even on this website since Roosh just sells "dumb shit" for you to buy?

Nice wikipedia link. Time to pull your head out of your ass and look a little more closely at where jobs and wage growth are actually going. Roosh is for the most part a solopreneur. He's carved out a nice living for himself. This isn't the type of sustainable job creation that will restore the middle class.

EDIT:

Sorry for the snark. I work in early stage venture capital and see this kind of thing more closely than 99% of this board, so I guess I should appreciate that fact when I see what I know as very obviously given being attacked by those less in the know.

An example: companies like Warby Parker and Amazon have single handedly decimated more small businesses than most. Job creation at the top end of the cognitive spectrum for tech workers. Job destruction for everybody else. They're selling more "crap" but I'd hardly call it a win for the middle class. The pie is being grown, but it's still being concentrated at the top and will continue to do so.

Thats like saying "I work in the bank loans department so I know all business". No, it means you have a view of businesses that need bank loans. Perhaps I have a narrow field of view but the 3 venture capital backers I've worked for are guys who built their wealth without VC, and became tech versions of Mitt Romney/Bain Capital. They assrape equity out of small companies with good ideas that can't manage the business themselves, take over the company, clean it up and then sell it to a larger party.

I'll take a warning for this but VC is like gay banking and loan sharking combined...why do I have this opinion? Because its only west coast silicon valley circle jerking nerds that ever talk about it. I've never heard a logger employing 30 people, a steel fabricator employing 100 or a paper mill dumping 1/4 billion into equipment saying "gee guys, should we use angel investing venture capitalists to raise our first round of seed funding?" Oppose that to those companies that I've seen take "venture capital or angel investments"...late stage hipster cupcake bakeries, sinking app developers, an exotic online furniture retailer. They are late stage tech copycats that have read too much of whatever today's "rich dad poor dad" is.

Your 'early stage venture capital' background only means that you talk gay financial upspeak more than 99% of this board. Thats it.

Quote:Quote:

I've never heard a logger employing 30 people, a steel fabricator employing 100 or a paper mill dumping 1/4 billion into equipment saying "gee guys, should we use angel investing venture capitalists to raise our first round of seed funding?" Oppose that to those companies that I've seen take "venture capital or angel investments"...late stage hipster cupcake bakeries, sinking app developers, an exotic online furniture retailer. They are late stage tech copycats that have read too much of whatever today's "rich dad poor dad" is.

Because, since they're stable conservative businesses, the logger and steel fabricator can get loans from the bank. VC funding exists for businesses that would get laughed straight out of the bank by the loan officer. They receive funding in exchange for equity, not just an IOU like a loan. VCs know that most of their funding will be lost forever, but that's okay. All you need is one Airbnb or Uber to make up for hundreds of bad bets.