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lesbaurinkos · 3 months

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Please tell us about looking up catboys on a lodestone and what is a graha and please as many pictures as you want and also is any of it gay i am very interested 🙏🙏

CRACKS MY KNUCKLES this is gonna be a long ramble because i have a LOT to say. as a passionate xiv player and such ^_^ god im gonna put a read more actually because this is gonna be so long. whoopsie!

so FIRST OF ALL g'raha tia is a much-beloved ffxiv character (voiced by jonathan bailey. like from bridgerton. that jonathan bailey. isnt that incredible) look at him. here he is. phil is so incredibly real

he's a fan favorite for a reason he is so lovely and sweet and incredibly self-sacrificing and during my favorite story expansion, shadowbringers, we meet him as the crystal exarch- a leader of a dying world who has summoned us to help because we are that world's last hope. and his grand plan to save said world is ultimately to sacrifice himself. he's very depressed and very mysterious and slowly dying because his life force is tied to the crystal tower where he resides, which is what grants him power to keep going but is slowly crystallizing him, and he's just a very deeply tragic character at first... but then at the end of shadowbringers he LIVES! he has a new lease on life! and he didn't expect to ever get that far! so afterwards he's just so deeply earnest and excited about everything and it's so cute... so sweet... i love u graha <3 and this catboy is like gay as hell like he is soooo blatantly in love with the player character. who, like, officially in trailers and stuff, the default player character meteor, is a man. gayass cat!! anyway here's the crystal exarch figurine, which dnp own, and which i am jealous of them for. but it makes me smile that they have it. bc i love g'raha

NOW ANYWAY. DAN AND PHIL'S CATBOYS!

every ffxiv player character is displayed on this website called the lodestone, which has like community stuff and worldwide rankings and such. just like a standard mmorpg hub. and you can look up character profiles on there if youre curious, say, what mounts they have (cause in xiv you can get a whole bunch of different mounts to ride around on, from a massive shiba inu to a t-rex to the classic chocobo you are given at the start of the game to, like, actual cars and motorbikes) or what minions they might have (you can pick a little minion to follow you around in the game! just for like cute little aesthetic purposes. and they have minions of like cute little creatures, bosses you can fight, characters in the game, etc-- for example the minion iiii always have out to follow my catgirl around the world is a mini version of my favorite character y'shtola, who is a goth catgirl who is absolutely everything to me. wife of all time. she has the craziest lesbian dynamic with this goth butch named zero who you meet late in the story and who is SO everything as well. that's not the point. ANYHOW!) (also when phil said in the rating your favs video that if you play a cat in ffxiv youre definitely gay he was literally so fucking right. there are a bunch of different races to choose from, you can be elves, you can be bunny people, you can be dragon people, etc, but well. i play as a cat. they play as cats. fork. kitchen)

ANYHOW. so when phil said recently that his catboy was named MIKO STRIKER i was like "omg... i have GOT to go search him up on the lodestone and see what job he plays and how far he's gone in the story and such" and hereeee is his profile:

31st sun of the 1st astral moon does translate to january 30th bc the ffxiv calendar is offset by a day. anyway the fact phil plays summoner is both so endearing and makes so much sense to me bc it's pretty well-known as the easiest dps class to play in the whole game. and i also started out playing summoner when i started!! and part of the summoner job is, well, summoning these magical creatures called carbuncles:

isnt this thing cute... i love carbys. i named mine cherry tomato. im sure his is called susan or something ^_^ so delighted by the summoner rep. anyway then i went to look at his minions & mounts cause certain parts of the story award certain minions & mounts and i was like well i GOTTA know if dan and phil have finished endwalker (the most recent, emotionally devastating story expansion) (they have not, btw. both of their catboys are in the gear you get RIGHT before embarking on the final and MOST emotionally devastating leg of the story, but they don't have the mount and minion you get from FINISHING IT, which is killing me sooo bad. you guys.... go play the end of the story.... go cry.... it made me cry for like 7 hours nonstop it was so emotionally devastating. go do it lads)

so yeah phil does lack the venat minion and argos mount which you get from finishing endwalker. but he DOES have this cute carbuncle mount which you have to buy with real money mind you!! and they come in 3 colors on the shop. this is phil's. made me smile :)

and well after looking at phil's profile i was like "of course he doesn't play any other classes. yeah that makes sense. BUT i wonder about dan. where is his catboy" but without a name i couldn't find his profile without insane digging or something so i forgot about it UNTIL i was rewatching wdapteo sometime after christmas and i got to THIS picture:

and the thing is that dan's catboy here is wearing job-exclusive gear. only people who play the monk class can wear that outfit there. my first thought was "what the fuck is wrong with him monk is the most baffling job on the entire planet" my second thought was "yeah ok of COURSE he plays monk" my THIRD thought was "wait. i can just look up catboy monks on the server miko is on then. i can totally go look at dan's catboy" and did so and within like five seconds arrived at D'HASH TIA here ^_^

which like. definitely dan's catboy given the pictures we've seen of him. and the ffxiv calendar, again, is offset by a day, so the birthday IS june 11. bingo ^_^

and what is so special to me about this is that dan's catboy has a "canon" name while phil's absolutely does not-- sun seeker miquo'te (cat people) have clan names and then titles, basically, so a canon sun seeker male name would be like. letter of the clan, apostrophe, name, then "tia" at the end which is just a title for young males (like dearest g'raha tia). so yknow. d'hash tia is a proper canon name while also being so incredibly dan to pick, methinks. i love it

(and then i was going thru a lot and rewatched the japhan 2019 instagram stories and realized i didnt need to go thru so much because we've actually known theyre monk and summoner players since 2019. they went to the ffxiv cafe. they got job-specific drinks. for their fucking jobs. dan got the monk drink. phil got the summoner drink. it was always right there. theyre so funny)

i do think it's so funny that neither of them have ever played another job in all their years of playing ffxiv. u guys there are so many jobs out there..... dan go unlock dark knight i know you would love the job story i know it in my heart...... but no they have stuck to their guns they have stuck to their classes all this time. it's beautiful to me

anyway d'hash tia's minions and mounts mostly match miko striker's which makes a lot of sense to me bc i imagine they probably play most of xiv together

BUT the carbuncle mount d'hash has is the RED ONE. which sent me through every single stage of emotions ever.... you have to buy those mounts with real money.... and they bought matching ones.......... ridiculous. ridiculous of them.

AND. dan's catboy also has the fat moogle mount. this beautiful thing right here

which is another mount that costs real money to buy..... and it's a two-seater................ more likely than not he's flown the both of them around in this thing................... i need everyone to know this information. it's so important. to our society.

(also as an aside. the story they told in wdapteo about going to a gay bar in xiv. i cant state enough how real they were for that. bc roleplay venues are insanely common ingame and its so fucking funny and ive always wanted to go to one just out of sheer curiosity but if anyone ever spoke to me i would instantly log the fuck out. so the fact they did just that and then got flirted with by someone and instantly logged out.... like that's it. that's the exact experience. it's so beautiful)

(as another aside. xiv is real gay i prommy. and looking at their minions lets me know they've also done my favorite raid series, eden, which is essentially. two main characters, thancred and urianger, and their adopted daughter ryne who they CANONICALLY RAISED TOGETHER they are LITERALLY HER FATHERS, work to save the world and meet this goth girl named gaia that ryne falls in love with and like. ryne and gaia are blatantly meant to be canon to the point square enix made a spinoff game where characters very clearly based off them actually ARE together. it's adorable. little baby prep/goth lesbians. i hope dnp love them as much as i do. also im SO sure dan is a thancred fan honestly bc he seems right up dan's alley. anyhow look! arent they cute!)

TLDR i am such a massive fan of dip and pip's xiv catboys and i need the world to know that they bought matching mounts bc it's SO important to me. and ive gone on great journeys here. amen.

#IM SORRY THAT THIS IS SO SO INCREDIBLY LONG BUT THERE IS MUCH TO BE SAID!!!#i NEED them to talk about ffxiv more i need to know more of their thoughts i GOTTA!!!#i have my strong suspicions about dan's favorite characters. not just thancred... he MUST love emet-selch. danny give me confirmation here #it's so sad that neither of them have the tonberry minion but it IS expensive on the market board... dnp i have plenty of gil i will fund u #i will get u both tonberry minions.... i will.....#i must make them unlock other jobs. dan and phil pls go unlock fisher... go fishing. it's one of xiv's greatest joys #ANYWAY IM SORRY THAT THIS IS PROBABLY ABSOLUTE WORD SALAD. THERE IS A LOT OF PASSION. IN MY HEART. GODBLESS!!#THANK U FOR COMING TO MY TED TALK <3 #ask #calvinahobbes #dnp

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neotaissong · 2 months

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Dahomey (2024) dir. Mati Diop

Mati Diop (Atlantics) just won the Golden Bear at Berlin and shouted “I stand with Palestine!” as she accepted her award. Her film deals with the returning of plundered royal treasures from the African Kingdom of Dahomey from Paris to the present day Republic of Benin.

#undeniable #neotai's song #mati diop #master teacher #free gaza #free palestine #Palestine #dahomey #cinema #German arts scene revealed itself to be deeply anti Palestinian and even more racist and Islamophobic than previously thought #cutting funding for anyone who dares to speak out about palestine so this was a great venue for Palestine to be mentioned within...#Germany standing on the wrong side of history…again and again...but german activists outchea raising hell...#you saw how they turned hilary clinton's cinema for peace (the AUDACITYYYYY) event upside down #MUCH RESPECT TO THOSE ACTIVISTS #and to mati showing out #look forward to seeing the movie as atlantics was dope and needs a rewatch tbh #the 'after atlantics' marketing is dope cos black artists are so often cut off from their own continuity and context by the establishment #movies

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mostlysignssomeportents · 9 months

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Private equity ghouls have a new way to steal from their investors

Private equity is quite a racket. PE managers pile up other peoples’ money — pension funds, plutes, other pools of money — and then “invest” it (buying businesses, loading them with debt, cutting wages, lowering quality and setting traps for customers). For this, they get an annual fee — 2% — of the money they manage, and a bonus for any profits they make.

On top of this, private equity bosses get to use the carried interest tax loophole, a scam that lets them treat this ordinary income as a capital gain, so they can pay half the taxes that a working stiff would pay on a regular salary. If you don’t know much about carried interest, you might think it has to do with “interest” on a loan or a deposit, but it’s way weirder. “Carried interest” is a tax regime designed for 16th century sea captains and their “interest” in the cargo they “carried”:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/04/29/writers-must-be-paid/#carried-interest

Private equity is a cancer. Its profits come from buying productive firms, loading them with debt, abusing their suppliers, workers and customers, and driving them into ground, stiffing all of them — and the company’s creditors. The mafia have a name for this. They call it a “bust out”:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/06/02/plunderers/#farben

Private equity destroyed Toys R Us, Sears, Bed, Bath and Beyond, and many more companies beloved of Main Street, bled dry for Wall Street:

https://prospect.org/culture/books/2023-06-02-days-of-plunder-morgenson-rosner-ballou-review/

And they’re coming for more. PE funds are “rolling up” thousands of Boomer-owned business as their owners retire. There’s a good chance that every funeral home, pet groomer and urgent care clinic within an hour’s drive of you is owned by a single PE firm. There’s 2.9m more Boomer-owned businesses going up for sale in the coming years, with 32m employees, and PE is set to buy ’em all:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/12/16/schumpeterian-terrorism/#deliberately-broken

PE funds get their money from “institutional investors.” It shouldn’t surprise you to learn they treat their investors no better than their creditors, nor the customers, employees or suppliers of the businesses they buy.

Pension funds, in particular, are the perennial suckers at the poker table. My parent’s pension fund, the Ontario Teachers’ Fund, are every grifter’s favorite patsy, losing $90m to Sam Bankman-Fried’s cryptocurrency scam:

https://www.otpp.com/en-ca/about-us/news-and-insights/2022/ontario-teachers--statement-on-ftx/

Pension funds are neck-deep in private equity, paying steep fees for shitty returns. Imagine knowing that the reason you can’t afford your apartment anymore is your pension fund gambled with the private equity firm that bought your building and jacked up the rent — and still lost money:

https://pluralistic.net/2020/02/25/pluralistic-your-daily-link-dose-25-feb-2020/

But there’s no depth too low for PE looters to sink to. They’ve found an exciting new way to steal from their investors, a scam called a “continuation fund.” Writing in his latest newsletter, the great Matt Levine breaks it down:

https://news.bloomberglaw.com/mergers-and-acquisitions/matt-levines-money-stuff-buyout-funds-buy-from-themselves

Here’s the deal: say you’re a PE guy who’s raised a $1b fund. That entitles you to a 2% annual “carry” on the fund: $20,000,000/year. But you’ve managed to buy and asset strip so many productive businesses that it’s now worth $5b. Your carry doesn’t go up fivefold. You could sell the company and collect your 20% commission — $800m — but you stop collecting that annual carry.

But what if you do both? Here’s how: you create a “continuation fund” — a fund that buys your old fund’s portfolio. Now you’ve got $5b under management and your carry quintuples, to $100m/year. Levine dryly notes that the FT calls this “a controversial type of transaction”:

https://www.ft.com/content/11549c33-b97d-468b-8990-e6fd64294f85

These deals “look like a pyramid scheme” — one fund flips its assets to another fund, with the same manager running both funds. It’s a way to make the pie bigger, but to decrease the share (in both real and proportional terms) going to the pension funds and other institutional investors who backed the fund.

A PE boss is supposed to be a fiduciary, with a legal requirement to do what’s best for their investors. But when the same PE manager is the buyer and the seller, and when the sale takes place without inviting any outside bidders, how can they possibly resolve their conflict of interest?

They can’t: 42% of continuation fund deals involve a sale at a value lower than the one that the PE fund told their investors the assets were worth. Now, this may sound weird — if a PE boss wants to set a high initial value for their fund in order to maximize their carry, why would they sell its assets to the new fund at a discount?

Here’s Levine’s theory: if you’re a PE guy going back to your investors for money to put in a new fund, you’re more likely to succeed if you can show that their getting a bargain. So you raise $1b, build it up to $5b, and then tell your investors they can buy the new fund for only $3b. Sure, they can get out — and lose big. Or they can take the deal, get the new fund at a 40% discount — and the PE boss gets $60m/year for the next ten years, instead of the $20m they were getting before the continuation fund deal.

PE is devouring the productive economy and making the world’s richest people even richer. The one bright light? The FTC and DoJ Antitrust Division just published new merger guidelines that would make the PE acquire/debt-load/asset-strip model illegal:

https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2023/07/ftc-doj-seek-comment-draft-merger-guidelines

The bad news is that some sneaky fuck just slipped a 20% FTC budget cut — $50m/year — into the new appropriations bill:

https://twitter.com/matthewstoller/status/1681830706488438785

They’re scared, and they’re fighting dirty.

I’m at San Diego Comic-Con!

Today (Jul 20) 16h: Signing, Tor Books booth #2802 (free advance copies of The Lost Cause — Nov 2023 — to the first 50 people!)

Tomorrow (Jul 21):

1030h: Wish They All Could be CA MCs, room 24ABC (panel)

12h: Signing, AA09

Sat, Jul 22 15h: The Worlds We Return To, room 23ABC (panel)

If you’d like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here’s a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/07/20/continuation-fraud/#buyout-groups

[Image ID: An old Punch editorial cartoon depicting a bank-robber sticking up a group of businesspeople and workers. He wears a bandanna emblazoned with dollar-signs and a top-hat.]

#pluralistic #buyout groups #continuation fraud #pe #pyramid schemes #the sucker at the table #pension plans #continuation funds #matt levine #fiduciaries #finance #private equity #mark to market #ripoffs

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bitchesgetriches · 1 month

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{ MASTERPOST } Everything You Need to Know about Investing for Beginners

Fundamentals of investing:

What’s the REAL Rate of Return on the Stock Market?

Do NOT Make This Disastrous Beginner Mistake With Your Retirement Funds

The Dark Magic of Financial Horcruxes: How and Why to Diversify Your Assets

Dafuq Is Interest? And How Does It Work for the Forces of Darkness?

Booms, Busts, Bubbles, and Beanie Babies: How Economic Cycles Work

When Money in the Bank Is a Bad Thing: Understanding Inflation and Depreciation

Investing Deathmatch series:

Investing Deathmatch: Managed Funds vs. Index Funds

Investing Deathmatch: Traditional IRA vs. Roth IRA

Investing Deathmatch: Investing in the Stock Market vs. Just… Not

Investing Deathmatch: Stocks vs. Bonds

Investing Deathmatch: Timing the Market vs. Time IN the Market

Investing Deathmatch: Paying off Debt vs. Investing in the Stock Market

Investing Deathmatch: What Happens in a Bull Market vs. a Bear Market

Now that we’ve covered the basics, are you ready to invest but don’t know where to begin? We recommend starting small with micro-investing through our partner Acorns. They’ll round up your purchases to the nearest dollar and invest the change in a nicely diversified portfolio of stocks, bonds, and ETFs. Easy as eating pancakes:

Start saving small with Acorns

Alternative investments:

Small Business Investing: A Kinder, Gentler Alternative to the Stock Market

Bullshit Reasons Not to Buy a House: Refuted

Investing in Cryptocurrency is Bad and Stupid

So I Got Chickens, Part 1: Return on Investment

Twelve Reasons Senior Pets Are an Awesome Investment

How To Save for Retirement When You Make Less Than $30,000 a Year

Understanding the stock market:

Ask the Bitches Pandemic Lightning Round: “Did Congress Really Give $1.5 Trillion to Wall Street?”

Season 3, Episode 2: “I Inherited Money. Should I Pay Off Debt, Invest It, or Blow It All on a Car?”

Money Is Fake and GameStop Is King: What Happened When Reddit and a Meme Stock Tanked Hedge Funds

Season 3, Episode 7: “I’m Finished With the Basic Shit. What Are the Advanced Financial Steps That Only Rich People Know?”

Wait… Did I Just Lose All My Money Investing in the Stock Market?

Season 4, Episode 1: “Index Funds Include Unethical Companies. Can I Still Invest in Them, or Does That Make Me a Monster?”

Retirement plans:

Dafuq Is a Retirement Plan and Why Do You Need One?

Procrastinating on Opening a Retirement Account? Here’s 3 Ways That’ll Fuck You Over

How to Painlessly Run the Gauntlet of a 401k Rollover

Ask the Bitches: “Can I Quit With Unvested Funds? Or Am I Walking Away From Too Much Money?”

Workplace Benefits and Other Cool Side Effects of Employment

You Need to Talk to Your Parents About Their Retirement Plan

Season 4, Episode 5: “401(k)s Aren’t Offered in My Industry. How Do I Save for Retirement if My Employer Won’t Help?”

Got a retirement plan already? How about three or four? Have you been leaving a trail of abandoned 401(k)s behind you at every employer you quit? Did we just become best friends? Because that was literally my story until recently. Our partner Capitalize will help you quickly and painlessly get through a 401(k) rollover:

Roll over your retirement fund with Capitalize

Recessions:

Season 1, Episode 12: “Should I Believe the Fear-Mongering about Another Recession?”

There’s a Storm a’Comin’: What We Know About the Next Recession

Ask the Bitches: How Do I Prepare for a Recession?

A Brief History of the 2008 Crash and Recession: We Were All So Fucked

Ask the Bitches Pandemic Lightning Round: “Is This the Right Time To Start Investing?”

#investing #how to invest #stock market #finance #personal finance #investing in stocks #retirement fund #retirement account #investing for beginners #investing 101

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phoenixyfriend · 1 month

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Ko-Fi prompt from Isabelo:

Hi! I'm new to the workforce and now that I have some money I'm worried it's losing its value to inflation just sitting in my bank. I wanted to ask if you have ideas on how to counteract inflation, maybe through investing?

I've been putting this off for a long time because...

I am not a finance person. I am not an investments person. I actually kinda turned and ran from that whole sector of the business world, at first because I didn't understand it, and then once I did understand it, because I disagreed with much of it on a fundamental level.

But... I can describe some factors and options, and hope to get you started.

I AM NOT LEGALLY QUALIFIED TO GIVE FINANCIAL ADVICE. THIS IS NOT FINANCIAL ADVICE.

What is inflation, and what impacts it?

Inflation is the rate at which money loses value over time. It's the reason something that cost 50 cents in the 1840s costs $50 now.

A lot of things do impact inflation, like housing costs and wage increases and supply chains, but the big one that is relevant here is federal interest rates. The short version: if you borrow money from the government, you have to pay it back. The higher the interest rates on those loans, the lower inflation is. This is for... a lot of reasons that are complicated. The reason I bring it up is less so:

The government offers investments:

So yeah, the feds can impact inflation, but they also offer investment opportunities. There are three common types available to the average person: Bonds, Bills, and Notes. I'll link to an article on Investopedia again, but the summary is as follows: You buy a bill, bond, or note from the government. You have loaned them money, as if you are the bank. Then, they give it back, with interest.

Treasury Bills: shortest timeframe (four weeks to a year), and lowest return on investment. You buy it at a discount (let's say $475), and then the government returns the "full value" that the bond is, nominally (let's say $500). You don't earn twice-yearly interest, but you did earn $25 on the basis of Loaning The Government Some Cash.

Treasury Notes: 2-10 year timeframe. Very popular, very stable. Banks watch it to see how they should plan the interest rates for mortgages and other large loans. Also pretty high liquidity, which means you can sell it to someone else if you suddenly need the cash before your ten-year waiting period is up. You get interest payments twice a year.

Treasury Bonds: 20-30 years. This is like... the inverse of a house mortgage. It takes forever, but it does have the highest yield. You get interest payments twice a year.

Why invest money into the US Treasury department, whether through the above or a different government paper? (Savings bonds aren't on sold the set schedule that treasury bonds are, but they only come in 30-year terms.)

It is very, very low risk. It is pretty much the lowest risk investment a person can make, at least in the US. (I'm afraid I don't know if you're American, but if you're not, your country probably has something similar.)

Interest rates do change, often in reaction or in relation to inflation. If your primary concern is inflation, not getting a high return on investment, I would look into government papers as a way to ensure your money is not losing value on you.

This is the website that tells you the government's own data for current yield and sales, etc. You can find a schedule for upcoming auctions, as well.

High-yield bank accounts:

Savings accounts can come with a pretty unremarkable but steady return on investment; you just need to make sure you find one that suits you. Some of the higher-yield accounts require a minimum balance or a yearly fee... but if you've got a good enough chunk of cash to start with, that might be worth it for you.

They are almost as reliable as government bonds, and are insured by the government up to $250,000. Right now, they come with a lower ROI than most bonds/bills/notes (federal interest rates are pretty high at the moment, to combat inflation). Unlike government papers, though, you can deposit and withdraw money from a savings account pretty much any time.

Certificates of Deposit:

Okay, imagine you are loaning money to your bank, with the fixed term of "I will get this money back with interest, but only in ten years when the contract is up" like the Treasury Notes.

That's what this is.

Also, Investopedia updates near-daily with the highest rates of the moment, which is pretty cool.

Property:

Honestly, if you're coming to me for advice, you almost definitely cannot afford to treat real estate as an investment thing. You would be going to an actual financial professional. As such... IDK, people definitely do it, and it's a standby for a reason, but it's not... you don't want to be a victim of the housing bubble, you know? And me giving advice would probably make you one. So. Talk to a professional if this is the route you want to take.

Retirement accounts:

Pension accounts are a kind of savings account. You've heard of a 401(k)? It's that. Basically, you put your money in a savings account with a company that specializes in pensions, and they invest it in a variety of different fields and markets (you can generally choose some of this) in order to ensure that the money grows enough that you can hopefully retire on it in fifty years. The ROI is usually higher than inflation.

These kinds of accounts have a higher potential for returns than bonds or treasury notes, buuuuut they're less reliable and more sensitive to market fluctuations.

However, your employer may pay into it, matching your contribution. If they agree to match up to 4%, and you pay 4% of your paycheck into an pension fund, then they will pay that same amount and you are functionally getting 8% of your paycheck put into retirement while only paying for half of it yourself.

Mutual Funds:

I've definitely linked this article before, but the short version is:

An investment company buys 100 shares of stock: 10 shares each in 10 different "general" companies. You, who cannot afford a share of each of these companies, buy 1 singular share of that investment company. That share is then treated as one-tenth of a share of each of those 10 "general" companies. You are one of 100 people who has each bought "one stock" that is actually one tenth of ten different stocks.

Most retirement funds are actually a form of mutual fund that includes employer contributions.

Pros: It's more stable than investing directly in the stock market, because you can diversify without having to pay the full price of a share in each company you invest in.

Cons: The investment company does get a cut, and they are... often not great influences on the economy at large. Mutual funds are technically supposed to be more regulated than hedge funds (which are, you know, often venture capital/private equity), but a lot of mutual funds like insurance companies and pension funds will invest a portion of their own money into hedge funds, which is... technically their job. But, you know, capitalism.

Directly investing in the stock market:

Follow people who actually know what they're doing and are not Evil Finance Bros who only care about the bottom line. I haven't watched more than a few videos yet, but The Financial Diet has had good energy on this topic from what I've seen so far, and I enjoy the very general trends I hear about on Morning Brew.

That said, we are not talking about speculative capital gains. We are talking about making sure inflation doesn't screw with you.

DIVIDENDS are profit that the company shares to investors every quarter. Did the company make $2 billion after paying its mortgages, employees, energy bill, etc? Great, that $2 billion will be shared out among the hundreds of thousands of stocks. You'll probably only get a few cents back per stock (e.g. Walmart has been trading at $50-$60 for the past six months, and their dividends have been 57 cents and then 20.75 cents), but it adds up... sort of. The Walmart example is listed as having dividends that are lower than inflation, so you're actually losing money. It's part of why people rely on capital gains so much, rather than dividends, when it comes to building wealth.

Blue Chip Stocks: These are old, stable companies that you can expect to return on your investment at a steady rate. You probably aren't going to see your share jump from $5 to $50 in a year, but you also probably won't see it do the reverse. You will most likely get reliable, if not amazing, dividends.

Preferred Stocks: These are stock shares that have more reliable dividends, but no voting rights. Since you are, presumably, not a billionaire that can theoretically gain a controlling share, I can't imagine the voting rights in a given company are all that important anyway.

Anyway, hope this much-delayed Intro To Investing was, if not worth the wait, at least, a bit longer than you expected.

Hey! You got interest on the word count! It's topical! Ish.

#economics #capitalism #phoenix talks #ko fi #ko fi prompts #research #business #investment #finance #treasury bonds #savings bonds #certificate of deposit #united states treasury #stocks #stock market #mutual funds #pension funds

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nocturnalazure · 3 months

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Author's note: Reference is made to the following scenes: (1), (2), (3)

#ts3 #sims 3 #sims 3 story #sims stories #tteot story #laurie golzine #omar ayad #muhammad al-saud #i'm sorry for going into details #i hate doing that #look i work in investment but imposter syndrome is kicking me hard #plus it's kind of difficult to make a plot look seamless when there is so much time between updates #in summary: laurie is managing a conglomerate including an investment fund of which noah is a partner #so laurie is a shareholder of a small tech company through that fund #he sold the antivirus via noah to that company as a solution to the virus he developed himself #when the stock market got hacked (by laurie) all companies rushed to get an anti-virus #but it also contained a spyware (also by laurie)#and this is how laurie's main business is now stealing data #laurie arc

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bennythe1980spaceman · 7 months

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Not a single day goes by where I don't think about Kaz accidentally saying Jordie instead of Jesper in the fight in Crooked Kingdom.

#six of crows spoilers #soc spoilers #I have so many thoughts about it #and none of my friends like six of crows #so you guys have to hear about it #we dont talk about the jordie and jesper connections enough I think.#Jesper who has a gambling addiction and often wastes money he knows he needs #Jordie who bet all their funds on the chance they'd make it back #I think a lot about the way wylan let jesper put money into the stock market at the end #Jesper is like Jordie only Kaz isn't afraid to blame him for things #And it only males the relationship between them worse because Jesper's constantly searching for the approval that Kaz is afraid to give him #Am I making sense?#these books make me insane #six of crows #jordie rietveld #jesper fahey #kaz brekker #soc jesper #soc #soc kaz #Throwing this into the void and never looking back

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clotpolesonly · 9 months

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i wonder what kind of money laundering scheme the Lynches had set up, cuz ain't nobody nowhere believed that that cattle farm would make them multi millions of dollars

#Niall Lynch #Declan Lynch #TRC #tags by me #i neeeeeeeed to know how Niall made his fairy market money look like normal legit income #and not illegal magical artifact trade and smuggling or whatever #cuz they ended up with $9 mil in trust for the kids and presumably a decent amount of money for regular usage and for Niall himself #a good amount in a business fund for whatever dealings needed dealing #how many off shore accounts did Niall have? did he pay taxes on anything?? how much can a herd of cows conceivably make???#he had to have had some shell companies and ''foreign investors'' and idk a bunch of laundromats in downtown henrietta or something #i'm already headcanoning that Declan ended up in charge of the operation by the time he was like 14 #his eye for detail would be invaluable in washing that money i'm just saying #and he would need to know everything to be able to keep it going once Niall was dead so he had to have been deeply involved #i'm just saying

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savagechickens · 2 months

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The Science.

And more science.

#science #marketing #research #sexy #funding

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the-cash-cache · 10 months

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The Goblin Market: the weirdest and most colorful cast of merchants you’ll ever meet!

Picture it: Sicily, 1922 my desk, 2023. I have just gotten back from a raucous day on the town, and am relaxing with my emotional support water bottle while browsing the internet in a sleep-deprived reverie. My mind wanders the dimly flashing streets of neural pathways, before being struck by the Truck of Realization that I have been derelict in my duty of talking about amazing ttrpg stuff!

I’ve talked about the Certified TERF Hated collection of NPCs The Goblin Market by my good friend @europaprisonmoon before here, and I believe it’s worth talking about again!

I’ll start off with this description from the itch.io page itself which perfectly encapsulates the colorful array of characters your party can meet:

The Goblin Market is a system agnostic collection of over fifty merchants, monsters and even stranger things which can be dropped into your campaign to add weirdness and magic for your players: retired river gods, escaped nightmares, tea merchants, wicker basket mechs, predatory graves, vengeful dragons seeking to raise an army to defeat tyrannical princesses, off-duty demons, magical roboticists, mystery cults, accidentally immortal witches, and many more.

This supplement is a treat to read, with Tryphosa Tucker Thimbling capturing my heart and mind from the moment I met her! A milliner with “fur like the finest humus” and piebald donkey ears adorned with beautiful golden bells, Tryphosa loves tea - of the drink and gossip varieties. Have you ever felt your PC was missing something? Some critical aspect leaving them sorely lacking? It is obviously that they need a hat from Tryphosa! Turn heads with a cap made of fantastical materials; you’ll never have to worry again about entering a bar/saloon/communal watering hole and facing someone with the same hat as you.

If for whatever reason Tryphosa doesn’t strike your fancy, why not a quartet of large albino rats joined at the tails? The Quartet (or was it once The Quintet?) sells uncandles, a perfect gift for the brooding rogue in your party! Fashioned from shadows and darkness, the uncandles will bring a comfortable gloom to any room.

Best of all, The Goblin Market is on sale for just under $8 until July 13th! That’s less than 16 cents per NPC. The NPCs are connected to each other, so you can throw as many or as few into your game, and you’ll never be at a loss for people your players can talk to!

#I couldn't pick up a copy when it released because I was low on funds #but I have a paycheck now and can treat myself #ttrpg #indie ttrpg #The Goblin Market #npc

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