LouisEly

Bosa down... hopefully something that keeps him out for a couple of weeks but doesn't end his career.

It actually was. No team in playoff history had ever scored a TD on every possession. Now, technically they didn't because they got the ball back with <2 minutes left and didn't score but they just did three kneel-downs.

Yeah, I hope that Creighton game doesn't come back to bite them come tourney selection time. Up three with less than three seconds left... you have to coach your team to foul if they have to in order to not allow a 3-point attempt. Ighodaro got the guard on the switch and the guard dribbled away; he had an opportunity to foul on the floor and prevent the 3-point shot, forcing them to miss a free throw, get a rebound, and make another shot to tie in less than two seconds.

The thing with housing is that while it only appreciates on average 2-3% per year, you capture the appreciation on borrowed money so the actual ROI is much higher. Say you bought a house years ago for $100K and put 20% down ($20K) and the house appreciates at an average of 2.5% per year. The first year it appreciates $2,500 ($100K x 2.5%) because it's 2.5% of the value, but you only invested $20K so the actual rate of return on your down payment is 12.5% ($2,500 divided by $20,000). On top of that, you deduct mortgage interest and property taxes on your tax returns and you net ~20-25% of what you pay in interest and taxes in income tax reductions, increasing the return to >12.5%. Now, that 2-3% appreciation per year is compounded. Let's say that $100K house has now doubled in value to $200k. It keeps appreciating at 2-3% per year, so now that 2.5% appreciation is $5,000 but your original down payment is still $20,000 so the rate of return on your down payment is now 25%. If you're in a hot location and it's appreciating at more like 4%/year... your rate of return is now 40%. You're correct in that maintenance and repairs needs to be factored in, reducing the returns. But you also have to factor in opportunity cost, in that if you were to rent that home your rent would have doubled over that time as well. Let's say rent on that $100K home was $750/mo, but since the value has doubled now rent might be $1,500/mo. You're "saving" $750/mo on rent now, or $9,000 per year, by locking in your housing payment, offsetting the maintenance expense. Where you lose in real estate is selling and giving up 5-6% of the value in real estate commissions. Years ago I ran something like this on a spreadsheet factoring in loan principal reduction/equity building, appreciation, income tax savings, and estimated maintenance/repairs and I think the net ROI on the down payment was ~14-15%/year. If I could lock in stock market returns at 14% per year I would take that in a heartbeat.

I think my router is going as I'm getting widely varying internet speeds lately. I thought it was the cable modem which I replaced yesterday and initially got better speeds, but tonight I'm getting 20% of the speed I was this morning/yesterday and my laptop is cutting in and out of the 5GHz wifi signal but seems to be stable on the 2.4GHz wifi signal. I've reset the router several times the last few weeks but still getting widely varying speeds. Might be the perfect time to get a mesh wifi system that I've been looking at for a while. The problem is that my condo is long and narrow and I'll have to put one of the extenders in a hallway. In the middle of my unit is a concrete stairway fire escape, through which wifi signals don't go through real well. Unfortunately the ones with extenders that plug into outlets either don't have good reviews or are very expensive, and the outlets I have are horizontal and the extender-holders that mount on outlets don't work well in horizontal outlets. I can put one on a shelf in front of a window, but the window faces west and is glass-block and gets ungodly hot in the summer and the shelf is recessed into the wall so I don't know if the wall will block the signal. I don't know that I want to mess up my wall mounting something either. Wondering what mesh systems people would recommend if you had to place an extender in a hallway like that. Also, not sure I trust the Google or Amazon mesh systems to not be "listening" to me.

It’s the 85 scholarships. That’s a lot. Even FCS schools can offer 65 scholarships. If parity were their objective (it’s not), drop the scholarship limit to 50 and teams like Alabama and Ohio State couldn’t stash 4 and 5-star recruits on the bottom of their rosters. Yep. I don't know about dropping it to 50, but 70-75 with max of 20 scholarships per class would be a good start. Football has a lot of injuries, so 50 I think would be too small and impact overall quality of play.

No, mortgages are compounded monthly - what you pay is the interest rate divided by 12 each month on the remaining balance, not the interest rate times the balance divided by 12. And HELOCs aren't a second mortgage - they leverage the equity in your home, so you can only take out a fraction of your home's appraised value. I'm a year into my refinance of ~$400K and a $25K HELOC, if applied to my mortgage balance, cuts almost $33K of interest payments off the top - I jump from month 13 to month 47 on the loan payment schedule. HELOCs have a 10-year draw period during which you only have to pay simple interest, which on the $25K is a little over $90/mo, then a 20-year payback period. I would need to pay that $90/mo for 360+ months to break even on the interest payments I save jumping from month 13 to month 47. Not only do I skip the interest payments, I jump forward to paying more towards the principal each month, faster increasing my equity. Now, with the HELOC over the 10-year draw period you pay whatever extra you are comfortable with (say, $400/mo) each month towards the HELOC balance and then in a couple of months you draw on the HELOC up to your limit again and pay an extra ~$1000 on your mortgage principal (which for me would knock another month+ of payments off of the mortgage). Rinse and repeat for 10 years and you'll knock about every fourth payment off of your schedule, skipping another 36 payments, then you have up to 20 years to pay back the HELOC balance ($25K at 5% interest over 10 years is $265/mo, so you can continue to pay an extra $135/mo towards the principal without increasing your total monthly payment towards the mortgage or pay the HELOC off in 6 years at $400/mo.) In my scenario, after 10 years you'll have knocked ~70 payments off of your loan. You can't do that paying that $400 towards the principal. You can also refi after 10 years, lump in and pay off the HELOC, and probably get a shorter term or lower payment for the remaining term because your balance will be so low.

I'm curious as to where and how the guy intercepted it in the mail. I've seen several reports on the local news about this happening in some of the Chicago suburbs. I had a new credit card mailed to me that the Post Office scanned in (I signed up for a USPS account that sends me images of mail when they scan it it, usually a day or two before I receive it) but I never received it and I have a locked mailbox - only I and the postal delivery person have a key.

Agree w/Nate above. If you buy a $500K house, put 20% down, and finance $400K at 4.5%, over 30 years you'll pay almost ~$330K in interest over the life of the loan. If you invest $400/mo over 360 months and earn 5% interest, you'll be sitting on a little over $330K, so about break even. However, if your mortgage is at 3.25% you'll only pay ~$230K in interest, but if you invest that $400/mo and earn 7% interest you'll be sitting on almost $500K. At 8% return, almost $600K. If you really, really want to pay down your mortgage there is a better way than making extra payments - get a HELOC, use the HELOC to buy down your mortgage principal, and then make your extra payments towards your HELOC, rinse and repeat. Replace compound interest with simple interest that is still tax deductible. There's software that will calculate it for you: The Shred Method

Is this factual? I think that is maybe what it was in the past, but I was told it changed. Yes, but that's starting with the taxes you file in 2023 for sales in 2022. Doesn't affect sales in 2021 and taxes you pay in 2022.

If Preston Smith get a sack, will his $750k bonus count toward next season then?

I think this is more relevant to the discussion: https://marcnelsonoil.com/the-pros-and-cons-of-non-ethanol-gas/

I think my parents bought their first house in the early 70's for ~$10,000. They stayed in it until 2009. Interest rates were high back then, but they refinanced along the way and by the 90's their housing payment was nothing compared to their income so they could start investing. That investing and minuscule house payment allowed them to buy a small lake house (2 very small BRs, couldn't have been more than 1000 sq ft) in the early/mid 2000s. The rise in property values along with the drop in interest rates has given many people who bought homes in the 70's and 80's an incredible amount of equity and ability to invest. There are many like them who can buy a new house in retirement because of the equity they've built and not have a big mortgage. That being said, my parent's financial advisor has been great about educating them to allocate their money to the highest interest rates and keeping a mortgage at 3% and putting their money in investments making 7-10% and use the yield from their investments to pay their refi mortgage. If people are financially savvy and secure, they should have a mortgage. For me, my rental properties will be paid off in 14 years, roughly when I will retire, and I'll sell those and use that to purchase my retirement home. They're worth almost $500k right now, so in retirement I should be able to buy the equivalent of a $500K home today and not have a mortgage (if I don't want one, depending on interest rates).

Bakh and Myers expected to play against DET, Jaire ruled out.

Yes the burning of ethanol does produce less emissions. But that doesn't account for all the emissions that have to occur in order to produce ethanol, nor the greater environmental impacts such as deforestation, erosion, pollution and water use that come with the inflated corn or cane production. Has that been compared to the emissions/pollution and environmental impact of drilling and transporting oil? Corn and cane can grow a lot more places than what produces usable oil, so there are less transportation costs (economic and environmental). Plus, if a truck full of corn overturns there is minimal if any environmental impact. An oil spill... not so much.

I'd love to get one in 2-3 years, but the ones with a long enough range to get to my family in cold weather might be too big to fit in the narrow, short garage I share with my downstairs neighbor. The Cadillac Lyriq looks like it's only 8" longer and 2" wider than my Lincoln MKX, so that might be an option, but I'll need one with a real-world cold-weather range of over 200 miles. Depending on where the front doors of the Lyriq are located, my neighbor might not be able to open her storage unit. Whether I can fit a charger in the garage is another thing. That being said, now that I'm working from home I only put on ~5000 miles last year. I was able to go a year without an oil change. I spent less than $1000 on gas.

How is it better for the environment? Everything I read says adding ethanol results in less emissions. It also costs more, so does it really give you a net better fuel economy?

Do elaborate, please. I'm quite fond of the new Kwik Trip in Kenosha right off of I-94 & Hwy 50 as I believe they are the only gas station at that exit that offers E15 gas. My understanding is that E15 burns cleaner, thus less CO2 emissions, in addition to offering slightly more fuel efficiency and power and being slightly cheaper. I go to the BP at that exit on the way up to WI as my Mariano's/Kroger-chain fuel rewards knocks as much as $0.30/gallon off of the price, but on the way back I get E15 at that Kwik Trip before crossing into the much more heavy gas-taxed IL.

$3.2B in crypto-currency stolen in 2021, up >500% over 2020, 72% from defi platforms. I'd rather hold indirect in an ETF or OTC than directly hold currency.

I think what you're really saying is that 3-6/4-5 matchups will be more competitive than watching Alabama or Georgia play 3/4 seeds.

Maybe Cephus and Coan (and a healthy Davis and Pryor) are that good.

I think the playoff has proven that the old way probably wasn't all that broken. Yeah it lead to some seasons where there was some controversy, but this isn't all that better (if at all) This is dumb and unnecessary. It will be hard for anyone to convince me that the playoff games have generated a better product than the non-playoff bowl games the last few days. Every year in the middle of the season people chirp about expanding the playoffs, and every year by the time we get to the championship game it has been proven that no more than four schools belong in the playoffs, if that.

Is Ohio State down to walk-ons on defense?

I've lived in the LA, NYC, and Chicago areas and have been all over the country (55 different airports in the United States). I can tell you that what is bolded above is not true. When people find out I'm from WI and we talk about football, many people view Lambeau Field as a destination stadium and have a strong desire to go to a game there. Lambeau field is to a football fan every bit what Fenway Park is to a baseball fan. I've never heard that about the Rose Bowl stadium. The Rose Bowl stadium is a place to go to watch the Rose Bowl game and people have a desire to go to the game, but it is not a destination stadium - nobody talks about the stadium. I would not be surprised if it stops hosting the Rose Bowl in the very near future now that they have SoFi stadium. It's hosted Super Bowls by default because of a lack of other options, but it will never host another one. I wouldn't put the Rose Bowl stadium as the most iconic stadium in LA - I'd go with the Coliseum before the Rose Bowl.

Word is that Coan and/or his family wanted a commitment from PC that Coan would be the starter and PC wouldn't make that commitment. I read that as PC is not the type of coach who will guarantee anyone a starting spot the next season.