Be grateful that your circumstances were such that you didn't need to advise them to stick it on a credit card and carry a balance? More seriously, I'm pretty sure most people who had the means would do similar. I'm glad I'm not exposed to the US healthcare serpents.
Temporary and insignificant only because you are stubbornly refusing to grasp the core premise. You are in favour of good financial education but because this concept is not part of your personal Quinnonomics you are trying to reject it which is putting out bad financial education. Dividends are not free money. They cost a business real cash which could be being deployed to generate further growth and hence an enhanced share price. The idea that dividend or income stocks are in some way superior is old and largely redundant financial thinking also. They fill an emotional need for some investors who are less neuroplastic regarding accepting the fundamental fungibility of money when it comes to investing.
That is not a total portfolio approach. Your total portfolio includes everything like real estate you don't live in, pensions, SS - all sources of income and assets you can liquidate.
Yup sounds like the UK offset mortgage which is a really useful tool, essentially overpay as much as you want then those payments sit in a offset savings account reducing the amount of principal for interest calcs. Term is unaffacted. Guess you can technically carry an almost nil mortgage balance to term.
Your idea might be sound but just by mentioning Congress you've illustrated that your thinking is too narrow. AI is not just a American risk it's a global risk and any one country having a killswitch may not be enough. Plus in a world of highly vested interests and politicians in the pockets of corporations etc the question of vesting authority to exercise a killswitch in an individual etc is itself problematic. But then multinational consensus is the work of many years to achieve and mankind may not survive that long if rogue AI really gets going. I'm pretty fatalistic about the whole thing. I'm pretty sure the tech bros already will be hightailing to their bunkers in New Zealand before the rest of the world gets a whiff that the chain reaction has started. In the meantime it's the perfect engine for capitalism to eat the ordinary working public and create a global non-working class.
If you've taken cash and born tax on it but otherwise left it unutilized wouldn't it be net better for your heirs to achieve a step up in basis on higher value stock if the company had never paid dividends? Not saying that as a rather prosaic utility it would have found better applications of the cash internally of course. There is a reason some companies pay dividends after all.
Sounds very much like an AI clickbait headline. Has Quinn been subsumed by Anthropic? Overblown reaction to a poll? Check Condemnation of the less fortunate? Check Believing himself to be the arbiter of financial savviness? Check
Yours is a purely emotional response not a logical economic one. Which you niftily illustrate by the issue of reinvesting divs back in the same stock - a bunch of admin friction and tax leakage with no direct benefit. Absent emotion it's only tax arbitrage that possibly makes divs better than disposals if needed for cashflow. Which yours isn't anyway. Now if they are effectively a slow rebalance into cash which you wanted anyway happy days but seems unlikely you're that sort of planner.
I must admit when you state your job sector my immediate reaction is - so why not just be retired? As Mr Quinn says that totally reframes the problem and allows you to explore other opportunities as they come up. Now you might have personal financial circumstances that prevent that but if you don't you've got the whole of the rest of your life to live outside of being defined by what you earned.
Comments
Be grateful that your circumstances were such that you didn't need to advise them to stick it on a credit card and carry a balance? More seriously, I'm pretty sure most people who had the means would do similar. I'm glad I'm not exposed to the US healthcare serpents.
Post: What would you do if you received this text from your child as I did this morning?
Link to comment from September 18, 2026
Not intending to put out education. Yet you started a whole thread specifically to throw shade on Mr Pfau, whose work is pretty valuable in the field.
Post: I will still take the dividends
Link to comment from September 16, 2026
Temporary and insignificant only because you are stubbornly refusing to grasp the core premise. You are in favour of good financial education but because this concept is not part of your personal Quinnonomics you are trying to reject it which is putting out bad financial education. Dividends are not free money. They cost a business real cash which could be being deployed to generate further growth and hence an enhanced share price. The idea that dividend or income stocks are in some way superior is old and largely redundant financial thinking also. They fill an emotional need for some investors who are less neuroplastic regarding accepting the fundamental fungibility of money when it comes to investing.
Post: I will still take the dividends
Link to comment from September 16, 2026
That is not a total portfolio approach. Your total portfolio includes everything like real estate you don't live in, pensions, SS - all sources of income and assets you can liquidate.
Post: Total portfolio approach?
Link to comment from September 15, 2026
Yup sounds like the UK offset mortgage which is a really useful tool, essentially overpay as much as you want then those payments sit in a offset savings account reducing the amount of principal for interest calcs. Term is unaffacted. Guess you can technically carry an almost nil mortgage balance to term.
Post: Locking it in
Link to comment from September 14, 2026
Your idea might be sound but just by mentioning Congress you've illustrated that your thinking is too narrow. AI is not just a American risk it's a global risk and any one country having a killswitch may not be enough. Plus in a world of highly vested interests and politicians in the pockets of corporations etc the question of vesting authority to exercise a killswitch in an individual etc is itself problematic. But then multinational consensus is the work of many years to achieve and mankind may not survive that long if rogue AI really gets going. I'm pretty fatalistic about the whole thing. I'm pretty sure the tech bros already will be hightailing to their bunkers in New Zealand before the rest of the world gets a whiff that the chain reaction has started. In the meantime it's the perfect engine for capitalism to eat the ordinary working public and create a global non-working class.
Post: The Ultimate Tail Risk
Link to comment from September 14, 2026
If you've taken cash and born tax on it but otherwise left it unutilized wouldn't it be net better for your heirs to achieve a step up in basis on higher value stock if the company had never paid dividends? Not saying that as a rather prosaic utility it would have found better applications of the cash internally of course. There is a reason some companies pay dividends after all.
Post: I will still take the dividends
Link to comment from September 14, 2026
Sounds very much like an AI clickbait headline. Has Quinn been subsumed by Anthropic? Overblown reaction to a poll? Check Condemnation of the less fortunate? Check Believing himself to be the arbiter of financial savviness? Check
Post: Americans are rushing to collect Social Security. The reason is disturbing
Link to comment from September 13, 2026
Yours is a purely emotional response not a logical economic one. Which you niftily illustrate by the issue of reinvesting divs back in the same stock - a bunch of admin friction and tax leakage with no direct benefit. Absent emotion it's only tax arbitrage that possibly makes divs better than disposals if needed for cashflow. Which yours isn't anyway. Now if they are effectively a slow rebalance into cash which you wanted anyway happy days but seems unlikely you're that sort of planner.
Post: I will still take the dividends
Link to comment from September 13, 2026
I must admit when you state your job sector my immediate reaction is - so why not just be retired? As Mr Quinn says that totally reframes the problem and allows you to explore other opportunities as they come up. Now you might have personal financial circumstances that prevent that but if you don't you've got the whole of the rest of your life to live outside of being defined by what you earned.
Post: Being terminated…
Link to comment from September 13, 2026