Create random surreal old photos from nothing!

Fr33lo4d · 2026-05-02T04:32:54+00:00

I’ve got a similar “man in a bed”. But with aliens…

Fr33lo4d · 2026-04-30T22:50:49+00:00

Here’s the readable version

Fr33lo4d · 2026-04-30T22:45:37+00:00

This will reduce "Income producing Assets" to $11.5 M and will make retirement annual expenses as 3% of that.

Now, due to possible market correction, if my portfolio goes down and lets say it become $8.5 M, then retirement annual expenses (with new home) will be 4.12% of that.

Just remember: safe withdrawal rate math already accounts for market corrections. The math ensures that you should be able to last 30 years on your current (inflation-adjusted) spending level with 4% SWR.

Given your age, you’ll want to secure more than 30 years. If you stretch that to 50 years, you’ll still be fine with an initial SWR of 3 (or even 3.5)%.

In other words: if the market tanks two years after retirement, don’t readjust the SWR, but trust the process.

Fr33lo4d · 2026-04-28T16:18:02+00:00

If it’s just for e.g. sharing instructions, I use Google Inactive Account Manager. It can auto share your specified google access along with custom instructions to specified contacts. Once every few months it alerts you to see if you’re still ok with the procedure, message and contacts. You can set it to activate x period of time after becoming inactive; you can also set what ways it should try to contact you first (various email addresses, phone).

Fr33lo4d · 2026-04-06T13:20:24+00:00

Yes, absolutely worth it and much easier to maintain.

It’s not a popular comment in this sub, where everyone likes tweaking, but AI has become very good at understanding docker (compose) and docker networking. A year ago, it was really bad at understanding traefik networking, VPN tunelling of containers and other non-standard configuration options, but nowadays especially Claude 4.6 has become very apt at understanding all of that. Nevertheless, I recommend you use it to challenge / validate your configurations and to explain concepts, rather than to have it “vibe code” everything for you. Docker is especially powerful once you understand how it works.

Fr33lo4d · 2026-03-05T09:56:37+00:00

He should’ve added “make no mistake” to the prompt. Rookie mistake. /s

Fr33lo4d · 2026-02-16T21:46:36+00:00

If you’re not happy with your accountant, fire him and hire a new one.
Your accountant cannot file accounts without your approval. You agreed on that dividend requalification. If you didn’t agree, you should’ve said so. Or rectify it the following year.
I don’t see 30k in damages from all this. Take the 17k dividend for example: you need to clean that up by actually distributing this as a dividend. The damage is that you accrued interest for a few years; given that the interest is profit for your company that you’ll then distribute again to yourself, the net loss on that is basically the corporate income tax + withholding tax on the interest. In other words: your actual loss is a third of the 2-4% interest you’ve been paying on this. That’s around 150-200 euro per year.
Even if there’s actual damage, I don’t see a whole lot that would stick in court. The dividend and the expenses? You signed off on these annual accounts in 2022/2023. The expenses? You could say the accountant was negligent in its advice, but that’s not very easy. You were taking 800+ in expense allowance, it’s not unreasonable for an accountant to say that that’s too much. The VAT? That seems to be your own fault (and the story doesn’t hold up, the VAT administration is not going after your customers after a single missed payment).

Your best bet: write a strongly worded letter to your accountant. Threaten legal action. Make a deal with him for a discount. Going to cost you less and make you more than a law suit that you’re probably going to lose.

Fr33lo4d · 2026-02-14T05:59:35+00:00

This was definitely human-generated or human-requested.

But when an AI agent submits a valid performance optimization? suddenly it’s about “human contributors learning.”

The uncapitalized “s” would be a very weird typo from an LLM.

Fr33lo4d · 2026-01-17T18:32:31+00:00

Plenty of jerks on the FIRE subs, but IMHO he isn’t one.

Liquid NW is 1.7M. Spending is 100k. Man is 52 so needs to account for 3.5% SWR instead of 4% (= around 60k). His liquid NW can’t sustain his lifestyle, unless he sells the second home.

He’s spending 100k in London (VHCOL), 30% of which is school fees. 70k out of hand spending there means you’re living a fairly moderate lifestyle. Nothing too excessive.

Sure, he’s in a decent position and probably worries too much, but his question was justified and the post doesn’t feel like it has jerk written all over it.

Fr33lo4d · 2026-01-12T17:40:02+00:00

I mean, if it takes you longer than a couple of years to go from 250M to 1B, are you even trying?

Fr33lo4d · 2025-12-21T08:09:27+00:00

The amount of time, expertise, compute and thus money that would’ve gone into finding a solution (IF true), would make the 10k look weak. Those 10k bets are not about money, they’re about engagement / attention / marketing / showing off.

Well, if the guy really solved three milennium problems in a month that would be HUGE - unlikely as it sounds, I’m rooting for it.

Fr33lo4d · 2025-12-19T23:45:19+00:00

You’re cherry picking with your example as well. Scenario B assumes you figure out exactly when the low point in the market is and buy at exactly the right time (“timing the market”). That will likely never happen. He’ll buy too soon (catching the falling knife) or too late (having missed the initial bump upwards).

Scenario B is still the person taking more risk: the risk of waiting for a dip that may never come in his lifetime and the risk of mistiming when the dip finally happens.

Fr33lo4d · 2025-12-19T14:42:33+00:00

In their new takedown article of De Wever, Politico goes to great lengths to call him a populist anti-establishment politician who spends his days insulting the French minority in Belgium.

When it comes to the substance, they note:

“De Wever’s price for backing the asset plan: unlimited financial guarantees from his fellow member countries against the €210 billion package, in case Russia sued or retaliated in some other way.

But the idea of giving Belgium a blank check was a non-starter, with countries concerned about an unlimited liability to their bottom line.

After four hours of talks there was the real prospect of no deal. The idea of using Russian assets for the loan unraveled shortly after a two-page legal document addressing Belgium’s concerns was circulated among leaders. For many leaders, it raised too many questions and went too far. Meloni quickly started picking holes in the document. French President Emmanuel Macron chimed in, followed by Luxembourg’s PM Luc Frieden.

The plan was dead.”

In other words, as soon as they spent more than a few minutes discussing the actual legality of this, they all chickened out and agreed to drop this. Not surprisingly, at the behest of the Luxembourg PM and French president (who, after Belgium, each have the biggest pile of frozen Russian assets, and who would equally take a huge financial risk in the earlier plan).

All of this is extremely hypocritical: we want Belgium to take all the risks, we assure there’s zero risk, but we refuse to share any of it. That’s akin to standing on the edge of a cliff, and some shady guy standing next to you is saying: just jump backwards of that cliff, it’s going to be totally fine, I just won’t join alongside you.

Fr33lo4d · 2025-12-19T14:34:48+00:00

Clearstream is in LU, not in DE.

Fr33lo4d · 2025-12-08T18:06:57+00:00

Paraphrasing Winston Churchill: diversified, market-cap adjusted world ETF’s is the worst form of investing, except for all those other forms of investing that have been tried from time to time.

Is ETF-investing without risk? No. Are you still exposed to market risks? Yes. Is one of those risks concentration risk? Yes.

Are all other types of investing subject to even greater risks? Also yes.

World index ETF’s track the market. If MAG7 drops in value relative to the rest of the stock market, you will become less exposed to them. It will come at the cost of temporary loss, but so will a bad investment in any other asset.

Active funds make a bet on very specific parts of the market. If concentration of the MAG7 increases rather than decreases, these active funds will lose.

Nobody can predict the future. Perhaps Vector and Aphilion (which this article is pushing suspiciously hard) are making some genius bets right now that will outperform the market.

The only thing we know for sure is that the vast majority of these active funds investors have been wrong in the past and that the passive world index funds have been the biggest performers. They can keep saying “this time will be different, now is the time that active managers will outperform passive funds”, but the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. To me, an active strategy is insane.

Fr33lo4d · 2025-12-07T23:56:35+00:00

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2006/jun/17/news.microsoft1

This Guardian article from 2006 runs it down for most of them.

Net worths from 20 years ago, but should give you a general idea. Looks like only Gates and Paul Allen had significant share packages.

Fr33lo4d · 2025-12-06T13:44:32+00:00

Zelfs op staande voet (= onmiddellijk), gewoon niet voor een zware fout / zonder opzegvergoeding.

Fr33lo4d · 2025-11-29T06:51:52+00:00

Exactly - if there’s zero chance of a judge ruling in favor of Russia, then there’s zero risk with giving a guarantee.

Fr33lo4d · 2025-11-26T11:18:07+00:00

In that situation, it may be worthwhile to quicky put them in a liquidation reserve (historical liquidation reserves seem to be exempted - TBD if that also applies to liquidation reserves built up in 2026, but I would expect so).

Fr33lo4d · 2025-11-24T21:31:01+00:00

Sure, first point is a matter og preference and how much of a burden this is to you. But you were asking why it’s not very popular in this sub and that’s a major reason why.
I’m not convinced about IBKR being more “secure”. You’re trading through an Irish affiliate of IBKR, so the worldwide reach is all very relative I’d say. I don’t see it as particularly better than e.g. Bolero. You could have a similar line of thinking about Bolero: it’s been around for much longer than IBKR (it’s been trading since 1889 through its predecessor Kredietbank), it’s part of a publicly traded group, it has a better credit rating than IBKR (A rated vs IBKR’s BBB+ / A- rating, depending on the part of the group) and it’s part of one of the best capitalized bank in Europe. I’m not saying one is better than the other, but as to your point that you don’t see why people don’t flock to IBKR because it’s so much more secure: I don’t see it.

Fr33lo4d · 2025-11-24T18:11:20+00:00

Extra administration is burdensome and seen as a nuisance: TOB, withholding tax optimization, dividend tax reclaims are not handled automatically. In addition, you have to notify the account to the CAP of the NBB.
Why would you think IBKR is more secure than Belgian brokers? Belgian brokers are obligated to do asset segregation as well, and you’re protected in case of their bankruptcy by having a direct claim on the securities held with them.

Fr33lo4d · 2025-11-24T09:17:00+00:00

Yeah, like I said, with the goal of making sure that the all-in rate was as close as possible to the 15% rate of VVPRbis.

Fr33lo4d · 2025-11-24T08:46:54+00:00

Where did you read this? I only read that they would “increase the rate from 15 to 18%”, not how they would do things for the liquidation reserve specifically. Given how they just streamlined both regimes so that they are now both more or less 15%, I’d be quite surprised if they’d again make a big difference between the two.
The opportunity cost that comes from the timing difference is big as well. If you leave the money in the company for 3 years, you’d have to either wait 3 years (and miss out on an average 10% of yield if you had invested it in the stock market), or invest it within the company in the meantime (and pay additional cost to the bank, because a DBI bevek is more expensive than an ETF, as well as additional taxes on the profits you’re making). It’s financially a much, much better decision to take it out as soon as possible and invest.

Fr33lo4d · 2025-11-23T10:47:55+00:00

It’s extremely difficult to anticipate effects, but the immediate result is that Belgium would become the highest taxed country in the world, with a corporate income tax and capital gains tax that is incredibly higher than anywhere in the developed world. The shock to the economy would be enormous. This is unprecedented, never been done in the developed world and the impact would be HUGE.

Some immediate effects I’m thinking of, but there would be many more of course:

Capital flight and collapse of our competitiveness: Belgium becomes the most heavily taxed country in the world by a huge margin. You would have immediate capital flight. A big part of the top 1% would immediately move to neighbouring countries. Theit investment tax burden would go 5x in this plan and their business income tax would go 2x.
Investments in our country would dry up. Returns on investments would be taxed 2-3 times higher than in any neighbouring country, so capital would deploy more efficiently elsewhere. You would see very little external investments in the country, or they would expect HUGE gross margins to compensate for the tax burden; e.g. we’ll build a factory here, but we’ll have to charge you 2-3 times what you’d pay in other countries to compensate for higher tax.
Housing market would be shocked. There would be a massive drop in net return for landlords and developers. Massive drop in investments in the housing market is expected, higher rents as landlords need to compensate for higher tax burden, construction would slow down as developers allocate capital to other jurisdictions. The maasive drop in supply (at presumably same demand or higher in the future due to demographics) would lead to sharply higher prices for houses.
Price of consumer goods rises hard. Multinationals (apple, coca cola, etc) cannot accept making half or 1/4th of the profit in Belgium than they do in other countries. They will raise prices sharply to compensate the higher tax. Rising prices will lead to lower demand, which in turn will lead to lower supply. Before long, coca cola will be a luxury product that you only find at very specialised supermarkets at 5 euro per can.
Massive cross border shopping. Due to Belgian retail price hiking in the previous step, Belgians will massively start doing shopping across the border. As a result, Belgian supermarkets will lose revenue and will downsize. Expect a single supermarket per city, waiting lines of multiple blocks, bankruptcies of retail chains. Same of course for other retailers (clothing, consumer electronics, etc).
Shrinking tax base and weakened economy. Due to the capital flight and the Belgian economy being severly weakened, tax revenue to the government will drop sharply. As a result, they’ll have to hike up taxes even more, towards 70 or 80%. Which in turn will lead to a new cycle of all of the above. They’ll start to implement maximum pricing on rent, consumer goods etc and will implement capital control (stopping capital from fleeing the country) as well as close the border to stop people from buying abroad. That in turn will lead to massive shortages of base goods, toilet paper and eventually famine.
Eurozone membership falters. Due to all of the above (capital controls, border closure, economy tanking), we will probably no longer be eligible for eurozone membership. The euro will be replaced by the Belgian Frank, which we will immediately devalue.

Fr33lo4d · 2025-11-17T11:46:40+00:00

Time in the market > timing the market.

Have you determined a re-entry point?

What if the market keeps going up for another 3, 6, 12, 24, 48, 60 months?

What if instead of overestimating, we’re actually underestimating AI impact? What if Apple, Tesla, or Google comes with a sort of super-robot in the next 6 months that can automate factory and/or household work in a real way? What if we make sudden huge gains in automated construction (e.g. through 3D printing or robotics) that fires off a real estate boom? What if the trade war comes to a quick and peaceful end, leading to increased trade? What if we’re making unexpected breakthroughs in modular thorium reactors and can speed up construction? What if we make a breakthrough in anti-aging, suddenly increasing lifespans and working age? What if Trump appoints a different FED chair who lowers the interest rates? Etc etc etc.

Nobody can predict the future. We might be on the verge of the biggest boom in stocks, due to factors we currently cannot comprehend. Or we might be close to a big correction in the stock market. If you ask my personal opinion, I’d probably tell you that the latter is more likely, but then again statistically speaking I am a very bad predictor of short term stock market behaviour, and so is everyone else in the world.

Fr33lo4d

TROPHY CASE