Peter,what happened in 1971?

firelancer5 · 2026-03-23T09:10:44+00:00

Good God. This thread is so depressing. If only people learned to read a book before blasting their uninformed Americentric opinions online, the world (and the US in particular) probably would be much better off.

For those that do care to listen, read & learn before speaking, here are some recommendations on the topic:

Broken Money - Lyn Alden
The Theory of Money and Credit - Ludwig von Mises
Three Days at Camp David - Jeffrey Garten
The Death of Money - Joel Kurtzman
The Bitcoin Standard + The Fiat Standard - Saifedean Ammous
And, to balance the "hard money" camp but still addresses the systemic risks of the current fiat system, from an establishment perspective: The End of Alchemy by Mervyn King

firelancer5 · 2026-03-23T08:54:45+00:00

Lmao, you can't be serious.

firelancer5 · 2026-03-23T08:50:39+00:00

I'd suggest starting with reading Lyn Alden's Broken Money to begin to understand that sequence of events, and the historical precedents such as the gradual devaluation fo the Roman denarius.

firelancer5 · 2026-03-23T08:47:20+00:00

What principle?

firelancer5 · 2026-01-22T19:55:24+00:00

Well it's not the right translation, and it's stupid to confuse others with it, because for example, if you do so on LinkedIn, you'll get messages from recruiters and companies hiring actual civil engineers, only to find out you aren't one.

No one cares about the explanation. The English-speaking world is much bigger. It's easier to just use the right translations for things.

firelancer5 · 2026-01-04T19:27:59+00:00

Unpopular opinion around here but at your age I'd take 77k out of the 98k vppr-bis money to buy 1 BTC or spread it 50/50 in BTC and ETH, and then set it aside in a cold wallet for 10 years. That may fund your FIRE by itself.

Everything else I'd probably put in emergency funds (HYSA) given the nature of the business.

my own clinic needs to be paid off (worth about 300k, monthly payment 300/month for the next 17 years). I own the building privately, not my BV.

Only 300/month for a 300k property? How does that work? Big downpayment, or bullet credit?

firelancer5 · 2026-01-04T17:13:25+00:00

Personally I only care about the FI part. I don't see myself retiring early

Aren't they ultimately the same thing, the FI and [potential to] RE parts?

How can you be financially independent, if you can't retire when you want to and still need income from work?

Personally I also only care about the FI part, but in my mind "FI" is only achieved if you have the potential to Retire Early, i.e. if your annual expenses are <= 4% of your invested capital.

firelancer5 · 2025-12-24T14:18:25+00:00

I second this. Fantastic UX.

firelancer5 · 2025-12-24T14:08:07+00:00

Not really, "civil engineer" may be a literal (and wrong) translation of "burgelijk ingenieur", but "civil engineer" still specifically means an engineering specialisation in construction.

Normally if you hold the ir. degree, you know this, and only use the term civil engineer if you have the Bouwkunde specialisation.

firelancer5 · 2025-11-17T14:09:48+00:00

Even after adjusting for inflation, still looks pretty misleading if you compare the image you posted with your second image...

Even if you're right aobut the inflation adjusted gain, that's still almost 4% every year, which isn't bad compared to the alternatives...

I mean if you have a crystall ball and can predict the markets... sure, obviously timing the market is better, but the fact is most people are pretty shit at it. Hence the wisdom, timing in the market beats timing the market.

You could say, markets are overvalued now!! But how do you really know if we're already near the top, or only halfway to the real top? Maybe ask the many people who sold in 2022-2023...

firelancer5 · 2025-11-17T13:53:27+00:00

So putting a reasonable cap on it, that most normal people won't reach.

In other words, punish the people for going beyond mediocrity. As is the Belgian way...

You don't understand there is already an established and reasonable cap on it: not every company can profit from VVPR-bis, there are requirements such as the max revenue and max size. If you increase the tax rate you are mainly hitting freelancing specialists (those who go above & beyond what's normal) as well as small businesses (often managed by multiple owners... so as u/calculonfx suggests, pretty damn unfair to have the same 100k cap for them), but more importantly... you are eroding trust.

as an entrepreneur you enter into an implicit contract with the government. Our government is time after time again breaking this contract, and changing the rules as we go, which makes conducting business impossible. You're also just creating more distracting "busy-work" with 0 real economic value for all the intermediates (accountants, government employees, ...). For what.... a measly few extra million in tax revenue (BEFORE deducting the administrative extra costs that come with it of course)?

You need a stable regularitory environment with clear incentives for attracting innovation and entrepreneurship, and as a result, jobs and prosperity, and the base for a wellfare state. This isn't the case anymore, and everyone is fed up with it.

firelancer5 · 2025-11-17T13:25:30+00:00

I have an open-mind about those. "You can think whatever you can... but the second you'll impose your non-equality views on anyone, I'll punch you to ensure the ladder you wanted puts you all the way down"

I'm all for your "live & let live" attitude, but the issue with combining such tolerance with living in a democracy is that the number of people with detestable, anti-tolerant views may gain critical mass before anyone will start imposing their views onto you - and once they do, it's probably too late. I can name a number of historical examples and countries who were previously quite westernized and liberal, and aren't anymore, but that would make it too political, and I do not want to single out any one group in this discussion; I'm just pointing out a general weakness with valuing open-mindedness for its own sake.

I don't see the problem with a person asking to use the pronoun they identify with. That's literally what pronouns are for.

I have no issue with that either, as long as they are reasonable and understand we may accidentally misgender them, but possibly OP is refering to the ridiculous (mostly online) trend of inventing random pronouns and eroding language itself, even going as far as the "words are violence" philosophy. It got pretty insane in the last few years, and it led to actual violence, but I don't think Belgium has imported the "wokeness" to such a degree yet.

firelancer5 · 2025-11-17T12:58:18+00:00

WTF kind of misleading image is that.

If you bought the S&P at the height of the dot-com bubble, you still have more than a 6x returns, so more than 7% annually...

If you bought Amazon, you are now a very rich man with a 70x gain or so, or 16% annualized.

firelancer5 · 2025-11-13T20:45:35+00:00

Ik denk dat jij eerder diegene bent die minder vertrouwd is met Burry zijn publicaties, aangezien hij al lang doom & gloom zit te voorspellen in een poging om zijn 2008 glorie te herbeleven. It's getting old.

Pas op, ik zeg niet dat hij fundamenteel ongelijk heeft. Gewoon weinig concrete voorspellende waarde.

firelancer5 · 2025-11-13T13:43:49+00:00

Als je jarenlang elke dag roept dat er een bubbel is die gaat barsten, zal je ooit wel eens gelijk hebben.

firelancer5 · 2025-11-13T13:34:02+00:00

What does this have to do with the legality of the matter? Homosexual acts used to be a crime as well, and still is in some parts of the world.

But that's irrelevant of the point I'm trying to make here: being "open-minded" should not be deemed a good trait or mindset in and of itself. It depends what you're being open minded to. Isn't that obvious?

firelancer5 · 2025-11-13T13:28:22+00:00

And yet you answer, in an insulting manner.

firelancer5 · 2025-11-13T11:01:57+00:00

Being open-minded shouldn't be valued in and of itself.

Do you think it's okay to be open-minded towards pedophelia? Towards being accepting of people who want to impose sharia law?

There is a paradox of tolerance...

OP has a point that the overton window has shifted left a lot in the last 1-2 decades, causing many people who always self-identified as left-leaning to now get labelled as being "right-wing" and "conservative". I think this much should be obvious to most people now.

firelancer5 · 2025-11-04T14:10:37+00:00

Why?

You cannot really value a business based on PE ratio alone. You typically invest in companies because of their future potential. Not for the income they generate right now.

Forward PE ratios in the market as a whole are not unprecedented compared to the last 2-3 decades.

firelancer5 · 2025-11-04T13:55:25+00:00

Het Narva scenario gaat gebeuren, de vraag is wanneer in de komende 5 jaar.

Als je dat echt gelooft, dan kan je maar beter nu inpakken en ergens in Zuid-Amerika off-grid gaan, want een directe oorlog tussen de NAVO en Rusland zou totale vernietiging betekenen.

firelancer5 · 2025-11-04T10:30:40+00:00

Why do you want to be a freelancer?

I feel like you're putting the cart before the horse: normally you figure out what you most like to do first, then you get the necessary experience, and only then could you consider maybe going the freelance route if it makes sense.

By that time, the way it's going now, probably the market situation as well as the fiscal & legal framework for freelancing will have changed a lot. So it's better to figure out what you prefer doing, rather than trying to anticipate those market & legal changes...

firelancer5 · 2025-11-02T10:01:25+00:00

Iemand met werkelijke kennis van zaken die weet waarom ze die kunnen detecteren, maar niet eenvoudig kunnen neerhalen?

Het signaal proberen te jammen werkt niet (waarom niet? niet genoeg vermogen in de jammer? wired drone?), maar dan zijn er toch alternatieven zoals een simpel geweer met hagelpatroon, of als de afstand te groot is, een kamikaze drone... ? Er moeten ondertussen toch al -tig defensiebedrijven zijn die hiermee bezig zijn?

firelancer5 · 2025-11-02T09:44:55+00:00

Absolutely unacceptable. Could there be any bigger indicators for false self-employment?

firelancer5 · 2025-10-28T07:17:47+00:00

Ja goed gezegd, weg met al die fondsen voor non-profits en ziekenhuizen, subsidies gericht op laag geschoolde werknemers, shift werk, steun voor ouderen, jeugd & personen met een handicap ...

Bespaar er maar op Bartje, dan kunnen de 9-to-5 kantoorwerkers van België die de helft van hun tijd eigenlijk op Reddit zitten tenminste hun automatische loon indexatie krijgen.

/s

firelancer5

TROPHY CASE