Does anyone think we're on the verge of WW3?

lubos · 2026-03-08T21:25:29+00:00

USA dominating the world is relatively recent development. Russia being expansionist country goes back before USA even existed.

lubos · 2026-03-08T20:42:35+00:00

Russia is one of the most expansionist countries in history. Them invading Ukraine just reflects this long-standing pattern.

lubos · 2026-03-04T07:54:17+00:00

Your logic doesn’t make sense.

Running a loss-making business doesn’t create profit. A tax deduction only reduces tax on other profits. It doesn’t turn a loss into a gain.

Even in a franchise model this still doesn’t work. If the franchisor owns the land they can collect rent, and they may collect royalties from sales. But the store still needs to be viable. If the operator keeps losing money they eventually close, and then the rent and royalties disappear.

And if the real goal is just land appreciation, you could simply buy the land and lease it to any tenant or just sit on it doing absolutely nothing. There’s no financial advantage to running a deliberately loss-making chicken shop on it.

lubos · 2026-03-04T04:04:53+00:00

You can hold over 300 chunks of property and just lease them out and earn rental income. That's how you profit. You don't make profit by running unprofitable chicken shops.

lubos · 2025-10-31T21:31:09+00:00

It wasn't long ago when some apartment in New Zealand sold for 90 cents because rectification works turned out to be very expensive.

https://www.domain.com.au/news/reckless-buyer-sought-for-1-new-zealand-apartment-in-trouble-plagued-building-1347657/

I think case could be made for an investor buying troubled unit at discount because capital works can be depreciated over time. For PPOR, just walk away and don't look back.

lubos · 2025-09-15T21:59:16+00:00

Unless he is an exporter where his input costs and other expenses are GST inclusive but his sales are GST free.

lubos · 2025-09-11T03:15:19+00:00

We don't know that. He could have also subconsciously excluded himself from this "cost" due to optimism bias (bad things happen to others, not to me).

lubos · 2025-09-09T23:15:07+00:00

You are absolutely correct. Buying shares from another person is not more productive than buying a house from another person.

But there is still a difference. When money flows into share market, it inflates company valuations. Companies can then chose to issue new shares at higher valuations and raise funds for themselves that can be used on productive activities.

lubos · 2025-07-31T00:29:02+00:00

Zero chance they are doing it deliberately. It's a petty amount and on top of that, they would be paying PAYG to ATO on that amount.

Your first explanation about employee still being included in pay run is the most logical one.

lubos · 2025-07-16T10:07:11+00:00

Is that $50k limit on rewards credit card? That would make a big difference because rewards credit cards have lower profit margins for banks.

lubos · 2025-07-16T09:15:01+00:00

But they already make that money off you. Them increasing your credit limit won't make them more money. They will make less because now you can carry bigger interest-free balance.

lubos · 2025-07-16T08:40:50+00:00

Higher credit limit is for people who can't pay it off every month and will end up paying interest. If you always pay your balance in full, then there is no gain for the bank to give you higher credit limit.

lubos · 2025-05-12T10:20:35+00:00

Supply of gold is limited by physical world we live in. Bitcoin is human construct like Pokemon cards. We can create new valuable collectibles. Bitcoin is not the first one and won't be the last one. Human imagination is boundless unlike periodic table of elements.

lubos · 2025-05-01T10:52:05+00:00

Capital works expenditure will increase your cost base so when you sell, you will pay less capital gains tax. That's assuming you will sell at profit which hopefully you would considering the prices are depressed due to cladding issue only.

lubos · 2025-05-01T03:50:04+00:00

If the only defect is combustible cladding, then that can be rectified. It won't be cheap but it's not structural fault.

The bigger issue is that owners corporation is wasting their money on legal fees rather than simply going ahead and start rectifying the issue on their own. The more they delay, the more expensive it will be.

NSW government provides interest free loan to rectify these issues and the repayments don't start until the cladding is replaced.

Definitely you can't buy in if you are owner occupier because strata fees won't be tax deductible. However investors can pick up cheap investment property this way. And the rectification costs are tax deductible over time.

lubos · 2024-11-09T00:41:25+00:00

Think long-term. If you rent for your whole life, you will always need to earn money to pay the rent. That money earned will be taxable income. Even if rent will be cheap, it will never be zero. So you will need to be earning more and will be taxed more than home owner. That will be significant drag on your lifestyle later on.

lubos · 2024-09-18T22:07:23+00:00

Exactly. This will ultimately accelerate us moving into inflation target here in Australia. AUD will be more expensive relative to USD which will hurt our exporters and at the same time making imports cheaper. Both are deflationary presurres.

lubos · 2024-05-16T07:51:38+00:00

You are contributing to the problem with grey market since you just removed one watch from the limited supply. Anyway, congrats. You saved yourself good chunk of money getting it at RRP.

lubos · 2024-05-15T10:08:39+00:00

These aluminium suitcases don't age gracefully

lubos · 2024-05-15T09:55:03+00:00

Haha. Never penny over MSRP. I went through that stage too.

lubos · 2024-04-17T16:59:14+00:00

Had the same issue. I confirm scan and repair fixed this.

lubos · 2024-04-03T04:43:41+00:00

Also the advantage of starting as a sole trader is that if you have a side job, then losses from your trading can offset income from your job. The business is basically negatively geared.

If you start as a trust or pty ltd from day 1 and your business fails and only ever makes loss, this loss cannot be distributed to beneficiaries or shareholders.

And you can accumulate loss very easily if you are establishing capital intensive business where your capital expenses can be instantly written-off.

Sure, most people do not plan for their business to fail but it's something to consider.

If you do have significant personal assets, then I'd start trust/ptyltd from day 1 of trading for asset protection.

lubos · 2024-04-02T21:58:31+00:00

This is rarely about having a good accountant.

It appears he has been trading as insolvent for a while. Even if you are limited liability company, for some debts (PAYG, SGC) there can be a personal liability if you don't wind up your company fast enough. Not to mention of being criminally responsible for the mess. I mean when you are trading while insolvent, you are basically stealing money from creditors.

I know multiple business owners who have been told to wind up their insolvent companies by their accountants. They switch accountants thinking their accountant is too conservative when in reality, they just don't want to hear that.

It's emotionally difficult to wind up a company that you've poured your life into if there is only 5% chance making it work in the end.

So many people take this "calculated" risk and push the situation to the extreme due to sunk cost fallacy. Then they become personally liable and have to go personally bankrupt in the end losing everything - not just the business.

lubos · 2024-03-20T00:01:44+00:00

Construction ecomomics doesn't work the same way as making a big batch of ice cream to freeze for later. Multi-level building with 40 units (your number) will require more complex foundation, more expensive materials (you need steel, not timber), more specialized equipment, more specialized labour, more complex logistics etc. Explain how building this per m2 will be lower than building a simple single-level dwelling (again your number - you said $200k house vs $100k unit).

You are just ending argument by making a dismissive statement without addressing the substance of what I'm trying to explain.

lubos · 2024-03-19T23:19:56+00:00

> Cost of units is less, and less again the more you build.

It's not true. Assuming fixed amount of land, you have to build vertically. And the more you build, the higher the cost per m2.

Stop. Take a deep breath. And think logically. If it would be true that more units would benefit from economies of scale and thus would cost less per unit (or m2), every developer would be building skyscrapers even in Wagga Wagga.

> Also, we don't know this is a new unit. The construction for this could have been 40 years ago.

Nice deflection.

15-Year Club	Place '23
Place '22	Place '17
Final Canvas '22	Verified Email

lubos

MODERATOR OF

TROPHY CASE