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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: June 11th, 2023

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  • Counterintuitively, I try to do less. If I have 5 things to do today and can’t motivate myself to get started, I push all but 1 or 2 off until later. Then I know a nice, log break is waiting for me for the rest of the day if I finish those things. At that point, getting the one or two things done feels worthwhile, and it feels like there’s a reward for me at the end (goofing off guilt-free).

    I mean, I wasn’t going to get all 5 things done today because I’m a procrastinator. But if I accept that and make the workload much lighter, can get a little done.








  • True, but it’s worth noting that this is an average and will vary wildly. Since I started tracking my annual returns have been 9.42%, 1.12%, 8.44%, 17.28%, -5.30%, 22.04%, 18.75%, 15.60%, -17.58%, and 18.11%. Which averages out to 7.75% — not far from the usual 7% figure.*

    So for anyone just learning about investing, you’ll almost never have an “average” year. Each year will be all over the place. It’s only when you’ve been in the market for a long time that your returns will average out to something close to typical.

    *I’m also ignoring an important distinction: IIRC the stock market averages close to 10% returns if you only look at dollar values. But when you account for the fact that inflation makes reach dollar worth less, on average returns are 7% in terms of real purchasing power. The returns I posted above are not inflation adjusted, but they include some bonds which don’t return as much as stocks. So it’s no surprise that my returns are on average less than 10%.





  • Theoretically, Biden could do it and not be prosecuted.

    But if he ordered a member of the military to do it, they are required to refuse illegal orders. I don’t know the rules about illegal orders but I bet this would fall under that. At the same time, the President can pardon people convicted in military court so that’s not much of a deterrent.

    Similarly if he ordered a civilian (say, CIA) to assassinate Trump, that person could be tried. But again, the President’s pardon power makes federal charges not much of a threat.

    BUT — the President cannot grant pardons for convictions in state courts. So anyone involved would be in trouble if it happened in a US state. And if the Supreme Court did not make the President immune from state-level prosecution, Biden could be tried for being involved… but it seems unlikely that they would go for “the President is immune from federal prosecution but not state prosecution.”

    Of course, all this show how insane and dangerous the idea of Presidential immunity is. It’s a terrible idea.