Hey itulip gang! It was fun to log in here after a decade or more and see some great names from the past like ASH, Finster, T, shiny!, Milton Kuo, and rjwjr. All I'm missing are Fred, EJ, Jim Nickerson and VancouverGoinUp! 
Just wanted to remind us all that we were right.
We were right about precious metals in the early 2000s. I bought my gold & silver in '04 and sold it all in '23 when I was in a financial pinch at a cool 400% profit. That would be more like 600% if I still had it but c'est la vie, it was a great investment.
We were right about the housing bubble. However, after telling EJ I was thinking of selling my house that I love in 2006, he was kind enough to make a personal phone call and talk me off the ledge. In the end, it really only dipped about 20% in my neighborhood here in intown Atlanta around 2011. Seems that there were a lot of buyers waiting in the wings to get into the neighborhood when the prices softened. Anyway, I'm still in that house, and it has been a great investment too, likely appreciating by 250% since I bought it in 2004.
We were right about the alphabet soup of MBS, ABS, CMO, CDO, CDS, etc. that were guaranteed to fail, and the stock market & economy crash that would follow. However, we were (or at least I was) unable to directly capitalize on that. I bought inverse funds in my 401k but failed to time the market right, thinking it would continue to fall, then staying in bond funds for years. My message to my younger self would be that having cash when the stock market just crashed is king. Go all in, even if you miss the bottom.
The reason I logged in was because I was looking at this graph of the US inflation rate. The pandemic lockdown was KA and the ensuing stimulus and QE was POOM.
Hope everyone's doing well. We were right, dammit.
Screenshot 2025-05-27 at 4.59.59 PM.png

Just wanted to remind us all that we were right.
We were right about precious metals in the early 2000s. I bought my gold & silver in '04 and sold it all in '23 when I was in a financial pinch at a cool 400% profit. That would be more like 600% if I still had it but c'est la vie, it was a great investment.
We were right about the housing bubble. However, after telling EJ I was thinking of selling my house that I love in 2006, he was kind enough to make a personal phone call and talk me off the ledge. In the end, it really only dipped about 20% in my neighborhood here in intown Atlanta around 2011. Seems that there were a lot of buyers waiting in the wings to get into the neighborhood when the prices softened. Anyway, I'm still in that house, and it has been a great investment too, likely appreciating by 250% since I bought it in 2004.
We were right about the alphabet soup of MBS, ABS, CMO, CDO, CDS, etc. that were guaranteed to fail, and the stock market & economy crash that would follow. However, we were (or at least I was) unable to directly capitalize on that. I bought inverse funds in my 401k but failed to time the market right, thinking it would continue to fall, then staying in bond funds for years. My message to my younger self would be that having cash when the stock market just crashed is king. Go all in, even if you miss the bottom.
The reason I logged in was because I was looking at this graph of the US inflation rate. The pandemic lockdown was KA and the ensuing stimulus and QE was POOM.
Hope everyone's doing well. We were right, dammit.

Screenshot 2025-05-27 at 4.59.59 PM.png
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