Culture At What Point is Too Much?

[Bear Ribs]

Thing is, if I'm making a living as a farmer in a post-apocalyptic wasteland and some billionaire pops out of their bunker after the canned food ran out to trade their golden toilet seats, my basic train of thought is going to be "if they had the gold to waste on something like this, they probably have a lot more and they're the people responsible for destroying civilization and hiding away while we suffered, get them". Showing up with trade goods that motivate angry mobs to come after you is a bad stratagy.

They won't show up with the entire gold toilet seat. A group of their hired thugs will show up with a couple grams chipped off the side and an ounce or two of silver scrap and old coins, which your farm group will likely trade for because every civilization, even a post-apoc one, needs some kind of currency and nearly everybody has accepted gold and silver as goods historically.

 

[Cherico]

If things get bad you want silver not gold because with gold you end up overpaying for everything

 

[Whitestrake Pelinal]

Thing is, if I'm making a living as a farmer in a post-apocalyptic wasteland and some billionaire pops out of their bunker after the canned food ran out to trade their golden toilet seats, my basic train of thought is going to be "if they had the gold to waste on something like this, they probably have a lot more and they're the people responsible for destroying civilization and hiding away while we suffered, get them". Showing up with trade goods that motivate angry mobs to come after you is a bad stratagy.

Gold is not a hedge against all-out civilizational collapse and SHTF scenarios. It is a hedge against financial instability and the collapse of currency.

Said gold toilet seat is not much use for an Argentinian today, but if it were purchased in 1999, it could then have been sold in Spain in 2005 for a reasonable fraction of its original value.

 

[Simonbob]

This whole thing....

Look, if somebody want to spend a heap on, say, a million dollar table or something, I'm not even remotely bothered. It's how they got the money I might have an issue with.

On the same basis, if I save money, then buy a dagger inlaid with ebony and silver, who cares? It's weird, I suppose, but it's my money.

 

[ATP]

I think it depend om money you have .If somebody spend most then 10% of his free moneys/those who do not need be spend on life/ on things like that,they should change theirs ways.

 

[Abhishekm]

I have a bit of trouble with the Dow Jones index comparison. Liek how many companies in there are even the same? Like I know the are options out there that let you buy a consolidated 'dow' stock. But how does that work long term?

Like the SPF 500 how many names on that were in 1920 that are still there today?

Is investing in the SPF just holding a right to a share in every company on the index regardless of if the names in them changes?

 

[ParadiseLost]

I have a bit of trouble with the Dow Jones index comparison. Liek how many companies in there are even the same? Like I know the are options out there that let you buy a consolidated 'dow' stock. But how does that work long term?

Like the SPF 500 how many names on that were in 1920 that are still there today?

Is investing in the SPF just holding a right to a share in every company on the index regardless of if the names in them changes?

Intern at a wealth management company & accounting major.

1) Its the S&P, not SPF.

2) ETFs and Mutual Funds that track the S&P 500 rebalance according to them regularly. For example, when a company replaces another in the S&P 500, the managers sell the one that has been removed and buy the one that was added.

3) 86 originals members are still in the S&P 500. This includes companies like Boeing, Coca Cola, Ford, GE, IBM, and Proctor & Gamble.

 

[Abhishekm]

1) Its the S&P, not SPF.

That bit was a joke. Probably not a good one apparently. Especially with my spelling in he rest of the post.😅

 

[Robovski]

If people with a lot of money want to spend it on dumb expensive things, they get the dumb thing and someone else got paid for it, possibly several people. It's much better than horded in an account IMO.

 

[Abhorsen]

Is investing in the SPF just holding a right to a share in every company on the index regardless of if the names in them changes?

What you do by investing in the S&P isn't buying equal amounts of S&P stocks, but instead buying an index fund (Usually starting with SPY, called spyders). What they do is take a tiny percentage of profits, and carefully manage the funds to maintain an even amount of everything, and swap out stuff when a company joins or leaves. Same for the Dow.

 

[Abhishekm]

What you do by investing in the S&P isn't buying equal amounts of S&P stocks, but instead buying an index fund (Usually starting with SPY, called spyders). What they do is take a tiny percentage of profits, and carefully manage the funds to maintain an even amount of everything, and swap out stuff when a company joins or leaves. Same for the Dow.

So its just a hedge fund that pledges to hold stocks in tthe 500 companies it lists?

 

[bintananth]

So its just a hedge fund that pledges to hold stocks in tthe 500 companies it lists?

Mutual fund, not a hedge fund.

Mutual funds tell you in the prospectus "here's the kinds of things we're going to buy" and "here's our strategy". With an index fund the strategy is "replicate the index while keeping just enough cash to cover redemptions."

Hedge funds aren't that transparent.

 

[Abhorsen]

So its just a hedge fund that pledges to hold stocks in tthe 500 companies it lists?

No, but similar. Hedge funds are managed, and claim to 'beat the market', but usually don't do it consistently. It's generally not worth it because they take a significantly larger percentage. Also, the 'pledge' listed is usually pretty iron clad.

Second, I'm not quite sure what 'it' refers to in your sentence, so to clarify, the list is made by preset rules. In the case of the S&P 500, that's the 500 largest companies on US stock exchanges. Other ones can have different rules.