I occasionally hear people talk about housing and food as basic human rights, but there are some philosophical complications with this, not the least being the fact that we live in a world of specialization and that self sufficiency is largely impossible without some prior investment. The entire concept of human rights is complicated, but […]
Month: January 2022
Housing Ecology: New Perspectives on Rent vs. Buy
When considering assets and capital, we tend to group things based on their general characteristics, and we name these groups by what we call “class”. So when talking about investments, we break them down into “asset classes”, often real estate, stocks, bonds, or commodities, and this makes it easier to talk about these things based […]
Tradeoffs in Quality and Price: The Insane World of Aftermarket Parts and Social Expectation
I’ve often mentioned that I prefer to install original Toyota parts in my car, but this certainly comes at a price. Sometimes I’ve paid up to 4 times the cost of an aftermarket part that is otherwise considered to be good quality. There’s always this nagging question inside of me, though: is it worth it? […]
Debt as a Tool?
Every now and then, I come across an article or forum post describing debt as a tool. There is a certain amount of risk to debt in the first place, but there are circumstances in which going into debt can be leveraged for gain. However, I would say that debt can be a tool, but […]
2021 in Car Projects
I’ve done a lot of work on my car this past year. From a functional perspective, much of this hasn’t been necessary, but from a maintenance perspective, it has been great. I’ve learned a lot this year and have actually had quite a bit of fun, and wanted to share some of my stories. Hub […]
Thoughts on Currency
I don’t have a background in finance, so there are a number of concepts about banking and currency that are way over my head, but the most interesting thing that I’ve started to pick up on over the past few years is that the topics of banking and currency are still being figured out: nobody […]