WSOP Windfall... What is a boy to do?!?!

[ChromePony]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
JA or anyone,

The bit about hybrids being bad for the environment....leveling right?

If not, someone exlain plz.

[/ QUOTE ]

No leveling about the hybrids. Basically, PITTM's right - there is an enormous amount of energy that goes into making and properly disposing of the batteries. Batteries are horribly toxic and high-energy. This is not good. The batteries have an approximate lifetime of 100K miles. They are a fraud at this point. Of course, time may change this and one could argue that you are funding the development and improvement of battery/hybrid technology by buying them now. Then again, an efficient car or even a high-end diesel gets nearly the same mileage and most hybird owners get nowhere near the EPA MPG's quoted in real practice.

At a talk that I attended given by Nate Lewis (Caltech), probably the top electrochemist in the world and a global energy expert (adviser to many presidents), somebody asked about hybirds. He said that he wouldn't comment on the hybrids themselves (he was avoiding all political arguments in his talk, to his credit), but he would say that the additional energy required to MAKE a Prius (discounting the disposal, even), EXCEEDS THE AMOUNT OF ENERGY THAT A HUMMER H2 USES DURING 100K MILES OF DRIVING. That's pretty sick if you ask me.

[/ QUOTE ]

i believe sucker, cuz hes the man, but does anyone have any sort of link to anything that says anything remotely close to this?

if its true id obv like to people to point people towards some facts...

[/ QUOTE ]

I don't mean to derail this thread, and admit that I don't know a ton about this sort of thing, but I do want to point out that purely saving energy is not necessarily what a hybrid is all about. You need energy to create a car, you need energy to drive it, theres no avoiding that, but what you can do is replace where that energy comes from. Therefore a hybrid car would in theory reduce fossil fuel emissions and our dependence on oil by allowing energy produced by nuclear/hydroelectric/etc to take its place. The US isn't exactly short on energy in the broad sense, were more worried about gas and emissions created by highly inefficient car engines. Ultimately however, cutting down total consumption would be pretty ideal as well. I dont know how all of this plays into the numbers mentioned earlier, but its just something else to think about.

Anyway, sorry for that. Congrats on your score, I would think that your best and simplest bet for investment is to set up an account with some index funds. The people in Finance/Investing can help you with allocations based on your risk profile.

Real estate is not what it used to be, but to make a blanket statement that it is a bad investment is somewhat short sighted IMO, there are still deals to be had. However, it takes a little more knowledge and luck to find a deal that is worthwhile these days. If you are interested in getting into real estate, just be sure to do your homework so you know what youre getting yourself into. Depending on your situation you may be better off renting as opposed to buying a place, as it allows you to have your money working for you more productively elsewhere.

[wdcbooks]

I find these threads interesting as a way to appreciate how hard it is for people to find and digest financial advice. There is some great advice in this thread, but it is mixed with some truly awful advice, sometimes in the same post. This isn't said as a slam, but a novice investor has no way to make a judgement as to which advice is meaningful to his situation and what advice is not. It is no wonder that financial advisors continue to do so much business. It also is no suprise that so many of the really good financially savvy posters wish they could just go through the thread and delete and condense a whole bunch of posts.

This problem of too much information and contradictory information is why you must educate yourself to a basic level so you can start to decide what advice makes sense to you. This can be accomplished with a fairly small amount of reading. I would go to a site like http://www.diehards.org/forum/index.php or pick up a book like "The Coffeehouse Investor" as a place to start.

Don't start with the idea that your goal is to 'win' by making outsize returns on your money. Investing is not like poker in that you don't have to beat everyone else to profit. If you achieve market returns in a balanced portfolio that matches your risk tolerance you will be just fine. This likely means that index funds, which the vast majority of financial advisors will not sell you because they are not paid to do so, are the best option.

Once you have a basic idea of the proper investment vehicles and the asset allocation you want you can start to decide how to garner the best tax advantage. If you are willing to put the money aside for retirement you may choose something like a SEP IRA that allows a fairly large annual tax deductible contribution. If you decide you want the money to remain liquid you might forego the tax deduction and keep it in a taxable account. Fortunately index funds are generally tax efficient.

Real estate is a much more personal decision. I would say you should decide to buy based on your lifestyle and factors like the interest rate on your prospective mortgage and the length of time you would hold the property. You will find it nearly impossible to time the market, so I would discard that as a criteria. Prices could have nearly bottomed out, or they could sink for years to come. If you try to decide which is going to happen you will find a morass of contradictory opinion. You are better off asking yourself if owning real estate fits your lifetstyle and goals right now, rather than guessing if you will enter the market at the right time.

[Dominic]

congrats! I was sweating both you and Travis during that one...

So...wanna make a movie?

[img]/images/graemlins/cool.gif[/img]

[Jurollo]

I have decided to Day Trade with 50k, lend out 50k on prosper, buy a 50k car, and leave the other 50k in a checking account. Thanks guys!

[TheWorstPlayer]

JAS,

Not to hijack the thread, but who cares about the energy it takes to make a hybrid? What we care about is the energy it takes to make a hybrid OVER the energy it takes to make a conventional engine. Very doubtful the DIFFERENCE would fuel a H2 for 100K miles.

- TWP

[hunt1897]

Don't do anything or make any decisions for more than 10% until 1 year has passed. After that, you will have a better perspective.

[Rhand]

[ QUOTE ]
JAS,

Not to hijack the thread, but who cares about the energy it takes to make a hybrid? What we care about is the energy it takes to make a hybrid OVER the energy it takes to make a conventional engine. Very doubtful the DIFFERENCE would fuel a H2 for 100K miles.

- TWP

[/ QUOTE ]

JAS based his entire post on a widely disputed article that used very scewed statistics. Kinda like he watched loose change and now is annoucing 9/11 was a hoax without further investigating the facts behind it. Basicly he read a BS, anti-hybrid propaganda article and took it as 100% thruth.

Edit:

Original : CNW hybrid article http://cnwmr.com/nss-folder/automotiveenergy/

Link to an article that disproves a lot of the stuff given as facts in CNW article : http://www.truedelta.com/blog/?p=48

[Hawklet]

[ QUOTE ]
I have decided to Day Trade with 50k, lend out 50k on prosper, buy a 50k car, and leave the other 50k in a checking account. Thanks guys!

[/ QUOTE ]

I can't tell if this is a joke. What made you decide to day-trade?


EDIT: Also, if you invested the whole 200k you'd have ~500k in 10 years with very little risk.

[Jurollo]

Its a joke.

[Hawklet]

[ QUOTE ]
Its a joke.

[/ QUOTE ]

[img]/images/graemlins/laugh.gif[/img]