Early Retirement Extreme

— a combination of simple living, anticonsumerism, DIY ethics, self-reliance, resilience, and applied capitalism

The slightly inaccurate rule of 72

Published in March 30th, 2012
Posted by in Finance
13 Comments

The rule of 72 is a handy rule for figuring out the doubling time for something that grows exponentially at a given rate. Consider, for instance, the world’s population. There are currently about 6,750,000,000 humans on the planet (up two times the US over the past 5 years). If the growth rate is 2%/year, this […]

continue reading.....

Problems with Prosper’s 1099 forms for 2009

Published in March 30th, 2012
Posted by in Finance, Timely
4 Comments

Yes, it’s that time again. Dealing with the annual crop of deadbeats when filing taxes. Last year, I successfully managed to report delinquent debts as either short or long term capital losses or non-business bad debts. This year I have a problem (or maybe Prosper has a problem?) matching up the numbers between The 1099-B […]

continue reading.....

The ant and the grasshopper

Published in December 1st, 2011
Posted by in Finance, Philosophy
39 Comments

Everybody should be familiar with the ant and the grasshopper fable. If not, let me briefly summarize it: There’s an ant and a grasshopper. The ant works hard preparing for winter. The grasshopper does not. When winter comes, the grasshopper is cold and starving. What the ant decides after that depends on the version of […]

continue reading.....

Newer Entries » « Older Entries