Decimal fractions of a percent are low fee. Vanguard is mostly, if not completely, low fee.

I joined https://www.bogleheads.org/ which was also when I started learning about mutual funds

Bogle started the first index fund family (Vanguard), so there is an index fund bias with many there, but the forum has very knowledgeable people. (Full disclosure, I am busy, and use indexing myself, but not in Vanguard.)

You have managed to hit the best all-around choices on your first try.

The large difference is to learn to have the discipline to ride out the ups and downs of investing. In a recession, it is a gut punch to see your hard-earned investments drop. The losing segment says the whole market is rigged, screw this and lock in their losses by selling. When the market improves, highs are being clocked, these same are likely to forget their previous folly and buy in again. It is investing that is controlled by emotions, and is a buy high, sell low outcome. Mastering your emotions in investing is the key to investing. Many people give 1/4th of their money to brokers so that they will be reminded of the previous paragraph, when they need it most.

We are financially independent thanks to indexing, and using emotions in a constructive way. We also have been through a few ups and downturns, making money in each cycle, by riding it out, and asset allocation.

Follow your plan and ride things out, and you will likely be a multi-millionaire. It is not overnight, though.

My realization, now, was that they did. I was too clueless on picking up cues to realize it.

,25/,5 x 100/100 = 25/50 = 1/2

Why was that hard?

100/100 = 1, because any number divided by itself is 1.

And any number multiplied by 1 is still that number.

TBH, I moved the decimal over 2 places on the numerator and denominator and simplified 25/50 to 1/2 because It is easier to do in my head. Some of the other paths are too complicated when I am going to sleep.

My spouse and I are registered to donate our bodies to a medical college. If we can advance medicine in even a small way, it is still a move to better life and health.

Meat bags

Putin is as far as one can get from Mandela.

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I have followed ‘news’ from Russian outlets such as RT and Sputnik, being recast as Right wing talking points within hours. This is not just recent, it has been going on for years. Hamilton68 documents examples. The parallels of this propaganda being sown to the lies dispensed to Ukraine to sow dissention is obvious. It is a cheap warfare, and it works. Tucker was and is in the trade of packaging Russian propaganda as news. He should be labeled as such. Carlson was discredited and fired by Fox. Spreading lies, admitting to doing so on archived tapes, and iirc, sexual harassment was in his part of the discovery on Fox’s $780M settlement. In short, Tucker Carlson is on record for knowingly spreading lies, for personal monetary benefit. This is more of the same. I hope every person watches Carlson, knowing that Carlson reports what enriches him, not truth. Carlson has a transparent agenda. The unanswered question is who pays Carlson. That will be obvious by who’s boots that Carlson’s reports shine.

Write a note to let that person know how valuable and wonderful a person that they are. Using specific examples is good. This isn’t the time for vague platitudes. I would tie any gift in with how much they have done for others, and how deserving they are.

“Here. Hold my beer” Has started several Darwin awards.

Reuters, AP, NYT, WP, and to a small extent, Ground News. I filter for high factuality. My viewing is rated as slightly skewing left, but this is caused by so many Right sources are not credible sources. Known lies are not worth my time. My biggest gripe about Ground news is that to be balanced, I must waste time on sources that are not credible. Sadly, I can listen to RT or certain USA Right leaning politicians after a little time, and hear the same news.

I forgot FP Foreign Policy and the Economist.

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The Budapest Memorandums disprove your argument. Long before Russian invaded Crimea, much less Ukraine main, a peace plan with a promise to never invade was given by Russia. Russia lied.

https://web.archive.org/web/20140317182201/http:/www.cfr.org/arms-control-disarmament-and-nonproliferation/budapest-memorandums-security-assurances-1994/p32484

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/05/science/ukraine-nuclear-weapons.html

Taxes take the money out of circulation, and the government AGAIN spends the money. It is two transactions. This technicality is important. Following where the money goes and the steps that it takes to how it gets there is how you get some understanding of economics. Government bonds are the safe haven in that largely stays even with inflation. That funds the government in a large way. Taxes, to an increasing degree, pay the interest on that debt. The interest rates set by the government set the interest rates of corporate bond, of the giants to the little consumer rates by risks taken. These, together, fund loans, which fuels America’s economic engine. High interest means slowed growth. Low rates spurs growth.

To offset this “tax”, people must put their money in places that will grow. Government bond’s interests are close to inflation, for example, and are seen as the safest of investments.

Consider a series of transactions for a certain amount of money. Each transaction has a tax cost, that reduces that “certain amount” of money. On average, six transactions return all of that “certain amount” of money back to the treasury/ per Krugman.

Investing in a company puts your money in a non-inflationary asset. If inflation goes up, your land, machinery, buildings, raw materials as well as finished product just jumped in numbers of dollars of value, thus holding its real value. The same can be said of any hard asset, and dollars could also be switched with any country’s currency. I like large index funds because they are largely diverse. There are big swings, but I have gotten 9-12% average, over long periods of time.

Inflation is similar to a stock split. If you can understand stock splits, you have a rudimentary understanding of inflation.

Here is some extra information that may be too much info: Add in population growth, and realize how money supply has to at least increase to keep pace, for every worker to maintain the same pay. (in theory) Some nation’s citizens like the relative stability of the dollar’s value, and trade or have savings hedged with dollars. These dollars essentially drops out of money supply. Their trade velocity drops for these dollars. There are so many variables, that economists look at inflation measures to see how they are doing. These indicators are always 6 months or so behind, so they are always flying by only being able to look behind their plane.

Gold is a shiny bauble material, but never grows. It can be a good investment for that part that you want to put aside and will just sit. Bitcoin is invaluable for money laundering, but very unstable for saving/investing. Look at how many have been fleeced when someone gets their keys, or lost their coins by a hard drive failure. It is costly in electrical use to mine.

There are far better things not tied to the value of a dollar. I would suggest very low-fee indexed mutual funds as one better alternative. They offer an accessible way for people to get a share of the means of production. My experience is that for people who can can learn to not be ruled by fear or greed can, over time, build enough wealth to live better lives.

The thing that humans have is resilience. We can jump off the f’d up train track if we put our efforts toward that goal.

Remember the ozone hole? It’s been shrinking and almost back to normal, per scientists who watch. Pesticides put birds on the endangered list, but after that pesticide was banned, they have become abundant again. We don’t remember the wins, but they are there. Humanity will change their ways, but only when they have exhausted the other ways, first. We can ban more pesticides. We’ve done it before, we will do it again. We are on the verge of a clean energy future. The old rich fossils can hold on to the old ways for only so long, They are dying out. They will be replaced by a new ethics, who will find new ways to screw up.