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I'm one of those ecstatic buyers. I purchased a 2017 Grand Sport Z07 with an MSRP of $91000 for $61000 new in August of 2018, representing a discount of $30K. The first $15K off was the advertised customer rebate being advertised by GM. The second $15K off was not advertised as it was a dealer incentive from GM that could be applied by the dealer as little or as much as they were willing to add to the sale. Some dealers pocketed the second $15K, some dealers like mine added the full $15K to the sale, and some added a portion to seal the deal and kept the difference.
After reading some of the comments here about C8 prices taking a hit after the C9 is introduced, I can’t imagine what that generation would even look like. How much more can you redesign the car, reshape the fiberglass and plastic still make it look like a Corvette?
0% rates are normally triggered by some major global economic downturn. The last times I can remember were after the dot com bubble (post-2001), after the GFC (post-2008 Global Financial Crisis), and post-COVID. The kind of macroeconomic climate that warrants 0% should be so obvious that you won't even have to ask because you'll be living it. The fact that you have to ask means we're not there yet.
If I had to guess, as the Fed pivots rates, we'll get one more boost of liquidity from Quantitative Easing that will cause the economy to skyrocket to heights crazier than post-COVID for the next 2-3 years, then we'll see a once-in-a-generation crash I estimate around 2028-2030. That's when you won't even have to ask.
I've been long the last year and a half. Could've bought my C8 in cash outright but I financed 1/3 of it to reinvest. Now that investment is up >50%. Completely engulfed my 4.24% loan rate by an order of magnitude even after taxes. Paying cash seems to be the popular thing to do in this forum but I'm glad I don't subscribe to that status quo.
Frank Kent, they were about a 5 hour drive from my area but well worth it. I don't know how they have been with C8 sales and they aren't in my area so I can't relay any recent experiences, but our single purchase was good. I had actually made the same deal with a dealer in Florida and planned to fly there and drive it home but they called that evening to tell me they sold it to a walk-in customer instead of sending me the sales contract. I was disappointed but knew I had to move fast on the next one I pursued.
Put everything you have in crypto. Recession proof, better than gold, won't ever tank like the stock market or C8 prices....
Honestly, the best financial decision I've ever made in my life was to go long crypto. By orders of magnitude that don't even seem realistically possible.
Honestly, the best financial decision I've ever made in my life was to go long crypto. By orders of magnitude that don't even seem realistically possible.
As I stated, put every dollar you have into it and diamonds hands it.... Eventually you will have enough for an 80M yacht, Gulfstream Jet, and giraffes walking around your 50K sq. ft. home.
I've been long the last year and a half. Could've bought my C8 in cash outright but I financed 1/3 of it to reinvest. Now that investment is up >50%. Completely engulfed my 4.24% loan rate by an order of magnitude even after taxes. Paying cash seems to be the popular thing to do in this forum but I'm glad I don't subscribe to that status quo.
I don't like debt and haven't since I was able to pay off and get rid of all but one credit card in 1992. I pay it off every month. I only owe 1/3rd of what the home we built in 2021 is worth in a mortgage and that's it. I'm glad I did that because we live off a pension, Social Security, and our investments since 2014.
I hope you are right about the economy but I'm not as optimistic as you. I also don't trust the stock market considering the money I lost in 2021 because of some very stupid decisions that I had no control over.
Sorry, but no. Crypto is driven by wild speculation; not by tangible value or lasting viability. And with so many wallets and other storage places being compromised (and no FDIC to cover it...because that's kind of the point)--you're just gambling.
Gambling is fine if that's your thing. It's not something I'd base my financial livelihood around.
Sorry, but no. Crypto is driven by wild speculation; not by tangible value or lasting viability. And with so many wallets and other storage places being compromised (and no FDIC to cover it...because that's kind of the point)--you're just gambling.
Gambling is fine if that's your thing. It's not something I'd base my financial livelihood around.
Speculation: To invest in stocks, property, or other ventures in the hope of gain but with the risk of loss
(not just crypto)
Stocks aren't FDIC-insured--also gambling?
Bitcoin is now financialized as an ETF stock so it comes with the same standard regulations and protections as stocks.
There are other inherent risks and non-free market mechanisms with stocks. Preferential access granted to accredited investors and institutions over retail investors such as pre/post market hour trading (not 24/7 like crypto) and IPOs. And naked shorts and circuit breakers halting trades which manipulate stock prices (like what Citadel did with Robinhood).
Our banking system is fractional reserve. If banks started to fail en masse (major ones have failed this year and last) and people tried to withdraw, they wouldn't be able to all at once. Plus there are withdrawal limits unlike crypto which lets you move as much as you want. FDIC currently only insures 1.35% (thought I read elsewhere it was 11-19%) so in a bank run, people would have to presumably wait months to access their liquidity or for the government to bail them out by printing money, essentially devaluing everyone's money in the process by massive monetary inflation. FDIC insurance is a joke--a thin veil invented circa Great Depression to appease the masses from a bank run.
If Bitcoin were purely speculative, then it should have dropped to 0 a long time ago. Instead its price drops to a base level that stair steps up over time. Waves of speculators enter at that ground floor and then later exit at an even higher price floor than when they entered. The fundamentalists who understand its utility continue to expand its network as the waves of speculators come when it's risk on then leave when risk off.
Why does its price floor keep swelling higher long term? Bitcoin was created as a fixed and transparent rules-based monetary system. It exists only to be an alternative vehicle to the arbitrary and opaque rules of our fiat monetary system. So long as inflation keeps leaking our value away due to fiscal/monetary policy, that will remain the catalyst that causes Bitcoin's price floor to swell higher. The greatest risk in Bitcoin going to zero is if inflation and money printing suddenly stop and our fiat system gets fixed and fair. That's the moment I get scared of holding Bitcoin and sell off.
Speculators who don't understand this FOMO in at the tops, get flushed out, then leave while only the fundamentalists remain.
Now the utilities.
A common conflation is bitcoin doesn't have utility like gold. Gold's industrial consumable/transformable (C/T) utility isn't what gives it store of value (SOV) utility. Fidelity published this explanation of the difference:
Most of the properties listed in the table below define sound SOV. To conflate gold's C/T utility with giving it SOV utility is a correlation fallacy. None of the properties of sound money listed below requires it to have industrial C/T utility. That's why fiat dollars are 0% C/T utility and 100% SOV utility. Likewise, Bitcoin has that same 0% C/T vs 100% SOV utility split.
There's a distinction between bitcoin (common noun) and Bitcoin (uppercase proper noun). Bitcoin (proper noun) is the network while bitcoin is the currency transacted on that network. The proper noun Bitcoin is akin to FedWire (both monetary networks) and bitcoin is akin to fiat dollars (the currencies used on said monetary networks) as shown by the first row in the table below. Difference is Bitcoin securely confirms transactions in minutes instead of the days it takes in FedWire. The table above describes bitcoin (common noun) as a currency. The table below describes Bitcoin's (proper noun) utility as a monetary network which gold can't inherently do.
CEO Larry Fink of the world's largest fund manager BlackRock and Fidelity Investments recognize this. They are now part of the fundamentalists setting the price floor with their significant amounts of capital and are not part of the wild speculators. BlackRock has been buying $300 million worth of bitcoin per day since their ETF launched a few weeks ago. Current total between both institutions:
For all of you that think C8 pricing is going to hold up for the next year or two, please PM me.... I have a couple of bridges that I can sell you that will be GREAT investments and serve as a financial hedge just in case.....
For every person like you that has nothing but gushing rave reviews and success with it--there's 10 to 100 people who lost their shirt.
That's probably true for the wider crypto market but not necessarily for bitcoin. A small minority accumulate other cryptos during a bear market when the majority are fearful. Then when mainstream news cycle starts covering price run ups, the majority of speculators FOMO in with massive liquidity and the cycle repeats in a reflexive loop. Meanwhile accumulators are dumping their bags into plentiful wide open hands.
People need to educate themselves on the difference between alt coins vs bitcoin or not play at all. But for bitcoin specifically, Warren Buffet's buy and hold long term method has been working for anyone who employed that for >4 years, even if they bought at the tops. 90% of all holders are currently all in profit (the other 10% aren't because they bought the tops <4 years ago). Even after the tourists come and go, it demonstrates true network growth among fundamentalists for reasons in my prior post.
Certainly entitled to your opinion, sir. El Salvador's president instilled bitcoin as legal tender in 2021 and was democratically re-elected this week by a landslide. That's despite all the negative media coverage about his monetary policy. This election result is a big shocker to those who subscribed to that media. I don't have the cojones nor credentials to insult an entire population as being nonsensical if I were being sincere.
02-05-2024, 06:56 PM
