coffeemate

Imagine you spent 40 years doing the boring, responsible thing. You opened a 401k at 23. You contributed every paycheck. You ignored the noise. You bought the index because Bogle told you to, because Buffett told you to, because every honest piece of financial advice for 30 years told you the index was the safest, most diversified, most rules-based way to own America. The whole point was the rules. The rules said: a company must trade for 12 months before joining the S&P 500. The rules said: it must show four consecutive quarters of GAAP profitability. The rules existed because in 1999 the index quietly bought a lot of stocks at the top, and pensioners paid the bill. After the dot-com crash, S&P tightened the rules. Nasdaq tightened the rules. FTSE Russell tightened the rules. For 23 years, those rules held. Then SpaceX filed for IPO. And the rules changed. The S&P 500 waived the profitability requirement. Nasdaq cut its trading-history window from 90 days to 15. FTSE Russell cut its to 5. Bloomberg Intelligence estimates the major index funds will absorb between 19% and 24% of SpaceX's float within six months. That's over $30 trillion of passive 401k and retirement money, mechanically buying a single newly public company at IPO valuations, because the rules said they had to. Except the rules used to say they didn't. Here's the thought exercise: If you spend 40 years building a system designed to protect ordinary savers from buying overpriced stocks, and then you waive the protections the moment a sufficiently large stock asks you to, what was the system actually protecting? Most of investing is about understanding what's a rule and what's a guideline. A rule binds the rule-maker. A guideline binds the saver. You're allowed to find out which is which only after the fact.

The Trump administration is opening up land for oil and gas drilling in or around: —The Grand Canyon —Zion National Park —Joshua Tree National Park —Arches National Park —Grand Teton National Park —Denali National Park

The Trump administration has opened up part of the Grand Canyon for oil and gas drilling.

AOC: This is what drinking water in Georgia looks like after Meta began data center construction in the community.

Why don't we talk about the water consumption of an 18-hole golf course in the same way we do data centers?

“We have to have sympathy. We need to at least let them engage in some stock trading so they can continue to take care of their family.” - House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) on lawmakers trading stocks.

A data center in Georgia used 30 million gallons of water illegally, and locals only noticed when their water pressure was abnormally low. The data center claimed it was an honest mistake, but locals were told by the town to conserve water while the data center kept running.

Just got off a call with a childhood friend His wife has cancer, it took 5 months to wipe out 20 years of his life savings and that was with insurance. He said the experience has turned him into a hateful, bitter person. They did everything they were told. They went to college, got degrees, avoided credit card debt, spent wisely, saved a nice chunk of money in savings accounts and retirement accounts and minded their own business. The USA healthcare system took all of their savings and retirement and forced them to refinance their house so that they lost 15 years of equity. Is this a country we are supposed to be proud of? I hate this system and anyone that defends it.

Maryland homeowners will pay an extra $1.6 billion on their electric bills over the next decade to subsidize grid costs to feed data centers, according to a state agency