I just walk to the 7/11 and buy a scratcher. I never win anything but I could make at least $100,000 in just one day!
I know you're joking, but I used to work at a convenience store and the scratcher addicts were the most depressing part. I guess I should be grateful that the store I worked at wasn't in an area where more depressing kinds of addicts would be around.
I remember one day walking into a 7/11, in maybe 2002, and there were 2 guys in suits, totally dishevelled, collars undone, looking like they've been awake for 3 days, depression coating their faces, and they had a stack of scratch tickets that they were silently just scratching off.
The story I have in my head is that their business fell apart and this was some past ditch desperate attempt to save it with the little money they had left. I have no idea what actually happened but here we are 20+ years later and I still think about them occasionally.
I know of a few small stores that owe their livelihoods to the local gambling addicts and the lottery machine. The entire business if dedicated to a few whales since selling snacks and coffee to randos didn't work out and they would otherwise close. They even set up private rooms where they could sped the day scratching tickets as they would come in and blow and entire pay/welfare/retirement check.
The logic is always the same, "I'm up $500 today" not even calculating the losses and "I just need one big win". People will farm gamblers like cattle.
Dude it was depressing stopping off at the beer store on the way home from work for a 6pack so I could kick it and relax on the couch...
...and there'd be a group of blue collars going there to cash their weekly paychecks, buy a couple 40s and $50 worth of scratchers. They'd win $10, and buy $10 more worth of scratchers. They'd win a TICKET, get another and win nothing, then complain that they were "so close" to winning 10-grand.
I used to work at a liquor store that had a lottery machine (scratch offs, state lotto) and yea the addicts were pretty depressing. This was a liquor store so we had sadder ones, but still.
I never understood the appeal of scratch offs, 100k? If you gotta dream, dream big, play the lottery
Instant gratification is a hellava drug
The keno addicts at the bar i work at are wild. They just keep silently putting in money and watching the drawings. I prefer that to the ones who try to explain their strategies to me or complain that some number appears in every drawing. Or the guy who came in Wednesday night and kept betting $10 that the first pitch of every at bat of the Mets/Brewers game was gonna be a strike. It's bleak.
I remember hearing a story like twenty years ago about a person that figured out that serial number were disclosing payouts. They would buy a bunch, find the winners, scratch them, then return the losers for their money back. I think I heard about it on a planet money or this American life ages and ages ago.
Since when have treasury bonds gone above 6%?
Apparently this was a failed attempt at a joke.
https://www.crossingwallstreet.com/archives/2024/04/cws-market-review-april-2-2024.html
It's like those educational explanations of compound interest I remember from childhood that tried to encourage you to save money. They would always start with 1 dollar and a savings account with 20% interest, and end up retiring as a millionaire.
A treasury bond delivering 8% is probably one from a dangerous country to invest in.
Sweet, I just need a small, interest-free loan of 3 million dollars and I'll pay you back $10,000 a month for 300 months. Don't believe me? Here, check out my credit report.
Credit report: trust me bro
The remaining $10000 will only be worth 2500 in 30 years time, assuming 5% inflation per year...
Whose side are you on here, me the plucky underdog, or some multimillionaire with money to burn
I didn't buy Twitter and saved over $40B now I don't have to work my entire life
The real LPT is in the comments once again
What a silly post...
First, where are you going to find a 8% treasury bond? Even a few months ago, when they were giving record yields, it didn't even get close to that.
Second, if you borrow $3m with high interest rates (needed to get high yield treasurys) you'll also pay a high rate on your loan. Duh.
Pretty sure the post assumes you have $3m just sitting in your bank account.
Even then there's no investment with guaranteed 8% interest.
This is a person who doesn't understand how the fixed income market works.
He's assuming he's buying $3m notional of a bond yielding 8% and paying for the face value $3m (i.e., he's buying it at par). This is not how it works, even if you're somehow subscribing at issuance as a retail investor.
You're going to be buying the bond at bid, which is going to be higher than par when prevailing future yield expectations are lower than the coupon rate of the bond.
TL,DR: You can't buy $3m of a high-yielding sovereign bond for $3m today. You'll get less of the bond for the money if it's yielding more than the market is expecting base rates to be in the future.
So let's say I have the $3m and buy the bond. Will I have a monthly return and for how much?
It depends! Let's say a 8% Treasury exists and you want to buy it today. To establish its price, you need to know:
- What is today's yield curve? (i.e., what is the market's expectation for interest rates at different points in the future?)
- When does the bond mature? (i.e., how long until the face value of the bond is paid out back to the bond holder?)
- How frequently does the bond pay interest payments (coupons)?
I've put together a quick calc based on Federal Reserve yield curve data as at 27 Sept, assuming an 8% Treasury maturing in exactly 20 years, with semi-annual coupons (as most government debt is semi-annual). Google sheet calc
If you bought $3m worth of this fictional bond today, you would own $1.95m notional of the bond. You paid $3m for $1.95m of US gov't debt effectively because the bond was issued in the past at a higher yield that what the market is expecting the government to issue bonds at in the future.
Every 6 months, you would receive a coupon of c. $78,000, or effectively $13,000 per month. This is interest the gov't pays you for having lent it money (or rather having bought the debt from whoever lent it money.) These payments are guaranteed as long as the US gov't remains solvent.
Finally, in 20 years' time, you would also receive the principal payment of $1.95m. This is the government paying back the amount it originally borrowed. Note that it will likely be worth significantly less in real terms in 20 years!
Importantly, you don't have to hold the bond to maturity and wait 20 years to get your $1.95m. Just like you bought the bond at a bid price of $3m today because rates are lower than the coupon yield of the bond, if the yield curve decreases further, the price of your bond in the open market will increase. E.g., if yields went down 1% across the curve, your $3m investment would now be worth $3.4m and you could sell it for a tidy $400k profit!
The opposite end of “The most expensive thing is to be poor”.
It’s a common image for so many millionaires to have a Scrooge McDuck vault, but that’s the thing; so often their millions are out earning them further millions.
This is such bullshit advice. Instead of doing this, we could invest that money in a 16% bond and make 40k a year. Simple hack they don’t you to know.
Fuck. I invested it in a 24% bond. Time to start over.
Yes and good luck finding a 8% treasury (and please let me know if you do) 😆
The DOW grew 25% over the last year.
The S&P grew 30%
The NASDAQ grew 35%
What are you doing buying 8% Treasury Bonds?
Exactly. But keep in mind that those are different things. Treasury bonds carry very little risk of losing money whereas investing in index funds/ETFs can lose you money.
A year ago we didn't know the market would grow so much, or at all.
Today we don't know if these trends will continue, stop, or even reverse. Past performance doesn't guarantee future returns, yada yada.
The whole point of bonds is that they be more stable and reliable than other securities. They're a useful tool for investors looking for stability.
Hey if you don't have 3million stuck between your couch then that's your problem.
I would simply inherit my father's couch.
yeah i'll get right on that
So I know this is satire but I wouldn't buy a us bond. I would much rather buy one from a stable country.
The US economy is like the most stable economy in the world. And they don't double tax you, depending on where you live and the tax treaty.
We have had 2 assassination attempts on someone running for the highest public office in the country in 3 months. One of the people currently running for office who has a chance at winning tried lost the last election they were in and then tried to take over the government by force.
Our country is not stable.
I would much rather invest in a more stable country like Sweeden or Switzerland.
Oh and 3 seconds on Google proves you wrong. Switzerland is the best and most stable economy and country in the world... again. https://www.usnews.com/news/best-countries/articles/2023-09-06/steady-switzerland-is-once-again-the-worlds-best-country
It's almost like not starting a war in 500 years and being as neutral as possible lead to being a stable country.
