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so we could be off the grid
Part of my desire to invest is to be able to afford about 100kW worth of batteries because I want to use them in mostly 35-85% cycles for longevity and need a little bit of redundancy, also looking at ways to further reduce my energy consumption as well as further increase the efficiency of our heat pump.

solar panel
Looking at solar follower towers in addition to what is on the roof, I might be able to mount 3 towers @4500W/peak each around the house.

Out of nowhere, a Citroen comes up and starts to tailgate
I remember being in a setting much like that with my wife in the passenger seat and my kids in the back, all the time in the world on our way to vacation, was not going that fast honestly and it was an Audi, I said to my wife "I have no idea if this guy is on drugs or what is going on, I'll pull away past the car in front of us and pull over because I do not like driving with idiots like that on the road". After I had done just that and stopped the car that idiot policeman in the Audi came with his blue lights on and gave me a speeding ticket. He wanted me to go talk with him but I refused and said "just give me the ticket", I noted his service number and sent a complaint to the Police lawyer stating: "The next time I experience something like that I will hit the brakes as hard as possible" And I meant that. Undercover police pushing people to speeding used to be a common occurence, have not seen it for many years now, not claiming credit but it must have had an impact somehow.

Car right on your bum if you are speeding slightly? Hit the brakes, it's his/her fault if anything happens.
More money to invest if you avoid the ticket.

I could take my 20V cordless tools and put holes on people if I wanted
Now, that is commitment!
I remember the splatter-comedy movie Braindead from 1992 where the main protagonist used a lawnmower.

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0103873/?ref_=tt_pg

Guns make it much easier though, just squeeze the trigger and you can do it from distance, so they are a much more efficient "enabler".
Even if you used bow and arrows you would have to have at least some skill at it to succeed.
The point of limiting access to guns is to raise the bar in terms of safety, in most sane countries it is not a human right to own a gun, nor is it a human right to have a drivers license.
You have to show that you have the knowledge, sense of security as well as proven your shooting skills, passed a course, and have a proper use-case scenario like hunting to get a gun here, I hope it stays that way forever.

So, does anyone have any particular stocks that seem like a good investment?
Will probably invest another 1k$ before xmas.
 
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TonyEE - another good post. I would say it was a fluke that the gendarme spoke English. After their treatment of the Gilet Jaune they lost all the previous support from the ordinary French. Having had lots of conversations with these good people in my awful French I was impressed with how most had any respect at all for the Latin Bonaparte, after all his ego trips cost the lives of 1.5 million Frenchmen. Sad but most Brits still admire that turd, the Duke of Wellington, he called his foot soldiers the 'scum of the earth', "all I expect them to do is fire their muskets and die". Those who survived the battle and the 'butcher tents' went home to be told to 'go away and die' in the woods and forests. A lot of the dead of all nationalities are still being found dumped like garbage in pits.

Your comment about the Isle de France could just as easily be levelled about greater London, it's the same arrogance. I well remember a velo/camping trip in France in the 80s' and having a very enjoyable conversation about Le Tour with a French waiter in a restaurant when in walked a crowd of Parisiens. One klootzak shouted snapping his fingers Garcon, the waiter turned and with an evil grin in my direction went and took their order. I saw him leave the kitchen with the first dish, soup, in which he spat in each bowel and said as he served 'bon appetit'.

The French use the term 'Basque' but they are not, they are Euskadi, have lived in this continent for over 40,000 years and by rights it is they who should name this continent. It is they who created all the dolmen and the star aligned monuments like Stonehenge. That this world heritage site should have a Saxon name is outrageous as these savages were still loping along on the Steppes when it was being built.

Audio components - there are some good sites online and some very well designed gear being made in France. In fact the French havn't abandoned production of a lot of stuff unlike in the USA and UK. The UK was once known for making very good shoes, then it got made in Portugal and now apart from the uber wealthy buying made to measure in London it's all Asian made. The French made shoes are expensive but real quality.

Sevilla - try central Paris and London.

jackinnj if you ever get down my way, northern Tarn, PM me in advance no really good restaurants here but I'm not a bad cook - brandard de morue/casserole de lapin, I even cook with wine as well as drink it.
 
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jackinnj if you ever get down my way, northern Tarn, PM me in advance no really good restaurants here but I'm not a bad cook - brandard de morue/casserole de lapin, I even cook with wine as well as drink it.
Any Albigensian heretics left? Wife and I have been to Albi at least 2x. Will PM.

Getting back to the original purpose of this thread, a really great FR company is Vinci which operates highways (or at least collects the tolls) and is a huge engineering and construction firm. European equities are frowned upon by the big banks, and in thus lies opportunity.
 
'if it's .... again'

I am sorry, I did not understand the reference.

India imports 85% of its crude oil requirement, and is the world's second largest oil importer after China.
Europe has been purchasing products refined from Russian crude by Indian refineries, no protests so far.

Greenpeace protesters are not taken seriously in India.

Russia supplied MiGs and Sukhois, Ukraine sold us Antonov transports, so we Indians must be well behaved towards both parties, and refrain from comment.
Most of the Indian Army also uses Soviet origin equipment, and while it has been gradually localized, there are still sources on both sides of that conflict.

Transport is expensive, and we must try to buy from the cheapest and also dispersed sources.

There have been disruptions in coal supplies from Indonesia (new regime increased price 4x), and Australia (some mines were resisted by the Aborigines, IIRC), so any prudent purchaser must bear such problems in mind.

You are entitled to your views, so am I.
Please take this in good spirit.

Mods, sorry if anything in this is against the rules.

As for returns on investment, an old man once told me that three businesses will never stop in India: barbers, salt and coconuts used in temples.

A doctor became a pediatrician, simply because people will always have babies, now birth rates are declining, so there is less need for child specialists!

Find a perennial business that serves essential sectors, invest in it, and keep watching the financials.
And for safety's sake, walk away at the slightest hint of corruption, it is more common than you think.
And that means local companies, you can't see what is happening in Brazil from the UK.
 
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I have already said that interference in fraternal conflicts is stupid.

The word 'injudicious' comes too mind.

The truth as per which speaker or reporter is also to be considered, the reporter has to be a non involved dispassionate person, otherwise their own compulsions, viewpoints and so on may affect the report.

This is verging on political, but in the past tense.
Mods, your call.
 
Enjoy your cheap oil supplies from your friends

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-essex-63519487

Oh, and by the way if it's .... again
Yes, Russia is Friends with, India ... and China ... and South America (extend that to Mexico)... and most of Africa ... and at least half of Asia ... let alone the Middle East (including Israel, go figure).
That covers 70% or more of Earth population.
So what´s your point?

On the other hand the EU shot themselves in the foot by shunning away from cheap Russian Energy, the closest one, cheap, abbundant and easy to get.
Now that speaks DUMB with a Capital D

About a UK court backing a British run and backed organization? ... what´s the surprise?
Yes, Canada and UK share a Sovereign, none less.
and a chicken ranch on the North Side of the 15
A very local and obscure reference, only a regular customer would know it by heart.

“Silence becomes cowardice when occasion demands speaking out the whole truth and acting accordingly.”

I'll leave it at that.
After calling a fellow member coward?
Fat chance.

OK: so let´s talk the truth since you are asking for it: after relentlessly advancing since 1989 towards Russia borders, contrary to what was agreed (just look at any map), NATO tried to establish itself in Ukraine, and that was the last straw/red line/whatever ..... Russia reacted.
Are you surprised they did?

I am surprised they didn´t 20 years ago, go figure.

Original NATO. Notice ALL the white area, which was a buffer/separation/insulation zone:
nato-1949.jpg

Not only was ALL of it painted Blue, add to that the Baltic States, Moldavia, and now they are trying to do the same with Ukraine.

What would USA reaction be if Mexico and Canada became Warsaw pact members? ... or even tried to?.
There´s your answer.
 
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ROTFLOL

Chicken ranch... I realized you don't live in the US...

https://chickenranchbrothel.com/

BUT, you ought to know what "High End" audio is...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-end_audio

I have already said that interference in fraternal conflicts is stupid.

The word 'injudicious' comes too mind.

The truth as per which speaker or reporter is also to be considered, the reporter has to be a non involved dispassionate person, otherwise their own compulsions, viewpoints and so on may affect the report.

This is verging on political, but in the past tense.
Mods, your call.

I wonder if they have an Aleph 2 or an F5 at the Chicken Ranch....
 
The truth is that Britain is a has been nation for the past 40 years, and is like an old man trying to establish authority at a street corner.
Nobody cares, or ignores you.
So there is increasingly outrageous behavior, like publicity about the sexual activities of various public figures.

Sit down, and think with a calm mind why 80% of the doctors and nurses in the health system are from the Indian sub continent.
Now with and ageing population, whose median age is above 40, they are trying to poach nurses from India.

What put you in this position, and in many other fields, is to be thought of.

In perspective, the area of the UK is about the state of UP or Karnataka in India, and the population is a fraction of our population in India.

Nobody told you to shoot yourself in the foot, so we are not interested in your agony.
Go to the nearest hospital, most likely the treating doctor will be from India, Pakistan, Bangladesh or Sri Lanka, or maybe from the West Indies. Not born or educated in the UK.

Political, or telling the blunt truth, that is the moderators' decision.
 
JMFahey - all the western media demonises Iran but who actually created the conditions that brought about the ayatollahs - the Seven Sisters aka US/UK?French oil companies who were outraged that the democratically elected Dr Mosaddegh wanted the majority of the Iranian oil wealth to go the Iranian people so enter MI6 and the CIA who with bribes brought about his downfall. Enter the Shah and his secret police who proceeded to torture and murder thousands and thousands of the population. In the 1950s Iran was a go-head modern country. I was lucky enough to meet some beautiful Iranian girls in the early 70s - the hijab and the burka were virtually unknown in Iran up to the return of the ayatollahs. It would now be a dynamic and democratic country but for the interference of the greedy West.

I remember on TV seeing the drunken Yeltsin sitting on a tank with the Russian parliament being attacked by the compliant Russian army. The Russian parliamentarians knew full well what was going to happen unless they could stop Yeltsin. Of course they were doomed to failure without the Russian army support. Enter the oligarchs and the westerners who duly proceeded to steal all the vast assets and the ordinary Russians were screwed rotten. Had the West as a whole helped the Russian people to transition to democracy the little turd Putin his KGB cronies would never have been heard of. Once the 'little man' had control was when NATO became a threat to his ambition to recreate Tzarist Russia.

The Americans created NATO as a buffer to Red fascist Russia. The USA or rather the American industrial/military complex didn't really care about what happened in WW11 in Europe if they had immediately with the fall of Fascist Austria/Germany, would have used a couple of crack/veteran divisions to invade Spain and wipe out the Fascist regime - they didn't and had no intention whatsoever of doing this because the democratically elected Republican government had consisted mainly of Anarchist/Socialists and Communists. So Franco was able to go on murdering thousands and thousands for decades.

The world as we all know is about money and who controls it. Spartacus got sold out by the Phoenician money men - so it goes. It's a shame that ordinary American immigrants didn't see through the 'country gentlemen' who created the newly formed Constitution to suit their own purposes, just as the Levellers got conned by Fairfax and Cromwell (the English country gentlemen) after the English Civil War.

Tobydog - the English get what they deserve, even now a lot of the peasants still believe that the Nasty party is better at running the country -LOL or cry, take your pick. Like I said in a previous post an English version of the Gilet Jaune will never happen - that's about standing up to be counted and taking responsibility for your own life and that is something that the English working and middle classes will never do.

NareshBrd - Britain has been a nation for a lot longer than 40 years LOL. - 80% of the doctors and nurses are from the Indian sub-continent an even bigger LOL - your figure is completely wrong and your nationalism stands out like a spare #ick at a wedding. A lot of the NHS staff are of Pakistani origin and almost all were born in the UK. Fact - the UK has been poaching trained staff from the old Empire countries for decades. Why - because the UK tax payers have been ripped off for decades, training doctors and nurses who then bugger off to other countries where they can earn a lot more money. All staff who are trained by the UK tax payer should be made to sign a contract whereby they work in the NHS for a minimum of 15 years. When I worked in the Netherlands at the end of the 70s' an awful lot of dentists were from the UK.

I firmly believe that tax payers everywhere should get a return on their tax enforced investments.

To return to the OP where and what to invest in to get a decent return. If you do not spend time building up an accurate world view before making any investment you are doing a Luke Reinhart and 'rolling the dice' - gambling is a sure fire way to lose money.
 
The US really is about the money. It has gotten really expensive here. Many other countries are much poorer than the US, yet they subsidize essentials like education and health care (very important to society). Those two items are obscenely priced here. Even Mexico has free college and affordable health care.

I don't know how working people are going to afford housing here in the future. My next door neighbor (holocaust survivor RIP) bought his house in 1960 and he paid it off in ten years on a bread baker's salary. The last two houses to sell on my block were paid for in cash by very wealthy families. My point is that a $400K "starter" house is out of reach for a young working family. Even a crappy condo in the heart of the cutthroats is $200K. If I were 20-something I would milk living with my parents as long as possible and forget marriage and kids. In fact my neighbor has three 20-somethings kids living with him and there's no plans to move out. I would be planning my exit from this hell hole of a once great country before it gets really bad.

I also agree on Russia. Big stupid Uncle Sam set the stage for Putin. It's a completely natural reaction. Putin even warned Uncle Sam where this was going. Putin is simply rebuilding the oligarchy.

The parallel with Britain is very stark here. Many Americans live in a bubble and lack perspective. I see it very clearly and it is ugly. The American Empire is in shambles and Uncle Sam is struggling to hide that fact from his constituents.
 
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Getting back on the topic of investing -- there was a Wall St Journal interview with Burton Malkiel ("A Random Walk Down Wall St") last week -- on of the fathers of the "index" method of investing.

"The News You Fail to Mention" with respect to index investing -- in 4 periods of my observing life there have been times when it is critical to divorce yourself from the most highly capitalized companies in the S&P500 Index. These were "the Go-Go years", "the Nifty-Fifty"(1), the "Dot-Com Bubble", and, well, we don't quite have a name for it yet, I'll just call it the "Virus Bubble". If I had the skill with graphics, I could do a time-lapse video of how the largest cap companies dominate and then recede. It's happening now before our eyes.

Back when oil was below zero (for near term delivery), I was asked to interview a portfolio manager who had successfully created a "zero-carbon" fund. At the end of the interview, I asked if we could short her fund. A "one-hit wonder".

(1) -- I believe that in these periods it was the S&P425
 
In the 1950s Iran was a go-head modern country. I was lucky enough to meet some beautiful Iranian girls in the early 70s - the hijab and the burka were virtually unknown in Iran up to the return of the ayatollahs. It would now be a dynamic and democratic country but for the interference of the greedy West.
Exact same happened in Afghanistan.
Unless you know History, you will be deeply surprised at how open and liberal (for a Moslem Country that is, let´s keep perspective) Afghan society was.
It culminated in a very liberal leftist President, who empowered Women big time (same as in Soviet Russia from the very beginning).
US/UK couldn´t stand his Soviet/Communist ties so strongly backed his exact opposites ... which happened to be the Taliban.
Who do you think backed/trained/armed/organized the Taliban and Al Quaeda?

See for yourself how was Afghan society before external intervention.

https://glamourdaze.com/2015/08/fashion-freedom-in-pre-war-afghanistan.html

A few samples:

Female-students-at-the-Polytechnical-University-in-Kabul-in-the-mid-1970s 😱
Female-students-at-the-Polytechnical-University-in-Kabul-in-the-mid-1970s-Hulton-Archive-500x340.jpg


Miniskirts worn by 1960s Afghan students
Fashion-Freedom-in-Pre-War-Afghanistan2-500x317.jpg


Afghan students in the 70s:
Fashion-Freedom-in-Pre-War-Afghanistan-students-1970s.jpg


And on a more solid ground:

* In 1919, Emir Amanullah Khan legalized women’s suffrage, a year before women in the USA ! 😱
 
I was at Southern Illinois University in 1979, when the hostage crisis happened. The School of Engineering was dominated by Iranian nationals, especially grad students. Many instructors were Iranians.

All Iranian nationals were deported immediately. There was a fleet of buses on campus the next day to take them to St. Louis where they were flown out of the country.

It was very disruptive. Classes without instructors, some without students. These people were my every day colleagues and they were all of a sudden gone. Most all were older than me, working on multiple degrees. They all wanted to go back to Iran and build a more modern country.

So all the propaganda Uncle Sam propagates about Iran goes in one ear and right out the other. Compared to what we were before 1980 the US of A is ridiculous.
 
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There was an incident in 2019, a doctor from India, attending a conference in London, collapsed at the venue, she was given CPR, and shifted to St. Barts, 3 stents were put, she died three days later.

I was asked to help, and going through the doctors list, was totally floored at the names.

Then, a senior doctor up North was asked to comment, and he said, oh, I thought you knew that we are mostly from our part of the country.
He, too is an Indian, married a British girl.

We annually graduate about 1.6 million engineers and 90,000 doctors in Allopathy (Western medicine), and about 53,000 in Ayurveda, Unani, Homeopathy and traditional disciplines.
We have over 2500 Neurologists, which is a PhD. grade education here.
So a few end up in the NHS.

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&ved=2ahUKEwiOlt2Bjpr7AhVlTHwKHUnIBk0QFnoECFUQAQ&url=https://www.statista.com/statistics/555040/medical-graduates-in-the-united-kingdom/&usg=AOvVaw1qEkyn2JTGJDHnh0Bng3oG

UK has a modest 8500 or so annual graduates figure, as per above.
Less than 10 % of India.
 
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