gwern comments on Money threshold Trigger Action Patterns - Less Wrong

17 Post author: Neotenic 20 February 2015 04:56AM

You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.

Comments (44)

You are viewing a single comment's thread. Show more comments above.

Comment author: gwern 20 February 2015 11:53:17PM 4 points [-]

Another benefit is reduction of risk in uncertain and turbulent times.

Ownership of which things reduces risk, though? If you own a fishing boat, now you're vulnerable to additional risk (damage to your boat, the constant threat of big expensive repairs - 'a boat is a hole in the water you throw money into'), and you no longer have the resources you have spent on ownership of it up front rather than renting a bit at a time; those were resources that could have been a cushion against risk. If you spend $20k on a fishing boat & all its many expenses, you're now down $20k and up on risk; if you keep your $20k, well, $20k buys a lot of protection.

Comment author: Lumifer 23 February 2015 06:15:06PM 1 point [-]

A valid point. Ownership is not an unmitigated blessing :-D and there are certainly trade-offs in play.

I am not saying "you should always own if you can", I'm just objecting to shminux' "almost never makes sense" -- I think it makes sense considerably more frequently than "almost never".