So you think your firewall protects your OS from hacking......what about the other OS in your CPU?

The Intel Management Engine (ME) is a subsystem composed of a special 32-bit ARC microprocessor that's physically located inside all Intel chipsets since 2013.


http://boingboing.net/2016/06/15/intel-x86-processors-ship-with.html?



Seriously WTF??

To achieve this task, the ME is capable of accessing any memory region without the main x86 CPU knowing about the existence of these accesses. It also runs a TCP/IP server on your network interface and packets entering and leaving your machine on certain ports bypass any firewall running on your system.
The fact that it can still run while in S3 suspend mode is what kills me.


Keep in mind there is absolutely no way for the main CPU to tell if the ME on a system has been compromised, and no way to "heal" a compromised ME. There is also no way to know if malicious entities have been able to compromise ME and infect systems.

Take A Long Line

The mp3 version came up on random play on my media server when working this afternoon.......had to share :)

- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4LdZAK2Rfkg

(and yes i did stop random play to crank out the rest of the album.....sorry neighbours)

Interest rates through the ages.....

I wonder how accurate this really is?

More here at - http://www.marketwatch.com/story/heres-why-us-investors-might-squeak-past-brexit-worries-2016-06-14

Another day....another tax on investors....

I was reading the SMH today only to find out that now the NSW Government wants to take a dig at investors copying the recent Victorian state tax hikes.


http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/nsw-budget-2016-foreign-property-buyers-in-nsw-to-be-hit-with-stamp-duty-and-land-tax-hikes-20160613-gpiaap.html


"NSW Treasurer Gladys Berejiklian that foreign buyers of residential property will be slugged with a 4 per cent stamp duty surcharge from next week and pay an extra 0.75 per cent land tax from 2017

The stamp duty surcharge will apply from the June 21 state budget, while the land tax surcharge will take effect from January 1, 2017"

Now here is the real question.......none of this legislation has been drafted for review yet (apart from the reporters claims of his understanding of the proposals).

eg are they going to use citizenship as the basis for "foreigner" definition OR are they going to use the Victorian "Absentee Owner" style of definition? 

More on this here at - https://propertychat.com.au/community/threads/nsw-stamp-duty-surcharge.11522/#post-232579

Its interesting to see how quickly "investor" has become a dirty word even though the same effect happens if I was to invest in equities which drives up P/E and drives down yield in your superannuation fund.

Of course what do I know....I'm not running the country.

Are rental yields too low for continued investing in Sydney property?

I’m wondering if we as investors shouldn’t be calling a temporary top to the Australian property market?

I should clarify my statement here, I think too many people are overpaying for investment properties and accepting WAY TOO MUCH RISK for the yields we are seeing.

At the end of the day investors like us are “bankers” for renters, eg. we as “the investor” are allowing people choosing to spend their money (or banked time as I prefer to call it referring to delayed gratification) either because their income doesn’t allow them to save enough for a deposit OR because their lifestyle choices exceed their income at the moment in order for them to purchase permanent shelter.

At the moment my Gross ROI on property is 3.78% pre-expense and Net ROI 2.82% post-expenses (but before mortgage repayments).

Basically I am “delaying gratification” and banking my time with the view that the return over the long run is going to be greater than inflation, and the person renting from me is banking that their lifestyle choices are better served ‘for now at least’ by renting.

The problem I see is this, investors aren’t being rewarded for the risks that we take that we aren’t going to get shafted between the banks and the tenants.

Basically “property prices” are too high compared to the rental income ROI you are getting per week.
There can be two reasons for this…..too many investors OR lack of other opportunities.
There is exactly the same correlation between this and the current situation with the German bund yield or the other countries that are currently ZIRP.

It probably wouldn’t hurt if we as investors started to “underbid” the market and forced prices to go down in both dollar amount but most importantly allowed wages time to go up….and for rents to catch up to purchase prices so that the yield on property rents were paying a higher return.

Of course the natural followup question is do I pay down my current debts with the excess cash OR do I invest it into other markets eg equities which with 17 & 21 p/e….suck equally as much but this is very much a first world problem to have.

Either way I’m interested in hearing what you think.

Yugoslavia today......

Wow what a mess. Didnt realise it was still this bad.

Interesting timing though as i just finished watching the last episode of #TheLastPanthers just this week.

Was a good series....though very grim. I thought the grimness was "cinematic"....guess not.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-06-08/the-remains-of-yugoslavia/7473824

Vanguard VPMAX:US

lol....not the rating you want to see on your 401k :(

https://www.brightscope.com/fund-pages/shareclass/vanguard/3537/VPMAX/

Time for a refund Vanguard​ even if your fees are 0.35%.....I think its time to return some of that $200m you made this year.