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    1. What are your investing/trading moves this week?

      Do you expect a Fed rate hike, pause, or rate cut on June 14? I personally believe the Fed will surprise the market with another rate hike because although CPI has cooled, core PCE has remained...

      Do you expect a Fed rate hike, pause, or rate cut on June 14?

      I personally believe the Fed will surprise the market with another rate hike because although CPI has cooled, core PCE has remained sticky and the Fed doesn’t want inflation to rear its ugly head at all costs.

      According to the CNN Fear & Greed Index we are at “extreme greed” levels not seen since February 3rd, which also coincided with a temporary market top.

      This leads me to believe the market will begin to fall over the next few weeks until we hit “fear” or “extreme fear” levels again around July.

      13 votes
    2. My completely subjective ski town tier list

      Intro & Tier Definitions I've been mulling over a ski town tier list in my head for a few weeks and I was just thinking of putting it on paper when all the reddit stuff happened. So instead of...

      Intro & Tier Definitions

      I've been mulling over a ski town tier list in my head for a few weeks and I was just thinking of putting it on paper when all the reddit stuff happened. So instead of posting it to /r/skiing I'm posting it here. This is completely subjective and is only based on the relatively small number of ski towns I've lived in or visited. My ulterior motive here is to get your thoughts on additions to this list along with which tier they should fall into... specifically S Tier places I haven't visited. I'm not doing any research - this is strictly based on my opinions from places I've personally been to.

      A quick note: I'm only thinking about the towns themselves here. Not the quality of skiing, snowfall, or anything else. For the purposes of this ranking system, a 200' hill in the Midwest with a great little town at the base would fall into S Tier while 10,000 acre mega-resort with a $10B purpose-built resort village would fall into B Tier.

      Here's my completely subjective ranking system:

      S Tier: S tier is the "perfect mountain town". These towns typically existed prior to the ski area, and still have a strong community of locals living right in town keeping things vibrant (admittedly, in most places short term rentals have made that community smaller). The towns are also right at the base of the mountain; if they didn't run the plows you could ski from the top of the highest peak right down onto main street, pop your skis off, and start après.

      A Tier: These towns are S Tier towns but for one problem - they're just a little too far from the actual ski area to ski right into town. You're going to have to hop in your car or take a bus, or take a long bike ride to get to town. While these towns are still amazing, beautiful places, they're not quintessential perfect towns for that one reason alone. I think for the purposes of this discussion the town has to be within a few minutes of the ski area. Most of these towns will have a B Tier style village at the base as well, but the village isn't the focus here.

      B Tier: These towns aren't really "towns". They're purpose-built shopping malls or villages made for the ski area with condos and hotels. Unlike A Tier towns, they don't have a nearby "real" town to tie onto. They may be big and vibrant villages, but they don't have (many) locals living in the core village area, and they never have.

      C Tier: Basically a parking lot. Maybe a bar, cafeteria, and a ski rental shop. Usually have a larger town nearby to support some locals, but it's going to be too far away to feel like it's part of the ski area scene. Finally, I'm not really filling out C-Tier that much unless it has an interesting anchor town within 30 minutes or so. I'm also leaving off the dozens of Midwest and East Coast ski areas that I've been to because I frankly haven't skied east of the Rockies in so long that I don't think I could properly categorize them based on memory.


      S Tier

      • Telluride
      • Breckenridge
      • Park City
      • Aspen (Ajax)
      • Heavenly: If memory serves, you can't actually ski to town. But you take a gondola down to town instead of a car/bus so I'm counting it as S Tier. Also South Lake is an interesting take on a ski town. I was on the fence but I'm leaving it in S Tier.
      • Kleine Scheidegg-​Männlichen-Grindelwald-​Wengen: you have to take a train to Interlaken but I think the "villages" here count as actual towns, so this is S Tier.

      A Tier

      • Steamboat Springs: Almost S Tier. I think if you really tried you could ski from the top of Pony Express into town.
      • Silverton
      • Whitefish: should maybe be B Tier. I can't remember how close Whitefish (the town) was to the actual ski area.
      • Crested Butte: I initially had this in S Tier based on memory, but after looking at the map I realized it was a little further from the base to town than I remembered.

      B Tier

      • Jackson Hole: this was a tough one. Jackson, WY is one of the coolest towns I've ever been to. Teton Village is also a great little base area. But Jackson is just too far from the tram to really bump this up to A tier.
      • Vail: I've lived here since 2015 and I haven't met a single person who lives in Vail Village or Lionshead year-round. The north side of the highway doesn't count as a town, it's really just an amalgamation of box stores, strip malls, and parking lots...
      • Keystone
      • Beaver Creek
      • Aspen (Snowmass & Highlands): not really close enough to Aspen proper to go into A Tier. But close...
      • Winter Park
      • Big Sky
      • Copper
      • Squaw
      • Kirkwood

      C Tier

      • Arapahoe Basin: close to Dillon / Frisco / Breck.
      • Aspen (Buttermilk): I've only been here during X Games but I think without all that infrastructure they bring in it would just be a parking lot and a cafeteria. I might be wrong. Close to Aspen.
      • Monarch: close to Salida.
      • Ski Cooper: close to Leadville.
      • Bachelor: close to Bend.

      Edit: I'll append this list with your suggestions if you'd like to add to it.

      Edit 2: The lists within the tiers are in no particular order. I just happened to type them in that order when I thought of them.

      17 votes
    3. Cormac McCarthy has died

      @Publishers Weekly: BREAKING NEWS: Cormac McCarthy, a preeminent voice in American literature over the better part of the past half-century, died today at his home in Santa Fe, N.M., his publisher, Knopf, confirmed. He was 89. Full obit to follow.

      69 votes
    4. Any finance tips and tricks for those who are financially illiterate?

      So I'm 20, in the US (California to be exact), and I'm planning to (secretly) move out of my parents' house sooner or later. I have a plan and all that, but I'm a bit anxious since I know nothing...

      So I'm 20, in the US (California to be exact), and I'm planning to (secretly) move out of my parents' house sooner or later. I have a plan and all that, but I'm a bit anxious since I know nothing about finance. I was never taught about it at school beyond some surface-level vocabulary words (no personal finance. Only like how econ is related to governments and all) and I grew up with a dad who thought he was being selfless by making sure I never had to think about money ever. Mix that in with some good ol' learning problems and I'm clueless about money

      Here are some things I learned to give an example of what I mean when I imply I'm absolutely clueless:

      • Apparently taxes will sometimes differ from each store I buy from. I have not learned how or why each store has a different percentage (I thought it was by state), just that it sometimes does
      • Also, groceries don't have taxes, but they tend to cost more than the pre-packaged stuff
      • Speaking of taxes, apparently if you make enough for them you can completely ruin your parents' taxes if you forget to communicate with them. Luckily, I didn't have to learn this the hard way, but I suddenly realized why people who were keeping their jobs a secret from their parents were concerned about making too much
      • Credit cards are like a loan that you are forced to pay monthly. I legitimately thought the money was directly transferred from your bank account to the card, but no, it's from this storage in the bank that they have where they take your and everyone else's money and lend it to others
        • This was also why I was so confused as to why the banks collapsed right before the Great Depression
      • A lot of things only take credit cards. For example, paying a house via cash is literally impossible, which is why you need to rely on a bank (to my disappointment). In fact, living bankless will only cause more problems than it does save money
      • I figured out what a lease was. No one taught me that and I never sought to learn it until I was asking for apartment rooms

      I'm lucky in that I'm not paying any sort of bills or insurance, and that I'm still reliant on my parents for that. However, I really want to get away from them, even though I would be tied to my parents' insurance plans and all. (I don't think they will ever kick me out of them, no matter what I do.) I don't want to be thrust into something that's difficult to reverse, so for those of you who are older and know what you're doing, is there any finance advice you recommend? What should I expect money-wise when I move out? What has been a regretful decision you've made and what has worked for you?

      Resources are also nice, though I'm wary of books that are only found online and thus, I need to pay to see what's inside.

      30 votes
    5. Weekly US politics news and updates thread - week of June 5

      This thread is posted weekly - please try to post all relevant US political content in here, such as news, updates, opinion articles, etc. Extremely significant events may warrant a separate...

      This thread is posted weekly - please try to post all relevant US political content in here, such as news, updates, opinion articles, etc. Extremely significant events may warrant a separate topic, but almost all should be posted in here.

      This is an inherently political thread; please try to avoid antagonistic arguments and bickering matches. Comment threads that devolve into unproductive arguments may be removed so that the overall topic is able to continue.

      17 votes
    6. Work trip to Palo Alto, CA - Seeking recommendations

      In a few weeks, I'll be making a short trip (3 days) to Palo Alto, working in the Stanford Medical Center area. I'm hoping for some local or experienced insight into "don't miss" destinations for...

      In a few weeks, I'll be making a short trip (3 days) to Palo Alto, working in the Stanford Medical Center area.

      I'm hoping for some local or experienced insight into "don't miss" destinations for food, culture, history, and sight-seeing. It's likely I'll only have Sunday afternoon and weekday evenings free, so the personal tour may have to be more focused than local guides might otherwise suggest.

      My home area has great food, but I'm really starving for Eastern cuisines. I'm willing to go beyond what a corporate travel budget permits if there's truly extraordinary, "can't get anywhere else" dining available.

      Your insights are greatly appreciated!

      14 votes