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A comment on The Real Silicon Valley. Parent comment

Re:The Real Silicon Valley by arbuge on Tuesday December 18, 2012 @07:45PM (#4940596)
Careful with that. That ignores inflation, which as a great man once said, is the most pernicious tax of all. Inflation is currently around ~1.8% per year. Money in a 1% CD is effectively losing 0.8% per year.

If you're happy with a $30k return on a $3m portfolio, you need to get a 2.8% return in today's inflation environment.

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Re:The Real Silicon Valley by 001sky on Wednesday December 19, 2012 @02:26AM (#4941571)
If you're happy with a $30k return on a $3m portfolio...

-- You should never be happy with this. IMHO.

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Re:The Real Silicon Valley by rprasad on Tuesday December 18, 2012 @08:17PM (#4940690)
Interest rates on investments take into account estimated inflation, so the $30k already takes into account likely inflation (but would not take into account higher-than-expected inflation).
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Re:The Real Silicon Valley by arbuge on Tuesday December 18, 2012 @08:31PM (#4940727)
Hell no. You invest in a 1% CD, you get 1% absolute return, even if inflation is raging in the double digits.

Edit: I assume you mean that over time interest bearing account rates rise with inflation. That's true in general, but as the current situation shows, there's no guarantee they're actually even above the inflation level at any point.

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Re:The Real Silicon Valley by tcgv on Wednesday December 19, 2012 @07:03AM (#4942209)
He means that if you keep spending all of your investment's returns, you'll end up with a fixed income of $30K (1% of $3M) that, due to inflation, will have less purchasing power as the years go by.
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