antagon
The Man
- Dec 6, 2009
- 3,572
- 295
- 48
this is why i dont bother with marketized investment, toro. supposedly my chain is worth twice what i've paid for it five years later. i think that's comforting, especially when people thought it was irresponsible to buy and wear around like a pimp. i bought a backhoe in 2005, too, and i've netted more than i bought it for each and every quarter since then. who cares what that's worth now. easily half what i bought it for or less.$500 to $1300 over four years is outstanding. You will be a very rich man if you can generate a 160% return every 4 years.
i just think taking $120k out of a piece of equipment in 5 years beats any $5k i'd have put into some commodity or someone else's business. ive invested in depreciated fixer-upper equipment and cost of sales. not for everyone, but a different league than staring at bullion or charts with respect to returns and risk.
so you are a real capitalist. The problem with your approach is that you can't scale it up and it isn't a formula that anybody can copy, and you rely on deals coming along along with business.
But capitalism is supposed to be a risk and a meritocracy.
there's limitations to the scalability, but i bought another hoe in '06, a bobcat trackhoe that could go through your front door. a bobcat endloader and a skiploader since. i have a dumptruck, a crew truck and a 24' stakeside. none are real lookers, but i think that's why i'm still in business. the guys leasing new shit -- some of them -- had to call it quits when the goin got tuff. some of this gear is support for the humans that do other work and for the hoe itself (you need to haul away the mess you've dug up, or spread it out nice-like) i rent a lot to sit the shit on, have to pay folks to fix them, etc.
like we've said, not everyone's cake. i do rely on deals coming, but they come. half the battle of vertical property exploitation is underground.