JohnRusty

Something I've seen often on this sub is people advocating for buying REITs in addition to VTI, which is about 3% REITs. This seems to come from the (not unreasonable) conventional wisdom that owning real estate provides good returns that diversify you from the risks of the market. The thinking then goes that buying REITs is the next best thing, for those who may not have enough to buy a whole property, or for wealthy people who are lazy and don't want to deal with tenants.

I'm not here to say you should never buy an REIT or an REIT index, but I think there's a lot of misconceptions surrounding them that I think buyers should be aware of. You should watch [this excellent Ben Felix video on

In the US, there's obviously lots of fast food, like McDonald's, Pizza Hut, and Taco Bell. But there's also lots of middle-brow chain restaurants, like Denny's, IHOP, Olive Garden, and PF Chang's.

However, when I've traveled to countries like Germany, I don't see nearly as many chain restaurants, and when I do, they're often American chains like McDonald's or Burger King. I especially don't see those "middle-brow" chain restaurants, unless my boorish American eyes have totally missed them. I'm aware there are exceptions, like the German chain Nordsee, and I know that Hofbräuhaus has some locations outside Munich, but why is this the case in general?

Is it because America's economy is uniqu

Marx frequently makes mention to the “vulgar economists,” and researching this has led me to a basic understanding of what they are: the economists who dismiss the role of conflict in capitalist economies

Zizek also makes frequently makes reference to the “vulgar” in contexts that don’t have to do with swearing or making crude jokes. In In Defense of Lost Causes, he says:

”pure” politics “decontaminated” from the economy, is no less ideological:vulgar economism and ideologico-political idealism are two sides of the same coin.

I’m vaguely aware of what “vulgar Marxism” is (they think of

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Playing a 1/2 rounds game, most of the players here are really deep ($2k seems to be about average stack, with what looks to be a $5k stack at the table, which was the result of a 4-way all in pre). I'm an exception (along with an older woman who's nursing $125), starting this hand with $450. The Omaha hands run really big, because there's almost always a $10 straddle (they let you straddle form any position at the table). Normally not much pre flop raising but when there is people don't usually fold. OOTH

Hero is on BU. No straddle this hand. Limps to MP, who pots it to $12. Someone calls, I look down at QJT9 with the JsTs. I flat, SB flats, and original limper flats.

Background on m

We play a dealer's choice home game every week. It's slowly evolved from just NLHE to also include PLO, then Pineapple, and now "pineapple PLO", where each player is dealt 5 cards and you have to discard one.

Anyone got any fun game modes to break out at a home game (preferably ones with a no limit or pot limit betting structure)

Playing a 1/2 rounds game. Don't feel super confident in my PLO play, at least not compared to Hold Em, but I still think I'm a winning player at this game. Looking to get better at PLO because that seems to be the direction that live poker is moving, especially over the last couple months where I play. Currently making my way through Hwang's Big Play PLO book.

I'm in the 8 seat, sitting at around $600. First time playing here, they all know each other very well. Most of the rest of the table is sitting $100-$400, and plays very loose passive. However, the 1 and 2 seats are both very deep ($1000+), and I've seen the 1 seat pull off some good bluffs, seems like a pretty competent reg who's

Hey y'all,

I frequent a home game where we play $0.25/$0.50. Game is very fun, lots of drinking, 0ev gambling and shit-talking (that often gets in the way of playing the game lol). Anyway we play that the dealer can call PLO instead of NLH if they wish, and that's what happened here.

A bit of background: game is extremely splashy. Ridiculous amounts of players on every flop, I think the last several hands at this point in time had gone seven+ players into the flop after the majority limp/calling, then a multi-way all in. Oftentimes in the all ins, one player will have random hands like Ace high or an underpair for the fuck of it. Lots of rebuys, players can top off to the chip leader's st

Indiana's state debate tournament is this weekend, which got me thinking about the sad state of my former debate circuit. Participation in policy is abysmal (so much so that the state debate committee narrowly avoided cutting the event entirely a couple years back), and the argumentation/judging is frustratingly conservative. To give you an idea of how bad it was, in two years of varsity debate, I never once faced a neg team who read a CP or a K. There's hope, because some small schools are starting to re-kindle an interest in policy (after several years of the competition coming from 2 or 3 "powerhouse" schools), and seem interested in running arguments beyond solvency attacks, but I'm wond

I'm a young white guy (like most of reddit and most of this sub), and I was wondering how I should be using my image against players at the table (especially MAWGs) to my advantage in live low stakes games. At my cardroom I'm normally the youngest person there by about 5 years, and I get a comment almost every single session about how young I look. What stereotypes do players have about these types of players?

So I normally play 25NL and live 1/1, but I decided to take a shot at 1/3 at a different card room, and I ran a line that was probably a total spew looking back at it, but it got me thinking about when I should be check/raising in live low stakes. Normally I just play ABC poker with my value hands, which is making me a good amount of money, but I'm looking for ways to win more pots.

Anyway, here's my story:

$1/$3. Table is 8-handed, Hero is sitting at $700, after stacking a LAGgy asian dude, and taking a serious chunk out of a whale. Asian dude left after I busted him, and the whale got frustrated and changed to a 2/5 table after losing two buy-ins. Table is super passive, tons of limp/cal