Growing Use of Apprenticeships in the USA

Posted on February 15, 2023 by money

The high cost of university education continues to increase the strain of paying for the traditional university degree. Even so, the right college education for the right person pays off. But there are many people where that isn’t a great financial life decision.

Apprenticeships are a great option for many people. For one thing you don’t have to take on a huge debt burden (previous post: Personal Finance Considerations for Going into Debt for Education). Also for many careers and apprenticeship is what is needed, not a college degree.

In 2021, more than 241,000 new apprentices were entered in the USA national apprenticeship system (data from US Department of Labor, as is the rest of the data in this post). The United States Department of Defense United Services Military Apprenticeship Program is the largest Registered Apprenticeship program with over 100,000 active-duty service members.

In 2021 there were 593,600 people actively engaged in apprenticeships (Covid19 caused a decline from 2000 when there were 636,515 active apprenticeships); another 214,551 either completed or cancelled their apprenticeship.

Chart showing total apprenticeships from 2013 to 2021 in the USA.

from the USA Department of Labor.

Apprenticeships in the USA are largely held by men, they make up 86% of the total. The top occupations represented: electrician (71,812 active apprentices), carpenter (29,800), plumber (21,971), sprinkler fitter (17,595), construction craft laborer (15,009)… certified nurse assistant (4,619)…

Apprenticeship.gov is the one-stop source to connect career seekers, employers, and education partners with apprenticeship resources.

Diversification for Real Estate Investors

Posted on January 19, 2019 by money

This is an edited version of my response to a question on the Bigger Pockets forum (a real estate investor site):

Diversification is a valuable strategy for investors. Investors focused on real estate can add safety to their portfolio by diversifying with real estate and financial assets.

Financial Assets

Diversify with stocks and bonds (though at these interest rates I prefer money market funds and a small amount of short term bond funds). Within stocks (for USA investors) some global stocks can be a sensible strategy (though there are reasonable arguments to be made for USA S&P 500 having lots of international exposure). For those outside the USA I definitely believe global diversification is important.

Other thoughts on diversification: Investment Risk Matters Most as Part of a Portfolio, Rather than in Isolation

Real Estate
It is also sensible to diversify within real estate. I am looking at buying real estate in a 2nd location, in a different sate (I am uncomfortable with how much of my assets are in real estate in 1 geographic location).

There are many good reasons to buy real estate locally – expertise in the market, ease of management… But from a perspective of diversification buying in a 2nd location can make sense (and then a 3rd…). You can also look at things like vacation rental (v. SFH rental, apartments, cheap v. expensive rentals…), business real estate (retail, office space…). You can use Real Estate Investment Trusts REITs (useful, for example, for those not interested or able to do business real estate directly). There are many risks to being geographically and type concentrated.

An easy way to see the risk to consider an investor with all vacation/airbnb rentals in 1 city. That city then passed laws that restrict or kill that business? The legal risk – local and state and federal tax law changes are real (and not just airbnb restriction law changes, that airbnb example is easy one for most people to see). Also the economy of that location or state could be harmed and you would be harmed (even if you did really well in a downward spiraling market the market forces may overwhelm you advantages).
 

House in Arlington, Virginia, see my post on Real Estate Investing in in Arlington, Virginia given Amazon’s Regional Office announcement

Diversification is a wise move to increase safety. But how you do that is debatable and not as easy as just wishing to be wisely diversified. Most people not on these boards would benefit from diversification by adding real estate to their investments (while many on these board probably could benefit by diversification with non-real-estate investments).

Warren Buffett on Diversification
 
Other comments on the board mentioned Warren Buffett’s comments on the benefits of concentration (the opposite of diversification). Warren Buffett’s argument against too much diversification basically boils down to him wanting to spend a lot of time becoming an expert on 10 companies he owns vs. buying some of 200 companies (as he doesn’t think anyone can really be an expert on 200 in addition to the problem of finding nearly that many great bargains). His statements on diversification in this manner was essentially a response to questions about comparing him to stock pickers from managed mutual funds (where they owned 100 or 200 or more stocks and he often owned huge amounts of under 10 – he also bought out companies completely so really he has over 10 but…).

Warren Buffett also believes just buying very diversified stock market funds (unmanaged with low costs) is a very good strategy for nearly everyone (excepting himself and a few others). Basically Warren Buffett says diversification is a good way to get average returns (if you can smartly beat the market over the long term diversification will dilute your ability to beat the market moving you to average). But for the vast majority of investors over the long term the reduced risk that comes with diversification is wise and pays off for them.

As with most things, diversification has advantages and disadvantages but most often a well diversified investment portfolio provides the best protection against the many risks individual investments face.

Getting Started Early on FI/RE

Posted on August 16, 2016 by money

I started adopting the mindset that set me on the path for FI/RE (Financial Independence/Retire Early) when I was very young. I collected baseball cards when I was a kid and added comic collections when I was a bit older kid.

Early on I was paying attention to the investment potential. I enjoyed not just the collecting but also the idea of making money by buying something and then selling it later for more money (which is the fundamental idea of investing). It came naturally to me.

I never much liked spending money on something that lost its value. For some things, like ice cream, I could happily spend my money even though I would soon have nothing to show for it. But more often I would rather buy something I could enjoy and also believe I would be able to sell later at a higher price.

When I started actually trying to sell baseball cards for money I learned about he difference between reported “value” and the ability to get cash for what you owned. Not only can’t you sell items to a store at the “value” reported in pricing guides you often couldn’t sell them at all (they didn’t want the items at all).

In high school I started renting space to sell at shows. There you were selling to the public (or other dealers). I learned vivid examples of the challenges of turning assets into cash. And I also learned about the weaknesses in the economic ideals such as the market being efficient. I saw how often the very same product (the same baseball card) for sale in the same hall would have very different prices (over 100% more was not uncommon) and the sales were often not close to the best buys. The friction in this situation was much smaller than the typical purchase (all the items were in the same room, just a little bit of walking created the friction).

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Economics: Digital Nomads, Visas, Foreign Currency

Posted on January 2, 2016 by money

This is a slighted edited version of my comment to someone asking about countries that have laws specifically detailing digital nomads are allowed to work on tourist visas. My background is in economics and investing based on economic understanding.

The question of digital nomads working encompasses legal questions (do I need a special visa etc.), regulatory realities (regardless of what the law says how is it enforced at the ground level?) and economics (I am talking here about the benefits to the country economically from having digital nomads).

I like the economic thinking that should drive what the government’s wish to accomplish. The prohibition against work on tourist visas makes sense when work is defined as it was historically (being hired by a company in the country that otherwise would have hired a citizen). So when I am thinking about it I find thinking about the macroeconomic level view and how that is manifest in laws and policy. From a practical standpoint of being a digital nomad what really matters is how that all gets filtered down to the government employees on the ground making decisions.

Few laws say what is legal, they normally say what is not. I would imagine few countries specifically say it is legal to do work from another country (as a digital nomad, as a employee answering an business email on their vacation, as a private investor reading the news and using the internet to buy or sell a stock, as a writer writing a book that will be published back home, an entrepreneur refining ideas to launch a new business back home or whatever).

Buddha statue at Borobudur temple in Java, Indonesia. See more of my photos from Indonesia.

The laws usually are pretty clear you can’t apply for jobs and get hired by a company inside that country to do work in that country on a tourist visa.

“Thailand” has said it is ok to work as a digital nomad (work for some company outside the country) while on a tourist visa. But these pronouncements by officials don’t carry much weight with other officials so they are not worth much.

What is helpful is knowing the prohibitions against working are primarily about not having foreigners take jobs of the citizens. Digital nomads don’t do that. So they are not meant to be prohibited anymore than the other examples (an executive participating in a conference call from work while on vacation etc.).

But since it isn’t clear cut it can be confused by officials as something not allowed. It is much easier not to have to get low level officials to comprehend the intent of the laws. They think of it as tourists can’t work in the country and that is essentially true. But how “work” is defined is the issue; and digital nomad work doesn’t fit the description of work in that context.

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Medical Tourism

Posted on October 12, 2015 by money

Medical tourism (traveling overseas to get medical care) is growing and likely to continue to do so. The USA’s extremely high costs of medical care push people to find more reasonable health care solutions. Also in some countries the very rich seek out advanced treatments outside their country.

Seeking more cost effective and more customer focused health care options are likely to lead to booming markets in catering to these customers. Many countries have seen this as a smart market to focus on. And I think they are right.

It is a booming market and the USA’s mess of a health care system doesn’t seem to be getting any better and certainly isn’t getting cheaper. In Europe the demand is largely driven by services that have very long waits if done using their national health system. Those that can pay, can pay to have it done where they live, or they can travel and have it done much cheaper.

The jobs provided in countries serving medical tourism are very good. And it brings in a great flow of foreign currency. Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Philippines and Mexico are putting forth smart governmental efforts to boost this industry in their countries.

Raffles Hospital, Singapore by John. See more of my photos from Singapore.

Most of the time health insurance won’t pay for optional (emergency care while you travel depends on your policy) health care internationally. So most medical tourism is paid for by the person being treated. This is a somewhat silly policy as insurers could save a great deal of money even by only paying say 50% or less of what they would pay locally for those who were willing to travel.

And some insurers are letting people travel for health care (and even giving them incentives to do so). The governments seem willing to pay inflated local prices and so use things like the fear of untrustworthy foreign health care as unsuitable. And then they work with local health industry interests to restrict covered health care options. There is some sense in worrying about abuse but there is also hundred of billions of dollars that countries like the USA could save by letting people seek out health care solutions much more cheaply overseas. Europe could also save a great deal.

Some countries are doing smart things. At the same time Singapore is building up medical tourism for complex medical solutions (drawing people from SE Asia and further away) they are also working to boost the use of Malaysia to provide less complex medical solutions to Singaporeans. As is often the case, Singapore’s government is acting wisely.

Malaysia, Thailand and the Philippines are going after the large market for reasonably priced basic health care. Which is smart for all 3. They are also looking to move up-market (especially Malaysia and Thailand) which is also fine, but there is likely to be great competition and a much smaller market so I would suggest they do so, but do so with caution.

India has potential but has the general problems with infrastructure and a difficult business climate. The potential is huge though. Other countries targeting this market include Brazil, Hungary and Costa Rica.

Negative Interest Rates and the US Dollar

Posted on March 12, 2015 by money

US $ are accepted in many countries. Often visa fees in SE Asia are quoted in US Dollars (USD) – they may or may not accept other currencies. In some countries the USD is the regular currency or the main currency anyway.

For example, in Cambodia the USD is used for almost everything but for change under US$1 local Riels are used. For the US this can actually be a nice benefit. US currency serves as a loan to the US government. When the USA prints dollars and distributes they avoid issuing bonds or treasury bills for their spending.

When interest rates were 10% on long term bonds if the USA had an extra $800 billion in currency floating around outside the USA they saved $80 billion every year in interest payments (when interest rates were 5% they would have saved $40 billion a year). In addition if those bills are destroyed or lost that open the way for the USA to put new USD into circulation and avoid that much borrowing.

image of the front of the current USA dollar

It really doesn’t amount to a huge amount of help given how much the USA government spends but still it is a benefit. But with negative interest rates the reverse would be true. Currency offers what is normally seen as only 0% but in the crazy new world created by the central bankers bailing out the too-big-too-fail banks all over the world (creating massive amounts of liquidity [cash]) they started a path that has now led to the crazy situation of negative interest rates.

A negative interest rate means that say the German government borrows $10 billion today and pays back less money in 5 years. So if they got $10.5 billion today they would only have to pay back $10 billion in 5 years. This seems crazy mainly because it is.

Now the USA rates are not negative yet for long term rates (I think maybe in some really short term bills – under 60 days – it may have been). But negative interest rates have spring up in Euro denominated bonds from Germany (and a few other countries).

I find it funny that in such a case the USA would actually be giving those using their currency around the world a higher yield than those holding their long term bonds.

According the US Federal Reserve there is about $1.2 trillion dollars of USA currency in circulation (July 2013). The Federal Reserve estimates that the majority of the cash in circulation today is outside the United States.

The increased demand for the USD abroad also helps keep the USD value from declining in the face of huge trade deficits. To some extent we ship dollar bills to countries and they ship us food, cars, smart phones, etc..

Countries that use the USD as an official currency (though they may also have a local currency at least for small amounts – often under US$1): Panama, Ecuador, El Salvador, Zimbabwe and East Timor.

In some places it may seem on the ground that the USD is the official currency but it is really just the currency used without an official declaration: Cambodia, Peru and Uruguay

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