The Housing Bubble

Alpha:

MD is Doctor of Medicine and GP is also MD. I’m not talking about specialists. A person can do MD in Internal Medicine, Family Practice etc.

Most salaried jobs are around 14-150K, that too at top end in DC area. Now one can do a business and sky is the limit by charging people for procedures that are not even needed to make money from insurance companies. As soon as it becomes a business, ethics fly out of the door.

I know what a GP is, it’s generally now called Family Practice, or some such.

BTW- You should mention that you are only referencing ‘GPs’ when talking about MD salaries- they make a good bit less than almost all other MDs.

Anyway, ‘GPs’ in DC must make less than the natl average:

The median expected salary for a typical Physician - Family Practice in the United States is $176,036.
Salarydotcom

I’ve known a lot of Dr.s and most are lucky to get up to $150K. Pathologists and radiologists go $200 -$300K as they own the labs.

This site says a radiologist with 6 years experience averages around $450,000 nationwide.

http://www.profilesdatabase.com/resources/2011-2012-physician-salary-survey

radiologist with 6 years experience averages around $450,000 nationwide ??

How much does a radioligists make in Malasia ??

Exactly, scdave.

Neither do the most phd’s. I think he’s talking about top 25 schools and certain fields.

FWIW, I have read the B-School profs tend to be the best paid ones these days.

Gotta compete for the “talent”, you know.

I’m not talking top 25 schools. Probably top 100 schools which would include basically tier2 universities also.

Where do you consider UMD business school, Johns Hopkins Buz schools? They are probably around rank 50-60. Go there with a PhD in FInance and they will start you with 220K easy.

Btw, Harvard and other top schools don’t pay that well as they know PhDs line up to get a job there due to their brand.

IF I could get a full time schedule AND I wanted to do that with my life, I’d be at probably about $55K with an MBA. I don’t even look at PhD or DBA rates of pay as I’m on indefinite hiatus for getting my DBA.

All schools pay less to part time teachers than they would to tenure track full time profs. Part time people are there to get a resume boost or to satisfy some urge to teach and are used by the school to fill the classes their full time faculty would rather not deal with. Full time people have to live on their salaries (plus part time consulting) and their research/publishing/awards/reputation is what improves the prestige of the school - of course they get paid more.

The competition for tenure track university positions is ferocious these days. Probably more difficult to get one of these
jobs than any other in the US.

And the pay is not outstanding. Much, much less than $225k. The average salary for a full professor at a state university (that I am totally familiar with) is well under $100k.

Yup, couldn’t have said it better myself. Subsidize and make loans available for everyone with a pulse for “product X” and watch the price soar. Pretty simple, and yet, seems totally foreign to most of this country.

Say what? Did you miss the whole Wall St. bailout thing?

To say nothing of IBM, HP, Chevrolet, Chrysler, most cable companies….

You are countering my argument with more examples of government incompetence.

You made no conditions. Whatever the mechanism, many generally incompetent companies DO stay around.

… Particularly so called U.S. Federal Reserve who is owned by few very rich and powerful families…

I see shadow inventory every time i look outhouse just up the road has been for sale 3 times plenty of open houses yet it still sits empty.. Its actually pretty good shape…

From the article: Demand is significantly less than it used to be

The reality is that housing demand 60% less than peak and at 1996 levels….. and falling.

“These are not voluntary investments being held for the long-term; they are unwanted assets that are costing money by the day to finance and maintain.”

Is anybody keeping track of the tab for government-owned-and-maintained REO inventory? I’d like to know how much U.S. taxpayers are getting charged for holding homes off the market.

“Demand is significantly less than it used to be for a variety of reasons, most notably because it is much harder to get financing now than it was when the property market was booming.”

The experts keep pounding on the tighter lending standards as the choke point on demand. Never mind the labor market still remains for the most part in the toilet.

“And while ultra-low interest rates have pushed some of those who survive on their savings to invest in something other than a bank CD, real estate is definitely not the investment of choice.”

This article is loaded with nuggets of gold!

Even if demand were to stop falling and magically begin levitating to peak levels, it still wouldn’t touch the excess empty inventory.

For this very reason, DO NOT buy housing.

but when you consider that in economic powerhouse Germany the share of residential property accounted for by rentals is more than 60 percent in most states and 90 percent in the capital, Berlin, it’s not all that strange ??

A very interesting statistic that I was unaware of….Less than a 40% ownership rate in Germany with its high income and all ??

A very interesting statistic that I was unaware of….Less than a 40% ownership rate in Germany with its high income and all ??

I guess that since most Germans have good wages, benefits and pensions waiting for them, they don’t need “their house to work for them”?

Never mind the labor market still remains for the most part in the toilet.

Agreed. What percentage of the bumper crop of jobs just announced were P/T Lucky Ducky jobs? I suspect that it was very high.

benefits and pensions waiting for them, they don’t need “their house to work for them” ??

Maybe that is it….

Communism and the reunification of West and East Germany are why rental rates are so high in Germany. For those of you too young to know Germany was split into two counties after World War II by the U.S. allies and the Russians. West Germany became part of Western Europe and East Germany was run by the communist. The communist “liberated” the housing stock from the people and built large social housing projects in East Germany. Housing was owned by the state not by the people individually. When the Berlin Wall Fell and communism ended and the two parts were re-united in East Germany the housing stock became rentals. And East Germans flooded West Germany to escape of the hell hole that Communism had created in the East. The mass of East Germans were poor and rented houses in the West to find jobs and a better life. So you ended up with rentals in both the East and the West. Prices for housing in the East fell because so many people wanted to leave the East so naturally it wasn’t worth “investing” in East German real estate.

And it amazes me after seeing all these millions of people escaping communism and socialism in the East that so many young American’s now think socialism is just the trick to solve all our ills. How easily we forget the suffering of our brothers and sisters in the name of socialism.

And you do know that Angela Merkel is a former communist leader, don’t you?

Next time you hear the libs say they just need another temporary tax hike or they only want to tax the rich and why not add a VAT? Why only have an income tax and VAT tax? Why not *take *the actual property of the rich?… know that it is never temporary and their failed attempts at redistribution will never work. They will never admit failure and they will want more and more and more until they finally go after the poor too and take everything. This is how it has always worked. Productivity in East Germany even ten years after re-unification was one third that of West Germany. Socialism destroys GDP and the pie shrinks. The productive go Galt.

One of the most significant obstacles for a substantial flow of investments has been the absence of a functioning real estate market. Most pre-War private property was expropriated or confiscated under the Communist regime. The first wave of measures transferring private property into the Ownership of the people” (a more appropriate term would be government or State ownership) was the so-called “Land Reform” (instituted during the Soviet Occupation between 1945 and 1949. The East German Communist government installed in 1949 continued these expropriations and confiscations that ended with a comprehensive expropriation order in 1972 that resulted in most of the remaining privately held real property and businesses, which had until then survived, finally being expropriated or confiscated. Consequently, hardly any real estate was in private hands when the Berlin Wall came down on November 9, 1989.

Those who don’t know their history are bound to repeat it. This is case in point. None of you could think of why there is such a large rental market in Germany. And this is why we have Obama and not Ron Paul for president because no one remember communism…

Thanks for the history lesson SF Bay Area…I think that may explain why there is a low ownership rate…

None of you could think of why

Golly! We were stumped til you came along, perfesser! Teach us more about how them Obama people are communist!

And it amazes me after seeing all these millions of people escaping communism and socialism

Actually, I think that it was totalitarianism they were escaping. You don’t see people fleeing for their lives from Sweden. And compared to us, Germans are very socialistic. They have national health and virtually free higher ed. Yet their system is working while ours is floundering.

My wife is a German citizen and lived in Germany prior to the fall of the Berlin Wall. From what she tells me most middle class Germans rented back then as well.

And it amazes me after seeing all these millions of people escaping communism and socialism in the East that so many young American’s now think socialism is just the trick to solve all our ills. SF Bay Area

You are (to me at least) becoming predictably inconsistent. About half of your observations objectively perceive reality but then you hit these dogmatic blocks to reality IMO or you come to non-sequitur conclusions. These patterns are very similar to the patterns of the poster Northeasterner.

Some examples: Your above sentence. You equate godless USSR type Communism with Americans wanting a few social safety nets such as universal health care, Soc/Sec and Medicare. To equate Soc/Sec, Medicare and universal health-care with Russian Communism is a straw-man/false argument. They are not even in the same ball-park. What is the motivation to not see or acknowledge the difference between Russian Communism and USA Soc/Sec and health-care? What is the motivation for such a huge and potentially devious straw-man argument?

Americans are not asking for Soviet Communism. I sure am not. Americans are asking for some health-care and the continuation of social programs of which some are over 70 years old. You’re straw-man argument above detours from reality as does many of the false-hoods propaganda tricks coming out of the Republican Party machine.

And here is where your inconsistency (Northeasterner’s type) comes into play: You supported universal, “socialistic” health-care in one of your post’s and did a good job of it. Then you call people who support what you just supported in that post “communists”. It’s like you try to gain credibility with some on the left by advocating part of their positions and then you call them “commies” for supporting positions you just supported too.

As someone asked Northeasterner when he had shown a similar posting pattern, did someone steal your handle?

Rio, why are so many East Germans (and former East Germans now living in Western Germany) renters. I’m listening.

Rio, why are so many East Germans (and former East Germans now living in Western Germany) renters. I’m listening.

The reason why there are so many East Germans (and former East Germans now living in Western Germany) illustrates why you equating Americans advocating for universal health-care/SocSec with godless Soviet Communism is a straw-man, false argument.

The horrible conditions that East Germans fled from in no way shape or form equate with universal health-care, Soc/Security and Medicare in America. To equate them is total deception and delusion.

Are you listening?

So you won’t answer my question?

So you may have answered the question…Why the condescending lecture afterwords ??

scdave, I apologize for being condescending period - full stop. I should not have been.

I do think though that if you boil down the 20th century there is clearly one key lesson and that is the experiment in communism. It failed miserably and lead to the death of millions and enslaved half the population on this planet. I’ve read numerous discussions on this board that are related to this topic in one way or another and not once have I seen anyone make the connection. That really deeply worries me because this is obviously a well educated and intelligent crowd and this is such a pivotal point. I have a lot of respect for the thinkers on this board and are trying to understand how to build a better system. But if they don’t grasp the 20th century how fruitful will their ambition be?

scdave, I’ll give you another example - and I bit my tongue and didn’t say anything. There was a discussion here on wages in the U.S. declining.

I saw some good points being brought up about tariffs, currency manipulation, offshoring, etc. All very astute.

But the elephant in the room was never discussed. The fall of communism.

What is the impact of half the worlds labor getting dumped onto the world labor market?

That was the result of the fall of communism and it’s why wages have declined in the U.S. Yes, there are other factors - but that is *the* critical factor over the last 30 years.

So you won’t answer my question?

I answered it. You just have to read carefully. This is another pattern you use. You make a total straw-man argument and then when called upon it you distract with a mostly non-related issue to the issue you were being called out on. My point with you was that you equating Americans calling for some safety nets with Soviet Communism is a BS, straw-man, false argument and is similar to tactics used by the Republican propaganda machine.

Why the condescending lecture afterwords ??

If you’re addressing me, My post is simply a presentation of facts based on his prior posts. I don’t see that as condescension. It was also a way to stay on topic to my point which SF BAY AREA wanted to avoid.

Again:
Rio, why are so many East Germans (and former East Germans now living in Western Germany) renters. I’m listening.

The reason why there are so many East Germans (and former East Germans now living in Western Germany) illustrates why you equating Americans advocating for universal health-care/SocSec with godless Soviet Communism is a straw-man, false argument.

The horrible conditions that East Germans fled from in no way shape or form equate with universal health-care, Soc/Security and Medicare in America. To equate them is total deception and delusion. Are you listening?

(SF Bay Area said he was “listening” but he obviously was not)

Teach us more about how them Obama people are communist!

I’ve never taken the position that Obama is communist, although that system would be preferable to him than any free market economy or democratic form of government.

I say Obama is a Fascist, or a heavy-handed “socialist”. There is a fine line, but not much.
Communism, the State owns everything and dictates where you will live, what level of education you will attain and what job you will do, by Committee, both local and nationally.
It is a dictatorship of the masses by thugs.

Socialism is just a somewhat freer system of Private enterprise, with a Heavy tax burden to provide social support programs for Everyone. You can still own your property, but you will be taxed out of you gourd for the privilege.

FASCISM is a more dictatorial form of socialism. You can still own your property, but you can’t do anything with it without the permission of the government, who will dictate how “your” property, your business, you land and your possessions will be put to use for the State.
As opposed to Communism with its Block Housing, you get to keep your big house if you can afford the Tax, and if the State needs to use you land for a big party, well they’ll just send in the troops and tell you to move over. No recourse.

In all cases, Government is about using FORCE to make people conform to the mandates of the elite, however that may be. Castro hated and envied the rich, until he became a dictator. He loved playing golf, a game purely for the “ruling class”, the likes of America’s 1%.

If you’re addressing me ??

I was not…If you go back through the post you will see that I thanked SF Bay Area for short history lesson that may answer why there are so many rentals in Germany…I then posted again asking why such condescending language

Rio so will you answer my question - why are so many East Germans (and former East Germans now living in Western Germany) renters?

“Why not *take *the actual property of the rich surfs and middle-class?… 1916 ,Tsar Nicholas II, last Tsar of Russia

“Those who don’t know their history are bound to repeat it.”
1917, Lenin talking to Trotsky about Tsar Nicholas II’s Russian gross wealth inequality.

Those who don’t know their history are bound to repeat it. Massive and growing wealth/income inequality led to Communism, and massive and growing wealth/income inequality are the root of America’s economic and class problems today. You think making rich richer is the solution?

American wealth inequality has skyrocketed to the danger point and the wealth inequality apologists exacerbate the problem and fan the flames of real class warfare. It is not those who want to protect Soc/Security and Medicare who are tearing America apart. Rather it is the forces that propagandize for the rich at the expense of the middle-class who are the real problem in America.

Rio are you not going to answer me?

Rio so will you answer my question - why are so many East Germans (and former East Germans now living in Western Germany) renters?

I did. Your reading comprehension apparently drops in direct proportion to your dogmatic disliking of the material. Read it again. But will you answer me on why you use straw-man/false arguments such as equating Americans who want to protect Soc/Sec/Medicare with Russian Communism? Or why you deflect from your criticisms by asking non-related questions that people have already answered. Or why do you attempt to appeal to the middle by advocating universal health-care and then call those on the left who advocate universal healthcare “commies”? It’s bait and switch, hide the pea and deceptive.

Based on my observation that your reading comprehension drops in direct proportion to your dogmatic disliking of the material, you will ask me the same question again that I’ve answered and ignore the rest of MY questions.

Here again is my answer to your question on why East Germans fled to W. Germany. If you can’t figure it out, you don’t want to.

The horrible conditions that East Germans fled from in no way shape or form equate with universal health-care, Soc/Security and Medicare in America. To equate them is total deception and delusion.

Those who don’t know their history are bound to repeat it. Massive and growing wealth/income inequality led to Communism, and massive and growing wealth/income inequality are the root of America’s economic and class problems today.

There was massive wealth inequality in American in the 1800’s and early 1900’s. We didn’t devolve into Communism then… why should we now?

There was massive wealth inequality in American in the 1800’s and early 1900’s. We didn’t devolve into Communism then… why should we now?

We shouldn’t. But that does not mean we couldn’t. American wealth inequality was nowhere near Russia’s in 1917 and the Americans middle-class was making a general trend of progress in America for a couple hundred years until about the 70’s. We also have more information about these trends.

Wealth inequality also took a big change for the better starting with the New Deal, post WWII and the GI Bill, Medicare, SocSec, Unions etc. We are now quickly erasing much of the middle-class gains.

“A very interesting statistic that I was unaware of….Less than a 40% ownership rate in Germany with its high income and all ??

I guess that since most Germans have good wages, benefits and pensions waiting for them, they don’t need “their house to work for them”?”
______
I have friends who live in a small town about 50 miles from
Stuttgart…

Here are a few of some things they told me that might be factors.

1) They are a lot less mobile than we are, people tend to stay pretty close to where they grew up.
2) They have a expression “work, work, build the house” - and it is apparently fairly common for an older generation with some land to divide it up into lots for the younger ones. ( I suspect this is a bit of a hidden “subsidy” for some.) Otherwise land and existing houses are pretty expensive compared to ours.
3) finding a rental can be really challenging… there are apparently fairly strong laws so landlords heavily scrutinize potential tenants and again that is an incentive for people not move as often once they have a spot they like.
4) they don’t have the same tax incentives we do (no mtg interest deduction)

Where will Socialists draw the line if they have their way? Will it stop with Medical Care/Social Security? Or will it move on from there?

-Will the Government decide it can’t provide enough jobs for the labor force and nationalize industries?
-What about banking? Will they finish the job?

I know some of you people have the liberal blinders on but you have to realize that pushing for more social programs worries people. None of these politicians come out and say “don’t worry, this is where it ends” As a matter of fact, Maxine Waters threatened oil companies with nationalization at one point.

Where will Socialists draw the line if they have their way? Will it stop with Medical Care/Social Security? Or will it move on from there?

How about drawing the line at 1972. The left is not fighting for more of a social safety net and more wealth equality than America had in the past. The left is fighting to retain the scraps of an already existing social safety net and to reverse some of the massive wealth inequality foisted upon their country in the past 30-40 years.

Rio, that is not an answer to my question. Will you answer it directly? I don’t think you will.

Let me ask you a second question Rio. Would you advocate the the U.S. government taking wealth or property from some of it’s citizens? I’m not talking about income tax or a VAT tax. I’m asking you about taking (a percentage or in whole), real estate, financial assets, businesses, precious metals, machinery, jewelry, rare collections, autos, yachts, wine cellars - any form of wealth. Would you advocate that?

Time for me to go on my run. I’ll let you consider that question.

Hard core socialist can not logically make the connection between socialism and the taking of wealth and the consequential destruction of productivity and the poverty it creates. If they made the logical connection I think blood would squirt out of their eyeballs. They can see poverty and they can see the social benefit of giving a man a fish (rather than teaching him to fish) but they never can see why the poverty is there in the first place. They just see the poverty as if it was an isolated state of reality out in space and they think - hey let’s give ‘em all fish!!!

During the 20th century half the global population was plunged into poverty by various forms of hard core socialism. The poverty was created by the hard core socialist systems. Productivity per worker declined. GDP therefore declined. The total pie got smaller and smaller and smaller. People went without. Eventually the system caused the collapse of the hard core socialist states.

When these hard core socialist states started to collapse there was global social unrest. The West made a deal with the hard core socialist states or think of it as a bribe. The hard core socialist states agreed to dismantle their cold war assets and their socialist states and we agreed to help them transition back to a more balanced form of capitalism. They got some free trade, we let them manipulate their currencies and we got out of an explosive situation.

This resulted in a dumping of cheap labor that had been boxed up for half a century. All these people needed to eat. And so the West had to compete against labor for pennies on the dollar from these failed hard core socialist states. It’s been 30 years and we’re still seeing our industries being exported and our wages slowly equalizing. And it’s causing poverty in the West.

So much of the poverty and lower wages we see now in the West is a direct result of the wealth destruction that went on for much of the 20th century in that little experiment by the hard core socialist states.

Think of it like water in a fish tank. The tank is full. You install a barrier in the middle of the tank. On the left you have the old hard core socialist states and on the right you have the West. Then the left drains out all their water. And the right stays full. So then you poke some holes in the barrier and the water flows from the right to the left. The water rises in the left and slowly drains in the right. That’s the wealth transfer that has been going on the last 30 years. It is a long term equalization.

Regarding my last post which hasn’t posted yet about the origins of poverty being the hard core socialism and the hard core socialist themselves not being able to see poverty as anything other than an isolated state existing as if in outer space. The first time I went to Brazil I remember seeing all that currency just floating down the streets in the wind. It would just blow around town. It was all over the sidewalks. People would walk on it. Burn it. Whatever. Oh that was last weeks currency! Due to hyperinflation is was all worthless this week. They had to add a few more zeros on the new currency. Or they had to come out with currency version 16.6 to replace the old failed currency. All that currency was printed to help the people in poverty. There they were - the poor and all they had to do was give them money for welfare programs and they could end poverty. And so they did. They gave them lots and lots of money! And it worked! Until it destroyed everyone’s wealth. And then even more people were poor. So they printed more money to give out for welfare. And it worked! and they hyperinflation put more and more people into poverty.

If only the solution was that simple.

Hard core socialism creates poverty it doesn’t prevent it. That’s the causal connection the hard core socialist can never seem to make.

I’ll give credit to Brazil though - after bilking the U.S. tax payer over and over with debt defaults and forgiveness followed by bouts of hyperinflation… they finally figured out what they were doing and they’ve been much more disciplined since. They never went down the road of the hard core socialist (at least not to the same degree). But they got close enough to get badly burned and learned a lesson.

It’s a shame the ideologues in the hard core socialist counties couldn’t get past their own blinders and pull out before killing millions and leading to a global slump this last 30 years.

Rio,

You won’t find me argue against SS or healthcare but I’m not left with the impression that liberals are happy leaving it at that.

Take for instance, the example I used regarding Maxine Waters. There are liberals out there who want nationalization of industries and full-blown wealth redistribution beyond just raising taxes. THAT is what scares me, these are the people that want to lead us down the path to somewhere history has shown us we don’t want to go.

Ryan that is very true. Don’t get me started on Maxine Waters.

Rio you can have a social safety net to the degree you can pay for it.

Borrowing money from the Chinese to pay for it does not account as paying for it. And we’re just pissing off the Chinese doing that - they literally rioting in the street telling us to pay them their money back and stop debasing the worlds reserve currency with our social programs and neocon wars. And why should some family from China who has no social safety net and who will enjoy no social security or medicare pay for the social security or medicare of a U.S. citizen? It makes no sense to them and it makes no sense to me either.

And raising tax rates to 100% and stealing the wealth of a nation isn’t going to work either. It’s been tried - see communism in the 20th century. Productivity will decline rapidly and GDP will shrink.

You can’t just print money and send everyone a welfare check. You just end up life Brazil with currency in the streets blowing in the wind. If only it was that simple.

And borrowing means paying it back later in slower growth. And it’s not about our kids paying it back. They won’t have anymore excess than we do now. So it means our kids living in a hellish future with negative GDP growth as far as the eye can see. And then they won’t get a social safety net. Why take away their safety net and give it to someone living today? That’s just crooked.

If you want a social safety net it has to be paid for in real time. No deficits, no borrowing no money printing, no stealing. It has to be affordable. You can’t keep deficits, money printing, stealing going forever. And when you ask your socialist friends how they plan to pay for it like Rio they will dodge the question and never answer it. Because to answer it would be to admit they are impoverishing one person to give to another. It’s all one circular logic.

Whatever social safety net you devise has to be affordable and targeted. Ideally most of the design of the social safety net should be to help the young to develop their potential to start businesses so they don’t need to rely on welfare to begin with. Create a bigger pie and a population with skills.

But to think you are helping people by putting them in some display in a museum with food, shelter and medical care is absurd. That’s not life. That’s a zoo. Giving them a fair chance to go out in the wild world and make communities, businesses and other creative ventures that won’t be taken away from them - that’s life.

“How about drawing the line at 1972. The left is not fighting for more of a social safety net and more wealth equality than America had in the past.”

I was old enough in 1972 to see it first hand. Where you Rio? Let me tell you what happened. The U.S. government printed money - lots and lots of money like they had never done before. And it caused tremendous run away inflation. And the poor got wiped out by the inflation. Suddenly people couldn’t afford things like meat and fish and milk for the kids. Heating became too expensive for homes. I remember all these retired people living on dry cereal for breakfast, lunch and dinner because their savings were wiped out and that’s all they could afford that would prevent them from getting vitamin deficiencies. And it kept on that way until Volker kicked inflation and crashed the economy in the early 1980’s.

Yes, that was some socialist utopia. I just can’t wait to live through that again!

I will say I want 10 trillion (at least ) back from the 1% that made the heist and took the money and ran and got undeserved Bail Outs ,when they should be in jail . Any entity that got ill gotten gain from the fraud should be taxed also in that decade of the ‘Heist”. But ,on top of everything else the
Money Changers still have over 800 trillion in outstanding
derivatives as a byproduct of their unregulated high leverage casino games, that could blow up .I say cancel all the stupid ass bets and close them all down and start all over again .Get rid of the Feds and that gets rid of one of the oppressors of capitalism .

Nobody can even begin to talk about socialism or anything when we have crony capitalism in which trillions went to Ponzi scheme criminals . Systems rigged to pad the pockets of MONEY CHANGERS who are bubble creating bogus investment pushers ,churn for a return ,fraudulent schemers ,leverage without money backing it , greed that knows no bounds ,leave the people in ruins criminals ,that give nothing and get major tax breaks . YES I WANT THEM TO PAY a 95 % tax and than some . I want them to make all that they have torn apart whole again .

The 50 million that went into the” need assistance” aren’t communist ,they are victims of a system that was based on stacking the deck in favor of “Heists ” by thugs . The Enron Playbook of economic theory .

I have made some post on how big Corporations and Wall Street/Banks and Insurance Companies play the government for pawns and get the government to supplement them ,or bail them out ,or undertax them . Their heists are so big that it puts public assistance being peanuts by comparsion .

Now they want to go after Social Security ( a paid into system ) leave millions without health insurance if they can’t pay some inflated monopoly price fixing absurd price that is expected by another corrupt monopoly called medical care .

I say bust the corruption in the systems and the Politicial lobby system in which the rich and powerful are calling the shots . This isn’t even close to a concept of regulated capitalism . It just became a government by price fixing Monopoly Corporations and Bankers and Big Pharma and Insurance parasites ,and inflation by design .

The people in America are hard working people for most part ,but if they are denied opportunity they can’t thrive .
Good jobs and a low unemployment rates floats all boats .

Throw all the Politicians out ,they are traitors . Stop this military spending that has killed to many people .

Stop throwing people under the bus and than turn around and demean them as if they want to be in poverty . Sure there are some flakes and people who take advantage ,but not like the 1% and powerful Corporations have taken advantage ,and they have no loyalty to the USA at all ,or the worker in the USA ,yet they want to sell to them and make money off of them .

The moral hazard of allowing this Corporation Controlled and Banker controlled system is that it will turn the people into people who don’t care anymore because they know the game is rigged against them .

In fact ,this is worse than any commie system could be .
This is more like a mafia system that we have now . And the stupid little fines that they are slapping on the Corporation crimes that they keep on discovering are peanuts compared to the damage and heist ,( such a deal )
BIg Phama gets busted for crimes that killed thousands and
they get fined a fraction of what their profits were ,and nobody went to jail ,same with bank corruption deals .

Elisenhower in 1953 said in essence that the America people should be on the lookout for a Industrial/Military takeover of the USA . I read that he got scolded for saying
such a thing after his speech was over on live TV.He never mentioned it again and would not comment on it . Well ,its hhere in living color. We may need to suspend the lobbying system for about 10 years to get things back on tract ,These are madhatters that are running us into a unsustainable ditch ,while they take the ill-gotten gains and run .

SF…that’s where tough love comes in…force welfare/FS peeps to sit in class 25 hours a week and learn math and English….we need a war on Ebonics, and eliminate functional Illiteracy…

But then we need a president who cares too.

PS probably 1/2 will quit the first month…saving tens of billions in costs

I was brave enough to laid out my action plan here housing wizard - point by point a couple of days back. What I would cut, what I would tax, etc. I hear a lot of grumbles but what is your action plan?

You wanna get 10 trillion from the 1%? Let’s take me for example. I’m a 1%’er. What exactly would you do to get your 10 trillion back from me? I’m in high tech. I donated much of my life to open source software giving my work away for free which has created a lot of wealth and democratized Internet power to millions of people around the world. I’ve taken start-ups and launched them. And I’ve done it with integrity. I’ve spent my life with one goal and that is to be of service. Turns out people value me. Give me all you got. How would you like to deal with me and most of the 1% like me that pretty much have spent a lifetime trying to be of service. Because only a small fraction of the 1% got their by bilking the financial system or running Enron. It’s only takes a few thousand leveraged ponzi pirates to blow up the national debt. But I take it you’d like to take the rest of us with them. Maybe kill off everyone that separates this nation from the stone age.

Kind of reminds me of the killing fields in Vietnam. They basically took anyone with over a third grade education and shot them. That really helped them recover their GDP didn’t it?

Or like the Chinese cultural revolution? I liked that one. A full decade after the communists had taken control of China things started to go South. It seems they had no idea how to centrally plan the nation and people started to starve. But luckily their propaganda department had been busy in the schools and little daughter Mei and son Wang from the farm decided that mom and dad were not pure enough. The teachers weren’t pure enough. The mayor wasn’t pure enough. The doctors were not pure enough. The politburo wasn’t pure enough. So little farmers daughter Mei and son Wang decided to have themselves a revolution and prosecute over 100 million Chinese and kill another 20 million more. And they particularly liked to persecute the few people left in China with an education. Take for example doctors. Can’t have those! They’re the 1%’ers So little farmers daughter Mei and son Wang decided to kill all the doctors and persecute the nurses and put farmers in charge of surgery. Ever wonder why China has the worst medical system of any major nation?

Worse than here? I think not. You want to go to the killing fields or live through the cultural revolution madness?

I don’t think killing the top 1% helped Chinese GDP one bit. Because little farmers daughter Mei and son Wang et al took over the Politburo and decided to make a pure system and drove the economy into the ground after that. It was pure hell on earth.

If you don’t mean the 1% than why not say what you mean. Because from I am reading what you are saying is dangerous.

The first day I cam back to this forum I called out a poster and said that the weakness in communism is the same as the weakness in capitalism. They both tend toward a monopoly of power. Where there is a monopoly of power their is corruption.

I think what you want is a war on the monopoly of power.

And if that is what you want I am all on board with you with a Ron Paul type cleaning of the slate:

- End the Fed
- End fractional reserve banking
- A currency that is stable in value forever
- The end to prop trading at the banks
- End to high frequency trading and dark pools - one market - one tick say every half second and everyone sees everyone else’s trade.
- End consumer consumption credit
- End the neo-con empire, close the bases and bring it all home
- Break up all the monopolies
- reform patent and copyrights for the digital age
- and yes close the deficit and we will have to raise taxes on everyone making over the median income

- and I could go on and on but I already posted my list here.

As for SS and medicare trust fund that you and I paid into - that was raided two decades ago. And the actuarial warned congress. And then medicare was completely bankrupted by the prescription drug program which both parties voted for.

A lot of things - like barn doors open and the horses are long gone. All we got was a huge national debt and this t-shirt. And the t-shirt says “give us our money - singed the Chinese.”

aNYCdj - I can teach anyone, anywhere math. And I don’t need ritalin to do it. “This is going to hurt you a lot more than it is going to hurt me.” Just do it like the Japanese - focus, focus, focus and round robin those little hooded perps to the chalk board for group problem drills for hours on end. Work the problems - each kid - help from the group if they fail. I could teach a goat calculus. Seriously.

So sign me up. I’m thinking about retiring when my tax rate goes up to 56% in 2013. I’m going to need a hobby.

Sounds noble to me.

SF BAY AREA

Keeping the corrupted systems in tact will just bring more of the same .

I don’t suggest going after 1% people or Corporations that are a asset to our society and engage in constructive actions . It’s pretty clear who the thieves are .I have been in favor of tax breaks for local small business .

Corporation welfare in a variety of ways is doing major damage to a functional economy ,if you are concerned
about the middle class and upper middle class, which use to make up the majority in this Country .

Our trade balances and tariffs are a joke and the protection of the USA workers against world slave labor
is not any protection at all . Just who are the Politicians suppose to serve anyway ,a Global elite ,or the people of the USA ? Our workers can not compete against low world wages and cheap polluting manufacturing in other countries . No contest because it would mean going back to the dark ages .

Ford Moter Company ,(after having the nerve to ask for a bail out ), than opened up their new plant in Mexico paying those workers 5 bucks a hour with no benefits . Than they want to sell 25 to 40 thousand dollar cars here as if they were giving high wages to their workers to justify those prices ,and they act like they are a USA
Company . With GMC they produce 7 out of 10 cars outside country . What a joke ,how can they be considered a USA Company anymore in that all that income flow is going
outside America and the tax revenue from same .
All the outsourcing going on is a joke . I guess most people expierence it when they call to complain to a Company and you get a foreigner on the phone .They should be charged a tax penalty for any job outsourced for taking cash flow out of America ,instead the Politicians gave them tax breaks for outsourcing ( go figure ) .

And how is Romney going to keep that job money in the USA by giving the job givers a tax break when they could care less about hiring USA citizens . What was Romney’s claim that he would create 12 million good paying jobs
here if he was elected . Penalty is the only thing that is going to work .

They gov. gave the Banks /Investment houses /other entities trillions ,with no requirement placed on them .
The new regulations didn’t take away their basic corrupt
casino games and the world watched them take the money and run and everything to prop up that sector .

Until you get out of the rigged and stacked deck systems ,which include price fixing monopolies ,than you can’t have anything that resembles capitalism . It’s just powerful entities picking the winners and losers by a stacked deck .Globalism doesn’t work and we don’t even have business borders anymore .

So ,the welfare needs are increasing and the health system is on the verge of collaspe because its not sustainable and we really can’t afford it ,so something has to give . What has to give is the stacked deck system that has enriched
the 1% and powerful Monopolies to the destruction of the
economic balance that we use to enjoy in this Country .
The middle class didn’t change ( with the expection of getting into debt by this easy credit done by the Culprits ). The systems changed and the power structures changed and globalism changed the game ,and the game has enriched few hands and has screwed the middle class in America and has thrown many into poverty who other wise wouldn’t of ended up there .

When a system fails the people ,that’s different than people being deadbeats or people wanting a commie Country .People who have no opportunity will be more inclined to want GOVERNMENT CHEESE ,just for survival .
It can’t continue ,given what the power structures have become .

SFarea,

I post late as a courtesy. Hope you’ll take it as intended.

Some original thoughts would be appreciated by those of us who welcome considered rightest commentary. Why not put forth the effort and make a convincing argument instead of squandering Ben’s bandwidth with the same mid-level politburo talking points? This board could use a good counter-argument instead of the same old rehash that too often passes for discussion here.

Franky, I seems to this reader that your exegeses are filtered through a hackneyed knowledge of political history and the smug self-satisfaction of someone who has spent too much time in the company of sycophants. Moreover, you seem to take untoward umbrage when some of the more patient posters call you out on your ill-considered cliches. No one care who you think you are in “real” life. That’s not what this forum is about.

Perhaps the fact escapes you that the socialist programs you cite (and cite and cite) as cautionary were enacted to address rampant poverty and unsustainable wealth disparities (and the civil unrest it spawns) in the first place? This is certainly not to excuse totalitarian excess, (as some would imply), but your verbiage is glaring in its lack of perspective. You can do better.

You’ve posed some good questions here, and they deserve thoughtful discussion, but your efforts would be far more effective (and engaging) if you’d lose some of the defensive self-justification and tried for elucidation rather than bombast.

To get respect, you have to show it first.
Pax.

Seems like rather convoluted reasoning.

The correct answer was “churn”. As you said, “There are no fees to me made on savings accounts.”

Bingo! Ecofeco has shown you the light. You are just a revenue stream. The more debt created the bigger the revenue stream. Never borrow for consumption unless it is for a necessary tool like education that will *pay for itself* quickly. Otherwise starve the beast.

You don’t suppose increasing crude demand has anything to do with it do you?? Naaaah…. couldn’t be!

http://kr.nlh1.com/images/201101/GlobalOilDemand.jpg

You will see a similar graph for supply. Of course, supply and demand impacts price. However, before the creation of the Federal Reserve the dollar retained its purchasing power over long periods of time. Since its creation, the dollar has lost 95% plus and that lost accelerated after we went off the gold standard.
If you now know when the governement is going to print money you can make lots of money. Crony capitalism relies on the Federal Reserve. The rich and the poor have been helped by the printing of money. The rich due to the inflation of their stock holdings etc. The poor because the hand outs have been maintained with the cheap printed money. The middle class has been crushed, as I predicted when the printing first started. Opposed it under Bush II and Obama too.

I’m certain there are much better ways to demonstrate how corrupt the Fed is than your crude oil example.

But frankly, if you dollars are so worthless you’re welcome to send them my way.

He never said they were “worthless”, just that they were depreciating.

ok.

If you dollars are so “very low”, you’re welcome to send them my way.

Why would I do that? Are you some kind of con man?

You got a frog in your pocket or are kids pissing on you again?

Neither, a con man was asking me to send him my money. Are you in Nigeria by any chance?

1st Straw Man. 2nd- Ad hominem. Thus irrelevant.

Snort

Dude — if you faithfully read my posts over the past three years, you would have seen numerous ones that made the exact same point you tried to make, including mathematical details.

However, you tried to ascribe the drop in unemployment rate to the discouraged worker effect. Despite the Republican propaganda brigade’s similar efforts, the data suggests otherwise: The drop in unemployment was enough to offset an increase in the labor force.

Falling like a stone? Who said that? You.

Rental rates are falling in the biggest cities…. LA, Chicago, Denver and even NYC. And it’s been posted here many times over the past 6 months.

Now answer the question…. Do you know what the M&L is to build a SFR?

Just check the figures from August 2011 to August 2012 housing (which uses rents) rose 2.1%. That actually accelerated in August with a month to month rise of .2%. We will see when the numbers are released on October 16, I believe, whether that has turned around. Until it does cannot see how housing prices make a major drop.

Nice duck and weave.

In the meantime rental rates continue to fall in major cities.

Now answer the question. What are M&L numbers to build a SFR?

What are M&L numbers to build a SFR?

Is the cost of the lot included in M?

It shouldn’t be.

Rental prices are a lagging, sticky indicator. Based on recent news reports that apartment vacancies are rising, compounding with increased rental inventory likely means rental rates will start falling again soon. The already are in my neighborhood.

Comment by alpha-slot: Is the cost of the lot included in M?

Comment by Pimp Watch: It shouldn’t be.

Then your equation is incorrect.

I didn’t post an “equation”.

Fail.

Housing costs are the price of M&L +profit and overhead. No more, no less.

That’s not an equation?

Are you admitting it’s wrong?

You’re disputing it.

Let see it. Cmon now.

Why would supply have to increase at all considering there are 20-30 million excess empty housing units in the US today?

Can you actually buy them? People that are actually trying to buy houses are not finding this oversupply. If the houses are not where people actually want to live, they are next to useless. The subprime money lead to a lot of houses in places that make no economic sense and where people do not want to live. Houses are being built where people want to live but at a very reasonable rate of building.

Besides since the banks have kept them off the market when they were falling in value, why would they now cut their own throats and dump them now that they are going up in value?

No, it is even easier for banks to manipulate the release of any useful inventory and I cannot see them releasing too fast.

People that are actually trying to buy houses are not finding this oversupply.

“Trying”? Is it really that hard in a sea of 140 million houses in the US? Seriously Dan….

why would they now cut their own throats and dump them now that they are going up in value?

Why would they hold them when they’re depreciating?

I cannot see them releasing too fast.

Whether you can “see” it or that it does/doesn’t make sense to you is irrespective to the point that there are 20-30 million excess empty housing units.

“Why would they hold them when they’re depreciating?”

Housing market target of Federal Reserve stimulus effort
Business First by Evan Weese, Web coordinator
Date: Friday, October 5, 2012, 7:13am EDT

Chairman Ben Bernanke launched another round of bond buying at the Sept. 12-13 Fed meeting.

Chairman Ben Bernanke launched another round of bond buying at the Sept. 12-13 Fed meeting.

Minutes from the Federal Reserve’s Sept. 12-13 meeting show members have considered connecting any increase in interest rates to a specific economic indicator, like unemployment, to give a clearer signal to the public as to when it might start raising rates.

The minutes also show the latest stimulus program is based on the purchase of mortgage bonds, aimed at boosting the housing recovery, Associated Press reports.

The Fed said it would keep short-term interest rates near zero until mid-2015.
…

If the houses are not where people actually want to live, they are next to useless.

Exactly. A glut of houses in Vegas, Tucson or Tampa doesn’t help a couple with 200K+ in combined income find a place in Silicon Valley.

No, it is even easier for banks to manipulate the release of any useful inventory and I cannot see them releasing too fast.

And as long as they have ZIRP, the houses will remain in the shadow inventory.

A glut of houses in Vegas, Tucson or Tampa doesn’t help a couple with 200K+ in combined income find a place in Silicon Valley.

What do you call cherry picking a single area experiencing uncharacteristically high levels of speculation/fraud/graft while ignoring three large cities?

If the houses are not where people actually want to live, they are next to useless ??

You mean like Chowchilla California ??

Dan,

My investor friends are chomping at the bit to unload their investor flipper properties. They all believe prices will keep rising too, so it doesn’t make sense. I think they’re just trying to lock in gains because they don’t have confidence in the future.

“You mean like Chowchilla California ??”

+1 ROTFLMAO!

Years ago I was driving north on the 99, and I pulled off at a “rest stop” as nature was calling. The police were everywhere, and the men’s restroom was closed-off with yellow Crime Tape. A day later the Modesto paper ran a story about an off-duty policeman being robbed at knife point, but the cop was armed, so it didn’t go off as expected.

I remember we talked about the price of lots in sedona back in 2004 and just laughed.Greed is a powerful emotion.

With the jobs leaving the US the economy has to be kept afloat in other ways. Stock and home price gains were making up the difference for awhile.

I notice that people are opening shops up specializing in chinese imports. whole stores with nothing but made in china stickers. They mark it up and generate some sales tax. Most of the stuff is in landfill within a year, sad.

I notice that people are opening shops up specializing in chinese imports.

I though WalMart already did that?

Because if you find yourself surrounded by millions of delusional people, added by complacent policy makers, it isn’t easy to see what’s real.

You have a number of them right here on this blog.

What else besides delusion would make people pay an inflated price for what is always a depreciating asset after years of reading on the blog…..

What else besides delusion would make people pay an inflated price for what is always a depreciating asset after years of reading on the blog…..

Why were you house-hunting a year ago?

What does that have to do with someone else paying an grossly inflated price for a rapidly depreciating asset?

Do keep up Alphi.

Even worse are ones that claim it does not exist in their party…Because, that makes them both bigots & hypocrites…

Progressives love to revise history and they always fail to admit the ugly truth…you know what I am talking about…Southern Democrats were the racists.

I hate quoting web sources, but here is Wikipedia:

“Eugene Connor was a member of the Alabama Ku Klux Klan in the 1920s. Connor entered politics as a Democrat in 1934, winning a seat in the Alabama Legislature”

Progressives love to revise history and they always fail to admit the ugly truth…you know what I am talking about…Southern Democrats were the racists.

What’s the big deal to admit that?? I mean really. OK, here it is….I ADMIT it…… Southern Democrats WERE the racists. And now a heck of a lot of Republicans ARE he racists.

Dang….Like that was hard or something…

By bringing up race, this is an indication that you’ve already lost the argument/discussion.

Racism is alive and well in America and is a factor in Obama’s re-election no matter your silly rules of bringing up what you don’t want to hear.

I agree Rio…Just look at Nick & Lip’s response…Its always denial…

I/We are not saying “there is no racism”.

There are racists on both sides, all sides and all colors.

Living in Birmingham in the early 80’s, I’ve had black parents that didn’t like me (cuz I’m white) and white parents that didn’t want me to date their daughter (cuz I’m an Yankee). (I got the heck out of there)

What I am saying is that there aren’t enough “real” racists out there to make a difference in the election. You are calling people like me racists because you can’t “logically”
accept the fact that someone disagrees with you.

Conservatives are evil racists but progressives are loving, kind and always right. Give me a break.

You are calling people like me racists because you can’t “logically” accept the fact that someone disagrees with you ??

Bul$!&&………I am not calling you a racists at all although you could be…I am calling you a hypocrite though…Because, when the dog whistle blows, you deny by not acknowledging that it is what it is which then calls into question if in fact you are racists…

“As of today, Medicare will start fining hospitals that have too many patients readmitted within 30 days of discharge due to complications.”

The hospital staff (both medical and support folks) will simply be trained to input diagnosis and treatment and codes that suggest the patient is suffering from some new, unrelated problem.

As of today, Medicare will start fining hospitals that have too many patients readmitted within 30 days of discharge

Those on the right scream cut cut cut!!! But the second something is “cut” by a Dem, you squeal like stuck pigs…..It’s funny…

“Cut spending and keep the government out of my Medicare!”

Sure… in about 2 generations.

Meanwhile, that’s 2 generations that will be dying early and miserable deaths for no damn good reason.

Do you really want that?

I think the system will collapse in less than 10 years, as 15% annual premium increases, compounded, will soon make health insurance unaffordable for the general middle class.

We’ve gone through tricks to offset the premium increases. First it was “managed care”. Now it’s HD plans. After that there’s nothing left except to move to “savings plans”

In a way, we kind of are already on the “event horizon”, the breaking point for health insurance costs, with family plans costing $1000/month or more. Just for kicks I got a quote from one of the big providers for a non group plan for my family, it was about $1400 a month. Take that $1400/ month premium and with 15% annual increases it swells to $5600 a month in just 10 years. I doubt we’ll even get that far before it all comes crashing down.

Dr. Barbara Bellar

“So let me get this straight. This is a long sentence.

We are going to be gifted with a health care plan that we are forced to purchase, and fined if we don’t, which reportedly covers 10 million more people without adding a single new doctor, but provides for 16,000 new IRS agents, written by a committee whose chairman doesn’t understand it, passed by Congress, that didn’t read it, but exempted themselves from it, and signed by a president who smokes, with funding administered by a treasury chief who didn’t pay his taxes, for which we will be taxed for four years before any benefits take effect, by a government which has bankrupted Social Security and Medicare, all to be overseen by a surgeon general who is obese and financed by a country that is broke.

So what the blank could possibly go wrong?”

UNKNOWN TENANT , Best sentence of the month .

I can live with the hyperbole, but there are several points that are flat out wrong.

For starters, SS and Medicare are NOT bankrupt. This is a lie perpetuated by special interest groups who are trying to make SS privatized for Wall St’s benefit and kept alive by people who don’t any better.

Second, if you already have insurance, then being fined is of no concern to you. The ONLY people at risk are those too poor or those few who can pay for medical care outright. Of the poor group, who are the majority of those affected, pools are being created for them participate in, up to and including, paying nothing because they are too poor.

“For starters, SS and Medicare are NOT bankrupt.”

Not bankrupt on paper, but the paper they hold is US Treasury IOUs. The trust fund money has long since been spent. They only way the US can get the money to pay benefits once we pass the point where collections are exceeded by out-go is to borrow, borrow, borrow more. So your point is correct in textbook world, but not in the real political world.

The political world is no more “real”, either.

Actuarial tables.

Your ignorance is exceeded only by your presumptions.

You are exactly correct, Rental, and this, essentially, is what Obamacare will do by allowing exchanges to stabilize the interstate reimbursement rates.

As it is, Medicare gets one set of billing and reimbursements, Medicaid another. Unions get another, private payers and non-insureds another. WIC uses another rate schedule, as does Clinica Alta Sierra. The oil companies have negotiated with one PPO but not the other two their employees can use. And heavens help you if your practice accepts county court employees whose spouses are teachers or firefighters. Then there are the feds and State officials and their families. Oh, and the college students….

One billing lady (Family Practice) in town told me she has THIRTY-SIX different sets of reimbursement books she has to use to bill her doc’s patient base.

Obamacare will not have the desired effect.

Medicare will continue to pay hospitals the least amount. Largest insurance companies will pay the next least. Small insurance companies will pay more than the largest insurance companies. And uninsured (those left) will pay the most.

What makes you think the interstate exchanges will change this? They simply open up the market for patients to buy insurance more easily. It does nothing to change the landscape with respect to how hospitals negotiate with insurance carriers.

Rental,

It allows insurers to sell grouped and competitively priced policies across interstate lines. Again I’ll use Ma Bell as an example. When a service becomes readily available, and the govt sets the lower limit (the “fine” portion of the premium for coverage) every little Peadonk interinsurance exchange is going to be in there competing for the few remaining reimbursements. If Ed’s Med and Grill sells the same basic package Blue Cross has been gouging for 5% of the cost because it has no overhead and pays no CEO, guess how many folks will flock to Ed’s Med and Grill for coverage and dump Anthem/Blue on its behind?

Hard to keep selling that “reliability” factor when everyone offers the same exact product and service.

Selling policies to patients is far different than negotiating with hospitals.

Unless you can honestly tell me that Ed’s Med and Grill is going to have enough patients to effectively negotiate with major hospitals, Anthem is going to still have a major advantage when it comes to negotiating their contract with hospitals.

Rental,

Wallmart. Or if you’d prefer, Amazon. The providers sure as shootin’ negotiate with THEM.

I think they stayed at the Caribbean Beach Resort in Disney.

Given how Disney is packing its “resorts” on both coasts, year round, apparently a lot of people like it and are willing to spend thousands of dollars for a “Disney Vacation”.

The funny this is that once upon a time Disneyland was a place Southern Californians took their kids once or twice a year for a day trip.

Now there are Disney “Resorts” in Anaheim, Orlando, Tokyo, Paris, Hong Kong with Shanghai being next all complete with expensive hotels and pricey restaurants. And through aggressive marketing Disney has been able to keep its parks and hotels packed to the gills year round.

Disney also sells pricey annual passes for their parks. They sell about 1 million annual passes every year for Disneyland alone.

I wonder if “Uncle Walt” had any idea back in 1955 when he opened Disneyland that his theme park would grow into an empire would be so successful?

How do you envision Dante’s sixth circle?

LOL. Not sure how Dante stayed sane during his trek through the levels of hell, but I just kept repeating the mantra: “It’s for the children… It’s for the children…”

I showed my (Disneyphile) wife the comment about Dante’s sixth circle. First she was clueless; then when I explained, she was not amused…

One offspring and spouse, both public school teachers in the PNW for over 12 years, have only their 403b’s. No retirement. They claim they could live on just one of their salaries (no kids) and they’re putting a lot away. Based on what we observed on our most recent visit I don’t think they’re lying.

They both still love what they do, and really take advantage of their summers off to travel, do house repairs, etc.

One offspring and spouse, both public school teachers in the PNW for over 12 years, have only their 403b’s. No retirement.

WHAT!? I thought that all school teachers were union goons with gold plated pensions!

Kidding aside, that’s how it is here too.

I’m the bl00dy fool for taking a p1mp like him seriously!

Quelle surprise!

I shall kick myself thoroughly all evening.

P.S. I’m reminded of a guy who earned a PhD in the same program I did. Rumor has it that at one point in his progress towards a degree, he went flat broke, and moved into a closet in the building on campus at Berkeley that houses our degree program.

Rumor further has it that he currently earns in the multiple six figure range as a consultant…

Finance PhD gigs in the wake of the Great Recession must be far more lucrative than they were a couple of decades ago, when a blood relative of mine got one. As I recall, he had to accept a post-doc position overseas because there was nothing — I mean NOTHING — available in the U.S.

They are not lucrative any more.

If anything they were designed to “cash in”.

Physicists are still more valuable. They have “real” training.

FPSS,

Physicists have real training but they don’t get paid much.

I feel you don’t want to hear or listen what others say. You have made up your mind and that’s it.

I hope you use better language like other educated people on this blog or you just want to show how illiterate you are by using the language you use.