Bits Bucket for December 28, 2012
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Linkie no workie
Link works just fine for me.
oh jezus if that mentality prevails, good luck ever seeing any reining in of entitlement spending.
For those who don’t want to look, it’s just another “GOP throwing grandma under the train” riff.
And whats wrong with throwing grandma under a train?
We do this everyday in America, we keep them alive many against their will and run up astronomical costs when that money could be better spent preventing common illnesses early.
We need to have a Dr Kevorkian available at any time someone wishes to leave this word early.
We should have living wills that state if you get Alzheimer or some incurable disease you can have your loved ones authorized end it . I really dont think it would be abused and doctors would sense if the kids wanted grandma dead to get at her inheritance… then let a court decide.
We already have thousands of “Kevorkians” who operate under the radar.
At least if you believe my ex-, who works in the cancer wing of her hospital.
At some point, when everything reasonable that can be done is done, the attending and the family have a “consultation”. After which, treatment is discontinued, and the painkillers are pumped in. Sometimes (allegedly), the patient gets a “little too much” painkillers.
The problems come in when the family or patient want treatment to continue, no matter how hopeless the situation.
Or for religious reasons (i.e., not doing everything possible to “cure” the patient is murder/encouraging suicide).
Or the family “……just want to keep him alive, so cousin Larry can take 3-4 days to fly in from BFE, and say goodbye”
The -fixr’s solution to this is a single payer program, with a “death panel” that reviews the case under clear cut and non-secret policy guidelines, and decides what is reasonable.
Anything beyond this gets paid for by the patient’s estate/family/ or supplemental insurance.
The reality is we have “Death Panels” now. Run by the insurance companies and the doctors, under the radar, with no guidelines, or accountability.
“For those who don’t want to look, it’s just another “GOP throwing grandma under the train” riff.”
No it’s not. It’s about the hype surrounding what is in reality, a contrived problem created to distract from, as you stated correctly, the real problem of the budget.
Possible strike at docks would cripple key U.S. ports, hurt economy
Thousands of dockworkers from Baltimore to Houston are threatening to go on strike Sunday over their pay. Nearly half of the nation’s ocean-bound container traffic runs through the 14 threatened ports on the East Coast and the Gulf Coast. A widespread strike by the International Longshoremen’s Association, the first in decades, could put the White House in a bind. The management-labor dispute has focused on how to divvy up container royalties, which have long been used to augment worker wages and benefits. The alliance wants to freeze the royalties at current levels, saying that the longshoremen are well compensated, receiving an average of $124,000 a year. The dockworkers have rejected the proposal.
Everyone goes on strike over pay, never about costs. Why don’t they give up cable or their iphone to force their cost of living lower? Americans, in an overall sense, refuse to give up anything to make their point yet this approach will only cause their costs of living to rise more necessitating yet another strike.
Our biggest problem is the populace doesn’t understand the mechanics of the money system. They are all still trying to keep up w/the Jones, giving up some things but not too much.
Trying to keep up with the Jones’:
Average hourly earnings in America (adjusted for inflation) have not increased in ~50 years:
Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/how-to-fix-the-economy-in-one-simple-chart-2012-8#ixzz2GMpTMbqz
Why don’t they give up cable or their iphone to force their cost of living lower?
Those things are cheap and cellphones are needed. Iphon’s are the poor man’s internet too and most of those are cheaper Samsungs. Flatscreen tv’s are cheap too.
Those things don’t compare to housing, tuition, health care, dental, autos, childcare etc.
Cable TV? I’d spend $50 a month for cheap entertainment if I didn’t have scratch for squat.
Ok, I took several comments in and will make a general rebuttal here. My point was if enough people (temporarily) drop the product, the prices will drop. The companies are calling your bluff and as (the proverbial) you desperately hang onto your products no matter what price they ask, “you” have blinked. I’ve watched it happen again and again. People en masse signal the company does indeed have them over a barrel, because they will not ever drop the product. I can count on one hand the number of times people have threatened to drop product until the supplier cries uncle……Netflix and Instagram come to mind.
You are dealing with a problem of collective action here. At a job (especially one with a union) the workers can get together to negotiate. That is much harder to do with customers. In the retail space, we rely on competition to force prices down. It doesn’t work that well in a few markets, including cable. With iphones? Well Apple has decided that it prefers to make premium profits on fewer customers. It is a company. It gets to make that choice.
The
companieslandlords are calling your bluff and as (the proverbial) you desperately hang onto your products no matter what price they ask, “you” have blinked. I’ve watched it happen again and again. People en masse signal the company does indeed have them over a barrel, because they will not ever drop the product.And this is how I think we should look at “landlord slavery” in a place like San Francisco. It’s not slavery when you refuse to take the chains off…
“….if enough people drop the product, the price will drop…..”
Oh you poor, deluded believer in “Supply and Demand”.
-US fuel consumption (the biggest fuel market in the world) is down 7% from 2007. Yet, fuel prices are pushing $4/gallon again, during the lowest demand months (Jan-Feb).
- 20 million vacant homes. Yet “prices are going up”.
OTOH…..
The PTB are bitching about “not being able to find skilled labor” again. But nobody is raising pay rates.
I’m talking out of school here, because I’m a low-media consumer. The instant-response leash (and the bandwidth hunger) imposed by smartphones does not work for me and I don’t need extremes of bandwidth. Here is my Plan B.
I was impressed that I was able to get a virtually unlimited phone plan for $30 a month. When I went to the company store to transfer numbers etc, I saw a wi-fi hot spot thingie with unlimited downloads service going for $19.99 per month. It’s the company that starts with “T”, not “V”.
I have no idea if this would do the trick for Netflix or live streaming, FB, and the other things that qualify as entertainment. I thought if I really wanted to bite the bullet, this is what I’d get. In extremis, what I’d need is email access; company website surf-ability; and the capability to look up the terms of art for the stuff I’ve done.
With a wifi hotspot at $19.99, I’d have phone, email, web access and (theoretically) Netflix capability for $50/mo.
I should really run an experiment and report back.
“Why don’t they give up cable or their iphone to force their cost of living lower?”
I overheard a couple of women talking about family budgeting this past summer while waiting for my 8-oz, 4-shot Americano. “Cut my iPhone?” N O W A Y !!
The same people who got trophies just for showing up at the track meet and 3.5GPA’s for doing the course work, also expect raises for simply doing their job. At what point did the workforce come to see automatic raises as a given?
Oh, that’s right. When Congress gave SS pensioners cost of living allowances to cope for the inflation of the 1970’s and forgot to rescind it when inflation abated in the 80’s.
In any case, the trend is reversing.
Hey, Alena, did my e-mail from last night get you the information you needed? Sorry it was sort of a slip shod job. I was kind of tired.
Didn’t get it, Polly. Could you please resend? Gracias!
Can’t until I get home. Really? I sent it about 1:00 AM my time.
Did you send the message from a secondary account? I just replied to what you sent, but I remember thinking the domain name didn’t look familiar.
“Why don’t they give up cable or their iphone to force their cost of living lower? Americans, in an overall sense, refuse to give up anything to make their point yet this approach will only cause their costs of living to rise more necessitating yet another strike.”
Absolutely correct. Americans keep increasing their spending as fast or faster than their incomes. I have family members in this group, they refuse to give up anything or cut back spending and waste. How did we become so entitled to all of this crap? LIVING BELOW YOUR MEANS WORKS every time it’s tried…Got it? I have not problem with gadgets or any kind of free market consumerism as long as your are being somewhat responsible.
……could put the White House in a bind. ?????
I don’t see how.
Whatever the outcome, if anything bad results, the Press will blame the Republicans for something.
Obama NEVER gets put up as being a cause for any bad thing that happens.
I’m still waiting for the hearings on Benghazi, want to know what happened to “fast and furious”, waiting for the prosecutions of Black Panthers for voter suppression, and don’t know what has happened to the “budget” for the past 4 years.
Nothing can go wrong in America where any blame will go to the goat herder with a Nobel Peace Prize.
waiting for the prosecutions of Black Panthers for voter suppression,
A couple “scary black dudes” doesn’t compare to the systematic/racist voter suppression by the Repubs. Check it out:
Why Voter Suppression Is Mostly a Republican Tactic
http://www.bloomberg.com 5 Nov 2012 – In the past, vote suppression tactics percolated in both parties. But with Republicans seeking to turn back the demographic tide rather than …
Courts Reject GOP Voter Suppression Overreach In Four States thinkprogress.org
30 Aug 2012 – Courts Reject GOP Voter Suppression Overreach In Four States … violates the Voting Rights Act, a pattern continues to emerge of Republican …
GOP’s push to suppress vote threatens democracy - CNN.com
http://www.cnn.com 4 Nov 2012 – The effort to sow confusion and erect roadblocks for voters is a subplot of the election that could have major consequences.
Republican Voter Suppression Campaign Rolls Back Early Voting
http://www.huffingtonpost.com -
18 Aug 2012 – WASHINGTON — Four years ago, on the Sunday before Election Day 2008, members of predominantly African American congregations in …
Fla. Republican: We wanted to suppress black votes - Salon.com
http://www.salon.com
27 Jul 2012 – Florida’s disgraced former GOP chairman says the party had meetings about “keeping blacks from voting”
Republicans Boast About Voter Suppression in Tampa, but the …
http://www.thenation.com -
29 Aug 2012 – Republicans Boast About Voter Suppression in Tampa, but the Ground … not being able to vote—were justifiable to prevent non-existent fraud.
How the GOP’s War on Voting Backfired | The Nation
8 Nov 2012 – The backlash to voter suppression laws led to higher turnout among young, black and Hispanic voters.
Conservative Explains Why Republicans Want to Suppress Voting …
Andy Towle - 5 Nov 2012 – Right Wing Watch pulls up this video of arch-conservative Paul Weyrich to explain why the right-wing engages in voter suppression. It was shot …
GOP voter suppression fueled black turnout
They have a “plan”, so did the “$hakers” …
OMG! is that you? You’re ALIVE!
The Wob is back!
(We were worried over you.) Whew.
Didn’t you agree to not use excessive symbols and emoticons as part of joining the club?
None of that was linked from the Drudge Report therefore not worth reading.
Why are I.D. requirements considered voter suppression and racist?
Why shouldn’t everyone have valid I.D.? Isn’t it at a minimum a fine if you are stopped by the police without valid ID?
If we care about votes being accurate shouldn’t we ensure the deceased and those who aren’t willing or able to get an ID are left off the voter roles?
Isn’t it racist and demeaning of people to assume that minorities are less capable of acquiring ID than white folks?
Why are I.D. requirements considered voter suppression and racist?
Read the articles. There’s a lot more involved than “requiring ID’s”.
“Isn’t it at a minimum a fine if you are stopped by the police without valid ID?”
No, it isn’t. There is no state in the US that requires people to have “papers” to be outside in public.
And it isn’t an assumption that minorities are less capable of getting government ids. There is plenty of research out there that minorities, old people and a few other subgroups are simply less likely to have government ids already. No one is making assumptions.
I can see how having an ID all the time is probably more a function of legally driving almost daily than an indicator of responsible citizenship. For people who legally drive all the time it kind of gets mixed together in their minds, though.
Rio-
Your links were to the generic websites, not the specific article. (at least when I opened them.)
Polly,
I should clarify, you are required to have ID if you are stopped for a moving violation while driving.
Voting is a right, no question. Isn’t it everyone’s responsibility to do their part to ensure an accurate vote? Why is it too much to ask people to have a valid ID? Don’t other less developed nations require this or at a minimum, some way to ensure that everyone votes only once?
With the technology that we have in this country our voting system is Barbaric…We act as if we are Neanderthals..
Why a ID ?? Whats wrong with a finger print ?? Eye retina verify ?? Incripted voting via email ?? Same day registration ??
Voting up to a month in advance ?? All the above ??
And I am sure many smarter than I could have even better optons…
So what should we concluded that the most sophisticated and technologically advanced country in the world still uses a system that requires people to stand in line for four hours or more at some venue with limited hours to cast a vote ??
Personally, I can only conclude that “Somebody” wants to make it difficult for what ever reason…What other conclusion can you draw…??
scdave-
I agree. Whatever means are used to ensure a correct vote, we have the technology to fix the problem. It doesn’t have to be IDs but is it really too much to ask in this day and age to ensure that the dead aren’t voting or people voting multiple times?
Valid IDs cost money. And getting to the places that issue them can both cost money and be very inconvenient. Requiring people to purchase something that costs money (the government ID that they don’t otherwise need) in order to vote is the economic equivalent of a poll tax. Poll taxes are illegal.
If the states that want to require IDs were willing to provide them for free, send people to your house to help you apply for the ID at a time that is good for you and would do all the research required to find the required background documents (like a way to get a valid copy of a birth certificate from a rural town in which people who were born at home didn’t often get issued birth certificates at all and besides all the records from before 1940 were lost in a flood three decades ago), then it wouldn’t be a problem.
If they want you to pay $70, show up at an office that is 40 miles from your house during a specific 3 hour window that happens once a month during your work hours and refuses to issue the identification when you provide a letter from your home town that says the records were lost, then yeah, it is a big problem.
to ensure that the dead aren’t voting or people voting multiple times ??
well sure…So solve it…But we won’t..We will still do the same thing in 2012….
So I ask again; What other conclusion can you draw ??
I will bite on my own question…There are certain groups
of people in this country that don’t want other certain groups any easier path to cast a vote…In fact, they are trying to make it harder…You fill in the blanks…
“Why a ID ?? Whats wrong with a finger print ?? Eye retina verify ??”
Do you really think that the US could implement a system to have an electronic database of the fingerprints or retinas of all citizens? Really? It is one thing to have that information stored in order to participate in something volutary (like a particular job) but to hinge your right to vote on your willingness to give that information to the government? I just don’t see it in this country.
I don’t care if you’re confined to bed in the backwaters of a Louisiana swamp, if you can get to a polling place (or to your mailbox for that matter) you can register and get a national voter ID. There are two years until the next election. No excuse. Zero. You drop a form into your mailbox. You register where you buy your lotto ticket, at the local school house, when the Meals on Wheels lady comes. If you can’t get out, a volunteer will come to you and handle the paperwork….
The government did a pretty good job of switching everyone off analog television broadcast; it took a couple of years, but the word got out and the change was made. If both parties get involved, the same thing can happen with a national voter ID. If as an American citizen you can’t be bothered to register and get one, you have no business voting. None.
The requirements in some of the states that wanted to implement mandatory ids to vote didn’t allow for ids to be acquired that easily. Some of them were really pretty onerous.
+1
That was +1 for Ahansen not Polly
Valid IDs cost money. And getting to the places that issue them can both cost money and be very inconvenient. Requiring people to purchase something that costs money
With that kind of logic why even bother with elections. Elections cost money and are inconvenient for most voters.
Do you really think that the US could implement a system to have an electronic database of the fingerprints or retinas of all citizens? Really ??
Yes…For about One 100th of the cost of the Iraq war…What are you suggesting Polly that they don’t know who you are or where you are now…Whats the big friggen deal…
If as an American citizen you can’t be bothered to register and get one, you have no business voting. None. ??
The question my lady is; “Is the system in place today a system that makes it difficult for some to vote” ?? Are we talking about just registering or the actual process of voting…If I had to stand in line for four hours I would not vote….If I had to take time off of work, I would not vote…As a US citizen it should be easy to vote…If it is not, then IMO, there is a reason it isn’t because, as I said before, there are certain groups that don’t want certain groups easy access to vote…
That +1 knocked it out of the park.
It isn’t a big deal to me. I voluntarily gave up that privacy when I went to work for the government. My biometric data is in the system and it always will be. But there are a lot of people who consider it a severe invasion of privacy and a giant leap towards a police state. Think, if you will, about all the fights about whether the police are allowed to keep your prints on file after an arrest if they later decide not to charge you with anything. People CARE about this stuff. A lot.
I wonder that the libertarians haven’t weighed in on this discussion yet.
Ease of voting is another issue entirely, and one which is increasingly being addressed through the USPS (and soon through the internet). But by requiring a national voter ID, we eliminate time-consuming and spurious charges of “illegal voters” , and crossing that non-impediment off our list can get on with the valid issue of voter suppression.
But there are a lot of people who consider it a severe invasion of privacy and a giant leap towards a police state ??
I got it….But, unless you live in the hills of Appalachia, I just don’t think we have much privacy anymore….Through the massive data bases that are out there, they know who you are, where you are, how old you are what you like & don’t like…
Much of this now compounded by the Homeland Security Act…
We may not like it, but thats the reality of it for most of us…
They have a lot of that info, but they don’t have your retina scan or your fingerprints and a name and address to attach that information to. it is giant step up in privacy invasion. Like I said, I gave up that right for a job I wanted. Not everyone wants to do that. And you shouldn’t be REQUIRED to give it up in order to vote.
a name and address to attach that information to ??
Your a highly educated lawyer right..?? Am I missing something here….
They have far more than that…They can track your cell phone for god’s sake…Besides, go a read my post again…I suggested various things and offered that there may be a smarter solution so I did not say this was the only way…
So, offer up your own solution to what is obvious to be voter suppression and the chaotic way we process voting…
Only if you make calls on the cell phone. Or leave it on all the time. Or even have one.
And doing all those things is a CHOICE. You chose to give up some privacy to have the cell phone and make calls on the cell phone and leave it on all the time.
You shouldn’t have to give up your privacy to carry out basic civil rights like voting or walking down the street.
“receiving an average of $124,000 a year” HMM, I think this would be a great job for my wife.
Unfortunately for your wife the Longshoremen have a lock on the jobs.
To work as a Longshoreman you need to join the union first. In order to join the union you need some sort of “in”.
The Mafia has a similar program for recruiting members. I think it’s ethnic and racial, which would make it illegal if it was “open” for all to join. I guess that’s why they don’t really care what’s legal.
Same with firefighters, the film industry, and frighteningly, many police departments. It’s a legacy job, a closely-held hiring monopoly which requires no special skills or abilities that cannot be taught to a clever baboon. But their Uncle got them on, so you can’t join. Nyah, nyah, nyah.
you can’t join Just another kind of rent-seeking.
I still do not understand that USA is going through a fiscal cliff and there are massive bubbles all over the world. Still the Stock market has been/is doing very well. What is causing it? Is it that the investors are very confident that money printing would be in full force. When would these bubbles deflate? Especially the RE bubbles across the World. Probably we are in a long term of pain for the next decade as politicians would never learn.
stock market has become a manipulated game and pretty much everyone knows it. Everyone thinks the central banks pouring of money into the system is a good thing.
If the economy was strong we wouldn’t need printed money.
has become a manipulated game and pretty much everyone knows it ?
Spot on….
Totally true. By fewer and fewer players.
Last night on the News Hour, the head of FreedomWorks (organizers of Tea Party protests) had this to say:
MATT KIBBE: What we’d like to see, the only rational solution at this late end of the game is to extend the current rates for another year, like was done in 2010, and let’s go through regular order. Let’s actually write a tax bill out of the Ways and Means Committee. Let’s have the Senate Democrats debate that. Let’s go through the normal budget process,
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/politics/july-dec12/teaparty_12-27.html
————-
The Republicans made the same noises at the beginning of these negotiations in November: “Oh pleeeeese can we just extend the tax cuts as is while we talk some more. We promise to be good this time…” And now the Tea Party honcho says the same — oh please can we just keep the status quo and do it right.
Craptalk like this is precisely why libs are fully in favor of going over the cliff, and why Obama threw almost every deal right back into Boehner’s face. R’s are stalling so they can continue to collect funding from the tax savings of their wealthy paymasters, and libs are tired of it.
What’s so ironic about this is that Obama is fully willing to keep taxes low on the sub $250K — and has been since the days of Joe the Plumber. How many of those Tea Party protestors in lawn chairs (or Medicare scooters) on the Mall were making over $250K?
those Tea Party protesters in lawn chairs
You are missing the point entirely. The Tea Party protesters gathered on the Mall with no violence and left it cleaner than before they got there.
But the Occupiers left garbage and human waste, and the Occupy encampments were cesspits of violence, rape, drug overdoses, et cetera.
Therefore proposing anything like a transaction tax on Wall Street trades or higher taxes on the rich is communist, class-warfare, politics of envy.
The meme stands. Do NOT challenge the meme!
If I were the News Hour, I would invite Kibbe back a week from now, after the taxes are hiked and the new Congress is sworn in. Do you think he’d have the same message? Would he encourage the Ways and Means Committee in the House to haggle and the Senate Democrats to debate over which Medicare benefits to cut? It could take months…with those god-fearing rural folk paying higher taxes each day…and defense contractors losing contracts each day…
with those god-fearing rural folk paying higher taxes each day ??
And the estate tax exemption only being 1-mil on that 5-mil dollar farm…Yeah, off the cliff and into the debt wall…Let the tea partier’s go tell their constituents that they voted for it before they voted against it…Didn’t that kind flip-flop basically cost someone a chance at the Presidency…
See how much the gov spends this year.
After the fiscal cliff / settlement - it will be even more.
To outsiders, the US gov seems out of fiscal/judicial control which is tough to watch.
the Occupiers left garbage and human waste,…
Fact:
The TeaPartiers defecated in public a lot too.
(But they were wearing Depends®)
Shut yer commie talk mouth! The talking point will NOT be derailed.
Here is your talking point:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2046586/Occupy-Wall-Street-Shocking-photos-protester-defecating-POLICE-CAR.html
Now go forth, keyboard commando, Internet Tough Guy, and flood the comments section of any article about those Occupy hippie commies. Post on your local craigslist rants & raves. Call in your comments to talk radio.
And make sure to check the Drudge Report every hour for updates on your talking point!
The talking point will NOT be derailed. Here is your talking point:
Oh yea? Look at the Tea Party dude’s face with the flag……… Uh huh……. ‘Nuff Said.
http://www.google.com/imgres?num=10&hl=en&tbo=d&biw=960&bih=458&tbm=isch&tbnid=NDee9Z-64mPWGM:&imgrefurl=http://cramandballwell.blogspot.com/2010_10_01_archive.html&docid=vyoy-zjIgPs04M&imgurl=http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9b/Tea_Party_Protest,_Hartford,_Connecticut,_15_April_2009_-_080.jpg&w=2592&h=3888&ei=qN7dUNXrL4H68QSOhIDACw&zoom=1&iact=hc&vpx=579&vpy=7&dur=54&hovh=275&hovw=183&tx=102&ty=132&sig=114683640486350469588&page=4&tbnh=138&tbnw=88&start=40&ndsp=15&ved=1t:429,r:43,s:0,i:225
What is ironic is that you don’t think your hero has taken more payoffs from the big money centers than any other Pres in history. Your taxes are going to go up and your income is going to go down, I’m guessing. The blame game is a big charade, which some (many, most?) seem to revel in.
Your taxes are going to go up and your income is going to go down, I’m guessing.
Indeed yes. That’s okay, I think I can afford it, now that I know my rent will never go up. We’ve been assured that there are no plans for layoffs in my section, so that’s good too.
I still fear for the middle-class contractors.
now that I know my rent will never go up.
It’s a good feeling, huh? The rental we just left 3 months ago just rented again for $1,000 more per month. Ouch!
^^^^^^^^
Lmao… You go housing hookers!
You go housing hookers!
Hookers? Why is your pen so foul? Besides it’s Christmas time.
Peace Bro’s!
“now that I know my rent will never go up”
Your property taxes might go up.
And your salary might go down.
RE: Obama & payoffs.
Where does he hide the money? He’s only worth a few million. Most of the senate members are way richer than he is. I’m not defending his actions, which I think are gutless. I imagine he starts off every day with a envelope that tells him what to do.
Must be hiding it somehow. Have you seen that house he is living in?
Bluestar, I am not trying to be complex. He took more in campaign donations from big Wall Street than those before him.. Now he’s the Pres. That’s where he spent the money.
Does that oblidge him to represent you and me???
Wall street threw their money behind Romney this time. Evidently, their money from the first election didn’t buy them everything they wanted. And they didn’t even get their guy elected this time.
That’s how the choice was between bought and paid for and bought and paid for. Who feels like they won?
“Have you seen….”
That was great, Polly. LOL.
“The blame game is a big charade, which some (many, most?) seem to revel in.”
And oh what a charade it is!
We are entering the phase where the boyz start to collect their pound of flesh from all the debt that ‘didn’t matter’. We are being conned into making sacrifices and “doing the right thing” while the boyz have just looted the public for trillions of $$.
The blame game is a big charade,
Fact: The Repubs and W. Bush gutted our tax base. The Repubs pushed globalization and supply side tripe way more than the Dems. The Repubs busted unions and eliminated workers rights way more than the Dems. The Repub SCOTUS justices passed Citizens United. The Repubs continued tax breaks for off-shoring.
your income is going to go down,
See my paragraph above on why.
This stuff is not a charade. There is a difference.
Can we add some more?
Bush and the Repubs gutted the tax base on a temporary basis, and now Obama wants to keep it 80% gutted permanently (Repubs want to keep it 100% gutted permanently). Clinton repealed Glass-Steagall. Both Dems and Republicans pushed subprime debt. Repub appointed SCOTUS Chief upheld Obamacare. John Corzine? Prominent Democrat. Bernie Madoff? Democrat supporter.
And Rio, tax breaks for off-shoring? You’ve got to get off this talking point…it’s tiresome. These are deductions that businesses get, whether they move production from California to Texas, or from California to China. The deductions are general business deductions, not specific to off-shoring.
If you want to change the rules so there are no such deductions if you move production to a foreign country, fine, but call it what it is, protectionism, not closing a loophole.
Conclusion? Both sides suck.
Say what?
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE68R40I20100928
You blame republicans but since dems opposed it as well that makes it bi-partisan.
Say WHAT?
“…needed to clear a Republican procedural hurdle against the measure, which would also give employers a tax break to hire new U.S. workers.”
Those boomers EARNED those Medicare scooters.
They EARNED the Medicare Part D that helps pay for their pills for hypertension, diabetes, high cholesterol, and a bevy of other preventable conditions.
They also EARNED the 15-20 yrs of Social Security they’re going to collect, even if the amount they collect totals several multiples of what they paid in.
All this despite complaining about the taxes taken from their paychecks, much of which funds Medicare and SS.
The lazy young people DO NOT GET IT.
yeah but reducing benefits is throwing grandma under the train doncha know
reducing benefits is throwing grandma under the train
But one of America’s goal is to “Promote the General Welfare”. “Welfare” by definition includes health and health-care. Now when they wrote that did they not have the goal for America to be exceptional? Yes. Exceptional compared to what? Exceptional compared to other countries of course. So if being exceptional compared to other contries was the goal then, should not the goal now be that America provides exceptional health-care compared to other advanced industrialized countries?
Or is that Constitutional goal of “Promoting the General Welfare” unimportant because the Constitution is a living document but that part died?
A new height in fanciful thinking.
Bull crap. I’m closer to grandma’s age than junior’s age and many of my compadres believe Medicare should pay for a basic, bottom of the barrel product and if that isn’t good enough for you, it should come out of your pocket. Let’s face it, the landed gentry changed the rules so they could invest and make family fortunes off the Medicare payments. Later generations be damned.
Let’s face it, the landed gentry changed the rules so they could invest and make family fortunes off the Medicare payments.
Thank you for being truthful about this. And the power structures(landed gentry as you call them) do the same with with housing. Then there are the “insurance” companies of all types.
I’m closer to grandma’s age than junior’s age and many of my compadres believe Medicare should pay for a basic, bottom of the barrel product and if that isn’t good enough for you, it should come out of your pocket.
Can you describe how that basic, bottom of the barrel product would differ from what Medicare provides today?
Well for one thing, it wouldn’t provide $8,000 “scooters” to people who are simply too fat to walk. Nor would it pay for blepharoplasties for 85 year-old women with droopy eyelids. It probably wouldn’t provide million dollar end-of-life care to billionaires who can afford to buy their own hospital, and it definitely wouldn’t be paying for fertility treatments for mentally disabled poor people who got shifted over to it from Medicaid. Oh, and it wouldn’t be paying private insurance companies to administer it.
Can you describe how that basic, bottom of the barrel product would differ from what Medicare provides today?
Look at the Indian Health Service, if you dare.
I wanted to reach through my television screen and throttle that earnest twit. At least Margaret Warner had the grace to follow up with:
“…But, I mean, that’s what was said last December, when this Budget Control Act was adopted …
MATT KIBBE: Right.
MARGARET WARNER: … with this sword of Damocles hanging over the whole process. And it didn’t happen….”
Kibbe then told us that “sequestration was not the issue.”
“MATT KIBBE: What we’d like to see, the only rational solution at this late end of the game is to extend the current rates for another year, like was done in 2010, and let’s go through regular order. Let’s actually write a tax bill out of the Ways and Means Committee. Let’s have the Senate Democrats debate that. Let’s go through the normal budget process,”
Sounds reasonable to reasonable people.
Sounds like kicking the can down the road.
What is causing it?
It’s all one giant manipulated lie? I don’t know that, it just seems like one of those “once you’ve ruled out all other possibilities” things…
I wanted to ask the professional folks here about the process of making a “Will”. Is it true that if something happens to a person, the property/bank balances etc. will not automatically go to the spouse but will be decided by a probate court. I always thought that belongings by default go next to the kin in an event of death. But looks like that is not the case. Doing a will from one of the sites like legal zoom is okay? Or I should get an attorney and have him do both living and death will?
But looks like that is not the case
I am not a lawyer, but you are wise in your question. What happens to bank balances depends on the law governing their ownership and how that ownership is titled. Where I live in Ohio, private bank accounts titled jointly go to whichever joint owner claims them, and completely outside of probate and without respect to who survives as long as one of the joint owners lives. I had my mother as joint owner on some of my accounts many years ago. After she passed away, I left her name on the account since it didn’t matter one way or the other. A private account in name of person A with ‘payable on death’ assigned to person B, will go to person B upon submission of a death certificate for person A, again outside of probate.
There are probably other types of ownership I don’t know about. Of course laws vary from state to state.
My mother transferred some of her savings to me by stashing money in pockets of her winter coats in her closet. She always warned me to never throw her stuff out without going through it to check for currency!
It gets tricky with privately held real estate. In my area, a local probate judge has worked several years to publicize this issue so that surviving spouses would secure a right of survivorship in the ownership of the house they shared with the deceased, independently of the probate process. The judge discovered his court’s business was mostly taken up with legal actions from survivors who were not so favored, and the cases dragged on for years and consumed money that could easily have been saved if people had only acted earlier.
Some mortgages create problems for survivors. If these are not held jointly, and the deceased debtor does not have insurance, the mortgage may become due on death. Sometimes the surviving spouse is not allowed to make payments.
If you have more than value in your estate that you aren’t willing to throw away and that you can’t handle by specifying ownership, you should consult a lawyer. There is too much at stake, and you won’t be around to clarify things.
In most states that have established living wills, these are designed to not require legal consultation. I believe there is a difference between a living will and a living trust. People often don’t consider they may at any time become incapacitated and unable to manage their finances. This can create a legal quagmire if people have assets. It would be best to set up a trust specifying who may act for you in this eventuality. There are lots of necessary legal details.
Of my mother’s 3 children, I am the only one who needs to be concerned about such a trust. The only financial ‘assets’ my brother and sister have are bills and debts. I have a house & savings, but no children or dependents, and would have liked to set up some kind of trust where my brother or sister could act in my behalf should I become disabled. Their eyes glazed over when I mentioned this to them. I have half a notion to simply will whatever I have left upon my death to charity.
dude I can tell you you want to do a trust. I went through this a few years ago. You do not need a lawyer to do it either.You avoid probate with a trust too.
revocable trust means you can change it while your alive and due to that ability to change you are still the owner of those assets you place in the trust.
irrevocable trust basically once you create it is very difficult to change it. The biggest beni with an irrevocable trust is technically you dont own the property once you transfer it to an irrevocable trust. name yourself as the trustee and keep control of it. in CA you can transfer to an irrevocable trust and if you name yourself as trustee you keep your property tax basis. the beni of technically not owning the assets is that creditors have a hard time getting assets you dont own.
azdude is offering sound advice…
Free legal advice is worth exactly what you pay for it. Go hire a local lawyer and get it done right, after all you are only talking about your life savings.
Assure - you should Google self settled trust.
I am biased (lawyer) but I would second this. I hate many other lawyers. However, a good lawyer, like a good accountant or mechanic or anyone else with skill, is going to give you far more value than legal zoom. That said, if you can’t afford a lawyer, then the real question is, what is the value of your time? If you have time, you can go to most law schools or court house libraries merely by walking in and showing some ID. Most people who are smart enough to really understand what they’re doing have some cost to their time, though. You don’t see a well paid engineer writing his own will, because paying a lawyer 1-2k is a good trade off–get expert advice without wasting any time.
Think about who uses LegalZoom - people who don’t generally have a lot to protect, who don’t own complicated assets, etc. So LegalZoom or a comparable service may work for you. But it’s not a substitute to a lawyer for someone with money. What legal zoom will help you do is get something on paper that *most likely* will settle your estate, reducing costs in the process. What a good lawyer would do is maximize the efficiency of the transfer of your assets, saving taxes and achieving your ideal distribution. If you have a decent estate, the savings far outweigh the costs. Most people in America are pretty asset-poor, owning at most a house, a car, and a checking account. Thus a lawyer is not needed. The person who builds an estate and plans will naturally value a lawyer and not necessarily the cheapest one either. The well-off use accountants and lawyers to get and stay that way. Joe6pack goes it alone or else hires a lawyer out of the yellow pages.
Ok. I am a lawyer. But this isn’t legal advice to you.
What you need to do depends enormously on your situation. If your finances are very, very simple you might be OK with creating the documents you need yourself. But I can’t know that without knowing a lot more about your situation and what you want to have happen and what the defaults are in the state where you are located. Yes, putting your assets in a living revocable trust will allow you to avoid probate. But there was no probate (or no complicated probate) when one of my grandfather’s died (without even a will, never mind a trust) because grandma’s name was also on their bank accounts and the rest of his estate was used clothes and an old car. There was a process in CA to deal with very small estates in a simple manner. I think it was for estates less than $10,000.
Ignore Joe’s advice about trying to go to a law school library. You’ll never find what you want there and universities tend to be fussy about letting people off the street into their buildings, never mind their libraries. If you don’t have a school ID you aren’t getting in.
You need to start by heading to a local library or, even better, a book store. If at a book store, settle in with a pile of books called “Your Money When You Die for Dummies” or some variation and read them. At least three. Better to grab and at least skim every one you can find. They are written for lay people, so they should explain what you need to know to get started. At least two should be specific to the state where you live (or have information specific to that state) and where your assets are located. That will tell you what the default treatment is in your state.
If you decide at the end of all this, that you need help from a lawyer (because what you need to do isn’t obvious from your research), then you have to get ready to see one. This requires a lot of work on your part. Get a few recommendations from people you trust for a local lawyer and call their offices. Ask what you would need to do to get ready to see someone. They might offer you an initial free meeting. That isn’t actually a great sign. You don’t have to write that office off completely, but it doesn’t mean you are going to get a good deal. A really good office will tell you that you need to put together a list of information for them. You want the office to tell you that you need to do this leg work, because if you don’t do it, then they will charge you for one of their employees to do it. They might even have an extensive questionnaire for you. You will have to get your hands on all your financial info (banks and accounts and how they are held, real property if any and how it is owned, insurance policies, other wills or trusts that have been set up, etc.) and information about people who you might want to leave your assets to. A good lawyer will never make a will for you that just leaves everything to your spouse - what if you die together? What if you and your spouse and your kids die together? The point of the will is to avoid the state defaults if you want to do that. That means you have to write down what you want for all reasonable possibilities. If you have minor children you have to put together a list of people who would be willing to become their legal guardians. This isn’t easy stuff to talk about.
And a medical power of attorney can be set up without a lawyer. It is pretty much the easiest thing to do. Your state bar will have forms on-line or you can get them out of the books you are going to be reading.
“Ok. I am a lawyer. But this isn’t legal advice to you.”
+1 Round one, the disclaimer.
A real lawyer giving advice to total strangers on an internet discussion board is kind of contradictory, no? Is “unprofessional lawyer” an oxymoron? When they contradict each other, does that make it neutral?
“A real lawyer giving advice to total strangers on an internet discussion board is kind of contradictory, no?”
+1 What about the “pro-bono” situation? Not sure because I’m way out of my depth. That “opening-salvo” disclaimer reminded me of a tax accountant’s contract—if he was in error he didn’t want to be responsible for the penalties. Of course any taxes due are my responsibility, but he just wanted positive cash-flow without any risk. It was cheesy, IMHO.
Did you guys even read the rest of my post? I explained the limitations of the advice.
In addition, I can’t technically practice law right now. I am “retired” from the practice of law in NY and DC and inactive in MA. Saves me a few hundred bucks a year.
And it is the height of irresponsibility to let anyone think they are getting real legal advice when you aren’t providing it. I would never even try to give advice with as little information as I have about Martin’s situation. I don’t know anything except he is unlikely to be in a very complex situation because of large amounts of family money. Most people like that know they need their own lawyer.
Thanks Polly.
If you buy housing today, you ll be underwater before the ink on the documents is dry. 20 million empty houses and a generation of boomers dying off over the next 20 years.
Why buy now when you can buy later for 60 percent less?
Home prices are CRATERING!!!
RALwarnings.docx
Are you saying that with the great Boomer die-off, prices will be 60% lower 20 years from now?
Sorry, the document RAL sent me with his collected wisdom didn’t specify an answer to this question.
That’s ok. He doesn’t have answers. He’s nothing more than a frothing dog, chained up in a yard barking all the time for no reason.
He’s nothing more than a frothing dog, chained up in a yard barking all the time for no reason.
Ha ha!
Here’s your anti-bark solution: https://docs.google.com/open?id=0B0QMI_-Iy8pod25GTjYwRTFZNlU
Only works with firefox, but it works well and will improve your HBB experience.
Good morning backpedaller….
I’m less interested in using economics to make definite predictions about future timeframes. I see it as a way to analytically observe & describe what we can see now. The 60% is a number that RAL has used in the past. As you note, he didn’t specify a time frame so, depending on your perspective, that might invalidate his entire point. On the other hand, think about what we know about demographics, globalization, the US budget situation, and some basic economic rules (supply/demand, marginal utility, substitution, fungibility, cost push inflation, etc). Think for yourself, don’t rely on RAL to do all your thinking. He’s busy schooling housing pimps and therefore doesn’t do 1 on 1 sit-downs with potential homedebtors.
So, here is my guess: All houses are different, job markets vary greatly by region, but in general I’d guess home prices will lag inflation throughout the 20 yr period we’re talking. At some point, they should start to flatline or drop slightly, even in nominal terms. This is because at some point the US will have a serious decision to make about continuing to support home prices even though they’ll be forced into some type of entitlement reform and other cost-cutting. There will come a time when it will just be obvious that the “crisis” which began in 2007-08 is no longer a crisis and when even the dumbest politician can’t justify “hardest hit” principle reductions/short sale assistance for a house sold in, say, 2012 or 2015, etc. It’s a question of when (not if) these spigots are cut off.
Consider also that near-0% interest rates are not sustainable in the long run, especially if real inflation comes into play.
So my question to you is, without a compelling reason, why would you buy now compared to waiting 5 or 6 yrs for the spigots are plugged?
How much you would “lose” by buying today is up to you. If you’re buying a 1x income house and you’re virtually certain to live there for 15 or 20 years (or, better yet, for life) I’d argue that you should consider about ten other things before you think about price depreciation or loss. Because it’s a place to live, not an investment.
However, if you’re looking to buy a house that is 3x (or more) of your income and it’s a “starter house” or you’re not sure you’d be willing to live there for life, I think renting is superior in virtually every way. The potential “upside” to buying a “starter house” or buying a house for 5-10 yrs is far, far outweighed by the downsides. On the upside, sure, you *might* save a couple thousand over that time frame compared to rent (depends if you’re in an area with good jobs that can support high rents). On the downside, you don’t really own the thing (most of payments for the first 10 yrs will be interest, not building equity), you’re directly responsible for repairs and maintenance, you have to pay RE agent fees, lawyer fee, inspection fees, deed recording fee. These are not cheap, my friend, and they aren’t often considered by buyers/sellers, which is foolish. There is also a very good chance that, in real terms, the house will be worth less when you go to sell it.
One more thing–I think that buying for cash is just as stupid as buying with a 3% down payment. The person with a mortgage is at least financing the rest of their life at a very low interest rate (3-4%) if they stay in the house and pay off the mortgage. This is just my guess, but I’d guess that inflation in the next 20 yrs will be higher than 3-4% (regardless of how the government rigs the numbers by excluding energy and food prices). People living longer + world population headed towards 10 Bil + gov’t need to print money… I don’t see how big expenses like energy and food don’t rise in cost to the average person.
Excellent!
“How much you would “lose” by buying today is up to you. If you’re buying a 1x income house and you’re virtually certain to live there for 15 or 20 years (or, better yet, for life) I’d argue that you should consider about ten other things before you think about price depreciation or loss. Because it’s a place to live, not an investment.”
Exactly right. And it’s how housing should be viewed.
Those that buy at 3x, then proceed to dump tens of thousands into upgrades perplex me.
It’s gambling with a roof over your head.
Better to buy a cheap place and expect to sell it for $0.
Because it’s a place to live, not an investment ??
Exactly….What my house is worth is irrelevant to me…Why..??
Because it is not for sale…
Buying cash today is absolutely insane. Let’s say you have 500K in the bank that you could either buy a house with, or, alternately, you could put 100K down on the house and invest the other 400K.
If you put 500K on the house, you are making the assumption that you can’t beat, for the next 30 years, about a 2.5% interest rate. Given that the government is doing everything short of dropping money from a helicopter to try to spark inflation, AND, even with the crazy low rates of today it’s easy to find >3% yield… That is, IMHO, a fools bet. Also, there’s the problem that if you need to sell and the house is only worth 250K 5 years from now, if you paid cash, there’s no way to get the bank to eat some of your losses.
This is a totally unique market right now, you (as a buyer) can borrow for less than municipal governments or top rated companies can. Yes, it’s totally retarded. But, no, you shouldn’t overlook it.
Put down the min amount to get the best possible interest rate. Put the rest of the money in bonds/stocks/cash. Keep your options open, don’t invest all at one time. But, if you do it right, the interest from your money should more than cover what you’re paying on the loan and may come close to covering the entire housing payment. If you need to sell 5 years from now and your way underwater, let the bank eat the loss.
Welcome to the “new” economy.
Interesting that your emoticon is a frown.
I’d write the same thing, yet put a smiley face after it.
I essentially agree with this. It isn’t the way it should be, but it’s the way it is now. Very smart not to lock up cash and very smart to force the bank/gov’t to wait out 15-30 yrs at 3.x% interest. This assumes following the other caveats–buying at a low multiple of yearly income, not buying “too much house”, etc.
Taking this even one step further, setting aside tear-down condition houses where cash buyers might have an advantage, for an average decent livable house, a cash buyer has to compete with people using FHA financing… almost nothing down, 3.x% interest, questionable credit, etc. The FHA backed bidders will likely keep prices inflated, cause higher bids, give sellers more pricing ability, etc. So it’s not like you’re going to get a discount for cash in that market segment.
Would you essentially agree with this vital part of the strategy, Joe?
If you need to sell 5 years from now and your way underwater, let the bank eat the loss.
Maryland is a recourse state, as are many states.
Recourse doesn’t prevent “hardest hit” or HARP type junk. And you can still do a short sale.
Still, these are the least of my reasons for thinking (along with others) that paying all cash for a primary residence is stupid right now. Even billionaires get mortgages these days. If someone is going to give you money at basically no cost, as long as the purchase is otherwise responsible and modest, why not take it?
Of course, for many people, they shouldn’t be buying or getting a mortgage at all, so this point is moot.
“If someone is going to give you money at basically no cost, as long as the purchase is otherwise responsible and modest, why not take it? ”
The money today is effectively “no cost”. What about 10 years from now if we see a few years of 8-10% inflation? The money isn’t “free” anymore, now it’s paying you.
Does anyone here honestly believe that, over the next 30 years we’re likely to see real (not the BS numbers the government comes up with) inflation less than 3% YOY? I personally think that the number is likely to be 5-6%, with a few years of very high inflation thrown in there. If you work from the basis of 5% a year, and your after MID cost of money is 3% a year, you’re being paid 2%/yr to take out a loan.
The situation we’re in now with mortgages is totally upside down and nuts. When rates go up, banks (and Freddie/Fannie) are going to get creamed. Those holding the paper (those who owe the money) are going to be the ones delivering the beating, paying back expensive dollars with cheap ones.
At least, that’s my thesis, we’ll see how it works out for me, but I think it’s as likely as any others that I can see today.
Inflation for each person varies–depends on your consumption patterns, among other things. However, I wouldn’t disagree with 5% as a guess about average inflation in the next decade or two.
I’d actually go a step further and say that most people probably have a liquidity preference of at least 2-3%, meaning they’d rather pay 2 or 3% interest simply to have the money sitting in a bank account just in case an opportunity comes up, an emergency presents itself, etc.
When you add it all together, it really doesn’t make sense to pay cash when compared to, say, putting 20% down and taking a 3.5% mortgage for 15 yrs. Or even a 3.9% mortgage for 30 yrs. This presupposes that one actually lives in the house long enough to pay it off… and perhaps beyond to reap maximum benefits.
I’m sitting here reading the same crap I heard 10 years ago.
“If you have your money tied up in your house, you have not managed your money well.”
“you should take out whatever money you have and put it in the market to get returns on the income.”
“Cash in a house is dead money”. etc.,etc, etc.
Then they lost most of their money in the stock market, and are looking for ways to “walk away” from their other ‘investments’.
I think both of your are full of crap. You give purely hypothetical examples that have no relation to reality.
Almost no one has $500,000 to put into a house. Period.
However, buying a house for $100,000 or less, in cash, is not a bad strategy, at all.
You make the assumption that you can lose 1/2, and an investment strategy that the bank can take any loses.
Most rents in my area on houses in the $100,000 range are about $800 to $1000 per month. Putting all the money in a house that you live in is like getting 800 to 1000 per month interest income on $100,000.
That’s not even remotely possible.
Playing the arbitrage game with what your mortgage payment will be vs. your return on the money in other investments is just a lot of extra work, trying to find places to come up with incomes for the money.
When your circumstances change, like losing your job, or needing to take time off work, your PAID FOR house guarantees low overhead. It means you don’t need a Big Income to feed the largest debts incurred.
You guys play your big-time “investor” games, but I think it’s BAD advice for many people. Paying off mortgages has made it possible for people to retire with low incomes. And paying off early, is a really, really good plan in my view.
Any concepts as to the investment climate 5 or 10 years from now, or even next year is pure speculation. No one knows.
It’s nice to know your mortgage payment: zero.
Dio…. your posts are difficult to read. WTF are you typing on? IBM Selectric?
You guys play your big-time “investor” games, but I think it’s BAD advice for many people. Paying off mortgages has made it possible for people to retire with low incomes.
Thank you.
There is a big difference between folks who have a few hundred thousand dollars and are wondering what to do with it and the rest of us who really just need a place to live.
If you have rent control, or happily live in your parent’s basement, or are single and not sure where (or even if) you want to settle down, then buying in this uncertain economy makes no sense at all.
But where you lay your head each night is more than a financial consideration for some of us. We bought a new memory foam mattress as a Christmas present for ourselves. Love it. Sure, I could I have continued to sleep on my old, paid-off mattress. Or bought a cheaper bed. Or waited for the price of memory foam to come down even more. But really, what I wanted was to be comfortable in my own bed. Not every decision can be boiled down to money.
“Most rents in my area on houses in the $100,000 range are about $800 to $1000 per month. Putting all the money in a house that you live in is like getting 800 to 1000 per month interest income on $100,000.
That’s not even remotely possible.”
No, it isn’t. However, that paid off 100K doesn’t cost you 0. You have property taxes and insurance, as well as maintenance. The better comparison is to look at what that 100K will cost you to borrow (about 3-4K/yr at current interest rates) and then figure out if you can do better elsewhere (stock market, bonds, gold, hiding it under the bed, etc). Basically, it costs you 4K to keep your 100K in the bank, rather than tie it up in the house. IMHO, that’s very cheap “insurance”, so cheap, in fact, that I can almost perfectly predict the next crisis; interest rates rise and bank go under because they sold the “insurance” (mortgage) too cheap, and now they their borrowing costs are higher than what they are earning on the mortgage paper.
Are you getting killed if you just buy it for 100K? No, of course not, especially if you don’t have anything unexpected happen (house is worth 50K and you need to move, for example). However, as those numbers get bigger (like my example of 500K) the stakes get higher. And, of course, then you start to have to figure in the MID which further reduces the cost of the loan.
Buying cash today is locking in today’s interest rates for the next 30 years. I think that’s a fools gamble, but, you correctly point out, it’s a gamble (both ways).
Diogenes,
You make great points, I am with you on this. You buy a 100-150k house for cash and your return is the rental equivalent after taxes. I guess some folks that post and read on this blog may not have thought it through. I like numbers…
So, I paid my 4.5% mortgage off with money market funds that were paying me 1% risk free. Then I have no mortgage payment. Rentals in my lower middle class working neighborhood are $775-850. Market value of house is about $100k. 775×12 = $9300. So lets deduct 700 for taxes (cheap here) and 2% for house maintainance. so we have 9300-2700 which equals $6600. that in my book is a 6.6% rate of return without almost no risk. Putting the money into stocks may well provide a larger return, but then you have taxes, and all the while you are shouldering a greater risk to your money. if during the next 5 years or whatever forward the investment climate changes, I can get a home equity loan and invest that money and “have it work for me”.
regards to all
-Trapper
But where you lay your head each night is more than a financial consideration for some of us. We bought a new memory foam mattress as a Christmas present for ourselves. Love it. Sure, I could I have continued to sleep on my old, paid-off mattress. Or bought a cheaper bed. Or waited for the price of memory foam to come down even more. But really, what I wanted was to be comfortable in my own bed. Not every decision can be boiled down to money.
Yeah, but there’s a huge difference between doing that with piggy bank money versus putting it on a 360 month payment plan. Sometimes it does boil down to money in the long run.
Would everyone please remember that one of the reasons Joe is so up on mortgage debt is because he and his wife qualify for some program to help teachers get special deals on their borrowed money (was it a deal on the rate or downpayment assistance?) despite their combined income being well in excess of $200K a year?
“Most rents in my area on houses in the $100,000 range are about $800 to $1000 per month. Putting all the money in a house that you live in is like getting 800 to 1000 per month interest income on $100,000.
That’s not even remotely possible.”
Now imagine being able to save $1000/month after taxes using only 40k of principal. I can.
Oh please, we only got about 11k of assistance. After closing costs, not that much was applied to principal. And yes, we’d have to pay it back if we didn’t stay in the house at least 5 yrs, but I’ve said many times I’d like to live there for 30+.
When someone is willing to loan you money at 3-4% over a long period of time this is almost always going to be an attractive offer. Even moreso during a time when real inflation is likely to be higher.
And another note re: income. It would be idiotic for anyone, myself included, to assume that the income will always be the same or higher, especially in real terms.
Yup. Only $11K on a $140K house. That is nothing. Just ignore it. $11K one or the other isn’t an issue for anyone.
$155k and I never said that it was a good deal for the state, only that it would be stupid to turn it down.
CA apparently has programs for teachers and first responders that offer far more than 11k of money towards purchase of a home.
“I can almost perfectly predict the next crisis; interest rates rise and bank go under because they sold the “insurance” (mortgage) too cheap, and now they their borrowing costs are higher than what they are earning on the mortgage paper.”
Absurd. Either the banks have no exposure to this issue because the loans have been sold and the return is a problem for unrelated bond holders or they do own the loans and have bought derivatives contracts to protect themselves from 30 year exposure to depressed rates.
“The money isn’t “free” anymore, now it’s paying you.”
Here is the essence of the mania: Debt will make you rich.
It doesn’t take much effort to accept, but it’s a fool’s gamble. It’s worked for the last 30 years or so, and there isn’t hardly a whisper of anyone caught owing more than they can repay (plus not getting rich via their debt).
joesmith is another GBOT (Government Bot)
Pure Propaganda.
Here is the essence of the mania: Debt will make you rich.
It doesn’t take much effort to accept, but it’s a fool’s gamble.
Yup. It’s picking up nickles in front of a steam roller that just keeps getting bigger and more unpredictable. It’s going to look like the best way to make a living (by far) right up until it isn’t.
Key take-away:
“IF you do it right…you MAY come close….”
Ryan,
Your question, which I see you have asked many times, is a good one. And yet no one here has even tried to answer it.
How long to wait (if you hope to one day buy a house and think RE might crash further ) is a real life question for some people, not just a theoretical game.
We wanted to buy in 2002. The bubble just got bigger and bigger, and by 2006 when everyone was telling me to “buy now or be priced out forever”, I was here on HBB every night.
So we waited and waited. We are both approaching 50 and have 2 kids living at home. Our landlord was driving us crazy (intrusive, imperious, wouldn’t fix anything) and the rents in San Francisco have risen every year since I moved here 20 years ago.
And we have dogs.
We bought 3 months ago. Prices here took about a 30% dive and I wasn’t getting any younger. 3.5% interest, a house we love, the stability I have wanted for a long time, and most importantly, the feeling of waiting and being in limbo is gone. We just built a chicken run and coop in the backyard and looking forward to fresh eggs come spring…
My plan has always been to have a paid-off house by the time I retired, so waiting another 5-7 years just didn’t make sense anymore. If San Francisco RE crashes another 30%, I’ll live to eat my words, but I just don’t see that happening.
sfhomowner,
I think you have done well.
Thank you for the response sfhomeowner and Joesmith.
I am in a position where I will be ’stuck’ here for quite some time. My wife’s career is taking off and mine is stable. We have rented together since 2004, understanding that housing prices were untenable. Waiting for the action to happen, we have seen quite a drop and what appears to be quasi-successful reflation efforts. I agree that pricing doesn’t currently make much sense with demographics, economy, inventory and future outlook taken into consideration.
My problem is this: We are seeing the manipulation of this inventory by banks. We are seeing that there are no ill effects to these banks by manipulating the inventory in their favor. We are seeing a very compliant Treasury, Fed, and GSE cluster in this regard as well. I don’t see ANY reason to believe that this cannot continue well into the future. My point is and always has been: Yes, prices should drop….maybe eve 60% but when? What even will precipitate a change in the market behavior? Based on current operating conditions I don’t see this unwinding in the next five to ten years. If you couple this with stupidly low interest rates on mortgages and a PROMISE of higher inflation expectations in the future then why not buy something right now?
My wife and I are looking at something to house us, our kid (plus 1 more down the road), plus our dogs. I can get a house in a great school district with low to no crime for two-thirds of what I pay to rent a similar house (where the landlord wants to sell). I’m not trying to justify the purchase but I want someone here who proclaims to have a very strong grasp of the current housing market mechanisms to explain how the next leg down will come about knowing what the current condition is.
“why not buy something right now?”
Because your going to lose alot of money. That’s why.
Rental watch is a liar-
You’re speculating. You are speculating to the downside, not much different than a realtor or hopeful homeowner speculating to the upside.
Ryan -
What price:income ratio would you be looking to buy? This is something you need to think about. You’ve already admitted that you can see another leg down (unclear on timing) so knowing that, wouldn’t you want to give yourself the margin of safety of your housing payment being a small % of your income?
There is nothing speculative about;
-Housing Demand at 17 year levels and falling
-Falling Housing prices
-Massive housing inventory
-Grossly inflated housing prices
We are looking at 2X income. Again, our mortgage (PITI) will be 2/3 to 3/4 of current rent. I have the cash to buy outright but wouldn’t do that.
Again, I am merely tossing the idea around in my head. I have a child and another one coming in the not so distance future, I have to start thinking about living in a good neighborhood with good schools. I also have a 200 pound dog, it’s hard to find places to rent with that feature and my current landlord wants to sell and get out of the landlord business.
If I could talk them into continuing the rental, I would.
Ryan, where do you live?
I wouldn’t consider buying in a place that had no jobs or no growth. Or anyplace that you couldn’t imagine living for the next 10-15 years.
Also, how old are you?
If I were in my 20’s or early 30’s, I might have waited. Once you hit 40, you realize that life can pass you by while you are overthinking it and waiting for the perfect time to take any action (have a kid, travel the world, change your career, learn that new skill, move to the place where you really want to live, etc.).
200 pound dog
Mastiff?
Geez, I thought my 100 lb. Rottie was big.
I live in Orlando. I don’t like it that much but both of us are successful here. We are in our early thirties. If I were to buy anything, I would go after a short sale. I have seen short sales & foreclosures priced at 50% of what they sold for in 2003 in good neighborhoods.
BTW, yes, it is a Mastiff.
“I have the cash to buy outright but wouldn’t do that.”
You’re making a tragic error.
yes, it is a Mastiff ??
Thats one big-A$$ dog…:)…We have a neighbor with one…A Gentle Giant…
My last mastiff helped fight off a bear for me. Big, sweet, uncomplaining, slavering monster. But he sure didn’t weigh 200 pounds. Even my wolfhound doesn’t weigh 200 pounds. Even my 6′4″ KID doesn’t weight 200 pounds. Yikes!
” I can get a house in a great school district with low to no crime for two-thirds of what I pay to rent a similar house”
Is insurance affordable in Orlando? Then sure, go for it. As long as the 1/3 you are saving is enough to cover maintenance costs you’ll be fine. It soulds like you are buying for less than replacement costs, too.
p.s. I have no connections to the RE industry in Orlando so I don’t know why anyone would call me a pimp.
“but I just don’t see that happening.”
Neither did the the entire country when Buffalo, NY was the center of the industrial world.
Neither did the entire country when Detroit, MI was the center of the industrial world.
Carry on my hopelessly indebted borrower.
Again, without a time frame, it’s meaningless. If the decline happens over a lifetime or two as it did for the rust belt then what is the point of bringing it up? Unless you are worrying about the value of the stuff you leave to your loved ones in your will.
It didn’t happen “over a lifetime” in the rust belt.
What is the point of misrepresenting that?
Again, without a time frame, it’s meaningless. If the decline happens over a lifetime or two as it did for the rust belt then what is the point of bringing it up?
Agreed.
I guess I could have bought in Williamsburg, Brooklyn in the 1990’s and been sitting pretty right now.
Who knew that the cesspool that was Manhattan in the 1980’s would now have the most expensive RE in the country?
So you went ahead and paid a massively inflated price in another unsustainable market before it corrects.
Attaboy.
Boy?
I think he meant Bot.
sfhomowner….I would like an opportunity in the future to speak with you through our own emails…I think you may be able to provide me some helpful information regarding SF housing…Wife and I have considered moving there for awhile and like you we have two dogs…Maybe Ben could forward my email address to you…scdave
scdave, are you in Santa Cruz?
RALwarnings.docx
I thought it was an excel spreadsheet.
Sorry for the confusion, I pasted the most relevant cells into a Word doc.
But the houses are deteriorating and depreciating. So the questions is: which is deteriorating faster - the boomer or the house?
That will affect the supply of houses. Who knows the ratio?
Maybe some of the millenials will find work repairing houses that get sold to millenials who work in the health care industry.
Millenials in the health care industry are probably Lucky Duckies and won’t be able to afford a house, repaired or not. In the Weekend thread I posted about big investors buying properties in bulk. The Lucky Duckies — probably multiples in one home — will be renting from them.
“…the boomer or the house?”
Now THAT’s funny.
SD bank and its president charged with fraud.
A Roscoe bank and its president acted fraudulently in inducing a Eureka couple to sign a $650,000 promissory note and mortgage in March 2004, a McPherson County jury has ruled.
The jury decided that $439,100 of the note and mortgage was obtained by fraud, according to court paperwork.
First State Bank of Roscoe and John Beyers, the bank’s president, conspired together to defraud Stanley and Rose Marie Stabler, the jury ruled, according to the verdict sheet.
Bank fines top $10 billion this year
Misdeeds cost the banks a record of more than $10.7 billion in fines this year. When UBS agreed earlier this month to pay U.S. authorities $1.2 billion for manipulating Libor, it capped a record year for bank fines. And the total includes only what the banks paid to U.S. and state authorities, not billions more these global banks also agreed to pay European regulators.
Slightly more than half of the fines were related to improper mortgage practices, and most of that money was earmarked to provide
help to the victimsincome for paper-pushers. Nearly half the fines — more than $5 billion — ended up in government coffers, mostly the U.S. Treasury’s general fund.must be nice to be a criminal and pay everyone off once you get caught.
The bank doesn’t get caught, the people running the bank get caught. The bank gets to pay the fines.
And if the banks is a TBTF then the bank may be able to get reimbursed by the taxpayers.
And if the taxpayers do not get reimbursed then the bank has to eat the loss, meaning the owners of the bank have to eat the loss. And if the banks is owned by stockholders then the stockholders have to eat the loss.
So the people who run the bank ending up having it both ways - they get to reap the benifits of their shady tactics via bonuses and such and if they can’t get away with the shady tactics the bank (meaning the stockholders) take the hit.
“taxpayers do not get reimbursed” = “taxpayers do not reimburse”
And if the stockholders get a bit upset at the costly behavior of the Guys In Charge then these GUYS In Charge enlist the help of their buddies who control the MSM - another set of Guys In Charge - to “explain” to the shareholders and the public in general just how “nobody could have seen this coming” and none of this was anybody’s fault and so forth and just how lucky the shareholders and everybody else are to have the Guys In Charge that they have in charge becuase if they had somebody else in charge things would have turned out a Whole Lot Worse.
Buy milk before the end of the year, or be priced out forever.
If milk prices go up won’t housing go down?
Milk is white. Milk is Racist®.
I am sure Obama will fix it like he did housing.
Just another propaganda piece by WAPO to support the Democrats. This same Harry Reid they are promoting as the leader of the people played “dead on arrival” games with the Congress for the past 2 years.
The “fiscal cliff” should have been debated months ago, but Obama and Co. wouldn’t have any part of it, so now it’s a “Crisis”. Obama loves a “crisis”.
It makes people do stupid things.
But, amongst the hundreds of issues that could be dredged up, WAPO finds one to highlight that will hit working Americans and runs a full article, whilst showing how the Democrat Team is on the side of the average guy.
Where was WAPO the past 3 years with NO budget and the fiscal cliff heading our way? They wouldn’t dare criticize Reid and his cronies on the Hill.
Only Praise for his wonderful work in trying to save America from the Republican menace.
Oh, Please.
“Get what you can get for your house today because it’s going to be less tomorrow for many many years to come”.
homewrecker:
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-pinto-home-ownership-fha-20121227,0,4564498.story
Watch your wallet.
And worse yet, the massive inventory problem grows by the day as the boomer demographic continues to age out permanently.
And being the depreciating asset housing has always been, combined with massive and growing inventory means falling prices for the next two decades or more.
Housing is still massively overpriced.
“Housing is still massively overpriced.”
So is peanut butter and laundry soap.
Neither demands 30 years of debt slavery.
I’ll take 30 years of debt slavery over 30 years of landlord slavery.
But there is no such thing as landlord slavery…you can walk away at any time.
“I’ll take 30 years of debt slavery over 30 years of landlord slavery.”
Or you could have used your head and waited a few years. Instead you opted for the dramatically more costly option. Your losses are locked in and they’re coming down the barrel right at you.
After seeing what’s happening with some of the local shadow inventory I’m not sure I want any of that even at collapsed pricing. Is it that easy to clean up mold, decay? Or do you end up paying the same price after you fix all the deterioration anyway?
Carl, yes, I could. Admittedly, my house is above my needs, if not above my means.
I could chase cheaper rent to a small apartment in a ‘hood. I could commute 40-50 miles. I could commute 20 miles to a small shack with a chain-link fence and fear for my life. The nearest trailer park is 25-minutes from work and definitely not nice. I saw some really decent parks in the midwest which were frankly cozier than the nearby McMansions, but not here. So I suppose I have options. But what I bought is no worse of a value compared to other forms of dwelling. And at the end of the mortgage, my house will be far more valuable than any of the other options.
I’m not underwater, so I could get out from under my house contract and walk too. It would take a little time, but it’s not impossible.
You’re underwater. You know it and so do we.
Currently you’re paying 2x the monthly cost of renting if you were honest about it. You don’t need to persuade us of anything. You need to get honest with yourself.
So Oxide, isn’t it actually an insult to yourself to compare debt slavery (real, but the chains are really light at the moment and hopefully always will be until you can saw them off) to “landlord slavery” (not real and simply a justification)?
I don’t quite follow you, but I know this: I would have felt landlord slavery a LOT more when I turned 65 or so and had to retire and pay rent out of a severely cut income.
You pay it with the hundreds of thousands of dollars that you blew on a grossly inflated depreciating house and 30 years worth of interest.
“the boomer demographic continues to age out permanently”
—————–
Unfortunately (for them), many of them do not see it that way. People in their 40s and 50s (even 60s) still think they should buy houses because they were conditioned that way since a young age. These people largely have “traditional American values”, one of which is “owning” your home. They do not think that still paying on a mortgage at age 55+ is stupid. They assume they will work to 65 or 70, even though considerably less than half of them will truly be gamefully employed that long. LOTS of these boomers still want to “trade up” their housing. Or else, get back into the market after foreclosure/short sale/bankruptcy/divorce. Stupid stupid stupid.
Fortunately (for us), we can laugh at them here on HBB. FWIW, younger people mostly lack “traditional American values” and value home “ownership” much less. Keeping one particular job for 10+ years, let alone a lifetime, is seen as very unlikely. Same with living in one place.
gamefully employed
Ain’t that the truth.
The statistics I’ve seen of what happens to people who lose a job after age 50-55 have been remarkable.
I’m sure we’ve also seen the AARP trolling in the media for how great it is for companies to hire seniors. They never mention what types of jobs these are (usually bad) or what the pay is (not good).
The world changes extremely fast these days so the overall trend is unlikely to get better. There are also a billion+ Chindians under age 30 in addition to all the younger unemployed/underemployed workers here in the U.S.
December 26, 2012
Number Of ‘Disabled’ Workers Hits New Record
(CNSNews.com) - The Social Security program ran a $47.8 billion deficit in fiscal 2012 as the program brought in $725.429 billion in cash and paid $773.247 for benefits and overhead expenses, according to official data published by Social Security Administration.
The Social Security Administration also released new data revealing that the number of workers collecting disability benefits hit a record 8,827,795 in December–up from 8,805,353 in November.
The overall number of Social Security program beneficiaries—including retired workers, dependent family members and survivors and disabled workers and their dependent family members—also hit a record in December, climbing from 56,658,978 in November to 56,758,185 in December.
http://nation.foxnews.com/disabilty-benefits/2012/12/26/number-disabled-workers-hits-new-record - 38k -
Number Of ‘Disabled’ Workers Hits New Record
And the *PRODUCERS* get bled dry to pay for them.
Seriously, can’t we just push all those disabled Lucky Duckies in front of a train? And give the tax savings to the *JOB CREATORS* with a tax cut!
Drove by one of my old hoods this afternoon and the same disabled guy was out front working on his boat. Same bike riding disabled guy who would be out front playing catch with his kids when I lived there and would hobble my non-disabled @ss in after framing all day.
Why does the figure have to lump a retirement program with a disability program. Putting them both under the sacred Social Security banner has been a scam since day 1.
They should be entirely separated
You know, if I’d been out of work for 3 years, all of my savings was gone, the only work I could get was a $9/hour Lucky Duck job that didn’t even cover the costs of the commute, and disability was the only thing between me and bankruptcy/foreclosure, I’d probably apply too.
FIX THE DAMN JOB MARKET. (If it is even fixable at this point)
QUIT PICKING FLY CRAP OUT OF THE PEPPER, AND RECOGNIZE WHAT THE PROBLEM IS.
(A bunch of problems will fix themselves, if/when the PTB decide/figure out it’s time to start distributing some of their multi-Trillion cash horde to the wretched refuse).
“Same with living in one place.”
I agree with everything right up to that last line.
More and more of the knowledge economy is moving to “virtual” as the place where the work is done. For members of this group I’d argue that it’s MORE likely that they will be able to stay in one place than their predecessors. I’ve lived in one small area for the last 10 years and, with the exception of one job, my employer has always been far away. Currently my office is in a building that’s 1500 miles from my house. I’ve interviewed with companies that are all the way across the country; none of them expect me to move.
IMHO, it becomes more and more likely that, if you buy today and work in a virtual office you’re likely never going to “have to” move for a job opportunity.
Two things -
I don’t see the *average* worker being able to telecommute 80%+ of the time anytime soon. I’m not trying to predict too far out, but I don’t see it.
If telecommuting takes hold, it will very likely cause even more downward force on wages. Why pay 25/hr for a paralegal in Maryland when you can get one in Ohio for $20/hr.? Or Iowa for $15/hr.? Or when you can hire 2 NYCdj types for $8/hr each and not have to provide 2 offices, 2 desks, etc.? This downward pressure on wages means people will have less money to pay for housing. So I don’t think telecommuting raises the value or price of housing, I think it does quite the opposite. And, at the same time, it makes jobs less stable–why wouldn’t an employer shop around every yr or two if his primarily (or only) dealings with someone are via teleconference? I just don’t see how telecommuting makes it more likely that young people will buy housing. Keep in mind also, if you get a job where you can telecommute, you can also rent and move around at your whim. Again, not sure how this benefits housing or makes people want to stay in one place.
Why pay 25/hr for a paralegal in Maryland when you can get one in Ohio for $20/hr.? Or Iowa for $15/hr.?
Or Mumbai for $2.26/hr?
True telecommuting is a pipe dream unless you have a security clearance.
I agree with you on the first point (possible wage compression based on those who live in the least expensive areas). This is likely to be another factor that will continue to drive home prices down as highly skilled workers who can telecommute start to leave the very expensive areas that have the high dollar jobs and move to 2nd tier areas. Actually, that’s probably more a migration than a loss, 2nd tier areas will see more demand, the high dollar areas that are expensive because of availability of jobs will see less.
“And, at the same time, it makes jobs less stable–why wouldn’t an employer shop around every yr or two if his primarily (or only) dealings with someone are via teleconference? ”
In my experience (both as a telecommuter myself and also having a team of telecommuters who report to me) I don’t think this is very likely. It’s hard to find good people, and probably even harder to find people who work well with no direct contact. I’ve never “shopped” my employees in less expensive areas and tried to offer a lower salary; I look for the best people (no matter where the live) and offer the same salary (no basis adjustment). All the people in my role and who report to me have to be within reasonable distance of an airport, but, other than that, they can live anywhere in the US.
We have a relatively high turnover rate; a lot of people think that working from home will be great and then figure out that it’s not for them. There’s almost no interaction with other people, and, when there is, it’s because you’re on the road and away from your family. We have about a 40% first year washout rate from this type of position, and I’d say that’s probably about average. Because of that, we always give preference to those who have worked remotely before; they know what’s involved and are much easier to retain. A lot of people just don’t seem to be able to stand the solitude; they need the office banter and need to get out of their homes (bad relationship, crazy children, etc) to have some time away.
“Again, not sure how this benefits housing or makes people want to stay in one place.”
I’m not sure it does benefit housing a whole; it certainly does for some areas and is detrimental for others. But it does benefit homeowners; the fear of having to “sell for a job” for most telecommuters is removed from the equation. Find a place where you’re happy and then find a job somewhere else; it allows areas to compete on their non-job related merits (climate, location to services, neighborhood, etc).
Finally, what about overseas? We’ve looked at it. We hired a guy a few years ago from India who commutes to the US for a few months at a time. It’s not something we are looking to do more of. It’s a very long flight from India to the US for a customer meeting. And, frankly, customers paying big bucks for some enterprise service want people who speak English as a first language. That pretty much eliminates India and the Oriental countries, the accent is too thick and customers hate paying 300/hr to talk to someone they can’t understand.
“True telecommuting is a pipe dream unless you have a security clearance.”
That is most certainly NOT true. I’ve been doing it for over 5 years. My employees have been doing it for many years as well. Some of us are cleared but that has nothing to do with anyone’s ability to telecommute.
We also have almost open hiring, when we find people with the skills, we typically will make an offer (which is often rejected because they are happy or making more where they are). Everyone who works on my team or the other teams like mine is 100K+ salary + benefits. In case you’re wondering, here’s what we typically look for:
BA/BS in Computer Science or MIS with 3.0+GPA
VCP/VCDX
CCNP/CCIE
NACDA
10-15 years of experience
5 years consulting experience
60-100 days of travel/yr
Excellent written and verbal communication skills
By the way, if you have these qualifications, I can pretty much promise you that my offer won’t be the only one you will get. The vendors (NetApp, EMC, VMware, Cisco, etc) will all make you 100K+ work from home offers with this skill set (but may require more local travel). You’ll also likely get plenty of offers from local VARs (resellers) to come on board and work to sell to customers in a regional area. All of these offers will most likely be work from home.
You said it yourself: telecommuters spend 40% - 50% of the time on the road to meet with people, which rather defeats the purpose of telecommuting, no?
As for India and Oriental countries, I’m stunned that they haven’t solved the accent problem yet. You would think there would be hundreds of American-accent immersion nannies or American-accent immersion schools for kids by now. Or maybe there are, but the kids are still teenagers?
“will all make you 100K+”
Still better to be a longshoreman ($125,000). Probably better pension as well.
“You said it yourself: telecommuters spend 40% - 50% of the time on the road to meet with people, which rather defeats the purpose of telecommuting, no?”
It does if your goal is to spend all your time at home. It most certainly does not, however, if your goal is to buy in someplace cheap and make a lot of money working for a big employer. My point isn’t that telecommuting is easy or fun, but that it’s going to fundamentally alter the way people buy and consume RE. Now the most important factor is “do I want to live here” followed closely by “where’s the closest airport”. Contrast this with “Where is my employer located” and “What do I do if my employer relocates”. My argument is that telecommuting removes some of the uncertainty around a RE transaction, for people who work that way, they don’t have the worry of a forced move to take a new job..
As for India and Oriental countries, I’m stunned that they haven’t solved the accent problem yet. You would think there would be hundreds of American-accent immersion nannies or American-accent immersion schools for kids by now. Or maybe there are, but the kids are still teenagers?
My assumption would be that they actually prefer their own accent and consider the issue of needing an American accent to be temporary.
I was on the phone yesterday with the people who run our flex spending account administration. I swear that it never would have worked if I hadn’t been talking to someone who had a deep understanding of all of the following in addition to the exact software that he was using to look up my account information and the policies he was responsible for:
US health insurance
US health care billing practices
US pharmacies and how prescription billing works and interacts with health insurance billing
US public transportation systems (bus and subway)
probably some other stuff that I’m forgetting
Without all of that he simply wouldn’t have understood what I was asking and what advice I needed. As it was, we had one slight misunderstanding which we fixed through conversation and he really managed to tell me what I needed to know even before we cleared up that one issue. The accent wasn’t the issue. Knowledge of the US and how our health care system works is what mattered.
accent problem yet
No kidding while there they better fix their skin tones, too.
English is the de facto first language of India; certainly of all its educated and administrative citizens. The country has the second largest number of English speakers in the world (after the US).
Those in the baby boom were born between 1946 and 1964.
That makes them between approximately 48 years old, and approximately 66 years old.
Consider this when you think about the timing of demographic effects on housing.
Bloomberg - White House Says No Defense Programs Are Immune to Cuts:
“Pentagon officials must make across-the-board reductions in weapons and research funds instead of slices that could spare some programs under the automatic federal budget cuts scheduled to take effect next week, according to the White House Office of Management and Budget.
Whether cuts are made at the so-called “program, project and activity”, level instead of in larger “accounts” such as “Air Force Aircraft” has been one of the biggest unanswered questions about what happens if the automatic cuts known as sequestration take effect at the start of the new year.”
And the best part of the article:
“Contractors have already been told there will be no contract cancellations, there may be changes in new contracts and some renegotiation of multi-year contracts … So industry can take a deep breath and continue work.”
And this from the Washington Post:
“With talks on averting the “fiscal cliff” apparently stalled, the Office of Personnel Management posted new guidelines to federal workers for administrative furloughs on its Web site Thursday afternoon.
Employees will be given a minimum 60-day notice before any furlough of longer than 22 days takes place, according to the document. A 30-day notice will be given for shorter furloughs.”
I heard Canada is holding off getting the F35 citing cost. Several other foreign countries are looking at options to ‘eject’ the from the program too. I expect our government will step in and snap up the excess production and ‘give’ the jets to Israel in a deal to appease their politicians while saving valuable defense jobs.
Real estate in Bethesda and Falls Church might get cheaper if the F-35 is a flop. Bethesda MD is the home of Lockheed Martin; Falls Church VA is HQ for Northrop Grumman. Currently these are among the most overpriced areas in the US.
Lockheed Martin alone receives over 7% of the total Pentagon (DoD) budget. When I say total budget, I mean everything–actual salaries paid to servicemen, costs of running bases, etc.
Lockheed Martin alone receives over 7%
You got a problem with invisible hand of free market?
Why do you hate the Producers?
Why do you hate the Bootstrappers?
Why do you hate Horatio Alger?
Why do you hate Galt Gulch?
Galt Gulch apparently looks like this:
http://www.zillow.com/homedetails/4509-Wetherill-Rd-Bethesda-MD-20816/37175410_zpid/
But hurry, a sale is pending at $515/sq ft. Still time to outbid them!
Another great RE buy in Galt Gulch:
http://www.zillow.com/homedetails/5007-Worthington-Dr-Bethesda-MD-20816/37175764_zpid/
This one was probably discounted bc of the hack job carpeting.
“But hurry, a sale is pending at $515/sq ft.”
As crazy as it sounds, and it is, that would be a 50% off sale around here.
GAAAAAA! No wonder everyone in DC is nuts. Busy, busy, busy. And what’s with the psychotic color schemes? Don’t you have any gay interior design people back there?
Snork got a cramdown in his stocking for Cliffmas, a HARP wrapped in Hardest Hit paper and a 12 month victims Cheese Program of the Month Club Membership.
Never mind the fiscal cliff. The whole planet is DOOMED!
Humanoid breeders keep on breeding. And keep telling yourself that the future for the mini-humanoids you created is gonna be just peachy.
http://mobile.bloomberg.com/news/2012-12-28/antarctic-warming-rate-surprises-scientists-today-s-pic.html
How does that show AGW and not just natural GW normal in an interglacial period? Still no explanation how you can have more than 15 years of rapidly rising co2 levels with no rise in GW. Get back to me when we have a year more than .1C warmer than 1998 in a non el nino year. We are still around 1.3C cooler than a normal interglacial period.
Today we have another story about a nut pushing someone in front of a train but we will not deal with the real problem in society a breakdown in our mental health system. No gun control Act will prevent similar incidents.
I was reading about SSW (Sudden Stratospheric Warming) events the other day and it surprised me how much energy these things release in to space. Some estimates said a big SSW event releases more energy than even the largest hurricane and it can do this in just a few days. Think of it like a kettle slowly coming to a boil. SSW events wreck havoc on the polar vortex which lead to extreme weather events in the northern hemisphere. SSW events were first discovered in the 1950’s so there is no way of knowing if they are related to GHG or global warming since there are no Paleoatmospheric records to compare.
the real problem in society a breakdown in our mental health system
And the breakdown of our mental health. No jobs and crap jobs in the richest country in the world really bums some people out and sometimes they snap.
And the breakdown of our mental health. No jobs and crap jobs in the richest country in the world really bums some people out and sometimes they snap.
Yup…take crazy and add money and soon enough you’re no longer crazy…just “eccentric”. Works the other direction, too.
So if global warming is NOT caused by human activity, should we all just continue to pollute the air and dump our garbage everywhere?
That is an asinine question conclusion to the premise in the “If” part of your quote. Typical spin technique.
Pollution should be ignored because the premise wasn’t phrased just the way you think it should.
Got it.
Phrasing of the premise has absolutely NOTHING to do with the question asked at the end. I believe in the truth of the ptremise but I do not believe in “continue to pollute the air and dump our garbage everywhere” no more than the huge number of people who also believe the premise.
To make a statement that makes both things joined in some mythical way IS asinine and is a popular liberal spin about AGW.
The ice sheet covering West Antarctica has warmed twice as fast as expected — 4.3 degrees Fahrenheit (2.4 degrees Celsius) since 1958, according to a studypublished this week in the journal Nature Geoscience. That’s three times the average rise in global temperatures of about 0.8 degrees Celsius since the early 20th century
The article 2 sentences long. The first claims a temperature rise that is faster than expected. So what? The expectations of the IPCC are not being realized, their models have failed, their models have predicted meaningful warming and that is not happening.
Next sentence Bloomberg admits the whole thing is an anomaly so how could it indicate AGW when it is out of sync with the global warming that stopped 16 years ago?
The article is just 2 sentences of spin.
The problems created by 7 billion humanoids in a finite ecosystem will only be solved by adding more humanoids. Because when your gerbil cage starts filling up with gerbil sh*t the obvious solution is to add more gerbils
Because when your gerbil cage starts filling up with gerbil sh*t the obvious solution is to add more gerbils
Yeah, but in the short term it’s great for business.
The bonus requires that we show YOY growth in gerbils. I think I can see space where more will fit.
When I was a kid, Mt. Morrison was covered in snow year round, and MM officially closed ski operations on July 4. Having climbed and skied the planet for over five decades, it’s painfully obvious that glaciers are not simply in retreat, they’re disintegrating exponentially.
But keep on flogging that meme. (And learn to read a thermohaline inversion chart while you’re at it.)
OT
Last few years I have noticed that everybody says “Thank you so much”. I hardly hear a simple “Thank you” or “Thank you very much” these days.
Am I the only one? Does anyone know how this happened?
It’s obviously some kind of conspiracy to implement sharia law and turn USA communist.
http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2012/08/03/Obama-administration-paves-the-way-for-sharia-law
http://www.obamasrealfather.com/frank-marshall-davis/
I haven’t noticed that but I have noticed young people in the service industry say “no problem” a lot.
Trust me when I say that my kids don’t use that phrase.
I find that an odd phrase too, especially in the service industry. It is basically short for “It is not a problem for me to comply with your request.” Wouldn’t, “yes” or “of course” or “my pleasure” be a nicer way to say it?
I’m lucky to hear thanks of any kind at all where I live and am often looked at as some kind of subversive or weak person when I say say “thanks”.
Is the higher-ed bubble finally popping?
Washington Post - More private colleges holding line on tuition:
“The freeze reflects a growing movement to hold the line on price in higher education’s private sector, a strategy often targeting those who qualify for little or no financial aid but who worry about how to pay for college in uncertain economic times.
At least 24 private schools froze tuition this year and eight cut it, according to the National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities, which said both totals were unprecedented.
http://m.washingtonpost.com/local/education/more-private-colleges-holding-line-on-tuition/2012/12/27/75a88186-3d59-11e2-bca3-aadc9b7e29c5_story.html
Hope and Change in Hopeychangeyville: 500th homicide in Chicago this year
http://my.chicagotribune.com/#story/chi-chicago-2012-homicide-toll-20121228/
Nice to see the gun ban is working out so well there
Forward!
It must be those suburban white people - Michael Moore
Yeah. Calm down, Whitey!
It’s those darn low information voters bringing their Bushmasters to town. And their firearms, too.
“Nice to see the gun ban is working out so well there”
We are also going to need a match ban and a subway ban.
LA Police: Fire Set on Woman ‘Defies Explanation’
By By GREG RISLING Associated Press
LOS ANGELES December 27, 2012 (AP)
Police say the attack defies explanation: A man poured flammable liquid on a 67-year-old homeless woman as she slept on a bus bench in the San Fernando Valley, then lit a match and set her on fire.
http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/woman-set-fire-la-sleeps-bench-18075803 - -
Police: Mumbling woman pushes man to his death in front of subway train By CNN Staff
5:12 AM EST, Fri December 28, 2012
New York (CNN) — For the second time in a month, a man has been shoved to his death in front of a train on a New York City subway platform, police said.
Police are searching for a woman seen running from an elevated station for the No. 7 train in Queens on Thursday evening, Deputy Commissioner Paul Browne said in a statement.
http://www.cnn.com/2012/12/28/us/new-york-subway-death/ - -
If Obama had a train, it would look like the #7.
LOL
This is how they killed Charlie in Two and a half men. Life imitates art. Can we charge Chuck Lorre with manslaughter?
http://screenrant.com/two-and-a-half-men-season-9-premiere-charlie-death-aco-126670/
There are homicides in Chicago??? I never saw that coming. I am shocked, totally shocked!!!
If those thugs don’t stop killing each other, Rahm is gonna grab a bullhorn and yell “Stop! Or I’ll yell Stop again”
That’ll show them who’s boss!
Then there is this.
New York City homicides, shootings at modern record lows
Homicides and shootings in New York are at their lowest in a half-century, Mayor Michael Bloomberg said Friday.
Bloomberg and Police Commissioner Ray Kelly credited stepped-up policing for the 19.6 percent drop in homicides (from 515 last year to 414 through Friday) and the 15.9 percent decline in overall shootings (from 1,608 last year to 1,353).
http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/12/28/16216779-new-york-city-homicides-shootings-at-modern-record-lows
New York Parents Rattled by Fatal Stabbing of Two SiblingsBy
JENNY ANDERSON
Published: October 26, 2012
Instead, on Thursday evening, mothers and fathers around the city were startled to learn of a shocking story emerging on the Upper West Side: a nanny had fatally stabbed two small children, the police said, and then stabbed herself, a puzzling intrusion of violence into the ordinary family rituals of an autumn evening.
“It’s beyond horrifying,” said Wendy Sachs, an author and mother. “It’s beyond any mother’s worst nightmare.”
The double homicide, on a well-to-do block near Central Park, elevated every parent’s worry to a new level. It especially unsettled those who rely on hired caregivers, strangers who become intimate members of their household and their children’s lives.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/26/nyregion/new-york-parents-rattled-by-fatal-stabbing-of-2-children-on-upper-west-side.html -
Another one for the COEXIST koolaid drinkers
“This harsh application of Shariah law, with people accused of being thieves sometimes having their feet amputated as well, has occurred at least 14 times since the Islamist takeover last spring, not including the recent vow of more to come, according to Human Rights Watch and independent observers.
But those are just the known cases, and dozens of other residents have been publicly flogged with camel-hair whips or tree branches for offenses like smoking, or even for playing music on the radio. Several were whipped in Gao on Monday for smoking in public, an official said, while others said that anything other than Koranic verses were proscribed as cellphone ringtones. A jaunty tune is punishable by flogging.
At least one case of the most severe punishment — stoning to death — was carried out in the town of Aguelhok in July against a couple accused of having children out of wedlock.”
http://mobile.nytimes.com/2012/12/28/world/africa/islamists-harsh-justice-on-rise-in-northern-mali.xml
These people used the arms flooded in during the ‘no-fly zone’ thing in Libya to move into Mali. So of course now the US military is making plans to invade Mali. And the US is arming Al-Qaeda in Syria. If you want to see some good, old fashioned beheadings, looks these Syrian Free Army guys up on youtube! And they use suicide bombers too, another video available free for your holiday viewing. Why they’ve even set up Saudi style religious police in ‘rebel controlled’ parts of Syria.
Not to be left out, back in The Homeland, we’ve got our own terrorist scum to be rooted out:
‘Documents just obtained from the FBI by the Partnership for Civil Justice Fund reveal, as the New York Times put it, that “the [FBI] used counterterrorism agents to investigate the Occupy Wall Street movement, including its communications and planning” and in general show “how deeply involved federal law-enforcement authorities were in monitoring the activities of the movement.” The heavily redacted documents, which can be read here, reveal numerous instances of the FBI collaborating with local police forces and private corporations to monitor and anticipate the acts of the protest movement.’
‘As obviously disturbing as it is, none of this should be surprising. Virtually every seized power justified over the last decade in the name of “terrorism” has been applied to a wide range of domestic dissent. The most significant civil liberties trend of the last decade, in my view, is the importation of War on Terror tactics onto US soil, applied to US citizens - from the sprawling Surveillance State and powers of indefinite detention to the para-militarization of domestic police forces and the rapidly emerging fleet of drones now being deployed in countless ways. As I’ve argued previously, the true purpose of this endless expansion of state power in the name of “terrorism” is control over anticipated domestic protest and unrest.’
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/dec/26/drones-yemen-fbi-occupy-terrorism
See, most of you probably thought these protesters in the tents were trying to bring some peaceful change. No, says the FBI. It’s a threat. Isn’t it interesting that the protests were all stopped about the same time? And that one mayor in California leaked that Homeland Security coordinated the crack-down. Just who is in charge of the FBI and Homeland Security? Do they make these decisions on their own?
What percentage of the USA sheeple even know about the drone strike undeclared wars in multiple countries? Less than 20%? What percentage give a sh*t about any of it? Less than 2%?
We can not lose sight of the savagery of Radical Islamists and their threat to the civilized world just because our corrupt government chooses to invade sovereign countries and kill indiscriminately with drone strikes.
The islamists are evil and with the exception of statist governments (ours included), represent the largest threat to mankind.
Obviously you’ve lost your NRA Lifetime membership card…….they are going to come by, and whack your pee-pee…….
The answer to dictators with guns, is giving everybody guns.
You read news like this and you question whether big business would throw workers under the bus for cheaper wages? What does big business owe anyone?
Many a big business has asked themselves this question… not long before they went out of business because they also thought the same thing about their customers.
Can’t wait to see the Mali version of the “Maury Povich Show”
They read the test results, and both the daddy and momma get stoned to death by the audience
The guys getting “negative” results get to do an “I’m not the Daddy” dance, like the US show.
The Mali version would spare us the spectacle of 9-10-11 guys being tested, with negative results. After 5 negative tests, Momma will be stoned for being a skank/dumbazz.
What’s really disturbing is that Maury Povich has a television show on an American network, and even more disturbing that people watch it.
I’ve seen some clips from Jerry Springer. Never watched the show, but understand it’s still on the “air”.
That’s what is really disturbing.
“… and even more disturbing that people watch it.”
… and use the show as a guide to proper behavior.
“… and use the show as a guide to proper behavior.”
+1 What kid wouldn’t want a Lego Predator Drone?
Sorry, but I’ll have to admit it. I’m a scumbag, because I’ve watched Maury and Jerry occasionally, instead of some BS BBC import of “Sense and Sensibility”, or some such dreck.
Watching Maury and Jerry is like watching a Demolition Derby, with people instead of cars.
It’s not like this crap wouldn’t happen, if I didn’t watch it.
And before we get all look-down-our-nose-at-the-people-of-color, the same kind of crap happens in suburban, Red-State America……but who wants to watch white suburbanites fight?
Especially if they bring their lawyers.
Watching Maury and Jerry is like watching a Demolition Derby, with people instead of cars.
Nice.
You want to see a real demolition derby? Go check out some construction sites sometime.
Who says Congress cannot agree:
WASHINGTON (AP) — Congress has voted to renew the government’s authority to monitor electronic communications of foreigners abroad.
It’s a classified program to identify terrorists and spies without getting court orders for each intercept. The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act program was on the brink of expiring by year’s end.
But the Senate on Friday approved a five-year extension by a 73-23 vote and sent the bill to President Barack Obama, who is expected to sign it.
Lawmakers rejected arguments from an unusual combination of Democratic liberals and ideological Republican conservatives. They demanded to know about any Americans whose communications were swept up in the foreign intercepts.
The intelligence community and leaders of the Senate’s intelligence committee say the information is classified and oppose the disclosure.
Leave it to China to get right to the core issue:
“China Passes Law Requiring People Identify Selves Online”
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-12-28/china-passes-rules-requiring-people-identify-themselves-online.html
Just think how lonely this blog would be if everyone had to use their real name? The CIA and FBI would love this.
But what would all the keyboard-commando “Internet Tough Guys” do then?
Me and Ben mostly agree so it would get pretty boring.
“But the Senate on Friday approved a five-year extension by a 73-23 vote and sent the bill to President Barack Obama, who is expected to sign it.”
Sign it with “deep reservations” no doubt.
We get the black president we deserve.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P93mPk6EExk&feature=player_embedded
Or cry himself to sleep alone.
Congress can agree easily on those items increase its power or keep it the same.
Congress canNOT agree on those items which decrease its power. Spending is a major form of political power.
I’d be curious to see how Congress votes as seen through the lens of increase/decrease power.
It just doesn’t add up folks.
Rental rates are the least costly option when compared with buying at current inflated asking prices of resale housing.
Exit housing and exit quickly.
Exit housing and exit quickly.
REIT paid troll?
Why does this troll care so deeply that no one buy a house?
Why does this realtor care so deeply about censoring the truth about housing?
Think the $ecret $ervice is nearby? What are the odds that lil’ Opie has $ir Greenis$pent on the line?
http://www.plainpunditry.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/obama-hyenas.jpg
Wobbly, it is a pleasure to view your distinctive voice again. Happy New Year!
Hundreds of thousands of Spanish holiday homes owned by Britons could halve in price - as experts warn the slump could last more than a decade.
The property crash is so serious that many of the 2million properties that are languishing unsold on the property market will be demolished.
Analysts warn that Britons who own homes in popular resorts like the Costa del Sol could see their £225,000 properties plummet in price to £112,500.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2254208/Costa-del-Crash-Spains-property-prices-slump-50-cent-British-holiday-homes-worst-hit.html#ixzz2GNSKuBgu
Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook
I’m shocked, shocked I tell yah.
NRA must be weak…..what about HAMP, HARP, FHA, Fannie, Freddie over dere?
“Analysts warn that Britons who own homes in popular resorts like the Costa del Sol could see their £225,000 properties plummet in price to £112,500.”
Well that`s Barking! Those analysts are full of codswallop! Are they saying it will be donkeys years before we can sell at a profit? If it takes that long I`ll be a duffer. I am going to call my Realtor and tell him I need to Scarper. I am sure who ever looks at our place will be chuffed as nuts.
And Bob’s your Uncle.
Some crazy things that we crazy Brits are known for saying:
British saying - Definition in american english
1.) Completely Mental - crazy
2.) Quite nice/ “rawther” (rather) lovely - Its Good
3.) Ruck Sack - Back Pack
4.) Useless Knob - Lazy person
5.) pop over/in - go to, stop by
6.) What do you fancy? - What do you like?
7.) Gob - Mouth
8.) Ish - something not nice
9.) Scarper - to escape fast
10.) Barking - crazy
11.) cane - travel at speed
12.) Bee’s Knee’s - the best
13.) Elbow grease - Hard work
14.) chuffed as nuts - extremely pleased
15.) cow juice - milk
16.) Bob’s your Uncle - there you have it
17.) Cackhander - Left Handed person
18.) Arse about tit - back to front
19.) Keep your hair on - calm down
20.) Absolute tosh - complete rubbish
21.) beastly - big
22.) Belt up - shut up
23.) blast - dammit
24.) cheesed off - annoyed
25.) chivvy along - hurry up
26.) codswallop - baloney
27.) donkeys years - a long time
28.) duffer - old person
“16.) Bob’s your Uncle - there you have it”
That one’s a little strange, but I like it
So, there is finally word of there being a potential baby fiscal cliff deal in the works and the stock market is down…cap gains harvesting before year end?
Cap gains harvesting is largely tax motivated this year. Market likely down because they were expecting a deal to extend everything for a few more months and new rumors don’t match that.
Yeah, rumors when I posted were that there was a new offer coming from Obama…and the market was still down.
Now the rumors have changed, that there is no new offer…market fell further.
Consumer Confidence Plunges, New Housing Sales Plunge
http://www.zerohedge.com/print/467037
Directly from the Census:
New Home Sales
November 2011: 23k
November 2012: 27k
California Housing Debtors Forging Documents To Delay Foreclosure
http://www.securingindustry.com/security-documents-and-it/homeowners-faking-filings-to-delay-foreclosure/s110/a1550/
Exit housing quickly. Especially if you’re in California.
Yo, Houses Depreciate Rapidly Always! The our county assessor just mailed me their “Change of Assessed Value.”
OLD: $172,265
NEW: $151,640
Eventually it will all go Ron Paul’s way. No tax hikes but major spending cuts. Because the tax hikes will result in a loss of revenue as the wealthy just shift their assets into tax efficient investment vehicles. They have the money to hire the best accountants and tax lawyers for that.
The congress will be fried (fired? No FRIED) if they raise taxes substantially on those with incomes UNDER $250,000. Obummer don’t care. He’s a lame duck.
The result will be major spending cuts across the board. This will be seen as needed in two years.
On Sunday/Monday they will kick the can, but the distance of kicking the can will be very short and the deficit will come back to haunt us WITHIN THEIR TERM OF OFFICE. Game over. They would no longer be able to make it someone else’s problem. Hence the next crisis will happen within 2 years - another deficit crisis and that’s when the major spending cuts will occur. Part of that will be a radical change in America’s role as world cop. It has to be.
I see Schumacher is advertising nationally for new housing…. get this…. “Get your new home for less than the cost of someones used home.”
It’s coming. And it’s coming in a big way.