The Housing Bubble

That house is for sale for $365k, dawg.

If can pay $800K for a house, nobody is going to have any empathy for you.

This one’s a 4,200 sq ft house in Princeton, what were you expecting? The University owns so much of the land around there (purchased to prevent development) and the local municipalities don’t want new tacky construction to junk up their area.

I’m not sure what your complaint is. It’s not like you’d want to live with the snobs around there anyway.

If you look in Hamilton (6-8 min down the road from Princeton) or maybe even in Princeton Junction (which really isn’t Princeton but is near the train to NYC) I bet you can find houses in 400k range that are more than adequate to your needs. The schools are still first rate, btw.

If you want cheap housing, you could move to Floriduh or flyover country and put your kids in the public schools with WTs and Future Trayvons.

Here’s what I’d buy if I was buying a house in central NJ. It’s on 2.1 acres backing up to preserved land.

http://www.trulia.com/property/3119226668-148-Carter-Rd-Princeton-NJ-08540

The kitchen and bathrooms need to be redone, obviously. But the location and rest of the house are quite nice. It’s small, but then again, if you want a 4k sq ft McMansion, best to look other places in NJ - - there are plenty. Try Salem or Gloucester counties.

Point was paying $15K a year in taxes isn’t unheard of in NJ and it actually quite common.

c) you’d have to be crazy to go into IT and “ONLY” make $100K when you can make $200K doing all sorts of other things (including law) and working 1/2 the hours

So which is it?”

You already know what it is, It’s hard to find the really top notch technically people that are needed for rapid growth in a zero sum game economy.

They used to go to start-ups for equity.

She probably just doesn’t know.
The jobs she’s missing is that State Farm is moving 10k employees (probably not net 10k new), that Kohls just moved a ‘corporate headquarters’ in, that Motorolla is going to open factory to build some smartphone, honest Warren Buffett is building a giant Nebraska Furniture Mart complex, as examples. Is that enough to cover the massive building? Probably not, but who knows?

As for lawyers, Weil Gotshal may be laying off but Jackson Walker is expanding. Business is as business does.

There’s a reason smart people are avoiding IT like the plague. They know that they will always be offshoring, H1-Bs and age discrimination to deal with. An most IT people do not make 100K.

” An most IT people do not make 100K.”

Just like most people in all profession don’t. Aside from maybe physician, is there really any profession where one is guaranteed to make six figures? I mean realistic professions, not NFL player or things like that.

http://www.bls.gov/ro6/fax/dfw_ces.htm

Look at chart 3. Dallas and Houston are #1, #2 nationally in terms of job growth. 100,000 new jobs in the past year in both cities.

But yeah, I guess TxChick is right. No jobs are being created in Texas. I’ll take her word over BLS data.

” rapid growth in a zero sum game economy.”

The Democrat mode of thinking where everyone is fighting for a piece of a stagnant pie. If I get a raise that means someone has to take a paycut. Doesn’t work like that. When the pie grows everyone benefits. And the pie is growing quite nicely these days.

” An most IT people do not make 100K.”

I have never saved less than 100K every year my entire career since the late 80’s. It’s more difficult to make a living and it is much easier to make money has been my experience. I only worked 3 months for an employer in my entire life and I was clock watching at that job.

Hated it.

The Democrat mode of thinking where everyone is fighting for a piece of a stagnant pie. If I get a raise that means someone has to take a paycut. Doesn’t work like that. When the pie grows everyone benefits. And the pie is growing quite nicely these days.

Do you know how I know you’ve never taken an economics class?

And the pie is growing quite nicely these days.

Is it? Are you sure? Or is it just the piece you can see?

. If I get a raise that means someone has to take a paycut. Doesn’t work like that. When the pie grows everyone benefits

Sounds like you favor an increase in the minimum wage. Make that pie grow.

“Sounds like you favor an increase in the minimum wage. Make that pie grow.”

Sure, let’s make it $1000 an hour. Then everyone will be rich.

Then everyone will be rich.

Sure would make that pie grow. Or does it only work when rich people get the money?

My road trips were/are to places like Lincoln, Nebraska, Alton, Illinois, or Salina, Kansas (at 1am).

I’ve been to DC and Austin, Texas, but unlike the professional class, all you see of the town is a hangar, the fast food joints closest to the airport, and the drive to/from the airline terminal.

My favorite road trip was going to Little Rock, to disassemble an airplane that had bellied in (pilot forgot to put the gear down) and load it on a flatbed on Friday am.

On Thursday, started at 8am, had the thing ready to load at 10pm. Went to the hotel, uniforms saturated with sweat, jet fuel, hydraulic fluid, etc.

The hotel we stayed at happened to have one of the current popular yuppie hangouts inside. Got to the hotel, one of the guys says it would be nice to go by the bar and get a beer, but by the time we got cleaned up, it would be pushing midnight.

The -fixr assumed his leadership position, and said “Why go get cleaned up? We’re customers, and who are we going to impress?” So, we entered the club.

And the crowd parted. Everyone stepped aside. For the whole time we were there, it was like there was a 10 foot diameter bubble was around us. It was almost as if they wished we weren’t there. So we stood in a back corner, and drank a beer.

We had to drive a Ryder truck down there with all of our tools. Found out that truckers get pizzed off when you ask to see their Red Sovine albums. But I digress……

There’s a fun time to be had everywhere. If you go in with the attitude “this sucks I’m going to Nebraska, shoot me” then you’ll be a miserable SOB while there.

There’s a fun time to be had everywhere. If you go in with the attitude “this sucks I’m going to Nebraska, shoot me” then you’ll be a miserable SOB while there.

What can you do there besides eat and drink?

Colorado, do you carry your trombone with you wherever you go to make Womp Womp Debbie Downer noise?

“What can you do there besides eat and drink?”

Strike up a conversation w/the locals about how they don’t seem to have much of a progressive movement there.

I rarely do the “let’s all go out for drinks after work” thing. To me THAT’s work. And if I’m putting in a 10 hour day the last thing I want is to spend another 2-3 hours with the same people over drinks or dinner talking about the same BS we just talked about all day long.

Definitely agree on the FF stuff. Over the years I’ve taken vacations worth hundreds of thousands of dollars using miles/points. My wife and I flew first class to the Maldives on BA and stayed a week in a cabana suite. The retail price of that trip was about $25,000. I wouldn’t even think about thinking of something like that without the miles/points I had.

“I rarely do the “let’s all go out for drinks after work” thing. To me THAT’s work.”

Couldn’t agree more.

It’s easy to tell that a huge number of people travel for work, and don’t earn anywhere near $100k since the US median individual income isn’t anywhere near $100k. All those hotels along interstates aren’t for personal travellers and planes would be empty if it weren’t for people travelling to client sites to hock their wares.

nd if I’m putting in a 10 hour day the last thing I want is to spend another 2-3 hours with the same people over drinks or dinner talking about the same BS we just talked about all day long.

Agree 100%. One thing I have noticed though so many of my past and present co-workers (many times highly educated) were/are either very uncomfortable or totally clueless to talk about anything other than work. Sports being the exception.
I avoid any party with co-workers like plague. Not a good strategy career wise though.

“It’s easy to tell that a huge number of people travel for work, and don’t earn anywhere near $100k since the US median individual income isn’t anywhere near $100k. All those hotels along interstates aren’t for personal travellers and planes would be empty if it weren’t for people travelling to client sites to hock their wares.”

There are 130 million people in the workforce. There are 45,000 commercial flights a day. Say the average number of passengers is 100 on those flights (and it’s probably less since a lot of those 45K flights are 30 seat puddle jumpers). If every single passenger on those flights were business travelers that would be That’s 4.5 million people out of 130 million people who travel for work. It’s a very, very small % of the general public. And it’s quite feasible that those people make significantly more than the median income for everyone else.

And I have never stayed at a motel along the interstate when traveling for business. I have stayed at those hotels more times than I can remember when traveling (and paying for) personally. If I need a place to sleep for 6 hours, I’ll stay at Motel 6 off the interstate for $40. If I travel for business I’m at the Hyatt for $175.

“Agree 100%. One thing I have noticed though so many of my past and present co-workers (many times highly educated) were/are either very uncomfortable or totally clueless to talk about anything other than work. Sports being the exception.”

Heh. I’m a very social person, I just don’t like to socialize with the same people I’m forced to spend 40 hours a week working with. And education level has nothing to do with it.

I used to travel a lot and got super elite status - lots of freebies - but if I had more than four return trips a month I never seemed to fully recover.

I used to work from 8 am to about 10 pm with lunch and supper breaks. When I finished work I just wanted to get to the hotel and fall asleep. Always tried to get in a swim if the pool was still open. After visiting the same location for the twentieth time the locals treated you as one of them - fend for yourself !

Every location then became only as good as the local food - salmon in BC, lobster for the east coast, perch in Manitoba, white fish in northern Ontario, and artic char whenever I could get in the far north. A spot of whale blubber in the real far north, and lots of maple syrup in Quebec (fresh from the tank). Western beef - hmmm

Then along came my son on trips and wow what a difference. Instead of trying to get the trips over with, we extended them by a couple of days for his sightseeing.

Lots to look forward to with him. But I still don’t like flying more than four trips a month - no matter what the distance.

Oh - those freebies - never get a chance to enjoy the travel rewards. yet.

“I used to work from 8 am to about 10 pm with lunch and supper breaks. ”

Your issue wasn’t travel, it was working insane hours. If I worked 14 hour days I’d be tired too, travel or no travel.

“My friend Maria (last name with lots of vowels) is of Italian background but put Hispanic on her successful application to Northwestern Law.”

But as I have been told by my liberal betters, diversity is the most important part of college admission. And I have also been told by my liberal betters that lying and cheating is perfectly fine as long as the greater good is achieved. So she lied and cheated to achieve diversity which is like total super duper awesome.

VIVA MARIA!!

VIVA OBAMA!!

SI SE PUEDE!!

This is a smart move, I’ve only heard of one person getting busted for this. He was fully Irish but his mom remarried a hispanic man who later adopted him. The guy was white in every sense but applied as hispanic. He admitted in his message board posting that he had NEVER suffered any discrimination, though his (non biological) dad had. He posted this on a message board (stupidly) and UTexas found out. BC of the LSAC clearinghouse in law school admissions, UTexas could see all the other schools he had applied to. UTexas admissions people alerted all the other schools. And even though he’d been found out, he still attended UMichigan.

In other words, he was busted, but UMichigan just overlooked it and probably counted him as hispanic so they could appear to be more diverse. I can only hope they made him pay full tuition and didn’t give him some kind of minority scholarship. He eventually flamed out of Baker Botts in about 2 yrs. Dion Alaniz, if you want to google him.

Here is a link to a message board discussion of this instance… http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&frm=1&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&ved=0CC0QFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.top-law-schools.com%2Farchives%2Fviewtopic.php%3Ff%3D14%26t%3D70939%26start%3D25&ei=CtnNUazwNJXA4AP0s4DQDQ&usg=AFQjCNH-u7clq_IQhCJ9ugjyH2anAGSzhw&sig2=Soij4h9Qv9oLZfApTnYjTQ

It sounds like his only mistake was to post that message. I often think that it would be interesting to have some fair-skinned white with blond hair and blue eyes check the African-American box on their college applications. It would be interesting to see what would happen. Would an admissions office ask them to prove somehow that they African ancestry?

There must be so many people with these fractional minority ancestries. You would think that these college admission offices would give the phenomenon some thought. First they set up admissions policies which are supposed to create diversity in the student body. Then they admit the Elizabeth Warrens of this world for the purpose of generating that diversity, but it doesn’t work, because she doesn’t really bring any non-white culture to campus.

I have a cousin who’s half Scottish and half Italian. His wife is half Irish and half Mexican. Their daughter just finished her sophomore year at Stanford. I don’t know if she checked the Hispanic box when she filled out her application, but it would pretty absurd if she did. Both of her parents have pretty good jobs, so she grew up as an upper middle class white girl. So she also brought no non-white diversity when she showed up on campus.

The DHL guy I mentioned the other day was furloughed for about a year. He was recalled and is making 200K+ again.

If you’re a techie, you don’t get “furloughed” when times are tough, you are dismissed and when things pick up you might be able to reapply for your old job, unless of course the company has a “do not rehire” policy.

“If you’re a techie, you don’t get “furloughed” when times are tough, you are dismissed and when things pick up you might be able to reapply for your old job, unless of course the company has a “do not rehire” policy.”

If you’re a smart techie you do some independent work and bill twice the hourly rate you made as an employee.

If you’re a smart techie you do some independent work and bill twice the hourly rate you made as an employee.

I’ve had a few headhunters contact me for contract work. Turns out the hourly rate is about the same as what you get paid as full time, except no bennies and no paid time off. And once the contract is up after a few months you get to search for another gig.

In some cases I’ve seen when the contract pay is less than full time pay.

You might get “double” if you have a skill that is very hot and in short supply, and the half life on those is short, so last year’s “hot skill” could quickly become “dime a dozen”.

The DHL guy I mentioned the other day was furloughed for about a year. He was recalled and is making 200K+ again.

I recall when I was laid off 12 years ago. An elderly gentleman acquaintance asked me how long until I would be called back. The look on his face was priceless when I explained to him that it doesn’t work that way anymore (unless you’re in a union like my DHL pilot friend).

My sis-in-law is a bilingual teacher in the Raleigh, NC area. She is not union. At the end of every school year the bulk of the teachers do not get their contracts renewed and they all scramble to find a new position with another school district. Of course this means they don’t accumulate seniority with any district and they all make the entry level wage, which in NC is pretty low, regardless of years of experience. Sis-in-law (unlike my sister in Winston-Salem) is now teaching at a year round school, so no long lazy summer for her!

“Independent work” in my line doesn’t pay squat. I’m doing better than most, because of my airplane specific training, I can get $70/hr (the going rate is $50, and has been for years).

Even at $50 hour, you might not get a call for 3 months, then the guy wants you to drop everything else, and come fix his AOG airplane.

A lot of airplane problems are intermittent. You might think you have the problem identified, and fix something. Doesn’t matter if the thing you fixed need to be fixed or not, if it doesn’t take care of the original problem, you have trouble getting paid.

I’m finding that, even at $70/hour, I’m working for near minimum wage, when you figure in all of the unbillable overhead time. (25 miles/45 minutes between regular job and the P/T deal)

Then you consider that any certificate action related to the part time stuff also kills your ability to do the full time gig.

And the PTB wonder why young guys with any smarts are staying away from the aviation maintenance business.

My GF faces similar experiences as a teacher in Sonoma Co., California….yearly layoffs, a game of musical chairs with less seats each year, reduced benefits, etc. The schools here ARE union but that does not help much as there are something like 45 (!!!) separate districts within the county all with their own contracts and if you move to a new one (often necessary if you want to stay employed) you typically only get credit for 5 years seniority so another layoff at the end of the year is highly probable

“I’ve had a few headhunters contact me for contract work. Turns out the hourly rate is about the same as what you get paid as full time,”

That means you are either being overpaid as a FTE or you’re not negotiating very well with headhunters. As a general rule of thum, hourly rates are 2X FTE hourly rates. And that includes the full compensation package with bennies, vacation, FICA, etc.

EG: you make $80K salary and another $30K in benefits, FICA, vacation. That’s $110K a year total which is about $50/hr. As an indie you should get $100/hr minimum.

Hey Jetfixer,

I’m still a bit younger so I am in the camp of guys waiting for the older guys to bypass so mainline jobs can open up. I’m still at my regional and waiting for the mainline call,, like most people. One of my friends is furloughed with NetJets and doesn’t expect a recall anytime in the next decade. Even the guys that get recalled are either at home and loving it or are at a place like JetBlue, where you can make a great career based on your seniority.

Corporate gigs are great, until they let you go. It’s very tough to sustain a career as a corporate guy as flying the airplane is secondary to running the company. I met a guy who had a great job, nice plane, treated him very well and loved life. His coworkers were the best and the passengers (Upper level management and their friends) treated him with dignity. He’d bend over backwards to make his company succeed. He worked for Enron.

On my level we can’t find anyone to come fly for us. The recent glut of people getting their private,commercial and building time has gone down. Couple that with the 1500 hour rule and the fact that your first year pay is $25k - not too many people are jumping in this profession.

That’s $110K a year total which is about $50/hr. As an indie you should get $100/hr minimum.

Nope. They want to pay $40-50 per hour. No thanks.

I remember when contract work used to pay double the hourly full time rate, and I used to partake of it. I think that today you need a security clearance and DoD experience to get that kind of pay.

“Nope. They want to pay $40-50 per hour. No thanks.”

Who is “they”? Recruiters? Of course they offer 40-50. Their profit is the difference from what you get paid and what they bill you out. They’re billing this position out at $125. They offer 40-50 in the hopes that someone is idiotic enough to say yes. Very few are.

“I remember when contract work used to pay double the hourly full time rate, and I used to partake of it. I think that today you need a security clearance and DoD experience to get that kind of pay.”

Security clearance and sweet DoD gig means 3X FTE rate. Good old fashioned corporate gig is 2X rate.

Do not pretend that a vote for a Republican is a vote against artificially low wages. It is not.

In Colorado:

You don’t work in the engineering or computing fields, do you? The few women who get hired and promoted are always waaaaaayyyy more competent and qualified than men with equivalent positions, yet they are still paid less for the same work. It is illogical to say that a single promoted woman actually disproves gender discrimination.

Why just look at Big Richard. He complains that boys are “disadvantaged” at school, but that’s only because boys can’t do math or study. Then he demands that women stop blaming the in-power men for “their own shortcomings”. THEN he continues to claim that women are only being paid less because they do different jobs, just blatantly disregarding all the data showing otherwise. Women are paid less for the SAME jobs, even with more education, experience, hours per week, etc. If that’s not discrimination, then what is?

I would say (from my limited experience) that it’s tough to get promoted to Principal Engineer regardless of gender. I would say that the ladies who get promoted are good, but then again, so are the guys. YMMV, of course.

Colorado:

Our principal engineer is not an engineer. He is a man. A highly qualified woman was passed over for the job many times before finally being promoted to a sort of feminine “executivey” position. Yeah, she is awesome and he is not.

LOL!!!

Women still learn earn less …

Thanks! I hope so! Dream car and dream lady.

I’m looking for a rental with full W/D in the Irvine area. The nice thing about that area is the apartments usually have W/D included. But in the South Bay part of LA it’s very common to only have coin laundry machines.

You’re doing better than me. My best year was 2005 when I earned $223,000. Had some $190,000 years too.

I let it drift down because my company stock purchase was a great deal.

7100-7200 shares average price below $6. Current price is above $25.

It’s staffing stock. But at some point staffing will do poorly and the stock will tank. So it’s probably a good time for me to move to direct before going direct is a trend. I have doubts because Obamacare is encouraging more temp hiring.

I am a conservative (not political views), so I prefer to have full time position, although consulting has tempted me often but I have avoided it. Also at times senior mgmt has offered me project management and/or some I management roles, which I declined because I know I can not survive there , I know my weakness. I can perhaps survive as technical person / individual contributor for a very very long time.

For another data point, I work in Phoenix writing software and earn 147k with bennies

Consulting is tough,but very rewarding with its tax advantage.

I will miss the weeks when I would buy several ounces of gold and end up still with a lot of fiat to spend on women.

But still, I lived below my means for a long time, investing $1300 per month in municipal bond funds, sometimes buying a $1,000 series I bond too back when fixed rates were above 1%.

So I can now stop investing so much into municipals, probably drop to $300 per month. My income on munis is $600 per month, which is going to remain reinvested. With nearly $500,000 in government securities and my income going down I now have to increase my risk and invest more for inflation. I don’t have to increase my investing, just change my allocation of future investments and cut back on new fiat going to municipals.