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an
Participant[quote=HLS]I can rant on as long as anyone BUT can also provide info that can make/save people money AT NO COST. Guaranteed. PERIOD.
It’s not economic theory OR projections OR NPV gibberish. It’s reality.As far as credit cards go, I get $500-$750 every time I open a credit card account, with an 800+ credit score
I’ve probably had over 100 credit cards and have been on lots of flights, cruises and hotel nights FOR FREE.
Use of credit cards responsibly is a goldmine for responsible adults. (and can RAISE a credit score)I’d be embarrassed to say that I only had 4 credit cards.
I think I have 18 right now and just got a Delta Amex card last week, that comes with enough bonus miles for a FREE round trip nonstop LA-Belize or other Caribbean locations. (There’s $57 tax to be paid to Belize)
and get to check 1st bag free.I’ve paid mortgages off with 1-2% loans from credit card companies. I deal with facts, not theories.
Certainties, not projections.Just because 99.5% of people don’t ‘get’ certain things, it doesn’t mean they’re wrong.
There are plenty of loopholes and ways to benefit when people are willing to listen instead of argue about things that they really don’t understand.[/quote]Shhh… don’t tell all the secret :-D. I just had a 4 round trip plain tickets to Hawaii and car rental for 8 days free of charge, thanks to credit card. I would never travel any other way. I’m planning a mini stay-cation this October and am looking into the 2 free nights Hyatt credit card, so I can stay at the Park Hyatt for free for 2 nights.Participant[quote=HLS]**This opportunity will probably never happen again in our lifetimes**
These guys rode the wave…Had they been surfing in Hawaii it would have been an amazing ride.[/quote]Never say never. I’m wrapping up another refi. This time, rate dropped by 1/8% and I got about $4200 in credit to pay 3rd party fees, taxes, and insurance. It came out that would need to bring ~$600 to closing and have my property tax and insurance and 1st month mortgage paid for by escrow without changing my principle amount. I’m already eye the next 1/8% drop. Right now, I’m seeing 3.375% with ~$1k in credit. I’ll probably pull the trigger if the credit increase to ~$4k.
[quote=HLS]I do not suggest gambling with the biggest financial decision of their lives. AN & FLU never gambled.[/quote]I totally agree. I stated before that for my first mortgage, I thought I would time the market (rate), and bought points to get a lower interested. I gambled and failed. I had to think long and hard with the 1st refi when rate dropped to 4.125%, since I paid almost $10k in points to get a 4.5% rate when 0 point loan were at 5%. I decided that I gambled and failed and chalk that loss up as sunk cost. So I refi to 4.125% with enought credit to pay for my taxes and insurance, only to refi 6 months later, and 6 months after that, and 6 months after that, and 6 months after that.Today, I’m back to a 30 years mortgage. But I think that’s OK. As long as it’s fixed, I’m OK with it. There’s no upside risk for me. I view it as nothing more than a predictable cost of living for the next 30 years. Thanks to inflation, my mortgage now is less than a 2/2 apartment. At this rate, in probably 5 years, it would be less than a 1/1 apartment. Which make me feel just perfectly fine to keep on refinancing until rate hit rock bottom. Every time, resetting it back to 30 years.
Participant[quote=mixxalot]My living cost would double or triple owning versus renting so what’s the point ?[/quote]
You’re right. That ratio is not sustainable. Which mean in the long term, either price will fall or rent will rise.Participantphaster, again, you’re assuming that desalination as the only source of water. Toilet to tap was estimated to provide ~30% of our water need. So, it’s not necessary to have desalination as the only solution. Then there’s the improvement of storm water run off so that the rain we do get doesn’t go into the ocean. Then build a lot more storage so that when we have wet years, we can bank those water for the dry years. We can also not dump a big chunk of fresh water to save the damn smelt. They can go the way of the flightless dodo too.
However, even if we have to build 20 more desalination, why not? If we can spend almost $100B on the damn bullet train, I’m sure we can spend $200B on desalination plants. As I stated, I wouldn’t mind paying 5X more water, if that mean we can make the water police go the way of the dodo bird.
Your “solution” isn’t really solution at all. Your “solution” is to do nothing at all. Which is what you were railing against. Also, why do we have to restrict ourselves to solution that can provide us with cheap water instead of just providing us water?
Participantphaster, all I see from you is rants. I never said anything about doing the same thing over ad over again and expecting better result. I actually stated solutions. What are your solutions?
Where did you get $20B desalination plant needed for SD come from? The Carlsbad plant supposed to provide 7-15% of our water need. So we only need ~10 of those. That’s assuming we do nothing else. How about water recycling (toilet to tap)? How about brown water system? How about improve storm water run off and build more dams for storage? We have been haven’t water problem for years and have you seen most of CA doing anything?
Whether you think the politician is capable of fixing the problem or not is irrelevant, since they have a monopoly. for our sake, I hope they get their act together and fix the problem. If we can have Tesla, SpaceX, Google, Apple, etc in CA, I’m pretty sure we can fix the water problem.
And removing all the lawn isn’t going to solve the problem, unless you want to also kick out 1/2 of the Californian too.
ParticipantZillow. That’s where I found the lowest rate a couple of months ago.
ParticipantWow, rent in those expensive area are cheap. 2/2 condo in Mira Mesa are going for ~$1700/month and similar condo are selling for low $300k. 3/2 SFR with ~1200 sq-ft rent for about $2200-2400 and are selling for ~$500-550k.
Participant[quote=svelte][quote=phaster]
so wondering if anyone else here knows that the region around California has a long history of drought(s) and that the period around the 1910’s – 1920’s (when the treaty of the colorado “river” compact was studied/signed) was an abnormally wet period (WRT the long term historical “climate” record)
[/quote]Yes and I have mentioned this to people often. They look at me like I’m from Mars and must be saying that because I’m an ultra-conservative looking to deny man-made global warming.
But what you say is exactly right – and the last 100 years have been abnormally wet, actually, so it makes sense that things are going to return to normal.
Finally – there is not water shortage. 71% of the earth’s surface is covered with water, for Christ’s sake. What is becoming more scarce is cheap access to potable water. We could take water from that ocean to our heart’s content – as long as we are willing to pay for desalinization.[/quote]I never understand the logic of water shortage either. People who think so should just look at their water bill vs their gas bill. We can easily solve our water “problem” buy building 100 desalination plants like the one in Carlsbad. Couple that with toilet to tap and rain water run off and you’ll have our water “problem” solved. I would totally pay 2-5x more than I’m paying today for water. We can also build a water pipeline from Alaska to CA and that would help solve our water “problem” as well.
May 15, 2016 at 10:42 PM in reply to: The dire climate of CA public university admissions for freshmen #797589Participant[quote=scaredyclassic][quote=AN][quote=scaredyclassic]I think the Jews still dominate, percentagewise related to their pop. Share. But I could be wrong. Probably because Facebook and both Google founders are jews, they’re hoping for the next big donors?[/quote]
I wasn’t talking about % related to their population but % of total admit.[/quote]What will mark zuckerbergs kid count as percentwise, Asian or jew…[/quote]His kid(s) is/are American with Asian and Jewish decent. But does it really matter? I was simply stating that Universities today have a much higher % of American with Asian decent or straight up Asian. A university degree isn’t guarantee of financial success, but on average, you’re more likely to make more than just a HS diploma.
May 15, 2016 at 6:34 PM in reply to: The dire climate of CA public university admissions for freshmen #797586Participant[quote=scaredyclassic]I think the Jews still dominate, percentagewise related to their pop. Share. But I could be wrong. Probably because Facebook and both Google founders are jews, they’re hoping for the next big donors?[/quote]
I wasn’t talking about % related to their population but % of total admit.May 11, 2016 at 10:45 PM in reply to: The dire climate of CA public university admissions for freshmen #797505Participant[quote=zk][quote=AN][quote=bearishgurl][quote=AN]You quoted the wrong person.[/quote]How so?[/quote]
Because I didn’t type the things you quoted.[/quote]Come on, AN. You’re a couple of Chinese dudes. Or something similar. You think you’re entitled to her being able to tell you apart? First, you’re clogging up UC, and now you’re bitching because she can’t tell you apart? The nerve.[/quote]LoL. You crack me up.
May 11, 2016 at 7:12 AM in reply to: The dire climate of CA public university admissions for freshmen #797468Participant[quote=bearishgurl][quote=AN]You quoted the wrong person.[/quote]How so?[/quote]
Because I didn’t type the things you quoted.May 10, 2016 at 11:25 PM in reply to: The dire climate of CA public university admissions for freshmen #797458Participant[quote=bearishgurl][quote=AN] . . . I find it ironic that someone who prides herself on who well she did on one ACT test yet never bothered to finish college would be talking smack about immigrants that have finished college and frankly have done better to further themselves.
Excuse after excuse. I’ve heard that before. I’ve cold hve done better, I’ve could have done this.
Well, the point is, you didn’t. End of discussion.[/quote]flu asked, but our discussion really has nothing to do with me. I never said, shoulda, woulda, coulda … I have no regrets.
The reality is that back in “my day,” the only people that went to college out of HS were those who could afford it. And that was +/- 15% of HS graduates. The only reason a higher percentage of HS graduates attend college now is because more financial aid as well as student loans are available to them.
I don’t begrudge the “middle eastern males” who were the bulk of foreign students back then. I wasn’t an engineering student and their presence wasn’t affecting my ability to get an education. They paid the OOS tuition and that’s just who it happened to be at the time.
I’m not bragging about my ACT results. Flu asked about it so I answered. That 31 ACT score and my good looks won’t even buy me a cup of black coffee today. And it wasn’t worth anything to me then since I was unable to use it.
You seem to have some kind of a chip on your shoulder, AN, and you shouldn’t, because you’re an American.
Yes, I will admit that I would like to see more CA HS graduates get admitted to a public in-state university … preferably as close to “home” as possible so they won’t have to pay for room and board. I think its really depressing how many CA HS grads are actually admitted to UC/CSU, even after applying to 4+ campuses. It’s not fair that possibly ~108,500 slots are “given away” to OOS/OOC applicants when our own kids can’t even transfer out of CC as a junior with a ~3.6 GPA. It’s wrong and immoral and I don’t know of any other state which does this at the expense of their own natives and residents. You’ve got young kids who will someday want to apply to UC/CSU so you should be concerned about this issue, as well.[/quote]
You quoted the wrong person.May 10, 2016 at 10:16 PM in reply to: The dire climate of CA public university admissions for freshmen #797448Participant[quote=bearishgurl][quote=AN][quote=bearishgurl]I vote that CA re-institute the writing portion on the SAT, ACT and TOEFL and apply the applicant’s essay/writing score to their composite score.
This is how it was done when I took the ACT … way back in the day.
This would most certainly weed out thousands of Chinese applicants, who would fail this portion miserably, causing their composite scores to plummet.
Too bad … so sad.[/quote]
LoL, in your dreams.[/quote]So, AN, are you saying here that you don’t think the essay portion of the SAT/ACT will ever be brought back into consideration for admission into the UC/CSU?[/quote]I’m saying that Asian dominated the UC admittance as soon as they remove Affirmative Action, even with essay. If they bring back essay, Asian will still dominate the admittance %. You don’t have to look any further than at the HS level. Which group score the highest in standardize testing, have the highest GPA, etc.
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