[bearishgurl]

[quote=The-Shoveler]This is a better link BG,

Forbes
The Best Cities For Technology Jobs

http://www.forbes.com/sites/joelkotkin/2011/11/18/the-best-cities-for-technology-jobs/

. . . [/quote]

Ahhhhh, ye-e-e-e-s . . . another article written by that (infamously misguided) Joel Kotkin…..

Here’s a thread where Kotkin’s “findings” were discussed at length:

http://piggington.com/the_great_california_exodus

Kotkin would do well to jog his memory a bit back to ’72, when he was likely living in a rat-infested 2 br Berkeley walkup with 3 other guys or his first 1150 sf Oakland “bungalow” in ’78 (where he lived when his first child was born, lol), and ask himself if HIS expectations as a newly-minted college graduate and new parent were the same as those similarly-situated residents of today.

http://piggington.com/the_great_california_exodus#comment-208236

Nothing’s changed, shoveler. I stand by (my April 2012) statement today.

[bearishgurl]

[quote=The-Shoveler] . . . You learn a few things watching a city grow from 20K to 300K in population.[/quote]

The only thing I experienced from watching ChulaV grow from a 52K to a 277K population was longer lines everywhere and more traffic everywhere (due to the “new residents’ hwy” being a toll road, lol). I also “learned” that the City will stop at nothing to create more “revenue” for themselves at any cost to their current residents … only to expand to serve the new residents and then later lay off (when their *new* population fell down on its responsibilities to pay their property taxes and MR (and also their principal, interest, homeowner’s insurance premiums and HOA premiums, lol) as well as failed to maintain their properties.

This “freeloading-squatter phenomenon” went on for YEARS and adversely affected EVERY property owner in the city.

The City created their own monster by issuing subdivision and building permits with abandon causing ALL its residents (new and longtime) to live with severely reduced services as a consequence.

Such is the result of the “experiment” of unbridled growth.

I “get it,” shoveler. Truly, I do.

[bearishgurl]

Shoveler, I haven’t yet read your article but will surmise that those “happiest young professionals” are no doubt TV residents with kids who are commuting 50+ miles one way to work every day. They are on the “happiest” list because they got their requisite 4/2/2.5 *newish* house in TV for half (or less) the price of what it would have cost them in coastal counties. If they purchased their “bargain TV home” in recent years, these (Gen Y?) “happiest professional” parents haven’t yet resided in TV long enough to realize the degree of daily grind they got themselves into due to the dearth of well-paying white-collar jobs in the IE.

“Young professionals” and “students” are two different animals. Recent CA HS grads who grew up in CA’s coastal counties generally do NOT want to attend an inland CA public university campus UNLESS they are not accepted at their (choice) more coastal-situated campuses.

In other words, UCM, UC Riverside, San Bernardino State and Fresno State are likely the last-resort in-state campuses for all resident-freshman applicants but those who plan to drive to said campus every day from a parent’s home (those HS grads who grew up in the same county as the inland campus).

This may be slowly changing due to the highly publicized Riv and Stockton BKs revealing to the public just how overbuilt these areas got in recent years and thus how cheap the housing there is. ESPECIALLY when a studio or one BR apt near Long Beach State is now a ridiculous ~$1500 mo.

[bearishgurl]

[quote=SK in CV]BG, I think you’re making things out to be much worse than they actually are. Average class size at the CSU campuses are mostly around 30 for lower division classes, and much lower than that for upper division classes. Students CAN graduate in less than 6 years, and at most campuses more than 1/2 of the students do graduate in 6 years or less. Kids can get lost and take longer, but motivated students don’t have to. The difficulty in getting classes really doesn’t sound significantly different than when I was at SDSU and had to crash almost every class my first 3 years. It took me 5 years to graduate, but that was with 4 changes to my major. Which I suspect, is exactly why the current crop is often taking longer than 4 years. My daughter recently graduated from UCSD in 4 years. A couple of summer school classes, and she could have done it in 3 1/2. But she picked out her major when she was 7.

I’m not sure how there’s a big advantage to that “smaller four-year colleges in which each student has an academic counselor chained to their ankle (and iphone, etc) and the typical class sizes are under 25 students”. More likely than not, it’s a private school with costs that far exceed the resident cost for either the CSU or UC system.[/quote]

SK, I don’t know when your daughter graduated but the biggest budget cuts to CSU’s programs went into effect in 2010. The truth is, some 300 and 400 level classes are now only offered every fall semester OR every spring semester at ONE (inconvenient) time slot on many campuses, including those that are “impacted.” This makes it very hard for employed students to get their needed classes and this ONE class, as you can imagine, fills up VERY fast.

It is the fact that needed classes to graduate are no longer offered at the correct semester or even at the same campus which make it hard to graduate in a timely manner. A junior or senior is now expected to obtain one or more of their needed 300-400 level classes either online (for an addt’l fee) or at a nearby CSU campus if they can’t get into the class they need (offered only once per year).

I don’t have any experience with the UC system.

Yes, overall (my kids are eligible for a fee waiver for CSU and UC), I DO think the CSU WAS a good bargain but not so much anymore if the student and/or his family has to pay their (now exorbitant) fees. It is the HOUSING around CA urban coastal campuses which is prohibitively expensive, even with a couple of roommates. And utilities including cable and internet have skyrocketed in recent years. It is so expensive that it no doubt represents the difference between taking a slot at UC Merced (as opposed to UCSB, if accepted to both campuses) for many families.

I think it is a VERY attractive investment now and going forward to buy a house/condo near a CA university campus for your student to live in while going to school (and for the parent to collect rent from their student’s roommates’ parents).

Depending, of course, on location, after a little clean-up/rehab after their student moves out after graduation to accept a position elsewhere, the parent could put it back on the market in ~6 years and be “assured” of getting their entire college-housing-investment back, perhaps even with a nice profit!

For this reason, if the parent can invest in student housing near a CA university with a perpetual “captive audience,” they could very well end up with enough “profit” in the end to pay for all or part of their students’ educational expenses.

In the “flyover-state” locales which have small colleges, small class sizes and low college housing expenses, it would be impractical for a parent to buy student housing due to the inability to break even upon sale years hence, much less make a profit, IMHO.

[bearishgurl]

btw, last time I checked (2011) the fee to take an upper-division 3 credit-hour class online (given at a CSU campus other than the one the student was enrolled in) was an additional $800 (over and above the fees the student already paid for those credits). This is for “feedback, grading and transfer of grade and credits to the student’s ‘home campus.'”

It’s just another “fee gotcha” for CSU upperclassmen who are desperate to graduate.

[bearishgurl]

[quote]All campuses of UC (excepting Fresno, Merced and Santa Cruz) are overwhelmingly accepting freshman with 4.0+ GPA (weighted with AP credits) along with out-of-state/out-of-country applicants with same credentials over similarly or less qualified in-state residents. [/quote]

I’m revising my earlier comment.

I just logged onto collegeboard.org and realized the HS senior acceptance cutoff date (for academic year 13/14) was between 4/15/13 and 5/1/13 so *new* acceptance data is now available for UC/CSU.

The overall (in-state/OOS/OOC) freshman admission percentage of out total applicants for the following five campuses, which, except for UCSC, are located in CA’s “armpit,” are now as follows:

Name of Campus/% of freshman applicants admitted for AY 13/14

UC Riverside: 63%
UC San Bernardino: 58%
UC Merced: 76%
Fresno State: 58%

UCSC: 61%

One can only guess how much of this low percentage of freshman-applicant acceptance is actually comprised of CA residents.

Conversely, it seems to be getting slightly easier now for freshmen to get accepted at some of CA’s urban public university campuses. I attribute this reversal to CA families now realizing how cheap it is to buy or rent housing for their student in CA’s (overbuilt) armpits as opposed to the cost of obtaining housing near CA’s more coastal urban campuses. Thus, the high-school grads who did not get accepted to their first or second-choice campuses out-of-county undoubtedly ended up taking a slot in the inland campuses for AY 13/14.

[bearishgurl]

[quote=Allan from Fallbrook] . . . With over a trillion dollars in outstanding student loans, something has to give. These debts are not dischargeable through BK and have to be exerting pressure in other areas, like retarding the ability of those in their 20s and 30s from purchasing a starter home.[/quote]

I’m sure those with large student-loan balances (of ANY age) are having issues with being able to access credit, whether to purchase a home, refinance, buy a vehicle, etc. I have extensively counseled my kids to NEVER take out student loans or fill out any application for a CC while in college, whether those apps were distributed on campus or not.

I’ve come to the conclusion over the last six months or so that the best college education can probably be found at smaller four-year colleges in which each student has an academic counselor chained to their ankle (and iphone, etc) and the typical class sizes are under 25 students.

When a student is paying big bucks to be “just a number” at a campus of a large public or private university system (such as UC and CSU), so many details of their class selection and ability to obtain needed classes to graduate can easily fall through the cracks. Especially for the students who have to work part-time jobs to help with their living expenses and so have a pretty “hectic” life. The mistakes made by students attending these huge campuses with Gen Ed class sizes of 500 or more and program major classes of 300 or more cannot be fixed without a lot more time and money invested.

That seems to be the way the CSU/UC’s like it now. They seem to want a student to be held “hostage” to obtain their undergrad degree because they collect so much more money from the student while they are taking 1-2 classes to finish in their 5th year and beyond.

Thus, even if a “liberal arts” college (with bus/eng and other major programs of study avail), the public or private college of <5000 students is a better deal in the long run if the institution can reliably crank out 350-400 graduates per academic year in all of the programs it offers, IMHO.

Of course, this type of college wouldn't be sought by Allan's athletic-scholarship hopefuls :=]

[bearishgurl]

[quote=earlyretirement]I thought this was interesting and good to see.

Private universities and colleges being forced to effectively lower their tuition via grants and scholarships.

More parents need to really think about the logic of sending their kids to expensive (in many cases inferior) private schools that cost a fortune.

I’d love to see these schools being forced to cut costs drastically or go under.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324582004578461450531723268.html?mod=trending_now_1
[/quote]

ER, I was noticing this, also, when investigating alternatives to the (broken) CSU system in which it now takes 6-8 years to graduate out of most programs.

All campuses of UC (excepting Fresno, Merced and Santa Cruz) are overwhelmingly accepting freshman with 4.0+ GPA (weighted with AP credits) along with out-of-state/out-of-country applicants with same credentials over similarly or less qualified in-state residents.

I found that the vast majority of these private schools, while offering generous aid, are ULTRA-picky. In short, they are admitting applicants with a 4.0+ GPA and who have a 1700+ SAT score and a 30+ ACT score.

I’m still trying to convince my last kid to consider four out-of-state four-year public colleges (two of which they can currently qualify to be admitted to as a freshman) and one of which they can get a four-year “free ride,” excepting an approx $180 – $200 mo housing expense.

My kid won’t consider visiting these campuses because they still dream of going to college in-state.

The “B” CA-resident incoming freshman apparently isn’t welcome anymore at CA’s public universities because these systems receive far more in fees by accepting OOS/OOC applicants.

I don’t think it’s right, especially in light of the fact that many of these resident-applicants’ parents pay taxes on two or more residences and also investment properties in CA. These property tax coffers are intercepted by the state (and portions removed for the UC/CSU systems) before portions are reapportioned and redirected back to the counties, schools and the respective agencies for which the county tax collectors collect from each parcel in their jurisdiction on the behalf of these payees.

For the above reasons and more, I feel CA has a duty to offer its public-university freshman slots to qualified “B” resident applicants over OOS/OOC applicants …. as many other states do. Many flyover states with high rural populations, especially, realize that their 1-3 in-state university campuses are the only hope for half the resident incoming-freshman population in their states to receive any opportunity at all for a higher education. For instance, they don’t give too many of those coveted slots away to engineer-hopefuls from Pakistan or India without thoroughly culling THEIR OWN in-state applicants first.

As it should be.

[bearishgurl]

[quote=HLS]You seemed to have missed the point completely AND do not understand that ‘banks’ usually do not lend their money for 30 years.
(That’s called lending long and borrowing short which is potential suicide)
It’s not going to happen at the same time.

Most 30yr mortgages are sold into 30yr bonds (MBS)
banks service loans they DO NOT own them.

Everybody who qualifies today can tie up money for 30yrs in 3% range and it is very possible (and likely) that CD rates will be considerably higher at some point, (obviously not today)in the future.

Having accelerated payments on low interest rate debt may prove to have been very foolish.

Banks are not in business to lose money. The fractional reserve banking system and the creation of money is simple yet complex.

The entire economic system is a Ponzi scheme that plods along until something goes wrong and then there is a scramble to put a band aid on the problem.

If mortgage rates were much higher it makes more sense to me to eliminate debt as CD rates are likely to decline.
When rates are low, it is more likely that CD/Bond rates will rise, although not a guarantee.

The system has never been as fragile as it currently is, regardless of what the ‘experts’ and govt are saying.[/quote]

Just saw this, HLS and agree with all. Thank you.

[bearishgurl]

[quote=livinincali] . . . Almost everybody thinks that somehow they can win at this game of borrow low and earn a spread on the return. Of course plenty of people end up rich doing that and plenty of people end up in bankruptcy doing that.[/quote]

livinincali, investors CAN win at this game, but will not be able to open both accounts simultaneously. If they have good credit and can otherwise qualify, they could theoretically take out a ~$200K 3.5% 30-yr FRM or a 2.75% 15-yr FRM TODAY and recover enough from their *safe* investments IN THE FUTURE to pay or almost pay these mortgages every month.

Joe and Jane6p soon-to-be-retiree or retiree could take these steps in the above order, and if interest rates eventually rise, they would likely be able to find safe passive investments which could very well pay them enough monthly to make their mortgage payments (and still keep the principal of their investment intact).

Lots of Joe and Jane6p’s in the past were able to pay down their (4-8% FRMs) for years, but this was undoubtedly on smaller balances (usually under $100K). It’s all relative … the borrowers of yesteryear had double or more the FRM interest rate of today but owed half or less of the mortgage balance that the bulk of today’s similarly-situated borrowers owe.

It is doable … if steps are taken in the right order and interest rates later rise at 3 or more points.

[bearishgurl]

True, shoveler. All areas are not “on fire” to the extent that sellers have to field several offers above asking price.

It depends on the area and I also suspect that condos take longer to sell than SFRs in most areas.

[bearishgurl]

kev, where are all these “vacant” REO’s that you or your “friends” are seeing today? I’m seeing the few REOs left get snapped up within hours of coming online in the MLS … even in the *newer* areas where they used to be released at a snails pace, due to too many of the same floorplan either being already foreclosed upon or being somewhere in the foreclosure process.

IF there is actually a true “lack of inventory” in some areas, it is due to “owners” who are now paying on a permanently modified mortgage and are not yet in a position to list and sell the property for enough to satisfy either all of the lender’s equity portion (for back interest owed but “forgiven”) or the lender’s portion of equity PLUS whatever amount of equity the “owner” believes they need to recover in order to exit the property. IOW, their “modification agreement” has strings attached and until the lender makes enough interest off them, they won’t be able to sell and thus exit it cleanly so these many thousands of owners are essentially “stuck,” either voluntarily or involuntarily.

Thus, the reduced numbers of inventory you see today, especially in the newer tract developments.

[bearishgurl]

[quote] . . . Will it be talk of the slowdown of QE, Bernanke stepping down (he’s looked rather yellowish, and he’s skipping Jackson’s Arsehole this year) . . .[/quote]

spdrun, ask yourself why this is so.

http://piggington.com/oh_ben

Maybe it’s better for all concerned (including himself) if Helicopter Ben DOES call it a day and step down. There is a nice, peaceful resort he can check into for a few weeks/months to help his get his head straight and it is right close to home:

http://www.blackberryridge.org/

http://farleycenter.com/

[bearishgurl]

[quote=Ricechex]Hi All,
We fought the ticket, written declaration. It was due 20 Feb and sent back via certified mail in January. The check for $290 was cashed. We have heard nothing since. Any idea how long this takes?[/quote]

Ricechex, I’m curious if you had a witness in your vehicle who would be able to verify the exact street corner the violation took place and if so, did you have them give an affidavit to your trial by declaration?

Otherwise, wouldn’t it be your word against the officer’s? This is assuming that the court wouldn’t consider your witness to be biased.

[bearishgurl]

[quote=spdrun]What’s the harm in submitting a declaration? It doesn’t go on your record till you’re convicted, so if you get convicted in six months, you’re saving insurance premiums. If you get acquitted, you get your money back.

(Though I prefer our system out here. You don’t pay a dime till you’re actually convicted of a traffic offense.)[/quote]

That is true here, as well, spdrun. However, the red-light camera tickets are ~$400 and up and the registered owner of the vehicle (RO) gets a bill with a photo of his/her license plate and the face of the driver mailed to him after his license plate is tracked down through the DMV. The contractor running the red-light cameras takes these photos for “documentary evidence,” which is submitted to the traffic court in the jurisdiction of the red-light camera.

The bill comes with instructions on the deadlines to fight it or pay the extortion amount and go to traffic school (at addt’l cost) if eligible.

No officer was ever present at the scene.

The identity of the driver and the position of the vehicle in front of the camera is for the registered owner of the vehicle to sort out. Meanwhile, the clock is running on late charges on the $400+ fine.

The “trial by declaration” is the means by which these “internet ticket-fighting mills” use to fight these tickets as the registered owner of the vehicle won’t be able to cross-examine a police officer at trial because there isn’t one. The registered owner can go to trial and bring in the actual driver of “their” vehicle (if they are cooperative) to say that they were driving (instead of the RO) but this won’t get the RO off the hook. The RO is responsible for the ticket (unless the vehicle had been reported stolen prior) because it was their license plate which was photographed running the signal.

With a regular traffic ticket written by a law-enforcement officer, a driver can take it into court in a timely manner, plead out and successfully get a judge to cut it in half (if they otherwise have a good driving record) by presenting a recent traffic school certificate to the court and offering to pay the entire bail amount that day. The court does this so they don’t further clog the traffic calendar and have to subpeona police officers for trial whose agencies are also short-staffed.

Not so with a red-light camera ticket. The owner of the vehicle is “guilty” and owes ALL of the bail amount … or they are not guilty and will get a refund of their posted bail from the court in a few months. It is all or nothing.

Red-light camera tix are a “gotcha” for the public in these times of CA’s insatiable need for more and more money flowing into the courts and DMV.

[Author]

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