[Diego Mamani]

PD: I agree that not all anti-immigrant types are racist. But it makes me wonder when their main argument is that “they come here to get public services for free”. I’m also a bit disappointed that an otherwise smart Piggingtonian like you listens to Limbaugh.

I would be really surprised if the Mexican laws expressly disallow bilingual education. Probably there’s none in Mexico because (1) they can’t afford it, and (2) there’s no need for it. Regarding buying waterfront property, that is standard in many countries that are small or weak (compared to the USA) and who fear that foreigners can buy a big chunk of land and then secede (by the way, that’s pretty much how Mexico lost Texas).

There are no food stamps for foreigners in Mexico? That’s the case in the USA also, even if the anti-immigrants say otherwise. In any case, developing countries have negligible budgets for this type of subsidies, which are directed to the truly indigent. Many of the other “we don’t have it for foreigners” items listed in Limbaugh’s diatribe are things that most developing countries simply don’t have for anybody b/c they can’t afford them. And restrictions on certain types of property ownership simply reflect the fact that Mexico lost 50% of its territory in the 1850s.

Like Micheel Moore at the opposite end of the political spectrum, Limbaugh stretches and twists the truth to make his point. The problem I see is that he’s indirectly inciting many to hate, or to join vigilante groups.

[Diego Mamani]

Hmmm, are you a troll sent here by the RE industry?

Your statement “Are you guys forgetting we live in the most desirable place on the planet?” has been considered here before. The desirability of coastal So Cal is there, has always been there, and it explains why historically land is worth more here than, say, Idaho, even after taking economic actvity into account.

What you are telling us is that, suddenly, this desirability has increased in the last five years? How so? Has the sun been upgraded? Is the ocean any bluer than before?

You also mentioned that “this time is different”. I think I’ll grade your contribution to this forum with a D minus, because you forgot the rest of your lesson, er… mission:

3. Real estate always goes up
4. If I don’t buy now I will be priced out forever
5. I need the tax deduction. Heck, the tax deduction alone will pay for the house!
6. You can always cash out your equity to afford your family’s needs now (SUVs, other gadgets) and in the future (fund your retirement)
7. Renting is un-American and for losers only
8. Everybody knows that owning is way cheaper than renting

Geez!

[Diego Mamani]

Re: Prop 187

When I travelled to Latin America and Europe in the mid 90s I was pretty much ashamed when people asked me about this initiative (people there had read it in the news). It was widely inconceivable to them, and unforgivable too, that someone would be asking children to show documentation before being admitted to a public school.

Immigrants don’t come for the “free public services”. They come here because of the wage differencial; in other words, they come here to WORK. They contribute with their hard work (have you seen any born US citizen lining up for toilet cleaner jobs lately?) and they contribute with the sales taxes they pay in the countless transactions they are involved in, not to mention income tax withheld that they forgo entirely if they are undocumented.

The problem we have is that the laws are not in agreement with the economic reality: there are willing workers south of the border, and willing employers north of it. To pretend that this economic reality can go away by decree is naive, to say the least.

In fact, one of the few sensible initiatives proposed by Bush was his guest worker program; which would regulate, rationalize and institute order in an activity that is impossible to ban by decree.

[Diego Mamani]

This is probably the ugliest thread ever in this forum, with all those xenophobic, wannabe klansmen. We are currently experiencing a wave of anti-immigrant sentiment, like the one we had in 1994 (which gave us the infamous Prop 187 if I remember the name correctly). This wave will subside, like others in the past, and will resurface in the future.

I guess racism is cyclical, like real estate.

[Diego Mamani]

You are not screwed, you’ll survive and will be able to make your monthly payments. But I think your decision is not good, financially speaking. If being the “owner” is so important to your psychological well being, then go ahead, but it’s going to cost you dearly. You’re paying almost half a million dollars for a house in an inland area, a house that is probably not worth more than $250K.

We know that RE cycles in So Cal are very long, of 10-20 years duration. (Problem is, many people have only 3 year memories!) Prices just peaked in 2005 and we have several years of home depreciation ahead of us (as it happened in 1990-1996, 1982-1986, and 1973-1976).

How did I arrive to the $250K valuation above? I guess you could rent an almost identical house for $2K a month (gardener included), without the headaches and added expense of ownership. You think your baby will mind whether you own or rent the exact same house? I don’t think so. In fact, you’ll spend more quality time with your family if you don’t have all those trips to Home Depot. And you’ll save a fortune too.

Unfortunately for current buyers, in 5 years, this house will be worth at most $485K, possibly a lot less, and once you factor in inflation, you’ll realize you lost much more than just those $3500 a month payments. If I were you, I would get out of the deal, forgo my deposit and rent a house on the same block if I really liked the neighborhood.

[Diego Mamani]

These guys may call themselves economists, but they are first and foremost spokepersons for their institutions. If you want to know what Economics, as a discipline, has to say about current conditions, you need to listen to academic economists like Shiller or Leamer, whose research is not funded by the RE or lending industries.

Also, bear in mind that the tools of economic theory were never meant to predict the future, but rather to understand why markets and economic agents (consumers, businesses, gov’t) act the way they do.

We should document, as much as possible, what Lereah and company have been saying since 2003, and contrast that with their CYA statements today. It looks like these people tarred themselves by changing their tunes so abruptly; we just need to come up with the goose feathers.

[Diego Mamani]

I agree: don’t chase the market down. Painful as it may be, this is really a no brainer: price it a good $5K to $10K below comparable listings, and make sure you offer a buyer’s agent commission that is competitive (not necessarily the highest, but above average).

You may think that an X price is too low now. Just wait until next spring or summer, it’ll be even lower.

[Diego Mamani]

Yes, the tax deduction helps. But against it you must consider HOA fees, property taxes, maintenance costs.

[Diego Mamani]

Are you factoring in the opportunity cost of the 20% down payment? Besides, your client should know that he won’t be building much equity when buying at the peak of the cycle. When the son gets out of college in 4 or 5 years, he’ll probably sell for less. And all those interest payments and lost earnings on the 20% down payment, will be money down the drain.

Back in the 80s I read in Jane Bryant Quinn’s book that condos are the last to appreciate in boom periods, and the first to depreciate in busts. All the data I’ve observed since then verifies it.

[Diego Mamani]

There are many institutional investors and foreign central banks who are too large and too risk averse to be buying 1-yr CDs in any old bank. They prefer to buy govt bonds and treasuries. In addition to size and risk, these type of entities are also interested in matching maturity terms to their own needs.

[Diego Mamani]

ARMs are bad deals for most people, but not for everybody. Some people in high-tech sectors (with high labor turnover) know that they’ll change jobs and relocate every 3 or 5 years, so it makes no sense to take a 30-yr fixed. There are decent ARMs with interest rates fixed the first 3 or 5 years, which work great for this kind of people.

[Diego Mamani]

It “works” for the same reason that home remedies work: unless you die, you are going to get well sooner or later, and most people attribute their recovery to whatever latest remedy they tried.

So, unless we run some randomized, controlled experiments, I’d say that the statues’ supposed effects are nothing but the placebo effect at play. But this thread is certainly funny to read!

PerryChase: What a vengeful god you’ve got! (said with tongue firmly in cheek).

[Diego Mamani]

Bgates, you asked me:

“Saddam was a crook and a dictator, but he was no madman, and he kept order in his country.” How do you know that? Were there independent media reports from Fallujah about how safe it was in the 90’s? Have you seen Baghdad police records documenting crime rates? Or do you think that if the tv news and western newspapers didn’t tell you about something, it must not be happening?

That’s no secret, and the “before” and “after” 2003 invasion status is well known.

BEFORE. Corrupt and crooked dictatorship in Iraq. Life was made difficult b/c of the UN-imposed sanctions. These sanctions were imposed b/c of Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait in 1990, so the Iraqis had no one to blame but themselves. No freedom of speech nor free press. Dissidents were harassed, jailed, or worse. UN arm inspectors frequently visited the country to search for biological or nuclear weapons, but never left satisfied b/c the iraqis always pretended to hide something. There was little crime in this police state that controlled everything, but people had running water, electricity, etc. Was I happy with this situation? Of course not, I think that only a full democratic system is acceptable. But this doesn’t mean that we are entitled to impose democracy on them at gun point.

AFTER. Widespread chaos and violence. Running water and electricty infrastructure were destroyed. The National Museum, that housed objects dating back 4,000 and 5,000 years, remnants of the earliest civilizations on earth, were looted in front of the US forces who didn’t care. Shiite and Sunni, who had some degree of coexistence and intermarriage, were suddenly fighting each other, blowing up mosques and people. The fact that the 2003 invasion had been based on lies has only served to recruit fanatics for al-qaeda who now flock to Iraq, which has become an ideal training ground for them. Even today, over 40 months after the invasion, the number of weekly deaths is shockingly high. In addition to sectarian violence among iraqis, and resistance against coallition forces, there is widespread organized crime.

All this is well known. I don’t see how you can suggest that Iraq today is no worse than before the invasion. Saddam, a despicable dictator, was more like a mafia boss than the madman that the dubya-cheney-rumsfeld axis wanted us to believe. He wasn’t completely open with the UN arms inspectors b/c he wanted to keep the Iranians (his enemies) guessing.

Now, to finish, how did Saddam get to achieve and stay in power for so long? After the Iranian revolution in 1979 (which brought down the anti-communist and US friend, the Shah), the Reagan administration thought it would be a good idea to support him to contain Iran. At the same time, in Soviet-invaded Afaganistan, the Reagan people thought it would be a great idea to fund and arm fanatics like Bin Laden to fight the communists. It’s interesting to see how us, in the name of fighting communism, have helped create something infinitely worse.

One lesson is that we should never let our leaders compromise with evil people abroad (even if they are enemies of our enemies). Another lesson is that we shouldn’t let our foreign policy be hijacked by special-interest groups at home.

[Diego Mamani]

Rankand file wrote:

… why our enemies, particularly Muslims, hate us so much, I couldn’t disagree with you more. It’s not because we are on their holy land and it is not because we support Israel. We are different than they are and I think we are a threat to their existence.

You are saying that they hate just because they do? How is it that by being different we are a threat to their existence? That is completely false and only incites more hatred and violence, from both sides. Let’s see a famous example. The leader of the nine-eleven atacks is thought to have been M. Atta, who piloted one of the planes. Unlike the average suicide bomber in occupied Palestine (who is young, uneducated, broke, unable to afford marriage and has no future), this Atta guy was an educated, upper middle class Egyptian who spoke many languages (English, German, Arabic) and had a Master’s degree in Germany. (BTW, how many languages do you speak rankandfile?).

Anyways, my point is that this guy grew up in the context of the Palestinian problem: First, Palestinians were forcefully removed from their homeland in order to make room for a theocratic state for European jews. Second, this new state received and continues to receive countless amounts of money and weapons from the USA, weapons that are used to repress the Palestinian resistance.

While our TV news shows gave us not much more than high-speed chases and celebrity gossip, Egyptian (and other countries’) TV shows have always had uncensored coverage of the atrocities committed in the name of defending Israel against those who want only to recover their homeland from the European jews who took it by force. It’s not surprising then, that even educated people like Atta would hate us, not because we’re different, but because of the extreme injustice commited against the Palestinians with the full support of the USA.

We all have a sense the good should prevail over evil, that even though there are thieves, rapists, and murderers in this world, we know, or at least we hope, that the bad guys are eventually caught, tried and locked up. We perhaps sleep a bit better at night thinking that the bad guys can’t continue to do evil for too long and that they are eventualy stopped. Contrast this with the situation in Palestine. Palestinians had lived in Palestine for centuries, even millenia, in the same way that the English in England or the Hopi Indians in Arizona. However, they were expelled from their country at gun point. It’s true that there was no Palestinian state before, as it had been a Roman province, later a province of the Ottoman Empire, and later a British protectorate. But there has always been a Palestinian nation, a group of people with traditions, customs, ways of life, and a territory that made them different from other Arabs.

But the zionists (jews, mostly Europeans, who want to establish a theocratic jewish state in Palestine by force) armed themselves, staged terrorists acts in the 1940s (they blew up the King David Hotel, killing many), and eventually succeeded in ethnically cleansing the Palestinians from a big chunk of Palestine and creating their new state.

Now, anybody who believes that evil cannot prevail over good, at least not for long, perhaps hoped that the injustice would be reversed, that perhaps the international community would intervene to prevent this mounstrocity from continuing. But it does continue to this day. Over the years we have been conditioned to think that Palestinian, Muslim, Arab, and terrorist are one and the same thing. But there was no violence there in the 1940s, except for that brought by the zionists. Even jews who had peacefully lived in Palestine for generations turned against their muslim neighbors and said to them: “you know you can be killed if you stay; you better give me your house and flee; I will not pay you but I’d be grateful”.

And that large scale theft has been perpetuated since 1948 by brute force and mostly with US funding. Is it a surprise that they hate us? And if they do, obviously is not because we are different. It is because of this great injustice. The Israeli lobby in the US is all-powerful and resourceful; it contributes millions to political campaigns. Do we gain anything by supporting Israel? If anything, we gain mortal enemies and nine-eleven.

We should do a better job of educating ourselves of these issues, and we shouldn’t let our foreign policy be hijacked by special-interest groups like the Israeli lobby.

[Diego Mamani]

Good stuff! I couldn’t help thinking of country music as I was reading it.

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