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EconProf
ParticipantThe consensus here seems to be do-it-yourself or hire someone to scrape and dispose of it without following all the rules of the government and scaremongers. I agree, and have done it several times on rental properties. We all , need to properly evaluate true risk and probabilities in our decision-making and not be overly influenced by vivid, spectacular, but unlikely events. Don’t worry about the tiny amount of asbestoes in popcorn ceilings, or second-hand smoke, or throwing away flourescent bulbs, but do put on your seatbelt, eat sensibly, and don’t tailgate.
ParticipantThe occupy wall street demonstrators like to call themselves the 99 percent. I have read there is a counter group organizing calling themselves the 53 percent. That is the % of Americans who pay income taxes. We are in moral hazard territory when 47% of the voters do not pay income taxes and thus have no incentive to rein in government spending and taxes.
ParticipantCloser to home, it appears that San Diego Unified School District is about to go through a type of bankruptcy, called “insolvency” by the superintendent. Due to state revenue shortfalls (surprise!), combined with promised raises to teachers back when they thought the CA economy would recover, a looming train wreck is approaching. The likely scenario would be a state administrator takes over the budget, the Supt. and Board are relegated to an advisory role, and the administrator starts chopping pay, hours, the school year, personnel, etc. Looks like a type of bankruptcy where painful but necessary cuts are made.
ParticipantBack in the day when I went
Submitted by bubba99 on October 17, 2011 – 2:37pm.
Back in the day when I went to Berkeley, the tuition was only $212.24/quarter. There was one administrator for every 10 classroom employees – teachers/professors. Now that relationship is upside down. More administrators than classroom employee.Tuition is now in the tens of thousands per semester. For those who believe that education is for the benefit of the students, think again. The major beneficiaries are the employees of the university system. With a chant of “we must protect the quality of education” they have improved the quality of their pay checks, at the expense of the students.
The loan scam has just been the vehicle to fund the new found legion of administrators and retirements that few/none of us will ever achieve. Without the loans, education would still need to be affordable. The loans bought the students very little compared to 40 years ago.
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I’m afraid I must agree with most of what you say here Bubba. In recent decades teaching loads have fallen (often with class sizes increasing, thus degrading the quality), administrative bloat has grown, and part-timers and Teaching Assistants do more and more of the teaching. Quality instruction is not rewarded. Mindless research and never-read publications are. Tenure often protects the incompetent, and incidentally discourages research and publishing once tenure is awarded. Student demonstrators whine about rising costs, but are often indoctrinated by the faculty to ignor the inefficiencies all around them.ParticipantLots of Californians have discovered the tax benefits of spending over 50% of the year in NV in order to escape our confiscatory taxes. Just be sure you can document it via receipts, voting in NV, changing all your insurance, car license and driver’s license, renting or buying housing in NV, getting all your mail there, etc. CA tax authorities are justifiably worried more wealthy people will flee, and have been known to travel to Las Vegas to dig up evidence that their escapees are not spending over 1/2 of their time out of CA. CA is considering a surtax on our higher income people to cover our deficit, so I imagine that will be the last straw for many high earners who are now considering a move. It is entirely possible that a surtax would result in less tax revenue for the state.
The atmosphere, people and weather of Las Vegas get old pretty fast and are genuine negatives, so perhaps Reno and Incline Village have more of a real world feel to them.ParticipantI agree hyperinflation is highly unlikely in our current weak economy. As to who would be helped or hurt, those with a highly leveraged balance sheet–whether personal, business, or government would be beneficiaries, as the value of the future payments decreases. Those hurt would be anyone owed that money, such as holders of long-term bonds, mortgage lenders, etc.
Yes, our situation increasingly resembles that of Japan, which has had two decades of near zero growth after their credit-driven real estate mania climaxing in about 1990. By the late 1980s it looked like Japan would take over the world. Now their stagnant economy, along with a demographic trend of low birth rates and actually declining population gives them a grim future. Their policy response to the stagnation also resembles ours–easy monetary policy with near zero interest rates combined with the fiscal stimulus of massive and arguably unneeded infrastructure is a little like ours. Their reputation for quality products and a hard-working population seems to be carrying them for now.October 9, 2011 at 7:13 PM in reply to: OT: red light camera ticket for right turn and 0.1 secs #730369ParticipantA few observations:
1. CA’s fines are two to three times as high as most other states. Seems to be primarily a revenue-raiser for our big state government.
2. Such fines are especially tough on the poor–some countries (I believe Finland) base the fine on your income, an interesting stance.
3. You seem to admit guilt, so maybe you should appear in front of a judge and ask for a reduced fine.
4. Turning right on a red light is actually quite dangerous to pedestrians and bicyclists. The latter especially, (I am one), may be moving pretty fast, are hard to spot, and are counting on you to stop. So-called rolling stops are common, but they condense the time for you to spot pedestrians or bicyclists.ParticipantWow–really good stuff UCGal!
Your post should be saved for future reference by anyone considering hiring a contractor for a big job.
This also shows the value of Piggington.com.Participant30 showings and not one application? The market is telling you something here.
If you had lowered the rent after 10 showings, maybe one of the next 20 lookers would have applied.September 19, 2011 at 3:54 PM in reply to: OT: Reliable installer of bullet resistant auto glass #729442ParticipantIn another life I was a licensed glazing contractor and was sometimes asked by store owners about bulletproofing their exterior windows. I investigated and it was never feasible and more importantly never foolproof either. Maybe the materials are better nowadays, but if you proceed you can get a false sense of security and feel safer than you are. I suspect calibre and # of impacts affects outcome too–notice the weasel words used in the ads touting the products here.
ParticipantWe are likely to see a lot more roomate situations due to a confluence of events:
1. Ongoing recession
2. Overproduction of McMansions during the boom
3. Rising rents even as apt. construction is way down
Builders are already scaling back new house sizes as they try to match the new austerity tastes of today’s homebuyers.
Could the next response be houses with one first floor bedroom with its own entrance and large and private bathroom? This would enable the “roomate” and homeowner to have privacy and not even interact with each other, especially if the bedroom had a bar (wink, wink, kitchenette).ParticipantAsk him if he would rather have a huge extended family living there, with four cars parked in the street.
ParticipantI’d agree with the hard money loan idea. Just make sure you invest conservatively, i.e., good loan-to-value ratio of 70% or less, ALL the paperwork done right, and into a property you wouldn’t mind owning. Because there’s a good chance you will. But if your LTV ratio is low enough, you are getting it at a good discount.
Also, only 1st trust deeds; avoid 2d TDs.Participant[quote=OnPoint]Interesting read…
Lots of in-depth analysis of the true nature of the Texas economy, by an admitedly anti-Perry author. Since the entire election season may center around Perry’s record vs. Obama’s, its worth a read.
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