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[quote=davelj]In my opinion the most interesting part of this will be the determination of seniority (or liquidation preference) between the pension funds and the bond holders, as this is uncharted territory.

I suspect that at least some judges will deem the pensions to have been willfully ignorant in assuming that the taxpayers would be willing to pay what the pensioners assumed they would bear. And if that happens – whoa Daddy – things will get very interesting.

San Diego isn’t as bad off as San Bernardino County, but… we’re still pretty damn sickly. I give it even odds that we eventually go through the same process as Stockton – better than even odds if the Stockton BK (or others that follow it) end up with pension liability reductions as that dramatically increases the attractiveness of the BK option.

The fundamental mistake that the unions have made is in assuming that the taxpayers would be willing to meet whatever pension burden the local politicians saddled them with. (This is not unlike a banker ignoring a borrower’s willingness – as opposed to its ability – to pay its debt… and finding out the underlying collateral is insufficient to repay the principal.) In any case, it’s going to be pretty interesting.[/quote]

Calpers cut assumed annual return rate to 7.5% instead of 7.25% recommended by state chief actuary. As long as SB pension is in line with range, Judge can’t rule it legally unconscionable. Of course the rate should probably be 7% because the only people who have worse investment track record than me are pension fund managers who are peddled junk by Wall Street.

http://pensionpulse.blogspot.com/2012/03/calpers-cuts-assumed-rate-of-return-to.html

Only San Jose has voted for pension cut for current workers but that is headed for the courts now. http://calpensions.com/2012/06/11/san-jose-san-diego-pension-reforms-go-to-court/

A Danish pension manager has interesting risk management strategy. Something about hedging against future pension liabilites – so hedging against interest rate drop in long term bonds that would cut income portfolio, but I can’t spell CFA so it’s just a guess.

http://pensionpulse.blogspot.com/2012/02/worlds-best-hedge-fund-pension-fund.html

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The Crucial M4 SSDs are only about $70 for 60Gb, but it sounds like people are having tough time getting new SSD to work.

https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/chromebook-central/uxCaSDGQElU

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Look at fund holdings on right June 30.
https://www.dodgeandcox.com/incomefund.asp

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Which Hans Grohe model did you get? Is it made especially for low water pressure. Our house has varying pressure upstairs at the bathup spout, so sometimes showerhead get full pressure and other times low pressure.

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[quote=AN][quote=equalizer]Yep, I thought FB was a fad, but guess who is laying off 30,000 people soon? Hewlett Packard. It seems that very few tech companies make any real profit these days outside of Apple, Oracle, MS, and GOOG. Intel and MS should heed warning from smart young people and stop wasting money on yet another boring OS/CPU. All the money is in software. Maybe they should train their people how to game FB apps. They could fire half the staff and get massive ad revenue. I gotta go, think Meg is calling me.

http://allthingsd.com/20120516/socialcam-facebook-viddy/%5B/quote%5D
You don’t think there’s S/W in CPU and OS is not S/W? How do you think these FB apps will run without CPU and OS? What will it run on without CPU/OS? What server will serve these apps without CPU/OS?[/quote]
It was an tacit acknowledgement that CPU and OS research doesn’t command high profit margin growth and thus P/E respect. Look at the DRAM space, where only 1-2 companies in top ten many any money, rest are in/near BK. I took the disrespect to the next absurd level – stop all new hardware research and get into FB/Idol linked app research for phones.

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[quote=markmax33]
I think the $125 was the projected with the multiple sorry for the mistake. In any case ad revenues are in the teens on the internet and they are stealing marketshare from TV left and right. It is a powerful business model and I suspect we won’t even have operating systems at some point in the near future and we will be operating on web infrastructure platforms like Facebook and Google have set up.

I do not suggest buying it in the first few days necessarily but google IPO’ed at $60/share if I remember correctly and are now $600/share. Be scared like these guys are, or follow the ad revenue like the smart investors and follow the trend of the under 35 crowd. Zynga will be just fine. Legalized online gambling is a sure bet in the USA at this point since they struck down the wire act.[/quote]
Yep, I thought FB was a fad, but guess who is laying off 30,000 people soon? Hewlett Packard. It seems that very few tech companies make any real profit these days outside of Apple, Oracle, MS, and GOOG. Intel and MS should heed warning from smart young people and stop wasting money on yet another boring OS/CPU. All the money is in software. Maybe they should train their people how to game FB apps. They could fire half the staff and get massive ad revenue. I gotta go, think Meg is calling me.

http://allthingsd.com/20120516/socialcam-facebook-viddy/

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[quote=flu][quote=equalizer]Just got a quote today on $400K 20 year at 3.5% no cost. We did refi last year at 3.875 and had gotten $2400 net credit, which was around -1.25pts if you include all closing costs.[/quote]

That’s kind of high…I’m seeing a 30 year at 3.50% with an $800 cost.. You can probably do a 3.55 with no cost. but I haven’t looked.[/quote]
Is your rate with 40% equity? Prices have dropped everywhere on low volume in past year.

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Just got a quote today on $400K 20 year at 3.5% no cost. We did refi last year at 3.875 and had gotten $2400 net credit, which was around -1.25pts if you include all closing costs.

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[quote=flu]When it comes to tax time, the 1099 looks very small and the government gets close to ziltch.

:([/quote]
I’d like to be smug too, but the other taxman still wants our property taxes that are still due tomorrow. If I sold the house few months back and bought appl options that I was looking then I too could laugh. When I told my sap story about high PTs to the pretty young banker she nearly fainted!

Weekend at Bernies party is going on too long.

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[quote=SD Realtor]”He focussed on me for five minutes like I was the only human in the universe.”

Umm yeah… okay then…

So Ebby Halliday didn’t get to where she was because of her looks. Guess what, there have always been beautiful women and there always will be. She became a success because she busted ass by going door to door to door. She learned real estate and became expert in it. She learned how to deal with people as well. She gained ability, had success and gained confidence from that.

Pretty much the recipe for most all exceptional people who excel…. perhaps even Johnnie Cochran.[/quote]
Perseverance point taken … “I’m Good Enough, I’m Smart Enough, and Doggone It, People Like Me” and now I’m a Senator.

Can you explain why we (almost) never see an ugly Betty realtor (personal coach, etc) in the high end market? Success requires trust from clients which is in part a confidence game that excludes the ugly. On the converse, I’m sure you met plenty of beautiful Bettys who cant spell mella ruse but drive fancy wheels!

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[quote=jimklinge]Pardee’s mello-roos typically lasts for 40 years, plus can go up 2% per year.[/quote]

Jim,

Don’t be such a downer. Some are only 35 years and 100% guaranteed to go up max limit 2% per year and bonus is that some schools will not be built near new homes because older schools (3-4 miles away) are not full. In my day we use to walk to school, now you need darn helo.

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[quote=briansd1]Buddhist philosophy says that you can find happiness from within, free of external conditions.

You can attain different levels of enlightenment.

I think that I’m at Bodhisattva level already. ;)[/quote]

“I’m gonna sell my house in town
Bodhisattva
I’m gonna sell my house in town
And I’ll be there
To shine in your japan
To sparkle in your china
Yes I’ll be there
Bodhisattva”

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[quote=beselfish][quote=pri_dk][quote=SK in CV]He did miss golden opportunities, and I think it’s unlikely he’ll get the chance again. [/quote]

Can either of you guys provide specific examples of these missed opportunities, such as “he should have done A but choose to do B?” – things he could have realistically accomplished given the opposition he has faced from the Republicans?

I hear this sort of general criticism a lot these days, but I rarely hear specifics.
[/quote]

In my mind, the most striking and damning of Barack Hussein’s many failures and missed opportunities was what he signed into law in Feb 09 just shy of a month on the job. By signing the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, Obama gave away the keys to $787+ billion to Reid and Pelosi of what could have been meaningful spending. Where was the Republican opposition then? How quickly you seem to forget the composition of the 111th. Remember, Obama rose to power with a formidable congressional majority which few modern presidents have enjoyed (59-41 in the Senate–not fillibuster-proof, but still dominant; and a commanding 76 seat majority in the House.)

In the ARRA, Obama showed his first of many failures to take bold leadership. If Obama were indeed the embodiment of hope and change, and an effective game-changer in Washington, he would not deferred such large and consequential decision-making to congressional leaders. Instead of demanding a few landmark “in-your-face” spending programs we could actually see, Obama let congress piece together a pork-stuffed, questionably effective bill chock-full of business-as-usual earmarks and giveaways. And to those who argue it saved state and local government jobs, look at the monthly BLS employment situation reports over the past 18+ months, and try telling me how many state and local jobs it actually “saved.”

Had the $787 billion been spent strategically on a select few national priorities, we could have made a meaningful down payment on real long term job-creating infrastructure programs: repairing, upgrading, or replacing thousands of bridges, highways, and airports; installing large-scale national wind and solar farms and assisting with clearing permits and speeding environmental review; building a few meaningful high speed and intercity rail lines where they actually matter, and building them with the same commitment and fervor as something like what we got out of the Highway Act of ’56.[/quote]
Maybe if the President had the NSF, IEEE, NIH, etc rank potential projects by merit instead of ranking projects based on seniority of Congressman we would have better long term results. But of course I want taxpayer funded airport/highway in my district first.

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[quote=SmellsFeeshy]I am going to be making a similar switch soon as well. My contract was up at the end of November and I’ve been waiting to find a deal on the Galaxy Nexus. Right now they are offering it for $189 on Amazon Wireless (was $150 a couple days ago) but I’m planning on waiting until after xmas in hopes they have a .01 holiday sale on it.

I’ve done a lot of research on the GN and a few people are complaining about the reception being poor when compared to other LTE phones. Also there are a few issues with apps not being compatible with Android 4.0 yet.

Overall though it still seems to be the best phone available for now on Verizon. The Droid RAZR and HTC Rezound may be worth consideration also, although neither has Android 4.0/Ice Cream Sandwich yet.[/quote]
I compared all three phones and found the display on Rezound is amazing for text and videos seemed sharper than Nexus. The Rezound has Qualcomm LTE Chipset, which may be why LTE performance is better than Samsung/VIA LTE on Nexus. On speed tests I was getting 10-12Mb/sec on Nexus and 15-17Mb/sec on Rezound. Not really big deal except for potential battery issue with 3G/4G handoff. The camera on the Nexus is subpar compared to others, especially the I4S.

As for phone call quality the MOTO RAZR probably most solid choice if MOTO used same high quality as in the Droid 1.

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The Economist magazine in the Jun 16th 2005 print edition clearly spelled out biggest bubble in history. In the June 13, 2005 Time magazine edition they stated why housing was destined to keep climbing due to endless foreign born Americans who have strong bias for houses.

Supposedly smart, rich people read the Economist. Why did almost everyone except us ignore their sage warning?

http://www.economist.com/node/4079027

http://bigpicture.typepad.com/comments/2005/06/uhoh_time_magaz.html

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