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joec
Participant[quote=bewildering]I like the second graph in the “shambling towards affordability” because it takes in to account rental payments.
We recently bought a house in Clairemont, and that decision was easy. We looked at the cost of a 3/2 rental in our area of Clairemont and found the asking price was around $2400. Obviously less for the worse areas/crappy houses, more for better areas/better houses. And the chances of actually getting a place were low because of the number of applicants, and our dog. Our previous rental in Clairemont, a 2/1 for $1800, had 17 applicants within an hour of going on Craigslist.
You can get a 3/2 house with 10% down for around 500,000. Even if interest rates go to 5% or 6% the financial decision is easy. Just use the New York Times rent/buy calculator. Even if house prices and rents stay flat you are ahead after 3* years
*Depending on your tax bracket.
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/upshot/buy-rent-calculator.html
As long as there is demand for rentals I do not see a big fall in prices. Rents just keep climbing higher, and San Diego rent is cheaper than LA, OC or SF.[/quote]
I agree completely.
I’ve mentioned this multiple times as well. As long as rent prices don’t drop down, I see very little chance for houses to drop down much neither…Also, a lot of people here don’t care that much what happens to the national markets. Real estate has always been local and places like SF, bay area, LA is going to have pretty sticky prices.
Unlike in the 2005-2008 period, rentals were a lot cheaper in a lot of areas back then compared to what the houses were selling for so it had to revert to the mean and overshot and crashed. If you can rent the exact same place for much cheaper than buying, you’ll do that and so will other people.
Sure, it’s tough to get a loan for some people, but if people re-adjust what they can afford, it’s hard to make a case to not buy if buying is cheaper than renting…as some articles report in some areas assuming 20% down, decent mortgage rate now, etc…
I agree that if you just need a place, sometimes buying your primary residence to live in and not having to worry about it is such a load off your mind…(assuming the numbers work).
I (and many others) use to read as much about housing news/blogs daily and go to open houses, etc…such a pain and you’re free of all that after you buy. So nice.
Participant[quote=treehugger]Over-achieving, smart kids, I can’t relate. My 14 year old step-daughter failed 9th grade freshman geometry. I would prefer she take the course over during the summer, am in process of tracking down the high school to figure out an approved course, likely on-line.
We are having a tough time trying to explain to our over indulged, spoiled little white girl that soccer, field hockey, and lacrosse are GONE until she proves she can keep her grades up. Plus her mom has filled her head with visions of UC Davis and Berkeley, now I the bad step mom am trying to explain that in a overachieving world even a B knocks you out of the running, let alone a D!
Anyone have kids that took geometry for high school over the summer, on-line or other?[/quote]
Yeah, I believe UCs (the “tier 1/2” ones) are pretty hard to get in now…
I’ve read especially UC Berkeley and UCLA being the toughest…(probably depending on if you want to live in nor cal or so cal…)
Then, I think UC Davis and UC San Diego are just a step below those 2.
For the people with HS kids, maybe they can share if they applied/were able to get in. It seems much harder now though from all I’ve read.
I agree that dealing with over indulged and “entitled” kids (and adults) is the worst thing since they view the world and everything in it as something that’s just supposed to be given to them while in reality, a lot of “things” / “stuff” are extra/luxuries.
Perhaps another depression to the scale of the 1920s-30s is in order for these people.
In a way, it’s not their fault that they think this way. I blame it on the mass market media, companies and over sensitive parents…
June 18, 2014 at 8:01 AM in reply to: ICELAND’s Pots & Pans Revolution…Virtually no US Media coverage #775329Participant[quote=CA renter]Not only Iceland, but the MSM in the US has largely disregarded many of the protests in Europe and around the world.
What happened in Iceland is exactly what people in the US were trying to do with the *original* Tea Party before its attention was diverted away from banking and turned to healthcare reform — thrown into the ring during the financial crisis by the complicit “left wing” of the Two Party system — and twisted into another “right wing” arm of the same, corrupt Two Party system.
It’s also what people were trying to accomplish with the *original* Occupy Wall Street movement before that was twisted into “Occupy Everywhere” and the focus was shifted away from banking/finance to helping poor people and deadbeat squatters stay in homes they never had any rights to, among many other “left wing” bullet points put out by the corrupt Two Party system like immigration reform, the anti-war movement, etc. (which might all be noble in their own right, but should never have been a part of the Occupy Wall Street movement).
The government had a very strong hand in diluting these movements and redirecting the energy to more “safe” topics that are well managed by the PTB and their MSM lapdogs.
Remember how the original OWS movement was totally unable to get any airtime initially, even though thousands of people were marching through the streets?
And precious little was said about the HUGE numbers of people who were calling, faxing, and writing letters to lawmakers, strongly opposing any bank bailouts. And TARP was just the tip of the iceberg. We are still paying for these bailouts today in many ways, especially in the artificially low interest rates and the devaluation of the dollar which further impoverish savers, workers, and the elderly; while the wealthiest asset owners continue to see their wealth increase dramatically due to the artificially high asset prices that have resulted from all of this manipulation.[/quote]
Wow, a post I actually agree with CAR on…
The problem with the situation if the USA were to become a true democracy is would I even want to live here or would it even be safe?
Having a pure democracy in concept sounds nice and ideal, but that’s only assuming the people setting it up are of fair minded thought.
There are probably more lazy/violent annoying people in the world and if the majority had their say, it will not be a world/government you even want to be in or have any part of.
I sorta succumb to the belief that it’s pretty much impossible to appease everyone and not in my lifetime, but in the future, there maybe some other revolution in the US, but I’ll be long dead and decayed by then…
Even if you were to kick out all the politicians like in Iceland, there is no proof that the new government will be any better. My wild guess is this Iceland thing will be a major flop.
And the US is probably far more diverse in ethnic makeup and political view and general household mindset…
ParticipantI have no links or evidence and I don’t really care enough to spend the time, but I’ve read that the unions, rightly or wrongly are there or setup to mainly protect/support the unions, teachers and the administrators. It isn’t setup and isn’t there to look and see what’s best for the students.
Taking a step back, in a school structure, is there really anyone who advocates for the student and children?
Doesn’t seem like it from looking at how a school staff is setup.
ParticipantNot surprising that pay back then wasn’t bad since everyone had to serve to military mostly. I also find it interesting that the military makeup (I’m totally guessing here) back then was a much more diverse group of poor and wealthy families. Sorta like what you see at Jury duty.
So many top generals/ex-presidents served in the military and some of them came from wealthy means.
My comment about serving for citizens came about because I remember very clearly that my older brother didn’t want to be a US citizen because he didn’t care for the US at all and didn’t want to get drafted neither…
I don’t know the specifics back then or now, but I’ve read in numerous instances that the military now is mostly composed of people on the lower economic ladder, probably mostly immigrants.
That also puts into question that if I were a terrorist group, I’d “pay off” these families to start putting agents all over. I’m sure it’s done already as depicted in movies like Departed (which was a copy of Infernal Affairs starring Andy Lau which I thought was a better movie)…
Participant[quote=spdrun]Speaking as an East Coaster, I’ve honestly experienced more situations where I felt threatened on the road than on public transport.
Example: I was 19. I had an old Fiat convertible handed down from my sister who had bought it for $400, then couldn’t figure out how to keep it running. Driving back to college, I merged onto a freeway a bit too close to an old Honda Civic full of angry asshats. They changed lanes, came beside me, and one of them started waving a large knife out the rear passenger window, shouting, signifying, and swearing.
They passed me, but changed lanes in front of me whenever I changed lanes. Finally, I signaled left just before an exit, started changing lanes to the left, and cranked the wheel over to make the exit at the very last moment. They tried to do the same, but didn’t quite make it — they probably needed the services of an upholstery cleaner to get the brown stains out![/quote]
Still, think of what could’ve happened if you looked at these guys the same way and you weren’t in a car?
I’ve actually been in a fight just for looking at some guy so again, a car is more “space” than a bus/subway/trolley…where someone having a bad day can result in you getting stabbed.
I’d had enough road rage incidents to hate driving too…I think I’m actually more calm on public transportation, but again, you don’t know who is going to be on the bus or at a football game (plenty of crazies there).
Oh well, we’ll just disagree that public transport IMO simply isn’t going to work for some people here in the US…Much safer in say, Japan where you see little 8 year old girls riding alone…
Participant[quote=flu]
Well, anyway, I registered for IPO shares just in case I change my mind.. Better to be over prepared versus under prepared….[/quote]Will be interesting to see how this does if they allow anyone to buy. If anyone can buy shares, who will they flip the stock to?
Does anyone know historically, how stock available to the public has done?
I know of GOOG doing well, but a lot of others were major flops (like ZNGA).
I have no money so will probably just watch what it does.
Participant[quote=spdrun]So what? There’s never been an instance of road rage where someone ends up shot or stabbed, or a fight in a public place like a bar or stadium? Right. Shit happens. It’s not as if this happens every day. I’m not going to sit at home cooped up because there’s an 0.001% chance that some psycho might stab me because I looked in the wrong direction.
And he’s not dead. Hope he makes a full recovery and that the jerk who stabbed him ends up being shivved in prison.
However, I’d glad that no video footage exists. Seems to be no video surveillance on the trolley cars, which is a win for privacy even if some crims get away.[/quote]
My point is I think people on the lower economic ladder and more mentally unstable people tend to ride more public transportation. They are the ones more likely to stab people for checking out or just glancing or not even glancing at their girl or looking at them…(you can get shot for looking at anyone it seems).
This supports my claim that public transportation is a tough sell in a lot of areas since normal/rich/non-crazy people don’t want to be near/around stupid/crazy/psychotic people who “may” do this.
Yes, you can also get road raged by someone on the road daily, but I think most people and many women will feel safer in their own car than on a bus/train/trolley around sketchy guys/crazed people.
ParticipantIsn’t military service or defending the US a requirement of being a US citizen?
The problem with a lot of these foreign military campaigns is that people see it as serving certain special interests or political parties (oil, etc).
Looking at Iraq now and what’s going on, I wonder if the US is going to start taking a back seat to a lot of these foreign campaigns since no one wants to see US boots on the ground. Without troops on the ground, you can’t really hold or maintain territory, or really build allies for intelligence/etc…
Longer term, for the terrorists, it looks like they will slowly gather strength since no International power looks to have the will to do anything to send troops in a foreign hostile country. I wonder if this is just the start of a cold/contain war where terrorists start slowly building up strength…and is normal for a while.
I heard Iraq lost near 1.3 billion in military equipment that the ISIS group has now including hundreds of tanks, a couple helicopters, thousands of rounds of ammunition.
ParticipantI’ve heard Apple bought Beats to get a high end “margin” business…
With how overpriced Beats is for what you get, maybe it’s just to make their margin numbers look better…
ParticipantTrolley rider stabbed for looking at woman
http://www.utsandiego.com/news/2014/jun/13/trolley-stabbing-mission-valley/
Rode the trolley, checked out a nice looking gal, end up dead before going home…
Participant[quote=bearishgurl]Imho, all you worker-bee parents overly concerned about your kid(s)’ public schools should MYOB under your 8-5 pm florescent lights and do what you do best so you can keep supporting your kids (this tactic worked for me just fine over the years, thank you). We need to let the public school teachers and administrators do what they do best so your kid will have all the proper reqs for HS graduation and public university entrance in CA. It’s no picnic getting 9th to 12th graders through all these hoops and our public schools do a fine job of this, especially considering that there is an average of 500 graduates per public HS per year in SD County.[/quote]
I honestly doubt I’m one of the overly concerned parents you mentioned, but it sounds like no matter what happens in a school, all parents should just shut up and do nothing even if things are grossly mismanaged?
We’re not talking about a decent functioning school where the kids are doing well and all that, but the initial case seemed to be about poor teachers in bad school districts. So those parents should just MYOB and do nothing?
And yes, I’m well aware sometimes, our own kids are the problem/bully/idiot/etc…as well as those lame moms (it’s always the annoying women)…but telling everyone to MYOB when there is a problem (again, not in all schools/districts) doesn’t sound like is going to help the kids any when the teachers and the administrators in certain schools are clearly poor.
ParticipantI’m not sure when WWII started in Europe, but the only reason I think the US had such a boom during the late 30s – 70s is because of the industrialization of the world and everyone else who had manufacturing capacity was dead/bombed out already.
The US came out mostly unscathed after WW2 so they were ripe to dominate the world economic stage when the war ended.
Unless WWIII comes, I don’t forsee us repeating a great middle class economy since there really is no need for the slack labor out there. Liberty/freedom, self-reliance and rugged individualism doesn’t amount to a whole lot if you can’t find decent work/job because there is limited opportunity. You can see it already with recent college grads who are not of the STEM flavor. After 5-10 years working in a non-degree needed job, they are just going to fall further and further behind.
One reason I believe luck has a lot more to do with one’s financial success a lot of times since being at the right/place time trumps hard work.
Participant[quote=CA renter]
You’d be surprised at how little experience many administrators have. Many of them fast-track through the classroom, some working as little as 1-3 years in the classroom, because their goal all along was to get into administrative positions. Perhaps you think that these administrators should be telling teachers what to do, but most teachers would disagree with you.[/quote]And who’s fault is it that administrators have little experience and is fast-tracked through the classroom? I assume it’s other administrators and teachers as well. If they can’t manage/police themselves, obviously tax payers want to have a say how things are being done.
Since they’re (administrators I assume) are also tax payer funded, I certainly would be FOR going after them and cleaning their issues up as well and all the issues you bring up.
Administrators make a TON of money I’ve noticed in the schools and I’d certainly be for getting rid of a lot of them and curbing back their benefits/pay unless there is progress/benefits in the classrooms for the kids/teachers.
Nothing should be shielded/off the table.
In regards to playing office politics/kiss ass to become an administrator…unfortunately, that’s just a fact of life in ALL business/life/home/family you name it. This will never go away, but that doesn’t mean good administrators with other like minded good administrators can’t play the same game and do positive changes. The notion that every single administrator is underqualified and a bane to all teachers can’t be real.
The message you present just consistently comes off as a teacher who blames administrators (upper management) for the ills of the system. If teachers don’t like the situation, go and run or get promoted as an administrator yourself and try new things and fix the problem. We wouldn’t be here discussing this if there weren’t such a big problem and since schools are still tax payer funded and we pay for it, outside people should have a greater say in what to do.
Even better is if all schools just became private and I can just get 10k and pay for it. If I choose to home school, maybe get direct tax credits or something so people can vote with their dollars.
For the “poor” smucks who can’t afford to pay in the inner city/schools, I guess they would just all close and consolidate and maybe that’s what should happen anyways. Not like many of these kids even want to be there.
All that said, it just sounds like the situation you are describing is older teachers (maybe equated to older/lazy workers in a company) with tenure are just whining that some new hire (maybe a new CEO) is trying to right the ship and fix things and just trying to roadblock the issue. Since these “employees” can’t be fired currently, there is bloat everywhere and costing us more and more.
Just seems like teachers don’t want to change and learn and keep current with best methods.
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