[joec]

I’m probably in the minority, but reading another article on this today in the UT, I don’t think it’s that expensive for the people who have to pay it. They also went through how the board came through this decision and got approval throughout the steps. I’m not sure where the capital appreciation bond came into the equation, but it said the San Diego Unified already had some of these where they will be paying 800-900mil on 150mil loan or something…

Also, the residents are going to have to pay like $200/year or something for this and I read that it maxes at 800-900 or so PER YEAR near the end. That doesn’t sound crazy when people pay that in HOAs in like 2-3 months. You don’t even have to start with Mello-Roos which are in the neighborhood of 3k-8k or something per year.

In the end, there is simply no money to go around anywhere from the states/city/local gov anymore so unless you want the schools to all collapse and pretty much be crap, I think cities will have to do something.

I wouldn’t be surprised if more school districts did this and “kick the can down the road” so to speak.

Not having to pay any interest in 20 years is also pretty sweet.

All that said, I’m not sure if it’s the “correct” thing to do, but until some honest financial guy comes in like Rich and breaks it down, I question whether people are just blowing this out or proportions.

[joec]

Romney should just come out and say that yes, I off-shored jobs, I took advantage of every single tax break and took advantage of everything when I was in business…

…If you vote for me, I will do the same for my new job as president and make the US the most powerful and important country again in the world…

heh, then again, you can’t fire the American people. 🙂

Maybe he can offshore and deport all of us 99%.

[joec]

Early on back in the 90s, I thought Motley Fool was good for some of their analysis on investing. I don’t read anything about them anymore and see a lot of noise from them now.

Having worked in the financial investing biz, I’d say investing and “picking” stocks is very time comsuming to do well and most people are scammers or don’t have a clue what they are talking about. Cramer is investing porn and he’s a total idiot.
http://online.barrons.com/article/SB123397107399659271.html#articleTabs_panel_article%3D1

If you haven’t listened to Rob Black, I think he’s worth a listen since he’s pretty upfront and makes it clear overtime, investing shouldn’t be that hard for most of us since markets go up 7 out of 10 years.

Have a listen to some of his radio shows here and let me know what you think…
http://www.kdow.biz/Podcast/List/170

[joec]

If you need to run A/C units, you’d probably have to get much larger generator as well.

Anything portable won’t give you much juice, but if you can live with fans, then maybe a smaller generator/inverter will be ok for just that.

[joec]

dupe post

[joec]

Unless you really need that much fast storage for video/professional editing or what not, I recommend most people just go with a NAS and with a decent sized SSD for all their programs/OS.

This gives higher availability (mirrored/RAID drives), easier backup for everyone in the household (everyone stores stuff in their home directory) and you can even access it wirelessly with your cellphone, etc…

I guess if you have a ton of games, then maybe you do need a bigger SSD.

[joec]

I think the point livinincali brings up is very valid. Flash doesn’t work on the iphone right? From where both GOOG and AAPL are headed and what they have stated/done (AAPL is suing Samsung now as everyone knows) it’s pretty clear they will not integrate much between the platforms if they don’t have to. Or they will make it harder to use certain apps/programs.

The iPhone 5 better have a bigger screen and not look similar to the iPhone 4/4S or it will be a total flop I think.

[joec]

Does the company pay the tax or the employee? I didn’t spend much time researching RSU’s since I don’t have any, but here’s an article on it with this blurb in it:

“Facebook faces a massive ($3 billion) tax bill related to its employee stock compensation and can no longer do what it planned to do, which was sell shares to raise this cash.”

http://finance.yahoo.com/blogs/daily-ticker/facebook-shares-hit-low-zuckerberg-worried-163415524.html

[joec]

There has been a large increase in minor identify theft…

http://articles.nydailynews.com/2012-04-10/news/31320466_1_identity-theft-resource-center-identity-thieves-victim-adviser

Your kid turns 18, goes to apply for a credit card in college for the first time or a car loan and he can’t do crap and has a mess to clean up already. Talk about wasting months or your life and tons of time and money.

[joec]

We just upgraded to smartphones as well. It sounds like you have 3 people you need to upgrade for so why not get a mix depending on what people want? I’ve noticed for women, they seem to LOVE the iPhone more as a status/fashion symbol and because everyone else they know has one. I would recommend you watch these series of videos to get an idea of what iOS and Android can do. My wife went with the iPhone and I went with Android and feel like I can do a ton more than what she is using.

It’s sorta like the PC vs Mac debate. If you are pretty tech oriented, you probably would like Android more being a more customizable option.

If your wife is happy with iPad/mac, then maybe she will be happier with that than forcing her to use Android.

Costco doesn’t sell iPhones anymore so you would first need to decide on provider, then go from there…

[joec]

I wanted to do this too and it’s really annoying how everything is tied to your SSN. They should just use something else and possibly not even issue kids SSNs yet (I don’t think they did in the past).

[joec]

Rents have been going up generally across most areas now. I’ve heard around 9%+ in the bay area and possibly more with lack of “desirable” inventory (such as CV, San Fran, Peninsular, etc…).

Good to be a landlord I hear.

[joec]

Maybe Rich can comment more specifically on how something like this would work/pros/cons…

I can mostly assume that in 20 years, the value of money will probably be lower so if the value of money is halved every 15-20 years, that 1 bil is like 500 mil in payments in today’s dollars.

Even with little/no inflation, this is generally the case.

[joec]

We did research on whether we needed vision coverage and if you dig deeper, you’ll realize that there is really no vision insurance. All you’re doing is pre-paying for vision benefits that you may or may not use. If a company pays, great…but if you’re out of pocket on your own, you’re better off just saving the cash or just go to Costco or negotiate directly with the Optician. It’s like dental coverage (which we do have though).

My wife used to pay like 400+ for her eye stuff and with insurance it was like 200+. I finally got her to use Costco and told her she can spend the difference on whatever she wanted and at least this way, I don’t feel like we’re wasting money.

WHAT??!@? $135 for a lens fitting exam for lens she’s been using for 10 years and you prescribed last time?

If you had a serious eye condition, a real eye doctor under your health plan would be doing the major stuff.

What I find amazing is how all these dentists and eye guys are still in business. People getting laid off certainly aren’t renewing themselves and seeing how much they make for a teeth cleaning, it sorta sucks.

[joec]

Anyone know someone who is proficient with self-employed folks? We have some other debt that we need to work down first, but all these low rates seem to be tough to attain unless you are very cookie cutter in terms of w2/income/debt/job/reserves.

[Author]

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