Forum Replies Created
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[quote=Astrid Rey]I don’t know what will happen with the economy in general but I don’t believe that polls in the news tell us anything. When 7 in 10 people think that the economy is good what does that really say? So many people were fooled before. It seems that maybe the smart thing is to believe the opposite of the majority. And now more than ever people want to believe their side is right and do not want to look at facts. People want to see those that they do not like to be wrong, even if it costs them money.[/quote]
polls were wrong WRT to trump and the 2016 election, and my gut feeing is too few are looking at the big “economic” picture or pondering the knock on effects,… yeah I know I’ve said that before BUT this thread was refreshing in that in that I did learn something I was not aware of, nor had thought about
[quote=flu]
…I would use Zillow to look for housing because lately Craigslist has become sketchy at best for finding rentals… Sketchy for the landlords looking for tenants, sketchy for tenants looking for a place to live. Zillow is so much more civilized. Thank you sdrealtor for that recommendation!
[/quote]
just out of shits and giggles, tried posting an apartment “studio” rental on zillow, and the result was a surprising number of cold calls from residential real estate agents, asking if I was interested in selling,… typically I get more than my fair share of calls from commercial property brokers like CBRE that are looking to broker and get commissions on 1031s, Triple Net Leases, Delaware Statutory Trust, and other investment strategies typically not associated w/ residential housing
WRT the OP comment
[quote=temeculaguy]
This place was the “red pill” to the main stream media circa 2006 and look at it now.
[/quote]
was not aware of this forum back then, but have to say its interesting in that this forum is one of the sources I use as a proxy to gauge what the somewhat economically/politically informed are thinking,… and sadly I’ve come to the conclusion that assessing economic risk and developing hedge strategies isn’t on the radar screen of most people (nor is recognizing the errors of basic math when managing a portfolio by politicians or the news media)
http://www.TinyURL.com/13thcheck
so I can only conclude that eventually the local economy is going to have a TSHTF moment which was sort of just reported on in connection w/ the US Supreme Court taking a pass on reviewing the battle over local pension reform
[quote]
Supreme Court won’t weigh in on pension battleThe U.S. Supreme Court has declined to weigh in on the battle over pension reform in the city of San Diego.
The decision leaves in place a California Supreme Court decision from last year that called pension reform into question and required a lower court to come up with a remedy. It could end up costing the city billions.
https://www.10news.com/news/local-news/supreme-court-wont-weigh-in-on-pension-battle
[/quote][quote=flu]I’m still waiting for peak oil….
You know, that conviction that blew up in doomsday theorists face, royally…Funny no one likes to talk about it anymore… But hey, it’s a great folklore, right up there with the entire John Titor timer traveler folklore..
Damn, there were a heck of a lot more dinosaurs that decayed than peak oil theorists estimated….
ha ha ha
Scientists 1, Conspiracy Theorists 0[/quote]
sigh,… déjà vu
https://www.piggington.com/ot_bearishgurl_should_clean_her_act_or_go?page=3#comment-271254
[quote=moneymaker]Like the Winston Churchill quote and bookmarked the site. Also bought post bubble, 10 years ago. So real estate is not on my priority list. Still fun to watch as my wife seems to be addicted to it. The stock market is also starting to get boring, Trump needs to spout off more often to shake things up, got about 30% cash waiting for something to happen. For lent I think I’ll become anti-commercial and try not to spend any more money than I need to.
[/quote]slightly off the RE topic,… but since you mentioned it, back in a high school religion class had a discussion about what we were suppose to do during lent (i.e. the act of giving up something to practice self-discipline and remember the sacrifices Jesus made),… so shared I needed to rid myself of my habit of,… procrastination!
that was decades ago,… sadly I still have and should rid myself of a procrastination addiction?!
as for “local” RE prices,… for the most part they reflect supply and demand along w/ being a function of access to credit
for the past few years we see demand high and supply low,… hence as expected prices of existing san diego RE is being bid upward,… which also means decreased general affordability
http://www.TinyURL.com/2019sdre
BUT given access to credit isn’t as widespread as it was back in the sub-prime lending mania of 2003-2007,… there isn’t as much excitement discussing housing prices because there are fewer players and FWIW as I read the tea leaves we’re in an extended period of a more subtle greater fool credit bubble
[quote=flu][quote=The-Shoveler]LOL I don’t think the sky is falling,
But even former gov Brown said, only a reasonable pension should be guaranteed, I think leaving a door open for default and restructure.[/quote]
I wasnt talking about you. Come on now, I know you’re pretty sensible…. I was talking about a lot of the other “ooo it’s going to crash and burn anyway now” that came before you…
And there’s got to be a medical diagnosis for those that get high on seeing other people fail.
[/quote]
huh,… thought this was water under the bridge
https://www.piggington.com/ot_dontfeedthetrolls#comment-277663
or perhaps you have yet to face up to knock on effect of various medical issues?!
[quote=spdrun]
March 5, 2019 – 1:23pmSays the cancer patient who could become unable to work and end up dependent on social insurance at basically any time…
https://www.piggington.com/more_crazy_taxation_ideas_aoc_types#comment-283100
[/quote]oh well, anyway to everyone else who might come across this thread,… FWIW there is an expression familiar to pilots and aeronautical engineers
[quote]
“Aviation in itself is not inherently dangerous. But to an even greater degree than the sea, it is terribly unforgiving of any carelessness, incapacity or neglect”
[/quote]I mention this aviation safety reminder (which I grew up with) because the same mindset should be applied to investing (like when managing a public pension portfolio OR buying/managing RE investment properties)
the reason we are where we are is because of carelessness, incapacity AND neglect,… so just sayin’ if the goal of the OP is to “become a forum for the economic punk rockers again” (which implies acknowledging the existence of systemic mismanagement),… better have a hedge strategy in place to beat the sheeple and the system (which is something Warren Buffett implied just a few days ago)
[quote]
Warren Buffett discusses ‘disaster’ contributing to Bay Area exodus in CNBC interview…California’s unfunded public pensions are a hot topic, with taxpayers on the hook for making up any shortfalls in employee contributions or investment returns.
“If I were relocating into some state that had a huge unfunded pension plan, I’m walking into liabilities,” Buffett said. “‘Cause I mean, who knows whether they’re gonna get it from the corporate income tax or my employees — you know, with personal income taxes or what. That liability isn’t gonna — you can’t ship it offshore or anything like that. And those are big numbers, really big numbers
[quote]
Pacific Legal Backs San Diego Mayor’s Pension Push in SCOTUS
The mayor of San Diego has a First Amendment right to advocate for changes to the city’s retirement plan without first meeting with labor unions, the Pacific Legal Foundation said in a brief filed with the U.S. Supreme Court.
The conservative public interest law firm wants the justices to undo a 2018 decision by the California Supreme Court holding that the state’s “meet-and-confer requirements” …
blab, blab, blab,…
[/quote]seems the way things stand beneficiaries of the status quo (i.e. the local political bureaucracy AND public pension recipients) are acting akin to leadership or the minion “believers” of old church orthodoxy,… which made laws saying that the Earth is the immovable center of the universe
https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/national/horizon/sept98/galileo.htm
in other words, its like all the beneficiaries are arguing w/ themselves over the pension status quo saying “legal laws” are all that matters and basically ignore fundamental forces in nature (like gravity)
I mention this because, seems the way the pension portfolio was structured is akin to a projectile that has a explosive force that moves it,… for a small time frame right after an explosion stuff will be forced upward, BUT eventually things will come crashing down due to the influence of gravity
guess since lawyers and “legal laws” pay little or no attention to math/physics,… AND because beneficiaries of the status quo (i.e. the local political bureaucracy AND public pension recipients) don’t want to admit to a root cause being DISHONEST and DUMB portfolio management
http://www.TinyURL.com/13thcheck
lawyers from both sides are going to run up the tab arguing over “free speech” AND I’ll bet both sides never once mention the issue of “bad math” which continues to create ever growing debt!
[quote=FlyerInHi]
What burns me is that the states that send us their worst people think that the homeless problem is a coastal city thing. People come here to beg because of the attractive environment. We need CalExit so we can deport these people them back home to their folks.[/quote][sarcasm on]
given POTUS and his talking/tweeting points of the virtues of a great big beautiful wall and your mentioning deporting the worst people,… perhaps we can combine the two ideas for a “final solution!”
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/first-moments-hitlers-final-solution-180961387/
[sarcasm off]
all joking aside, what burns me is political candidates and politicians (i.e. “leadership”) that seem to be grandstanding, greedy and/or outright narcissistic 99.9% of the time
as I see things avoidable problems are caused by ass kissing politicians (who do pretty much nothing but pander to their base) along w/ government bureaucrats (i.e. public employee union leadership) who have no economic incentive to change the status quo of feeding like gluttonous pigs at the taxpayers trough
on the national level we obviously have POTUS and his selfish, idiotic stand of partly closing down government, so he can build a wall (as sort of a monument to himself) and coincidently seems trump has also managed to do a pretty good job of feeding like a gluttonous pig at the taxpayers trough (which is exactly like something an african dictator would do)
https://www.politico.com/story/2015/10/trevor-noah-donald-trump-dictator-214358
or like yesterday afternoon at the local coffee house at the informal weekly discussion where I pointed out to a few neighbors,… seems the root cause of the many local problem(s) (i.e. ever increasing public pension debt, ever increasing “homeless” etc.) is because intellectually challenged career politicians just keep on running for different political offices and are not addressing the various difficult issues in the political offices they leave behind so government bureaucrats it seems then have nothing stopping them from running amuck
since I mentioned trump and the idea of the wall being a sort of a monument to himself,… one talent/trait, all intellectually challenged career politicians seem to have is, posting slick self promotional youtube champaign videos that somehow don’t ever mention the inconvenient truth of their actual actions in office,… for example the local ass kissing, intellectually challenged career politician (of the district) is now setting sights on the mayor’s office
what’s needed to counter this “fake leadership candidate” from causing even more damage to the system is “real honest news” that pulls no punches
http://www.TinyURL.com/ToddGloria
god help us if this idiot manages to continue to convince political partisans he has any real leadership skills to solve big and vary real problems in this city that need to be addressed
http://www.TinyURL.com/13thcheck “annual 13th public pension checks”
http://www.TinyURL.com/2019SDRE “high cost of SD housing (RealEstate)”
http://www.TinyURL.com/InvestorWarning “climate change effects”
bottom line as I see things,… with $hit leadership increased “homeless” (which is a symptom of mismanagement) is inevitable no matter big city or small town,… red state or blue state,… etc., etc., etc.
there was a UT article about yet another annual 13th public pension check (which appeared on the front page a few days ago)
https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/data-watch/sd-me-13thcheck-sdcers-20190117-story.html
so passed it along to an actuary for analysis/thoughts on the topic
[quote]
…SAN DIEGO CITY ERS PENSION NOT IN A GOOD PLACEI am going to walk you through the San Diego City ERS plan info.
Let me start with the required contributions. Brace yourself. This is the “required contribution” – that is, the part that covers the new benefits accrued (i.e. retirement benefits earned due to work done in that fiscal year) plus a portion of the unfunded liability (i.e., paying off a bit of the benefits that were earned years before, but weren’t sufficiently contributed for.)
You ready?
58% of payroll.
Holy shit.
That’s insane.
Even Police & Fire pensions, which tend to have high contribution rates (for a variety of reasons) tend to have rates far below that.
See that yellow line waaaaay below the blue bars? That’s the average ARC as a percentage of payroll, and nationally, it’s about 15% for peer pension groups. 58% is insanely high.
So… why is the ARC so high? …
http://stump.marypat.org/article/1132/san-diego-city-ers-has-no-business-giving-out-13th-checks
[/quote]FYI the local political bureaucracy recognized long ago that “the concept of Surplus Earnings” (and associated w/ the 13th pension check) was acknowledged as being NOT math kosher
[quote]
‘…in 2008, by ordinance, the Council eliminated “the concept of Surplus Earnings” because it was not consistent with sound actuarial principles and because it was being used for certain payments, which were not consistent with federal tax law or state law requirements to assure the competency of the assets of SDCERS. SDMC § 24.1501.’
https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B66GMOho0KtxblFnc193UzZiUTh2M041UUZROWgySUlIZ0o0
[/quote]
yet the local political bureaucracy (who also benefit in various ways from the status quo) allows piling debt on top of existing debt year after year? and they expect the taxpayers to pick up the billions in clean up cost$ for their bad math mistakes??
[quote=www.hollywoodreporter.com]
LA’s Battle for Venice Beach: Homeless Surge Puts Hollywood’s Progressive Ideals to the Test…Los Angeles is grappling with a homeless epidemic. “It’s the worst human catastrophe in America,” says Andy Bales, a pastor who runs the Union Rescue Mission on Skid Row. Faced with a growing crisis, city leaders last year budgeted more than $100 million for affordable housing, addiction treatment, job placement and mental health services. And yet, as L.A.’s real estate prices soar, so does the city’s homeless population.
…”There are actually [residents] advocating driving the homeless out of Venice — shipping them off somewhere, which is such a proto-fascist move,”
…Disagreements over the potential causes of the crimes have begun to factionalize Venice’s neighborhoods.
…The most common refrain heard when discussing the cause of L.A.’s homeless crisis is soaring housing costs. But there are other forces at play in Venice and throughout the city involving various laws and ballot measures that date back more than a decade. A 2006 ruling by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Jones v. City of Los Angeles required that law enforcement and city officials no longer enforce the ban on sleeping on sidewalks anywhere in the city until a sufficient amount of permanent supportive housing could be built. Further complicating matters were two state ballot measures that voters overwhelmingly approved in 2016 — Propositions 47 and 57 — which decriminalized certain felonies to misdemeanors in an effort to address the state’s overburdened prison system.
After multiple tire slashings, one resident built a homemade deterrent system
Others have put up unpermitted planters to eat up sidewalk space
now the real life “hollywood” trailer,… homeless zombies coming to neighborhood near you?
