[spdrun]

“Ghetto” to me would imply laying about drinking cheap beer or doing hard drugs; not working, studying hard, or being retired. You have an odd idea of what constitutes “ghetto.”

We’re talking about normal people of different backgrounds, some blue-collar, some white-collar.

[spdrun]

And there are still parts of SD like that. In the building with my rental condo of the neighbors whom I’ve met, there seems to be a couple where the husband is a shipyard welder, a medical student doing his internship, a psychologist, a retired couple, and an office employee/secretary with a young child. Still seems pretty mixed to me.

[spdrun]

Is it actually less safe now? Statistics don’t seem to indicate that this is the case. I think the media is just selling bad news to sheep who will listen.

L.A. was just recovering from race riots in the 70s, BTW. Random crime existed — wasn’t Manson active in the late 60s?

[spdrun]

Define “good” — if you’re making the salary of an average middle-class American family in a country where per capita income is 1/3 that of the US, you can live like a king.

[spdrun]

Are you kidding me? There were full-blown riots in many major cities (and even smaller towns) 40 years ago and schools were extremely unequal. Not just in California, but my former neighbor who was a teacher in Newark, NJ had some pretty heinous tales to tell about the 70s there.

Inflation was bad, I read that the average gallon of gas in the 80s cost $3.50 in today’s dollars. You still have mixed neighborhoods in SD, just not in the areas which people on this site seem to gravitate to.

I think some people are looking at the 70s and 80s through rose-colored glasses!

[spdrun]

This is just a legislator’s proposal, has yet to pass. As far as Asians’ right to be accepted to colleges without discrimination, SCA-5 is also not a done deal — to overturn a proposition, you’d need either a court case or a plebiscite, neither of which are guaranteed to work.

[spdrun]

But many people that own rental properties live out of state or even in a different country. Many property managers handle ALL payments for owners.

Not really all that hard to have tax/HOA bills sent directly to you out of state. Don’t know about abroad. Also, most tax/HOA bills are payable online these days. Don’t know why one would trust a management firm to handle something that’s so easy to deal with.

[spdrun]

It’s been my experience that if you’ve had a good track record of payment and ask nicely, penalties can sometimes be removed.

[spdrun]

It’s been my experience that if you’ve had a good track record of payment and ask nicely, penalties can sometimes be removed.

[spdrun]

Property manager should collect rent, handle repairs, and find tenants (if you have the stomach for renting to randoms). Stuff that could result in foreclosure like taxes, mortgage bills, and HOA bills should go directly to the owner.

[spdrun]

[quote=XBoxBoy]
At any rate, I’m not seeing the data to back up claims that being a firefighter is particularly dangerous. Just saying.
[/quote]

Depends how job-related deaths are tabulated. I recall reading that firefighters had 2-3x the lifetime cancer risk of people in other jobs. Exposure to smoke, dust, vapors from heated toxics can’t be good for you.

[spdrun]

Regarding software design and appliance design … my point wasn’t that everyone could do it, just that the legal barriers to entry are a lot lower than other skilled professions. Including plumbing, BTW.

Regarding segregation … They say that the West Coast is less conscious of social class, blah, blah, blah, but I see a lot fewer gated communities in the Northeast than in California. In fact, they’re pretty much outliers around NYC, not like in San Diego where every little condo complex has a gate and key pad.

Security on this coast also seems a bit of a joke. When I first moved to NY, I needed the front door key to my old building. The super told me — “go to the locksmith {around the corner}, say you live in at {address} and he’ll make you a key for $10.”

And take a town like Morristown — it has its poor areas, but also parts with well-kept mansions dating from the 1800s. I grew up in another town in NJ. I went to high school with the children of high AT&T executives, the children of secretaries, and the children of plumbers … no one really cared all that much.

[spdrun]

FlyerInHI: Compared to other forms of engineering, medicine, law, etc, the barriers for entry into software engineering, software design, and low-voltage electronic device design are actually pretty darn low.

There are some efforts to license software engineers, but they’re only gaining traction very slowly (via the 2012 IEEE exam, which hasn’t been made mandatory anywhere).

[spdrun]

Personally, I hope the good times last another month or two, so as not to give the crims at the Fed any excuse to delay tapering. I figure they can pawn off bad economic data as being winter weather-related for another two months, which takes us through the April meeting and down to $45bln/yr. If they keep the tapering up, maybe it will be enough to slow things down and start a down-cycle.

And besides, I need AAL to hold above 30 or so till early April, so I get a good exchange of old AAMRQ shares at the 90 and 120 day marks. Keeping AAMRQ (bought at 3.mumble in August 2013) past the merger date has been an awesome decision thus far.

[spdrun]

(1) Being a firefighter carries a much higher risk of death, crippling injury, or serious illness than being an attorney. Working for or against the mob aside.
(2) Most of the successful/happy attorneys that I know aren’t working in biglaw or large corplaw — they found their niches and have their own small firms. If you go to a reasonably cheap law school and have some business sense, starting a practice is possible within five years of graduation.

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