[spdrun]

Personally, I’d rather the money be spent saving the few % of people who do need million $ procedures to prolong their lives than on military adventures, expensive surveillance systems, and payoffs to parasitic government contractors. We waste enough money on the violence industry that could be spent saving lives instead. If we have to throw certain “allies” under a bus to do so, so be it.

[spdrun]

I’d say it’s the other way around, unless you’re freelance as a coder, and/or you have other skills that (for example) allow you to code to control physical systems. Embedded, building controls, SCADA, anything that’s a hybrid between engineering and coding.

Code-wranglers are a dime a dozen and getting more common.

[spdrun]

ACA looked good until I’ve heard that my company will be unloading the corporate plan and dumping us onto the exchange. Kind of like the rotten apple I bought for breakfast this morning.

Personally, I’d rather have the extra $ or have them kick in for an outside (exchange or otherwise) plan — at least I’d be able to carry it between jobs or if I lose work. The sooner insurance is divorced from employment, the better for everyone. Employees because it will be portable and not dependent on continued employment, employers because a car mechanic or restaurant owner shouldn’t need to be a benefits manager (and isn’t necessarily best suited to be one).

[spdrun]

Heh, it’s all in the fine print. Now I need to figure out which insurer works with a provider that I might need once I get sick.

And how is this different from what we had pre-ACA? If anything, this is a strong argument for public insurance that’s accepted by 90+% of hospitals and doctors.

[spdrun]

A lot of hospitals are still working out arrangements with companies offering plans through the exchanges. Everyone needs to give this a few months…

[spdrun]

#4. The Sadowski’s would have been fine if they did not refi and make the above purchases. Their original loan was only $260k. At 7% interest, monthly payment was at $1700. Dateline pointed out the husband was still able to pull in around $3000 per month doing odd jobs. Plus the wife was also working as well. They would not have been able to save, but certainly they were able to get by.

Someone made a good point in the YT comments. Fine, even if his monthly nut was up to $4000/mo, could they have rented out 3 out of four bedrooms for $2000/mo total, thus bringing down their expenses to $2000/mo?

No “worse” than living in a 1-bedroom flat, and they might have gotten to keep the house.

[spdrun]

Sadly, one plow through coveredca debased me of any fantasy of retiring when I saw what happens to my health premiums heading into my 50s with a family.

If you have a paid-off home where you’re paying “prop 13” taxes plus a rental or two, can you “manage” your income to qualify for the subsidy/6% cap?

[spdrun]

IDK about scarce — I just looked at a condo where it went for about 30% above what it would have gone for in 2010. But … the amount of the mortgage owed on the thing was another 75% above the sale price. I’m sure there are plenty of insane deals like this around.

Greed of banks and of the mortgagees not to be underestimated.

[spdrun]

^^^

Didn’t pay his employees and vendors while living it up? Karma’s a bitch, then.

In a just world, his kind would do some prison time for theft of services.

[spdrun]

Not creepy, just very ordinary, and put in a less-than-ordinary situation.

[spdrun]

I think your kids would rather have a father than a lot of money. Be careful what you wish/plan for.

harvey: sadowski is actually a pretty common name. It means “from the orchard” — his great-great-great-great-great-grandparents were probably fruit farmers.

[spdrun]

nsr: Wait … why couldn’t I find a rental without a job, assuming I were paying cash up front for a year (which the $100k equity you clain would allow for)? There’s a non-zero number of landlords who’d go for a deal like that.

Minimize expenses, everyone goes to public school, deal with it. Or rent the house, pull as much out as possible, hope it covers its expenses, and pray for the best.

But anyway, if he hadn’t milked it in the early 2000s, he wouldn’t have been where he was to begin with.

[spdrun]

I wouldn’t use that as a blanket statement. Something like “do not take on more debt if you’re above 50% debt-to-value” would be more appropriate. Prices dropping by more than 50% would be pretty unlikely.

[spdrun]

I really don’t know the situation, but people marry for many reasons, including peer pressure, pregnancy, etc. Not everything is as it seems.

She seemed pretty uncaring from the documentary (at least till the point of the accident) — maybe she’s different in real life, but that’s the way she came across to me.

[spdrun]

Surely it’s possible to arrange half a million in equity so that finances have little to no chance of going bad, at least not bad to the point of losing one’s home…

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