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[quote=Coronita]…Funny how life screwups always end up working itself out in the long run.[/quote]

You can’t keep a good man (or woman) down.

I think that saying is very true. If you’re truly a strong performer, you’ll eventually find a place that will let you excel if you keep looking for it.

Which goes back to another of my favorite sayings:

Luck = preparation + opportunity

I share both of the sayings above with my kids often.

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The county assessor does make mistakes. In one of my prior homes I noticed a school district tax was being levied against my property when it shouldn’t have been.

I had the assessor look into it and he found I was right – me and many of my neighbors should not have had that tax so he removed it and refunded us the money.

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Should tell you how I found my career also. When I graduated HS, I was convinced I wanted to be an architect. I was 2 years into a 6 year architecture degree at a major midwest university when I decided I was badly mistaken…didn’t like it at all. Kind of like flu said, it’s one thing to be drawing/working on your stuff…entirely different when someone else is calling the shots!

So I quit school, quit my job, packed up my bags and moved to California. Still confused as to what to do, I worked odd jobs for a year and basically did nothing but manual labor during the day and play at night. My buddy was a computer science major so I tagged along with him to the computer lab when he worked on projects. That lit my fire, that’s what I wanted to do. So I applied to a California university and got in as a computer science major.

That’s how I found my niche and I never looked back.

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[quote=scaredyclassic]My middle son recently graduated wuth a BS in construction mgt and is having some difficulty finding any job.

I find myself with no advice or insight.
[/quote]

First commenters have given some good advice already.

Did he choose construction management because he likes hands-on construction, or because he likes to manage?

If he likes hands on construction, I think Josh is on the money. Do a year or two of framing, etc…then when the economy turns around he’ll have a degree *and* real-world experience. If it takes awhile to turn around, he can always choose the path of this guy:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCtXVIqkc3iBk0bV5gvcNWgw

I watch his videos a lot and he explains how he got to where he’s at. I believe he says he makes six figures now as a handyman and doesn’t even have to find new customers – he has a large client base and can pick his work. He is based out of Denver I believe.

If he doesn’t like hands-on construction, then he needs to figure out what he does like to do. That may take awhile and require multiple fresh starts. Not so much recently but a couple of decades ago most of the software developers I knew had a degree in something else, and it varied quite a bit from psychology to HW engineering and even business management. Having the degree and experience are the key things. He has the degree. Now he has to decide what experience to start working on.

When my sons graduated high school, one of them thought he wanted to be an auto mechanic. He showed us a brochure for a school up in LA that wanted like $40K a year to teach him. We told him: tell you what, get yourself a job as a mechanic right now, hold the job a year and if you like it, we’ll spring for that school next year. He made it six months and decided it wasn’t for him. Cha-ching saved myself $40K. He is now in college working towards an engineering degree.

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[quote=scaredyclassic]

I do not agree that everything is OK. Everything is just as it was. unstanble. Chaotic. Primed for possible improvement, or decline.
[/quote]

Oh, I never said everything is OK!

I said the foundation is solid.

We’ve never been a perfect country and we never will be. Such a thing will never exist.

The biggest problem that I see currently is the tin foil hat crowd on the far right were empowered by Trump. But to be truthful, it is not all his fault – modern comm channels (internet, cell phones, etc) have given that crowd a way to connect better and whip themselves into a fury. Those two things combined to empower them. That’s not going to go away. We’re going to have to deal with it.

A leader of the Lincoln Project said as much recently and said that we were lucky with Trump because he was such an idiot that everything he tried floundered. He said we won’t be so lucky with the next leader that faction picks – they are likely to be smarter at hiding bad intentions and will be much harder to contain.

And before someone accuses me of being far left, I have similar concerns about the far left – those who feel wealth should be evenly distributed to all, that they have the answer to environmental problems that they want to foist upon the rest of us. Not real thrilled with them either, and they too are becoming better organized.

So no, things are not OK. They are better, but definitely not OK.

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Welcome back Scaredy…I’ve been thinking about you every few days.

As I’m sure you’ve seen Trump tried his best to burn the place down on his way out the door. Jan 6, 2021 will be in textbooks for decades to come. Those photos of hundreds of troops laying on the floor the the US Capitol are really something.

This is all such an amazing thing to watch and while it embarrasses me that our country is going through this, it shows that the foundation is still rock solid. Our system works. All three branches of government work. It took four years to spit out a defective part of the executive branch, but the defective part was indeed spit out.

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Interesting to add the independents in there:

[img_assist|nid=27292|title=Voter Fraud|desc=|link=node|align=left|width=466|height=318]

[img_assist|nid=27293|title=Remove From Office|desc=|link=node|align=left|width=466|height=205]

[img_assist|nid=27294|title=Trump Responsible|desc=|link=node|align=left|width=466|height=192]

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[quote=pluto][quote=svelte]taking a quick look, the mortgage delinquency rate nationwide is not as bad as I expected to see:

http://www.mortgagenewsdaily.com/12212020_black_knight_first_look.asp

[/quote]

The statistic isn’t as high because it excludes those in forbearance, i.e. people also not paying their mortgage.
[/quote]

I don’t see that as a big issue either as those folks will be able to make up those payments over time:

“Forbearance doesn’t mean your payments are forgiven or erased. You are still required to repay any missed or reduced payments in the future, which in most cases may be repaid over time. At the end of the forbearance, your servicer will contact you about how the missed payments will be repaid. There may be different programs available.”

https://www.consumerfinance.gov/coronavirus/mortgage-and-housing-assistance/mortgage-relief/

And even if the increased monthly payments are too high, housing values are still high so they can still sell and get out OK in many cases.

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taking a quick look, the mortgage delinquency rate nationwide is not as bad as I expected to see:

http://www.mortgagenewsdaily.com/12212020_black_knight_first_look.asp

“While delinquencies are still elevated, especially those over 90 days, Black Knight’s “first look” at November data notes a sixth consecutive monthly decline. The national delinquency rate dropped from 6.44 percent in October to 6.33 percent, a -1.75 percent change. It remains 79.20 percent higher year-over-year. The rate has fallen 1.5 percentage points from its peak of 7.8 percent in May but remains a full three percentage points (+93 percent) above pre-pandemic levels”

While not good that it went up this year, those numbers don’t strike me as dire.

“The foreclosure moratoriums put in place at the beginning of the pandemic have kept many negative loan performance metrics at low levels. The foreclosure inventory, loans in process of foreclosure, is down by 2,000 loans since October and 72,000 since the previous November.”

Given that house values are still very high, if people get behind they can always sell.

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[quote=ucodegen]

At this point though, all of Trumps current actions will way overshadow any of the good of earlier. It is not a good way to bookmark his presidency…[/quote]

A Capitol police officer has now died as a direct result of Trump’s riot.

His legacy is now sealed.

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There is not enough time left to impeach or invoke the 25th.

I’m afraid at this point we’re going to have to ride it out. Not that I want to ride it out, but that’s really the only realistic path.

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[quote=Reality]
Mortgage forbearance will end at some point. So will eviction moratoriums. What will be the fallout to commercial real estate with so many companies transitioning to remote work? [/quote]

These are the things that are contributing to the current rosy stock market picture and have me questioning what will happen in 2021.

Here in San Diego we lose sight of our area not being typical. In large swaths of the United States, jobs have historically been hard to come by and many people just scrape by financially each month. Put a multi-month or now even approaching a one-year hiccup in that and when all the protections are stripped away it could get very ugly. Very ugly indeed.

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[quote=Escoguy]

And if you’re in a position to, get takeout as much as you can, tip generously, and try to be a friend. I do appreciate this forum.[/quote]

We have always tipped generously and continue to do so. I like that better than donating to charity. By tipping well I’m helping someone who is actually working as hard s they can and 100% of my “donation” goes where I want it to go.

I’ve discovered an interesting thing getting takeout food from our favorite spots this year. Some of the food that I thought was great is really not so hot. The atmosphere must have enhanced the taste and when that is stripped away reality set in. Some of the restaurant food is as good at home as in person, but it isn’t universal.

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[quote=sdrealtor]Reality
If you predict something long enough the situation will eventually reach the point where you can claim victory but timing is everything. No one is saying we will never have a correction or down turn again. Of course we will[/quote]

The OP did end up putting a time frame on it…see his Nov 10th post where he said:

” Although this is not the time frame anyone would like from a prediction, I’ll say before the end of 2021 or it’s unlikely to pass. My crystal ball is generally a bit hazy.”

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