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JG said,”you think he’d hire someone who could score not a modest 1220, but a 1590, like Bernanke got!” – maybe that’ll be too obvious? OK, it really doesn’t matter. The real problem is, if GWB has some intelligence, it’s not the right type for being a president.

“That a school accepts legacies at a higher rate isn’t prima facie evidence of affirmative action for alums.” — statistically speaking, yes.

“Children of Ivy League parents may have, on average, higher IQ, better work ethic, etc. than non-Ivy League parents.” — that’s too much for me, especially the “better work ethic” part. I have done quite some interviews of both college grads and MBAs, and I’d say that my bias against those with private school + Ivy league kids is that a lot of them are too pompous and already have big egos. Their sense of entitlement is too strong.

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So, jg, you think that GWB got into all the schools based on his own merits? I kind of double his SAT too — isn’t a lot of it vocabulary? I won’t question GWB’s ambition and persistence, though. The fact that not all legacies are pursuing high offices / in Ivy leagues doesn’t mean that it isn’t a significant factor. They might just not want to.

“The Wall Street Journal recently put a statistical face on alumni clout in admissions. Children of graduates make up 10 to 15 percent of incoming classes at most Ivy League schools, according to the Journal. Harvard accepts 40 percent and Princeton accepts 35 percent of legacies but only 11 percent of all applicants. The University of Pennsylvania rakes 41 percent of legacy applicants yet only 21 percent overall. At Notre Dame, nearly a quarter of students are children of graduates. ” — this is from a 2004 article from Washingtonia.

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George Bush’s speaking capabilities? An article I read in 2000 before the election on Washintonpost said that W likely had a sort of learning disability that incumbered his linguistic development. It used many examples and made a lot of sense to me. Although his own speeches were an abundant source of jokes, I don’t quite use it against him that much — after all, others with learning disabilities who’ve overcome that challenges have achieved a great amount. But with W, the problem is that he really didn’t do much with his problems. Instead, his family connections got him into the best educational institutions, but he came out schooled but not educated, and he developed a distaste for anything intellectual (probably due to his own shortcomings). His family connections also got him out of troubles again and again. These experiences made him as arrogant as he is, there is no consequences to what he did wrong, so now whatever he believes, it is.

I don’t think that his speaking capabilities reflect entirely his intelligence. His early recognition of Karl Rove, for example, is a form of intelligence. But his intelligence (more people and politics oriented) coupled with his ignorance (which his learning disability contributed) and arrogance made him the worst president in my mind — he could get into the office, but everything he does is disaster.

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People don’t call economics the “dismal” science for nothing. Forecasts were never to be relied upon. Plus, reputation risk make people risk averse — that is, if you are making a wrong forecast, but are among the many who make a wrong forecast, you are fine career wise. If you make a DIFFERENT forecast and it turned out to be wrong, even if you are just a couple of years ahead, then your career might take a hit. Herd mentality has its benefits.

In addition, if you are a known figure, then you also need to be careful about the impact of what you say. Many people pointed out the importance of sentiment in driving prices up or down. A public figure would always want to be careful not to be the perceived “cause” of such panic. During a time when things are about to turn bad, the normal tendency is to be “soothing”, so you’d read a lot of “soft-landing” talk. I just view this as part of the psychology of the cycle.

Only truly independent minds speak without the burden of the above.

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Still very pricy per square footage. One must value the downturn lifestyle and perhaps an ocean view a lot to pay that kind of price (even reduced).

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jg — which year from U. Chicago GSB? I’m class of 2001.

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But Salvation Army has always been among the most efficient charity organizations (measured by money spent on charity vs total money raised), and they do a lot of good things for the poor and the underprivileged. It just doesn’t matter to me whether they are a religious organization or not. As far as car donation is concerned, Salvation Army is a lot more efficient than PBS.

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I guess that I’m not very knowledgeable about all this — but I still think that NPR, compared to other alternatives availble (we don’t want all news controlled by private entities, do we?), is worthy of support. Even if the local PBS is subpar, distribution is still needed if you think the news world is better off with NPR than without NPR.

Also, just because I believe that the real estate will go down badly, I don’t think that the media has an obligation to report my view (at this point, might be a minority view). In fact, you can view what they report as part of the sentiment — when they finally are fully on top of it, the worst is perhaps over. Occassionally, I read news articles that are truly forward looking, but their authors are taking a risk (reputational risk if their prediction doesn’t come true). So I expect that the media reflects herd mentality. Also, the media has adopted a really bad habit — in their persuit of providing a “balanced picture”, they always try to find a different opinion, and present them all without some indepenent, analytical thinking. What I can’t tolerate is intentional spinning (examples on the war comes to mind). Otherwise, I’d say, give them a break!

Full disclosure — I didn’t listen to the radio segment, so I’m not disputing any of your critiques. Also, when I donated my old car, I didn’t donate it to PBS, I gave it to salvation army. PBS auctioned it off to wholesalers and only 70% of the proceeds went to support its own use.

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I listen to NPR everywhere I go and donate to PBS as well. But mostly I listen to national shows. I think that this is one news station that at least try to be rational in its news program (real estate is just a small part).

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PD — great post!

I guess that with so much money made in real estate by a lot of people in this group, in 2 to 3 years we may have a real estate investment club going! That’ll be a constructive way of using the collective knowledge and experience here.

As lookoutBelow said “One must be aware of opportunity when it presents itself, and be well versed enough to know what an opportunity really is.” Wise man! PerryChase already commented on the rest of his wise remarks.:-)

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PerryChase, No analysis from me…the articles say it all. Just read an article on today’s “USA Today” suggesting customers with mortgage payment problems talk to their banks early. I guess right now banks and credit counseling organizations must be working at a hectic pace to put delinquent mortgages “back on track”. The title of the article “Can’t pay? Talk to Mortgage lender; Don’t dodge or delay; solution may be possible”. In it, an executive director for the Homeownership Preservation Foundation, which provides free financial counseling, said that “calls to her foundation’s 24-hour hotline have shot up 61% to 140 calls a day since January, and 40% of all callers are having trouble with their ARM loans”.

But the question is, will the leeve still breach and the flood of deliquencies finally hit the market and headline? I believe that it will — the first stage of such a crisis is always trying to delay / deny it at the consumer level. At the macro level, there is no fiscal stimuli left (we have a budget deficit, a war going and a looming medicare budget crisis); it’s questionable that much monetary stimuli (lower interest rate) will come soon. I read that wages in China is finally rising, and that’ll eventually show up in WalMart. If rent increases, that’ll show in CPI. In this country, workers finally realize that their wages aren’t keeping up with cost increases, so maybe wages will rise some too, and that’ll add inflation pressure. So the bottomline is, we are not likely get really meaningful interest rate relief unless we’re in a serious recession, and if that recession hits, it sure won’t be good for some homeowners living on the edge already…

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I posted here yesterday — look for “WSJ article” thread. I guess nobody noticed it.

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1) Rent
2) No
3) N/A
4) news, independent analysis, Piggingtons
5) N/A
6) N/A
7) No. But don’t like the price that I see here. I’d leave San Diego if not for my job here, which is a nice one. Moved here in late 2001, no sense of urgency to buy at the time. After two years in apartment, prices were already too high for my taste. Started to rent houses instead.

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Nightmare tenants — I know someone who’s suing the landlord for about 6 to 7 month’s rent! Of course, I don’t know the relative merits of both side, but it sure won’t be pleasant.

If anyone has a prop mgmt company in SD to recommend, please let me know, and I’ll keep a note of it.

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SD Realtor: thanks for your reply. I have no experience; goal is to make it a good long-term investment. I am not looking to buy now, I just think that opportunities may come up in the next 3 years or so. I think that real-estate is a favored asset class in terms of tax (federal, and California’s prop 13), it’s a good inflation hedge, so a good entry point makes real estate a good long-term investment. But I can’t deal with the hassle of managing rentals. I’m thinking that 2 bedroom condos/townhouses in neigborhoods like UTC probably are the easiest to rent out. Probably too early for me to think about this.

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