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SFGuy Says:
> regarding AIDS I don’t mean to make fun of
> anyone’s opinion but I will. If it’s true that
> AIDS shouldn’t concern us since it’s a gay
> and drug user’s disease, then there are
> probably too many gays/drug users in South
> Africa and not enough in Saudi Arabia.
AIDS is spread by IV drug use and “Gay Sex†(look it up I won’t go in to detail here) not “Gaysâ€â€¦
I dated a girl who was in the Peace Corps. who told me why AIDS has spread so fast in Africa:
1. You can’t just put a rainbow sticker on your Miata and move to SF so promiscuous gay African men will have sex with large numbers of women to stay “in the closet†aka “on the down lowâ€.
2. You can’t just stop by a drug store to pick up some condoms at every corner in Africa so it is common for men and woman to have “Gay Sex†to avoid the chance of pregnancy (after IV drug users the largest group of women in the US that have AIDS are females hat have gay sex with bi-guys)…
Maybe he and his wife are amphibious, and need a little stretch of open water to spawn...
...re: legaliasing drugs. Large parts of the EU have legalised - or at least decriminalised - cannabis in the last 5 years, and the sky hasn't fallen yet. In fact I'd go as far as saying the govt is losing out on valuable tax revenue by not controlling the product.
Although, there has to be some serious education along with the freedom - no more of the 'drugs are bad, m'kay?' because, as any 12 year old will tell you, if you don't mention why then no one will listen.
Saying "just DON'T" doesn't cut the ice.
Having said that, there's worlds between the smoking of the occasional phattie and the carnage that drugs like crack and heroin wreak on people. I'd much rather police and govt money was diverted from prosecuting marijuana busts towards more serious drug problems associated with the above two.
Peter P Says:
Big question: how can we know the “perfect†form of government if we do not understand the “perfect†moral system.
Shouldn’t we also discuss meta-ethics?
good ethics systems are often informed by the 'golden rule', which has been stated by a number of religious writings through history: do unto others as you would have them do unto you... personal, financial, governmental and international relations would improve if this was observed more....
"Love your neighbor as yourself" - Moses (ca. 1525-1405 BCE) in the Torah, Leviticus 19:18
"What you do not want others to do to you, do not do to others." - Confucius (ca. 551–479 BCE)
"What is hateful to you, do not to your fellow man." - Hillel (ca. 50 BCE-10 CE)
"Do unto others as you would have them do unto to you." - Jesus (ca. 5 BCE—33 CE) in the Gospels,Luke 6:31;Luke 10:27 (affirming of Moses);Matthew 7:12;
"Hurt no one so that no one may hurt you" — Muhammad (c. 571 – 632 CE) in The Farewell Sermon.
Even for hardcore drugs, I'd favor regulation and legalization over criminalization. Anyone who wants hardcore drugs can get them and the drug users are not particularly fearful of the law. Instead, criminalizing hardcore drugs have simply created a criminal culture of violence. It's better to just legalize drugs and at least cut out the financial incentives for a violent drug culture.
SQT,
I too wish hardcore drugs just didn't exist. However, two plus decades of the war on drug supply have done nothing except exacerbate the problem. It would be nice if the government looked harder into decriminalizing drugs and creating treatment programs. Failing that, at least create a structured environment for the addicts so they wouldn't destroy their family or their children's lives.
speedingpullet,
I was looking at their koi pond and thinking how dangerous that would be for a young child. Your answer was genius. These people obviously needed chlorine saturated water to spawn in.
Yeah, treatment and education is the way to go.
I remember a South Park episode a while back that dealt with the drug theme...
Kyle IIRC was smoking pot and all the adults pulled out all the scare tactics and 'drugs are BAD!' rhetoric without really explaining why.
At the end of the episode Kyle and Cartman were having a conversation and Kyle says something like' I wish the adults hadn't just freaked out and said its just bad. All pot seems to do is make you lazy and unmotivated. Now I know what it does, i'm going to stop because I don't want to sit around and day doing nothing and getting fat'.
Or words to that effect.
There doesn't appear to be a time in history ,or a culture of people, that didn't have thier own way of getting 'out of it'. Rather than hoping the problem will just go away on its own, its better to educate people in the pros and cons and let them make their own minds up.
Just saw a report on CNN about somebody putting stickers on parking meters and other stuff with the letters....BNE
All the jokes aside; anyone know what it's all about?....seems to be costing a bunch to get rid of 'em.
SFGuy,
Read up a little bit more on the f@cked 24 year old flipper(it always amazes me when people younger than me FUBAR their life). I think most people think he's at least telling a part of his story. One or two HousingPanic people think he's pulling a "Lonely Girl". Many people think this is a marketing ploy to scam sympathetic buyers.
I think unless he is a "loserdude @ 24" from New Zealand and his story is entirely fiction, he is deluded and in a world of hurt. One poster claim to be a former owner of one of his houses and said the house is priced way above the going price.
Also, the reason why the comments appear so positive is because he screens comments and takes out ones that are unacceptable to him. I think that sort of deluded and immature behavior suggests that he is a real idiot and not a fake one.
SP,
Kent and Norfolk would be nice, I would also favor giving them west London circa 1945. They might have to deal with the IRA in the 1970's and 80's, but at least the IRA weren't religious fanatics and were open to negotiation.
I maintain that Iranian PM (I have a half Iranian friend who insist on calling everything Persian, kinda disorienting for someone born after the Iranian revolution) can say whatever the hell he wants. I care more about his actions. So I'm not very hung up on how he wants to threaten Israel (knowing that neither Iran nor Israel would go to war, it's mostly a gambit to shore up some credibility amongst the Gulf Arabs).
I'm much more concerned about their nuclear program and their activities in Iraq.
Peter P
2006 Sep 22, 5:12pm
Also, the bible does have dietary laws, which I know for a fact you violate. You may not eat pork, shellfish, fish without gills.
I know. :)
The private entities, that have the potential to bring great harm to society, through their failure in economies of scale, need to be regulated, for the greater good. It is not in their own financial interest to regulate themselves.
The collapse of financial institutions through their gambling ways, such as hedge funds, aka risk funds, and sub prime lenders, must not be allowed to bring undo burden upon societies in which they are permitted to operate, should their institution fail.
Some institutions are so large, and so vital to the health and well being of society, that they cannot be trusted completely with dispensing such services. Take the health care industry; 45 million Americans don't have reasonable access. This, in the so called greatest country in the world. Now what's that all about?
Yes, some institutions and industries are so large, that greed can run rampant, and bring down society at large, should they fail. And I for one should not be forced to pay the price for their failure.
ajh,
Thanks. I haven't read the comments at Ben Jones's site for a little while, but I know txchick57 by her wise and no nonsense comments. I would be seriously scared to get on her bad side.
If this guy's story checks out even in part, he is in so much trouble that I can't even begin to contemplate his options. Maybe skip country and spend the next 10 years teaching English in Kazakstan or join the US Army (to delay the foreclosures once he deploys). I hope for his poor wife's sake that she didn't co-sign anything.
Astrid said,
"txchick57 by her wise and no nonsense comments. I would be seriously scared to get on her bad side."
Agreed! Safer to cross the Taliban....
Here Here for the Housing Wizard!
More power to you! Anything above and beyond inflation plus a few bps. should be well justified. Want to pay even more? Pony up suckah.
I've been so busy switching arms to bang on my "no more get out of tax jail free card" drum I've lost sight of something that would in all likelihood eliminate the need for it altogether. I further agree that there was a time when the lending community did this out of self preservation.
Now that predatory lending has become the standard if they don't write the loan, someone else will. Great huh?
Mike/a.k.a Sage,
Randy H (back me up here o.k?)
We can attribute much of the incredible (and in many cases unwarranted) dollar flow into hedge funds to what *astrid very accurately describes as "yield starved investors".
Hell, I'm there. Because most of us here are still slugging it out in the trenches (I know I am) we don't often have the luxury of contemplating just how much critical mass is required to live off a 3% return.
Choices:
Continue working.
Hit the lotto.
Marry ridiculously wealthy widow.
Be willing to take inordinate amount of risk to get an extra 75 bps.
You pick.
SFGuy,
Yeah! The last 3 or 4 years really sucked. My boyfriend was/is in a position to buy a condo (which was what all his coworkers and some of his friends were doing) and leverage himself into a substantial paper gain.
Instead, he was rational and realized it was a better idea to keep a low overhead, pay down his loans, figure out his life and sock money into his retirement fund. It'll be a better world when folks like him are not penalized for their rationality and critical thinking abilities.
DinOR,
I'm interested in marrying a ridiculously wealthy widow. How can I make it happen for me?
Randy H
2006 Sep 23, 8:43am
DinOR
There's a lot of evidence building that all but a few select hedge funds either don't consistently beat the S&P, or have inordinate risk (lower sharpe ratios) for the return.
Unless you have $10M to get into Trafelet Delta or something like a BGI Macro, then you're probably not getting a great risk-return. In my own opinion, the credit swap arbs are disasters waiting to happen. And funds-of-funds are going to get regulated into sub-mutual fund returns territory within the coming couple years. You can get into some funds-of-funds with as little as $100K, and liberal interpretation of qualified investor rules. But, lots of funds-of-funds don't diversify away HF specific risk like promised. They (wittingly or unwittingly) amplify the risk.
And then there's the whole fact that too many HFs mimicking each others strategies is working to drive their returns back to mean. I call it the "spiders in the garage" phenomenon. Once there are too many, they just start eating each other and the problem solves itself.
Astrid said:
"I’m interested in marrying a ridiculously wealthy widow. How can I make it happen for me?"
Lick your eyebrows.......works for me!
"Lick your eyebrows…….works for me!"
Okay. As long as I don't have comb down my hair with my own saliva.
« First « Previous Comments 172 - 195 of 195 Search these comments
We've had numerous debates on this blog over the past year on what constitutes "appropriate" levels of government, uh, "involvement" in the RE market. Individual views run a wide gamut, but can be roughly categorized and described thusly:
1. Extreme (capital "L") Libertarianism/market-fundamentalism: basically hands-off/no government regulation of or involvement in capital/credit markets whatsoever. Critics have derided this as "cowboy"/robber-baron capitalism and point out that NO regulation of any kind is basically impossible, and leads to all sorts of socially (and economically) undesirable outcomes. Such as: formation of monopolies/cartels that engage in anti-competitive price-fixing (think OPEC/NAR), abusive labor practices (think child labor before the 1930s) and unrestrained/excessive pollution (think "Tragedy of the Commons" and pre-1970 air/water quality).
As a sub-prime lender, you loaned the money to Mr. F@cked Borrower, disclosing the minimum information required by law in the RESPA statements and fine print (where all the critical loan details were buried). If he didn't want to bother to take the time to read/question the paperwork or have a competent RE attorney review them on his behalf, then tough titties! You made out like a bandit and sold the loan (and risk) upstream to some sucker pension/hedge fund as a MBS. Too bad/so sad the MBS holders actually believed that "implicit taxpayer guarantee" when they bought your loan at an extremely low risk premium --caveat emptor!!
2. Limited government/minarchist (small "l") libertarianism: advocates the minimum level of government involvement necessary to limit socially undesirable outcomes resulting from completely unfettered capitalism (aka "externalities"/Tragedy of the Commons). Emphasizes practical, pragmatic, well considered forms of regulation that does not attempt to artificially fix the price of labor/commodities, engage in arbitrary subsidies favoring one asset class over another, and generally avoids what can be termed "social engineering" regulation. Favors developing solutions to socially undesirable "externalities" that the market itself appears incapable of solving with the least amount of government involvement/cost possible. Attempts to regulate in an "asset class neutral" manner (not to pick market "winners" and "losers"). A strong emphasis is placed on aligning risk and reward without dictating what specific levels of risk/reward are appropriate for the consumer/lender.
As a sub-prime lender, you loaned the money Mr. F@cked Borrower and took your (way above standard) fees and profits knowing that the borrower could not possibly repay the mortgage. You also buried all the critical details in the fine print, while glossing over/minimizing all this during your hard-ball sales pitch favoring the NAAVLP. Then you packaged the loan and (mis)represented it to investors as a supposedly "safe" MBS with a very low risk premium, all the while implying that the taxpayer was on the hook if it went bad. Tell me why YOU shouldn't eat the loan vs. the U.S. taxpayer? Oh, and by the way, where's Alan Greenspan, Franklin Raines and David Lereah hiding out these days? We're overdue for another "perp walk".
3. DS-style "Fabian socialism": government heavily regulates capital/credit markets and the means of production/distribution, and may even directly control/fix the prices of labor and commodities directly. Government itself may even be a producer and large-scale consumer of housing stock ("projects"/publicly subsidized housing). Generally regards consumers as too ignorant and/or weak to be able to choose for themselves; essentially views them as victims of capitalist hegemony/exploitation, to be rescued by a predominantly benevolent and wise powerful central government.
As a sub-prime lender (aka loan predator), you have already proven yourself a danger and menace to society. You are a disgusting profiteer and should be permanently barred from doing business --and should go to "re-education" camp. Our Wise and Benevolent Supreme Leader will provide Affordable Housing for all the Impoverished Masses. It will favor high density, discourage mobility/private transport, encourage spartan living and require massive taxation --all for the greater good, of course. Most of the largest contracts to build this Affordable Housing will be awarded to personal friends and family members of Dear Leader, of course (who will keep his lavish lakeside villa far outside the city). All hail Dear Leader! (*cue rousing patriotic socialist anthem*).
Which form of regulation do you prefer? Based on the descriptions above, which one do you think the author (your truly) prefers? :-) What would be "good" examples of housing/mortgage market regulation (if any)? What would be some especially "bad" examples?
Discuss, enjoy...
HARM
#housing