patrick.net

Payoff2011 says

Somebody please feel free to convince me that it is prudent for someone relying on pensions and investments to have a debt obligation that may outlive him.

A friend of mine is a loan officer at BofA. The other day she made a 30-yr amortizing loan to a gentleman in his 80ies.

What can she do?

A bank cannot discriminate based on age. "Fair Housing/ Equal Opportunity/ etc"

Katy, 125 amperes sounds excessive but I agree with the point you're making about many people not thinking about this stuff. When my future wife and I first moved in together in her apartment, we quickly discovered that the default 15 amps wasn't nearly enough; we couldn't run the lights, TV, fridge, and microwave at the same time and were always calculating how much power we were using. It was something right off the set of the "Apollo 13" movie!

Now we have 30 amperes (and the electric company is happy to adjust it upward if we ever need it), and no longer have any problems. Fifteen amps per occupant should be a good guideline. Otherwise the power cuts out and you're stuck fumbling in the dark for the circuit panel!

Katy Perry says

It’s Houses built with out rain gutters, electrical systems that are just enough power, 15 amps only to a unattached three car garage, are you kidding? , nope standard. out here in The IE of CA.
125 amp total for a 2600sq/ft house. WTF!
people don’t even look for this crap IMO.

That's because they like the dog & pony show, the pretty stuff and miss the "little things" like power supply, drainage, estimated heating/cooling costs, etc. My little place isn't fancy but it works just fine, even when it was 10 degrees below zero (yep, I meant that) my place only cost $140 in heating costs. It'll be less once I get the wood stove put in, hoping for next winter. My neighbor's house is $350/mo in the winter and it's the same size as mine. ugh.

thenuttyneutron says

No I have no idea what is the popular thing now is for a home.

in the deserts of southern utah, this is the classic "perfect" home. Even in the mountains, where it snows. One good solid storm and the flat roof is stuck with a couple of feet of snow, and it's damn hard to drive up the steep roads to the steeper driveways in order to get someone to shovel it for them. But they're pretty. One house near me has copper garage doors that cost well over ten grand.

Michinaga says

Now we have 30 amperes (and the electric company is happy to adjust it upward if we ever need it), and no longer have any problems. Fifteen amps per occupant should be a good guideline. Otherwise the power cuts out and you’re stuck fumbling in the dark for the circuit panel!

I don't think you have a full understanding of electricity. A typical lighting circuit is 15 amps, a Typical Kitchen / Washer circuit is 20 amps, (the washer and the refrigerator must be on there own separate 20 amp circuit) there is no such thing as a 30 Amp circuit to
"run the lights, TV, fridge, and microwave at the same time", if that's the case this isn't a legal setup. The problem with your "default 15 amps wasn’t nearly enough" was there was way too many things on the same circuit. I believe the code for a typical 15 amp lighting circuit is 10 outlets max (this includes fans and lights). I take it this was an older apartment / house, unless your Microwave and refrigerator was in your living room, there no way something new would pass inspection, and it if did, I'd complain, any electrical inspector that not of the take would fail this setup.

I'd I had the same problems with my first house, WAY too many things where on the same circuit, I ran some additional lines to the panel and broke the each circuit into 2 or 3 separate circuits. The problem with just replacing a 15 amp breaker with 30 amp breaker is the wiring isn't rated for that kind of load, the wires could get so hot that they metal the installation and cause a fire.

While a new construction house might short you on ceiling fans and some outlets in the garage, but they have to pass the minimum national electrical standards to get an electrical inspector to sign off on there permit. There has to be 1 outlet every 6 feet of wall space, the washer and Refrigerator must be on there own circuit, outlets within 6 feet of a water source must be GFI protected outlet (kitchen and bathrooms) the only exception is the refrigerator.

elliemae says

My little place isn’t fancy but it works just fine, even when it was 10 degrees below zero (yep, I meant that) my place only cost $140 in heating costs. It’ll be less once I get the wood stove put in, hoping for next winter. My neighbor’s house is $350/mo in the winter and it’s the same size as mine. ugh.

I had a similar situation, when I moved into my first house, I added a separate electrical circuit for my computer and I was shocked to find there was none, I mean ZERO installation in the exterior walls. That first winter was brutal, I could actually feel a breeze in the house when the wind blew against the house, not a draft, but a breeze. In the spring, I added foam installation inside all the exterior walls and replaced all the windows over the next few years. The heating bills dropped and comfortably increase dramatically. It could be as simple as lousy insulation for your neighbors house, a modest investment in insulation will pay off big. In my case i beleive I paid $3,000 to get the form insulation and each window cost $200 each (I replaced them myself), for a total of 7 windows.

pkennedy says

@TechGromit
Depends on what you consider imported energy. If you include Canada/Mexico as part of the US, which is fairly reasonable, then conserving energy could take us off imports. Imported oil accounts for about 30% of the oil used. 60% is US based. 15/15 comes from Mexico/Canada, with another 15/15 from Venezuela/Saudi Arabia, more or less. That doesn’t include imported natural gas and what not, which I believe mostly comes from Canada.
Bring up energy efficiency in cars, which is supposed to be up to 35mpg from like 25mpg now? And trucks are supposed to go from like 9 to 16 or thereabouts? That is a huge amount of savings right there.
That doesn’t take us off fossil fuels, just energy independence.

Turning off lights save electrical energy, the bulk of electricity comes for Natural Gas and Coal power plants, NOT from Oil. With the major increase in the Natural gas supply with new extraction methods, we have more than enough resources to keep the electrical grid powered for centuries. We might have to build additional power plants to keep up with demand, but electricity really isn't an issue.

The problem is 99.9% of automotive transportation uses oil, weather it's diesel or gas, there isn't enough supplies in the country to meet demand. Something like 65% or our oil needs are imported into into the United States every year. Unless we can switch at least 65% of them over to electric vehicles, we will not be off imported oil any time soon. I guess if we could improve all the vehicles fuel efficiency by 65% that would have the same results, but for a 35 MPG Honda your talking 23 MPG increase, and a fully loaded tractor trailer, which gets 6 MPG, would have to get 10 MPG. (actually refrigerated tractor trailers get as little as 1 MPG fully loaded) While we can push the limits of cars Fuel efficiency with Hybrid cars, 20% of the fuel consumed by vehicles in the country are large trucks and buses to transport
goods and people across the country and they only account for 4% of the total vehicles.

ptiemann, do you think that the $1m PA / Saratoga buyers will rent them out? Or remodel and sell? The latter seems better, since rent hasn't covered the mortgage in those areas for a very long time.

Michinaga says

now that I no longer have to waste money on rent!

How one's thinking change after becoming an owner.

Shrek's BS argument is utterly destroyed by the 8 countries with better CDS costs as us -- Norway, Finland, Sweden, the usual gang of high-tax high-service quasi-socialist states.

The kicker is that the more you TAX and spend, the healthier the economy is since taxes come out of rents and land values.

But the standard school of economics simply refuses to see this. The dogma is that taxes crowd out "private investment" without realizing that most of this investment is just rich people chasing the easy rents of real estate.

If there were any adults in charge, in 2009 they would have taken care of the deficit with a 10 year TAX rise plan that would have hit Clintonian rates in 2015 and then kept going into 2020 to start taking care of the SS shortfall and give new SS payees a lower retirement age.

Unfortunately the electorate is not savvy enough to elect honest operators, so we're going in the opposite direction.

I had Hope two years ago, now it's 100% dread. This country is going down and Bellingham might not be isolated enough. Then again if it gets Mad Max enough it might have an economy serving the masses trying to escape into Canada, just like Tijuana does today.

bubblesitter says

Michinaga says

now that I no longer have to waste money on rent!

How one’s thinking change after becoming an owner.

Well, buying a house for cash really IS removing rent from your outgo stream. You're replacing it with a (in theory) much smaller tax payment, as opposed to replacing it with a rental payment on the money PLUS a tax payment.

shrekgrinch says

The only thing that increases the debt is excessive spending.

Eh? So having less money coming in doesn't affect anything?... "Excessive spending" only exists in the context of not having the income to support it, so if you remove the income... ... Your arguments are all based in contextual maneuvering and half truths.

But why are you even bothering to argue this? You pretend that republican party cares about the deficit while they've shown time after time they don't. What they care about is funneling more money to the rich & to the corporations, and about dragging Obama down. Period.

Any discussion they have about taxes or rates or whatever is purely a tool in the service of that. Like your arguments: If Obama increases taxes he's a liar and a failure. If he lowers them he's caving in to republicans and is a failure.

Contextual maneuvering and half truths...

EastCoastBubbleBoy says

The irony is, it may take 30 years to save up enough to buy in cash

when you finance (30 year @5%-6%) you buy the house nearly twice. In cash you only buy it once. try to explain away that fact.
most Morgage holders like to sweep this one under the rug.

sfbubblebuyer says

bubblesitter says

Michinaga says

now that I no longer have to waste money on rent!

How one’s thinking change after becoming an owner.

Well, buying a house for cash really IS removing rent from your outgo stream. You’re replacing it with a (in theory) much smaller tax payment, as opposed to replacing it with a rental payment on the money PLUS a tax payment.

Got it. Somehow I missed the cash purchase part. I am all for a cash only purchase.

Sometimes I wonder. Do the Dems and Reps get off work at 5pm on Friday, and all go have happy hour? Is their whole job just a show to the Americans? To make it seem like there is a fight between the two parties? That way, no matter what direction the country goes, there is always a scapegoat? You blame a party, and not anyone in specific usually. What employer would put 2 rival groups in the same building, and not worry about employee safety?

Are they are good videos of these ICF and/or Dome homes? I'm curious about them. Something a bit more personal than the promo videos on the monolithic site.

Zlxr says

I think it would be nice if someone set up a test house unit with a lights, TV, a dishwasher, Computer gaming unit and a refrigerator and a toaster oven —– ALL powered by Pedal Power (someone riding an exercycle of sorts). There would need to be a gauge of some sort - but I think we would get a better idea of how much energy is needed if we had to ride a bicycle and then see how long any of the appliances would run. It would be really obvious really quick when the lights go out.

You would need to ride this bike a lot, and invite a few friends over to ride the bike as well, like when you are sleeping or too tired to ride. Maybe you could ride enough to power your TV, but not much else (and it would ahev to be a TV that does not use a lot of electricity).

shrekgrinch says

Troy says

The kicker is that the more you TAX and spend, the healthier the economy is since taxes come out of rents and land values.

No. Not unless you were taxing at the source of where the land values where, as in the LTV. But taxing entrepreneurs and those who finance them isn’t. The latter is also patently stupid.

Actually I'm talking about high taxes across the board, not just on the Galts that are beneficiently gracing us with their high-powered labors.

"Taxing Entrepreneurs" is just codetalk among the right.

I believe in rolling everyone's true cost of government services into their taxes. 15% to mandated social retirement plans that "can't" be defaulted on by some corrupt BOD. 15% to universal health care. 30% to running the rest of the government.

This would all come out of rents and land values in the end and we'd have a functioning society like what the high-tax high-service nations of Canada, Scandinavia, and Germany enjoy.

whether Obama is a failure because he caved to Republicans-who-don’t-even-have-the-power-yet

The Republicans have had the power to block bills in the Senate for about a year now. This was last demonstrated on Saturday. This is reality that Obama is acknowledging and that the House Dems are not, yet.

burritos says

Can you redo this calculation with depreciation?

What do you mean by "depreciation?"...do you mean taking the landlord tax deductions for depreciation into account? Like I said, let's keep it simple (too many variables involved there, since the deductions favor those who are in a higher income tax bracket more than those in the lower brackets). I just wanted to show Katy Perry why it's not in a landlord's favor to pay cash for a rental instead of financing, especially with historically low 6% rates.

Or you do mean "deflation"...where rents would decrease? To that, I say, not possible over 30 years...never ever have we had deflation over 30 years, but we have had inflation, as shown by the handy inflation calculator at http://www.westegg.com/inflation/ :

What cost $1400 in 1979 would cost $4083.69 in 2009.
Also, if you were to buy exactly the same products in 2009 and 1979,
they would cost you $1400 and $428.73 respectively.

or another 30 year period:

What cost $1400 in 1949 would cost $4273.23 in 1979.
Also, if you were to buy exactly the same products in 1979 and 1949,
they would cost you $1400 and $516.58 respectively.

As you can see, rent that costs $1,400 today will more than likely increase in the next 30 years, like it has in any 30 year period before us. Your fixed 30 year mortgage won't increase & thanks to prop 13 in California, you in effect have tax control, which will limit your property taxes from increasing no more than 2% per year.

Mark_LA says

As you can see, rent that costs $1,400 today will more than likely increase in the next 30 years, like it has in any 30 year period before us. Your fixed 30 year mortgage won’t increase & thanks to prop 13 in California, you in effect have tax control, which will limit your property taxes from increasing no more than 2% per year.

so that's why we think it's better to buy the house twice over 30yrs , then save and buy it once in 5-10yrs. (yes you have to live in a shoebox I get it)

Or do what my single 40 yr old friends do and spilt the $1800 rent on a 4/3 in Riverside four ways. thats $450 a month each. save the rest and buy once, when cash is really king (five years from now IMO)

don't have the cash don't buy,.we are heading this way anyways IMO.

Katy Perry says

don’t have the cash don’t buy,.we are heading this way anyways IMO.

This thread is dealing with landlords making a rental purchase, not for invididual homeowners, where the calculations would be different, but would still favor financing, as long as you invest the rest of the money elsewhere, such as rental real-estate.

Your advice to buy in cash isn't good when fixed 30 year mortgage rates are at historically low rates . For one, you're not letting the bank assume all inflation risk for you when you do that.

If inflation is rampant like it was during many past periods in our history, you don't "pay twice" as you mistakenly believe...you pay a lot less than you borrowed over 30 years in real, inflation-adjusted dollars.

In addition, you can invest the other 80% that you didn't put into your personal home purchase and make a large profit by purchasing rentals as I detailed above. Sure, put 20% down on your home, but not 100%, that makes no financial sense when fixed interest rates are below 6%.

theoakman says

Currently, I’m betting on bottoms in Natural Gas and The Nikkei. I think the big home run in the future will be to find a way to play the slaughtering that’s ahead for all these bond funds.

What are you doing to invest in natural gas, if you don't mind?

E-man says

Or do what my single 40 yr old friends do and spilt the $1800 rent on a 4/3 in Riverside four ways. thats $450 a month each. save the rest and buy once, when cash is really king (five years from now IMO)
Katy, you’re too practical. Most people don’t want to make this short-term sacrifice for long-term gain. That’s the problem

Thanks E-man! nicest thing i've ever heard.
but try and keep the Va jay jay happy with my plan. not going to happen in So Cal.

ch_tah says

theoakman says

Currently, I’m betting on bottoms in Natural Gas and The Nikkei. I think the big home run in the future will be to find a way to play the slaughtering that’s ahead for all these bond funds.

What are you doing to invest in natural gas, if you don’t mind?

FCG ETF I don't really have much time to investigate specific companies right now, so I just play the ETF. It's a pretty decent representation of the market. I consider it a small side bet. 75% of my money is sitting in physical gold/silver and mining stocks.

Mark_LA says

burritos says

Can you redo this calculation with depreciation?

What do you mean by “depreciation?”…do you mean taking the landlord tax deductions for depreciation into account? Like I said, let’s keep it simple (too many variables involved there, since the deductions favor those who are in a higher income tax bracket more than those in the lower brackets). I just wanted to show Katy Perry why it’s not in a landlord’s favor to pay cash for a rental instead of financing, especially with historically low 6% rates.
Or you do mean “deflation”…where rents would decrease? To that, I say, not possible over 30 years…never ever have we had deflation over 30 years, but we have had inflation, as shown by the handy inflation calculator at http://www.westegg.com/inflation/ :

What cost $1400 in 1979 would cost $4083.69 in 2009.
Also, if you were to buy exactly the same products in 2009 and 1979,
they would cost you $1400 and $428.73 respectively.

or another 30 year period:

What cost $1400 in 1949 would cost $4273.23 in 1979.
Also, if you were to buy exactly the same products in 1979 and 1949,
they would cost you $1400 and $516.58 respectively.

As you can see, rent that costs $1,400 today will more than likely increase in the next 30 years, like it has in any 30 year period before us. Your fixed 30 year mortgage won’t increase & thanks to prop 13 in California, you in effect have tax control, which will limit your property taxes from increasing no more than 2% per year.

I meant depreciation, the landlord tax of deducting 1/27.5 off the structure of the property. I know you want to keep it simple, but it's a significant amount. From what I understand if you can have one property paid off, but if you have enough other leveraged properties, you can deduct enough depreciation to offset the income from the fully paid property.

@TechGromit
I still stay that 70% of oil comes from North America. That leaves a 30% gap to close up.

While trucks might consume 20% of the oil, and products consume some large portion as well, car efficiency can provide fairly large savings. Making decent sized jumps in efficiency with cars will definitely bring that number down.

Trucks have made some headway towards energy savings as well. Intercity trucking is being viewed as a good place to put out electric fleets. Fedex was looking at it. Large trucks now have secondary generators on board to keep truckers from idling their trucks over night. Those wind breakers ontop of trucks that were introduced 15 years ago or so are supposed to have 10% gas savings. It's out there, they'll find some creative ways of fixing it up.

Burritos is correct that in real estate investing, the best measure of performance is Funds from Operations, which is basically adding non-cash expense like depreciation to get the cash yield.

Katy Perry says

EastCoastBubbleBoy says

The irony is, it may take 30 years to save up enough to buy in cash

when you finance (30 year @5%-6%) you buy the house nearly twice. In cash you only buy it once. try to explain away that fact.
most Morgage holders like to sweep this one under the rug.

Katy, the one key thing you don't understand is financing a home with a mortgage is by far the cheapest way to get financing. This is boosted by that the interest is deductable as well, which may reduce after tax yield to 3-4%. There is no chance in heck you will find anyone will lend to you at that rate long term. Freeing up the $$ may offer bigger opportunity elsewhere. In fact, in other posts, a lot of folks are getting 10-20% cash yield on the recent purchase. Does it stand to reason that if I pay the bank 5-6% but keep the $$ to make 10-20% annually, my net worth is better off in 30 years?

E-man says

Katy Perry says

Or do what my single 40 yr old friends do and spilt the $1800 rent on a 4/3 in Riverside four ways. thats $450 a month each. save the rest and buy once, when cash is really king (five years from now IMO)

Katy, you’re too practical. Most people don’t want to make this short-term sacrifice for long-term gain. That’s the problem.

I lived like that in college!

Given that your friends are 40 yrs old doing this tells me they're slackers and will never, ever save money to pay cash for any home, unless it's a mobile home. They'll just use the low $450 monthly rent payment as an excuse to work less, have less ambition, less stress, like most hippies love to do. Either that or they'll spend more on bar tabs or useless junk.

The most important thing I learned from my human resources class in school: The best predictor of future behavior is past behavior.

I am starting to wonder if alternative energy for transportation is going to come in the form of a cart pulled by a mule.

Those carts require a hell of a lot of work to make them go anywhere. Forget about speed. Just making them go takes up a lot of time and energy! I've seen owners going at them trying to make them move.

burritos says

I meant depreciation, the landlord tax of deducting 1/27.5 off the structure of the property. I know you want to keep it simple, but it’s a significant amount. From what I understand if you can have one property paid off, but if you have enough other leveraged properties, you can deduct enough depreciation to offset the income from the fully paid property.

Like I said, there's too many variables involved and the savings from depreciation will be wildly different from one income level to another.

The best advice I can give you is to purchase Turbotax to easily run all these scenarios, perfectly tailored to your personal situation. It's ridiculously simple to use, yet extremely powerful. You can fill in all your tax information as if you're ready to file your return. When you're done, then you can go back and plug in details from your rental properties and instantly see your tax payment/refund adjust in real-time.

Eventhough I still have my CPA review my personal 1040 tax return since he files my corporation 1020 taxes, I always prepare them myself in Turbotax. Doing so automatically teaches me invaluable lessons on how to save on income taxes in future years since it teaches me the mechanics of it all.

The nice thing is that if in June or September I have "what if" type questions regarding taxes, I just open my previous year's Turbotax file, "Save As" a new scenario name and plug in the new variables I'm playing with in my head to see quick real-time results.

One more thing...I've always used the desktop version of Turbotax...I don't know if the online version would allow you to go back several months later and plug in different scenarios.

TechGromit, I guarantee you that 30 amperes is the current in my apartment now:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/49793436@N06/5248092531/

> I believe the code for a typical 15 amp lighting circuit is 10 outlets max (this includes fans and lights).

This sounds about right. Our old place had (I think) 6 or 8 outlets (3 or 4 pairs), and now we have... let me count... 2 in the kitchen (fridge and microwave), 4 in the living room (2x2; both have surge protectors on them and I wish we had 2 more there), 2 near the toilet, and 2 near the shower. I might be missing one somewhere; maybe the total is 14 or 16.

Our old TV gobbled up something like 600 watts of power (much more than the flat screen we have now), and so did the microwave, so if the refrigerator started to run, that was where we ran out.

Voltage x current (amperes) = power (watts), so 110 volts and 15 amperes means we could only be consuming 1.65 kW at any given time. Am I doing it wrong? (Probably. ^_^)

In that apartment we typically consumed about 70 kWh in a given month; now we use 80-120; more when we turn out our heater in the winter, which is electric and requires 400-800 watts all by itself. Electricity costs 23 yen (26¢) per kWh here, so it is not to be consumed recklessly.

At one outlet for every 6 feet of wall space, do inner walls count, or only exterior ones? If not, we're easily in the clear now (14 outlets in an apartment of 20 feet on a side, or 80 feet around). I suspect you're vastly overestimating the size of an urban apartment. This isn't a 2000-sf house!

Mark_LA says

never ever have we had deflation over 30 years

What cost $1 in 1870 would cost $0.66 in 1900.

Granted, that was pre-Fed and while we were on the gold standard.

shrekgrinch says

See above.

haha, honestly: No offense to the people who do, but I don't see why anyone here even bothers to continue to argue with you. Its a wash. Please start writing your arguments in ALL CAPS, it would be more 'in character'.

shrekgrinch says

You just won’t get the revenue you think you will by raising income taxes on the top 10% or even top 20%, period.

I will add that under Eisenhower the tax rate on the top earners was something like 90 percent (more diligent folks can look the exact numbers up) and the economy was doing great.

So... ?

oh, and I will also add:

you dumbtarded!

Your chosen party is stripping the country dry and you argue technicalities. Rock on Shrekgrinch, army of one, rock on.

Troy says

whether Obama is a failure because he caved to Republicans-who-don’t-even-have-the-power-yet

The Republicans have had the power to block bills in the Senate for about a year now. This was last demonstrated on Saturday. This is reality that Obama is acknowledging and that the House Dems are not, yet.

One more note on my part...

This is all is assuming that Barack Obama and his cabinet's values are based on those of 'typical democrats' (as viewed from the Republican point of view)...

But based on his actions and his cabinet structure Obama is simply representing the wealthy, his donors, according to the US system, no more no less.

Which is of course what the republicans are doing...

So really, "its" no longer a Republican vs. Democratic party issue, its an "America" vs. 'wealthy donors' (the Bankers) issue.

So get educated and drop your party affiliations. Your quality of life is going down while theirs is going up. We argue technicalities while they build walls.

Troy says

never ever have we had deflation over 30 years

Never say never.

If the unemployment reaches 20%, we might.

kentm says

This is all is assuming that Barack Obama and his cabinet’s values are based on those of ‘typical democrats’ (as viewed from the Republican point of view)…

Neither Pelosi or Reid had the whip counts to pass the bills to meet Obama's campaign pledges wrt the 98% and the 2% (former keeping the 2001/2003 tax cuts and the latter losing).

The blue dog dems did not want to be attacked as tax raisers this cycle. They lost anyway.

I don't know what Obama's game is but so far I think he's simply doing the best he can in a very difficult political/media environment.

The S&P 500 is up 50% since the day of his inauguration but half the country believes he's a closet marxist.

One of his bigger mistakes was appointing the deficit commission last Feb. I think he got blindsided by that in a couple of ways, not seeing that it would go rogue, and having the "Summer of Recovery" go MIA. I also think the appropriate people have been fired over this.

IMO2, Obama has had to play a very cautious public image game of being the moderate, due to the general history of black American politics of resentment and strife.

Oddly enough, while he is certainly African-American, he, unlike the First Lady, is not really Black American, though he's shared some of that experience.

So going out on the all-out attack would leave him vulnerable to smears like Howard Dean got, but worse given the racist angles involved.

So get educated and drop your party affiliations.

I see it as a conservative/moderate/liberal split more than a Party split, yes.

The Dems lost a lot of conservatives this go around and they will lose more in 2 years.

AFAICT the Dems are 30% liberal/ 40% moderate / 30% conservative, while the Republicans are 5% moderate / 75% conservative / 20% insane.

I don't think the people are ready to return 80% Senate majorities that FDR enjoyed in 1936 or the 66 seat majority LBJ enjoyed in 1964.

There's going to have to be a lot more pain distributed.

FWIW, I see strong parallels between Obama and Jerry Brown. Both run on the Hope thing but both are also hard-core realists.

The ugly truth is that we are a very, very stupid people. We blame the banks but it was we who borrowed all that money we can't pay back, and it was we who voted in spendthrift politicians and the whole neocon BS.

Troy says

never ever have we had deflation over 30 years

I sure *hope* we have deflation over 30 years. I'd prefer sound money, but if the government can somehow manage to keep prices either stable or decreasing, they've got my vote no matter which party is in power. Money that retains its value once was, and should now be, a basic human right.