patrick.net

Perfect setting for the next Dawn of the Dead movie.

The real issue is that people, even the sheeple, are processing what is going on. Maybe not on a high level, but nonetheless they are noticing troubling disconnects, and are getting ready to stampede.

No, it's all caused by higher taxes - a big misunderstanding. A Walmart spokesman said so.

HydroCabron says

No, it's all caused by higher taxes - a big misunderstanding. A Walmart spokesman said so.

have food stamp recipients experienced a tax hike?

toothfairy says

What happened did he walk away from his house?

No, we didn't, we are in the process of refurbishing the house.

It was a fixer we maxed out, and yes, we had the option of walking away, to capture the price appreciation.

We are now in an appreciating market place of a good location.

It's just funny how things work out.

Does the Walmart near you guys have fresh produce and other perishable foods on sale?

also to attain spiritual purity, never allow a woman who has had an abortion to prepare your food.

SubOink says

I don't need to sell it to gain from that. Heard of HELOC's etc??

Yeah, I have, as Bob continually points out. We're in the process of negotiating ours away.

Real Estate is a long term hold that has depended on appreciation in the past. Price spikes don't translate into appreciation unless they hold. Some will, many won't.

We've been in the fixer business for my entire career. We are Real Estate rich, and cash poor.

I personally want to get rid of my Real Estate, and have since 2006. My partners are harder to convince.

In the past, if we needed money, we would go to the auction, or contact auction pickers, buy a place, fix it, and sell it. Some times we would partner with the picker, the person who bought at auction.

My wife started us in the cleaning business, because we already had move out cleaners.

In four short years the cleaning business was generating more cash that the fixer business. Even though the fixer business gave us big chunks of money, the cleaning business is slow, and steady.

The IRS troubles we have are due to the labyrinth of IRS codes concerning Real Estate. The cleaning business is simple accounting.

Having a few dollars of equity in a property doesn't reflect the over all economy, or global economy. The bears have been calling this correctly for the past five years, yet people here point to the nickels, and dimes they have in new found Real Estate equity.

If you look at the whole farce objectively, yeah, you bought a house, yeah you'll HELOC at historically low rates, and yeah, you'll be paying the bank rent for at least 15 years with very little appreciating value.

Bob, I have more money than I can spend in my life time, so don't you worry about me.
Thanks

New Renter says

I have a better solution - DON'T set up a system which requires infinite expansion to function.

My point exactly. Any system that relies upon infinite expansion is, by definition, a Ponzi Scheme and is mathematically doomed to failure.

If things get too overpriced, you may see an organized rent strike or rent control on ballots...that is how it happened in SF, ridiculous increases in rent and voila! A ballot measure to control rent and it passes overwhelmingly.....so Wall Street, do not get too greedy....oops....too late!!

And of course this analysis brought to you by your good friends at Goldman Sachs ...ta da!!

Princess, having female child(ren) and other females whom I care very deeply for, I consider myself a feminist.

Why do you have "Larkspur" on your handle? You just want everyone to know, right, that you're domiciled in Larkspur. Like that's supposed to augment your point?

Well it does, but not in the way you may think it does, Princess.

Oh gawd The American Taliban is back. There goes another thread.

B.A.C.A.H. says

Oh gawd The American Taliban is back. There goes another thread.

it's quite obvious who is the intolerant party here.

MershedPerturders says

Personally I absolutely refuse to have anything to do with a woman who has had
an abortion

Wow, my filters must work the opposite way. There is no good or glory in propogating the genes of an unfit man if birth control failed. Not every zygote should be carried to term. What moral standard finds good in inflicting decades and six figures of burden for one night's poor judgement?

I'm willing to bet you would be every bit as quick to reject a single mother as a partner, anyway. Scratch the surface of most anti-abortion and anti-welfare blowhards, and you will find a lowly hypocrite.

abortion is killing children. There is nothing trivial about it.

women who have done this are spiritually filthy in the extreme. I don't allow them anywhere near me if I can help it. My life improved considerably once I adopted this policy.

rooemoore says

You said that all women in a contested divorce never take responsibility for anything - that they all felt they were victims. That is an untrue generalization.

Without scientific proof or disproof, in your experience with divorced female acquaintances, how many admitted to somewhere >= 50% fault for the divorce? In my experience 9 out of 10 will say it was entirely the guy's fault, and one will settle for 25%-50% at best. The weird thing is when you hear them talking about their ex-husbands you cannot help but wonder how they could marry someone like that in the first place if everything they claimed were true.

David Losh says

We are Real Estate rich, and cash poor.

David Losh says

Bob, I have more money than I can spend in my life time, so don't you worry about me.

Somehow those two statements don't quite add up...

tatupu70 says

David Losh says

We are Real Estate rich, and cash poor.

David Losh says

Bob, I have more money than I can spend in my life time, so don't you worry about me.

Somehow those two statements don't quite add up...

Oops.

I dated some of the divorcees and when the topic about a more serious relationship came up and I stated that I don't intend to get married. After the initial outrage they really wanted to know why and I just told them that if we were ever to break up/divorce after having invested quite a lot I would never want my ex talking about me to others like that. While I really don't care that much about what others think & say I was surprised every-time that this answer quickly - more or less amicably - ended what would have otherwise been a drawn out and nasty discussion, and the evening was saved ;)

Reality says

There is not a rational basis to explain what a woman (or sometimes a man) does often times.

People are totally irrational! I get what you're saying, people are going to make a slew of essentially bad decisions and in the end, there's a baby to care for. And who is responsible for the baby? Both the man and the woman contributed to its existence so they should both be responsible for (at least) paying for it.

So I guess you could look at it as who is getting more punished by the the laws for their bad decision. (which for the record, I have kids and to me, they were fantastic decisions) The man had sex without a condom or with a faulty condom. The woman was not on any of the many kinds of birth control, didn't know her own cycle, didn't make the man use a (or had a faulty) condom and didn't use the morning after pill.

And those are just before conception. Afterwards, she still has more choices of which the man has none.

On this basis alone, given all of her choices, if she wants the baby then she should join into a union with the man or let him off the hook. At least she would not be duped by a man who says he will be there but isn't willing to sign the 'baby contract.'

As for the baby, we have a lot of social and government programs in place for poor children. I don't even see the connection that there would be MORE burden on these programs if men were no longer forced into child support. Many women poor enough to fit into this category procreate with poor men.

Dan8267 says

Any system that relies upon infinite expansion is, by definition, a Ponzi Scheme and is mathematically doomed to failure.

Welcome to human civilization.

There is so much money getting remitted from India alone, that they had to drop the remittance limit from 200K to 75K.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-08-16/indian-rupee-drops-to-record-after-currency-measures-bonds-fall.html

more would be coming , As everyone I know who bought in Bangalore , Mumbai, Delhi have made their investments 5x, 7x. All that money is going to be wired to buy properties in Bay Area .

David Losh says

Real Estate is a long term hold that has depended on appreciation in the past. Price spikes don't translate into appreciation unless they hold. Some will, many won't.

For me, Real Estate is the place where I live.

Let me get this straight...

It's 2009 and "A" predicts that prices will go up from here. "B" predicts that prices will further crash...possibly to 1975 levels.

3 years later, prices have continuously been going up and "A" says...I guess I was right with my prediction...and "B" says..no, because the crash is still coming. Real estate is a long term hold...blabla..

Do you see whats wrong with that argument?

So at what point would you say...shoot, I had it all wrong, even though it makes no sense to me..."A" was right with his bullish prediction. I be damned!

Here is what I think...even if prices were to continuously go up for another 8 years...you would still claim to be right because...hey, the crash is still coming...just wait.

Sorry D...but it doesn't work like that. As of right now, the bulls were right from 2009 on. As of today. Period! No question, wether you like it or not. If prices are starting to head downward by the end of next year you could claim that...hey, I was wrong about 2009-2013 but now I got the direction right again as we are headed downward for 12 months in a row now.

But before you claim being right...you actually have to have CURRENT data to support it not possible outcomes from the future unless you have a timemachine and traveled to 2017 and came back. Until then - bears got it right from 2003-2008, bulls got it right from 2009-present !

rooemoore says

As for women be discriminated against - please notice that I said that they "were" discriminated against.

I call balderdash! Were they discriminated "against" on the Titanic? How about in selective service? If traditional life was so bad for women in the past, why do they all say they're "traditional" when they want men as 1950's breadwinners? Why do men read science fiction while women read historical fantasy and dream of being princesses and rich women with female servants?

Of course, this illustrates that the average woman wasn't privileged but neither was the average man that worked himself to death to support his woman and children.

rooemoore says

Today in advanced cultures, women are quickly gaining on men in the domain of wealth creation.

Hahahaha! Yeah, look at the great economy that these women are producing and the rising standards of living, "diversity" of people getting along with each other, etc. Yeah, everyone wants to live in Oakland because that's where there is the highest concentration of Democrat voters and unwed mother matriarchs!

Oh, wait...

Women entrepreneurs? "women owned" businesses are usually fronts much like "gentile" owned businesses in central Europe run by Jews with a gentile as a front. Men still dominate in patents. Due to affirmative action and quotas, calling women legitimate entrepreneurs as a group would be like handing Armstrong steroids and calling him the greatest bicyclist of all time.

In the meantime, the costs to society of false equality for women has been massive. Imagine if all the money that went for welfare crack babies and their criminal activities instead went into the space program. We'd have starbucks on the moon by now.

PolishKnight says

It's truly astounding how most of them still think they are entitled to 1950's breadwinning men and also handsome men at that when they are bottom feeders themselves. And they don't get any younger as time goes on.

If men are so smart, these women will remain single.

Pretty women in every single country wouldn't fit your definition of a good wife. Hey, I guess that old song is true...

jessica says

The entire world speaks poorly of Americans period.

Yet... so many of them want to live here. Even as the recent flood of undocumented immigrants come from countries that despise the USA, they clearly don't want to go back there. Until at least enough of them move here that the USA sucks as much as where they left.

In addition, even as it's claimed the USA doesn't make anything anymore, the rest of the world types on operating systems and programs written and designed in the states (the outsourced stuff is junk and usually rewritten). The drugs they use, again, are designed in the states and manufactured by American companies. You can find American labeled products almost everywhere. If you're eating something and don't want poison baby food, dog food, or lead-coated baby bottles and cups, you buy it from America or Europe.

In the meantime, Europeans often hate America because America represents opposition to the socialist utopian paradise that's collapsing economically and culturally. They have their own versions of Detroit.

jessica says

Pretty women in every single country wouldn't fit your definition of a good wife. Hey, I guess that old song is true...

I LOVE that song! It's great at weddings.

http://www.youtube.com/embed/9NF5XU-k2Vk

mell says

The weird thing is when you hear them talking about their ex-husbands you cannot help but wonder how they could marry someone like that in the first place if everything they claimed were true.

When I look back at the girls I broke up with, I try to be as rational about it as possible. Namely, what was the deal breaker? I don't say that they were evil, terrible women but rather a simple statement of what I couldn't live with. Literally. Before I left, I gave them a good shot at working things out. It wasn't just a litany of nags about "you're bad at 100 different things so fix them! Good luck!" Nope, I simply said that these were my non-negotiables and they had to meet them. It made the right woman in my life very happy to know she could satisfy me and also what she could ask of me and I could give her rather than playing a game of "I'm right, you're wrong" and 20 questions.

PolishKnight says

In articles about such women, they lament about how jealous they are of their divorced friends with "child" support.

I totally read that article. They also talk about not having help and how lonely it is. It's not just about money to them. If the women you speak of turn into these women, well that's a wash. They didn't trick anyone into paying for their fetuses.

PolishKnight says

Nope, I simply said that these were my non-negotiables and they had to meet them.

Funny, I do the exact same thing. They are only a few non-negotiables, but it's a good way to deal with relationship problems. Stay clam, no anger, but you have to be fully prepared to walk away, reasoning that things simply didn't work out, without assigning blame. Be aware that even walking away calmly may be held against you, but it's still superior to anything else because it is an honest approach. Of course this is much easier if you aren't married (bc of the screwed up laws) and that's the sole reason that more and more men are dragging their feet, it's the only way to keep the playing field fair and leveled ;)

mell says

but you have to be fully prepared to walk away, reasoning that things simply didn't work out, without assigning blame.

For me, in marriage (10 years now), it meant focusing upon the things that mattered. My wife just did something that drove me nuts last week. She's been doing it for a while. I went to work and calmed down and over lunch thought to myself: What IS the reason I'm going nuts over this? What is it EXACTLY that I think is unfair? What can she do, simply, to make things easier for me. I gave it to her like that and worked something out. She also was relieved to find a mutually beneficial solution.

She also appreciates that I have a rational way of working things out and she's pretty reasonable by feminine standards. She simply gripes and whines. About EVERYTHING. She acknowledges that she'd drive other men insane. She also knows that I keep her steady.

I laugh at how aging women who become unwed mothers claim it's because they didn't want to "take care of a man". But a CHILD is easier?!?! Us men are cake. A little sex, some backscratches, maybe TV time and we're good. Right guys? And we bring home money and do stuff around the house (not that we get credit for it in the media. Those cars just maintain themselves...) So the "smart" "modern family" women wind up with a sperm bank baby and it doesn't always say what she wants it to. Good luck with that. Turn on Jerry Springer and listen for the phrase "I do what I want!"

Carolyn C says

I think that these women from Asia are not as great as they are made out to be. They see foreign men as a meal ticket and are willing to do ANYTHING for it. Once they have seen the wealth America has to offer, they are reveled for the gold diggers men so despise. That too is a generalization about some of these women. I prefer people who value people rather than things. Those type are found in all cultures.

Though it is true that Feminism has distorted women's thinking, men have dominated women to their injury. And the pendulum keeps swinging, as an instructor use to say.

As someone with contacts in the above community, I agree. Many are golddiggers and not all are perfect wives. This is no excuse for a man to slack off and live up to the stereotype of a man who is lousy and thinks he "bought" a woman. Their city women or golddiggers are easy to spot for a trained eye though just as New York City women are largely worthless.

But I firmly disagree with your latter statement. Feminism is an EXTENSION of hyper chivalry and not a rebellion against it. Most women don't say they want 1950's breadwinners because women were oppressed by such men. In the west, chivalry treated women by putting them on a pedestal. Feminism then extended it by making them victims similar to a spoiled rich girl hating daddy because he doesn't give her enough stuff. "I want an oompa loompa NOW!!!"

They want REAL equality? Well, look at the inner cities and take away welfare and see how those women and their offspring would do.

jessica says

As for the baby, we have a lot of social and government programs in place for poor children. I don't even see the connection that there would be MORE burden on these programs if men were no longer forced into child support. Many women poor enough to fit into this category procreate with poor men.

Which goes against your logic that letting men off the hook would further burden the programs. Either way, women are having babies one way or another simply because as long as they can exploit children for profit, it's not going to change. It's like if you tried to neuter 50% of the male stray cats in your neighborhood. It would have zero effect upon the stray cat population. (But at least stray cats are largely a net benefit to a neighborhood by ridding it of rats. So apologies to the cats.)

The ugly conundrum is this: If the state assumes responsibility for poor children in women's care, then there is no motivation for women to not breed them. The state is her baby daddy. The only solution is to either A) take the kid away or B) sterilization. In principle, many can agree with B but because of the abuses of the state (not only in Germany in the 1940's but also look at how the NSA is violating our privacy, etc.) it is incredibly risky. But we need to have that dialogue.

In the past, the solution was simple: Either a woman married and has a provider and he works his butt off or the kid dies. Nice and simple. It was cruel but it worked and society didn't get their hands into it and also didn't regulate people's choices.

PolishKnight says

Which goes against your logic that letting men off the hook would further burden the programs. Either way, women are having babies one way or another simply because as long as they can exploit children for profit, it's not going to change.

Is that a typo? That's not my logic. I think that letting men off the hook would probably reduce the burden because it would force women to make the decision based on their own financial ability and not some perceived future which may or may not be real. And for inner city, poor women---they are usually procreating with their male counterparts who will just dodge child support anyways or make so little it doesn't matter.

So you're going down a whole other road on whether poor people should procreate.....

And I don't like kids dying so I'm willing to pay for them as a taxpayer.

Sooner or later the bond market will put an end to that crap, hopefully sooner ;) Watch the 10-year rise..

jessica says

Is that a typo? That's not my logic. I think that letting men off the hook would probably reduce the burden because it would force women to make the decision based on their own financial ability and not some perceived future which may or may not be real. And for inner city, poor women---they are usually procreating with their male counterparts who will just dodge child support anyways or make so little it doesn't matter.

So you're going down a whole other road on whether poor people should procreate.....

And I don't like kids dying so I'm willing to pay for them as a taxpayer.

It's a typo in that I screwed up. I didn't see the NOT. My bad.

OK, this gets back to the safety net problem: If you provide people with a safety net, will they stop being so careful? There's an old joke that if you wanted to reduce fatalities, put spikes in steering wheel columns and people might think twice about speeding. That was certainly the case with those classic Jetsons cars of the 50's. Didn't work. :-) But certainly the safety net not only encourages the lower classes to breed in the states but also to import them from elsewhere.

In regards to this discussion, why is the USA women situation worse than Europe? Answer: Immigration and race. Europe is full of Europeans who didn't aspire to the lowest common denominator. Most of their poor preferred to work their way up if possible. In the states, an immigrant who goes on welfare has won the lottery because they'd have to work 100 hours a week for that lifestyle in their home country.

But here's the thing: My friends say that the USA is just ahead (in the wrong way). Europe is following us off the cliff.

I say, put the kids in an orphanage and tell them they won't have daycare problems because the same folks who do such a great job at public schools will be raising them. Then... give them 2 years to get their GED or other certificate and get a decent job if they want the kids back. That's it. Done. If they still don't have their act together? They pick lettuce or grapes on a farm or help build and man the wall between the USA and Mexico.

I haven't gone through all the comments so I'll ask: Has anyone observed that the USA has a hard on (in a bad way) for white males in general? It's the main reason I and most other white males have flown the Democrat party but, sadly, even Republicans don't seem to care about us so much.

Aside from bashing white guys as the source of the world's evil (like the Bloody Romans, what have white males ever done for us other than the electricity, planes, computers and democracy?), Democrats have hopped into bed with oligarchs and bankers and other crony capitalists. It's the party of Detroit.

Now before everyone thinks I'm a shill for the right, as I said, the Republicans are really not doing much better. They don't seeth with hatred towards white guys but love outsourcing jobs or bringing in H1B's and B1B's with fake credentials and then cry when the white guys don't show up to vote for them in PA, OH, or Florida. But... once amnesty is complete and Republicans won't be able to win ANY elections due to race preferences, they either have to address this or shut down operations. At that point, we have to ask whether bashing white guys is really the way to make the world into Sweden circa 1970?

SubOink says

Until then - bears got it right from 2003-2008, bulls got it right from 2009-present !

The bears were right until the tax credit, then the 1% drop in interest rates. The bulls started running with those price hikes.

2014 is the year we'll see what happens.

I admit to being wrong any number of times. I'm just grateful that I listened to the bears.

My perspective comes from the Volcker years when he was Fed Chairman. That guy had power. He could make the most random statements, and screw everything up.

To me I see the same thing today. The Fed is in control, and I don't trust that.

We are just talking about this year, when the price of commodities, and assets will adjust downward into deflation.

If I'm wrong, I'm wrong, it won't be the first time, or last, but it is all here.