patrick.net

Robert,

Fixing prop 13 at a specific rate as a property right is pretty meaningless unless we go back to the gold standard and the government no longer has the license to print money willynilly.

The problem for me with Prop 13 is the degree of the inequity.

I usually avoid that argument because trying to resolve inequity will bring funny* consequences.

Oakland allows for around 3% per year raises in rent prices if I recall correctly, which is roughly in-line with inflation. I think that is fair and doesn’t create gross inequities.

You contradicted yourself. With rent control, you create "inequality" among renters. :)

The worst program is that new rental supply would be disincentivized. This would drive up future rental prices, making housing unaffordable.

* Nothing funny

LiLLL,

That's a hoot. I'm glad you're not in your former neighbors' shoes.

Property tax should be assessed at the rental equivalent rate. This is consistent with the consumption-based paradigm.

What about taxing by sq footage?

"sat vacant all summer, in spite of being a "vacation property"

austingal, two words:

Hootchie girls.

That's all specuvestors need to get these "vacation properties" filled!

$1,300 a month and no "chicks" frolicking in the pool? No wonder the damn thing sat empty all summer!

What about taxing by sq footage?

So a uber-luxury 2000 sqft 2/2.5 condo in the city with marble baths and wolf range should be charged the same rate as a rundown 2000 sqft 4/1 crap in the Central Valley?

Peter P,

I'll agree with that! Tying property tax to the market prices is just asking for trouble these days. (I'm biased here, I have a parent who would be significantly affected by this.)

DinOR,

I think you just found a new occupation for unemployed realtors.

At least the hot ones under 35. I wonder what the overweight, over-perfumed, over 40 realtors plan to do next...

I’ll agree with that! Tying property tax to the market prices is just asking for trouble these days. (I’m biased here, I have a parent who would be significantly affected by this.)

Yes. Rental prices are more suitable because they are not affected by bubbles.

Okay sq footage tied to IRS tax returns - yes, there's holes in that one too I'm sure

HitB:

It's an October Surprise; Rove's getting desperate, and selling nukes to the DPRK would have been too risky.

/puts tinfoil hat back on shelf.

Okay sq footage tied to IRS tax returns - yes, there’s holes in that one too I’m sure

Huh?

How about the total weight of granite, marble, stones, and stainless steel on the property? :)

I suppose we could centralize the tax collection system and then make distributions from state and federal coffers, but that's probably not the most efficient way of going about things. That would be a double whammy for current CA homeowners - they no longer get prop 13 rates and their "good school premium" goes down if all the school districts get equal funding.

astrid,

I just thought LILLL and austingal's observations were so damn funny! Up here in "Drizzleville" much of Bend's "vacation property" rental pool sits empty pretty much year round! The local paper and C/L are just littered w/beach and central OR properties that rent so infrequently they can hardly be of any meaningful impact for the owners.

Every other person my wife works w/(just called to check in, hootchie girls not cool) has a "rental" and they're practically begging you to consider theirs! Pets? O.K! Parties? O.K! Hootchie girls? (As long as your wife's cool w/it, we're cool w/it!)

Anyone here comfortable with changing the Sales tax such that you are expected to pay 8.25% of what the highest price anyone has or will have paid for equivalent items?

I am quite comfortable with this "mark-to-market" scheme. It reminds me of 1256 contracts. ;)

LILLL,

Well I'm bringing my sub-woofer ANYWAY! My buddy runs a "pit-bull farm" out in Moreno Valley and he said he'll bring by a "playmate" so he won't be lonely. The LL did say that pit bulls in the jacuzzi was cool right?

Doug H,
Thanks for the rant. Well put - we as stupid Americans really lose perspective sometimes. Both examples will be people who chase the market down as prices continue to crap out.

DinOR,

I know! Those unattractive overweight realtors can be maid service for these empty vacation properties and McFlippin properties.

The only problem is reference - let's say I was a vacation home owner choosing between a fresh from the border Latina and a former realtor, who would I trust more? Who do I expect to have a good work ethic and have the beds made just so? Who won't steal the $100 I left on the kitchen table?

In the aviation industry we used to refer to helicopters as “crash debris in search of its future accident site.”

LOL Are they really that dangerous? Are turbine copters safer? How about those with counter-rotating blades?

LiLLL,

Thanks for the pick-me-up story. What's funny is how the neighbors are mad at YOU for selling - misdirected anger. They should be pissed at the guy who bought it from you and turned around and rented it. Isn't he the guy you mentioned before as needing to move back to the midwest?

I know I cannot possibly fly a helicopter ever. I heard it is more like riding a unicycle. Did computer-assisted artificial stability help at all?

Robert Cote'

Nobody liked a "hot seat" turn-around more than me. Helicopters work reasonably well (until you shut them down). Then they ooze hydraulic fluid, short out the DC Bus and become "hangar queens" in short order.

I propose an anti-gravity-based lift system with no moving parts. This should improve reliability. :)

Peter P,

Most modern rotary wing aircrap (I mean aircraft) have "inner loop/outer loop" inputs to AFCS (Automatic Flight Control Surfaces). The outer loop is for minor corrections to X,Y and Z axis. The inner loop is for MAJOR corrections (as in evasive man. etc.). One of the most difficult things to do w/ a chopper is to maintain a steady hover. Applying the inner/outer concept eliminated a lot of "snakes in the cockpit".

M. Cote,

Yeah, but planes don't have the maneveurability of helicopters and until they do, we're stuck with helicopters.

I do have one question - why are news helicopters manned? Couldn't they just get a remote control chopper/blimp into the sky and control everything remotely?

If airplanes are sushi then helicopters are McDonald’s McFugu with all that implies.

LOL particle-board blowfish?

Or a hot air balloon, that's slightly less flammable and considerably cheaper.

RC: Prop 13 applies equally to everyone regardless of age or denomination.

For example, say that you're a 25 year old who bought a house in 1970, you have the same tax advantages as a 65 year old.

Oh wait.

Any time I'm watching a movie or TV show it always amazes me when our hero exits a still whirling chopper walking tall and defiant! Helicopters (particularly rotor blades) are much more sensitive to crosswinds than fixed wing A/C. I was an "LSE" (Landing Signalman "Enlisted") in the Navy and I've seen crosswinds dip rotor blades down to about 4' off the deck. On a guy about 5' 10" that would decapitate you at the arm pits.

Anytime I entered or left the "rotor arc" I kept as low to the ground as possible! Tunnel strikes are also common (although more for rotor blades being "out of sync") than crosswinds but that can ruin your whole day too.

*Not in the NATOPS (Naval Aviation Training and Operational Proceedures) Manual but if you are near or within the rotor arc and the damn thing goes into "ground resonance" (meaning Robert's garage sale is coming apart) run TO not FROM the aircraft! Centrifugal force has a nasty tendency to throw things out, not in! Just in case you ever find yourself in that position.

The one thing airships had going for them was size; as I recall, the Hindenburg even had a grand piano in one of its salons for a time. (Or is this a case of simply not putting as many people on board? Anyone know the available square footage on the H versus a 747?)

What I'm waiting for is good software control and miniaturized control surfaces. A couple years ago I was sitting in a survey class on MEMS devices, and the lecturer mentioned a drone using only MEMS devices to alter the airflow (as in, no conventional moving control surfaces) and pulling insane turns. (6-12' turning radius at 60-80mph was the example given.)

The Solution:

www.moller.com/skycar/

Oh and my other favorite Hollywood myth.

Aircraft in flight build up static electricity! Lots. I've read studies where up to 10,000 volts are possible. Any time a helo is being used for "Vert-Rep" (Vertical Replenishment) a GROUNDING CABLE must be used! Just a "J-Hook" with an alligator clip attached snugly to a "pad-eye" on the steel/concrete deck will do. This discharges the static charge to "ground". Once discharged you can go on about your business unless of course you lose contact and need to re-establish ground. Especially true of "HIFR" (Helicopter In Flight Re-fueling) ya think?

True, the amperage is low but it will still definitely wake you up! One time we had a tie-down chain and "someone" had to get it off a hovering H-46. (I guess I was cheaper to Uncle Sam than an H-46!) Not fun, and when your muscles contract it's hard to let go.

www.moller.com/skycar/

Yep. It is very close to UC Davis. I have heard about it before.

How do we avoid mid-air collision with thousands of them in the air? I think it can replace small GA planes though.

During "Night Ops" you'll see a small arc like a little lightening bolt jump from the helo to the deck. Normally you won't notice w/ a fighter jet b/c when the tailhook hits it leaves a trail of sparks and you're running for your life anyway.

RC,

Nobody gives a flying fling at a rolling doughnut that I’m posting from a shed in Camarillo. The poor smuck that bough my 10yr futures last night at the closing price probably wants to send me a letter bomb but freakin’ CBOE or NYC had nothing to do with my coup but they’ll still take the credit for being necessary to complete my market transactions.

It will be a very long time yet until these specific types of high-value industries become physically decentralizable. Sure, the technical market mechanisms can and largely already are decentralized. But the nexus of the high finance industry is people and relationships. The paradox has been that as more communications technology has been developed, even more reliance has been placed upon physically proximate relationships.

Even this too may pass with time. But much more time than you are imagining. Perhaps, someday, everyone will jack into their "Second Life 2060" virtual reality, and conduct meaningful, binding relationships and pacts of trust without needing to actually sit at the same table in the same room of the same building.

I'm not going to hold my breath. I still have to fly to Chicago, San Antonio, and probably soon Atlanta every time I need to advance or close a deal in telecom with the corporate guys. Why do they need to see me? Well. They think they do, therefore they do, and therefore I go.

How do we avoid mid-air collision with thousands of them in the air?

You wait a week, then fly over the wreckage.

RC, SFGuy:
RC's comments on the Moynihan Myth notwithstanding, I don't see why the idea SFGuy has in mind wouldn't work. The only real problem you'd run into is transportation; being able to get raw materials, finished goods, people, what have you, from place to place in a reasonable time. I think it's easily doable if properly planned, and may happen anyway if unplanned, just with a great deal more growing pains.

J Galt,

Fun stuff! That's why I always cringe when H'Wood shows some macho dude grabbing a hoisting cable and connecting it an oil derrick leaving the chopper like a fly tied to a hair! Besides, the crew chief has a "guillotine" activated by a 22 cal. round that will sever that cable if he even "thinks" it's "fouled" (tangled up). Yeah, they thought of that. Sheesh.

I still have to fly to Chicago, San Antonio, and probably soon Atlanta every time I need to advance or close a deal in telecom with the corporate guys. Why do they need to see me? Well. They think they do, therefore they do, and therefore I go.

The generational parts of this will change. The only reason I can see for a face-to-face is when you quietly want to hammer out some details, or initially to get a feel for another person. Teams I've worked with just throw up a telecon and secure IRC server and everything's just peachy.

@TimeSaver,

Cupertino Address! Cupertino Schools! Lowest priced home in the entire city of Cupertino at the time of listing! 2 Bedrooms, 1 Bathroom, Single Story, Approximately 814 SF, Fireplace in Living Room. This is a "fixer upper" Needs cosmetic work. Probate sale...

Yeah baby! talk about "cosmetic work!" That's like saying Joan Rivers has had "cosmetic work."