patrick.net

The girl in this blogs main picture could not look more happy.
She is debt free and riding in a convertable. What could be better?

It's kinda funny knowing that she is getting paid to give the most happiest facial expression she can muster and she is doing it quite well.

I only wish the pic included more cleavage, but that's just me. Then again, it would distract me from the main happy concept. I would get caught up in thinking about how nice her boobs would look if she would suddenly strip off her shirt and throw it up in the air. How's that for a mental image.
She's debt free and completely liberated. Let's see um shake baby. Yeah!!

i am going to thailand in 4 weeks. I will spend my summer in asia again, i hope my fudging roommates deposit all the rent they are supposed to while i am gone, and feed my dog :-) bangkok and shanghai have even worse realestate bubbles then here. You can rent a nice apartment conveniently located near skytrain (public transit) with maid service cable tv ect for 600 a month (short time... much cheaper if your staying a year), but buy a condo there is almost as much as phoenix.... go figure. shanghai is even worse... last time i stayed in a small but clean hotel for a month, only cost about 600 a month and the bed made, room cleaned every day, but an ok 2 bedroom condo would set me back well over 100thousand us...mind you that was a hotel; if i wanted a one year lease and had somebody chinese negotiate i could easily find an apartment for $400... the whole world has gone crazy... one girl i know in shanghai bought an apartment as an investment; but she doesn't rent it out because the rent would be so small its not worth the trouble... then why was the apartment so expensive? cause it will go up!!! go figure! I own 2 homes in phoenix, one is paid off, the other will be next year... I am kinda voting for the bubble/collaps; maybe i will kick myself for not selling at least one of the homes but what do i really care as long as they are rented? and rents seem to be going up at least where i am not out on the overbuilt fringes...

Look at China. Their savings rate is phenomenal, somewhere in the 40-50% range. You don’t see them taking HELOCs to buy a damn Lexus or a second plasma screen TV. We need to return the U.S. to its economic roots—owning permanent productive resources like farms, timber land, mines and water.

For now.

It's because all of the consumption of their output happens here, in our country. So, they can thank Walmart and us.

The powers that be have decided there that consumption is the best way to improve their nation! They're encouraging the build up of massive car production for internal consumption - and they expect that to lead to massive economic growth. Kinda like us in 1950's, sprawl, traffic, Pier 1, etc.

Give them about 65 years - they'll be screwed too.

It's because all of the consumprion of their output happens here, in our country.

I've seen this statement or ones with similar wording many times over the past few years and think it would be useful to know in better detail to what extent it's true.

There are others here far better qualified than I am to comment, but the last figure I saw cited for Chinese export to the US was 2005 when we made up something like 17% of their export trade. If that's correct - I can't find the citation now - we are far from being China's sole trading partner while at the same time remaining very important to them.

China has signalled a desire to diversify their investing to include non dollar denominated assets and have recently taken the steps necessary to act upon that intention. Though they have not said so explicitly, I have the impression they will continue to acquire US treasuries in quantities sufficient to avoid blame for triggering any significant upsets here.

I think it's pretty clear they wish to continue to encourage a brisk trade with the US marketplace at least as long as we continue to be an active market, but also and at the same time to protect themselves in the event trade with the US should begin to sour. In their position, I'd do the same.

iceberg_slim Says:

> I only wish the pic included more cleavage,
> but that’s just me.

Then GC Says:

> That Woman is awesome. cleavage is bad
> taste. And childish.

I think it depends on the woman… When I see fake boob bimbos like Anna Nichole and chunky Hispanic gals in the Mission (who often have more skin falling out over their belt then they have falling over their halter top) showing cleavage it grosses me out. Other woman can get away with a little cleavage like a hot thin tax attorney who might unbutton one more button than normal on her Ralph Lauren silk blouse and there is nothing hotter than a 5’10” athletic gal in high heels and a low cut evening gown giving everyone a little peek at her perfect 34Bs…

P.S. I still have not even seen a guess of what kind of car the debt free gal is in…

P.P.S. Asking about the car reminds me of a Paragon Products ad in this months Panorama magazine with a curvy blond. In the ad two guys are thinking about the blond and the third guy in thinking about a car…

P.S. I still have not even seen a guess of what kind of car the debt free gal is in…

I'm guessing a zero money down with a 2.2% APR for the first six months adjusting to 13.4%.

More wedding announcements:

http://tinyurl.com/2ujaxn

""Erick proposed via AOL instant messenger," says Starr, a cashier. "We originally met in a chat room about two years ago, so it was kind of appropriate.""

My prediction: They'll move into her momma's house. Their first kid will be born 4 months later. They'll have a big fight shortly thereafter. The groom will move back home "temporarily." Kid #2 will effectuate a reconcilation (no DNA testing please)...if they stick together long enough, they'll look like that Oakland gender ambiguous bubble-couple.

New thread: Why is Generation Y so lame?

I really do think so.

However, we should care only about our own standard of living, right? I do not care if rich people start having private space shuttles. So long as we are all moving forward, it is fine if our speeds are different.

Are you saying that class mobility is the same under Feudalism as in America today? I just can't believe you are claiming that, so I suspect you are saying something different. As someone who lived in The Projects and trailer parks while growing up and is upper middle class now, I kind of think class mobility is a cool thing. A born serf stayed a serf all his life in 1200 France.

Are you saying that the wealthy stayed wealthy in both societies? That is something I could imagine someone claiming, even though I think that is wrong too. It is pretty easy to find wealth that dissapates in a few generations, as well as people going the other way, though going from Poor to Rich (as you define it) in one generation is nigh impossible. I can't think of even one example.

Bap33

Amen brother!

Astrid,
You have the 3rd eye of a soothsayer regarding that newly married couple. "The Oakland gender ambiguous couple" still makes me laugh out loud. That was f-ing rich when they had to point out that he was the one on the left.

that shit was funny

bap33 quit sucking the paint can... and get out of the trailerpark. this blog is about housing save that crap for your next gay romp with your minuteman boyfriend

azrob & justme,

May I direct you to http://patrick.net/wp/?page_id=60

Don't read the whole thing, just start in the middle and look for exchanges btwn "sean who is not different sean" and bap33.

Believe me, you can't win over bap33.

Illegal aliens are only 4% of the total population of the United States. The idea that 4% could forceably incarcerate the other 96% is laughable, especially since the 96% hold all the high tech weaponry.

But I imagine it doesn't feel that way in Merced. I am against illegal immigration, too, but for different reasons than you Bap33. I think illegals depress the wages and working conditions of the rest of us, especially those on the lower rungs of the economic ladder. I am in favor of bringing in as many legal immigrants as we need to satisfy our labor demands.

You probably don't realize it, but your argument that illegals are a big source of pollution is one that is raging in the Sierra Club right now. There is a significant faction that believes that the Sierra Club should take a stand against all immigration because the average American immigrant uses up much more resources than he would have if he had stayed at home. I find this argument compelling, but not enough to convince me that we should choke off legal immigration. Not a Sierra Club member, but I pay attention to them.

justme,

Most posters weren't following it because it was on a sidebar thread. I followed it for a while because I found SwinDS to be an interesting and persuasive poster. The posts do illustrate that sometimes, there's just no arguing with folks.

Does everybody understand that the only thing that keeps that from happening is the fact we can keep arms?? If the libs had removed all guns from regular folks, then what would keep them illegals from gathering up entire towns and killing them or keeping them in work camps??

Well, that would be unconstitutional. We should still be able to keep black-powder muzzle-loaders. :)

Perhaps a hi-cap magazine will soon be defined as any magazine capable of holding more than one round.

Law-breaking illegals may have full-autos though. So watch out.

bap33:

Your postings serve to remind me why I live in a gated community, and send my children to private school: To only have interaction with your ilk in a blog, instead of seeing you in my normal life.

Tu eres nada mas que una racista de la clase baja, sin education, sin futuro. Que tristeza para ti saber que yo soy cien veces mas rico que tu...

I do not think bap33 is a racist. He hates law-breaking illegals. He is a just crime-hater like many of us. Crime must not pay.

The contribution of the Mexican community is a fact. The guest worker program will solve a lot of problems.

In that context, I believe "illegal" meant "illegally present."

Ok, ok... so “ILLEGAL MEXICAN” is a politically loaded (and technically innacurate) term. Let's run this through the 'ol BayAryan uber-liberal PC filter and...

...new politically acceptable term: "Documentation-challenged, unskilled, pre-unionized Latino-American guest worker".