patrick.net

OO,

I know you have a healthy interest in American healthcare v. nationalized healthcare, so you might be interested in this:

http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/07_28/b4042072.htm

The best way to fix the healthcare system is to let it fail.

When the problem starts to impact the voting seniors and/or baby-boomer retirees significantly, there will be action. There is no need to be proactive. It will not work.

The gravity defying act is still going on.

MLS 732997.
A 3 bed / 2 bath house of 1032 sqft for 839K. Over 800 per SQFT !!

ZipRealty has an interest meter and it is at highest level for this house. And this is not even in Monta Vista area. The madness just keeps feeding onto itself.

This beauty is smaller than my rental apartment which costs me less than 2K in total rent+utilities. Of course my rental does not have granite counter tops. So maybe that's why. I am definitely going to track for exactly how much this house sells for.

StuckInBA:

Just checked that MLS number. The address is: 19435 Calle De Barcelona, Cupertino.

This listing is approaching a month (27 days) listing time so it's not exactly flying off the shelf. "Interest meter" (whatever the hell THAT means) doesn't necessarily equate with "ready and able to make an offer".

"starts to impact the voting seniors and/or baby-boomer retirees"

They're not the canary in the mine...maybe more blind mole rat. They'll continue to get tax-revenue paid care and commend their doctors' attention, since they tend to get more expensive/higher margin care.

The best way to fix the healthcare system is to let it fail.

When the problem starts to impact the voting seniors and/or baby-boomer retirees significantly, there will be action. There is no need to be proactive. It will not work.

The problem with a passive, laissez-faire approach is that the "solution" will come too late for millions of bankrupt uninsured or under-insured. And any Boomer-designed solution may only benefit Boomers and seniors, while mostly leaving Gen-X and younger out in the cold (recall Prop. 13?).

When the problem starts to impact the voting seniors and/or baby-boomer retirees significantly, there will be action. There is no need to be proactive. It will not work.

Speaking of parasitic Boomers and/or seniors, did anyone else see the story about the predictions for California's future population that just came out? Supposedly there will be 60mil Californians by 2050, and most will be Latino. The article I read (sorry, can't remember the reference) actually stated outright that the working-age population will be more than enough to "support" the Boomer population, in terms of doing jobs to support them (health care, etc), pay taxes for their entitlements, and yes, buy their homes from them...

I'm glad the Boomers will be able to continue their freeloading ways well into this century.

The US has a truly perverse healthcare system where some of the cheapest/most cost effective care is out of reach for a big chunk of the population. Meanwhile, the taxpayers (including many many uninsured taxpayers) are paying for tremendously expensive and ineffective end of life care without even batting an eyelash.

Speaking of parasitic Boomers and/or seniors, did anyone else see the story about the predictions for California’s future population that just came out? Supposedly there will be 60mil Californians by 2050, and most will be Latino.

Well, IIRC, the state is already majority Latino, which is ok by me, as long as they happen to be Latinos who regard CA as American soil and obey U.S. law --which is not always the case around where I live (L.A. County).

As far as hitting 60 million by 2050, that projection is questionable. For one thing, we don't currently have enough fresh water for that many people + agriculture to support them all. Perhaps great strides will be made in desalination technology and/or drastically cutting per capita consumption, but this remains to be seen.

Another looming question mark is peak oil. According to some world production estimates, we are either at or just past peak extraction levels, with gradual-but-steady YoY declines predicted from here on. Nearly doubling our current population without a ready and (this is critical) scale-able substitute would be tough to achieve, unless average living standards drop far enough to accommodate this. Around L.A., I guess that means 20 illegals to a room vs. the current 10 per room (just kidding... sort of).

Randy H Says:
Any company that’s burned through 9 figures in 1 year is well outside the profile of a VC funded startup. Many companies don’t even raise much more than that on public markets. Considering the IRR VCs target, the valuation placed on a company funded by that much venture capital must have been many billions of dollars. What was the company?

It wasn't in just one year, I think it was more like 3 years. They went through about 250M in that period, including acquisition of a couple of smaller companies. It is a company up in San Francisco that works on biometric technology.

You're right about the funding, of course. They were funded by multiple VC's at first and then through institutional investors in subsequent rounds. Their latest attempt to raise more money didn't succeed, and based on a couple of people I know there, their tech talent is leaving in droves.

SP

RE: the Mill Valley story

I was going to write a thread on it. But I'll just let the word "bullshit" stand.

High end homes here are sitting and sitting and sitting. The only one of the half dozen I'm tracking that have sold in the past 4-5 months was bought out through some kind of "arrangement" because the little-old-lady was a pillar of the community or something like that.

Seriously, someone needs to look into good, old fashioned price-fixing here in Mill Valley. The realtor cabal here is so f-ing corrupt.