The younger generations don’t want to work, and they don’t want the responsibility, maybe true, but they do understand that they are being undermined by big business and big government, I don’t really blame them, culture tells them to jump through all the hoops and the government shits on them, I only worked as hard as I did because I knew there was a payoff, these young people see no payoff, just indentured servitude.
In this day and age, you're not going to nickel-and-dime or bootstrap your way into a house. Even a down payment requires tens of thousands in one big-ass chunk if you want a Merely Crippling monthly payment instead of an Even More Crippling one.
I myself have decided not to buy a house until and unless I can do it in a way that doesn't leave me either house-poor or an hour from work. Which, as I figure it, will require at least $200,000 a year. My boomer dad doesn't get it on at least one level.
But! But! But!...What about EQUITY? What about The American Dream?
What about living on instant ramen and rainwater just to say I'm a homeowner? What about putting 20,000 miles a year on my truck commuting?
Do you think it's that they don't want to, or that they don't see the payoff? Four years of school, possible debt from that, then trying to break into whatever field you chose.
They see only doom, dei, and importing the third world to lower wages, and the government will help you if you have the right skin tone, but will shit all over you if you are not imported.
i dont know anyone that doesnt want to work and ive only heard that from the older generations. nobody can afford anything and everyone is hiring foreigners. what are the actual citizens supposed to do?
They don’t want to work as slaves, Farley says mechanics are making 100k, yeah, maybe one in fifty, and the manufacturers are making difficult to repair vehicles, also difficult to troubleshoot, I know car mechanics that quit the dealer scam.
There’s a price point at which cars should pretty much only be paid for in cash. Let’s arbitrarily call that $100k. If you can service the loan of a $100k car, you really should just save for a few months and buy a cheaper car outright. I’m not that debt averse, but a loan on a $100k+ car?**
And on that same note, a toy (which presumably no one is buying a $100k+ Corvette as their only car or daily driver) should always be bought in cash. Finance your DD, sure, there are practical reasons for that, but your toys? Buy them outright.
*yeah yeah I know, arbitrage on interest rates and all that, but come on man.
"There’s a price point at which cars should pretty much only be paid for in cash. Let’s arbitrarily call that $100k. If you can service the loan of a $100k car, you really should just save for a few months and buy a cheaper car outright. I’m not that debt averse, but a loan on a $100k+ car?**
And on that same note, a toy (which presumably no one is buying a $100k+ Corvette as their only car or daily driver) should always be bought in cash. Finance your DD, sure, there are practical reasons for that, but your toys? Buy them outright."
Morally, I agree.
Practically, I could not agree less. A $100k car is no big thing now. Suburbans and Tahoes cost $100k. Ford Super Duties cost $100k. I hate it, but there you go.
Now let's look at the argument for a toy. We won't even use big numbers or high-end Corvettes, because that makes it too easy for me to argue my side. Let's say you are 45 years old in 2018 and you are thinking about financing a new 2019 Stingray at the base MSRP of $55,900. Instead you decide to save for it over the next six years.
You arrive in 2024 and now the 2025 Stingray costs $69,995. The $55,900 you saved up no longer does the job. You need to save for two more years. But meanwhile the Stingray has increased in price six percent to $73,995. You are now 53 years old. And you spent the last eight years of your life not owning a Corvette. Now your body hurts in ways it didn't hurt before. Now your kid needs help with a down payment on a house, and your wife is sitting you down saying, "What's more important -- you having a sports car, or Brayden having a home?" Also, you have gone from a 7-speed manual car with reasonable operating costs to a fake Ferrari with an automatic transmission.
You decide to take the middle path and give Brayden half your $75k nest egg. Now you have $37.5k and the 2028 Corvette is $78k. It will increase in price approximately $4500 a year from now on. If you can save $10k a year this math will resolve for you in the year 2036, when you are 63 years old.
Congratulations! You're another old man limping in and out of a Corvette and rubbing it with a diaper. On the way to the show-and-shine you got passed by some 45-year-old in the same new Corvette. He appears to be having a lot more fun than you are, but you can't figure out why. After all, you own your car.
IANAA but I thought the real juice for an expensive lease was getting the corp to pay it pre tax.
Also on residential real estate, Blackrock buying it. A few pols are talking about banning this and it's high time. Data centers too. Fuck those things.
0-“I believe … that governments are rarely more efficient than markets”
Since when?
1-“The reality of the situation is that our government has stacked the deck against employing Americans for more than twenty years now. Compared to an American worker, an H1-B costs less to hire and less to employ. He is also unable to participate in most labor protection schemes and/or complain to the DOL about what you do.”
All of those displaced, REAL American workers are freed up to (1) do something that the drone / worker bee replacements cannot or will not do OR (2) enjoy Eudaimonia.
You say this all the time as if saying it enough times will make it so. What should all the American IT graduates do if they find the jobs they thought would be available when they started college four or five years prior are filled by immigrants? Should every American start their own company and hire their own H1-bs to do the actual work? Should they all network with rich and connected people in college so they have the inside track to a top tier firm and introductions to potential clients? What exactly should tens of millions of Americans do?
The only bright side I see is that the Big banks including Goldman Sacks are now offshoring more of the junior and middle level investment jobs to India.
Just had lunch today with a newly retired buddy of mine who said that AI use on my old job was hollowing out the knowledge of the specialized teams like I used to work on.
I could see something similar 20 years ago where we had new hires who had never worked on a trading floor like I did, and they lacked all the skills I had gained from working face to face in a tense environment. They could never glean those skills with client contact only through email and phone calls. I had an intuition for certain situations that they just couldn’t pick up on.
Now, of course, none of this matters anymore. The most successful youngsters going forward will be in the trades or in government jobs with pensions.
Yes: they should hustle! From the moment one lands at an American airport, one should be besieged on all sides by dozens of young highly-skilled Americans selling you counterfeit watches, tours, drugs, prostitutes, and tuk tuk rides, and begging. IOW, just like the Subcontinent!
'0-“I believe … that governments are rarely more efficient than markets”
Since when?'
My whole life. I believe in the sane application of market forces to pricing and availability, with as little government intervention as necessary to ensure a modicum of fairness. Not because it's so great to be fair, but because otherwise you get Robespierre.
You, on the other hand, use the word "market" the way swingers use "lifestyle" -- as a neologism to refer to a perverted philosophy where everyone gets fucked in weird ways and the social fabric is rent permanently asunder. You stand in the middle of a concentric ring of governmental and societal defenses designed to tilt the playing table in your favor, and deceive yourself that you eat what you kill or vice versa.
Let me tell you the day you will be on your knees along with the Dollar General crowd: the day the petroyuan overtakes the petrodollar and the daddy of the Fed can't pump enough fake money into the machine to make your fake investments produce fake returns. You are a parasite gnawing on the corpse of a system set up with blood and treasure two generations ago, and your glee is indistinguishable from that felt by the people in the ghetto who briefly used "the Chase money glitch" to buy new sneakers.
Kaman = Ovation. They made some super interesting stuff in the '70s, I once had a Magnum 1 bass and it was a very nice instrument. Deacon and Breadwinner guitars aren't priced sky high last time I checked. I don't care about the bowl back acoustics, they are probably their bread & butter, but seeing how I rarely play anything with more than four strings....
I hope I die before I see a 'Guitar Center Wangcaster 9000' or 'Guitar Center DonkDonk Precise Bass' :
0) go into, or out of production (due to poor sales or whatever)
1) if actually made, fetch five figures on the vintage/collectible market
I have owned and played a bunch of Ovation (and Applause!) acoustics, both USA and Korea.
I can't believe... and I mean CANNOT BELIEVE... you didn't mention the man who used an Ovation Magnum II bass to sell 11.9 MILLION COPIES of ONE SINGLE ALBUM!!!!!!!
I will not subscribe to the “stick it to (x)”. I don’t want billionaires paying higher property taxes because I don’t want anyone paying property taxes. NYC budget is absurd and abusing their billionaires is at best a short term fix. Manhattan, being an island, has limited space. It will always be expensive. It’s not expensive because 10,000 rich people own property their for when they are in town.
I saw the TX H1-B story and wondered how long it would take to show up in ACF and the answer is not long. Based on Jack’s comments about the significant Indian readership I am wondering do any of them comment?
The flip side of how H1-B hurts American citizens is how it exploits those who take part as if they are indentured servants. At this point H1-B should be eliminated and immigration completely overhauled to a merit system and fixed numbers allowed per year based on the needs of the country.
Either way what we learn in TX is that when demand decreases so do prices. This is quite the breakthrough and I hope someone realizes what has been discovered and advocates for it to be tried other places.
I made the mistake of going to a city reach out meeting trying to drum up support for renewing the 2%lot tax on retail, restaurants and building supplies.
I was being fed so much bullshit I had to walk out. They were saying they need it to fix roads. Only 38% of the homes in the area are primary residences. They also say "locals" only pay 34% of the total generated by the LOT. They were flabbergasted when I asked what total property tax revenue was paid by the 62% of homes (I don't know the breakdown when you add in commercial property) that are only occupied a few months out of the year.
I would be good money the total value of those homes is much higher than the 62% of lots they represent vs. 38% fully occupied.
Locals pay 100% of the LOT tax they pay. It would hurt less and soak second home owners more to just raise property taxes. It is also as regressive of a tax as I can think of.
This is a moral issue for me- I see property taxes as immoral and evil. Why is it legal to tax someone forever on something they bought? We are supposedly an ownership society.
Working on my WV ancestry I discovered property owners in the late 19th century were expected to devote a certain amount of time working on the county road running along their farms.
The modern equivalent of that is property tax. If you want a road, and you want the fire department to come when you call instead of running a credit check, something has to pay for that.
I'm not saying property tax is always or even mostly implemented on a fair or reasonable basis mind you.
Gonna disagree, because we have modern technology that can pave a road more efficiently and at a better result than everyone doing it in front of their house. Commercial travel/shipping of goods today is significantly more than in the 1800s, probably was almost 0% back then when almost all business was local except what came by mail. Back then you needed your road to get your goods to town. Today businesses need your road to get their wares moved around.
And most importantly, now we have cars that use fuel, and a gas tax, so in my perfect world, the gas tax would be whatever it cost to build and maintain roads.
I pay 20% fewer $ in property taxes, on a home that is 5 -6 times the value (estimate sale price not assessed value) here in Idaho than in NY, for a public school that beat the snot out of the public and Catholic school available where is was.
Unfortunately in Illinois i cannot trust the public schools. We have some of the best in the state but i dont need them convincing my girls theyre boys
How exactly? People with lower incomes will spend less, and pay less tax. They will also be able to live frugally , pay off their mortgage and be able to live almost for free if they choose.
Here in Ohio let’s say a $200k house pays $4000 in property taxes. At a 10% sales tax that family would need to spend $40k per year before sales tax is “worse” than property tax. They would also be able to pay off their mortgage sooner if they chose, further saving interest paid.
'How exactly? People with lower incomes will spend less, and pay less tax. They will also be able to live frugally , pay off their mortgage and be able to live almost for free if they choose.'
Two families. One earns $500k post tax, spends $300k, invests $200k. The other one earns $50k post tax, spends $50k because there is no way to operate a family in the United States in 2026 without spending $50k.
The effective tax rate on the second family is 66% higher than on the first family.
'Here in Ohio let’s say a $200k house pays $4000 in property taxes. At a 10% sales tax that family would need to spend $40k per year before sales tax is “worse” than property tax. '
If your family has a $250 weekly grocery bill, $400 on a car and $200 on insurance every month, they are more than halfway to spending $40k a year and no one has put on a stitch of clothing or put a gallon of gas in a car. But it's worse than that. That 10% tax has to be ADDITIVE, because the state and the counties are barely breaking even at 6.5 to 8.5 percent now. So you end up with European VAT level of taxation at 16.5 to 18.5.
Which is why I ask when the topic comes up. Property, income, consumption all have winners and losers. And yet we need some level,of government, so how to finance it?
No. Income taxes end when you stop earning. That is a good thing.
Property taxes never end and are dictated to you, you do not control them. Hence why I think they are immoral, you can be taxed out of your ability to otherwise afford to live in property you own.
Income tax is a massive burden which makes it much harder to own property or retire because it vaporizes income so much right out the gate before you have even used it. In this scheme you don't even own your full earnings. A far greater financial abuse since most states then levy consumption taxes on money that has been taxed.
Property tax is complaining about a much much smaller and downstream issue, imo.
Well I’m not a fan of income taxes, but to me they are less evil than property taxes. I would prefer to eliminate all taxes and shift to sales tax for a lot of reasons including one very simple reason- the government at all levels (city, county, state federal) employs many many people to make the tax system work. All those jobs could be eliminated by sales tax, which is a simple calculation on purchases. This would reduce the size of government and the cost of government.
I remember working at radio shack in the mid to late 90s where "realistic" and "Optimus" house brands went from about 50/50 designed and made by X Japanese company to just being literally name plate changes on car stereo head units. Fun times.
The most telling thing about Mamdani was basically starting that the city/renters/trusts would own apartments. The plan goes like this: tell landlords to fix up their units, or else. Oh, and btw you can't go up on rent either. If you as the landlord can't make a profit, that's not our, the city's, fault. Communism in action!
I'm a free market guy, but the H1B stuff has been getting out of hand. All these layoffs and yet companies are still getting H1Bs. I'm not opposed for companies subjected to federal labor laws getting a moratorium on H1B workers. Especially in tech sectors, they act like the people they are laying off can't be trained.
I had a pair of in house designed Optimus bookshelves with the 360 degree ribbon tweeter. They sounded great but they were easy to fry (which I did). I also had an awesome sounding Optimus above rear deck 3 way( true three way) speakers that were an easy replacement for Toyotas weird 8x7 back speaker.
...that's also an elected official ostensibly a "public servant" - essentially using the power of his office to target a private citizen because... uh, we don't like him? "Your papers are not in order, comrade... you don't live here"... Bernie Sanders also owns a house he doesn't live in... I bet virtually every member of Congress owns real estate they rarely live in... but of course they're allowed to while CEO whoever is not.
Nevermind the oppressive precedent of the state taxing assets you've paid for, thus ensuring all you do is rent them from the government... the useful idiots of NYC think they've empowered a system for "justice", but all they've done is simply empower a system. That's the ultimate grift of socialism, you vote for it thinking it's going to work for you, but it's designed to work for the political class.
'...that's also an elected official ostensibly a "public servant" - essentially using the power of his office to target a private citizen because... uh, we don't like him? "Your papers are not in order, comrade... you don't live here"...'
Manhattan is essentially built out. There are no empty lots to build new homes. So when there are 10,000 homes with no one living in them, that means there are 10,000 residents who can't buy a home and who are forced into relationships with BlackRock and/or other firms that purchase real estate then rent it back at exorbitant rates.
The fallacy of the beard applies a bit here. It would be awful for the mayor of New York to direct public ire at a sanitation worker or restaurant employee. This person, by contrast, has obtained about $200 million dollars -- that is two hundred MILLION -- of real estate appreciation on homes he does not use and which directly cause other families to not have a home. Period point blank.
'Nevermind the oppressive precedent of the state taxing assets you've paid for, thus ensuring all you do is rent them from the government... '
That precedent was set in the Book of Domesday from 1086. It is settled. All we are doing now is arguing over implementation.
By the way, if you apply this tax to the average American home at the same rate that it's being applied to this man... you get $312.50.
Amanda Bartolotta is amazing: https://xcancel.com/amandalouise416/status/2062182782529409460#m She has previously documented the money flows and points out that _everybody gets paid_ (brokers, lawyers, lobbyists, hiring managers (kickbacks) except the displaced skilled Americans.
At this point, there's a pretty broad "Bernie to Bannon" consensus in the public, numerous bills have been proposed, but I don't see anything really changing soon:
I drove my Boxster GTS 900 miles to Maine last week, nothing but good times. Learned that the convertible roof is kind of fake, underneath the van as is a magnesium shell that keeps things rigid and very quiet. You can't even get a convertible in a Corvette can ya?
No one is talking millionaire taxes here cause there ain't no millionaires. But we have a fake oysterman, woman abusing socialist with a concentration camp tat who is running to get on the Senate ballot.. I am having fun asking family and neighbors whether there is anything that Plattner could do that would disqualify him in their eyes? Raping a 12 year old? Ritual murder? Goat fucking? People are avoiding me a little.
The $109,000 hybrid Corvettes is not aspirationa, a $40,000 Corvette is aspirational. Before we were unwillingly sucked into clown world a loaded Camero SS was priced a few thousand less then a loaded L-82 Corvette. We will not discuss Jack’s S600 V-12 MB but domestically a loaded Buick Electra 225 was also a few thousand less then a comparable Couoe or Sedan Deville. Memo to file: Doctors and Lawyers that could afford the Cadillac bit drive the Buick 225 because it was the right thing to do. Ok think of it as the new rich driving the Yukon XL to Costco because and Escalade would send the wrong message to their neighbors. However now with our inverted Bell Curve economy the masses are driving used Caravans and the well off are not. To circle back to the topic at hand a $110,000 Corvette is a toy for those that pay cash not something to aspire to….
What annoys me most and Mamdani and his growing legion of DSA acolytes is their audacity to declare the American dream dead before people have had the opportunity to determine that for themselves. The tone I get from them is a lot of "Trust me bro, the game is cooked, best just burn your prime working years throwing rocks at ICE Agents instead of figuring out how to actually be productive and enjoy the fruits of said productivity"
My father told me this bit of wisdom when I was just nine years old: there's a lot of money to be made in convincing someone how they're getting screwed by someone else.
Of course, little did I realize back then that the monetary rewards pale in comparison to the political power to be gained through such blatant pandering.
The younger generations don’t want to work, and they don’t want the responsibility, maybe true, but they do understand that they are being undermined by big business and big government, I don’t really blame them, culture tells them to jump through all the hoops and the government shits on them, I only worked as hard as I did because I knew there was a payoff, these young people see no payoff, just indentured servitude.
If they "don't want to work," why do so many of them seem to spend so much time studying STEM and applying to hundreds, if not thousands, of jobs?
I think they are in the minority.
there are way too many of those stem students unemployed or underemployed even from the best universities
“John Carter” had an interesting take on this in the context of the marshmallow test a couple weeks back:
https://barsoom.substack.com/p/when-the-experimenter-fails-the-marshmallow
I don’t disagree with what he writes here.
Neither do I.
I’m starting to change my opinion about the “greatest generation” being partially responsible as well, and maybe not so great.
In this day and age, you're not going to nickel-and-dime or bootstrap your way into a house. Even a down payment requires tens of thousands in one big-ass chunk if you want a Merely Crippling monthly payment instead of an Even More Crippling one.
I myself have decided not to buy a house until and unless I can do it in a way that doesn't leave me either house-poor or an hour from work. Which, as I figure it, will require at least $200,000 a year. My boomer dad doesn't get it on at least one level.
But! But! But!...What about EQUITY? What about The American Dream?
What about living on instant ramen and rainwater just to say I'm a homeowner? What about putting 20,000 miles a year on my truck commuting?
He is essentially correct.
Do you think it's that they don't want to, or that they don't see the payoff? Four years of school, possible debt from that, then trying to break into whatever field you chose.
They see only doom, dei, and importing the third world to lower wages, and the government will help you if you have the right skin tone, but will shit all over you if you are not imported.
The younger generations saw through the scam.
i dont know anyone that doesnt want to work and ive only heard that from the older generations. nobody can afford anything and everyone is hiring foreigners. what are the actual citizens supposed to do?
They don’t want to work as slaves, Farley says mechanics are making 100k, yeah, maybe one in fifty, and the manufacturers are making difficult to repair vehicles, also difficult to troubleshoot, I know car mechanics that quit the dealer scam.
1800 a month for a lease of is ridiculous. Resale be damned. Yet again i am cheap
... which is why you're a zillionare (or gonna' be one).
I still feel broke
feel broke to get rich
or whatever
on that billionaire grindset
There’s a price point at which cars should pretty much only be paid for in cash. Let’s arbitrarily call that $100k. If you can service the loan of a $100k car, you really should just save for a few months and buy a cheaper car outright. I’m not that debt averse, but a loan on a $100k+ car?**
And on that same note, a toy (which presumably no one is buying a $100k+ Corvette as their only car or daily driver) should always be bought in cash. Finance your DD, sure, there are practical reasons for that, but your toys? Buy them outright.
*yeah yeah I know, arbitrage on interest rates and all that, but come on man.
"There’s a price point at which cars should pretty much only be paid for in cash. Let’s arbitrarily call that $100k. If you can service the loan of a $100k car, you really should just save for a few months and buy a cheaper car outright. I’m not that debt averse, but a loan on a $100k+ car?**
And on that same note, a toy (which presumably no one is buying a $100k+ Corvette as their only car or daily driver) should always be bought in cash. Finance your DD, sure, there are practical reasons for that, but your toys? Buy them outright."
Morally, I agree.
Practically, I could not agree less. A $100k car is no big thing now. Suburbans and Tahoes cost $100k. Ford Super Duties cost $100k. I hate it, but there you go.
Now let's look at the argument for a toy. We won't even use big numbers or high-end Corvettes, because that makes it too easy for me to argue my side. Let's say you are 45 years old in 2018 and you are thinking about financing a new 2019 Stingray at the base MSRP of $55,900. Instead you decide to save for it over the next six years.
You arrive in 2024 and now the 2025 Stingray costs $69,995. The $55,900 you saved up no longer does the job. You need to save for two more years. But meanwhile the Stingray has increased in price six percent to $73,995. You are now 53 years old. And you spent the last eight years of your life not owning a Corvette. Now your body hurts in ways it didn't hurt before. Now your kid needs help with a down payment on a house, and your wife is sitting you down saying, "What's more important -- you having a sports car, or Brayden having a home?" Also, you have gone from a 7-speed manual car with reasonable operating costs to a fake Ferrari with an automatic transmission.
You decide to take the middle path and give Brayden half your $75k nest egg. Now you have $37.5k and the 2028 Corvette is $78k. It will increase in price approximately $4500 a year from now on. If you can save $10k a year this math will resolve for you in the year 2036, when you are 63 years old.
Congratulations! You're another old man limping in and out of a Corvette and rubbing it with a diaper. On the way to the show-and-shine you got passed by some 45-year-old in the same new Corvette. He appears to be having a lot more fun than you are, but you can't figure out why. After all, you own your car.
This. On certain things in life you need to look 5 or 10 years out.
NYC needs to become a 51st state, cut it off at the Tappan Zee bridge and see if it can become self-supporting.
Lol, they won't even let SI secede.
Give them their independence
OT - It just occurred to me today, don't know what took me so long:
AI data centers ARE the paperclip maximizer problem. And we didn't even get real AI first.
IANAA but I thought the real juice for an expensive lease was getting the corp to pay it pre tax.
Also on residential real estate, Blackrock buying it. A few pols are talking about banning this and it's high time. Data centers too. Fuck those things.
It goes on your w2
0-“I believe … that governments are rarely more efficient than markets”
Since when?
1-“The reality of the situation is that our government has stacked the deck against employing Americans for more than twenty years now. Compared to an American worker, an H1-B costs less to hire and less to employ. He is also unable to participate in most labor protection schemes and/or complain to the DOL about what you do.”
All of those displaced, REAL American workers are freed up to (1) do something that the drone / worker bee replacements cannot or will not do OR (2) enjoy Eudaimonia.
You say this all the time as if saying it enough times will make it so. What should all the American IT graduates do if they find the jobs they thought would be available when they started college four or five years prior are filled by immigrants? Should every American start their own company and hire their own H1-bs to do the actual work? Should they all network with rich and connected people in college so they have the inside track to a top tier firm and introductions to potential clients? What exactly should tens of millions of Americans do?
The only bright side I see is that the Big banks including Goldman Sacks are now offshoring more of the junior and middle level investment jobs to India.
And they’ll wonder in five years why they dont have experienced bankers. Accountanting is doing this too
Just had lunch today with a newly retired buddy of mine who said that AI use on my old job was hollowing out the knowledge of the specialized teams like I used to work on.
I could see something similar 20 years ago where we had new hires who had never worked on a trading floor like I did, and they lacked all the skills I had gained from working face to face in a tense environment. They could never glean those skills with client contact only through email and phone calls. I had an intuition for certain situations that they just couldn’t pick up on.
Now, of course, none of this matters anymore. The most successful youngsters going forward will be in the trades or in government jobs with pensions.
"start their own company"
Yes: they should hustle! From the moment one lands at an American airport, one should be besieged on all sides by dozens of young highly-skilled Americans selling you counterfeit watches, tours, drugs, prostitutes, and tuk tuk rides, and begging. IOW, just like the Subcontinent!
e.g., Michael Palin : https://youtu.be/aHeYRI0KHmY
Recently from a motorcycle (20s): https://youtu.be/TvjrqR3wzd0 (Full song; RIP Stephen & Audun: https://youtu.be/5mKX21of0sM)
'0-“I believe … that governments are rarely more efficient than markets”
Since when?'
My whole life. I believe in the sane application of market forces to pricing and availability, with as little government intervention as necessary to ensure a modicum of fairness. Not because it's so great to be fair, but because otherwise you get Robespierre.
You, on the other hand, use the word "market" the way swingers use "lifestyle" -- as a neologism to refer to a perverted philosophy where everyone gets fucked in weird ways and the social fabric is rent permanently asunder. You stand in the middle of a concentric ring of governmental and societal defenses designed to tilt the playing table in your favor, and deceive yourself that you eat what you kill or vice versa.
Let me tell you the day you will be on your knees along with the Dollar General crowd: the day the petroyuan overtakes the petrodollar and the daddy of the Fed can't pump enough fake money into the machine to make your fake investments produce fake returns. You are a parasite gnawing on the corpse of a system set up with blood and treasure two generations ago, and your glee is indistinguishable from that felt by the people in the ghetto who briefly used "the Chase money glitch" to buy new sneakers.
Kaman = Ovation. They made some super interesting stuff in the '70s, I once had a Magnum 1 bass and it was a very nice instrument. Deacon and Breadwinner guitars aren't priced sky high last time I checked. I don't care about the bowl back acoustics, they are probably their bread & butter, but seeing how I rarely play anything with more than four strings....
I hope I die before I see a 'Guitar Center Wangcaster 9000' or 'Guitar Center DonkDonk Precise Bass' :
0) go into, or out of production (due to poor sales or whatever)
1) if actually made, fetch five figures on the vintage/collectible market
I have owned and played a bunch of Ovation (and Applause!) acoustics, both USA and Korea.
I can't believe... and I mean CANNOT BELIEVE... you didn't mention the man who used an Ovation Magnum II bass to sell 11.9 MILLION COPIES of ONE SINGLE ALBUM!!!!!!!
Did it on purpose
I will not subscribe to the “stick it to (x)”. I don’t want billionaires paying higher property taxes because I don’t want anyone paying property taxes. NYC budget is absurd and abusing their billionaires is at best a short term fix. Manhattan, being an island, has limited space. It will always be expensive. It’s not expensive because 10,000 rich people own property their for when they are in town.
I saw the TX H1-B story and wondered how long it would take to show up in ACF and the answer is not long. Based on Jack’s comments about the significant Indian readership I am wondering do any of them comment?
The flip side of how H1-B hurts American citizens is how it exploits those who take part as if they are indentured servants. At this point H1-B should be eliminated and immigration completely overhauled to a merit system and fixed numbers allowed per year based on the needs of the country.
Either way what we learn in TX is that when demand decreases so do prices. This is quite the breakthrough and I hope someone realizes what has been discovered and advocates for it to be tried other places.
Speeds indian.
I made the mistake of going to a city reach out meeting trying to drum up support for renewing the 2%lot tax on retail, restaurants and building supplies.
I was being fed so much bullshit I had to walk out. They were saying they need it to fix roads. Only 38% of the homes in the area are primary residences. They also say "locals" only pay 34% of the total generated by the LOT. They were flabbergasted when I asked what total property tax revenue was paid by the 62% of homes (I don't know the breakdown when you add in commercial property) that are only occupied a few months out of the year.
I would be good money the total value of those homes is much higher than the 62% of lots they represent vs. 38% fully occupied.
Locals pay 100% of the LOT tax they pay. It would hurt less and soak second home owners more to just raise property taxes. It is also as regressive of a tax as I can think of.
This is a moral issue for me- I see property taxes as immoral and evil. Why is it legal to tax someone forever on something they bought? We are supposedly an ownership society.
Working on my WV ancestry I discovered property owners in the late 19th century were expected to devote a certain amount of time working on the county road running along their farms.
For the time that seems reasonable.
The modern equivalent of that is property tax. If you want a road, and you want the fire department to come when you call instead of running a credit check, something has to pay for that.
I'm not saying property tax is always or even mostly implemented on a fair or reasonable basis mind you.
Gonna disagree, because we have modern technology that can pave a road more efficiently and at a better result than everyone doing it in front of their house. Commercial travel/shipping of goods today is significantly more than in the 1800s, probably was almost 0% back then when almost all business was local except what came by mail. Back then you needed your road to get your goods to town. Today businesses need your road to get their wares moved around.
And most importantly, now we have cars that use fuel, and a gas tax, so in my perfect world, the gas tax would be whatever it cost to build and maintain roads.
I pay so much to fund the public schools i refuse to use
I pay 20% fewer $ in property taxes, on a home that is 5 -6 times the value (estimate sale price not assessed value) here in Idaho than in NY, for a public school that beat the snot out of the public and Catholic school available where is was.
Unfortunately in Illinois i cannot trust the public schools. We have some of the best in the state but i dont need them convincing my girls theyre boys
Usually it's the other way around
No kids, so no use of public schools for us, either
How would you propose funding the government? I'm no more a fan of taxes than the next guy, however that money has to come from somewhere.
Sales tax. Make groceries (excluding junk food, pop and snacks) and baby supplies tax free.
I tend to agree. At least that makes everyone have some skin in the game.
It disproportionately burdens those with lower incomes. I am not saying they should have no skin in the game, but it isn't awesome.
It would also be ineffective in many rural areas.
How exactly? People with lower incomes will spend less, and pay less tax. They will also be able to live frugally , pay off their mortgage and be able to live almost for free if they choose.
Here in Ohio let’s say a $200k house pays $4000 in property taxes. At a 10% sales tax that family would need to spend $40k per year before sales tax is “worse” than property tax. They would also be able to pay off their mortgage sooner if they chose, further saving interest paid.
'How exactly? People with lower incomes will spend less, and pay less tax. They will also be able to live frugally , pay off their mortgage and be able to live almost for free if they choose.'
Two families. One earns $500k post tax, spends $300k, invests $200k. The other one earns $50k post tax, spends $50k because there is no way to operate a family in the United States in 2026 without spending $50k.
The effective tax rate on the second family is 66% higher than on the first family.
'Here in Ohio let’s say a $200k house pays $4000 in property taxes. At a 10% sales tax that family would need to spend $40k per year before sales tax is “worse” than property tax. '
If your family has a $250 weekly grocery bill, $400 on a car and $200 on insurance every month, they are more than halfway to spending $40k a year and no one has put on a stitch of clothing or put a gallon of gas in a car. But it's worse than that. That 10% tax has to be ADDITIVE, because the state and the counties are barely breaking even at 6.5 to 8.5 percent now. So you end up with European VAT level of taxation at 16.5 to 18.5.
Which is why I ask when the topic comes up. Property, income, consumption all have winners and losers. And yet we need some level,of government, so how to finance it?
Property taxes go to local funds that do things like build and maintain every day infrastructure. They are one of the less bad taxes.
It would be better to be rid of income tax entirely and shift to consumption tax.
Instead we'll get all three!
No. Income taxes end when you stop earning. That is a good thing.
Property taxes never end and are dictated to you, you do not control them. Hence why I think they are immoral, you can be taxed out of your ability to otherwise afford to live in property you own.
Income tax is a massive burden which makes it much harder to own property or retire because it vaporizes income so much right out the gate before you have even used it. In this scheme you don't even own your full earnings. A far greater financial abuse since most states then levy consumption taxes on money that has been taxed.
Property tax is complaining about a much much smaller and downstream issue, imo.
Well I’m not a fan of income taxes, but to me they are less evil than property taxes. I would prefer to eliminate all taxes and shift to sales tax for a lot of reasons including one very simple reason- the government at all levels (city, county, state federal) employs many many people to make the tax system work. All those jobs could be eliminated by sales tax, which is a simple calculation on purchases. This would reduce the size of government and the cost of government.
H1B's need to be banned. Period.
I updated my thought on that as well, I meant to say eliminated but limited ended up being posted.
Rescind birthright citizenship while we're at it
Agreed, that change is 50 years out of date.
I remember working at radio shack in the mid to late 90s where "realistic" and "Optimus" house brands went from about 50/50 designed and made by X Japanese company to just being literally name plate changes on car stereo head units. Fun times.
The most telling thing about Mamdani was basically starting that the city/renters/trusts would own apartments. The plan goes like this: tell landlords to fix up their units, or else. Oh, and btw you can't go up on rent either. If you as the landlord can't make a profit, that's not our, the city's, fault. Communism in action!
I'm a free market guy, but the H1B stuff has been getting out of hand. All these layoffs and yet companies are still getting H1Bs. I'm not opposed for companies subjected to federal labor laws getting a moratorium on H1B workers. Especially in tech sectors, they act like the people they are laying off can't be trained.
I’m still rocking a pair of Minimus 7s in the garage. These are branded RCA though.
I had a pair of in house designed Optimus bookshelves with the 360 degree ribbon tweeter. They sounded great but they were easy to fry (which I did). I also had an awesome sounding Optimus above rear deck 3 way( true three way) speakers that were an easy replacement for Toyotas weird 8x7 back speaker.
Government-issued indentured servant permits are not the free market, they are a subversion of the free market.
...that's also an elected official ostensibly a "public servant" - essentially using the power of his office to target a private citizen because... uh, we don't like him? "Your papers are not in order, comrade... you don't live here"... Bernie Sanders also owns a house he doesn't live in... I bet virtually every member of Congress owns real estate they rarely live in... but of course they're allowed to while CEO whoever is not.
Nevermind the oppressive precedent of the state taxing assets you've paid for, thus ensuring all you do is rent them from the government... the useful idiots of NYC think they've empowered a system for "justice", but all they've done is simply empower a system. That's the ultimate grift of socialism, you vote for it thinking it's going to work for you, but it's designed to work for the political class.
I guess we'll just never learn...
'...that's also an elected official ostensibly a "public servant" - essentially using the power of his office to target a private citizen because... uh, we don't like him? "Your papers are not in order, comrade... you don't live here"...'
Manhattan is essentially built out. There are no empty lots to build new homes. So when there are 10,000 homes with no one living in them, that means there are 10,000 residents who can't buy a home and who are forced into relationships with BlackRock and/or other firms that purchase real estate then rent it back at exorbitant rates.
The fallacy of the beard applies a bit here. It would be awful for the mayor of New York to direct public ire at a sanitation worker or restaurant employee. This person, by contrast, has obtained about $200 million dollars -- that is two hundred MILLION -- of real estate appreciation on homes he does not use and which directly cause other families to not have a home. Period point blank.
'Nevermind the oppressive precedent of the state taxing assets you've paid for, thus ensuring all you do is rent them from the government... '
That precedent was set in the Book of Domesday from 1086. It is settled. All we are doing now is arguing over implementation.
By the way, if you apply this tax to the average American home at the same rate that it's being applied to this man... you get $312.50.
People have been saying the younger generations don’t want to work for decades. It’s an embarrassing trope.
A couple of general work visa comments:
GBNews Expose (30 min): https://youtu.be/IyimKb7Ku6
Update yesterday from Kayleigh McEnany: https://xcancel.com/kayleighmcenany/status/2063312981090328755
Amanda Bartolotta is amazing: https://xcancel.com/amandalouise416/status/2062182782529409460#m She has previously documented the money flows and points out that _everybody gets paid_ (brokers, lawyers, lobbyists, hiring managers (kickbacks) except the displaced skilled Americans.
13 AG's (Indiana, Alaska, Arkansas, Idaho, Kansas, Louisiana,
Mississippi, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Carolina, and South Dakota) commented in support of some minor H-1B reforms; it is noteworthy that they repeated, weakly, some of the primary concerns with the program: https://image.subscription.in.gov/lib/fe2e11747364047b721071/m/1/e5a0bae4-8928-470f-b6c7-87c56571d2d1.pdf
At this point, there's a pretty broad "Bernie to Bannon" consensus in the public, numerous bills have been proposed, but I don't see anything really changing soon:
https://xcancel.com/BTT1024/status/2063004500198084734
https://xcancel.com/SanDiegoKnight/status/2062631715802365971
I drove my Boxster GTS 900 miles to Maine last week, nothing but good times. Learned that the convertible roof is kind of fake, underneath the van as is a magnesium shell that keeps things rigid and very quiet. You can't even get a convertible in a Corvette can ya?
No one is talking millionaire taxes here cause there ain't no millionaires. But we have a fake oysterman, woman abusing socialist with a concentration camp tat who is running to get on the Senate ballot.. I am having fun asking family and neighbors whether there is anything that Plattner could do that would disqualify him in their eyes? Raping a 12 year old? Ritual murder? Goat fucking? People are avoiding me a little.
Canvas not van ffs.
Ps I don't know about HB1S but Indian guys can play a great tennis game.
I thought they were into cricket.
Platner is a real peach.
“But but... remember that time we canceled Al Franken?!”
Could have had National Lampoon in the Senate and running r/jackhole (D-ME) instead.
The $109,000 hybrid Corvettes is not aspirationa, a $40,000 Corvette is aspirational. Before we were unwillingly sucked into clown world a loaded Camero SS was priced a few thousand less then a loaded L-82 Corvette. We will not discuss Jack’s S600 V-12 MB but domestically a loaded Buick Electra 225 was also a few thousand less then a comparable Couoe or Sedan Deville. Memo to file: Doctors and Lawyers that could afford the Cadillac bit drive the Buick 225 because it was the right thing to do. Ok think of it as the new rich driving the Yukon XL to Costco because and Escalade would send the wrong message to their neighbors. However now with our inverted Bell Curve economy the masses are driving used Caravans and the well off are not. To circle back to the topic at hand a $110,000 Corvette is a toy for those that pay cash not something to aspire to….
What annoys me most and Mamdani and his growing legion of DSA acolytes is their audacity to declare the American dream dead before people have had the opportunity to determine that for themselves. The tone I get from them is a lot of "Trust me bro, the game is cooked, best just burn your prime working years throwing rocks at ICE Agents instead of figuring out how to actually be productive and enjoy the fruits of said productivity"
My father told me this bit of wisdom when I was just nine years old: there's a lot of money to be made in convincing someone how they're getting screwed by someone else.
Of course, little did I realize back then that the monetary rewards pale in comparison to the political power to be gained through such blatant pandering.