There’s always something to howl about.
This is stunning.
…in Oregon, where the state teachers union declared last year that resisting another full-time virtual charter company, the Baltimore-based Connections Academy, would be its top priority
Not educating student,s but resisting change.
So: Let’s drop the shit-hammer, shall we?
Greece is broke. So is England, and so is most of the rest of Europe.
California is broke, Illinois is broke, and, if you count unfunded pension liabilities, not only are all the rest of the states, counties and cities broke, so are all of the surlier labor unions.
Social Security is broke, as is the metamorphosing medical scam to be known, soon enough, as no-healthcare-for-you!
The United States government is broke, of course, limping along, for now, on funds borrowed against the promise of future confiscatory currency inflation, future crippling taxation — or both.
Socialism is a Ponzi scheme, and, before you know it, you run out of suckers to milk. Sooner or later, welfare-state socialism has to collapse. As I’ve argued, I don’t think that time is now. Despite our talent, as a species, for forecasting apocalyptic, pandemic doom, in reality the sky hardly ever falls more than once or twice a day.
Moreover, even though we are enmired in a deep recession — and even though our puerile president is making that recession much worse with every boneheaded error at his command — even so, it is very likely that we are out-producing welfare-state socialism in the long run. That might stick in your craw, but it remains that — even despite the drag on the economy caused by taxes, regulation, deficit spending and waste — the trajectory of the standard of living of every American — and virtually everyone on earth — is steadily upward.
But, but, but! Government is impoverishing us! I saw it on the big-screen HD-TV in the bedroom, and also on the even-bigger-screen HD-TV in the living room, and, just to be sure, I followed-up on the high-speed internet connection on my 27″ quad-core iMac! Don’t try to tell me the world’s not going to hell in a hand-basket! I’ve got the best hardware and software in the world to tell me how terrible my life is!
That much is funny to me, but, even so, these circumstances can’t last forever. At some point the parasites will overwhelm the host, and, when that happens, Read more
Commercial Real Estate Finance Expert
Structured Debt and Equity
Licensed Real Estate Broker in AL, CA, and FL
I wrote a satirical piece last August about how life might be if the Federal Government increased its power. I suggested racial balancing might be a consideration in elections:
President Menendez was elected by a sweeping margin when he ran against former Senator Mel Martinez in the first ever race-neutral Presidential election. Former President Obama signed the Neutrality in Elections Act of 2013 and it was agreed that Presidential elections would be held with a specific race/ethnicity as the qualifying factor, every eight years, so as to offer opportunity to all Americans. We The G.O.P originally nominated George P. Bush but his ambiguous ethnicity disqualified him for this particular election; he’ll have his chance in 16 years.
Crazy? One commenter thought I might have gone a bit too far:
There was a time when I was warned about my on line reputation. After reading this blog for the past couple of months I look tame.
race-neutral Presidential election? …Sheesha!
I’ll admit that I have an active imagination but sometimes life imitates art:
Voters in Port Chester, 25 miles northeast of New York City, are electing village trustees for the first time since the federal government alleged in 2006 that the existing election system was unfair. The election ends Tuesday and results are expected late Tuesday.
Although the village of about 30,000 residents is nearly half Hispanic, no Latino had ever been elected to any of the six trustee seats, which until now were chosen in a conventional at-large election. Most voters were white, and white candidates always won.
Federal Judge Stephen Robinson said that violated the Voting Rights Act, and he approved a remedy suggested by village officials: a system called cumulative voting, in which residents get six votes each to apportion as they wish among the candidates. He rejected a government proposal to break the village into six districts, including one that took in heavily Hispanic areas.
You just can’t make this stuff up….even when you try.
Yesterday was no day at the beach. Okay, technically I suppose you could twist the facts around and put a major league, curve ball spin on it and call it a day at the beach. You know, if you want to get hung up on little details like how I spent the entire day at the beach. I packed up my two boys, an ice chest full of Cheetos and one large cantaloupe. (I didn’t bring a knife and apparently you don’t eat those things like an apple, so I returned with one empty ice chest and one large cantaloupe.) I met up with my good friend and occasional confessor Brian Brady and his lovely daughter. We were later joined by his wife, whom I’ll just call Mrs. Lance Armstrong Brady for this story, and we spent an entire, glorious day at the beach. But other than that, yesterday was no day at the beach. Yeah, okay, I see your point. Put it this way, it wasn’t a typical day at the beach.
For me, a typical day at the beach would mainly involve long discussions with Brian on solving the world’s problems (ask us sometime… we’ve got the whole thing whittled down to a small pamphlet) and occasionally testing the sandy hardness of the ocean floor by falling off my boogie board. (This is all done purposefully and as part of my larger interest in oceanography. I could ride a wave on a boogie board if I wanted to…) Sometimes, just to spice things up, I see how long I can hold in my gut without passing out in front of an attractive, bikini-clad woman. They usually do a surprisingly good job of pretending to not even notice me, but we’re so close to Hollywood I assume most of them are just acting… Anyway, that’s a typical day at the beach for me. But not yesterday. Yesterday I was distracted by a gigantic hole. Yes, a hole… in the sand. Like I said: not your typical day at the beach.
My two boys and Brian’s daughter spent a good chunk of their morning – when they weren’t out on boogie boards Read more
I love the team concept as it’s executed corrected by some in the business. However, most of them, IMHO, and through first hand observation, produce pre-tax income less for most team leaders than most think. Going even further, I’d say those workin’ by themselves or partnered, using only assistants, not commissioned agents, will almost always bank more coin than team leaders.
The model I’ve used since late 1996 is so old it was in place in ancient Rome. It starts at the top with The Guy who then has as many assistants as needed, doing all the work that supports rather than generates company earnings. I’d never go as far as to say it beats the Team approach every time out, but there are some distinct advantages to my favored MO when compared tit or tat with the typical team.
My MO, as stated up top, is simple. I hire assistants as business volume dictates. The more the business, the more assistants. When I was able to work in my local market, San Diego, there were long stretches when I had three full timers — none of whom were paid salaries or by the hour. All were paid based on my production. See what I mean? Nothing new or ‘cutting edge’.
The Boss (Don’t ask who that is — must I explain marriage?) for years has resisted my somewhat awkward attempts to point her in this direction for one of her companies. It’s a retail bridal gown ‘n stuff kinda store. She’s a well known designer who’s also sold to other stores nationwide via her wholesale operation — she’s been doin’ this for over 20 years. Her store (Yes Stevie, there is a God) shares a wall with Hooters in the Mission Valley area of San Diego. It’s a measly 500 square feet.
Her MO was to hire salesladies to deal with customers. It was a constant pain in the ass, as most of ’em couldn’t manage a one-man picnic if given a plan and a how-to video. I finally resorted to begging and pleading. Then one night not long Read more
We weren’t even out that long… But don’t think for a minute that I envy you your snow.
If you’re a true communist real estate photographer like I once was and your getting ready to go as far right as my friends in the business Greg Swann and Brian Brady, who I humbly agree with; then it’s time to drop your ordinary communist real estate photography money distributing, crummy, worthless shop. Warning to all communist!!! The remainder of this article is about greedy greed greed; making money.
You might be asking, what is a true communist real estate photographer like I mentioned in sentence one? A communist real estate photographer is what I used to be; simply list a home explain why I’m “THE GUY” and then take some “communist real estate photos” with my $350 best buy camera and put em’ in the system. Why is a $350 best buy camera SO COMMUNIST you might be asking? Simply put, in this new world of real estate over the past five years, myself and many others who are still in the business having had to adapt.
One of the ways I’ve adapted is really quite simple; CHANGE. I believe in THREE main capitalist scenario’s needed to sell a home.
1) Exposure (advertising) only a greedy greed greed capitalist would invest advertising money to make money.
2) Presentation (PHOTOGRAPHY & VIDEO) this is where I was a communist. My PRESENTATION sucked. Buyer’s looking at online couldn’t distinguish a Worthington Realty home from any other home. Simply put, I was losing money for myself and clients alike. I wasn’t totally doing my job. SO I CHANGED. I made a near $2,000 investment in real estate photography equipment to get me started.
I AM NO HARRY BISEL, as a matter of fact, if my photos could be half as good, I’ve succeeded. I have noticed because my PRESENTATION has “professional like” quality photos, my SHOWING numbers have gone WAY UP, and in turn I have CLOSED more deals.
How do ya like that Greedy Greed Greed explanation? I was your typical communist real estate photographer and didn’t even know it.
3) In case you’re wondering what the final point is – “Value” If the home is properly priced it Read more
Commercial Real Estate Finance Expert
Structured Debt and Equity
Licensed Real Estate Broker in AL, CA, and FL
Remember Ashley Dupre? We visited her two years ago, when her tryst with New York’s #1 John hit the front page:
Who is Ashley Dupree and why do we care about her? Ashley is a budding songwriter and singer with a compelling story. She was cast into the limelight as Eliot Spitzer’s paramour; taking a few large a month for companionship. Now I don’t want to comment on the morality of prostitution; in 49 states, it’s illegal. Whether you’re an Emporer’s Club “provider” or a sex worker trolling Grand Central, the State of New York considers prostitution a crime. The allegations against Ashley have not been proven in a court of law and frankly, I don’t care if she did it or not. Why?
I said then that she could reinvent herself:
Memo to Ashley Alexandra Dupree: America is the land of “reinventing yourself”. Ask Sidney Biddle Barrows, Vanessa Williams, Donald Trump, or even Daryl Strawberry how forgiving the American public is. Americans crave drama, revere celebrity, and have a sense of justice about them.
Ashley followed the”fifteen minutes of fame” plan. She moved to LA, posed for a centerfold, and stayed away from jail. She moved back to Manhattan and is pondering a career in…real estate brokerage!
The Post’s sultry sex columnist has moved back to town from the West Coast and immediately decided to enroll in a real estate course at NYU. The course is required to apply for a New York broker’s license — but Dupre said she isn’t quite ready to become a full-time real estate dealmaker yet.
She told us, “I recently moved back to New York from Los Angeles. Since being home, I took and passed the accelerated Real Estate Salesperson Course at NYU.
Only in New York. Her future colleagues seem to think she fits in quite well:
Sources told us Dupre fit in well at NYU and “made a ton of friends. She dressed very cute to class, hung out with Read more
Who says all academics are mindless time-wasters? A pair of brave scholars have demonstrated a correlation between obesity and mortgage defaults. A bad credit report is good evidence of insufficient thrift, but a good credit report is evidence of nothing dispositive. A bulging waistline, on the other hand…
We show that obesity is an economically significant predictor of mortgage delinquencies at the county level. In practice, however, loan contracts do not incorporate easily verifiable health risk factors such as obesity. The discrepancy between theory and practice suggests the existence of substantial cross-subsidization and misallocation of funds in the loan market. The potential for business opportunities and policy implications warrants further investigation of our results with more detailed, albeit costly data.
This is pretty dumb, practically speaking, but it’s nice to see that the idea of pre-existing conditions might have a future, now that it’s been outlawed where it actually makes sense, in the health insurance business.
As an aside, our own Tom Vanderwell makes a cameo appearance in this “study.”
My friend Jim Klein has been hanging out with us here at BloodhoundBlog for the past few months, gently tossing rhetorical hand-grenades into our discussions where he thinks they might do the most good. I met Jim fifteen years ago on Usenet, and we’ve been philosophical allies ever since. I love having him around here, because I trust him to tell me when he thinks I’m wrong.
I’ve been working to flesh out SplendorQuest.com so that I might, sometime soon, move our more-ornately philosophical discussions there. Jim will be writing with me there, and possibly some other folks, as we go forward. My own plan is to use SplendorQuest to document everything I know about philosophy. There is a lot that I do that is original in the world of discourse — Jim can tell you better than I can what qualifies as being original — and I want to make sure I document what I’ve done in a thoroughgoing way before I shuffle off this mortal coil.
This post — our very first guest post — consists of Jim thanking me for challenging his preconceptions in an enduring way. At the time he’s taking about, I was beyond grateful that I could get anyone at all to listen to what I had to say, so my take is that the debt runs the other way. In any case, I am very proud to be able to show Jim off, both at BloodhoundBlog and at SplendorQuest.
With that, I give you Jim Klein:
[This was written for genuine Bloodhounds. Please check your chip!]
I always start simple. Then I try to stay there. This post is no exception. I even cut it in half, to keep it as simple as possible. The main question I seek to answer here is, “What is owing?”
You see, I owe Greg Swann. No, not for anything he sold me, nor because of anything he expects, let alone demands. He did do some software work back in the ’90s, but I paid for that. BTW his code is used to this day, making Read more
A Ramblin’ Gamblin’ Willie story
Cinderella was in a snit, and who could blame her? She was an orphan swarmed by a family of strangers, accidental intimates, pushy and intrusive and unwelcome. And the most distant stranger of all was the original Prince Charming, the man she had expected would always be beside her.
Physically distant, too, for he led the little brood, prancing on the balls of his feet, ostentatiously trying too hard, while Cinderella dragged her small feet at the rear, palpably punishing Prince Charming. Once he flounced back and tried to jolly her into joining them, into becoming one with them, but she blew him off with a furious shake of her head, horse-whipping him symbolically with her imperious, impetuous, long brown hair.
And something tells me it’s all happening at the zoo. I was sitting on a bench watching the Galapagos tortoises fornicate, a surprisingly delicate, amazingly time-consuming process. The post-modern delegation from the Brothers Grimm came trundling up the path, and they made a fine exhibit, too.
Only a fool would call them a family. They were a composite, an ungainly grafting of two diseased trees. If you keep your eyes open you can spot them all over, whisper-shouting through clenched teeth at the mall, squabbling over dinner at Denny’s, caucusing in sub-groups at gas stations and national parks. He’s responsible for his kids, if he has any, and she’s responsible for hers, and the children, ultimately, answer to no one. Very sad. Very stupid. Very common.
I didn’t pay them any mind, not then. If you’ve seen one tragedy, you’ve seen one too many. But I caught up with them again on the Zoo Train, a sea serpent’s idea of the ideal golf cart, designed for people who would rather sit than see the animals. And I didn’t go looking for trouble, neither; I was sitting peacefully, placidly, blessedly alone when they invaded me. I was waiting for the train ride to begin, and they tumbled into the row of benches ahead of mine, puncturing the quiet with random and raucous thrusts of sound.
The Wicked Stepmother was not the loudest Read more
Commercial Real Estate Finance Expert
Structured Debt and Equity
Licensed Real Estate Broker in AL, CA, and FL
“How much traffic could you reasonably expect from blog posts that are a couple of years old?” asked Kaiholo Hale, a Maui vacation rental expert.
My answer? A bunch of good traffic if the blog post is relevant. I’ll show you two of my little workhorses:
Two little work horses should produce $50,000 annual GCI for me in 2011. I can do much better than that. Greg Swann once remarked that you can return to old blog posts and “polish them up”. You can update them, double check your grammar and spelling, and try to add some conversion tools or calls to action so that they can turn into GCI for you. Let’s see what I might do with my two:
The apartment loans post is a quick conversion. People landing on that page want a loan and they want it quickly. I think I can add some Read more
As many of you know, I stopped doin’ business in my local market, San Diego, at the end of 2003. Since then I’ve done two transactions here, both as listing agent — both gettin’ the sellers Outa Dodge, so to speak. I haven’t bothered to market here cuz, well cuz I thought the prices were gonna keep falling, which they did, big time. Since I avoid short sales and REO’s like the plague, that pretty much ensured I’d not be doin’ any San Diego business. How dumb is it to buy income property in San Diego even now? You can see an example — where I present my answer to those whose only reason for holding on to the crappola they call income property there, is “I gotta be able to drive by my investment properties”. For the record, that example uses the lowest priced duplex in the neighborhood, and I used high projected rents.
My response to local real estate investors when they’ve called or emailed objecting to my stance, is to ask them, “Well now, how’s that whole ‘drivin’ by’ thing been workin’ our for ya lately?” The ongoing market correction, and there’s more to come IMHO, has reduced well located duplexes that sold in late 2005 in the neighborhood of $550-600,000 to hoping to find a buyer while now asking $300-400,000.
And their numbers still suck like a turbo-charged Dyson.
In spite of these empirical facts of life, I’m makin’ my official return to the San Diego investment market next week. Office is set up, except for the internet connection which will go hot by Wednesday. Yet it didn’t feel real ’till I picked up my new cards and letterhead this afternoon. Haven’t had either for many years. There’s literally been no need. Everything I’ve done since 2004 has been out of California, and everything sans referrals since July of 2006 has come from my 2.0 efforts.
It’s a good thing, cuz I had no other choice, unless it was to return to selling local homes to owner users, something I’ve happily abstained from doing since Carter’s Read more
Commercial Real Estate Finance Expert
Structured Debt and Equity
Licensed Real Estate Broker in AL, CA, and FL
The Active Rain Real Estate Network is charging a fee. I’m not surprised. The network has been trying to find ways to monetize its business since inception. It tried a referral network and advertising and now it’s faced with the hard decision of pay-for-play.
Lani, at Agent Genius reported that one founding member deleted all of his content in protest:
This week, Active Rain inadvertently makes for heated conversation again by going back on their promise to founding members (the first users of the service) that they would never have to pay to participate because they evangelized for free and promoted the service making it what it is today.
Real estate blogger Jay Thompson, one of Active Rain’s original users and long time advocate of the brand noticed along with many other bloggers today that despite ActiveRain’s promise to grandfather in “founding members,” he was asked to pay an annual fee before he would be allowed to continue participating.
ActiveRain allegedly fudged notifying founding members and moved forward by only allowing active members to be grandfathered in. Thompson’s argument is not only one that he and others did not receive proper notification, but he and others comment frequently and despite being on a points based system tied to each user’s account, it is not considered to be “participation.”
Thompson’s response? He deleted all of the content he had ever written and I suspect he and others will no longer refer to ActiveRain in their frequent seminars, courses and speaking engagements.
I don’t know if I would have chosen to delete my content there. Like any advertising model, it might have been useful to really analyze the costs and benefits. I can think of three benefits to paying for membership in the network:
This isn’t too hard to quantify. The Read more
