Politics: The Undiscovered Country

[Skarpen]

16 hours ago, Malcador said:

Doubt he's going anywhere, really, so no need to worry.

And another reason politicians should stay off Twitter : https://www.newsweek.com/texas-beto-orourke-briscoe-cain-gun-reform-1459074

 

 

That's funny.

A: I will come and take your stuff with the power of the Government

B: I will defend myself

A: FBI, please come to Twitter he is threatening me.

17 hours ago, Hurlshot said:

I am a two income family and we are barely staying ahead of debts and expenses, so it's not like the current administration is working for us. We made $160k last year. We can't afford to buy a house and struggle not to take on debt every month.

From what you say it seems you pay about 3200$ for rent. It's 38400$ per year. How much the houses or flats cost that it's better for you to rent instead of taking a bank loan and paying for your own place?

[Hurlshort]

6 hours ago, Skarpen said:

 

From what you say it seems you pay about 3200$ for rent. It's 38400$ per year. How much the houses or flats cost that it's better for you to rent instead of taking a bank loan and paying for your own place?

The house we are renting sold to a friend of ours last year for just under $800k. It was a fixer upper. We have been keeping an eye on the condo and townhome market, and most of them are $700k and up. 

It would be much better to own, as our tax liability would drop enough to make up for any extra we pay on the mortgage, plus we would hopefully earn equity. But the down payment is considerably hard to generate on a $700k property. 

Most of the people I know around my age and younger who do own either got in right after the market dropped in 2008, or their parents gave them enough to cover the down payment. 

We do like the town we live in, so moving isn't an option. I don't know, we did make a bunch of changes in the last year to adjust our budget, so hopefully we will be clear of debt and have a bit saved up in a couple years. We would also need favorable market conditions, so we will see. I also don't want to say no to my kids all the time when it comes to competitive sports and family trips. They grow up fast. 

[Gfted1]

10 hours ago, Azdeus said:

Just had a quick look for my local town, it's in the "ghetto", 3room+kitchen 80sqm apartment, 6400sek rent, 300 people in queue...

Is that good or bad? Google tells me that's roughly 861 square feet for ~$666 (US) / month. Sounds small but inexpensive to me. Just curious, but what does "3 rooms" mean? 1 bedroom, 1 bathroom, 1 common room?

[Gfted1]

***

Edited September 14, 2019 by Gfted1
Double post.

[213374U]

29 minutes ago, Gfted1 said:

Is that good or bad? Google tells me that's roughly 861 square feet for ~$666 (US) / month. Sounds small but inexpensive to me. Just curious, but what does "3 rooms" mean? 1 bedroom, 1 bathroom, 1 common room?

Yeah, doesn't sound so bad. Except he mentioned that it's in the ghetto (I suppose he's referring to one of those no-go zones that made the news a few years ago) but there are still 300 people in line.

Edited September 14, 2019 by 213374U
¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[Gfted1]

The queue is interesting to me. Generally speaking, leases in the US are one year terms, and the tenant can renew it. So even if youre the 10th dude in line in Sweden, you've got a decade wait? Or is it different there?

[Gromnir]

2 hours ago, Hurlshot said:

 

We do like the town we live in, so moving isn't an option. 

well, that is kinda final.

you did the roadtrip thing in previous years. is no other town in ca you might see yourself as liking? am understanding you is a teacher and teacher credentials don't just translate 'tween states in all cases, so maybe you feel you is stuck in ca?

great recession shows why house ownership ain't the end all and be all o' sound financial planning. even so, doesn't sound like you is supplementing teacher pension with ira and mutual funds and similar in lieu o' property ownership. you already said you is kinda fighting monthly debt. 

am not being critical; am sympathetic. no doubt you have worried over and considered anything we might suggest. still, you got a rather singular plan for future financial security which depends almost entirely on you keeping your current job indefinite. is no doubt a bit nerve wracking at times. 

good luck.

HA! Good Fun!

[Azdeus]

1 hour ago, Gfted1 said:

The queue is interesting to me. Generally speaking, leases in the US are one year terms, and the tenant can renew it. So even if youre the 10th dude in line in Sweden, you've got a decade wait? Or is it different there?

The price is okay, I make about 19500sek a month, but the location is bad unless you like noisy and messy neighbourhoods, the vast majority there are unemployed immigrant families, and yeah, there are 300 people in line. 3 rooms mean three rooms to do whatever you want with, there is no furnishing, but the plan calls two bedrooms, one livingroom, there is also a bathroom and a closet.

This particular company follows a point system, every  day you are in a queue you get one point, and the one with the most points get the apartment if they want it. Parents when I was young put their kids up in that queue when they were teenagers, so you don't have a real chance to get one there unless noone is interested. I have 2765 points, that particular apartment you needed 2400 or so points to even get to view the apartment, so that's the median of points the people there has.

[smjjames]

Pfft, that point system sounds like utter bull**** to me.

[Guard Dog]

 In my experience property owners who lease houses to tenets are hardly the landed gentry screwing the little guy. Not saying it’s not like that everywhere but that wasn’t my experience. I leased a townhouse to two different families over a three-year period and I took a loss on that townhouse every single month. I could not collect enough in rent to cover the mortgage and homeowners dues.  That’s not bad business, the cost of housing in Bartlett Tennessee is what it is. Of course all of that was made up for and then some when I sold the place last year. 

 

 In my opinion real estate is absolutely the place to be right now as far as investments. If predictions are true and we see negative interest rates in the future the opportunity to buy will be really strong.  For a short time at least. That said I don’t know if even that would help someone in Hurlshots position.  When $800,000 only gets you a fixer-upper amd leaving the area is not an option I really don’t know what advice I could give. It just sucks.  When I left South Florida I sold my house for $340,000. I had been in it for 15 years and made a good chunk of money off of it. I had to split it with my ex-wife of course.  Moving to Tennessee I bought 24 1/2 acres of land and built a house on it for $210,000. Location is everything. 

Edited September 14, 2019 by Guard Dog
Grammar

[ktchong]

I have been reading and thinking about current tension between China and the US – particularly about the detainment of Huawei CFO Meng Wanzhou in Canada, and the current situation in Hong Kong. I think I might have connected the dots and figured out that Hillary Clinton and the Democratic Party are behind both incidents/situations. My conjecture is Hillary is still angry and bitter about losing the 2016 presidential election to Donald Trump. So, the petty bitch has been using Meng and Hong Kong to sabotage Trump’s trade negotiation with China. Hillary basically wants to sink the US economy and create a severe recession to undermine Trump’s reelection chance.

First, Hillary’s political allies in New York arranged Meng Wanzhou’s detainment in Canada, which completely blindsided Trump during his initial round of trade negotiation with China. Obviously China thought it was Trump who ordered Meng’s detainment. At the same time, Trump had too much of an ego to show any weakness, so he could not admit Hillary had played him and undermined his trade negotiation with China.

Then, Hillary and Nancy Pelosi used the National Endowment for Democracy to stir up troubles in Hong Kong, so that China would blame America – and therefore Trump – for the troubles in Hong Kong. That would make China even more unwilling to negotiate with Trump.

That petty woman is just devious and evil.

However, based on what I’ve been reading, China has been slowly put together all the pieces and figured out that Hillary, Pelosi and the Democratic Party have beeen behind all the ploys - based on the information that has been coming out of China in the past couple days, which suddenly blamed Hillary and Pelosi for Hong Kong.  Took me awhile for make the connections: that the warrant for Meng came out of the NY prosecutor office, and that the NED is currently more closely tied to the Hillary's wing of the Democratic Party than anything else. 

This could backfire on the entire Democratic Party. China will likely make a deal with Trump at the right timing to ease/shorten the coming recession, just to punish the Democratic Party, Hillary Clinton and Nancy Pelosi, and to help Trump get re-elected. So, the irony is: Hillary will probably get Trump elected TWICE, all because she is such a petty woman. Hillary’s brilliant plan is gonna backfire again.

Just to be clear: I am not a Trump supporter. I actually lean Democrats, but this is gonna be bad.

Edited September 14, 2019 by ktchong

[smjjames]

So, uh, do you actually believe that contorted conspiracy theory or are you s-itposting? Because that’s the most off-the-wall post I’ve ever seen you make....

Haven’t heard anything about them specifically blaming Hillary and Pelosi,  but not surprised as they always blame the West for their troubles. 

[ktchong]

Basically, I've been seeing a lot of Chinese articles and videos all of a sudden blaming Hillary (and Pelosi) for Hong Kong popping up this week.   I was like, wait, why are they even talking about Hillary???  Then it just suddenly hit me.   The warrant of Meng originated from the NY state prosecutor office, which was a Hillary supporter.  The NED - which is a NGO that has ties to the CIA but then is not directly under the control of the US government - has been behind Hong Kong protests/riots, and the current power behind the NED is neoliberals, i.e., the Hillary wing of the Democratic Party.

 

Here is one of the videos (this one is actually connected to the Chinese state media):

 

 

 

The irony is, a few months ago I thought Trump really needed to stop blaming and talking about Hillary because I thought, "seriously, Hillary lost the election three years ago, move on already!".... turned out he knew something that I did not.

Edited September 14, 2019 by ktchong

[smjjames]

Let me emphasize a particular part of that post:

1 minute ago, ktchong said:

Here is one of the videos (this one is actually connected to the Chinese state media):

 

Don’t tell me you’re actually taking the state media at their word?

i have heard of some of them waving US flags and trying to ge the US’s attention, but that’s all it is, people desperately trying to get Trump to do his damn job and defend democracy. 

[ktchong]

3 minutes ago, smjjames said:

Let me emphasize a particular part of that post:

Don’t tell me you’re actually taking the state media at their word?

i have heard of some of them waving US flags and trying to ge the US’s attention, but that’s all it is, people desperately trying to get Trump to do his damn job and defend democracy. 

 

Don't you think it's kinda weird that the Chinese state media suddenly mentioned Hillary Clinton with Hong Kong??  Like, what did China know that we didn't??

Edited September 14, 2019 by ktchong

[Zoraptor]

China is blaming Hillary because it plays well to Trump, who loves a bit of a conspiracy theory and probably believes Dorian not hitting Alabama was due to Obama andor Hillary frantically releasing butterflies to deflect its path. Meng's detention was due to the overall stoush the US has with Huawei and 5G and she was detained via Canada for the same reason that they got Britain to detain that Iranian tanker rather than seized it themselves- chilling effect, and it brings another country directly into the mix and you can usually rely on that other country not to fold to pressure due to nationalism and not wanting to appear weak. Well, unless 'lol, no help for you' is your response when they need help after losing a tanker in response at least.

The only conspiracy theory* for Meng's detention relates back to Huawei and its 5G system and why the US dislikes it- that there aren't Chinese backdoors beaming everything back to the 100 Acre Wood but that they are instead refusing to install NSA backdoors. Otherwise her detention is pretty much par for the course for US foreign policy.

*very likely not a conspiracy theory, since the Huawei hardware has been extensively tested at this point with none of the claimed Chinese back doors found.

 

Edited September 14, 2019 by Zoraptor

[ShadySands]

15 minutes ago, ktchong said:

 

Don't you think it's kinda weird that the Chinese state media suddenly mentioned Hillary Clinton with Hong Kong??  Like, what did China know that we didn't??

Where to find an easy scapegoat, maybe?

[smjjames]

How's this for a conspiracy theory: The Chinese, knowing that attacking Trump will just make him quadruple the tariffs, decided to search for an alternate target. Fortunately Putin had blamed Hillary for meddling with Russia elections some years back, so, she became a perfect target, it also happens to be an election year, so, why not add on Trumps opposition as well? So, of course the Democrats are to blame.

1 minute ago, Zoraptor said:

China is blaming Hillary because it plays well to Trump, who loves a bit of a conspiracy theory and probably believes Dorian not hitting Alabama was due to Obama andor Hillary frantically releasing butterflies to deflect its path. Meng's detention was due to the overall stoush the US has with Huawei and 5G and she was detained via Canada for the same reason that they got Britain to detain that Iranian tanker rather than seized it themselves- chilling effect, and it brings another country directly into the mix and you can usually rely on that other country not to fold to pressure due to nationalism and not wanting to appear weak. Well, unless 'lol, no help for you' is your response when they need help after losing a tanker in response at least.

The only conspiracy theory* for Meng's detention relates back to Huawei and its 5G system and why the US dislikes it- that there aren't Chinese backdoors beaming everything back to the 100 Acre Wood but that they are instead refusing to install NSA backdoors. Otherwise her detention is pretty much par for the course for US foreign policy.

*very likely not a conspiracy theory, since the Huawei hardware has been extensively tested at this point with none of the claimed Chinese back doors found.

 

Bah, ninja'd by seconds, but I took the more fun pseudo-conspiracy theory route.

[Zoraptor]

2 minutes ago, ShadySands said:

Where to find an easy scapegoat, maybe?

I'd genuinely say it's an attempt at 2 year old psychology. Refuse to get in the car? Well, Hillary wants you to stay out of the car too so you're doing what she wants! Refuse to eat your broccoli? Just like Obama, he hates broccoli too!

[smjjames]

2 minutes ago, Zoraptor said:

I'd genuinely say it's an attempt at 2 year old psychology. Refuse to get in the car? Well, Hillary wants you to stay out of the car too so you're doing what she wants! Refuse to eat your broccoli? Just like Obama, he hates broccoli too!

Isn't that more like reverse psychology?

[Zoraptor]

Yeah, but it's so simplistic an example of reverse psychology that it really ought to only work on children.

[ktchong]

What will American people do with the $1,000?

The poor will not have a choice.  They will use the $1,000 to to buy food, gas, etc., to pay rents, to pay for necessities.

Whatever remains of the middle class will use the $1,000 to pay off debts that are piling up every month, most likely home mortgages. 

The upper class will invest the $1,000 - and use it to make even more money.

The UBI will only worsen wealth inequality. Andrew Yang is really a libertarian. Progressives should not fall for his scam.

Edited September 15, 2019 by ktchong

[Guard Dog]

7 hours ago, ktchong said:

Andrew Yang is really a libertarian.

Um, no. But you are correct about the inherent flaws in UBI. Give everyone $1000 for rent as an example. Everyone's rent will go up by $1000. 

[Gfted1]

My mortgage wont go up so it works for me!

EDIT: Whoa, whoa, whoa...I just realized its 1k for EACH PERSON between 18-64yo. That's an additional 18k to my household!! The Gfted clan will be out voting early, and often (since they cant card us).

[Guard Dog]

Let's see. I own my house and I can and do grow a good bit my my food. I have the means to produce a little bit of electrical power on my own. Not enough to run and AC but enough for most other basic functions. Give me $1k a month for doing nothing and I'll quit my job and do nothing!