Not everyone should be a homedebtor

& Thanks to the Cunts at Countrywide(tm) that’s becoming a reality.

Best game console ever

Betrayal

Meet Dick

Tax liens a-go-go?

Tax liens are levied against houses for non-payment, and:

“property tax collectors stand in the first position of the pecking order of who gets their money when a homeowner falls behind in their payments.” [Fred Cederholm]

This investment has been touted by every RE guru-du-jour in the specuvestard seminars as the investment to get if you want a high return, since they paid such high rates of return (in the range of 8-18%).

Plus, if the homedebtor never makes good on it, you might wind up with the property instead- which you can then sell, perhaps for even more than you are owed on the debt (lien).

You might even consider moving in, but considering the state of most foreclosed properties, better to pass it on to a fliptard who thinks he’s found the way to real estate riches.

In an informerical, John Beck purports tax liens are a way to acquire fabulous homes at unbelievable low prices. Here’s a sample (I’m paraphrasing) of the script, repeated throught the mersh ad nauseum:

“You mean this house was purchased for only $65?!?”

“Yes that’s right, that house your holding (hostess is holding a pacard with a photo on it) was purchased for $65.”

“That’s sounds to good to be true!?!!”

“Yes, it does sound too good to be true!”

What brings this old warhorse up is the record number of foreclosures we are seeing. Have cash?

Many people who would ordinarily invest in tax liens found that the mad rush a few years back left no scraps at the auction table for the few that were available, during what was a unusual market occurence. Investors walked away, and parked their cash in T-bills or money market, or mutual funds, since not only were tax liens over-picked, but real estate prices had risen so high, that making income from rent was a no-go- apart from the appreciation, which, as we all know, is history.

Now in a down market, maybe it is time to revisit tax lien auctions again.

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“Inflation is by design a tax on the working class. The investment class gets to ride it like a pony.” -Paco Bell

Harlan Ellison

In lieu of reading the Sunday paper, instead, for the last three months I get on the web and seek out stories that interest me- as opposed to, say what the LA or NY Times might want me to read. I still visit them, but they are simply a few of the freckles on this time worn face of newsworthiness.

What are my other sources? Bloomberg,  news aggregators (e.g. Real Clear), Yahoo, blogs- the regulars which I visit point out stories that I otherwise might have missed, and expand them, examine them, for bias, BS, and intent. See the sidebar for a few you might not already know, I’ve made a note to update this first chance I get.

Sometimes pieces like this interview with Harlan Ellison (Part 1, Part 2) are entertaining, enlightening, inspiring, and make much of what is considered newsworthy seem like so much flotsam and jetsam.

Just the perspective I need on a Sunday morning.

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“Chance favors the prepared mind.” -Louis Pasteur

The Hamster pimps his book

The car of the future was in the past

American Nightmare: Stockton, CA

Length: ~ 23 minutes.

“It was just the market.” -Stockton realtor

“Ethics never entered into it.” -Charles Morris, author The Trillion Dollar Meltdown: Easy Money, High Rollers and the Great Credit Crash. [article]

“This is the dubmest, most hopeless strategy, it makes sense only if you think the Federal Reserve is a cabinet office of the presidency, and they just want to get through until November of 2008 and finally hand it over to somebody else, because as a policy stance it makes no sense at all.” -Charles Morris on the ‘economic stimulus package’

“It was about the fees.” -Nomi Prins

“I teach securitzation (at Columbia Business School) and I can tell I don’t know what the point of this step was.” -Charles Calomiris

“The Fed is complicit in allowing the banks to lie about the value of their assets.” -protester

“Where is the discount window for taxpayers?” -protester

“Q: What does AAA mean?” “A: it means the rating agency’s bill was paid.” -protester

“JP Morgan got Bear Stearns, all the taxpayers got was 39 Billion dollars in taxpayer liability.” -protester

“Not only is it unethical, immoral, and illegal, it’s as unconstitutional as it can be.” -protester

“So far, the Federal Reserve has taken over $200 Billion worth of mortgage securities off the hands of American banks.” -narrator

“The American economy is like that movie Weekend at Bernie’s, where the beach house party is non-stop action, but the host is dead.” -Paco Bell

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Debt is slavery.

No joke

“the following is reprinted word for word from the side-effects ‘medication guide’:

‘After taking AmbientSP, you may get up out of bed while not being fully awake and do an activity that you do not know you are doing. The next morning, you may not remember that you did anything during the night.

Reported activities include:
driving a car (“sleep-driving”)
making and eating food
talking on the phone
having sex
sleep-walking

‘Call your doctor right away if you find out that you have done any of the above activities after taking AmbientSP.’ ” [Of Two Minds]

Quick show of hands: who recalls when the first drugs were marketed to the public instead of practitioners within the healthcare industry?

In the early 90’s I recall a TV commercial during the nightly snewze (pick your (yawn) network) where something (only later was it revealed to be a drug) was being advertised to attract, it would seem from it’s psychedlic tinged cgi graphics, hippies, lsd users, potheads, or Grateful Dead fans. Clairitin it was, IIRC, and it was for allergies.

Yeah, that approach makes no more sense today.

To combat depression twelve or so years ago I heard on commercial AM radio (of all places) about a study being conducted at UCLA involving Paxil. Inerested, and having been influenced by the advice/opinions of people I was friendly with that SSRI’s were truly a wonder drug (‘Prozac is the new black’), I became part of the study. It was all very scientific. I was interviewed and tested for depression by phsychology interns and lab-coated clinicians. I was interviewed about my test, and PETscanned, CAT scanned, even MRI’ed. Prescribed Paxil in first 40Mg per day doses until I was up to 80 at the end of the year long trial.

Was that a lot? I don’t know.

All I recall now from that experience was sleepless nights (but I felt so good I didn’t really mind, as my life 24/7 was sot of a dream-state anyway, a sleep-waking hybrid). Plus there is nothing so enjoyable as late night radio (Art Bell) when your enjoying such a state of sub-consciousness. I didn’t even seem to mind, a the time, the sexual dysfunction, or the weight gain (75 lbs.). To label my state of mind at that time, put it down as ‘don’t care.‘

Still, ten years later, I retained a few of the after-effects. Most of that weight is still around. Strangley, I lost most of my sense of smell. Too, my work ethic (heh) suffered as a result (I do not consider an entirely neg).

I’ve learned since that (mis)trial I can self-manage depression through a combination of cognitive and physical exercises.

The sleep disruption and sexual dysfunction returned to a state of normalcy a few months after the trial ended. Thank Ged for that.

If you knew me and my skepticism and aversion to any obvious commercial corporate ruse masquerading as useful or having any real value to the purchaser, you might well consider asking, “Paco, with your hardcore belief against the evils of pharmacology and awareness of the ‘placebo effect and concept of the pill as panacea,’ why would you, of all people, submit to a corporate-sponsored drug trial?”

My answer is, sometimes, we all get desperate. We are able to talk ourselves out of our own well-founded and deeply instilled objections, and find ourselves knocking on the very door we never imagined we ever would in order to ask for help.

Targeted advertising has broken through to appeal to the self-medicating cynic inside each of us, and from time to time we all find ourselves in vulnerable states.

That’s when should be relying on a knowledgeable professional, say, a physician, to guide us through the pharmacological (and other treatment) maze, with our best interest in mind, and not defer the decision solely to the ‘informed consent’ of a patient in or out of his depth.

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“Everytime I get close to something it runs away.” -Johnny Vegas