I recently spent three days without a car. Because my two right tires were punctured while driving through the construction area . It’s costly and disturbing because it doesn’t have to be this way .
Get taxes for the wealthy back in place and fund the deficits in our infrastructure.
The scariest thing I've recently read regarding Kamala is from The Lever where they interview Biden's head of the FTC, which is currently, because of her, finally taking anti-trust actions against corporate mergers. A Silicon Valley billionaire is offering funding & connections to bigger funding to the prospective democratic nominee in return for firing the FTC chair. It may not be that cut&dried but you get the point. My husband, my son & his girlfriend & I may lose our home because hubs had his hours cut back at work ( now he only works daylight hours every year ) & we are both on social security. Now we have had to borrow money twice to be able to pay our property taxes plus taxes & fines for yearly underpayment of Federal income tax because we need every cent to keep up with bills. We cannot keep this up & I don't know what we will do. But it's the most important thing to me that Kamala NEVER betrays the people for billionaires/corporations. My husband votes against democrats because he feels betrayed by politicians selling out to corporations & destroying the middle class & Reagan & republicans have him convinced it is all the fault of democrats. I try to get him to understand but I can't & he won't. I wish we could get her to understand just how hard it has become, daily, to survive & we need relief. We are 73 & 75, my son & his girlfriend are 54.
So many working class White males have been indoctrinated over the years by the likes of Rush Limbaugh, and Fox, and other lying, exaggerating local talk radio shows. When I was using the VA hospital for primary care back in the late 90s and even later, the patient waiting rooms had Fox News propaganda on. I, and other mental health professionals got that stopped. Now they show the weather channel or travel channel or other relatively neutral channels if any. We have a large portion of the White male population that seem like they are almost hardwired with this stuff, and block new and different information that is contrary to their indoctrinated mindset. If they do not have virtual hard wired personality disorders like being a weird psychopath or sociopath, they can be deprogrammed, but it is hard and takes time, and they have to change people, places, and things like in AA for substance addiction.
THAT is the $64,000 question. How to get people to see that they could vote FOR policies that would make things better for them. There is something that happens to people who have been continually dissapointed. To keep on hoping means you'll get hurt again, so they get 'cyncial." Not saying this is true for Sharon's husband. Just seen it a lot in others.
He was a democrat until Carter whom he regarded as a "wuss". Then Reagan's bs knocked him off his feet. We live in a red area of a blue state so there's peer pressure at play also.
Only weaklings succumb to peer pressure. I learned that lesson at age 15. There were rough bumps because I disregarded peer pressure, but when I decided to pursue my education and get a commission, the pressure was intense, I was a senior NCO and enlisted team leader ins a special operations unit, and every effort to shame me was made. I persisted got my degree got my commission and am so much better off than the NCO's who tried to shame me.
Screw peer pressure, people get into drugs, smoking, alcohol and all sorts of trouble because of peer pressure, and it gets worse when they go to college and enter a fraternity.
We know these things and yet when reported on , by you, the reach a clarity level we’ve not reached prior, so thank you.
Republicans have been the ‘ bad stewards’ of biblical lore . And we have and are paying for it every day .
They are rebuilding roads and bridges in our area in Upstate NY.
The detritus of tearing down and building up is miserable . Where timely repairs and replacement might have been messy at the time it’s nothing like what’s happening now should we choose to drive into construction areas. And everything is a ‘construction area’.
If one drives in the right lane ( lawful) . They will inevitably pick up nails metal etc in their tires.
The R's refusing to address the responsibility of keeping things running is bullsh*t. They break things on their watch. Then when Dems come in, they have to raise taxes to fix all the things R's broke. R's don't care about public safety, so no reasonable gun laws. Children cannot go to school in assured safety. They vote against feeding children. They vote against every program that helps average people. They steal the resources from all the rest of us.
Most of the time the contractors are bonded and in most contracts have the responsibility to make sure the job site is clean.
This is not the same issue as HOA. Depends on state law. When I was in Pa they could be quasi governmental, subject to a "local agency law" that requires open books and due process. Other states are like the wild west. We established separate sewer and water authorities for some of them, which are also government entities.
Here in Baghdad By the Sea there is usually a series of lawsuits -- against the developers -- against the contractors -- against the directors. When I did this kind of work, many years ago, only one insurance company would cover.... We are scandal ridden. Insurance companies go under, fail to pay claims and no new policies are written. We've had buildings collapse, killing residents, and putting an emphasis on structural studies. On average, the water table here is about 5 feet. Every existing structure is at risk to some extent.
A number of companies involved in development and construction make a practice of never completing a project....so an HOA sometimes takes over and assumes the responsibility that should have been with the developers and contractors.
Where I live, carpenters are in short supply, those that can wield a hammer or saw a 2 x 4 work for contractors.
My wife found one, we wounded the deck and stairs to the garage, apartment replaced, he charged $80 an hour, said that he was giving us a break (bullshit), his normal rate was $135 an hour, we supplied the wood. I never met him, two young men showed up, employees of his, the lead was an arrogant little ass, who argued with and got angry because my wife supervised him and told him specs.
My wife is a retired Certified Building official,who was a journeyman carpenter,and electician, she build her fathers home, almost all by herself, she is also a plumber, and a certified building inspector, with an eidetic,near photographic memory, she can cite the Internal Building codes, appropriate chapter and verse, as well as state modifications.
She knows her shit, but this young punk didn't like being told what to do or supervised by a woman it hurt his "masculine" pride.
We paid about $2,700 half way through, the finished the deck, but the owner wanted a final payment of $2,900, but the wife asked for his license number because of the shitty job the kids did (she turn it up and redid it). He didn't have one, so she called Labor and Industries and they said that they have been trying to track him down, she gave them his phone number. The wife runs the "company" and is a bitch, the husband is a smooth talking con artist.
My wife told him, that when he gave her his L &I License number she would give him the check. She never wrote the check.
The original check of $2,700 was more than enough to pay the hourly rate of two workers (33.75 hours) for work that only took 16 hours.
We had the house [painted this week by a pro, pressure washed, prepped it sanded where it was needed,covered the windows seamlessly, professional job on the trim. About $8.700 but worth it.
Our Texmo building/barn is 6,000 square feet, made of metal and hasn't beenwashed since it was erected in 1980, it needs pressure washing, we contacted a local and he wanted to charge us $6,000 . The painter stopped by yesterday to show us his 1939 Cadillac and I told him that some guy wanted to charge us $6,000 to pressure wash the Barn, his false teeth almost fell out.. hiway robbery he said.
But they have us, a population of 10,000 most of it old, some of it wealthy and even celebrities ( a lawyer who lives on the Island, is involved in Season 10 of Suits, there is no word yet that there will a Season 10.
Bezos, first property buy was Mariellies, a resort/marina near the ferry docks. Steven Miller owned a property with a 9 hole golf course (sold it not long ago, maybe last year or year before). A Whitaker (Nixon's in laws) own a horse ranch, stable and a mansion, the caretakers cottage is a mouth watering middle middle class home. It is one bedroom, on the second floor, the bottom floor is a swimming pool, rec room .
You rub shoulders with celebrities all of the time, but without make up and in scrubbie clothes you wouldn't recognize them, A friend who was a FedEx drive saw, Tom Cruise walking a dog along one of the county roads., the rest of the population are retirees like us, and support staff who work at the local businesses, in the trades. No franchises,no big box stores, one decent auto repair shop, quite a few shade tree mechanics, locals who never left and have no skills.
Worst of all, a dearth of professionals. When a new one shows up the established gang up to run him out of business. There is a contingent of Hispanics, that live in a trailer park, but they are all employed by the few contractors.
The only thing the Republicans wanted to spend on over the last few decades was 3 trillion for Iraq and 8 trillion for the "war on terror". Both of which they decided to do while giving tax breaks to the top 1%. And spending money while in office is always also about leaving a mess for the Democrats to clean-up. It's a two-fer.
Our federal minimum wage is a disgrace; it's proof positive we need unions. Irritating as it is when there isn't enough help, it makes me gleeful to see a $15/hr sign on the door of a Taco Bell in my small-ish town.
We could have nice things like health care and education AND plan for the future. Other countries are doing it. Are they smarter than us? Are they better people? We have a moral issue, and it's called trickle-down economics. It's the lie that keeps on giving to the morbidly rich and selfish corporations that want to use all our infrastructure and milk our commons for all it's worth without a thought for future generations.
Google America's standing in the world in health, education, infant mortality, crime and imprisonment. We lead the world in the latter, way above even China, because law and order is now a for profit enterprise and prisons are run by contractors, just like our health care.
I believe we are either 34 or 39 in infant mortality.
I was in an HOA once and only once. The corruption and dirty dealing, and hiding of these things resulted in numerous lawsuits and eventually put us in the situation of suing ourselves. It was a mess. I sold the place and two months later heard they levied a $10K assessment to fix things that should have been fixed a decade ago. The people who rise to the top of these HOAs and then park their butts there for years do so for a reason. Most owners don't have the time or inclination to monitor them sufficiently, and often there is little to no transparency. One woman was caught having a private sprinkle system installed on her land with HOA funds. Yet, almost nothing could be done. They are awful.
The last stage is liquidation. Owners can be stuck with deficiency judgments. The stage is set by the developer that creates the entity -- and they are usually long gone and are "judgment proof" although they should bear some liability.
Here in Bagdad By the Sea, sellers don't have to disclose the extent of contingent liabilities and reserves until after a contract of sales becomes effective. Because we have runaway insurance, rising sea levels, a history of fraud in the insurance markets, absentee owners, the risk of ownership is high. Officers are supposed to be insured, management companies are supposed to have error and omission insurance, but most do not.
However, the cost of real estate here is skyrocketing. Ownership of a fee standing fee simple home starts in the millions.
We expect our maintenance fee to jump and expect a huge special assessment.
Exactly! Our charter had been put in place decades before and, as you've said, the originators were long gong, leaving county officials to interpret as they saw fit.
Yes, don't we all feel badly for the morbidly rich & wealthy? Gosh, the thought of paying fair tax rate on their millions or billions keep them up at night. If enacted it just might keep them from buying that 'darling' little island they want for their bunker when the inevitable comes. Now, if they bought that island from the Seychelles that would be one thing, those islands, along with countless others in Oceana will be the first to really feel the impact of climate change. The icecaps are melting at an alarming rate & the increase in the ocean level will flood those islands & where will the inhabitants flee?
I'm fed up with the wealthy buying their way out of everything & buying their way into the White House, Congress, the Senate, the Supreme Court. Damn the Supremes & Citizen's United. The amount of money spent in elections is grotesque. Can you imagine how far that money would go if it could be invested in trying to reduce or perhaps eventually eliminate poverty in the 'richest country in the world'? Richest for who? Certainly not for the single parents working 2 or 3 jobs trying to keep food on the table & forget it if they get sick. Richest Country in the World my a$$, more like the home of the greediest!
I wound up in a conversation on 'X' among at least one billionaire espousing his ideal agenda for the future of the USA, pretty much acting as if everyone living in it would be rich & want to control everything so no one gets their grubby paws on his & their money. So many men called his ideas intriguing saying "I never looked at it that way". The entire idea is so egregiously anti-American & he & they act as if there is no one in the world who has any kind of problem or difficulty.
Thom. Boy am I glad you have mentioned HOAs. I have studied this system / housing model for a long time. The proliferation of HOAs is not good for the future of America.
I agree with you about Reagon, trickle-down economics. But: the emergence of that in HOAs is a result of the basic flaw of the system, that 5 or 7 or 9 ordinary people are somehow qualified to run a complex property. That was, back in the 1960s, the developers’ idea, to save them money. But it is not an idea that has worked out for the people living in HOAs. Take a small group of people unqualified for the task, give them unlimited power and no training or supervision; add intense group and social pressure, add large amounts of corporate secrecy-- and you get a variety of horrific messes-- which the powerful HOA industry skillfully hides.
It’s a scandal and a cautionary tale in plain sight.
I have so much to say about this. Thank you for hearing me. HOAs are literally private governments with NO REGULATORY OVERSIGHT. The problem HOA reformers run into is they accept the basic premise of HOAs--which were just invented to give developers more profit; they really do not (in their current operative form) benefit homeowners one bit. Management companies and attorneys are making fortunes; homeowners end up paying for all their mistakes; they get none of the profit. Reformers work to tweak the laws regarding HOAs. The HOA industry loves that, because there's no way to ENFORCE any of these laws; there is no outside entity that has the power to intervene. Boards and managers can violate these laws flagrantly and the only step an owner has is to take them to court. Which always ends in disaster. So: First step, is to admit that the mountain of evidence is correct: the system produces harm. Lots of it. Second, UNITE. There are vast numbers of unhappy HOA homeowners. If they unite--either by hiring their own lobby (the HOA industry hires lobbyists to craft legistlation and suppress information)--or by forming a national organization that has one purpose, to reveal the gargantuan unfairness of the current way HOAs are allowed to run, and insist the system be changed to benefit the people living in them. What would that look like? For starters, the lobby that currently spends zillions on spinning and hiding the HOA reality, could supply actual expers to train and guide Boards. I mean real education, not the nonsense they put out. Lots more where that came from. Writing a book.
Thank you for the thoughtful response! I agree. When you sue the HOA (usually for good reason), you end up suing yourselves and your neighbors. Mostly those who are corrupt or simply incompetent are shielded. The woman I mentioned earlier who installed a private sprinkler system at HOA expense (she was president) claimed that since her home was the first one people saw when driving in, her yard needed to look exceptionally nice. Nothing in the by-laws prevented this, as considerable leeway was given to board members, especially the president. The board members scratched one another's backs. She was stopped from further corruption by public shaming, but not by any law or rule.
No one tells the home buyer that it IS an HOA, or what means. No one. Once they purchase, they are a “mandatory member” of the HOA. Not by choice at all.
If you want to finance a house, you can't get financing unless there is an inspection, and stuff like HOA's and other problems are disclosed at closing.
I saw neighbors at war in the early 50's. I lived in a project, but went to school in a middle middle class neighborhood, and witnessed a row one day, It seemed that to women had a fight, and one sold her house to a black family, the whole neighborhood went up in flames, it drove property values down. They even had law suits then to stop such sales.
This is the core mental delusion of conservatives and Republicans, and it is an existential threat.
The new deal was not just a temporary readjustment of US economic trajectory. The new deal had in fact landed on the steady state for a sustainable society.
As always, complex dynamics are laid out with great clarity. Republicans are masters at self-serving but persuasive lying, misrepresentation, and general obfuscation. If only such talent were used for the good of the commonweal...
People need to learn the term Neoliberalism. They need to see the numbers from the period before Reagan and the period after. If people can see what has happened, so many minds would be blown...and changed.
Under Reagan and since, the Stock Market has mostly boomed. Most low paid working class folks are not part of this. It is not a coincidence that real wages and benefits have been mostly stagnant since Reagan while the stock market and multi-millionaires and billionaires have greatly increased. Working middle class has diminished in their share of the profits during this time. Of course there is no trickle down economics. And making this a dichotomy between either Communism or Capitalism like the radical right propagandists do is false. Business schools need to be revamped as they are teaching how to get ahead, succeed, make the biggest profit, instead of framing that in community cooperating, sharing, conservative compassion, and good ethics.
Thank you for spelling it out for me. This is what I meant, but I see that I was not clear. It does depend on what numbers are used. Middle class wages versus the economic growth are clear between the two periods. Middle class wages grew with the economy before Reagan but not after. People are worried about economics in the moment, but if people understood the pre and post Reagan distinction, we would have a better chance of getting to where we need to get to. #Eat the Rich!
It is going according to plan. It started with the Lewis F Powell (subsequent SCOTUS Justice appointed by Nixon) to the Chamber of Commerce, he complained that the reason the hippies were on the streets protesting, that the blacks were on the streets protesting is because Americans had it too good, that their children were indolent and spoiled and had too much time on their hand, his solution was to decrease their standard of living, echoed by Fed Chairman Paul Volker in 1973 or 74, who said tha his job was to reduce our standard of living.
Only people with money, the upper class, would be able to send their kids to college, and that is true. The campus idiots raising hell are not the kids who are facing a lifetime of servitude because of student debt.
They are spoiled brats of the wealthy, and Arab oil millionaires, which abound like popcorn.
That is a very good analogy, Thom. After 19 years we sold our house in a HOA urban complex and moved to a new apartment building. There are pluses and minuses, but my wife was right about the economics. She was on the Board (has an MBA) and never could get a straight answer from the professional who managed the finances--it turned out he was pocketing funds. A new manager put things back together, except that he didn't understand how to handle bookkeeping, which drove my wife nuts, especially since the other property owners did not grasp that this was a problem. Then there was bad initial construction, which led to lawsuits against the contractor and seemingly endlessly increasing special assessments, plus a massive exterior painting project was coming up--without adequate reserves. Getting out of all this was a relief.
So yes, I can see analogies with America's infrastructure. Part of the issue, which I implied here, is that a lot of people don't understand economics. (When teaching I try to bring in the concept of compound interest. I would say half of the high school graduates I work with have no idea how to manage loans.) So when voters hear a politician promise to "cut taxes" or that "the Chinese will pay for a new tariff" they don't have a clue what is really going on. It just sounds good. And that's the point.
Reaganism is bad just management. Ignoring the needs of community and refusing to use government which is are largest national community system to solve problems that smaller communities cannot tackle successfully. Demanding business to take over problems even they cannot handle while bailing large corporations out even when they have no need of it. Corporations yes citizens no. That is Reaganism a failure for tax payers.
Reaganism is more than just mad management is Randian ideology, for maintaining a class of worker ants to support a class of indolent and non productive ants.
Sitting in my recliner looking out my front window. I watch eagles, hawks and vultures fling lazy circles in the sky, look for rabbits, foxes, cats and small dogs that have no idea of the threat overhead and realized the reality of life.
We are the prey running around the field trying to survive, and overhead are the eagles, the hawks, the vultures looking to swoop down and devour even our bones.
Although this is not about HOAs, it is another issue of how, since Reagan, they have flaunted their greedy and ignorant power. My first mental health job after graduate school was as a counselor working under 2 grants at a Boys Club in the late 70s. The grants were called a CETA grant and an LEAA grant. The latter was with law enforcement to keep young kids from being adjudicated with records for delinquent behavior. Both came out of the Carter administration. When Reagan was elected those grants disappeared. There was not enough money in United Way grants to pay me, so I ended up the next year with a job as a therapist on a scheduled position based on whether or not the administration wanted to fund it. This was at the VA's Vet Center in a different state, working with combat trauma. Reagan's OMB director David Stockman put the Vet Center on the chopping block, saying it was redundant, although the regular VA hospitals were turning away Vietnam Vets for mental health treatment, and it took us a couple years of hard lobbying and testimony before the Vietnam Veterans Caucus in Congress to keep the program alive. And this was the supposedly flag waving, patriotic, law enforcement, family values party who wanted to end it. All the above mental health positions above should have been prioritized funding, according to the Republican's professed values. They have not changed but only gotten worse. Thanks for some more context about this ongoing issue of many, if not most Republican politicians, and wealthy land owners being selfish, ignorant, and ripping off vulnerable folks.
My first real well-paying job was in a CETA position in county welfare work. It changed my life in so many ways even though it was only for one year and I only qualified as the "perfect" candidate for it because I had taken 1 semester of courses at a community college. That was one of the best programs & I remember Carter talking modestly about it being an effective way to change lives.
is one thing -and , by analogy , we can see what happens on a larger scale to national infrastructure . The problem nationally is that when the bills come due - the middle class
suffers the austerity program the government is forced to initiate. That might explain why some continue to blame Democrats.
We are going to face some huge problems with the dollar’s roll as the reserve currency of the world if we continue the roller coaster ride of the boom and bust cycles- but that is the subject of another lesson involving
petrodollars. As Betty Davis said ,
“ fasten your seatbelts it’s gonna be a bumpy ride “.
I have a 2009 Honda Accord that is in as good a shape as it was when I bought it new, because I kept true to the maintenance schedule, including spark plug and brake change, same thing with my Ford F150.
My first real job after I retired was to run a Senior Transportation Program. My computer required a bootdisk and had only 64 bytes of RAM in it's buffer, no hard drive. I used a Supercalc program(now Excel) to create a maintenance schedule program based on mileage and had the drivers turn in the sheet once a week,
I religious had scheduled maintenance performed, Schedules A, B and C I never had one van break down, and though the VANS were over ten years old when I took them over, they ran smooth as a Rolex watch.
The secret is preventive maintenance, applies to everything, fill the divot before it becomes a pothole
Thom, thank you for this brilliant analysis of the trickle down effect on America. I've lived through this phony reasoning and its consequences, and have seen many charts clearly showing when republicans are in power, deficits soar, Democrats come in and are saddled with being called "tax and spend Liberals." But hell, Clinton even got us a surplus! Which of course was reversed bigtime by his successor, W.
But with all I've seen, read, and lived through, your HOA analogy shines a fresh, clear light on the causes and effects of this dreadful policy.
Your recognition of President Biden for his visionary and expert planning to reverse the damage is right on. And his negotiating skills in getting such critical legislation passed. It also took a lot of skill from Pelosi and Schumer working with razor thin numbers in both Houses, along with Biden's nudging of former colleagues.
No one has invested in America as successfully as President Biden since FDR. The republicans in fact have taken aim at all the New Deal policies ever since. They've done brilliantly already. And they can't wait to reverse everything Biden's achieved. In fact they've refused to pass Biden's IRS bill to increase the number of staff qualified to audit the obscely weralthy and big corporations. Claiming cost-cutting when reality is this one bill would add a tidy sum to the treasury's coffers.
We are in deep horse manure if the trumplican party manages to cheat its way into office and control any levers of government.
Living a Lie: It's a near-term benefit, for a Long term cost.
Think of the middle of the night pancaking of the Surfside Condo, because sacrifices were not made when they should've been. A lot of people were squished that night, unfortunately.
It's identical to the avg household budget. Or even not saving for retirement.
It's the 3 Little Pigs, but leaving out the 3rd and most practical pig.
"Americans will be paying more in taxes to make up for all those decades of neglect." I'm not so sure it will work that directly. Americans will pay, alright; but I see it being more likely coming due in literal and figurative blown tires, busted axles and flooded homes.
Continued from above comment….
I recently spent three days without a car. Because my two right tires were punctured while driving through the construction area . It’s costly and disturbing because it doesn’t have to be this way .
Get taxes for the wealthy back in place and fund the deficits in our infrastructure.
And hold these people accountable
Patricia, Kamala needs to keep doing what Biden is doing AND MORE.
The scariest thing I've recently read regarding Kamala is from The Lever where they interview Biden's head of the FTC, which is currently, because of her, finally taking anti-trust actions against corporate mergers. A Silicon Valley billionaire is offering funding & connections to bigger funding to the prospective democratic nominee in return for firing the FTC chair. It may not be that cut&dried but you get the point. My husband, my son & his girlfriend & I may lose our home because hubs had his hours cut back at work ( now he only works daylight hours every year ) & we are both on social security. Now we have had to borrow money twice to be able to pay our property taxes plus taxes & fines for yearly underpayment of Federal income tax because we need every cent to keep up with bills. We cannot keep this up & I don't know what we will do. But it's the most important thing to me that Kamala NEVER betrays the people for billionaires/corporations. My husband votes against democrats because he feels betrayed by politicians selling out to corporations & destroying the middle class & Reagan & republicans have him convinced it is all the fault of democrats. I try to get him to understand but I can't & he won't. I wish we could get her to understand just how hard it has become, daily, to survive & we need relief. We are 73 & 75, my son & his girlfriend are 54.
So many working class White males have been indoctrinated over the years by the likes of Rush Limbaugh, and Fox, and other lying, exaggerating local talk radio shows. When I was using the VA hospital for primary care back in the late 90s and even later, the patient waiting rooms had Fox News propaganda on. I, and other mental health professionals got that stopped. Now they show the weather channel or travel channel or other relatively neutral channels if any. We have a large portion of the White male population that seem like they are almost hardwired with this stuff, and block new and different information that is contrary to their indoctrinated mindset. If they do not have virtual hard wired personality disorders like being a weird psychopath or sociopath, they can be deprogrammed, but it is hard and takes time, and they have to change people, places, and things like in AA for substance addiction.
Why doesn’t your husband understand that he’s been voting against his own economic self-interest for decades?
THAT is the $64,000 question. How to get people to see that they could vote FOR policies that would make things better for them. There is something that happens to people who have been continually dissapointed. To keep on hoping means you'll get hurt again, so they get 'cyncial." Not saying this is true for Sharon's husband. Just seen it a lot in others.
He was a democrat until Carter whom he regarded as a "wuss". Then Reagan's bs knocked him off his feet. We live in a red area of a blue state so there's peer pressure at play also.
Only weaklings succumb to peer pressure. I learned that lesson at age 15. There were rough bumps because I disregarded peer pressure, but when I decided to pursue my education and get a commission, the pressure was intense, I was a senior NCO and enlisted team leader ins a special operations unit, and every effort to shame me was made. I persisted got my degree got my commission and am so much better off than the NCO's who tried to shame me.
Screw peer pressure, people get into drugs, smoking, alcohol and all sorts of trouble because of peer pressure, and it gets worse when they go to college and enter a fraternity.
We know these things and yet when reported on , by you, the reach a clarity level we’ve not reached prior, so thank you.
Republicans have been the ‘ bad stewards’ of biblical lore . And we have and are paying for it every day .
They are rebuilding roads and bridges in our area in Upstate NY.
The detritus of tearing down and building up is miserable . Where timely repairs and replacement might have been messy at the time it’s nothing like what’s happening now should we choose to drive into construction areas. And everything is a ‘construction area’.
If one drives in the right lane ( lawful) . They will inevitably pick up nails metal etc in their tires.
The R's refusing to address the responsibility of keeping things running is bullsh*t. They break things on their watch. Then when Dems come in, they have to raise taxes to fix all the things R's broke. R's don't care about public safety, so no reasonable gun laws. Children cannot go to school in assured safety. They vote against feeding children. They vote against every program that helps average people. They steal the resources from all the rest of us.
Jenn, Harry Truman said something like you just said 70 years ago.
What did Truman say?!
Yes that’s all true . So never mind the bipartisan cooperation . These people are way too corrupt . Maga makes things worse .
@ Patricia. Get a lawyer.
Most of the time the contractors are bonded and in most contracts have the responsibility to make sure the job site is clean.
This is not the same issue as HOA. Depends on state law. When I was in Pa they could be quasi governmental, subject to a "local agency law" that requires open books and due process. Other states are like the wild west. We established separate sewer and water authorities for some of them, which are also government entities.
Here in Baghdad By the Sea there is usually a series of lawsuits -- against the developers -- against the contractors -- against the directors. When I did this kind of work, many years ago, only one insurance company would cover.... We are scandal ridden. Insurance companies go under, fail to pay claims and no new policies are written. We've had buildings collapse, killing residents, and putting an emphasis on structural studies. On average, the water table here is about 5 feet. Every existing structure is at risk to some extent.
A number of companies involved in development and construction make a practice of never completing a project....so an HOA sometimes takes over and assumes the responsibility that should have been with the developers and contractors.
Thank s Daniel,
I appreciate your input . The worst part of this is it’s a standard route for me . I will look into this .
Patricia Lane
Where I live, carpenters are in short supply, those that can wield a hammer or saw a 2 x 4 work for contractors.
My wife found one, we wounded the deck and stairs to the garage, apartment replaced, he charged $80 an hour, said that he was giving us a break (bullshit), his normal rate was $135 an hour, we supplied the wood. I never met him, two young men showed up, employees of his, the lead was an arrogant little ass, who argued with and got angry because my wife supervised him and told him specs.
My wife is a retired Certified Building official,who was a journeyman carpenter,and electician, she build her fathers home, almost all by herself, she is also a plumber, and a certified building inspector, with an eidetic,near photographic memory, she can cite the Internal Building codes, appropriate chapter and verse, as well as state modifications.
She knows her shit, but this young punk didn't like being told what to do or supervised by a woman it hurt his "masculine" pride.
We paid about $2,700 half way through, the finished the deck, but the owner wanted a final payment of $2,900, but the wife asked for his license number because of the shitty job the kids did (she turn it up and redid it). He didn't have one, so she called Labor and Industries and they said that they have been trying to track him down, she gave them his phone number. The wife runs the "company" and is a bitch, the husband is a smooth talking con artist.
My wife told him, that when he gave her his L &I License number she would give him the check. She never wrote the check.
The original check of $2,700 was more than enough to pay the hourly rate of two workers (33.75 hours) for work that only took 16 hours.
We had the house [painted this week by a pro, pressure washed, prepped it sanded where it was needed,covered the windows seamlessly, professional job on the trim. About $8.700 but worth it.
Our Texmo building/barn is 6,000 square feet, made of metal and hasn't beenwashed since it was erected in 1980, it needs pressure washing, we contacted a local and he wanted to charge us $6,000 . The painter stopped by yesterday to show us his 1939 Cadillac and I told him that some guy wanted to charge us $6,000 to pressure wash the Barn, his false teeth almost fell out.. hiway robbery he said.
But they have us, a population of 10,000 most of it old, some of it wealthy and even celebrities ( a lawyer who lives on the Island, is involved in Season 10 of Suits, there is no word yet that there will a Season 10.
Bezos, first property buy was Mariellies, a resort/marina near the ferry docks. Steven Miller owned a property with a 9 hole golf course (sold it not long ago, maybe last year or year before). A Whitaker (Nixon's in laws) own a horse ranch, stable and a mansion, the caretakers cottage is a mouth watering middle middle class home. It is one bedroom, on the second floor, the bottom floor is a swimming pool, rec room .
You rub shoulders with celebrities all of the time, but without make up and in scrubbie clothes you wouldn't recognize them, A friend who was a FedEx drive saw, Tom Cruise walking a dog along one of the county roads., the rest of the population are retirees like us, and support staff who work at the local businesses, in the trades. No franchises,no big box stores, one decent auto repair shop, quite a few shade tree mechanics, locals who never left and have no skills.
Worst of all, a dearth of professionals. When a new one shows up the established gang up to run him out of business. There is a contingent of Hispanics, that live in a trailer park, but they are all employed by the few contractors.
The only thing the Republicans wanted to spend on over the last few decades was 3 trillion for Iraq and 8 trillion for the "war on terror". Both of which they decided to do while giving tax breaks to the top 1%. And spending money while in office is always also about leaving a mess for the Democrats to clean-up. It's a two-fer.
Our federal minimum wage is a disgrace; it's proof positive we need unions. Irritating as it is when there isn't enough help, it makes me gleeful to see a $15/hr sign on the door of a Taco Bell in my small-ish town.
We could have nice things like health care and education AND plan for the future. Other countries are doing it. Are they smarter than us? Are they better people? We have a moral issue, and it's called trickle-down economics. It's the lie that keeps on giving to the morbidly rich and selfish corporations that want to use all our infrastructure and milk our commons for all it's worth without a thought for future generations.
Google America's standing in the world in health, education, infant mortality, crime and imprisonment. We lead the world in the latter, way above even China, because law and order is now a for profit enterprise and prisons are run by contractors, just like our health care.
I believe we are either 34 or 39 in infant mortality.
The profit motive at work.
I was in an HOA once and only once. The corruption and dirty dealing, and hiding of these things resulted in numerous lawsuits and eventually put us in the situation of suing ourselves. It was a mess. I sold the place and two months later heard they levied a $10K assessment to fix things that should have been fixed a decade ago. The people who rise to the top of these HOAs and then park their butts there for years do so for a reason. Most owners don't have the time or inclination to monitor them sufficiently, and often there is little to no transparency. One woman was caught having a private sprinkle system installed on her land with HOA funds. Yet, almost nothing could be done. They are awful.
The last stage is liquidation. Owners can be stuck with deficiency judgments. The stage is set by the developer that creates the entity -- and they are usually long gone and are "judgment proof" although they should bear some liability.
Here in Bagdad By the Sea, sellers don't have to disclose the extent of contingent liabilities and reserves until after a contract of sales becomes effective. Because we have runaway insurance, rising sea levels, a history of fraud in the insurance markets, absentee owners, the risk of ownership is high. Officers are supposed to be insured, management companies are supposed to have error and omission insurance, but most do not.
However, the cost of real estate here is skyrocketing. Ownership of a fee standing fee simple home starts in the millions.
We expect our maintenance fee to jump and expect a huge special assessment.
Exactly! Our charter had been put in place decades before and, as you've said, the originators were long gong, leaving county officials to interpret as they saw fit.
RBI owns four of the world's most prominent and iconic quick service restaurant brands – TIM HORTONS®, BURGER KING®, POPEYES® and FIREHOUSE SUBS
How about Yum!
I go back to John Young Brown, Jr. KFC, Lums, Ollie's Trollies, Hubelein Corporation.
Now Taco Bell, Pizza Hut etc.
Yes, don't we all feel badly for the morbidly rich & wealthy? Gosh, the thought of paying fair tax rate on their millions or billions keep them up at night. If enacted it just might keep them from buying that 'darling' little island they want for their bunker when the inevitable comes. Now, if they bought that island from the Seychelles that would be one thing, those islands, along with countless others in Oceana will be the first to really feel the impact of climate change. The icecaps are melting at an alarming rate & the increase in the ocean level will flood those islands & where will the inhabitants flee?
I'm fed up with the wealthy buying their way out of everything & buying their way into the White House, Congress, the Senate, the Supreme Court. Damn the Supremes & Citizen's United. The amount of money spent in elections is grotesque. Can you imagine how far that money would go if it could be invested in trying to reduce or perhaps eventually eliminate poverty in the 'richest country in the world'? Richest for who? Certainly not for the single parents working 2 or 3 jobs trying to keep food on the table & forget it if they get sick. Richest Country in the World my a$$, more like the home of the greediest!
I wound up in a conversation on 'X' among at least one billionaire espousing his ideal agenda for the future of the USA, pretty much acting as if everyone living in it would be rich & want to control everything so no one gets their grubby paws on his & their money. So many men called his ideas intriguing saying "I never looked at it that way". The entire idea is so egregiously anti-American & he & they act as if there is no one in the world who has any kind of problem or difficulty.
I don't doubt it in the least.
Thom. Boy am I glad you have mentioned HOAs. I have studied this system / housing model for a long time. The proliferation of HOAs is not good for the future of America.
I agree with you about Reagon, trickle-down economics. But: the emergence of that in HOAs is a result of the basic flaw of the system, that 5 or 7 or 9 ordinary people are somehow qualified to run a complex property. That was, back in the 1960s, the developers’ idea, to save them money. But it is not an idea that has worked out for the people living in HOAs. Take a small group of people unqualified for the task, give them unlimited power and no training or supervision; add intense group and social pressure, add large amounts of corporate secrecy-- and you get a variety of horrific messes-- which the powerful HOA industry skillfully hides.
It’s a scandal and a cautionary tale in plain sight.
I don't advocate doing away with HOAs. But there is a way to fix this basic flaw.
We'd like to hear more !
I have so much to say about this. Thank you for hearing me. HOAs are literally private governments with NO REGULATORY OVERSIGHT. The problem HOA reformers run into is they accept the basic premise of HOAs--which were just invented to give developers more profit; they really do not (in their current operative form) benefit homeowners one bit. Management companies and attorneys are making fortunes; homeowners end up paying for all their mistakes; they get none of the profit. Reformers work to tweak the laws regarding HOAs. The HOA industry loves that, because there's no way to ENFORCE any of these laws; there is no outside entity that has the power to intervene. Boards and managers can violate these laws flagrantly and the only step an owner has is to take them to court. Which always ends in disaster. So: First step, is to admit that the mountain of evidence is correct: the system produces harm. Lots of it. Second, UNITE. There are vast numbers of unhappy HOA homeowners. If they unite--either by hiring their own lobby (the HOA industry hires lobbyists to craft legistlation and suppress information)--or by forming a national organization that has one purpose, to reveal the gargantuan unfairness of the current way HOAs are allowed to run, and insist the system be changed to benefit the people living in them. What would that look like? For starters, the lobby that currently spends zillions on spinning and hiding the HOA reality, could supply actual expers to train and guide Boards. I mean real education, not the nonsense they put out. Lots more where that came from. Writing a book.
Thank you for the thoughtful response! I agree. When you sue the HOA (usually for good reason), you end up suing yourselves and your neighbors. Mostly those who are corrupt or simply incompetent are shielded. The woman I mentioned earlier who installed a private sprinkler system at HOA expense (she was president) claimed that since her home was the first one people saw when driving in, her yard needed to look exceptionally nice. Nothing in the by-laws prevented this, as considerable leeway was given to board members, especially the president. The board members scratched one another's backs. She was stopped from further corruption by public shaming, but not by any law or rule.
You are correct, but the answer is caveat emptor.. The home buyer bought into the myth and lies.
I feel no pity. I cannot empathize with someone who sticks their hand in a meat grinder.
No one tells the home buyer that it IS an HOA, or what means. No one. Once they purchase, they are a “mandatory member” of the HOA. Not by choice at all.
If you want to finance a house, you can't get financing unless there is an inspection, and stuff like HOA's and other problems are disclosed at closing.
Great book to read, even if a bit dated, is Ward Lucas "Neighbors at War!" https://www.amazon.com/Neighbors-Creepy-Against-Homeowners-Association/dp/0985697806
Ward and I have shared experiences with some of the problems noted in the book.
I saw neighbors at war in the early 50's. I lived in a project, but went to school in a middle middle class neighborhood, and witnessed a row one day, It seemed that to women had a fight, and one sold her house to a black family, the whole neighborhood went up in flames, it drove property values down. They even had law suits then to stop such sales.
This is the core mental delusion of conservatives and Republicans, and it is an existential threat.
The new deal was not just a temporary readjustment of US economic trajectory. The new deal had in fact landed on the steady state for a sustainable society.
As always, complex dynamics are laid out with great clarity. Republicans are masters at self-serving but persuasive lying, misrepresentation, and general obfuscation. If only such talent were used for the good of the commonweal...
People need to learn the term Neoliberalism. They need to see the numbers from the period before Reagan and the period after. If people can see what has happened, so many minds would be blown...and changed.
Under Reagan and since, the Stock Market has mostly boomed. Most low paid working class folks are not part of this. It is not a coincidence that real wages and benefits have been mostly stagnant since Reagan while the stock market and multi-millionaires and billionaires have greatly increased. Working middle class has diminished in their share of the profits during this time. Of course there is no trickle down economics. And making this a dichotomy between either Communism or Capitalism like the radical right propagandists do is false. Business schools need to be revamped as they are teaching how to get ahead, succeed, make the biggest profit, instead of framing that in community cooperating, sharing, conservative compassion, and good ethics.
Thank you for spelling it out for me. This is what I meant, but I see that I was not clear. It does depend on what numbers are used. Middle class wages versus the economic growth are clear between the two periods. Middle class wages grew with the economy before Reagan but not after. People are worried about economics in the moment, but if people understood the pre and post Reagan distinction, we would have a better chance of getting to where we need to get to. #Eat the Rich!
It is going according to plan. It started with the Lewis F Powell (subsequent SCOTUS Justice appointed by Nixon) to the Chamber of Commerce, he complained that the reason the hippies were on the streets protesting, that the blacks were on the streets protesting is because Americans had it too good, that their children were indolent and spoiled and had too much time on their hand, his solution was to decrease their standard of living, echoed by Fed Chairman Paul Volker in 1973 or 74, who said tha his job was to reduce our standard of living.
Only people with money, the upper class, would be able to send their kids to college, and that is true. The campus idiots raising hell are not the kids who are facing a lifetime of servitude because of student debt.
They are spoiled brats of the wealthy, and Arab oil millionaires, which abound like popcorn.
That is a very good analogy, Thom. After 19 years we sold our house in a HOA urban complex and moved to a new apartment building. There are pluses and minuses, but my wife was right about the economics. She was on the Board (has an MBA) and never could get a straight answer from the professional who managed the finances--it turned out he was pocketing funds. A new manager put things back together, except that he didn't understand how to handle bookkeeping, which drove my wife nuts, especially since the other property owners did not grasp that this was a problem. Then there was bad initial construction, which led to lawsuits against the contractor and seemingly endlessly increasing special assessments, plus a massive exterior painting project was coming up--without adequate reserves. Getting out of all this was a relief.
So yes, I can see analogies with America's infrastructure. Part of the issue, which I implied here, is that a lot of people don't understand economics. (When teaching I try to bring in the concept of compound interest. I would say half of the high school graduates I work with have no idea how to manage loans.) So when voters hear a politician promise to "cut taxes" or that "the Chinese will pay for a new tariff" they don't have a clue what is really going on. It just sounds good. And that's the point.
Reaganism is bad just management. Ignoring the needs of community and refusing to use government which is are largest national community system to solve problems that smaller communities cannot tackle successfully. Demanding business to take over problems even they cannot handle while bailing large corporations out even when they have no need of it. Corporations yes citizens no. That is Reaganism a failure for tax payers.
Reaganism is more than just mad management is Randian ideology, for maintaining a class of worker ants to support a class of indolent and non productive ants.
Sitting in my recliner looking out my front window. I watch eagles, hawks and vultures fling lazy circles in the sky, look for rabbits, foxes, cats and small dogs that have no idea of the threat overhead and realized the reality of life.
We are the prey running around the field trying to survive, and overhead are the eagles, the hawks, the vultures looking to swoop down and devour even our bones.
Although this is not about HOAs, it is another issue of how, since Reagan, they have flaunted their greedy and ignorant power. My first mental health job after graduate school was as a counselor working under 2 grants at a Boys Club in the late 70s. The grants were called a CETA grant and an LEAA grant. The latter was with law enforcement to keep young kids from being adjudicated with records for delinquent behavior. Both came out of the Carter administration. When Reagan was elected those grants disappeared. There was not enough money in United Way grants to pay me, so I ended up the next year with a job as a therapist on a scheduled position based on whether or not the administration wanted to fund it. This was at the VA's Vet Center in a different state, working with combat trauma. Reagan's OMB director David Stockman put the Vet Center on the chopping block, saying it was redundant, although the regular VA hospitals were turning away Vietnam Vets for mental health treatment, and it took us a couple years of hard lobbying and testimony before the Vietnam Veterans Caucus in Congress to keep the program alive. And this was the supposedly flag waving, patriotic, law enforcement, family values party who wanted to end it. All the above mental health positions above should have been prioritized funding, according to the Republican's professed values. They have not changed but only gotten worse. Thanks for some more context about this ongoing issue of many, if not most Republican politicians, and wealthy land owners being selfish, ignorant, and ripping off vulnerable folks.
My first real well-paying job was in a CETA position in county welfare work. It changed my life in so many ways even though it was only for one year and I only qualified as the "perfect" candidate for it because I had taken 1 semester of courses at a community college. That was one of the best programs & I remember Carter talking modestly about it being an effective way to change lives.
Deferred maintenance on a condo complex
is one thing -and , by analogy , we can see what happens on a larger scale to national infrastructure . The problem nationally is that when the bills come due - the middle class
suffers the austerity program the government is forced to initiate. That might explain why some continue to blame Democrats.
We are going to face some huge problems with the dollar’s roll as the reserve currency of the world if we continue the roller coaster ride of the boom and bust cycles- but that is the subject of another lesson involving
petrodollars. As Betty Davis said ,
“ fasten your seatbelts it’s gonna be a bumpy ride “.
I have a 2009 Honda Accord that is in as good a shape as it was when I bought it new, because I kept true to the maintenance schedule, including spark plug and brake change, same thing with my Ford F150.
My first real job after I retired was to run a Senior Transportation Program. My computer required a bootdisk and had only 64 bytes of RAM in it's buffer, no hard drive. I used a Supercalc program(now Excel) to create a maintenance schedule program based on mileage and had the drivers turn in the sheet once a week,
I religious had scheduled maintenance performed, Schedules A, B and C I never had one van break down, and though the VANS were over ten years old when I took them over, they ran smooth as a Rolex watch.
The secret is preventive maintenance, applies to everything, fill the divot before it becomes a pothole
Thom, thank you for this brilliant analysis of the trickle down effect on America. I've lived through this phony reasoning and its consequences, and have seen many charts clearly showing when republicans are in power, deficits soar, Democrats come in and are saddled with being called "tax and spend Liberals." But hell, Clinton even got us a surplus! Which of course was reversed bigtime by his successor, W.
But with all I've seen, read, and lived through, your HOA analogy shines a fresh, clear light on the causes and effects of this dreadful policy.
Your recognition of President Biden for his visionary and expert planning to reverse the damage is right on. And his negotiating skills in getting such critical legislation passed. It also took a lot of skill from Pelosi and Schumer working with razor thin numbers in both Houses, along with Biden's nudging of former colleagues.
No one has invested in America as successfully as President Biden since FDR. The republicans in fact have taken aim at all the New Deal policies ever since. They've done brilliantly already. And they can't wait to reverse everything Biden's achieved. In fact they've refused to pass Biden's IRS bill to increase the number of staff qualified to audit the obscely weralthy and big corporations. Claiming cost-cutting when reality is this one bill would add a tidy sum to the treasury's coffers.
We are in deep horse manure if the trumplican party manages to cheat its way into office and control any levers of government.
Living a Lie: It's a near-term benefit, for a Long term cost.
Think of the middle of the night pancaking of the Surfside Condo, because sacrifices were not made when they should've been. A lot of people were squished that night, unfortunately.
It's identical to the avg household budget. Or even not saving for retirement.
It's the 3 Little Pigs, but leaving out the 3rd and most practical pig.
"Americans will be paying more in taxes to make up for all those decades of neglect." I'm not so sure it will work that directly. Americans will pay, alright; but I see it being more likely coming due in literal and figurative blown tires, busted axles and flooded homes.