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Category: Enduring Interest (page 3 of 10)

March 22, 2010

Supplanting the Rotarian Socialists

by

Realtor, Media Mogul

Author website

In one of Greg Swann’s posts on finding splendor for yourself he came to the conclusion that we don’t have to get there, we are already here!  Here’s what Greg said towards the end of that post:

Good news: We’re already here. You’re already a sane, normal person, and you already live among your neighbors in peace and prosperity. Yes, the state preys upon you like a vast, hideous vampire, reeking of death, impetuously random in its predations. But it matters less and less to civilized people with every passing day.

I don’t ever favor trying to defeat or take over evil institutions. It is sufficient to supplant them. And this sane and civilized people are already doing, just by living their sane and civilized lives. Consider eBay. Consider PayPal. Now think of a clearinghouse like PayPal unknown to anyone except its depositors. Does anything like this already exist? How would you know if it does? How hard would it be to create, now that you know it could exist?

I love the idea of supplanting systems that have lost their utility.  I read that and wondered.  Does anything like this already exist?  Is there a world, in reality or in cyberspace where civilized people are able to engage in commerce freely?  The answer is of course there is!

In previous career choices I used to do business with entrepreneurs and business people from Europe and Asia.  They were from some of the highest taxed economies in the world.  To me, it appeared they spent considerable time and effort structuring their businesses to keep assets in various places worldwide so they did not have to realize the taxes on them in their home countries.  It seemed like a bunch of trouble compared to just living somewhere where tax rates were acceptable, like the United States in those days.

Since then, we’ve had the internet revolution.  The tax climate in the United States is changing.  So, I wondered how those folks might function today.  What I found is that their goal of earning and keeping assets in various places and countries has become much easier.  There are Read more

February 23, 2010

Now I’m Beginning To Get It – The Missing Brick In The Wall

by

Real Estate Investments Broker

Author website

My favorite Uncle, Fighter Pilot Dick, sent me this video the other day. I was flabbergasted, which is hard to accomplish lately. I then sent it to a couple of folks for whom I hold much respect, to gain their takes. Both of them are fellow Hounds, Brian Brady and Tony Gallegos.

I thought Brian’s most cogent reply to me during a little back and forth emailing, was the following: Note: The link in Brian’s quote was added by me. It goes to the original video. The embedded video here is the same, but has some CNN commentary up front.

I know the FDIC went out of its way to issue a Press Release, denouncing the guys at Thing Big Work Small.  I know those guys fairly well (had a few beers with them at the CAMB convention this summer).  The FDIC denounced the video as “factually incorrect”, a day after it came out…then…

One West Bank, who bought the IndyMac portfolio for $1.55 Billion, earned 1.57 billion in its first year of operation.  Now Jeff, youi’re a bright guy…what kind of bank earns 100% ROI in one year?

This video explains a whole lot, though I suspect I may be late coming to this party. Considering the reply received from Tony, who said he didn’t know the details of the transaction, I’m thinkin’ maybe we’ve all been missing this particular brick in the wall.

Though CNN doesn’t bollix it up too much, the really good stuff starts around 1:45 on the video. Would love to hear your take.

February 5, 2010

Deflationary Or Inflationary? Laying Economists End To End

by

Real Estate Investments Broker

Author website

The last half of the title came to me as I recalled one of Johnny Carson’s most memorable lines. He was talking about how economists are supposed to be the smartest kids in the room, but at the same time can’t agree with each other what day it is. He said, “If we laid all the economists end to end around the world…it would be a good idea.” (Insert rimshot here.)

There are two basic schools of economic theory — Those who believe economies can be centrally controlled, engineered if you will — And those who believe economies should be as free as prudently possible, with regulation in place to abort fraud etc., i.e. they avoid central control as much as possible.

The engineers think they know better what ‘needs’ to be done, while consciously eschewing human responsive behavior as part of their equation. They believe if you raise/lower taxes the result will be arithmetic in nature, and that you and I won’t modify our behavior in either circumstance. That’s surely an oversimplification, but accurate.

The free market crowd says if you raise taxes you slow economies down, and if taxes are lowered more jobs are created due to more capital venturing into the market because of the lowered cost (taxes).

Then there are the folks who think they’re smarter than both schools. They try to blend what they think are the best ideas from both theories. Good luck. 🙂

We’ve all seen the argument between the two camps rage since we learned to spell economics.

I bring this up only to illustrate the current example of how the smart kids in at least one of the schools just doesn’t get it. I’ll leave it to you to decide which school that might be.

The argument today is, Are we in a deflationary cycle or are we about to enter what could be a hyper-inflationary cycle?

I lean toward deflation. Every single time an economy, any economy in the last eight centuries, has gone through a massive deleveraging, it’s been deflationary in nature. There have been no exceptions found in the research, Read more

January 28, 2010

Lone Star Rising: Special Operators from Texas Target Suicidal West Coast States

by

Realtor, Peripatetic Iconoclast

Author website

THINK HARD

Brian Brady had a comment in the Oregon Suicide post and it got me thinking.   I had forwarded this news to some economic development clients of ours.  Nike would make a great Texas brand. I just pulled up some of the largest employers in Oregon and found a couple first rate candidates for Texas passports:

Advanced Navigation & Positioning Corporation (ANPC) We got a few folks from here to the moon and back.  We even knew where they were the whole time!  ANPC would surely find some kindred spirits here.

AFMS Transportation We have a bigger port, a couple of trains and a freeway or two, plus two major airports, and no small expertise in extraterrestrial travel if needed.  Houston was the first word uttered from the moon by man.

AVI BioPharma I have no idea what an antisense vaccine is, but I bet that there might be a place for these folks near the largest hospital complex in the world. and maybe they can get a breakthrough in recombinant RNA for some commonsense on the West Coast.

Avista Corp. Is an energy company.  My question for these folks is, “Why not come play in the bigs?”  Even if Avista is a green energy company, Texas leads in wind and everything else that keeps your shiny new max-iPad charged.

Fort Bend County near Houston has already gathered a couple $ million to market target to businesses in LA.  The hit teams are forming to swoop in to rescue the productive.  The numbers for relocating the whole business are compelling for an entrepreneur who is under assault by every government entity to whom he must pay tribute.

Why would a West Coast business owner consider moving to Texas? Bawld Guy likes bullet points so here we go:

  • Cost of housing: half.
  • Salaries let’s call it a push, unless you have union labor and then, as we say yipee ki yo!
  • Income tax- What’s that?
  • Welfare payroll levies reduced
  • Residential Property tax-It’s how we pay for stuff like non teacher union schools and non union road construction.
  • Business Property tax- We’re gonna give it back to you if Read more
January 28, 2010

Oregon voters tell High Earners and Businesses to GET OUT! Where will they go?

by

Realtor, Media Mogul

Author website

All the election news last week was not as rosy as Massachusetts.  Oregon voters approved two measures that invite businesses and high wage earners to move out of Oregon.

Voters approved an increase in the minimum excise tax paid by every business from $10 each year to $150, a 1500% increase.  Excise tax rates were also increased for all gross revenue classes.  They also raised the corporate income tax from 6.6% to 7.9% on earnings over $250,000.

If you are an Oregon resident who makes over $125,000, if you’re single, or $250,000 if you file jointly, your income tax rate just increased from 9% to 10.8%.  If you earn over $250,000 and are single or a joint filer of over $500,000 your rate increased from 9% to 11%.

In other news from the Northwest of interest to those in North Carolina, the Washington State Democrats are telling Boeing to leave.  They aren’t going to let little things like agreements that they already made stand in their way.

Boeing spokesman Bernard Choi said the bill “would take away our ability to run our business” and says the company has met all the detailed conditions in the 2003 tax agreement. – Q13

For those of you from Oregon and Washington reading this, Texas is one of 5 states with no income tax.

Real Estate professionals in Idaho, Texas or elsewhere where the disenfranchised Oregon and Washington achievers might move may find the Northwest a productive place to look, as well as California, for buyers of high end homes.  Personally, I’ve lived in Texas before and don’t rule it out in the future.

November 17, 2009

Purposeful Living Is Living For Real

by

Real Estate Investments Broker

Author website

Such a simple phrase, yet apparently so difficult to execute. Agreeing with myself on what my purposes are was at the same time a task easily accomplished, and reminiscent of a root canal. Once they’re established, any goal flowing from them will almost always be accomplished. The importance of having purpose in our lives can’t be overstated.

I learned about purpose by analogy. Purpose is a map — any destination on the map, if we choose to go there, is a goal. The reason goals aren’t achieved, the root cause, is because the goal’s ‘destination’ isn’t on any of the ‘maps’ of the person’s purposes. If your goal is to go to Canada, but none of your maps include that country, it’s highly unlikely you’ll find your way there.

Experts have devised several methods to help folks discover their purposes. Frankly, I’ve always shied away from the concept of ‘discovering’ a purpose, as I’ve always inferred that to mean it was always there, so not necessarily my choice. We can decide at any time to change our main purpose for existence. One of the extreme examples of this truth was the Biblical story of Paul. In the story he not only radically altered his purpose, but reversed it — becoming the world’s strongest advocate for what he’d previously did his utmost to destroy.

So understand, the excuse for not having a guiding purpose cuz ya can’t ‘discover’ it is lame beyond description. We all decide what our purpose in life is, whether it’s a proactive decision or not. Furthermore, having that purpose will not only cause goals to be far more easily achievable, but will generate the goals resonating with the purpose itself. Who’d a thunk?

I don’t advocate any particular method to decide your purpose. Some write down purposes ’till one hits home. Some go to a quiet place and meditate, some even consult experts from different disciplines. It doesn’t matter as long as it produces a purpose with which you’re both at peace and big time excited.

There’s very little in the world more powerful than a purpose driven goal — Read more

October 20, 2009

Transactions Vs. Having a Business

by

Instigator, anthill kicker.

Author website

Getting obsessed with delivering good customer service has become more and more a focus of what I’m doing.   I’d rate myself a 3 on a scale of one to ten, but before June,  I was a -2.   So there’s that, at least.  My goal is to get to a “5” by the end of the year.

Customer service is the difference between “doing transactions” and “having a business.”  Creating a process that honors the customer’s intent is our job, and figuring out a way to do it within the human constraints of bandwidth and knowledge is not easy. But doing it is rewarding, both in the “artistic” sense and in the monetary sense.

Getting honest feedback is hard, too.  People don’t want to identify what you can do better, and our own egos create a situation where we justify our failures.  Perception of the customer is reality, and when we wanna break the stereotype of the entitled and mediocre Realtor (in my case, consultant), we have to fix what’s broken.  We have to be committed to the outcome of good service, and good perceived service.

They are both important.  When my wife was at Dominion homes, the customers there were all given a survey.  The managers would do whatever possible to let the customers know that “yes” was the only real answer.  Dominion was deprived of feedback because of the perverse incentives of the bonus program they created.  People were flat out told that they’d get $100 cash if they brought the survey back for the manager to fill out.  Attaboys were really what they were after.

Not “how can we–as a company–get way better.”

They assumed that they had achieved operational perfection.  They had not.   I have not achieved operational perfection yet (though I’m far closer now).   I want to know where I’m weak, and where I’m perceived to be weak.   Where the communication is chunky and commitments are unmet.

This is the core difference between doing deals and having a business.  Finding a way to get actionable information.  Hearing feedback.

My customer service survey that goes out says this:

I want to be the best ever.  I Read more

October 14, 2009

My Best Online Find Ever

by

Real Estate Investments Broker

Author website

Sometime in late 2007 I ran into a guy who wrote weekly articles about the stock market, using what he called a Super Chart. He’s what’s known on Wall Street as a Chartist, a long established school of thought. He was mentored for several years by an iconic chartist whose name escapes me.

Anyway, his name is Max Whitmore, and he’s the real deal — and a half. He’s the most unassuming guy you’d ever wanna talk to. Yet his record is second to none.

The guy hasn’t missed a major market move since 1965. Those who listened to him before this most reason meltdown still have most of their capital. He’s guest posted at BawldGuy Talking the last two Mondays, and will continue to do so until he and I, along with Tom Vanderwell launch our new site.

Here are the links to his first post, and the one this past Monday.

I began talkin’ about Max a couple years ago. Then the national site who carried his posts in subscription form, dropped him. Their loss. Then something began to happen. Whitmore followers all over the country began to email me from my blog asking if I knew where to find him. They’d subscribed to his stuff, and missed him sorely. This went on for a year at least.

Meanwhile Max and I had become email buddies. I let this be known on the blog and the queries intensified. His followers are the poster kids for loyal. Anywho, go take a look. As I said before, Max Whitmore is the real deal.

October 3, 2009

The Self Correcting Loop: Another Loop Brought To You By GenuineChris

by

Instigator, anthill kicker.

Author website

When I was a mortgage guy, when I doubled my volume and income in 2007, I did it because I created systems and loops.

Systems: do the same thing every time.

Loops: have an end point that, on every job, fixes the system.

At the end of every transaction, no matter how routine, I would write down the points of friction, error and mistake. I’d write down EVERYTHING, try to get the # of phone calls down, focusing on delays and customer impacting changes.

I learned to have “Accurate Hud-1, Day 1” as a standard that I forced title companies to adhere to.
I sent DAILY updates to every party to the transaction: buyer, seller, listing agent, selling agent, title company. I stopped doing business with buyers that didn’t like this. That practice preserved good will on one transaction that had been put in a flood zone that requires flood insurance, to the benefit of all parties.
This was stuff that I learned because of operational flexibility. I had a survey for my customers, and myself. The one for myself I was more concerned with. “How many touches/phonecalls/passes…did this need,” and most importantly, “what can I do better next time.”

I Ignored My Own Advice When I Learned a New Business.

What Can I do better? That question, on every deal, no matter how routine, makes us better practitioners. When I went into the Web marketing thing, I avoided it for a while as I learned the topography and what I was good at. I was too focused on making ends meet. The teeth of the hydra–the nonsense that is the IRS–was upon me, so I was focused on right now selling.
When you’re burdened by time debt, you don’t have the operational flexibility to be proactive. When scarcity creeps in, you can’t be as proactive as you want. You feel scared. And your flailing and not doing the work that makes the most difference.
I had a mediocre business, that is now enjoying rapid improvement by having a self correcting loop.

What Is A Self Correcting Read more

July 31, 2009

What Lessons Have We Learned From Past Hard Times?

by

Real Estate Investments Broker

Author website

Most of us can remember a time, sometimes even a specific moment when our spirit was so beat up it seemingly had to look up to see down. I’ve had those times. They come and go for all of us, and come in so many different forms. It can be financial, health, family, or a combination of all the above. Although in my head I’m still roughly 22, and even though I’m healthy as a horse, very fit, blah blah blah, I can remember bad times like they were last week.

I was first licensed in a recession — went full time after school was done in a recession — saw my first child born in a recession — see a trend there do ya? I’d be the last guy to claim having lived a hard life, though I’ve had my fair share of, um, challenges. In our minds we tend not to step back and extract the lessons life so generously offers to teach us. But we do learn from our times in the barrel, don’t we?

You’ll not meet many folks more private than I, on that you can bank. I tend to keep to myself, though paradoxically I’m gregarious and outgoing by nature. Today I had one of those moments when it seems everything goes into super slow motion, and you begin to ‘see’ things you musta been missing. I’ll keep the subject matter to myself as it wasn’t directly about me, but suffice to say I was both emotionally and intellectually moved a great deal.

It reminded me of the lessons I’ve not only learned about life and living, but about myself — many of which were learned in the pressure cooker of desperate straits. I’d love to hear what some of you have learned when things in your life went to hell in a hand basket, but fair is fair so I’ll tell you some of what I learned in some of the darkest hours from my past.

I learned no matter how much family support there is, no matter how many friends there are, in Read more

July 22, 2009

Americans and Hard Times

by

Real Estate Investments Broker

Author website

Born in the summer of 1951, I’m one of those Boomers who’ve lived the transformation from simpler, more innocent times, to the hi-tech, everything’s gotta be in the fast lane, in your face 21st century. 1951? Possibly the best debut year in post WW II Major League Baseball, as both Mickey Mantle and Willie Mays broke in that year. I grew up watchin’ both of ’em in their primes, as they played at levels normal human beings could only daydream about.

America was a country in transition. The big war victoriously concluded, albeit at horrific cost, the Korean ‘Police Action’ about done, and Boomers were being born by the dozens everywhere you looked. So many paradigms were shifting all at once it seemed. The GI Bill was sending thousands of young men and women to college — folks who before the war would only have fantasized about affording a college degree and the life it promised. Suburbs entered our vocabulary. Home ownership begin to grow at prodigious velocity. Cars became a must have item.

It all sounds pretty cool, doesn’t it? It was, but it wasn’t all Channel No. 5 and Willie makin’ basket catches.

My memory really only goes back to around 1956, when I turned five, started kindergarten, and got to attend ‘regular kid’ Sunday school at Dad’s church. Of course, it wasn’t ’till much later in life that I realized why I had such a good time with the older kids — duh, I was the preacher’s kid, but wasn’t anything in the same zip code as a goody two-shoes. Yeah, even back then.

Ironically, like many in my generation I learned how Americans handled hard times by listening to my grandparents tell about the Great Depression. Once you’ve heard enough of those stories from folks who lived through it as teens and emerged as adults of tempered steel, you tend to shy away from self pity when hard times come knockin’ at your door — hard times hardly in the league about which they talked.

Grandma was the oldest of eight kids who were born and raised Read more

July 1, 2009

Follow me on this; I hope Cap & Trade passes for all our sakes!

by

Realtor, Media Mogul

Author website

american-flagDo I really want the Cap & Trade lunacy, its huge loss of freedoms and destruction that will be wrought to the economy, including the real estate industry?  No, not really.  But I think it might be better than the alternative.

Because WHAT I WANT is for Americans to WAKE UP!  I think Cap & Trade, HR 2454, may be just the ticket.

Surely, this will wake people up to what is happening!  Skyrocketing energy costs, tax hikes, economic stagnation or worse and the nanny state in places it should never have been considered.  Won’t that be enough to wake folks up?

I’m very concerned about what it might take to get the public to finally understand.  Has public education wrought us a feckless population that has turned off their brains and are simply cannon fodder for smooth talking thieving politicians?  Has that been the end game all along?  There aren’t too many places left in the world to go where capitalism is still valued.  When the U.S.A. is taking a more socialist stance than the People’s Republic of China on economic intervention, I have to wonder how folks have lost appreciation for why America is great.

So, back to Cap & Trade, or “Clean Energy” or whatever con they’re calling it.  You see, I figure Cap and Trade can be made to go away pretty quickly.  Sure, it will set us back and cost us just like the still to be spent stimulus money will cost us.  Call it tuition for the American public whose memory is so far gone they can’t even remember back to Jimmy Carter.  Again I digress, but that lesson was good enough to get us Ronald Reagan at the time.

What won’t be so easy to make go away is nationalized health care.  I don’t think the lobbies that would support keeping Cap & Trade in place would be anything like the uproar that would occur if Nationalized Health Care, if it happens, has to be reduced or dismantled.  So, I would rather have the populace figure out what a bad deal this whole socialist thing is with energy than Read more

June 9, 2009

Don’t Look At The Explosion, Just Focus On Your Mission.

by

Instigator, anthill kicker.

Author website

One of my favorite Hollywood staples is the bad ass hero that blows something up and doesn’t need to look back.  He’s already won the battle, and he’s done his damage, and he’s walking away towards the next thing on his todo list.  Jerry Bruckheimer seems to use this 3 times a minute in his flicks.    I think of Jack Bauer and not caring, the explosion happened, so what, moooooving along now.

The only thing that matters is the mission. The explosion is in the past. Cool guys never look.  What you do next to accomplish your mission is the now. So many times I’ve either:

  1. Admired my past successes.  (Hey, pin a trophy on me, I sold a house)
  2. Looked at the things I screwed up. (I lost a customer today)
  3. Been distracted with red flashy nonsense.  (Oooh, what will Inman do next)

All of it’s rubbish.  Our job is simply to lead by example.  Move more product.  Get them to sign on the line that is dotted.   Do it honestly.  Do it to the best of our ability and know that that will always improve.  Know that the job we do today isn’t gonna be as good as the job we can to tomorrow.  Do better.  Don’t sweat the screw ups, and don’t laud the victories.

Don’t look at explosions.

I see politics as an explosion.  Yes.  Obama wants our money.  SHOCKER.  So did Bush, who was all to eager to fire up the bailoutmobile.  The government is a parasite.  TELL ME SOMETHING I DON’T KNOW.   We can pour energy and tears into politics.  Or, we can look at the landscape, get into an OODA pattern, and figure out…what to do next.  We cannot moan ineffectually about the loss of our freedoms, blaming Obama on our faulures.  I mean, we CAN, but dude, setting a good example amidst the chaos.

Learning the laws first isn’t whining about them.  Creating a business that can survive HVCC or whatever BS the power drunk Ivy Leaguers can do…and not whining that we’re not surviving.   THATS the play of the day.

Sure things changed, and more obstacles were thrown Read more

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