“How Sweet It Is To Be Loved By You”, a Marvin Gaye tune that is ancient even by my standards. It’s on the song list as a must-play, so I’m giving it my best shot. The bassline is an early cliché I intentionally never learned. It is done with a primitive finger-raking ripple over the bass strings, which I used to call the “buddle-dee-boop thing”. You play “buddle-de-boop” once and then you repeat it to death and say, “What a great bass player am I.” What’s this, my phone ringing off the hook? I’m not a phone kind of guy. Turns out there is now a third scooter in town that matches mine and Miguel’s. People saw it going down the roadways and were calling to see if mine had been sold or stolen. I assured them my unit has that oversize carrier on the back. That shows you more than a few folks are looking out for me.
Which brings up another point. Names on the Internet. Since I don’t use SEO, my blog is very sensitive to certain search criteria, particularly when the search engines try to bypass high frequency blogs. I’ve notice that names are a high priority item, and that new names are given special treatment. If you have a new and unusual name (especially an “English-sounding” name), there is a flurry of activity until the name gets sufficiently attached to dozens of social networks and tracking sites. None of which you asked for. It would seem thus that establishing a completely new identity on-line
The Sentient Bean. That’s the coffee shop in Savannah with the real root beer. I also recommend it otherwise, it has decent prices and good coffee. Although I did not see any, there is a stage for entertainment and the college atmosphere is, to me, boundlessly superior to Dunkin. In something I don’t usually see, it also seemed like a safe place for single females to hang out without being bothered too much. I have not been there often enough to outright recommend it, but if I was in Savannah, it would be an evident first choice.
Moments later, I found a nearby outlet for the real root beer from Savannah. Called “Virgil’s”, it is distributed by Kehe. They have a location in Ft. Lauderdale, which I will check out shortly. Thank you for the rapid response, Kirsten at “Sentient Bean”. You have not tasted root beer until you have tasted the real McCoy. It may not be a local product, but neither is whatever else claims to be root beer. This is the best I’ve tasted. Okay?
But my silver supply is not as dissectible as far as what makes up the total. I regularly monitor costs to the third decimal, as all professionals do I’m beyond certain. How come a $1.163 drop in spot price results in only a $0.449 drop in my costs? What was funny was when I pointed this out, the silver seller immediately questioned my sources, my accuracy, and my accounting methods. They actually said, “Only God is perfect.”
They are not used to someone who uses the same on-line quote source, the same markup catalog, and whose internal controls are several generations ahead of whatever version of Quickbooks they employ. I will still shop there, but I’m seeking an alternative supplier. Even if it was all a simple error, they were far too sudden to blame it on me. Possibly they are a little too used to dealing with Florida hicks? What say you? And don’t be mean about it.
ADDENDUM
It’s time for another chat about real estate. I’m finding so many people are still living in a past I never believed in, even at the time I lived through it. They cling to the notion that a house is a “uniquely safe” investment where I see no investment at all. To me, ownership is merely the buffer that isolates you from gems like triple rent increases. Such as the one that forced our computer store out of business in 2009. The reason that never wiped any of us out is we all owned the places where we lived. Would you be so lucky?
I own my place, but not the property it rests on. Thus, that makes for the final pre-retirement concern that remains and I’m looking every other day. Once I buy a place, my disposable income effectively doubles. You could say that is true for anyone with a mortgage, except, and this is crucial, I’ll have skipped the 30 year mortgage part. Why another mobile home? Because, if chosen properly, they turn out to be comfortable, carefree, and very, very economical. Houses tie you down by being relatively illiquid. You can’t just walk away from them like I might with this place.
But others see the property as a way to make money, they dream of a return to the days of flipping houses to the next sucker. If you want a tech explanation of why that will not happen again in our lifetimes, study the sub-prime crisis. What? You want the quick explanation of that fiasco? Sure. The government secured the mortgages so banks no longer had to worry about getting paid back, which meant anybody could get a loan. These mortgages were then repackaged as AAA (triple A) securities and sold around the world to people who [formerly] trusted the American rating system. Boy, did they get fooled.
Ah, you say, am I not myself in the planning stages of property as an investment? Yes, but I don’t risk the place where I live. I’m looking at rent as income. I see a developing tier of people who, after decades of living under mortgage debt, would see the option of renting as a superior lifestyle to buying. Why tie up your retirement money in precarious Florida property? On the other hand, I live here and know how to find the bargains.
[Author's note: there is also the matter of estate taxes. Since death cannot be predicted, all too often such taxes mean the estate has to be sold to pay them. And we know what happens when something has to be sold. A reasonably fixed rent of unknown term is a better bet. Stay liquid, my friends.]
That part about risk needs a second look. I’m surprised how often people who own property will borrow against it. I’ve never done anything of the kind. History teaches us those who keep their property separate from their business endure. Those who don’t rarely keep the money in the family. Look at which Lords in England who lost their ancestral estates. Yet the primary source of business investment capital is residential property.
There is another fallacy that one can retire and work a small business. Nope. Modern houses don’t even have a work shed. Since the 80s, all the backyard startups are gone thanks to illegal immigration. You need a pile of cash to start any real business these days because that represents the most effective barrier to unlimited competition. And consider how few retiring Americans ever learned anything worthwhile in their former careers. Most of them can’t fix a bicycle.
So we get the situation (at age 65) that unless they can miraculously acquire a marketable skill and borrow more than the next guy, you’ll see nothing. But you’ll hear plenty. Go down to the local Dunkin and listen to loud-mouth old men, every one of them an expert in real estate, blabbing ceaselessly about their big plans. Texas hold-em clubs and pizza take out. Real bunch of heroes.
