One year ago today: April 21, 2022, too lovely a moment.
Five years ago today: April 21, 2018, quality control.
Nine years ago today: April 21, 2014, $500 million overhaul?
Random years ago today: April 21, 2008, countless miles.
I grabbed the remaining two smart deadbolts for $79. My luck held out when a half-hour later I found a measuring cup with American on both sides. Man, those are getting rare. I was at the Thrift, where that nice blonde lady was working. She seems so nice, but too distant for me, as in she would be like Emilia—difficult to get started. The merch these days has changed, lots more plastic (eWaste) from the millennial economy. Any day now expect to see a clip for a holder the stand for the grip for the bag for the overlay for the protector that fits over your smart phone.
The downside is the price tag, $6,954, but cash takes that down to $5,000 immediately. This is a paradox, nobody these days has that kind of cash. No wait, I know somebody, but he’s only got $4,000, is what I’m sayin’. I’ll run the numbers tonight.
No luck finding the in-line fuel pump, nor any shaft couplers. Since the tool I’m making is low rpm, I may make a coupler with what tools I’ve got. Did you know it was Adolf Hitler who predicted this would happen in all capitalist economies—shortages of items for people who fix things themselves. The number of pro-Hitler meetups y’day could not have pleased any anti-nazi groups out there. Twitter is handing out carefully timed and tiny bits of info about what was going on behind the 2020 steal, but you just know the big story is being suppressed. It’s becoming evident the Democrat corruption was both deliberate and from the top down. If the bad guys don’t make their bid for takeover soon, they are going to lose so many voters even cheating won’t help.
Why the door locks? Well, I’m going to answer that roundabout. This place has that extra room if I ever really, really need to rent it out to survive. This backup plan dates back to my college days. Rentals were known to be the first hit with inflation which also makes them a good hedge. The design of this place has a core containing the kitchen and bathroom. For a variety of reasons, I would not rent to anyone and give them the run of the place. But a door lock on each bedroom solve that problem. These locks can be set to automatically close if left alone for 30 seconds.
Let’s go one step further. Suppose a real disaster came along for renters—and outfits like BlackRock are doing all they can to make it. We now know that somebody can live long term in the red shed. It has everything except a shower and toilet. This is only speculation, but by installing a set of sliding doors in the hallway, that shed becomes quite rentable. It would mean a short outdoor walk, but that seems to be no deterrent once rents out there skyrocket. For that matter, I would not, in such dire conditions, have any problem out there and let out this room. Let us hope it never comes to that.
The real Magna Carta.
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The rule saying some work done every day had me finally finish screwing down the canopy sheathing. I ran out of screws, which I also found too short at 1-1/4”. Not wanting poke-through, I looked for 1-1/2” and discovered they may not make those. I settled on 1-5/8” which I know will show through the spaces between rafters. Then, up on the silo, a climb I want to make as few times in the rest of my life as possible. The canopy roof would look great, because all such projects do so from a distance. I forgot the camera. Later, here is the shot, showing the patchwork of the second layer of sheathing. The larger screws cured the slight wobble.
Ah, 40 minutes in the sauna-like shower, I’m a new man. I dedicated the evening to some bass playing, learning “Red Solo Cup”, and reading up on the fallibility of CCTV evidence in court. The lyrics to that tune require special attention to get the right effect, often taking a breath at the penultimate word. And as for CCTV, never admit guilt. It turns out extremely tricky to get this right in the court room, even when the accused is shown looking directly at the camera. Instead, the prosecution relies (and I just learned this) on how so many people will confess when shown the footage.
The lesson? Never confess to a video. Do not deny it is you, but say things like you can’t be sure though it sure does look like you under the circumstances. Get it, circumstances. Again, do not deny, just say you don’t remember being there. They’ll catch you if you deny, but not if you don’t remember. Whose side am I on? Well, it is not as if they asked if you wanted to be recorded, now is it? Just kidding. Maybe.
Not sleepy, I ran through 15 – 18 REIT funds to find a bewildering array of options. Caltier fund requires that annoying declaration of worth on each contribution. That turns out tame to what many of the funds require. BlackRock requires a $250,000 net worth and some insist you have three month’s cash tucked away. (It isn’t the dollars that’s worrisome, but how they track that.) Crowdfunding is new enough that some of these organizations have not been through a business cycle. In ordinary times, it would be hard not to make money in real estate. Hence, great emphasis is on performance during down markets and this is lacking.
Caltier’s goal of 7% isn’t easy to find in writing, but they have come pretty close so far. But like most, I was hoping Caltier would ring in at twice that amount, considering the news floating around about skyrocketing rents and unit shortages. Or is that idea just showing my ignorance? Historically, real estate has out-performed many alternatives, so the latest advice moves it to 30% of your portfolio up from 20%. I view that with some trepidation since 2006. The income is volatile but I’m projecting $42.88 this month, based not on their claims, but on what’s already happened. Check back in ten days.
Everyone loves to hate BlackRock. So I looked at it. They bar poor people like me. In other funds, you become a silent limited partner. BlackRock hesitant to give full details but they are playing for keeps. They manage $9 trillion, more than the GDP of every country on Earth except the USA and China. And the USA just printed up 26% of all the money in history out of thin air. With StateStreet and Vanguard asset management, this group controls $15.1 trillion, so they have a say in everything you say, do, think, or eat. Often called the fourth branch of the government, BlackRock owns Fox and CNN. BlackRock does not actually have $9 trillion, but they manage it for other people. With that much clout, they can force the market to create a profit even over their bad decisions. My personal take on rental property is that unlike businesses, people have to pay rent whether times are good or bad. I’m not the person to ask for sympathy because somebody else is up to their neck in debt. Hey, they squandered it on a good time. Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.
ADDENDUM
Laughing my ass off at the clowns who once crowed they had nothing to hide. Biden passed a law saying people with credit scores above 740 must now pay 1% more on their mortgages, while those below 620 pay 1.75% less. Should have kept your damn mouths shut, but being morons, few of them will see the connection.
And if you put the n-word into Google translate, it comes back “gentleman”. Clearlink, a marketing company, reports many of his remote workers never bothered to open their laptops the past month. Australia has a very precise growing season. The farmers have resorted to GPS guided seeding machines to prevent row overlap. Today the Inmarsat signal failed. As often happens with millennialized systems, there was no backup and nobody knew what to do. Australia is toying with the idea of not taxing seniors if they take jobs as fruit-pickers. Stay back, grandpa, it’s a trick.
Martin Shkreli’s back out of prison (since last year) and he’s invested in an A.I. chatbot that answers most medical questions in 15 seconds. It outperforms WebMD by several magnitudes say users. The press still vilifies him for something he did not do, which is increase the price of an AIDs drug. (He increased the price only for insurance companies, not patients.) Curiously, that has now morphed into a pill to treat Parkinson’s disease. Another lie. It is a drug that treats an African worm infection.
Have you seen the rents in Miami? Where are people even getting that much money, something fishy is going on. And where have I seen this before? Still, increases of 45% over the previous year don’t make sense.
