All Forum Posts by: Bruce Woodruff

Like @Scott E. said, this is pretty normal for a project to go over schedule and budget...not to excuse your Contr, he sounds like he has other things going (which is also typical). In the future, you should have much more $$ due 'upon completion', like 20%, Make that clear right from the outset.

Also, insist on bi-weekly phone calls (not texts) and written progress reports/pictures sent to your email (not text).

I just ran across this thread, it's a month old....has this Contr finished yet?

0 Votes

San Diego, California

Great topic! And so important.....it's amazing to me how many people start a project with no SOW (or a poorly defined one)...... It is critical to the succes of a remodel or flip. Not only to set your budget more precisely, but also to avoid misunderstanding and Contractor/Client squabbles that seem to show up halfway through the project almost every time.

I like to include pictures when possible, just to really make sure. Misunderstandings and confusion lead to delays and budget overruns.

1 Vote

Tampa, Florida

Quote from @John Clark:

Quote from @V.G Jason:

Quote from @John Clark:

Quote from @V.G Jason:

Quote from @John Clark:

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Quote from @James Hamling:

Quote from @Paul Azad:

Trump announced last night he is canceling/caving on the tariffs to China on 20 major products. Kind of everything that's expensive that we need, like smartphones to computers, to servers, to microchips, etc. This should cause the stock market ie MAG-7 to rise over the next week, SP500/QQQ Futures are already up two to 3 percent. And it should stop the margin calls, which were triggering the bond sales on the long bonds, causing the 10 year and 30 year to rise this past week as well as any repatriation of funds to Europe to buy German Bunds if European Money thinks Trump is less erratic.

So our long bond Yields should start falling soon, and CPI printed 2.4% on Thursday so this should help 10/30 yr yields come down too.

Hoping Larry Fink, CEO Blackrock, is wrong when he just said we are already in a recession.

As an active trader, this is all but zero impact on mag-7 or market itself. We have a global tariff war that kicked off, and got put on hold. Hold is not done. So we exist in uncertainty.

The market does not like uncertainty. It prices for downside risk in such.

Honestly the market should be 20% lower right now, it's literally being held up by retail. I see it every day in trading data, that is legit that it's retail holding things up. Funds are still actively selling off too retail.

We have 3 major things going on hitting the market; Tariff situation, inflation concerns, recession/stagflation concerns.

There will not be any sustained "recovery" and ride up until these 3 are resolved.

And now we have indicators of a 4th issue arising in bond side of things. Nothing is known as of yet other than there is some wonky stuff that started and if continues, that's gonna be an issue.

The biggest concern is corporate debt and how to refinance government debt. Basically, the bond market at this point.

You want to be in front of the CDS trade, and ideally should've been in November.

For the others that aren't aware--the problem the Trump administration is from the Biden administration. Not to get political as I'm not fan of our orange man, but explaining the origins.

Yellen did short term re-financing which kept earnings and revenues going strong, in turn leading to a higher equities market which is where we are starting from. Bloated equity market.

Scott Bessent needs to essentially re-finance $7 trillion here by end of year(20% of our debt), which Yellen forgot to do in 2020-2021 when rates were rock bottom low. It's basically complete incompetence at the CFO level. He's inherited an awful problem.

Retail bought the dip, there's more to come. No saying how much dry powder there is. If you're retail, you don't know when the bottom is in so you actually should buying on 2nd & 3rd leg of rally. Just some advice for readers, don't buy the falling knife. You will have a lower DCA & your concentration is better. I buy dips as a hedge.

Completely different set up; I hope I'm wrong.

International markets will have to cave, corporate debt that essentially leveraged in 2020-2022 like a DSCR to make it simpler for RE folks are coming home due(5-7 year terms). This is with higher rates & lower revenue, what does lead to? The obvious.

CDS are screaming, up 9x since election. And like I said with instruments before to @Ken M. CDS in 2025, like MBS in 2008, won't cause the collapse they're just an instrument to trade.

FYI, a lot of people wanted to refinance into long term debt, but Wall Street wanted a mix of things. Also, politicians were of two minds on the matter: Yes, we save money, but Wall Street short term paper reins in the “other guy’s” plans, whether D or R.

Treasury’s refinancing problems is only and solely a result of the market factoring in Trump’s tax cuts and spending increases. Announce no tax cuts, and the problem goes away.

So no, you can’t just wave your hands and say this is on Yellen. The yields operate prospectively, and they’re pricing in Trump’s policy, not Biden’s

That's an egregious take. That's stating that the outputs of Trump's administration is independent of Biden's administration inputs.

Yet the former point stands. If Yellen re-financed, we wouldn't be in this situation.

But the re-financing issue is solely on Trump...

Make that make sense.

"That's an egregious take. That's stating that the outputs of Trump's administration is independent of Biden's administration inputs."
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No, not entirely. The material outputs of Trump are tariffs and tax cut extensions. Those are in fact independent of Biden's inputs. The markets are reacting to Trump policies, not Biden policies. Biden's policies were already priced in well before Trump's inauguration in January. Inflation was falling under Biden, remember?

As for had Yellen refinanced, you ignore my point: She faced constraints both from Wall Street, and from the political parties, because the shorter term instruments give an early warning of what various policies will do. I absolutely agree, however, that we would have saved money. Too bad neither the Ds nor the Rs wanted to do that, for partisan reasons. So just as Republicans leave bad situations to Democrats to solve (e.g., exiting Afghanistan after Trump's surrender treaty), Democrats leave bad situations to Republicans to solve (refinancing debt in the face of tariffs and tax cut extensions, for instance).

With respect to the math being built into bond prices post-election because Trump had said he was imposing tariffs, you neglect the fact that nobody expected Trump to impose tariffs at the levels he did. They certainly did not expect tariffs to be imposed according to some inane formula totally unrelated to the terms of trade. Who knew that penguins were outsmarting us?

You agree that had Yelling re-financed we would've saved money. Yet disagree her fumbling it created any of the problems today, because of "pressure".

Riddle me this, if Yellen re-financed would there be this absolute, desperate and vicious mandate to re-appropriate the 10 year?

That is the root cause of it all. Trump's retarded tariff strategy & dogmatic belief to the TCJA can exacerbate these issues-- sure, I agree with that.

But the underlying theme is we mismanaged the debt from the previous administration. Now, those chickens are coming home to roost. If we had done that right, the starting point would've been lower and could manage these Trump "policies" better. Instead we started from a terrible point. And again, whose replacing the USD?

FWIW to other posters, trumps overall agenda to take peak "capitalism" at peak valuation to a mercantilism based economy has tons of growing pains & requires duration. If you didn't price that, you missed the ball. I'm sympathetic to his views of America first; just the execution requires way more delicacy than him going all in on the poker table strategy. And requires the following terms doing the same, which is no safe bet.

"Riddle me this, if Yellen re-financed would there be this absolute, desperate and vicious mandate to re-appropriate the 10 year?"

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I have no idea what you are driving at with "re-appropriate" the 10 year. Interest changes on 10 year bonds are the signal the market uses for 30 year fixed mortgages and a slew of other things. Yellen faced pressure from Wall Street and both sides of the aisle to keep the mix of bonds and bills close to what already existed.

And where do you get "absolute, desperate and vicious," mandates or otherwise?

So, no, I don't see how Biden mis-managed debt. You don't take into account the pressure of Wall Street and political parties. Facts don't go away by ignoring them. No mis-management.

As for replacing the USD, currency baskets, or different currencies for different commodities trades. The convenience of a universal reserve currency -- the dollar -- will be gone because Trump is such a flake. The Euro? The yuan? Dunno, but the convenience of one currency everywhere for all transactions will be gone.

As for poker, I think Trump is going for shock and awe in all his government dealings. As some wags have noted, the chaos is the point.

"So, no, I don't see how Biden mis-managed debt."

Well there goes your credibility out the window. Your bias is so deep-rooted that you can't even see it. Also, a suggestion...stop calling everyone that voted for DJT a 'Trumpist' or 'Trumpee'. No one that voted for Biden was called a 'Bidenist'. Just try to get that we have different opinions and see the world through different filters. Doesn't make anyone bad...

3 Votes

Denver, Colorado

Quote from @Natalia Perlova:

Quote from @Bruce Woodruff:

Just turn off that circuit at the main breaker panel. And lock it. Unless it is specifically in the lease that Tesla charging is part of the deal......

I love that idea... but he's using the dryer outlet, so they won't have the dryer then.

Okay, then have an electrician hardwire the dryer. It's in the dryer still works but there's no way to plug anything in!

2 Votes