All Forum Posts by: Charles Clark

As for the lighting there are a lot of really great new options for LED fixtures that you might want to look into for the kitchen and bathroom. (Other rooms too I’m sure) The options may not be as attractive and appealing on a flip as we see them for our apartments but I know our tenants love having the $35/month electric bills once we get done installing the LED fixtures throughout all the units we rehab.

Have to disagree with this. LED "fixtures" are a high cost and high maintenance proposition. When the thing dies (which is not nearly as far in the future as you may think, LEDs have been getting cheaper and shorter in lifespan) you will have to replace the entire fixture.
Light bulbs exist for a reason, there is no reason to replace a fixture because the lighting portion failed. Tenants can choose to replace light blubs with LEDs at their cost if it makes sense for them in a normal fixture. No reason to loose this cost from your profit.

0 Votes

Quote from @Jay Hinrichs:

Quote from @Bruce Woodruff:

@Eric Bilderback Yeah, your thread got hijacked, man..... next we'll be talking about the real definition of fascism... 🤣

some of the best discussions on BP come from highjacking.. I have enjoyed the history lesson personally.

Hijacking is an intentional act to derail something, its different than ending up off course because conversations naturally flow in different directions. The latter is sometimes an informative process.

0 Votes

Quote from @Susan Maneck:

Quote from @Bruce Woodruff:

Quote from @Susan Maneck:

Only one country has ever invoked Article 5 of NATO's mutual defense treaty and it wasn't Canada. In fact, Canada came to our defense when we invoked on 9-11.

That's not the point either. We spend $800 Bil a year on our military. They spend only $20 Bil. If we weren't providing the safety net for them, imagine what they would have to spend. Oooops, there goes their precious yet highly overrated National HealthCare......

Why would they need to spend more? No one is threatening them. You're deluding yourself that they need our protection.

"No one is threatening them"

Tell that to Ukraine.

And don't think that because the others are in NATO they are magically ok, the Baltic States and Poland would very much disagree with your statement.

1 Vote

Quote from @Susan Maneck:

Had we not spent that money, these nations would either be bankrupt garrison states or speaking Russian.

Sorry, but that is pure speculation. Under Stalin and his successors, Russia was only interested in buffer states. It was the Trotskyites who wanted to spread communism everywhere.

"pure speculation" yes, I am sure all of Europe would have been content to sit, unarmed, next to the likes of Stalin with tens of millions of men in the Red Army and the Atomic Bomb.
This theory is easily disproved by the fact that even with the US as an umbrella the English and especially the French spent significant amounts on their own weapons programmes out of a fear we might abandon them.
As to Stalin being interested in buffer states only, that is quite simply wrong. The Soviet Union made the spread of Communism a goal from the revolution until very late in its existence. The "buffer states priority" you are referring to was a temporal matter for Stalin after WWII while he was trying to recover from a grievous invasion. The whole "perfect communism in the Soviet Union first" line was always deceptive, as demonstrated by significant Soviet involvement in other nations from the 30's onward to promote their agenda. Don't listen to what they say, watch what they do.
And even if we buy this "buffer states only" theory it still has the issue that there is no such thing as too much buffer state. Early overtures and planning were supposed to allow some buffer to the USSR, but when Stalin found opportunity to grab more he took everything he could get. And what he could get would have been quite a bit more without the US.

0 Votes

Quote from @Susan Maneck:

I would not say I was an extraordinary student, far from it, yet I had no difficulty in getting enough aid that I could work on the side during school and graduate without loans.

Are you a Millennial or Gen-Z? Because if you are any older than that then you went to college went it was much cheaper and financial aid much greater. State legislatures got out of the business of subsidizing their institutions of higher learning which is what created the present situation.

Oh yes, I am definitely a Millennial or Gen-Z. Depends somewhat on where demographers are drawing the line, but I could be in either camp depending on definition. That said, I avoid calling myself a Millennial because it is a pejorative term.
And trust me, I know college is not cheap. When I started college the estimated cost for 4 years from the financial aid office at my university (inclusive of all expenses) was something like $280k. But to your point I am not far removed from the present situation.

0 Votes

Quote from @Susan Maneck:

Only one country has ever invoked Article 5 of NATO's mutual defense treaty and it wasn't Canada. In fact, Canada came to our defense when we invoked on 9-11.

This is entirely beside the point. Its not about anyone actually asking for help, etc. Its that we have to date spent well north of 10 Trillion dollars on arms which provide a protective umbrella over these "developed" countries. The fact that they have not had to invoke Article 5 is actually a testament to that. Had we not spent that money, these nations would either be bankrupt garrison states or speaking Russian.

1 Vote

Quote from @Susan Maneck:

That is a false comparison, because there is also plenty of aid these days for "those who qualify" ie. good students.

And any time someone is suggesting we join "the rest of the developed world" I know something is wrong with the picture. The rest of the developed world gets to waste a lot of money on social programs because we pay for their defense. Unfortunately, we can't act like them because the buck stops with us.

You have to be an extraordinary student to get "plenty of aid."

Those other countries aren't wasting money, they are investing it wisely. The NATO agreement was that every member would contribute 2% of their GDP for defense. If we did that we would still have the largest military in the world by far. I'd much rather see us "waste" money on things that actually benefit people than the military.

I would not say I was an extraordinary student, far from it, yet I had no difficulty in getting enough aid that I could work on the side during school and graduate without loans. Many of my peers did the same. And I think there is a good argument to be made that someone who is not academically inclined should not pursue a 4 year degree. That is where promoting trades and other careers would be a good policy.
I'm not even talking about the NATO agreement, that is just the tip of the iceberg. The Cold War cost trillions of dollars to keep the Soviets at bay. No 2% of GDP would ever have done that.
As far as today, 2% would not leave us with much of a military. Few people realize this, but when pundits are claiming that the US spends more than the next X countries combined they are using nominal spending numbers, which are of course meaningless.
When however we use spending numbers adjusted for Purchasing Power Parity US spending on the military is roughly equal to the next two contenders combined, Russia and China. Given that the US is at a significant industrial and manpower disadvantage compared to China this is likely a significant under spending on our part.
There are those who say military spending is a waste, but if you think a strong military is expensive wait until you see what the cost of a weak one is.

0 Votes

Quote from @Eric Bilderback:

Quote from @Charles Clark:

Quote from @Bruce Woodruff:

Quote from @Charles Clark:

Great point...Our neighbor to the north comes to mind there......

And to be clear, this is not a blame or "they did not pay their share" arrangement, its just a tacit recognition that post WWII the US took up the job of defending the "developed" world and spent tens of trillions of dollars to do so for the last 8 decades. Europe, etc. got to spend heavily on whatever social programs they wanted. Had we not done this Europe would basically be a garrison state, assuming they were not speaking Russian.

@Bruce Woodruff

We protect Europe, invade countries in the Middle East, require our young folks go to war in order to keep the petro-dollar system going. It lets Americans produce next to nothing and be the richest nation in the world, materially anyway.

No one has been "required" to go to war since Vietnam, which had nothing to do with the petro-dollar and everything to do with making our assurances to Europe credible.
However the de-industrialization of the US benefited Japan and Germany so perhaps add that to the ways in which we have subsidized their systems.

0 Votes

Quote from @Bruce Woodruff:

Quote from @Charles Clark:

Great point...Our neighbor to the north comes to mind there......

1 Vote

Quote from @Susan Maneck:

Boomer here. My generation hardly had to pay anything for our education. We may brag about "working our way" through college, but that is because it was possible to do that back then. Nowadays when even a historically black state university in Mississippi costs nearly 20K a year, how can that be done? Those who try end up failing in school, I can tell you that as a professor. It used to be that states supported their own universities and colleges and tuition was minimal. There was no tuition at state universities in California before Reagan became governor. Tuition was $600 a year when I attended the University of California and it was waived if you had an SAT score above 1100. States got out of the business of funding higher education which left more and more students having to rely on massive student loans to get by. Mind you, these are loans being handed out to teenagers barely in a position to understand what they are getting themselves into. Yes, this student loan forgiveness is just a band aid. The real solution is to join the rest of the developed world in offering state-funded higher education to all who qualify.

That is a false comparison, because there is also plenty of aid these days for "those who qualify" ie. good students.
And any time someone is suggesting we join "the rest of the developed world" I know something is wrong with the picture. The rest of the developed world gets to waste a lot of money on social programs because we pay for their defense. Unfortunately, we can't act like them because the buck stops with us.
I worked my way through school and graduated with high honors, anyone saying they can't is making excuses.

1 Vote

All Forum Posts by: Charles Clark

Charles Clark has started 4 posts and replied 36 times.

Post: Any Renovation Advice?

Post: Millennial's growing poorer

Post: Millennial's growing poorer

Post: Millennial's growing poorer

Post: Millennial's growing poorer

Post: Millennial's growing poorer

Post: Millennial's growing poorer

Post: Millennial's growing poorer

Post: Millennial's growing poorer

Post: Millennial's growing poorer