All Forum Posts by: Kurt K.

Check out the Podcast with Al Williamson, it is essentially an hour discussing this topic.

Advantages of cash buys is that there is no debt service, so better cashflow overall.

Disadvantage is say you buy a property in $50,000 for cash, well you buy 1 property for that. With debt with $50,000 cash you can buy a $250,000 property or 5 properties at $50,000 each. If the bigger, or more properties are cashflow positive, they will still pay themselves without additional cash invested. However, each month will be less profit to you from each individual property. However, collectively (5 properties with less cash, vs 1 with more cash) they may return a similar amount, it varies on property. Additionally, using loans is "more risk" since you must pay that expense, so if you fall on hardship there are consequences.

just a brief reply

It would have positive cashflow if both units were rented out. I believe it is a solid deal. You just have to consider that while you will still be "losing money" each month, it is just because you are in the other unit and living for much cheaper than if you rented or bought another place for personal residence.

I agree with all of you both Harry M. and Gary Parker. But in my opinion the Value of the work that the worker is doing is being undervalued and it is so pervasive it isn't as simple as going to another job that pays well. Odds are that the well paying boss already has a full staff and cannot hire more. For me it is more than the CEO that creates the value and when the company is making more not only should the CEO be making more money but also the workers. (For example back in the day Ford paying $5 a day to work in his plant, a doubling in wages for workers). In showing how lopsided the pay/wealth really to me it is obvious the middle class has been taken advantage of. In our country the golden rule has prevailed "He who has the gold, makes the rules."

To answer your question about what I think about it, I think its appalling. Wealth/socioeconomic inequality results in feelings of resentment, anger, remorse to those on the high end as well as inferiority for those making less and results in physical/mental illness. It has also been shown that workers who are compensated fairly also become more productive in their work, have fewer sick days, actually enjoy going to work, etc... and the "middle class" is the glue of capitalism. They are the ones that motivate the poor, and the rich motive the middle. The jump for poor to rich is so high that it is demoralizing, so workers will become disenchanted and you'll see that the once great "American Dream" becomes the butt of jokes, "you must be dreaming to believe it".

I believe the CEO should make much more than an average worker (which they always have) but the fact that since 1978 increase in worker annual compensation has been 5.7%, CEOs increase in annual compensation has been 726.7%!! (economic institute report 2012)

I said before it matters in how the CEO is producing value. In capitalism profits aren't enough, you must have growth. Once A company reaches it's market determined size (for whatever good or service they supply) the next way to "grow profits" is to cut expenses. As an example, workers were happy making less just 20 some odd years ago when they had good benefits (health care coverage, retirement), but now all of those have been taken away, and they feel the pain from that. But it creates "value" so hey let's give the executives some stock options. In the mix of searching for higher profits, ethics have been compromised in my opinion.

And for your tv stat, I didn't look anything up but I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that the ones that watch the most are kids that don't go to school, kids in school, people 65+ or otherwise retired. You can't generalize a stat of "americans" as representative of working americans. Although I don't think 4 hours a day is surprising at all. Say if you work 9-5 and go to bed at 11, you have 6 hours after work, maybe an hour before work as well.

To summarize, in my view, the perceived laziness is a result of disenchantment of the compensation system of today. (workers wages hardly move, CEOs sky-rocketing). It seems that most people on here are just saying that it is just an epidemic of laziness that has caused the workers to have low wages.

I haven't found any contact information for the brother. I already went ahead and changed the locks.

There is a clause in the lease that I inherited with the tenant that states if the tenant shall vacate or abandon the premises and leave any person property that such property shall become property of the landlord with any liability to the tenant therefor.

I don't know if a clause like that would hold up, and I highly doubt that any fuss will be made over the 3 items but I'd be willing to throw them in the barn out back that is empty for the time being

Agreed Jon Klaus there is definitely a lot of spread in the 1%! It could be argued that Small business owner would be considered a CEO of sorts, haha and if the owner is bringing in $400,000/year it doesn't seem like they are running a "small" business, but it is all relative. We compare them to large corporations and such, which then they seem small again. And it IS important to note that while being a CEO is extremely rare, being "an average worker" is extremely average. So the effects aren't linear in consideration of the number of people from each group involved.

But I'm not sure what your take is on this? What does this trend in growing inequality mean to you? (By your posts you seem to be fine with it, but I don't want to assume anything.)

It's interesting to note too that the video wasn't emphasizing the inequality from people not working, or on welfare, it did use a comparison of the CEO's pay vs the average worker in their company. It was still 380x more.

I don't believe the video was made to emphasize "lets take money from hardworking people to give them to people not working." It was showing that out of 2 groups CEOs and people that work for them, their rise in wages have been grossly unequal. So the gap is widening.

Most economists will talk about how important the middle class is for us and this inequality is wiping out the 3 classes (low-middle-upper) into 2 classes (low-upper). And it is due to the fact that for the people higher up pay is rising, while blue collar wages aren't. It isn't because the workers stopped working. Really the most significant hit recently was in taking away benefits. Workers will willing to tolerate low pay if they had good benefits. Now, they have low pay with reduced benefits.

Also a point in Kyle's post. All money is distributed in a company. There are profits at the end of the year and people at the top decide who gets what (raises, bonuses, etc). That is wealth distribution and that gets reflected into the entire economic picture of a country.

Except if in that climate you go to start your new company, no one is going to work for you if you take pay from the workers to pay yourself more.

When real wages for workers are stagnant and real wages for executives are soaring, clearly the people at the top (who decide the wages) are choosing to not raise worker wages in favor for keeping more for themselves. You have to look at what the CEO is doing to produce value. Cutting wages and benefits to workers isn't exactly an ethical way to increase the bottom line and your own wages through stock options.

The trend can only last so long in my opinion. Either workers will have to be paid more or we will go back to the 70's when the top tax bracket was 70% once the middle class is completely destroyed.

Again with your last paragraph, "some people want to sit on the couch. Some people want to build empires" is an ignorant statement. It cannot be simplified in such a way and I'd goes as far to say people with millions do a whole lot more couch sitting (or golfing, beach laying, etc) than a low paid worker, if you want to make such a statement.

BTW I think this was a great post Jon Klaus I understand and respect everyone's differing opinions, but I happen to think this is a very very large problem we have. It actually leads to increased crime rates and lower overall (physical/mental) health of a population too when looking deeper into this mess.