Berkeley CSUA MOTD:2005:September:11 Sunday <Saturday, Monday>
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2005/9/11-13 [Reference/RealEstate] UID:39625 Activity:low
9/10    http://money.cnn.com/2005/08/30/pf/city_county_rankings
        San Jose #1 as the Richest American city with a pop of +250K
        Here is my question. How the hell do you survive with an income of
        $71,765? You can't even buy 1/2 of a house in San Jose with that
        type of income. $71,765 is the median, so clearly someone's making
        less than that. I don't understand how people survive in SJ. It's
        crowded and it's a total dump. Housing is ridiculously expensive
        and single women there are incredibly few and ugly.
        \_ http://wealth.mongabay.com/tables/100_income_zip_codes-20000.html
        \_ you know, houses weren't always that expensive.
           \- there are plenty of people who are say retired school
              teachers in san jose who live in a ~$1m house they
              paid <$50k for in 1970s and some of them bought extra
              real estate and some point and now own a $3million apt
              bldg ... and they live modestly too and done have any kids
              left to send through college. they have very different
              income:wealth ratios compared to the +$200k income
              yuppie couple still paying off law school loans who take
              $5k vacations and drink $40 wines every night.
              \_ And the school teachers live comfortably and own lots of
                  ^school teachers^school teachers who got here in the late 60s
                 land, and truly understands the term "money working for
                 you", all thanks to this thing called ***Proposition-13***.
                 Look, inflation is above 2%, housing inflation is well
                 above 2%, and if your tax incr is just 2% then it's a
                 sure thing that most smart and entrepreneurial people would
                 want to buy land, lots and lots of land.
                 \_ Sure, real estate is a good investment - mostly
                    because if you rent it out it is 'free'. That combined
                    with leverage can make a lot of money. However, in
                    terms of returns, real estate historically has
                    returned at about the level of inflation. Stocks do
                    much better historically.
                    \_ rents are no where near the mortgage costs in the SF
                       area and many other cities.  if rent could cover a
                       mortgage then no one would claim we're in a bubble.
                       that people will pay for something that they're not
                       living in and cant be rented out to recoup the rent
                       costs means they can only recover if the sale price
                       goes up and then sell.  then those people having to do
                       the same, etc.  of course if the buyer is going to live
                       in the house and can cover it thats fine but that isnt
                       the topic here.
                       \_ Most landlords are covering the mortgage with
                          rent. The last 4 years are an anomaly.
        \_ how did oakland become #11?  all the engineers who can't afford sj?
        \_ Looking at the chart, I sense the numbers are totally meaningless.
           By limiting it to cities with populations of over 250,000 people
           they are excluding rich enclaves. On the other hand, most large
           cities are so diverse that they'll never make the list. Witness
           the absence of LA, Chicago, and NYC, which are probably the
           wealthiest cities in the country. When NYC (or even Santa Barbara)
           does not make the list and Riverside does you know your stat is not
           too useful. The county numbers are even more useless, since
           counties are often even more diverse. I was driving through Santa
           Barbara once with friend from out of state. As we went through
           a Latino area they said "I thought Santa Barbara was expensive".
           I said "It is! Lots of these little houses are worth $650K or
           more". Easterners especially equate expensive with 'white upper
           class with the exclusion of blacks and  Latinos'. So there
           forms this structure whereby they have wealthy white
           cities/counties and poor minority cities/counties, with the
           glaring examples of the ubercities like NYC. That's what these
           figures reflect more than anything, IMO. In CA, to the extent
           glaring counterexamples of the ubercities like NYC. That's what
           these figures reflect more than anything, IMO. In CA, to the extent
           that phenomenon exists, it is restricted to the elites who move
           into cities like Tiburon and not to middle class slobs making
           \_ I strongly agree with you that these numbers are meaningless.
              Mostly, I think they reflect the difference in definition of
              "city" of the east vs. the west. Many eastern counties are smaller
              in square miles than many western cities.  Hell, I think the
              entire state of CT is smaller than san diego.  Thus to even
              look at the numbers and conclude that easterners live
              farther from downtown is simply wrong.  There are 169 towns in
              ct, probably most of which have real downtowns.
              \_ Yes, this is true, too. The cities there are constructed
                 differently. A good example is DC. Wealthy people live
                 in places like Bethesda (not only different city and county but
                 different state) and less affluent people live in their
                 own suburbs. It's a sort of gerrymandering whereby rich
                 people isolate themselves from the poor. It happens in
                 the West (e.g. Beverly Hills) but it is much less common
                 here. Cities like Santa Monica have $4 million houses a
                 few blocks from the homeless shelter.
                 \_ There are 4 million dollar homes a few blocks from homeless
                    shelters on the east coast also.  They just define towns
                    differently, so that place a few blocks away is a different
                    town a lot of time.
                    \- ObPiedmont
           \_ Tiburon is relatively impoverished, as these things go.
              Belevedere just next door is quite a bit richer.  And those
              Marin towns aren't even in the same league as the big three
              on the Peninsula.
              \_ I just chose a town at random. It could have been Beverly
                 Hills or Atherton or even Orinda. Point is the same,
                 which is that not a lot of $70K income earners are buying
                 there.
           only $70K per year. Further, are Anaheim, Oakland, and San Jose
           considered wealthy cities?! I'd say they are not perceived to
           be compared to their neighbors. It's probably that 250K cutoff
           driving that.
2005/9/11-13 [Politics/Foreign/Asia/China, Computer/SW/Security] UID:39626 Activity:nil
9/10    One more data point that libertarianism leads to chaos:
        http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/click_online/4227578.stm
        \_ "It can be used for many good things, like giving the oppressed a
           voice, but users can also preach race-hatred or share child
           pornography with complete impunity."  Gee, what else does that sound
           like to you... I know!  Speech!  Hands!  Computers!  Brains!
           Ban them all!
        \_ Any politcal/economic system can be a problem if unchecked.  That
           why we have limits on speech, captialism, etc.
2005/9/11 [Computer/SW/WWW/Browsers] UID:39627 Activity:nil
9/10    I hate Firefox. A lot of times it just spins and hogs up the CPU
        and your computer gets hosed. Same with acroread. Here is my
        solution. I create a batch file that launches Firefox with a
        lower priority so you can more easily kill it. My batch file
        looks like this:
        start "" /D"C:\Program Files\mozilla Firefox" /BELOWNORMAL \
           "C:\Program Files\mozilla firefox\firefox.exe" -nosplash
        It's one line by the way. The best thing is that acroread also
        gets a lower priority too. Yay.
2005/9/11-13 [Computer/SW] UID:39628 Activity:nil
9/11    What does it mean when they say a group is "self-selecting"?
        \_ Generally the term is used in statistical contexts.  If http://foxnews.com
           puts up a poll on their web site, there are two ways the group
           is self-selected; people who fill out the form chose to go to
           http://foxnews.com, and chose to answer the poll.  Therefore, it is
           hard to draw realistic conclusions from the responses, unless
           you can show that http://foxnews.com visitors are a representative sample
           of the population.  -tom
           \_ ..and that an even distribution of those choose to fill out
              polls  --dbushong
2005/9/11-13 [Uncategorized] UID:39632 Activity:moderate
9/11    "At times, individual freedom must be compromised to improve
        collective security." What the? Newsweek is spreading fucking
        evil ***socialistic*** rhetorics. Socialism=EVIL EVIL EVIL:
        http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9285514/site/newsweek/page
        \_ That's a shockingly bad turn of phrase for the point they're
           trying to make.  What car you drive is not a freedom.  Determining
           how much of this world you consume is, I suppose..  Bad columnist.
           no biscuit.
        \_ Isn't that what the Patriot Act is about?
        \_ socialist?  WTF?  This is right-wing shit.
2005/9/11-13 [Transportation/Car/RoadHogs] UID:39633 Activity:nil
9/11    http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20050911/bs_afp/usweatherauto
        Katrina is the catalyst for the declining popularity of SUV.
        "Chevrolet Suburban saw sales drop 28 percent during August. Ford
         said sales of the full-size Ford Expedition plunged 40 percent.
         Toyota Motor said sales of its heavily promoted Sequoia dropped
         32 percent in August."
        Apparently, there IS a God! Thank you God for striking down asshole
        cars. Now I'm going to celebrate by smoking weed.       -happy liberal
        \_ People were prescient enough not to buy SUVs because a hurricane
           would screw oil prices at the end of the month?
           \_ Had you not noticed that whole $70/barrel runup in the last few
              months?  Oops.  I suppose that should be directed at OP.
Berkeley CSUA MOTD:2005:September:11 Sunday <Saturday, Monday>