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Yes, damn them! Lets get rid of more Mom & Pop stores and make way for big chains, so all we're left with is big box stores and poor customer service. They are already monopolizing markets and putting small shops out of business.
you live in hudson county....what Mom & Pop stores should I frequent, in lieu of a bigger chain-type store?
Yes, damn them! Lets get rid of more Mom & Pop stores and make way for big chains, so all we're left with is big box stores and poor customer service. They are already monopolizing markets and putting small shops out of business.
Lesson 1 from the Libertarian School of Business - if you offer a good product at a competitive price, there's no need to worry about the big box behemoths crushing you like an ant. Stop looking for someone or something to make the field even. 'Murica was founded by rich, landed gentry who didn't use slaves or monopolize markets in any manner to hit the big time. Work 3 more jobs, I don't care. Just stop whinging about "unfairness" Life ain't fair, pal.
it would, if you did it overnight. they could start by eliminating the mortgage interest deduction on 2nd homes. i know a lot of people with upper-middle-class incomes, and even some people in the top tier of incomes, and of those people, i only know a handful that have second homes. and of those, most of them have them from homes that were in their family from previous generations.
This wouldn't work very well, unless you want a regressive tax. You can only deduct the interest on a total of $1.1M, no matter how many homes you own. A rich person probably already owes the max on his primary residence, so he gets no tax advantage from the second residence anyway. The person who that hurts is the one who owns a modest primary residence and a modest vacation home. He is the one who would lose the tax break of the 2nd home. Same goes for the people who own vacation homes from previous generations. Most likely, those particular homes are owned outright, so taking away the mortgage deduction on those would have a very low yield.
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Originally Posted by bradykp
the next step would be to eliminate it on mortgages above a certain $ amount. ideally, this would be done with considerations to regional COL differences, but few things in our tax code are done that way, so I'm just dreaming. You could start with eliminating it on mortgages > $1M. then each year, phase in a slightly less expensive mortgage.
It is already cut off at $1M, plus $100K of home equity loans. But tapering it down would still get people to sell. It's not like they can't see what the future brings. After all, you are telling them that it is being phased out.
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Originally Posted by bradykp
I'd also really like to see them, if they must continue, incentivizing what i would call "better" mortgages. so, maybe we shouldn't allow the deduction on a 30 yr mortgage, but on shorter terms like 20 or 15, where people would build equity faster and have less risk.
anyways, just slinging some ideas against the wall to see which ones stick...it's entirely possibly to do it without harming the housing market as a whole.
This would encourage people to buy less house than they would normally buy. Personally, I think this would be a good thing, but it won't happen because that is exactly the opposite of what they want you to do. Everything the government, the banking, and the housing industries do is in place to try to encourage you to buy as much house as you can afford.
well, one example of a horrendous performance that no one expected would be Bill Miller's stellar record being tarnished with a 65% drop. now, the point is, if you're 60 years old in 2008, and you have $1M saved for your quickly approaching retirement, and you had it in what the entire world considered to be one of the absolute best investments, you now have $350,000. The really strong investors would be able to recover, somewhat from that, by today, but the fact of the matter is virtually no one leaves their money sitting in a fund through immense ups and downs. Every piece of investment pyschology shows that no one gets the "average returns" that are published for these funds (like quoting the S&P return).
i doubt anyone literally lost everything. but a substantial amount of people lost 75% or 50%, and were left in bad situations. you'd have to have your head stuck in the ground to have not seen this.
oh wait...
I asked for an example of investments that lost everything and your wonderful example is one fund with a 65% drop? since when does 65% = everything?? also, who is putting all of their money in one investment? I was expecting you to give me examples of individual stocks where the company closed shop and investors really did lose everything.
the stock market goes up and down, we all know that. you cant just take one year, lie about its returns and call it a bad idea. most investments are above where they were before 2008. your example hasn't made up all of its losses; but its up substantially from the bottom in early 2009.
an average of 2080 hours a year? You think minimum wage workers work an average of 40 hours/week for 52 weeks a year?
i think you might be overstating this by quite a bit...
My apologies. I used to recruit IT professionals for a small firm with very big customers and that was the # we used to determine what a 1099 should be paid vs. a salaried for the same job. 2080 included paid 2 weeks vacation, paid holidays and 8 paid sick days. It was my automatic go-to#.
But if an employer needs 20 positions filled 40 hours a week to do the same job that is shared by 30 or 40 or 50 minimum wage employees - the increase in payroll will remain about the same.
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Originally Posted by bradykp
that's your decision. when i started working at a public accounting firm in 2004, starting salaries were skyrocketing. I was actually being paid more than people who were hired in 2003 and 2002. and in 2007, salaries declined. they didn't adjust our salaries down though....
Of course it's my decision. Why should my salary decrease (as yours didn't) just because the government decides to hike up minimum wage?
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Originally Posted by bradykp
starbucks pays pretty good wages and benefits for pouring a cup of coffee....just sayin'
At what level?
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Tipping is greatly appreciated. While Starbucks does provide great insurance and other benefits for its employees, and sometimes even a decent hourly wage, baristas are not guaranteed a certain amount of hours per week and NEVER get full-time hours. So: we have great health coverage but can barely buy groceries.
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Originally Posted by bradykp
i'd really like to know which small businesses are paying minimum wage though. seriously...what jobs in the state of NJ are literally minimum wage?
well, one example of a horrendous performance that no one expected would be Bill Miller's stellar record being tarnished with a 65% drop. now, the point is, if you're 60 years old in 2008, and you have $1M saved for your quickly approaching retirement, and you had it in what the entire world considered to be one of the absolute best investments, you now have $350,000. The really strong investors would be able to recover, somewhat from that, by today, but the fact of the matter is virtually no one leaves their money sitting in a fund through immense ups and downs. Every piece of investment pyschology shows that no one gets the "average returns" that are published for these funds (like quoting the S&P return).
i doubt anyone literally lost everything. but a substantial amount of people lost 75% or 50%, and were left in bad situations. you'd have to have your head stuck in the ground to have not seen this.
oh wait...
Owners panicked and some sold stock at lower prices than they paid. Seniors that were depending on the market for their retirement were losing money.
General Growth Properties, Inc. - "Reduced cash flows, increased borrowing costs and the suspension of their common stock dividend have raised liquidity concerns in the equity markets such that their stock price as of December 31, 2008 has declined by almost 97% since December 31, 2007." Stock:General Growth Properties (GGP)
"...General Growth’s stock price collapsed, falling from $21.42 on September 19, 2008 to less than $2.00 per share on October 27, 2008, or nearly 95% from its Class Period high of $43.83 per share." http://securities.stanford.edu/1041/GGP_01/
In the first quarter of 2009, the share price for Time-Warner fell from $20+ to a little under $4 per share.
I knew somebody who--on the VERY bad advice of his accountant--had put all of his eggs in that one basket, so to speak, and I can remember his angst over the precipitous plunge in his nest egg.
I had about the same amount invested that he did, but my investments were spread around in ~9 mutual funds and a dozen blue-chip stocks, but--while I was somewhat upset about losing some ground temporarily with my net worth--I regained whatever losses I had experienced by staying-put with my investments. My acquaintance panicked, and sold his Time-Warner stock at a very low price, sustaining a capital loss of over $50k.
The people who lost huge amounts of money were those who relied on only one (or, perhaps two) investment vehicles, and/or those who panicked and sold at fire-sale prices. Those who diversify their investments, and those who look at investing as a marathon--rather than a sprint--will rarely lose large amounts of their net worth.
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