Is unearned income acceptable?

a reply to: Edumakated

You realize a lot of locals are finding places with a cheap * cost of living * harder and harder to come by unless you want to be stuck in butt nowhere.

Raising property values benifits no one except the people that are raising them.

There's no other reason to overcharge people.

By the way, calling the gains "unearned" is really unfair. The money to invest has to come from somewhere and for most of us little folks it was earned through an honest days work. Some people choose to squander their money on assets that depreciate like fancy cars while others may choose to buy stocks and bonds or make other investments with their disposable income.

We all make choices. Some choose to invest their money wisely and some choose not too. Those that choose not to should not be complaining about the rewards that others may reap.

Sometimes we invest and lose our shirt. I tried to start a business several years ago and lost around $30k cash. Gone. Poof. Pissed away along with countless hours of time. Government didn't come knocking to help me out. All I could write off was like $3k on my taxes. But yet if my business took off and I made $1 million dollars, here comes the government saying I owe half my money in taxes and the whiney cry babies saying I'm evil! GTFO with that shizz.

a reply to: Edumakated

Really?

But OTOH:

But the working rich in the top 0.1 per cent mostly either work for rentier organisations that collect and seek rent, interest, dividends, capital and speculative gains, or control key positions where they can determine their own pay. This is most obvious in the financial, insurance and property sectors where many rich people work, but companies in the non-finance sector have made an increasing share of their profits in finance too by ‘investing’ in securities. In the UK in 2008, 69 per cent of the 0.1 per cent worked in finance and property, and 34 per cent were company directors, as were 24 per cent of those in the rest of the one per cent.

Edit: can you please show me where anyone has called you evil?

originally posted by: AnuTyr
a reply to: Edumakated

You must be one of those racist types against multiculturalism.

*Move to a poorer place* Whats your idea of a poor place?

Please say Africa.

How you got that out of my comment is beyond me. Please stop snorting meth.

I didn't say move to a "poor" place. I said move to a place with a lower cost of living. Cost living is directly a result of supply and demand. The more people want to live some place with limited supply of real estate, the more valuable that real estate. Again, basic economics 101.

Of course, what is also funny to me is that many places that are extremely expensive to live have artificially inflated costs do the very liberal save the world policies like rent control and limitations on building.

I choose to live the community I live in because it is the one I can afford. Sure, I'd like to live in some other areas BUT I CAN"T AFFORD IT. I am not going to cry it is a illuminati conspiracy or that it is the Federal Reserve's fault. I just get in where I fit in like an adult. Good grief.

a reply to: Edumakated

Man i have no problem with making a small earning on *Renters*. Enough so that you can at least afford insurance on the places and have some pocket money.

Even all that is pretty expensive. But when i look at adds for houses and renting places, the prices are insain.

They dwarf all of those things combined. And the prices is always adjusted to land value. If a person messes with the land value. it effects everyone in the general area.

People have been forced on the street, and indeed a huge protion of the homeless are homeless because of these reasons most of the time. Living expenses are to harsh and when something happens, like a new owner comes in and evicts so he can use the house as a storage place for his bikes or newspaper collection. It really screws peoples lives up. Leases even can be terminated at any moments notice. They got people by the ball and are milking them for minor services. They basically do the paperwork and pay the bank well they exort their residents for cash. Like legal loan sharks.

I'm gonna have to disagree with real estate being unearned income.

I live in, remodel and resell at market value. I purchase with cash, add more cash for materials, then do the labor myself.

Here's an example of my current investment:
148,000 cash +50,000 in improvements and almost 1 year of labor on the remod.
8,000 in taxes for 2 years
4,000 in insurance
210,000 invested with 225-240,000 sale price
The ROI isn't huge, but the expense, work and tax liability is.

What is crazy is the banks writing mortgages and loaning 10% and putting the rest into an IOU.
Especially when they want 10-20% down to write a mortgage. When their only contribution is 10%, a cash purchase at even half of market value looks attractive to them, they are released of the maintenance, depreciation, and property taxes.

The value/service to what I do helps the keep the neighbors property values inline with the market, by taking over where others have failed and improving the property.

originally posted by: AlaskanDad
a reply to: Edumakated

Really?

But OTOH:

But the working rich in the top 0.1 per cent mostly either work for rentier organisations that collect and seek rent, interest, dividends, capital and speculative gains, or control key positions where they can determine their own pay. This is most obvious in the financial, insurance and property sectors where many rich people work, but companies in the non-finance sector have made an increasing share of their profits in finance too by ‘investing’ in securities. In the UK in 2008, 69 per cent of the 0.1 per cent worked in finance and property, and 34 per cent were company directors, as were 24 per cent of those in the rest of the one per cent.

Edit: can you please show me where anyone has called you evil?

Really. What exactly is your point? People in finance make a lot of money. So? Doctors make more than school teachers. Computer programmers make more than janitors. It is all supply and demand.

Are you saying the money is unearned? Funny, I just read today where Bill Gross (basically the most famous bond investor ever) just put up $700 million of his own money into a new fund. If turns it into $1 billion are you going to say the money was unearned? How about if he calls the market wrong and then is only left with $100 million?

To the [snipped] against landlords---buy your own property and then you won't have to pay rent. And you will also become familiar with the idea of personal responsibility.

Of course what you really want is to be given housing---and food, and medical care, and entertainment.

Without ownership of property(including weapons) , one is a slave---likely a willing slave at first, but still a slave. And perhaps one who is willing to kill or steal to achieve it.

Communism is insanity and murder at its core.



Reaffirming Our Desire For Productive Political Debate (REVISED)

a reply to: Mandroid7

Making a small income well helping house the population is fine. I never said it wasn't. Expecially if you did something to revamp a place and make it liveable.

Contractors are defenantly the worst hit by this kind of economy. Sure there are some *Mega* contracting companies that do exactly what i described. And it leaves ghost towns LOL.

Fixing up old places for a living is a lot different than people who hunt property and just *sit* on it till the value goes up.

a reply to: Edumakated

I say that our real estate market is being artificially inflated by investment and this led to the 2008 bailout. The real estate market should have been allowed to fail which would have taken real estate values to their true market values.

originally posted by: AlaskanDad
a reply to: grandmakdw

You really should have read the article before trying to inject the usual talking points into the thread.

Basically some investments are good for society while others take away from society in general. It is kind of an interesting article if you can get past the idea that just making money is good for yourself so there for it must be good.

The article makes ZERO sense to any logical person with even rudimentary understanding of business and economics. Seriously, I read it and I can't stop saying WTF after like every other sentence or laughing out loud.

From the article: "But then think of gains ‘investors’ might get from renting, lending, buying stocks or bonds and other financial assets, buying up existing property and waiting for its value to go up, and speculating. Investments of this second kind need have no connection with investments of the first kind. They need not create anything new. All they are supposed to do is provide a return for the ‘investor’—wealth extraction, regardless."

This paragraph alone shows the article is full of bullshizz. There is no benefit to buying stocks or lending money? Is this some kind of sick joke? I mean c'mon you can't be serious.

originally posted by: AlaskanDad
a reply to: Edumakated

I say that our real estate market is being artificially inflated by investment and this led to the 2008 bailout. The real estate market should have been allowed to fail which would have taken real estate values to their true market values.

I agree on this point. The problem is that politically, society was not ready for the short term pain that would have resulted had the government just let banks fail along with homeowners who made bad decisions. Things would have sucked for a year or two, but the market would have quickly figured out the proper pricing and recovered.

a reply to: Edumakated

It might make zero sense to one that is only concerned with lining their pockets, if otoh you wish to make beneficial investments it shows money can be made through wealth creation rather than extracting from others.

Open your mind rather other peoples wallets! LOL's

a reply to: Edumakated

It was the mega contractors that messed up. The built tons of houses no one was ever planning on buying for the prices they were asking for. Then they closed down in forclosure.

originally posted by: Edumakated

originally posted by: AlaskanDad
a reply to: Edumakated

I say that our real estate market is being artificially inflated by investment and this led to the 2008 bailout. The real estate market should have been allowed to fail which would have taken real estate values to their true market values.

I agree on this point. The problem is that politically, society was not ready for the short term pain that would have resulted had the government just let banks fail along with homeowners who made bad decisions. Things would have sucked for a year or two, but the market would have quickly figured out the proper pricing and recovered.

For the last 30+ years TV has been pushing people to embrace the ideal of making money off real estate. From the millionaire maker infomercials to shows like flip this house. All of which are inflating the housing market and making life harder for the average person, more profits for banks making home loans though.

originally posted by: AlaskanDad
a reply to: Edumakated

I say that our real estate market is being artificially inflated by investment and this led to the 2008 bailout. The real estate market should have been allowed to fail which would have taken real estate values to their true market values.

Just like the banks and insurers and financial institutes that "were too big to fail".

Anti trust should have broken them up long ago if they were that big and powerful.

Instead they allowed them grow even bigger and merge.

After the tax payers they ripped off and screwed out of trillions in 401k accounts, had to bail them out.

Wtf???

This is as far from a free market as it gets.

The system is 100% rigged to screw regular folks.

a reply to: Mandroid7

I would agree with the situation that you have stipulated that you are adding value and creating your financial return rather than than extracting unearned income.

a reply to: infinityorder

If the ghost towns don't prove the hilarious irony of the system i don't know what will.

maybe when people decide to sqatt or make their own towns and just * live * there.

We would really see just how free we are when the police and army comes to stop a new country from developing within.

originally posted by: AlaskanDad

originally posted by: Edumakated

originally posted by: AlaskanDad
a reply to: Edumakated

I say that our real estate market is being artificially inflated by investment and this led to the 2008 bailout. The real estate market should have been allowed to fail which would have taken real estate values to their true market values.

I agree on this point. The problem is that politically, society was not ready for the short term pain that would have resulted had the government just let banks fail along with homeowners who made bad decisions. Things would have sucked for a year or two, but the market would have quickly figured out the proper pricing and recovered.

For the last 30+ years TV has been pushing people to embrace the ideal of making money off real estate. From the millionaire maker infomercials to shows like flip this house. All of which are inflating the housing market and making life harder for the average person, more profits for banks making home loans though.

You can make money off real estate. However, it isn't by buying Carlton Sheets secrets or these other huckster's books on late night TV. They are just appealing to the greed of stupid people who really believe you to can learn to flip houses with no money down!

I work in the mortgage business. The margins on mortgages are not that high. Trust me. They make a lot from the sheer volume of loans, but the profit on each individual loan is not that great. One foreclosure can wipe out the profit on a hundred loans.

originally posted by: AlaskanDad
a reply to: Edumakated

It might make zero sense to one that is only concerned with lining their pockets, if otoh you wish to make beneficial investments it shows money can be made through wealth creation rather than extracting from others.

Open your mind rather other peoples wallets! LOL's

Someone should tell Obama that.

Do you know how he wants to pay for his "free" community college? He wants to tax the savings/investment accounts middle class folks can set aside to help pay for their children to go to school. Those accounts are tax free so that your kids don't have to maybe take out as many loans for education, but how dare you:

1.) Not pay taxes on those funds?
2.) Help your kid dodge having to pay the government their loan payments for all those years (on top of their taxes)?
3.) Be responsible and earn something that others don't have the fortitude or ability to earn for themselves?