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Author Topic: Calm and Cool Progressive Discussion Thread  (Read 1212640 times)

kaijyuu

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Re: PoH's Calm and Cool Progressive Expression Thread
« Reply #30 on: March 01, 2012, 09:41:19 pm »

Lotta cultural things contributing to the divide, as well.


On the far side of the scale for women, you've got people thinking carrying bags is sexual harassment.

On the far side of the scale for men, you've got the notion that a man being raped is somehow a good thing (even the men being raped can buy into it!).

And everything inbetween.


My gut suspicion is that the numbers are pretty close, though not as much as say, domestic abuse. We'll never get accurate statistics until sexual harassment is treated equally for both men and women.
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Quote from: Chesterton
For, in order that men should resist injustice, something more is necessary than that they should think injustice unpleasant. They must think injustice absurd; above all, they must think it startling. They must retain the violence of a virgin astonishment. When the pessimist looks at any infamy, it is to him, after all, only a repetition of the infamy of existence. But the optimist sees injustice as something discordant and unexpected, and it stings him into action.

Durin

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Re: PoH's Calm and Cool Progressive Expression Thread
« Reply #31 on: March 01, 2012, 10:18:29 pm »

http://beta.local.yahoo.com/news-home-vandalized-given-back-woman.html

All too common....

Background and Procedural Facts:
So, when the bank forecloses, they often give you an incentive to leave and just get out so they don't have to go through the longer disputed foreclosure process. It's called "Cash for Keys." Or, they just boot you out sooner or later.

Usually, when you leave the house and let the bank know, they come around and winterize the place so the pipes don't burst, etc, etc. It's part of a duty to mitigate damages so they can sell the house at sheriff's sale and apply the money they get there towards paying off the loan balance. In some states, you can have what's called a "deficiency judgment" against you if you owe more on the loan than the house brought in at Sheriff's sale. Note: in Ohio, they have deficiency judgments, but the bank has a 2 year SOL to come after you for them. So, it's really important that the bank take care of the house when you let them know you're leaving it, and they're required to....

They didn't here. The place went to hell, and all of it was foreseeable. Thieves and drug addicts hung around, ruined the place and stole nearly everything, pipes, and pretty much whatever. 

To review, bank was taking house, did nothing to safeguard or winterize it, and screwed up so badly that they just let her have what was left of the place. It's now uninhabitable from the bank's neglect. Her life is turned upside down, and nobody's gonna do much of anything.

Argument:
This is really why we need something that actually modifies mortgages in a meaningful way that keeps people in these houses. First, on average these places were simply never worth what they were purchased for to begin with. Second, foreclosure leaves a bunch of vacant houses going to hell and ruining property values for everyone in the area. Third, speaking of vacant, these places aren't doing anyone any good sitting empty (separate and aside from the second argument), we've got a bunch of people who need a place to live and empty houses.... Fourth, who fixes this gutted house, or does it stay gutted and blighted? Fifth, it just looks like neither the bank nor this woman, as owner, are going to get anything out of this; it's become a zero sum game. Sixth, let's look at it from the taxpayer standpoint for a second, locally, we're gonna have to pay to condemn and bulldoze a lot of buildings like this (and in worse conditions). This could be avoided by letting the woman stay in the house so it doesn't go to hell. Moreover, this place was a haven for crime and drugs for years under the bank's neglectful stewardship.

Counter:
You could say that this is all or mostly the owner's fault, that she shouldn't have taken out a loan she couldn't pay back etc.

Counter to Counter:
She bought the house in the 1980s, and then she certainly could make the payments. She had no reason to think she ever wouldn't be able to and it is kinda hard to predict almost 30 years out into the future. This isn't an irresponsible person in my eyes, and as someone who deals with foreclosures in a boots on the ground sense, that often isn't the case. How do you plan for losing your job 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, or more years down the line? You really can't if home ownership is on the table. Fact is without a job, the overwhelming majority of people out there couldn't afford their mortgage or rent or whatever. The only way these people can "plan" for not being able to make a payment due to job loss is to never buy a home, but even then, you can't plan for the rent without a job either.

Basically:
No to vacant houses, no to people being thrown out of homes, no to setting up havens for crime and drugs, no to pawning off the bank's bad investment on local taxpayers, no to ruining the property values of entire neighborhoods. Yes to a responsible foreclosure modification program.

It might be a good idea to rethink the depreciation rules for property. People I know in the industry point out that the best thing about "investing" in property is the tax write off due to depreciation of the value of the home, even when the value of the property is actually going up. I'd like to see either doing away with it entirely, or else doing away with it for properties not being occupied by the owner as a primary residence.

Call me crazy, but I do not think it is the first, best destiny of property to be owned and leased out by landlords. It's a complicated issue, but the fact that the system is designed more or less from the ground up to have huge amounts of property owned by people who do not live there is a bad thing.
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Descan

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Re: PoH's Calm and Cool Progressive Expression Thread
« Reply #32 on: March 01, 2012, 10:39:09 pm »

POSTING

TO

WATCH

*thunder, THUNDER, thunder!*

Spoiler (click to show/hide)
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Truean

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Re: PoH's Calm and Cool Progressive Expression Thread
« Reply #33 on: March 01, 2012, 11:37:04 pm »

http://beta.local.yahoo.com/news-home-vandalized-given-back-woman.html

All too common....

Background and Procedural Facts:
So, when the bank forecloses, they often give you an incentive to leave and just get out so they don't have to go through the longer disputed foreclosure process. It's called "Cash for Keys." Or, they just boot you out sooner or later.

Usually, when you leave the house and let the bank know, they come around and winterize the place so the pipes don't burst, etc, etc. It's part of a duty to mitigate damages so they can sell the house at sheriff's sale and apply the money they get there towards paying off the loan balance. In some states, you can have what's called a "deficiency judgment" against you if you owe more on the loan than the house brought in at Sheriff's sale. Note: in Ohio, they have deficiency judgments, but the bank has a 2 year SOL to come after you for them. So, it's really important that the bank take care of the house when you let them know you're leaving it, and they're required to....

They didn't here. The place went to hell, and all of it was foreseeable. Thieves and drug addicts hung around, ruined the place and stole nearly everything, pipes, and pretty much whatever. 

To review, bank was taking house, did nothing to safeguard or winterize it, and screwed up so badly that they just let her have what was left of the place. It's now uninhabitable from the bank's neglect. Her life is turned upside down, and nobody's gonna do much of anything.

Argument:
This is really why we need something that actually modifies mortgages in a meaningful way that keeps people in these houses. First, on average these places were simply never worth what they were purchased for to begin with. Second, foreclosure leaves a bunch of vacant houses going to hell and ruining property values for everyone in the area. Third, speaking of vacant, these places aren't doing anyone any good sitting empty (separate and aside from the second argument), we've got a bunch of people who need a place to live and empty houses.... Fourth, who fixes this gutted house, or does it stay gutted and blighted? Fifth, it just looks like neither the bank nor this woman, as owner, are going to get anything out of this; it's become a zero sum game. Sixth, let's look at it from the taxpayer standpoint for a second, locally, we're gonna have to pay to condemn and bulldoze a lot of buildings like this (and in worse conditions). This could be avoided by letting the woman stay in the house so it doesn't go to hell. Moreover, this place was a haven for crime and drugs for years under the bank's neglectful stewardship.

Counter:
You could say that this is all or mostly the owner's fault, that she shouldn't have taken out a loan she couldn't pay back etc.

Counter to Counter:
She bought the house in the 1980s, and then she certainly could make the payments. She had no reason to think she ever wouldn't be able to and it is kinda hard to predict almost 30 years out into the future. This isn't an irresponsible person in my eyes, and as someone who deals with foreclosures in a boots on the ground sense, that often isn't the case. How do you plan for losing your job 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, or more years down the line? You really can't if home ownership is on the table. Fact is without a job, the overwhelming majority of people out there couldn't afford their mortgage or rent or whatever. The only way these people can "plan" for not being able to make a payment due to job loss is to never buy a home, but even then, you can't plan for the rent without a job either.

Basically:
No to vacant houses, no to people being thrown out of homes, no to setting up havens for crime and drugs, no to pawning off the bank's bad investment on local taxpayers, no to ruining the property values of entire neighborhoods. Yes to a responsible foreclosure modification program.

It might be a good idea to rethink the depreciation rules for property. People I know in the industry point out that the best thing about "investing" in property is the tax write off due to depreciation of the value of the home, even when the value of the property is actually going up. I'd like to see either doing away with it entirely, or else doing away with it for properties not being occupied by the owner as a primary residence.

Call me crazy, but I do not think it is the first, best destiny of property to be owned and leased out by landlords. It's a complicated issue, but the fact that the system is designed more or less from the ground up to have huge amounts of property owned by people who do not live there is a bad thing.

Renters typically can't maintain properties, affording it, or having the skill/desire to do it. They also can't manage to get the financing. Condos are closer to what you're saying and that has problems too. Get into any type of density where you end up sharing a wall or a floor or a ceiling and especially large things like roofs, pavement/parking/landscaping and things get hard quickly.

Even owning a personal residence for your partners, friends, family, whatever, isn't exactly easy. Shared space or housing in any proximity can be difficult.

Concerning depreciation, that's pretty much a fundamental of accounting with most assets. It starts with a basis of value that goes down as time accumulates and inevitably damages the property or requires maintenance, repairs, and replacement. I'm not really sure how you'd "rethink" depreciation. Moreover, the value of property does not always go up, as we've recently seen with the housing crash. I don't quite get why depreciation needs to be modified or what that has to do with anything.
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Capntastic

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Re: PoH's Calm and Cool Progressive Expression Thread
« Reply #34 on: March 02, 2012, 04:18:54 am »

Hahaha, Matt Taibbi's response to Breitbart's death-- "Death of a Douche" which was, typical of Taibbi and in keeping with paying tribute to Breitbart, designed to be as controversial as possible, has done its job.  Huge swathes of reactionaries descended upon Taibbi's wikipedia page to vandalize it in as many un-self-aware ways as possible.

The whole situation is absurd, to someone as cynical of journalists as I am, but at least it's less absurd than Freep's wholly predictable conspiracy theories that Breitbart was assassinated because he was just about to take down Obama once and for all with new and startling evidence!

(The thing about Freep is that every conversation snowballs like this:  "wonder if something is up" "something is up, it might've been obama" "if it is obama, he's worse than we thought!" "of course he's worse than we thought, he was literally sent to us by satan!"  Each proposition, each assertion, each small vocalization is built upon as truth in the discussion.  If there's any disagreement, it's always someone telling another person that their view isn't polarized enough.)
« Last Edit: March 02, 2012, 04:22:21 am by Capntastic »
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kaijyuu

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Re: PoH's Calm and Cool Progressive Expression Thread
« Reply #35 on: March 02, 2012, 04:20:22 am »

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Quote from: Chesterton
For, in order that men should resist injustice, something more is necessary than that they should think injustice unpleasant. They must think injustice absurd; above all, they must think it startling. They must retain the violence of a virgin astonishment. When the pessimist looks at any infamy, it is to him, after all, only a repetition of the infamy of existence. But the optimist sees injustice as something discordant and unexpected, and it stings him into action.

Capntastic

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Re: PoH's Calm and Cool Progressive Expression Thread
« Reply #36 on: March 02, 2012, 04:24:18 am »

Yeah, it's really heartening in some ways that Archie of all things has come from its humble 50s era beginnings to become this really progressive comic that still maintains those nostalgic trappings.
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Max White

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Re: PoH's Calm and Cool Progressive Expression Thread
« Reply #37 on: March 02, 2012, 04:27:14 am »

'One million moms' is a very misleading term. There are significantly less than a million members, I am led to believe about 40,000.

Capntastic

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Re: PoH's Calm and Cool Progressive Expression Thread
« Reply #38 on: March 02, 2012, 04:31:16 am »

They're literally just trying to co-opt associations to the Million Man March movement.
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Max White

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Re: PoH's Calm and Cool Progressive Expression Thread
« Reply #39 on: March 02, 2012, 04:33:27 am »

If they wanted to ride on such coat tails, they should do the courtesy of following suit and matching such alliteration.

Capntastic

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Re: PoH's Calm and Cool Progressive Expression Thread
« Reply #40 on: March 02, 2012, 04:42:16 am »

I'm just wondering why they didn't just go for Millions of Moms.
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Max White

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Re: PoH's Calm and Cool Progressive Expression Thread
« Reply #41 on: March 02, 2012, 04:43:11 am »

It would have been witty, and wit comes from the devil.

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Re: PoH's Calm and Cool Progressive Expression Thread
« Reply #43 on: March 02, 2012, 11:00:52 am »

On the far side of the scale for women, you've got people thinking carrying bags is sexual harassment.
So... an unconfirmed anecdote written for comedy reasons, huh?

90% of the reason I'm linking this is the reply from the Archie Comics spokesman.
He clearly had fun writing that response.  It basically amounts to "You have every right to your opinion but it's one of prejudice, hate and narrow-mindededness that we will ignore" only without the threat of lawsuits.  Perfect.
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Ogdibus

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Re: PoH's Calm and Cool Progressive Expression Thread
« Reply #44 on: March 02, 2012, 12:13:55 pm »

.
« Last Edit: July 01, 2013, 08:16:44 am by Ogdibus »
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