Things I wanna know before I kick the bucket!

[2jakes]

I came to the realization over the last year that even though we "paid off" our mortgage, we're still renting our home from the county via real estate taxes. If we fail to pay the taxes, at some point our house would be sold to pay them. I find myself buying less stuff thanks to this little epiphany.

I came to that realization years ago when I inscribed A message inside
my 1939 Ford panel truck with the following:

“We are all visitors to this time, this place.
We are just passing through.
Our purpose here is to up observe, to learn,
to grow, to love... And then we return home.”

Australian Aboriginal Proverb

 

[tonyb]

I came to the realization over the last year that even though we "paid off" our mortgage, we're still renting our home from the county via real estate taxes. If we fail to pay the taxes, at some point our house would be sold to pay them. I find myself buying less stuff thanks to this little epiphany.

Property "ownership" is something of a myth. Having one's name on a deed may afford that person some greater degree of control than he or she might have as a renter, say. But there are taxes, as you mentioned; and insurance (which a person would be a fool to be without, in my view); and zoning, which restricts what that person might do with that property; and the unlikely but still very real prospect of having to sell due to imminent domain. Etc.

I once questioned why people would buy condos. You're buying a share in an apartment building and even when the mortgage is paid off there are still monthly association fees. And there are often serious restrictions on what you might do within your unit. I know folks who must have wall-to-wall carpeting in their upper floor condos because hard flooring surfaces are noisier to the residents downstairs.

But, with each passing year I understand why condos appeal. People need places to live. And really, many of us would rather be spared all the work and expense of maintaining a stand-alone house.

I gotta replace the fence in the next couple years. Garage door ain't far behind. Water heater is, like, four years old, so it'll probably go south in a couple-three years. Et cetera. But hey! I ain't paying any monthly association fees!

 

[HadleyH1]

Another thing I might want to do...before...

is to go skydiving....on a parachute... a couple of times....may be more

That would be fun too!

 

[MondoFW]

I have some ideas as to why people are fascinated with the Golden-Era, pinstripe, Italian, organized crime spectrum of things, but why is there this large obsession with gang culture? In particular, street gangs in low-income areas, typically comprised of minorities. Is this an age-old phenomenon or a particularly new occurrence?

 

[Fading Fast]

"Ownership" of anything is a pleasant fiction we tell ourselves -- you come into the world naked, and you're leaving it the same way. Someone else is getting all your stuff, and eventually nobody will remember that you ever existed. The book of Ecclesiastes, right in there in the middle of the volume between Proverbs and the Song of Solomon, is an excellent philosophical rumination on the truth of that point. "All is vanity, and a striving after the wind. "

For me, this is quite true. I came in with nothing, will leave little - which, without children, will not make an iota of difference - and will not be remembered. But some do make their mark on history and are known long after they are gone like Aristotle, Muhammad, Jesus, Da Vinci, Newton, Shakespeare, Marx, Confucius and many, many others. Their work, accomplishments and ideas are all still debated and impactful to this day.

And on a much more pedestrian note, having worked in Private Wealth Management, Vanderbilt's great grandchildren are still lucky their great grandfather was born before them - as are many other lessor known second, third, fourth and even fifth generations of wealthy families where the seed (or all) of the wealth was pretty much made many generations ago.

Ownership of a home or apartment is simply, for me, a risk-reward tradeoff decision - it has no big-picture "pride of ownership" about it. Since most people want shelter, we're are all "short" (in need of) shelter in our lives - i.e., if we don't make an effort to secure shelter, we'll, literally, be out in the cold. Renting and owning are just different points on the continuum offering various amounts of control, capital commitment and risk tradeoffs.

If you rent, you put up little capital and have little control (having lived in an apartment that converted to a condo during our lease, I was literally "thrown out" once our lease was up and while taxes can go up, rents, in my experience, are much more volatile as I've experienced 25% rent increases but haven't seen that volatility in year-over-year property tax increases, but have heard tales of such) and if you "own" you have more control but have tied up capital, (usually) taken on debt and have meaningful limitations on your rights while still holding a negative-cash-flow asset (taxes, maintenance, etc.).

The future is unknown so, for me, renting or owning is a just a risk decision like, pretty much, everything else in life. Taxes, regulations and eminent domain can cause you to lose "your" property even if you have no mortgage on it / conversely, if the market for your property rises greater than general prices and income, it can be a very profitable decision. Renting has less risks and less rewards. But since most of us want shelter, we all have to decide which option offers us the best risk-reward tradeoff. I see nothing particular fun, boastful or long-lasting in any of that, but if I choose wrong, I'll suffer / right, I'll benefit - but I, basically, have to choose.

 

[LizzieMaine]

It was a pragmatic decision for me as well -- I had to either buy the house or move, and we have a chronic housing shortage here thanks to the AirBnB racket. So I went thru all the rigamarole and bought it, but I don't have any sense that I "own" it in any meaningful way. In the hundred and seven years this little wooden box has stood here, nobody has ever actually "owned" it except for a faceless chain of banks.

I'm just the eighth in a line of occupants that will go on until somebody finally bulldozes the place to build an art gallery or a chain drug store or a raw-oyster bar. And then the very memory that this house, and everyone who ever lived in it, ever existed will fade away to nothingness.

Certainly there are people who are "remembered," but it's largely their accomplishments that live on, not their personalities. We know Shakespeare existed -- but nobody really *knows* him. Did he have a rich, deep voice, or did he honk and lisp? What was his favorite food? How did he like his eggs? Did he swear when he dropped a hammer on his foot? Did he even own a hammer? Did he like cats? Did he call his wife by a corny pet name? Did he drum his quill on the table when he was trying to think of the right word until she yelled at him to stop? His writings live on, but so many of the little things that went into W. Shakespeare, unique human being, are lost and forgotten forever. We're left with an approximation and an idealization, not an actual memory.

I think the effective duration of human memory is less than a hundred and fifty years or so. By the time everyone who knew anyone who actually knew any specific person is gone, the real memory of that person is gone forever. And sometimes even the "important figures" of a time disappear as completely as the Joe Blows. A hundred and fifty years ago Andrew Johnson was the President of the United States, a violently divisive figure who eventually got impeached, but outside of history buffs who really knows -- or cares -- anything about him today? He's just one of those obscure faces on a collectible coin that nobody really wants to collect. A set-filler. A background extra on history's stage. I think that's the fate awaiting just about every figure considered important today, and I wish they'd realize it.

 

[LizzieMaine]

I have some ideas as to why people are fascinated with the Golden-Era, pinstripe, Italian, organized crime spectrum of things, but why is there this large obsession with gang culture? In particular, street gangs in low-income areas, typically comprised of minorities. Is this an age-old phenomenon or a particularly new occurrence?

The modern style of street gang, with "colors" and graffiti tags and all that, is largely a postwar innovation, and grew out of postwar ethnic "social clubs" popular with bored unemployed veterans, but street gangs in America go back much further -- they were rampant in the poverty-stricken cities of the 19th Century, with New York, especially, full of them. They were mostly Irish in those days, until the rush of Italian immigration around the end of the century and into the early 20th. There were also Jewish street gangs in that era that warred with the Irish and Italian gangs, and this continued well into the 20th century. Urban poverty and ethnic violence have always gone hand in hand in the USA.

 

[tonyb]

I have some ideas as to why people are fascinated with the Golden-Era, pinstripe, Italian, organized crime spectrum of things, but why is there this large obsession with gang culture? In particular, street gangs in low-income areas, typically comprised of minorities. Is this an age-old phenomenon or a particularly new occurrence?

There's nothing new in romanticizing crime and violence. The "why" of it is pure speculation, but there's little doubt that we do romanticize it. Just look to the popular entertainments of this or most any era.

 

[Fading Fast]

It was a pragmatic decision for me as well -- I had to either buy the house or move, and we have a chronic housing shortage here thanks to the AirBnB racket. So I went thru all the rigamarole and bought it, but I don't have any sense that I "own" it in any meaningful way. In the hundred and seven years this little wooden box has stood here, nobody has ever actually "owned" it except for a faceless chain of banks.

I'm just the eighth in a line of occupants that will go on until somebody finally bulldozes the place to build an art gallery or a chain drug store or a raw-oyster bar. And then the very memory that this house, and everyone who ever lived in it, ever existed will fade away to nothingness.

We live in a 90 year old coop building (originally built as a coop, so "my" apartment has always had an owner) that, as a building, owing to the crazy particulars of NYC real estate has a good chance of staying as a coop and not being knocked down for as long as the US and New York remain as entities or until some massive change in property law takes place. It would be insanely hard - again, based on current property law - for one entity to acquire ownership rights to knock down an old coop like ours. As far as I know, it has never happened in a city that regularly knocks down old buildings to put up new ones.

We haven't done the work to know how many prior "owners" our little cube in the sky has had, but our guess is not that many as the floor plan is 99% original (which is incredible in a 1928 apartment as most apartments that old have had many changes to their floor plans as owners come and go) and there were many original-to-'28 details still here (all it takes is one "major" renovation to "gut" all the original stuff).

And talk about amorphous ownership. We don't actually own our apartment unit; we own shares in the coop association and lease (with a legal lease agreement in place) our particular unit from the association. So we are both our own landlord and tenant. I'm a pretty detailed guy and after studying the construct by reading a lot (and I mean a lot) of material and talking to some industry experts (in great detail), I have come to the conclusion that no-one fully understand the coop ownership construct as there are conflicting rulings out there in case law, not-perfectly clear gov't rules and regs and different results from insurance payouts.

Hence, I "own" something - some shares - in something - a coop association - that gives me the right to lease a "unit" from the association with many restrictions and situations where those rights could be abrogated. My insurance is a combination of insurance the association takes on "the building" and my insurance "walls in" on my rental unit from the association. That all sounds safe, secure and clear - doesn't it?

 

[tonyb]

It was a pragmatic decision for me as well -- I had to either buy the house or move, and we have a chronic housing shortage here thanks to the AirBnB racket. So I went thru all the rigamarole and bought it, but I don't have any sense that I "own" it in any meaningful way. In the hundred and seven years this little wooden box has stood here, nobody has ever actually "owned" it except for a faceless chain of banks.

I'm just the eighth in a line of occupants that will go on until somebody finally bulldozes the place to build an art gallery or a chain drug store or a raw-oyster bar. And then the very memory that this house, and everyone who ever lived in it, ever existed will fade away to nothingness.

Certainly there are people who are "remembered," but it's largely their accomplishments that live on, not their personalities. We know Shakespeare existed -- but nobody really *knows* him. What was his favorite food? How did he like his eggs? Did he swear when he dropped a hammer on his foot? Did he even own a hammer? Did he like cats? Did he call his wife by a corny pet name? Did he drum his quill on the table when he was trying to think of the right word until she yelled at him to stop? His writings live on, but so many of the little things that went into W. Shakespeare, unique human being, are lost and forgotten forever. We're left with an approximation and an idealization, not an actual memory.

I think the effective duration of human memory is less than a hundred and fifty years or so. By the time everyone who knew anyone who actually knew any specific person is gone, the real memory of that person is gone forever. And sometimes even the "important figures" of a time disappear as completely as the Joe Blows. A hundred and fifty years ago Andrew Johnson was the President of the United States, a violently divisive figure who eventually got impeached, but outside of history buffs who really knows -- or cares -- anything about him today? He's just one of those obscure faces on a collectible coin that nobody really wants to collect. A set-filler. A background extra on history's stage. I think that's the fate awaiting just about every figure considered important today, and I wish they'd realize it.

The thoughts we as realistic people have when we know the bulk of our lives are behind us, eh?

There's something liberating in accepting that our lives are of little significance in the greater scheme of things. Sure, I'm not particularly important. And neither is anyone else. If history has shown us anything, it is the tremendous harm done by those who think themselves of greater importance, because, you know, they say so.

I have nothing against fame and fortune per se. Some people are extraordinarily gifted and in sharing those gifts they enrich the lives of others. So they reap an extraordinary reward. But the pursuit of fame and fortune FOR THEIR OWN SAKE is the definition of vulgarity. There's a lot of that going around these days.

 

[LizzieMaine]

I think Mr. Jack Roosevelt Robinson said it best: "A life is not important except in the impact it has on other lives."

 

[tonyb]

I think Mr. Jack Roosevelt Robinson said it best: "A life is not important except in the impact it has on other lives."

My fear for all of us is that some have little regard for the nature of the "impact" their actions have on others. The more powerful the person, the greater the potential harm. And the potential benefit as well, of course. Which is why we must exercise extraordinary caution in our choosing the people in whom we entrust such power, and to maintain meaningful checks on them.

"Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely," some old-timey Limey is credited with observing, echoing the thoughts that surely occurred to others.

 

[GHT]

But the pursuit of fame and fortune FOR THEIR OWN SAKE is the definition of vulgarity. There's a lot of that going around these days.

Indeed, and social media has given everyone a soapbox just as Wiki has given them a reference from which to quote. Sadly they seem to lack access to a dictionary and have to resort to a profanity every other word.

 

[2jakes]

Another thing I might want to do...before...

is to go skydiving....on a parachute... a couple of times....may be more

That would be fun too!

 

[1mach1]

Id like to know why people skydive at all [emoji14]

 

[LizzieMaine]

Because they didn't obey the FASTEN SEAT BELTS sign.

 

[3fingers]

Id like to know why people skydive at all [emoji14]

I mentioned jumping with a local group one time as something that I was considering.
My father was a USAF veteran whose response to that announcement was that he "saw no benefit in leaving a perfectly good aircraft for no reason."

 

[p51]

Indeed, and social media has given everyone a soapbox just as Wiki has given them a reference from which to quote. Sadly they seem to lack access to a dictionary and have to resort to a profanity every other word.

We live in a world where everyone's talking but hardly anyone is listening. Kids today, when asked what they want to be when they grow up, will often answer, "Famous."
Not famous sports player, actor, politician; just famous. They don't care what they're famous for.
Just like those two oxygen thieves at Columbine. They did all that so people would still talk about them after they're gone. They succeeded, too.
That to me is truly frightening.

 

[2jakes]

Id like to know why people skydive at all [emoji14]

I'm guessing it's the "kicks" that some derive from doing things
that are close to a life/death situation.
One of my sisters gets her jollies by driving at reckless speeds.
The faster the better.
She drives @ 100 MPH and since it's power steering, she holds
the wheel with one hand and sometimes just two fingers.
This only happened once with me as a passenger.
I told her to stop and got out.
It was a beautiful day and I enjoyed the walk.

 

[3fingers]

They don't care what they're famous for.

The few minutes that I have suffered through "reality" television tells me there's a lot of that attitude around.
Mental illness used to be something that we attempted to treat, now we seem to celebrate or embrace it as often as we seek a cure.
The oxygen theives themselves are only still relevant because we collectively make them so. Left to their own initiative most people don't think about or remember anything that happened past last season. Movies, television, etc. keep them and their fellow human waste alive in people's minds. Anything for a buck.