An Interesting Conversation

Is the world coming to an end?  Not quite...but yes.

History, it is said, never repeats itself, it just rhymes (or echoes).  And you know you are in for a bumpy ride when people say, "well, this time, it's different!"  And sure, 1929 was a unique year, but then again, so is 2025.

"But the stock market is at all-time highs!  Everyone is making money!"  Well, if by "everyone" you mean people who live off investments, perhaps you are right.  But then again, due to inflation over time, stock indicies (along with any other major statistic) are always at or near an "all-time high!"  In fact, when something goes lower, that is newsworthy.  Going up is the norm.  Humans are always expanding, interrupted only by brief reversals - brief from an historical perspective, unending for those who have to live through them.

I noted before that we lived through two real estate market crashes.   The first was in 1989, when we bought our first house together.  Prices crashed and then remained flat for a decade.  We were still buying foreclosure properties as late as 1999!  The second was in 2008.  We had sold most of our investment properties by then - and bought two personal residences instead!  Again, a decade or so later, prices are finally again on the rise - and then some!

Back in the 2000's. we would attend cocktail parties in Ft. Lauderdale - with other real estate investors, agents, mortgage brokers, house flippers, developers, appraisers, and everyone else in "the business."  All were too enmeshed in the system to bail out, so the talk was whether we would have a "soft landing" or not.  "The government will have to bail everyone out!" one real estate agent told me, "Otherwise everyone will go bankrupt!"

And some were bailed out, some were not - it was not a fair or orderly process.  Like student loan forgiveness, it was an unevenly applied program, helping a lucky few (some of whom actually needed no help) and failing the vast majority.  It also set expectations for a future collapse, as government bailouts have become a part of the landscape.

Fast-forward nearly 20 years and once again I am having the same conversation with someone in the real estate field.  He acknowledges how things got out of hand in the 2000's and how risky oddball loans kept the party going longer than it should have.  But, he argues, "This time it's different!"

I asked him how anyone can afford to spend three-quarters of a million dollars on an ordinary 3-bedroom ranch-style home that, only a few years' prior, was selling for less than a half-mil.  What made it increase 50% in value so quickly?  He replied that what was driving prices was the  banks, who were willing to use unusual financial instruments to put people into overpriced homes.

This time, it's different!  Indeed.

Back in the 2000's, it was "payment optional" variable-rate balloon notes, all written on the premise that some greater sucker will pay an obscenely larger amount for the same home in a few short years.  Today, similar mortgages are being written, this time on the premise of the potential income a property might produce as an Air-BnB rental - even if it was not intended to be rented out.

Of course, potential income is just that - potential.  A fantasy.  If everyone puts their home on AirBnB, well, the market becomes flooded and prices will tank.  What's more, many jurisdictions are reining-in where houses can be rented on a nightly basis.  Moreover, many consumers are tiring of having to pay cleaning fees or do chores or be socked with penalties and hidden charges from AirBnB rentals.  Hotels might be due for a comeback.  It goes without saying that during a recession, the first thing people cut from their budget is vacation spending.

In the job market, there are already signs of trouble on the horizon, with many "tech" companies announcing massive layoffs and trimming their sails for an anticipated storm. What do they know that we don't?  The auto business is in flux, as the number of days of inventory edges above 80, the highest level in five years.  Worse yet, so many companies have invested  billions in developing electric cars, while sales have yet to take off - and may never do so.  Some of these high-priced electric SUVs, with price tags well over a hundred grand, have an inventory supply of over a year, some close to two years!  Kinda hard to sell a 2023 electric SUV for $100K in 2025 as a "new" car.

On the other hand, historically, auto inventory is low, compared to decades past. But I think that is a result of the long-term trend of "just in time" inventory control.  Back in the day, we had acres of new cars kept in inventory.  Today, they get shipped out to dealers and sold as quickly as possible.  No more waiting months to get a car that you "order" from the factory.  So maybe the car business is doing OK.  Tell that to Stellantis and Nissan though!

Housing "days on market" so far seems to be declining in recent years - again, a reflection of a hot housing market, or an overheated one. Agents we talk to tell us of a tight inventory as so many homeowners are reluctant to sell, thinking that today's hot prices can only go up even more.  We saw the same thing in 1989 and 2008.  If I sell now, I might get priced out of the market - forever!

So, economic indicators can be misleading.  It is like an airplane crash - right before it flies into the side of a mountain, the airplane's engines are at full power and everything is running fine.  It just is going in the wrong direction.  I suspect a similar thing could happen to us - and rather quickly.

In the 2008 crash, the effects were felt virtually overnight, as a few traders discovered that the mortgage-backed securities, which were the foundation of America's bull market, were worth far less than they were selling for.  Not worthless but worth less.  Overnight, they plummeted in value, taking down the entire economy and bankrupting GM and Chrysler in the process.  Yet things were going so well.

Maybe it won't happen.  But when someone says, "This time it's different!" I can only assume it's not.

kak·i·sto·cra·cy

/kakəˈstäkrəsē/

noun

1. government by the least suitable or competent citizens of a state.

   "the danger is that this will reduce us to kakistocracy"

This is a word you may hear more of in the coming months....

Compounding this are the jackass actions of the new administration, which, after only a week in office, have caused prices to jump.  Eggs, once a dollar-a-dozen are over fifty cents each.  Orange juice,  $12 a gallon. Trump's "concept of a plan" to bring down prices was a poorly written word salad (or AI-generated) Executive Order Memo vaguely instructing government officials to somehow bring down prices by, you know, doing stuff.  Meanwhile, the fear of deportations is causing what few farm workers lare eft, to either flee or not show up for work.

And this will only get worse.  Mass layoffs, mass deportations.  I guess a former coder for Meta can get a good-paying job as a field hand.  So, it all works out and the circle of life is unbroken.

Layoffs mean people can no longer afford their homes - or overpriced rentals in big cities.  I can see tenants simply abandoning rentals even with a year left on the lease.  Foreclosures on overpriced homes will follow.  And that guy who paid over-sticker during CoVid for a pickup truck on a 7-year loan?  It will get ugly.

Temper-tantrum tariffs will add gasoline to the fire, as much of the food we actually eat comes from overseas. Sure, America is efficient in growing corn and wheat, but we fall down when it comes to produce - which has to be picked by illegal labor (now deported) or slapped with tariffs if imported.  Meat?  Meatpacking plants are staffed by illegal labor - and will struggle to stay in operation.   There will be mush waste and prices will skyrocket.

And those Midwest farmers growing corn and wheat? We export most of it - or did.  Retaliatory tariffs will shut down that market pronto - although I suppose China will make an exception for American farms owned by the Chinese.  Checkmate, Trump!

Will it get that bad?  You betcha.  And there ain't much you can do about it, either.  If you have little or no debt and some money put aside, you'll do better than most - although you can expect to see your investments cut in half, if by nothing else, stagflation.  Yea, I lived through this in the 1970s and it sucked, but we got by - mostly be lowering our expectations in life.  Consider the ridiculously small and flimsy cars we drove back then, just to save a gallon or two of gas.   People today have no idea.

For others, it will be like 2008 only worse.  They can walk away from a lot of debt in bankruptcy, but not all of it. And those are the people who will cry the loudest for a "bailout" from the government.  And yea, they all voted for Trump and will believe him when he says it is all Nancy Pelosi's fault.  Some people never learn.  In the depths of the depression, there were some pining for Herbert Hoover, again.

Of course, I could be wrong, but I doubt it.   History has shown, time and time again, that economies follow a pattern of up and down cycles.  Moreover, history has shown - in 1829 and in 1930 - that tariffs just make everyone miserable and destroy an economy, not save it.

But hey, that was 100 and 200 years ago.  Time for another painful history lesson, kids!

Caring For Your Eye-Holes

We tend to take our eyes for granted.

I recently had an eye infection.  Not the first time this has happened - I used to wear contacts, and if you wear contacts, you can get an eye infection very easily.  Eventually, I developed a sensitivity to contact lenses - which is typical.  I had the all-day disposables and by the end of the day, my eyes were itchy. Pretty soon, it was a half-day before I had to take them out.  Then a few hours and then down to an hour and, well, I gave up on contacts at that point.

So I wasn't too alarmed when my left eye got red, as usually such situations sort themselves out within a day or two.  But after a few days, it got worse, and we were going away for New Year's Eve.  So I found an Ophthalmologist who was open early.  He prescribed an antibiotic and some eye drops (I think with a steroid or something) and in a few days, I was back to normal.

While waiting for his office to open, I had visited the nearby pharmacy looking for over-the-counter solutions.  Alas, there are none - only eye drops for "dry eyes" or to "get the red out" or fatally poison someone.  One product stood out to me, and that was "eyelid wipes."  WTF?

I asked the doctor about this and he suggested using them to control eyelash mites.  You no doubt have read that our bodies are hosts to a number of parasites, besides the bacterias in our digestive system that help break down long-chain sugar molecules.  Tiny mites - or lice as the doctor called them (Eeew!) live in our hair follicles, eating dead skin cells and facial oils.  It is quite a feast, too, as we shed billions of dead skin cells a day.  Where do you think "dust" comes from?  Yea, it is us, shedding like snakes.

And apparently, we all have these mites living in our eyelashes.  Everybody, just about.

Anyway, he recommended using these eyelid wipes, preferably with teatree oil, which he claims will kill off the mites or at least control their growth.  I am not sure there is science behind this, but he argues that these mites can cause inflammation which can lead to eye infections or at least eye irritation.

Anyway, I ordered a year's supply on Amazon, and they seem to help.  At least they smell nice.  Maybe it is psychological, but the idea of killing little creepy-crawlies on my eyelashes appeals to me.  I suspect, however, that since these buggers are on nearly everyone's face, that the wipes will, at best, merely keep the population in check.

The human body is a fascinating thing.  Too bad it didn't come with an owner's manual!

When To Collect Social Security - Revisited

If you knew ahead of time when you were going to die, this would be an easy decision!

I wrote before about this topic and concluded that while there were good arguments for collecting "early" or "later" - the upshot for most people is they claim when they need the money.

To recap, there are two schools of thought on this subject - and gradations in-between.  The first was explained to me by an Accountant in Ithaca, New York.  "Collect at 62!" he said, "that way you get more money overall!"  And he is right about that, in a manner of speaking.  As you can see from the chart above, the amount you receive increases linearly the longer you wait.  At age 65, I get about $2600 a month and if I waited until at age 70, I would receive almost $3800 a month.  For each year I delay, the monthly income increases by about $200 a month.

So why not wait until age 70?  Well, his argument was, that the average person lives to about age 78 or so, and if you collected at age 62, versus collecting at age 70, if you lived to be 78, you'd collect more, overall, by collecting early.

Let's use the data from my 2022 Social Security statement, when I first qualified to collect at age 62.  Back then, the benefit was $1940 a month at age 62.  If I waited until age 70, the benefit would have increased to $3280 a month.  You can see that the Social Security payments (as shown above) have been adjusted for inflation since 2022!

Collecting "early" yields: $1940 x 12 x (78-62)=$372,480

Collecting "late" yields: $3280 x 12 x (78-70)=$314,880

So, in a sense, he is "right" that you collect more overall, provided you die on the required date.

Plugging in the math the other way, in order to yield $374,480 if you start collecting at 70, you'd have to live to about 79-1/2 years, which is not beyond the realm of possibility.  Of course, death statistics are just that - an average of everyone including infants who die in the cradle, teenagers who die in motorcycle accidents, to middle-aged people dying from cancer.  If you live to be 60, odds are you will live beyond the "average" lifespan of 78 years.  The sample pool of data has been culled of those already dead.

So in effect, my friend in Ithaca is right - and wrong.  If we only knew when we were going to die, it would be an easy equation to solve!

The second philosophy is based on other factors than dying.  Being ill and unable to care for yourself is a very probable outcome for many of us.   So if you live to be 80 or 90, you might want to have that extra income around.  Medicaid will probably force you to burn through your savings at that point, before they pay in.  So it might make "sense" to spend your IRA/401(k) cash first, and then live on the expanded Social Security payments at age 70 - which would pay out the rest of your life, regardless if you lived to be 78 or 108.

Initially, I sort of vacillated between the two philosophies.  I didn't "need" the money at age 62 and the payout was so paltry (so it seemed) that I might as well wait - perhaps to age 70, or at least until "full" retirement at age 67.  But then again, there is nothing magic about age 67 - the payout is pretty linear with age, if you look at the chart above.  So waiting until age 67 is fine, but collecting a month early doesn't deprive you of a significant chunk of money.

As the chart above shows, I am now on Medicare, or will be, effective March 1st.  I got my shiny new Medicare Card (Parts A and B) in the mail and laminated it! It was dead simple to apply online through ssa.gov once you set up your master login at https://secure.login.gov/.  That master login can be used for any government site, such as Medicare, Social Security, or the State Department (the latter of which I used last month to renew my passport).  Some folks claim you should make an in-person appointment with the local Social Security offices.  If you do, plan in advance as many are booked out for months at a time.  I found the online experience pretty easy to use, though.

Age 65 has been one of those inflection years for me.  At age 30, I had my first experience with gout.  At age 40, it was diverticulitis.  Both were sobering (and painful) experiences.  You start to realize you are getting old.  Well, this year has been a doozey.  And I realize the party might not go on forever, or at least I doubt I will live into my 90s - or want to.  Those last years in a nursing home shitting in a diaper? Hard Pass.

I remember we went to visit Mark's Grandmother at Shell Point when she was in "The Pavilion" - their nursing home care section.  She was in a hospital bed, her thin skin covered with bruises, and a big blue curtain separating her from her roommate and the window view - not that she would have noticed anyway.  In front of the bed was an enormous tube TV playing nothing but static.  I offered to turn it off for her and she said, "No, that's my favorite program!"  God Bless!

No, I could do without that experience.

But regardless, I realized that if I live to be about 80 or so, I would be doing pretty well, given my physical condition.  And if we do the math on that target number, it works out as follows:

Collecting "today" yields: $2602 x 12 x (80-65)=$468,360

Collecting "late" yields: $3771 x 12 x (80-70)=$452,520

In fact, at this point, I would have to live another six months just to break even.  For each additional year I would live, I would "lose" about $12,000 a year in benefits.

That latter part sounds scary, but consider the alternative scenario.  How do you think you (or you next of kin) would feel if that first Social Security check arrives just in time for your funeral?  You wait until age 70 and then get hit by a bus.  Who says God doesn't have a dark sense of humor?

We see this all the time in RV forums: "For Sale, Deluxe Class-A motorcoach, low miles, only used once, must sell due to death in family."  A little longer than Hemingway's "baby shoes" short story, but just as poignant.  Mom and Dad work like dogs their whole lives, and finally are able to retire and buy their "dream" motorhome and travel across America!  But on the first trip, Dad is coughing up blood and when they get home, discover he has terminal cancer.  It happens a lot to people.  Heck, they even made a movie about it.

So, I pulled the trigger on this and applied online for Social Security.  Maybe it was a psychological thing, as in earlier years, a number in the teens didn't seem like much, but $2600 seems like a lot - $31,200 a year!  Maybe not enough to live on, but a big chunk of my annual income as it is.

The decision is not irreversible, either.  If you change your mind, you can "suspend" benefits for as long as you want to - until age 70, when the payments will automatically kick in.  And yes, while you are in suspension, well, the monthly amount again ratchets up.

The folks in The Villages found a loophole here and it has since be closed.  Thanks Boomers!  Seems you could claim retirement for yourself and your spouse could collect a "spousal benefit" up to 50% of what you were getting.  Wily retirees realized they could "claim and suspend" their Social Security benefits, which would allow their spouse to claim the 50% spousal benefit.  Then, they could wait until age 70 to claim the maximum benefits, each.  It was a neat scheme, but today the law has been changed such that spousal benefits are available only so long as the primary beneficiary is not suspended (does not apply to divorced spouses).  The spouse has to be 62, and if their own benefits exceed the spousal benefit, well, they collect that, instead.  Fun while it lasted!

There are, of course, a whole host of other factors to consider.  Inflation, for example, as well as cost-of-living adjustments factor into the math (but are too complicated to consider here).  There is also the prospect of Social Security becoming insolvent, or as Trump has promises - abolished!   I still scratch my head in wonderment why people on Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, Obamacare, SSI, TANF, SNAP, or Social Security Disability voted for a guy who promised to cut their benefits.  I guess they thought it would only apply to "the other guy."

And granted, there is some fraud in Social Security - or any benefits program.  The disability portion can be readily abused if you can fake a back injury, mental illness, or other problem and have a friendly doctor (and/or lawyer) fill out the paperwork for you.  It is hard to police, to be sure.  But abolishing a program that has worked for nearly 100 years isn't the answer.

If they "abolish" Social Security, what would that mean for those currently collecting it?  Would those already collecting be "grandfathered" in, or would their payments be cut off?  For many, this would mean a dent in their lifestyle.  For many more, it would mean devolving into abject poverty or even homelessness.  A surprising number of older people are living month-to-month on Social Security.  It literally is their lifeline.

All this talk of Social Security "insolvency" of course, is nonsense.  Conservatives - in the US or anywhere else in the world - love to underfund these programs and then say, "See?  They don't work!"  And we are seeing this right now with National Health in the UK and Canada - with "horror stories" being spread by the far-right about how long it takes to get elective surgery.  Meanwhile, in the United States, women are dying due to miscarriage, as nervous doctors don't want to be charged with "murder" for performing an "abortion."  Other patients are told to go home and die, if they don't have cash-up-front or good insurance.  It happened to a friend of mine and it happened to me.  If I can live to March 1st, I'm good, though.  Some system!

But I digress.

When to collect Social Security is a personal question. If you are fit and spry (I don't do spry!) you might want to wait until age 70.  If you are that fit, of course, you might want to think about fully funding your 401(k) plan, too.  Sucks to run out of money in old age - something Social Security was designed to help prevent.  On the other hand, if your health is not so hot, well, maybe collect earlier.  But since it is a reversible decision, well, don't sweat it.  You can change your mind during that eight-year window.

Like anything else, people make it out to be more complicated than it really is.

Parkinson's Disease

What the heck is Parkinson's Disease, anyway?

When you think of Parkinson's Disease, the first thing that comes to mind is Michael J. Fox and the trembling and lack of motor control.  However, Parkinson's is a lot more than that, and trembling and shaking are not necessarily symptoms - at least at first.

My doctor prescribed Carbidopa-Levodopa 10-100 mg tablets to take twice daily.  He said if I had Parkinson's, I would notice a change (improvement) in my gait almost right away.  And I did, although the pills seem to give me indigestion and I am down to taking one a day.  These are apparently not dopamine agonists, which are also prescribed for Parkinson's and apparently can cause people to gamble compulsively.

I asked Google AI if Carbidopa-Levodopa were dopamine agonists, and it gave two answers, Yes and No.  Several searches later, I found some more technical literature which seems depositive.  But that is the danger of using the Internet for medical advice.  WedMD always says you have ass-cancer, no matter what.  I will ask my doctor next week.

I looked on Wikipedia - still a relatively decent source of information, except when someone edits a page maliciously (usually those are quickly corrected though).  It was interesting to read the symptoms, with change in gait being one precursor and the one reason I went to the doctor in the first place.

One of the symptoms stood out among the others - Seborrhoeic Dermititis.  The Wikipedia entry for that shows the smiling face above, which made me drop my phone.  I have been suffering with those red spots in the exact same locations for a few years now.  I was told I was shaving too closely.   And although I have never had dandruff, for a couple of years I have had itchy scalp.  The prescribed medication for that is Ketoconazole shampoo.  I broke out in a cold sweat reading that, as there is a bottle of this on my desk, next to my ever-increasing array of pill bottles, prescribed over two years ago.

There are other symptoms as well, including vision problems (black streaks flying off in my peripheral vision) as well as the digestive issues.  What I thought were four separate things may be all of one - other that the torn rotator cuff.  They were all indicative, it seems, of Parkinson's.

The biggie is Bradykinesia:

Bradykinesia describes difficulties in motor planning, beginning, and executing, resulting in overall slowed movement with reduced amplitude that affects sequential and simultaneous tasks. Bradykinesia can also lead to hypomimia, reduced facial expressions.

This is the real issue.  I feel like I am trapped in my own body these days.  I have to concentrate on very simple tasks, which seem to take forever to do, when only a few short years ago took mere moments.  Putting on clothes, tying shoes, are now slow-motion processes.  Like old Uncle Joe on Petticoat Junction, I'm "moving kinda slow" these days.

And yes, typing this blog is now agony, and not just because of my bad arm.  My error rate is through the roof and my typing speed has plummeted.  This blog, alas, is turning into Flowers for Algernon faster than I expected.

There are other symptoms.  I have a drinking problem - that is to say, I pour a glass of water in my lap instead of in my mouth as my brain is suffering from spatial orientation issues.  I have to think about taking a sip these days, as when I assume the glass is at my lips, it is two inches away.  And yes, I have noticed a slight tremble in my right hand, but that might be the rotator cuff.  The problem with self-diagnosis, is you start looking for symptoms instead of experiencing them.

It is not all bad, however. I am retired and have enough money to live comfortably, if not extravagantly.  If I still had to work - whoo-wee that would be bad.  I can still do most things, it just takes longer.  It is harder on Mr. See, who gets frustrated and seems to think I am doing this on purpose to garner sympathy or something.

I wrote before how the old ladies on the island will yell at their nearly deaf husbands.  And when the husband asks to have something repeated clearly, they reply, "Nevermind, it doesn't matter!" which translates to you don't matter.  It takes more energy to say, "Nevermind, it doesn't matter!" that to just repeat what you fucking said, without mumbling, turning away mid-sentence, or letting your voice drop at the end of a sentence.  I've seen it all, I'm afraid.

It is like family members who scream at dementia patients. "Don't you remember who this is?" they say in a scolding tone, as if the patient chose brain rot at a lifestyle or something,  Of course they don't remember - they have Alzheimer's!  When you scold them for not remembering, they don't suddenly remember, but rather learn not to say anything and go along with things, as they know they will be yelled at for showing weakness or failings.

It falls along the lines of telling depressed people to "cheer up!"  That's not helping, dude!

Nevertheless, the fear with any illness is not just the physical discomfort you may experience, but the inconvenience and extra work foisted upon loved ones.  No one wants to be a burden to others, particularly if you become so ill as to be incontinent or have to be hand-fed.  The end game in life can get quite messy.

But so far, I have been pretty upbeat about all of this - telling jokes with my doctor and such, which probably gives him a false sense that I am doing all right.  With any luck, maybe early intervention and medication may delay the onset of the disease, or at least help with the symptoms.

In retrospect, I was never a very coordinated person.  I sucked at games and ball sports and was always in wonderment at those who could catch a baseball that had been thrown hundreds of feet.  How did they do it?  I suspect it was some sort of survival instinct from ages gone by, as for early man, accurately throwing rocks, then spears, then arrows or slingshots, was a necessary skill.  Then again, so was the skill in hammering arrowheads from flint.  Maybe my ancestors were more tool-makers than tool-users.

Whatever the case, if I sucked at golf before, well, it is out of question now.  Even after rotator cuff surgery (scheduled for July) I doubt I could swing a driver, except in slow motion.  The closest I will get to a golf course is the putt-putt.

But hey, that's not so bad, eh?

Frozen Puerto Rico (The Distractors)

The whole point of this Greenland hoax is to distract us from what is really going on.

Trump is at his old antics again.  He does or says outrageous things and the media (and the populace) eat it up, either as fans or as outraged haters.  It is always ridiculous stuff, too - things he never or rarely follows up on, like his chunks of "wall" which are now in disrepair as they can be sawed through with a battery-operated sawzall.

He brought up this Greenland thing before and it never went anywhere because it couldn't.  Short of declaring war on the EU by invading Greenland, there is no way we could acquire it or want to.   After all, we've had a military base in Thule since 1950 - what other strategic value could Greenland provide to us?

And what burdens would be involved?  You know the old legend - that Iceland was so-named to discourage settlers on that small fertile island, while Greenland was so-named to encourage settlers to its icy wasteland.  Greenland has a lot of snow and ice - so much so that airplanes from WWII that crash-landed on the glaciers are now buried under hundreds of feet of packed snow and ice.

Denmark subsidizes the Greenland economy, which in turn exports fish to them.  It is hardly an "asset" but more of a burden, much as Puerto Rico has become for the US.  And speaking of which, if Greenland became a US territory, would that mean Greenlanders could move to the US as citizens, as Puerto Ricans currently do?  For a guy who hates Immigrants, Trump seems to want to bring in more.

The only way this would make economic sense would be if there was something in Greenland that the US wanted.  Oh, right, oil.  Perhaps Greenlanders will become the new Saudis in the future - unless the US steals their oil out from under them.

But the point is moot.  It is doubtful that Demark will sell Greenland to Trump, and taking the island territory by force would trigger a war with the EU - or perhaps that is part of the plan?

I doubt it.  I think the point is to distract us from what really matters - the slow descent into fascism that we are witnessing.  In an eerie parallel to Nazi Germany (or Communist Venezuela) Trump is appointing people to his cabinet with no qualifications whatsoever, other than a blind loyalty to their fearless leader.

It will not end well.  In the meantime, enjoy your media kibble?  Seen the new Melania biopic?  It pus the Barbie movie to shame! Lol.

Go Get Yourself a Cheap Dishwasher

 

Should you spend a lot on appliances?  If you want to....

Our old Kitchen Aid (Whirlpool) dishwasher died after 18 years.  Well, it still ran, but it leaked all over the floor, more than once, ruining the Engineered Hardwood floors.  Those bastards at This Old House have a lot to answer for - Engineered Hardwood was one of the neat-o products that Tom and Norm hyped on the show.  Vinyl planks and tile planks seem to be the new thing - at least they promise to be more water-resistant.

18 years is a long time - most appliances are designed for a 15-year design life and this is three years beyond that.  Throw in hard water and what's not to love?  We found the dishwasher encrusted with lime a few years back and ran some lime-away through it.  It sparkled!  A few years later it leaked all over the floor - not a lot and not all the time.  I cleaned the door seals with lime-away and that seemed to fix the problem.

By the way, during these episodes, I removed the dishwasher from the cabinet and was appalled by how sloppy the "professional installation" was.  They left the cover off the electrical connection box, and the wires were just hanging down (not secured with a conduit clamp or anything.  Yank the plug wire (they wired it with a plug) and the whole thing would become disconnected and probably electrocute you.

Where the unit was supposed to attach to the cabinet, the screws were not even threaded all the way in.  House flippers, man!  Why?  So I fixed the install as best I could (sans the connection box cover which was AWOL.  Did I mention they failed to put an air-gap trap on the drain line or even a trap loop?  Anything that backed up in the main sink went back into the dishwasher!

That's what you get with "free installation" from the local appliance store. No thanks, I'll do it myself!

Anyway, last month it started leaking again and more frequently - turning our blonde hardwood floors black.  If you let it dry out, as I noted before, most of the color comes back, with some grey stainage.  Again,  Engineered Hardwood was a fad at the time, and time has not been kind to it!  I tried cleaning the seals again and realized there was a LOT of crusty lime on the bottom of the door that I had missed before.  I scrubbed and scrubbed and applied lime-away gel until my hands burned, but to no avail.  After 18 years, the door seals were just not sealing.

A new door seal is $88 at Whirlpool, plus shipping.  Amazon has a generic gasket for $25.  I already replaced the silverware basket ($25 for a generic) and the rise agent cap (fell off and melted to the heater coil) which cost another $25.  Was I ready to throw another hundred bucks at an end-of-life appliance?  Rust was starting to show around the door and the plastic control panel had turned from white to a putrid chartruse - as certain types of plastic are known to do. The drain hose has turned yellow and powdery and is hard as a rock.  There comes a time to call it quits.

It was a nice machine - stainless steel body with a white painted door.  Today, most machines are plastic bodies with stainless steel doors - painted in clearcoat.  We went to Lowe's and they had a Whirlpool, very similar, but with a plastic body, in stock, for $499.  It was the second-cheapest machine they had.  They had a "Frigidaire" model in white for $399, but out-of-stock.

These "big box" stores carry very little inventory, other than a few "cash and carry" items.  We went to La Salsa for street tacos and beers and tried Home Depot.  They had a Whirlpool, but not in stock, but had a GE model for $448, identical to the Frigidaire.  I asked the nice lady if they could do anything about the price and she knocked $50 off without blinking, bringing the price to $398, beating Lowes by a dollar.

Besides, our cheap new microwave is a GE, so it "matches" so to speak.

Put it in the truck and off we went.  I decided to buy a new install kit ($20) as the plastic supply hose looked sketchy after 18 years.  Also, for some reason, newer dishwashers require an adapter for the supply line - garden hose to 3/8" compression.  It all came in the kit.

The old dishwasher was wearing a "jacket" of insulation and Mr. See suggested we transfer that to the new machine.  Piece of cake and I am sure it cut down on the sound level.  The machine is not noticeably louder than the old one.  The old machine had a stainless body, covered with a tar-like sheet to cut down on drumming noises.  Plastic bodies don't have as much of a problem, apparently.

The cheaper machines do cut some other corners, though.  The seal between the frame and cabinets (which clips on) is "optional" so I took it off the old machine, cleaned it, and put it on the new on.  It gives the install a finished look.

I added a trim piece under the edge of the counter, as the opening (again, flippers!) was at least an inch too tall, and you can't screw the retraining clips into Corian anyway.  Problem solved and it looks better than the old machine did, not that you'd notice unless you are sitting on the floor.

Why not buy a $500 or $900 machine? Well, the old machine lasted 18 years and 18 years from now I will be 83 years old, if I live that long.  I have already have had a (mild) stroke and am taking small doses of anti-dementia medication and.... a new twist, Parkinson's medication.  It isn't as bad as it sounds, and I am feeling better on the meds.  BUT.... I doubt we will be living here in 18 years, much less five or ten, tops.  We have talked a lot about downsizing in the past, and the time may be coming sooner than we think.

Our 18-year-old kitchen with its custom-made honey-brown cabinets and Corian countertops and white appliances was already outdated in 2006.   Today, a buyer would rip it all out and half the walls as well.  Perhaps we might paint the cabinets white and the walls "sea salt" grey (already so 2020!).

But as you get older, throwing money at houses gets really old, really fast.  Sure a fancy kitchen is nice to show off, but that's about all they are good for.  Most people I know with "gourmet" kitchens can't even boil water without burning it and they eat out - all the time - at fast-casual restaurants.  They call themselves "foodies" too.  I am not being judgmental here, just observing.  They are nice folks, but the fancy kitchen is just another accessory - like the Lexus in the driveway - designed to denote status.  And humans are status-seeking creatures.  We all are.

Well, I think until you reach a certain age and realize that just being healthy and financially secure is really all that matters/  What other people think of you quickly loses its importance in your life.  And even the "pride of ownership" of nice things fades quickly as those nice things turn into an endless stream of chores or people you have to pay to do those chores for you.

At this point, all I want is a dishwasher that doesn't piss all over the floor!

Joint Tenancy (With Right of Survivorship)

When legislators change the laws, it can result in unintended consequences.

We put the condo on the market and got two offers fairly quickly.  The first wanted us to "take back" a note (mortgage) with the buyer paying cash for the rest.  As I have noted before, this can be advantageous from a tax perspective, as instead of having a one-time capital gains, you can have a spaced-out income stream (including interest!) over a number of years.  That offer did not pan out.

A second buyer quickly came in, looking to buy and then rent out the condo as a landlord.  They offered $150,000 cash with closing in two weeks.  We moved closing to January 7th so as to have the reported income in 2025, not 2024.  But then all hell broke loose.

The title insurance company balked, claiming there were "clouds" in the title.  The chain of title is pretty short.  The condo company bought the apartment complex from the original landlord and then created the condominium and sold off the individual units to buyers.  The first buyer, in 1982, was a flight attendant who bought the place for $38,000, with her Father co-signing the loan, I believe.  They were listed as "Joint Tenants" on the title.  Nearly two decades later, she sold the unit to us in 1999 for.... $38,000.  The units had appreciated to over fifty grand in the interim, but the real estate bubble of 1989 burst and it wasn't until the 2000's that the properties started appreciating again.

Her Father had since died, and as was the practice in the 1980s, a copy of the death certificate was filed, which under the old law would have perfected title solely in the flight attendant's name.  She, in turn, conveyed title to us, in fee simple, as the sole owner of the property.

So now, 25 years later, we are trying to sell.  What's the problem?  Well, under Title 55-20.1 of the Virginia code as amended in 1999, the term "Joint Tenants" no longer includes "survivorship" unless explicitly set forth in the deed, for example by saying "Joint Tenants With Right of Survivorship" or "JTWROS" as they say on car title deeds.

I talked about JTWROS a long time ago.  If you own a property in JTWROS with another person, when one of you dies, the property automatically conveys to the remaining party(s).  No will, no intestate, no probate. Just record a copy of the death certificate and you're done.

Property can be held in a number of ways.  You can be a sole owner, own through an LLC or other corporate entity, own as Tenants in the Entirety (if you are married) or as Tenants in Common or as  Joint Tenants. (We will leave Life Estates for trick questions on the Bar Exam). Tenants in the Entirety is similar to JTWROS, in that if one spouse dies, the property automatically conveys to the other. Each spouse owns the "entirety" of the property, hence the name.

Tenants  in common means each tenant owns a share of the property - usually 50/50 for two owners.  When we bought Washington Road in 1989, the title company handling the closing put us down as Tenants in Common.  I asked him to correct this to JTWROS and he balked.  "If you died, Mr. See would get the whole house?  Don't you want your half to go to your family?"  Being gay back then was something of a novelty still - and may soon become so again.  But the documents were corrected and the closing attorney shook his head in amazement that two men would want to own a property together in JTWROS.

And  by the way, I made sure the phrase "with right of survivorship" was in the deed.  And it is a good thing I did, as at that time, the law in Virginia had been changed, such that unless those magic words were included, "Joint Tenants" was presumed to mean Tenants in Common.  The raises the question, if Joint Tenants (sans magic words) means Tenancy in Common, then why have two legal terms for the same thing?  It makes no sense at all.

I am not sure what the impetus to change the law was.  My gut reaction is that it was a housekeeping statute, designed to bring Virginia property code in line with the Uniform Commercial Code (UCC) a movement that has been going on for some time to bring various State Laws into conformity with one another so as to avoid confusion.  In this case, it created it.

Or maybe they changed the law because those nasty gays were buying houses in Joint Tenancy and during the AIDS crises, families who threw their gay kids out of the house as teens, now wanted half of the rapidly appreciating homes the gays bought in gentrifying neighborhoods.  Let's hope it wasn't that!  Then again, what explanation makes any sense?

The question is, of course, whether it was meant to be retroactive.  I found one source that said it was not (I cannot find it again, thanks Google AI!).  Meanwhile, Google AI, without any sources, other than the code, claims it was.  If the latter is the case, it throws the validity of a huge number of property titles in the Commonwealth of Virginia into question.  In the hundreds of years property has changed hands in the State, surely there is a "Tenants in Common" deed in the chain of title of nearly every property!

This Richmond School of Law, Law Review article seems to imply that the legislative intent was to make the law retroactive, unless....

"The better view would suggest that the amendment and reenactment of the effective date provision in section 55-9, which occurred in pari materia with the enactment of new section 55-20.1, shows a legislative intent that section 55-20.1 should be treated the same way, i.e., retroactively, except to the extent that such retroactivity would affect vested rights. See id. §§ 55·9, -20.1 (Cum. Supp. 1999)"

In this case, after the death of her Father, the flight attendant had vested rights.  He died in 1989, vesting her rights to the property a decade before the law was passed.  It seems so simple to me!

So, 25 years have passed.  Believe it or not, the flight attendant is still alive, but it appears that there may be other heirs descendant from her Father.  If they can be found and persuaded to sign a quitclaim deed, the problem is solved.  But of course, what is their motivation to sign?  They might argue that they are entitled to a share of the property - maybe even up to one-half!  Although I suspect the flight attendant is one of the heirs and thus the share would be far less.

There are other options, of course.  We could (and probably will) bring a Motion to Quiet Title to perfect out title claim.  If my legal argument is correct and the "new" Title 55-20.1 doesn't apply retroactively, then the issue is moot. I would also argue that since we have been "notoriously occupying" the property for 25 years, we take title by adverse possession.  What constitutes notorious occupation varies, but paying the property taxes and utilities is one sure sign.  There may be some statute of limitations issues, but I am not sure of that.  25 years is a long time.

No matter what happens, it appears we lost the buyer and we will have to put the property on the rental market again, as it may take months to sort this all out.

But what about title insurance?  Yes, we had a policy - for $38,000 - and the title insurance company went bankrupt in the meltdown of 2008.  We can file a claim with the State Insurance Commission, but that may return only pennies on the dollar and take years (I plan on doing it anyway).  Meanwhile, a motion to quite title will run $5,000 to $10,000 in attorney's fees.

This leaves the original title company - do we sue them?  They should have "errors and omissions insurance" of their own, which should cover the cost of the motion to quiet title.

In any event, it is a real hot mess, and if you know someone who wants to rent a condo in NoVa, let me know!