Internet Anxiety

Today we buy everything online and think nothing of it.  'Twas not always so!

When I was a kid in the 1960's and 1970's - long before the Internet - there would be a "consumer column" in the local paper.  And every month or so, would be a plea from a reader who ordered something from a catalog or from an ad in a magazine and never got the goods promised.  The "consumer advocate" would then basically shame the reader for being so stupid as to order things from strangers through the mail.  What idiot does that?   The reader got what they deserved!  Idiot!

Back then the only mail order outlets you could order from were Sears or Montgomery Ward. Anything else was considered somewhat sketchy.

Well, all of that has changed, and it didn't happen overnight.  I still remember the first time I bought something on this newfangled "eBay" deal.  You sent money to a stranger and they promised - on the honor system - to send you the product!  What sort of idiot falls for a gag like that?  But in most cases - but not all - people were honest.  A few folks thought they could be clever by ripping people off, but those were quickly shut down.

Time passed and this new site called "Amazon" came along, and they would go out of their way to make sure your order was right - building up trust with customers.  People rely on Amazon and its ilk, and the only risk today of ordering online is that a Porch Pirate might steal your packages.

Of course, it wasn't seamless. I recounted before how Amazon sent me half of a toilet once for no reason, when I was expecting something else entirely. But I called them and told them what happened and they told me to keep the half a toilet which was kind of pointless as I have no use for it. But the point was, building trust was more important than returning the toilet to them.

And of course, Amazon still resorts to trickery. They offer you free shipping, and then when you go to check out, they take away the free shipping and add paid-for shipping, which you have to uncheck. Worse yet, they have a page which asks you if you want free shipping, but it's actually a come-on for Amazon Prime. It is deceptive, and it erodes my trust in Amazon. That, and the fact that Amazon has weird listings for $100 jars of mayonnaise, makes me wonder what the heck is going on with that company.

Ordering on the Internet requires trust, and once you screw up trust, you've got nothing left.  A reader notes, in response to an earlier posting, that I seem to have a lot of anxiety with the Internet.  And this is true - anyone should - as the whole thing is based on trust.  And when you invest time and energy in some stupid "app" that is supposed to make life easier or better or cheaper, only to find out it does the opposite of all three, you feel cheated and that your trust was violated.   Waiting a half-hour for "fast food" that never materializes sort of blows that trust out of the water. Having your credit card charged the next day, obliterates it.

So yes, I get a bit freaked out when an online merchant sends me a "confirmation e-mail" with dead links for "order status" in it, or requires me to download a sketchy "app" to track a shipment that I could track myself through FedEx, if they just gave me the damn tracking number.   You start to wonder, who are these people, and is this a scam?

Of course, you are protected, on a number of levels.  Your credit card company will reverse the charges if you dispute them.  But of course, that takes time, and the merchant might try to argue that they fulfilled their end of the deal, leading to a he-said, she-said kind of situation. I suppose you could always sue someone, but that's not really a cost-effective way of getting your money back.

The point is, you do business with someone, you don't want to sign up for a lot of extra anxiety. And what I found over the years is that the less business you do, the less anxiety you have.  One way to avoid problems like this is simply do with less. You can't get into a situation with a merchant if you never bought anything from them.

But sometimes, there are things you need to buy, such as a new set of tires. And the internet, having the best prices and selections, sometimes is the only option. In fact, since most local merchants hardly stock anything at all, you might as well just order online, because that's what they are basically doing.

You have to trust people online, which is hard for me to do as I have trust issues. And when a merchant you deal with starts doing odd things, it sets off alarm bells. Any business Arrangement you enter into based on a lie, no matter how trivial, can only go downhill from there. And when a merchant lies to me, no matter how trivial the lie is, I get very, very nervous, particularly if I've already given them my money.

UPDATE:  I never should have installed the "Route" app as it required that I grant access to my Google Gmail account, which means I had to hand them the password to my Google Account. Stupid!  They also wanted access to my Amazon account, which I denied.  I mean, they aren't asking for much - just the keys to the kingdom, and in exchange, they would give me information that was already readily available to me - or should have been.  I uninstalled the "Route" app and denied their access to my Gmail account and changed my Google password.  What a freaking hassle.  The only question that remains, is, what information did they mine from my Gmail account in the process?

More Than I Ever Expected

If your life doesn't seem to be going as planned, don't give up.

Looking back on 60 years of living can be terrifying, if you let it be.  As I noted before, most of us - those with a conscience, anyway - remember all the embarrassing or stupid things we did in life and forget about the wonderful things we had along the way.  We still regret something stupid we said in 3rd grade that might have hurt someone's feelings - although that person, no doubt, doesn't even remember it happening.

And when we are young - right out of college - it seems like we are wanting so much and having so little, and having such little prospects in life.   The dream job or career - it eludes us.  And the lifelong love - will we ever find our soulmate?

Of course, at that stage in life, wanting and not having, we fail to appreciate what we do have - health and youth and time.  Time - the greatest commodity and one in the shortest supply.  Something we don't realize until it is too late.

I was reading an online comic by a young woman, who lamented that when she was young, she had all these great ideas about what her life would be like.  The last frames of the comic show her in a fast-food worker uniform and living alone, crying with her inner child.  That made me sad - not because her life was tragic, but because she viewed it as such. Life hardly begins in the 20's and you can re-invent yourself in America - and in fact, most do.

At age 25, I was a stoner/slacker, working odd jobs to make car payments.  I was toying with a college degree, part time, for the better part of eight years, after flunking out of school.  And while I had a "good job" with Carrier, it was never going to make me more than lower-middle-class at best, particularly since I spent every paycheck and then borrowed a few dollars more.

A decade later, I was living in Alexandria, Virginia.  I owned my own home, owned a small office building for my law practice, and had met my soulmate - we've been together 34 years now.  Amazing how your life can change so dramatically, in a decade.   And quite frankly, what I have accomplished in life is far more than I ever expected.

I guess that is the difference between me and the cartoonist.  She had all these expectations of wild things she would do in life, whereas when I was a kid, the idea of being an adult scared the crap out of me.  Particularly since my Dad got fired on a regular basis, I was very concerned as to how I would ever even support myself.

Coming of age in the AIDS epidemic, I fully expected that life would be short and uncomfortable. Neither Mark or I thought we would live past 40 - that's the way things were going back then.  But somehow we dodged that bullet, and life just kept going on.  No worries, there will be another bullet down the road.  We all have one, with our names engraved upon them.  This is not morbid thinking, it is life itself.

And I guess that is how our lives changed.  I gave up the drugs and even drinking (for a while) and buckled down on my studies and tried to improve my lot in life.  Oddly enough, other people were helpful in this endeavor.  People actually want to see you succeed in life, believe it or not.   Only the most churlish of individuals would relish seeing failure in others.   And on the other hand, it is realism - when others fail, they are often a burden to the rest of us.  So encouraging someone to succeed is good for society and good for you, as the success of others means they pay into the system, and not become a drain on it.

So I tried doing more than feeling sorry for myself and drowning myself in pot and beer.  Funny thing - it wasn't that hard, it was actually kind of fun. I moved to Washington DC and slept in the floor, having nothing to my name but a few dollars and an old Chevette.  Over time, things got better - but it would not be the last time I slept on the floor.   Learning to do without made me appreciate doing with.

And that is where I am going with this.  Looking back over 60 years, I could make myself depressed by thinking about what I could have been. I could have been like my boss at the law firm, a multi-millionaire (instead of the plain old millionaire) and working on wife #3. His life, from the outside, looked enviable, but maybe there was another side to the story.

I am just amazed - and grateful - for what I have accomplished in life, which is far, far more than I ever expected.  But time does that - or can, if you allow it to.  

You will go crazy comparing yourself to others - or to the wild expectations of your youth.  It is pretty premature to give up on life in your 20's just because your vague ideas as a child, of becoming a cowboy, didn't quite work out.

The funny thing is, when you look at the artist's profile, it would appear this young woman has a lot going for her in life - a fashion style sense, artistic ability, and good looks.  Just because you aren't successful right out of the box, doesn't mean you never will be.  In fact, I suspect within a decade, her life will be quite different than it is today.  And in 40 years, maybe she will look back at that comic and chuckle at its naivete.

Well, lets hope, anyway.

Route - a Prime Example of a Pointless App

FedEx, UPS, and USPS all have stellar tracking services, why would you want to use Route?

I ordered some new tires for the truck, and unbeknownst to me, the company, BBWheels, which has the best price, contracts with a company called "route" that gives you shipping updates.  The tires were shipped by FedEx (allegedly) but they won't give me the tracking number - that's a state secret that only Route knows!

To "track" the package, you have to download this app, which wants permission to access basically everything on your phone, including your Google Account.  WTF???  It shows a cute map of America with a line between tracked points.   Inexplicably, it claims the tires will be delivered today, on a Saturday, on a holiday weekend, three days after ordering.  Like that could happen.

So, we have to call BBWheels on Monday to find out what happened and maybe get the tracking number - and contest the charge with the credit card company.   And for what?  So we could use some fancy-pants "app" that does nothing that the direct websites of the shipping companies doesn't already do?

I am already signed up for FedEx tracking, which sends me notifications of shipping status.  I can click on a link and go to the FedEx site which provides detailed information about the shipment - not some cutsey map of the United States with dots on it.

Tellingly, the "check order status" tab on the e-mail sent from BBWheels was dead.  What are they trying to hide and why did they bother with this nonsense?  It only gives the company a black eye.  It is like the "survey" company that ORS Racks Direct contracted with to do customer satisfaction surveys - and sell them magazine subscriptions!

Alas, the Google Play Store (and the Apple Store) are awash with junk apps like this - apps that answer a question that no one is asking - and don't work worth a hoot, either.   I noticed a lot of one- and two-star reviews left there for "Route" in addition to my own.  I just don't see the point of the app - clogging up my phone and harvesting my personal data to do something that I can do myself, better, with less effort.

But that is the point, I guess.  Once installed on the phone, they can harvest "360 Customer Data" which was a thing for a while, but today, apparently is not.  Marketers are realizing that knowing everything about a customer isn't as important as knowing relevant things about a customer.  Yes, I bought tires for my truck.  I won't be buying them again for years.  But the vaunted "AI" they keep harping about will stupidly send me ad after ad for tire deals - you can bank on that.

So, I am guessing here, but both the "survey" site and these Route people pay the retailers a modest sum per customer, which the retailer looks at as increasing their bottom line - not realizing it detracts from their reputation and marketability.   In return, the survey site sells some magazine subscriptions using negative option and "Route" advertises to the users.  What is sad is that these retailers sold off their reputation for mere pennies per customer.  Trust is a hard thing to come by, on the Internet, and easily lost when you associate with sleazy marketers.

What is scary is that the same company that runs Route must be running the McDonald's app, as they have the same "robo-we-care" message appended to every one-star review of the app.  "So sorry to hear of your bad experience!  Would you please go to our website and then re-type everything you just said, so we can consider it?   After all, we can't just capture the text online here, right?"  Hey, they must care, or at least their "AI" robot does!  So it is OK to download this one-star app, right?   Riiiiiiight!

The McDonald's app, by the way, dropped the other shoe.  They got rid of the old app with the "deals" and online ordering and whatnot, and replaced it with a loyalty program (of course, erasing any points you got from the old loyalty program, according to some users).  Nothing on the Internet is permanent.  And the problem with any "rewards" program that doesn't pay you in cash-money on a monthly basis, is that the "points" you acquire can be made worthless over time.

I recounted before how the airlines doubled the number of miles needed to get a "free" ticket, and then charged a $25 "processing fee" to get said same "free" ticket (which is no longer free, of course).  And good luck trying to get two seats on the same plane - most planes today are overbooked, and thus, the number of discount or miles seats are limited to a handful.  It just isn't worth it - go for cash-back rewards instead, or better yet, just lower prices and better deals.  But I digress.

It seems this "Route" app is just one of the plethora of useless apps out there that really do nothing for you, but ask for a lot of your personal information.  "Mint" for example, promised to show you a little pie-chart of spending (which is useful for.... nothing) provided you give them the usernames and passwords of all your financial accounts - banking, credit cards, investments, the works.

Useful?  Not really. The "pie chart" of spending only tracks things by the broad categories that credit card companies use.  Risky?  Well, here you are handing over information you would not even share with your own Mother!   Just a pointless app, from the consumer point of view.

What irks me is that this company, BB Wheels, forced me to use this app, and refused to provide regular tracking information for FedEx.   I can use a computer - even a smart phone!  It ain't hard to type in a tracking number and check order status.

Once the tires arrive - if they ever do - I will erase this "Route" app from my phone (but likely they will still be tracking me online - better clear those cookies as well!).   Quite frankly, I could do this now, as once the "app" shows something is "delivered" they just erase all the history data from their site.

And that is the irony - they say "Your order is SECURE with ROUTE!" but since the order is erased from their site the moment they claim it is delivered, there is no way to track the order through Route, but rather through FedEx, WHICH IS WHAT WE SHOULD BE DOING IN THE FIRST PLACE!  Also, this claim of "securing" my order seems specious.  Are they saying they are insuring the package from damage or theft?  Or what?  From what I can see, they are not securing a damn thing, other than a hook into my Google account.

Yet another silicon valley wet dream.  I pity the Vulture Investor who threw money at this idea - it is just a pointless app that only serves to frustrate the users and damage the reputation of the retailers.

Please stop, silicon valley! Please stop trying to "help us" and "make our lives easier" by making them staggeringly more complex and more stressful!   I know this is how you all hope to become Internet Billionaires, but there can be only so many of those.

And not every idea out there is a groundbreaking idea - or one that needs an app.

UPDATE:  I was finally able to find the tracking information.  The "app" doesn't really provide it, or at least I could not find it on the app (it should be prominent, right?).  On my Desktop (old school!) however, the web site (old school!) had a pull down (slow to load) with the "detailed info."  That's nice, but I could have found this and also been notified automatically by FedEx,without having to load some stupid "app".

The tracking "data" (i.e., cutesy map) disappeared from the app, but remains on the website for some reason...

UPDATE:  The tires arrived. FedEx to the rescue.  Route added nothing to the picture other than anxiety by taking my FedEx data and then stripping it of context to give me "peace of mind" or some such nonsense.  All it did was make me feel more uncertain.  I deleted the app from my phone, cleared my data history on the phone and cleared cookies on my computer as well.

A reader writes, asking me why I didn't go to the local tire store instead.  Try finding Michelin 275/55 R20's for $208 at the local tire store.

I went to the local "good ole boy" tire store. They wanted to know "where I was from" and what I did for a living.  Then they tried to tell me there was a tire shortage and the tires would be $350 each.

The national chain store said they didn't have Michelins, but Wham-A-Lam-A-Ding-Dong brand from China, which are "just as good."   I noped out of that as well.

Of course, the Michelins are probably made in China as well.  Everything is.

UPDATE:  I never should have installed the "Route" app as it required that I grant access to my Google Gmail account, which means I had to hand them the password to my Google Account. Stupid!  They also wanted access to my Amazon account, which I denied.  I mean, they aren't asking for much - just the keys to the kingdom, and in exchange, they would give me information that was already readily available to me - or should have been.  I uninstalled the "Route" app and denied their access to my Gmail account and changed my Google password.  What a freaking hassle.  The only question that remains, is, what information did they mine from my Gmail account in the process?

Did COPS Create BLM?

In light of the number of shootings of black people by white police officers and the accompanying protests, the television show COPS was taken off the air after 32 years. Did this television show lead to the situation we have today?

I noted before that revolutions in media tend to create revolutions in society. The printing press allowed everyman to read the Bible in their own language which led to the schism between the Catholic and Protestant churches - and the creation of the latter. Radio broadcasting lead to the domination of dictators in the 1930s which led to World War. The internet and the smartphone have literally changed the way we think.

But there are other, smaller changes in the media which have affected our lives dramatically. In the 1970s, small portable film cameras were created for "on the scene" interviews - which before then, were hard to come by. I recall reading magazines of that era during my research for Patents.  Video tape recorders were large bulky things that often required a van to haul them around. Polaroid actually offered an instant movie camera which would produce film right away, which could then be shown on the Five O'Clock News. Prior to that, news teams would have to rely on 16mm film cameras and hope to have the film developed in time for the evening news.  "On the scene" video was a very rare thing back then.

Of course, today, everyone has some sort of security camera or doorbell camera or a crash video camera in their car. Cameras abound, and we were used to seeing video of every event in our lives. But during the 1980s and 1990s it was a transitional period where everybody didn't have such cameras, but news departments had small portable video cameras they could use to go "on the scene" to take video. Suddenly, we could see crimes as they occurred, rather than waiting to read about them in the newspaper.

Two things became prominent during this time period. First, particularly in California, news helicopters would follow high speed police chases, using radio scanners to monitor police activity and be on the scene. In some instances these news helicopters actually collided with police helicopters with tragic results.  Regardless, news-hungry Californians feasted on videos of high-speed chases, usually resulting in spectacular crashes.  The ratings were boffo.

I wondered then, and wonder now, if some of the people involved in these high-speed chases aren't aware that they're being filmed, and in fact want to "go out with a bang" so to speak and make an impression on their neighbors and friends.  "Look at me, Ma! I'm on television! Top of the World!" Rather just pulling over and surrendering, they continue on these high-speed chases, which eventually will end badly.  But in the meantime, they'll become mini-celebrities on television!

(And sadly, in California, at least, there doesn't seem to be any disincentive to doing this.  If you get pulled over driving a stolen car, the penalty is about the same as leading the police on a high-speed chase, in a stolen car.   Since there is a possibility of escape, the criminal figures, "why not?" and tries to flee the scene).

The television show COPS came out about the same time as these police chases became a thing. Portable cameras allowed people to "ride-along" with the police and take videos of crime investigations and arrests.  What the audience usually wants to see, is some meth-addled or drunken person without a shirt on, giving the police a hard time and then being tackled by police officers.

No one wants to see an hour-long video of a cop sitting in a car eating donuts and waiting for something to happen. But that's the actual nature of police work, there's a lot of boredom involved.

The problem with the show COPS is that it is a "reality" show, as we know, reality shows are fake. It's not that they're entirely fake only that they edit the raw footage to make things appear to be more dramatic than they are. Also, the producers of reality shows invariably "suggest" to the subjects that they do certain things - things that they ordinarily might not be inclined to do.

Thus, I have to wonder if perhaps maybe the producers of the show may have suggested to a perpetrator that they fight the police or otherwise act in a bizarre manner. And perhaps they also suggest to the officers at the scene that they make the arrest more dramatic, involving a tackle, or pummeling the subject into submission. These are things that people want to see on television, not boring arrests where people are handcuffed and put in the back of the police car with a modicum of dignity.

It is funny, but when I watch British crime dramas, the police officer merely taps the suspect on the shoulder and says, "All right now, off to the nick with you!" at which point, the subject confesses to being the serial killer, bravely facing his five-year sentence in British Luxury Jail.   But maybe that's why they capitulate so easily - the consequences are not as dramatic.   Again, when the sentence for killing a cop is about the same as selling meth, it incentivizes criminals to shoot first - not that I advocate a "soft on crime" approach.  Far from it!

Normative cues. Normative cues. Normative cues. I talk a lot about those here. When you think something is "normal" in your life you tend to behave along those lines. As Robert Heinlein famously said, if everyone is rubbing blue mud of their bellies, I get in there and rub blue mud with the best of them. You don't want to be seen as odd or different. So we tend to look upon our neighbors to see what's acceptable behavior and then modify our behavior to match that.

So, I wonder if perhaps the situation we are in today is the result of these television shows and live video chases. People watch these shows and think that it's normal to resist the police when you're being arrested. They watch these high-speed police chases and think that instead of pulling over when the cop puts his lights on, that you should make a run for it. And why not? The television is telling you this is normal behavior, or what's expected of you, as a criminal.

And what is the message being sent to police? That you should chase and tackle a suspect and perhaps beat them on the head with your club and subdue him. You can't help but root for the police in these COPS videos, hoping that the police officer in question beats the crap out of a suspect for being so insolent as to run away from the police.

Before COPS, of course, there were police shows on television.  But perhaps as viewers, we knew they were fiction.  And some of them were rather appalling.  I have watched old episodes of Mannix and Hawaii Five-O online and the police procedures they depicted probably wouldn't have passed muster even back then.   I have lost count of the number of "cop show" episodes where a suspect is gunned down - shot in the back - because he ran away from the Police.

In one episode of Hawaii Five-O, Dan-O is accused of murdering a suspect, when he "shoots the door lock out" (another television trope) of a suspect's apartment, "accidentally" shooting the suspect who was behind the door.  The whole episode hinged on whether the suspect stole a car stereo and thus justified Dan-O chasing him and eventually killing him.  Fortunately, a happy ending!  A witness comes forward to say that yes, the young man who died was indeed a thief, so he got what was coming to him!  Gavin McLeod guest stars as "Big Chicken".  Four stars - would watch again.

The normative cues from that episode are many - for example, that if you come to a locked door, you can "shoot out the lock" (and padlocks give way in a similar manner).  What would probably happen, though, is that the bullet would ricochet and hit you, or go through the door and kill someone inside.  Today, or even back in 1970, I am not sure police procedure would call for "shooting out the lock" when chasing a petty theft suspect, particularly when you can just kick down the door.  But maybe I am wrong about that.

Perhaps I'm wrong about this entire thing. Perhaps people have always resisted arrest or run from the police. Perhaps the police have always been violent and abusive. And in fact there is evidence to suggest that both of these are possibilities, at least upon occasion.

But I wonder also that maybe perhaps news reporters shouldn't be embedded with the police, putting them on camera, because the behavior of the police officers will inevitably be different than that if they were not filmed. This is not to say that things like body cameras are a bad idea, only that they should be used in situations where there are questions raised about an arrest situation. The work of policeman and the actions of criminals should not be used as entertainment for the masses.

It is akin to the idea of putting cameras in courtrooms. People say that we should videotape trials so that people will have better access and see what's going on. But when you put people on camera, they behave differently than when they're off camera. And the OJ Simpson trial was a prime example of this, with even the judge behaving in a not-judge-like manner, once the cameras and bright lights were turned on.

Channels like Court TV weren't trying to educate the public about how a trial proceeds. Rather, they were trying to use these trials for entertainment value to attract viewers in order to sell them SUVs during the commercial breaks.

It would be one thing to have these videos on something like C-SPAN with a camera dispassionately recording events. It's another thing to put them on a network where commentators chime in with their opinions as though it were a sporting event.

And so it goes for an entire criminal justice system, from the initial arrest on upward.  It should not be subject for entertainment of the masses, although this probably goes back to even Medieval Times. A good trial and execution were entertainment for many people, who would come from miles around to see someone drawn-and-quartered or hung or decapitated. There wasn't much else in the way of entertainment back in those days, and even lynchings were quite popular with some people.

I think the situation we are in today is a direct result of this entertainment-izing of our police force. Police work should not be the subject of amusement or entertainment, except perhaps the fictionalization in television cop shows. We know those aren't real, so we don't take them as being the whole truth. But even then, producers of fiction have a responsibility to their audience not to present poor normative cues, or at the very least, point out they are poor.

Sadly, "reality" television is actually believed by lot of people. And I think a lot of perpetrators take away from these shows that behaving in an irrational manner, running from the police, or resisting arrest are normal things to do.  These are often deadly choices.  I think police take away from this, the idea that the general public is rooting for them and hoping they'll beat the crap out of some suspect because, let's face it, we all think they deserve it.

So, a decade later, we have people resisting arrest and deciding they don't want to be arrested, and police officers using excessive force to subdue suspects, just like they saw on television. Perhaps it's a bit of a stretch to make this connection, but I think there's something to it.

Condo (Price) Collapse?

Could the collapse of the Surfside condos be the trigger for an overall market retraction?

Back in 2006 or so, we sold our condos in Florida and made a nice profit and moved to Georgia.  Things were going crazy back then - houses selling in a weekend, for over-asking, with multiple buyer's contracts each with escalation clauses.  People knocking on your door and asking if you wanted to sell (as happened to us, more than once).   Properties costing twice as much to own as to rent.   People paying top dollar for properties needed tens of thousands of dollars of work, just to move in.

In other words, it was just like today.  But then the bubble burst.  Why?

I recounted before why.  Builders went nuts putting up high-rise condos from Miami to Ft. Pierce and beyond.  They initially sold well, but toward the end, the buildings were going up with no takers, other than some "investors" who were hoping to "buy and flip" a condo unit.   All these high-rises "topped out" at the same time, and the market was flooded with thousands of condos, not only from the builders, but from the early buyers who were hoping to "flip" an empty condo (which was "designer ready" - with bare concrete walls and stubbed-in plumbing).

There were other factors as well.  People who bought a few years earlier saw their funny-money loans "reset" to a new rate and suddenly the payments were unpayable.   These "investors" had hoped to "flip" their properties before the loan rates went up (or the balloon payment was due) but like the lonely child in Kindergarten, was still standing up when the music stopped, during musical chairs.

There were also external factors.  You bought a house or condo in Broward County and the taxes seemed pretty reasonable.  But the next year, they re-assessed your property based on your purchase price, and suddenly your taxes are thousands of dollars higher.   Meanwhile, three hurricanes later, your homeowner's insurance has doubled, adding to the monthly carrying cost. Throw in some unexpected repairs and perhaps a special assessment on your condo, and suddenly, the "affordable" condo is draining your bank account dry.

So you go to sell it - it was a great investment, right?  Well, everyone else thinks the same thing - sell, sell, sell.  And the market collapsed, almost overnight.  Many condos nearing completion just stopped construction.  Others were "see-through" buildings with no interior walls.  Still others were darkened monuments to the hubris of mankind, with perhaps one lonely light on near the top floor - the man in the high tower.

Well, you know the rest - people freaked out.  Everyone wanted the government to bail them out.  Companies went bankrupt, people went bankrupt.  The economy and the stock market tanked, and it took eight long years of slow and steady growth under Obama for it all to come back.

The recent collapse of the condo towers in Surfside should be troubling for anyone thinking of buying a high-rise condo in South Florida.  I am sure that many a place "under contract" has fallen through, as nervous buyers - and bankers - start to re-examine these properties, paying more attention to the fundamentals or the "bones" of a place, which they should have been doing all along.

There will be more stories in the press, I can guarantee you, about condo boards who vacillate about major repairs, as well as more stories about palling concrete and rusting rebar.  People will start to take this seriously - deadly seriously.   And I expect that sales of condo buildings near the beach, built during the 1970's through the 1990's will be hit hard as buyers shy away from older construction - unless the maintenance of the building can be shown to be impeccable.  Buyers will start to do things like look through the parking garage and educate themselves about the wonderful world of Rebar.

Will sales (and prices) bounce back?  Of course they will.  But this latest event might hit the "pause" button on the current madness in real estate.   People are panic-buying properties right now, and oftentimes, for stupid reasons.  Half the houses on our little island are being bought by people who use them one weekend a month.   For the price they are paying, in terms of overhead and other costs, well, they could have a suite at the Club Hotel - all meals included - and not even have to make the bed.

Are we in the middle of a real estate bubble?  I think so, but not nearly as bad as 2008.   Prices, at least where I live, are edging up, but our house is worth little more than it was in 2008.  In fact prices have been flat here for a decade or so.   So some price growth was to be expected, particularly with interest rates so low.

And therein is another factor to consider - interest rates.  They have to go up eventually, and with inflation the way it is....  well, I guess we'll just have to wait and see.

UPDATE: Don't have to wait long, as it turns out.