Today I wore this teal long sleve button up shirt to go with black slacks. Fashion disaster? I don’t know really. It’s not exactly an everyday safe color. Hey, at least I’ll be happey even as my co-workers are laughing on the inside as I walk by 
I was SOOOOO close to quitting my job today. The only reason I didn’t was the fact that I won’t get a profit-sharing check if I leave before March 31. Instead, I scheduled a meeting with my supervisor’s supervisor for tommorow morning. He is going to get an earfull. I invited my direct supervisior, but unfortunately he will be out of town.
This report just came out regarding changes in wages. It just confirms what I have known all along, that the last few years have seen real(inflation adjusted) wage drops. My first raise very small(7.5%) considering the largest raises in my industry occur in the first few years of working. The raise pool at my company that year was about 3%, which doesn’t even cover inflation for that year. Well, I suppose it did cover inflation if you use the ‘core’ inflation metric, which is almost meaningless to the average consumer since it excludes food and energry.
I work in the defense industry, which is known for its higher wages and job security. If this industry is shrinking wages, what is going on in the rest of the technology world? Well, they are dropping wages even faster. I turned down a job in Colorado Springs because the HR department was only going to offer $52,000 a year for a J2EE software developer. I found this out through an intermediary and it’s a good thing to because it would have been hard not to burst into laughter if the manager had told me this directly. Because I have been looking for a job on the side, I have been in a position to observe the job market for programmers. Despite the claims of a shortage of qualified technical workers being justification for increasing the H1-B Visa quota, there is no such shortage. The real shortage is a lack of technical workers that will take sub-standard salaries.
I am announcing that I am snipping all remaining ties to fundamental Christianity. It has taken only two years for this to happen. The title of the blog is ‘quantum theology’ which relates to the paradox of faith and reason. I have observed for some time that the relationship between faith and reason is something like the uncertainity principle in quantum mechanics. To put this principle shortly, it says that the more precisely the position of an electron is determined, the less precisely the momentum is known. If you weren’t so lucky as to take quantum physics, it will suffice to say that it seems that faith and reason function as opposites. Ying and Yang if it were.
I don’t accept that faith and reason are so far apart. I’m more of the thinking that either my reason is whacko or my faith is whacko. Most likely its a combination of the two, but I’m thinking is more faith that is whacko than my reason.
I’m not abandoning Christianity, I am abandoning the fundamentalist version of it. In particular:
I hold that the Bible is inerrent in matters of faith and morals in its intended manner of interpretation. The Bible is NOT a science book and scientific conclusions cannot be made on the basis of the text. Lanugange is an inherently weak mechanism of transfering knowledge. It can be twisted to support or tear down nearly any point of view. The only interpretation of note is the intended interpretation, which is not knowable in all circumstances.
I haven’t believed in this for some time. The facts just don’t support such a proposition. I hold that the Bible was intended to show the relationship between God and man and nothing else. That being said, I am no atheistic evolutionist.
My position is that I don’t have a position. The issue is not nearly as clear as some would wish it to be. Unfortunatly it is a tremendously important issue facing the Christian church with a lot of deep consequences. I just know that some things ARE clear and I am probably better served dealing with those first.
Folks, the bubble is popping. Haven’t heard about it in the paper? I’m not surprised. I was looking through the sunday edition of the North County Times for the classified listings for motorcycles. It took me about 10 minutes to finally find the section I was looking for, but only after realizing that about half the paper was devoted to real estate advertisements. Somehow I don’t think it would be in the financial best interests of the paper to report on the rising inventory in some of bubble markets.
For those of you who aren’t ‘in’ on the real estate bubble, I’ll give you situation in 5 minutes or less. Real Estate pricing has been driven upwards by the tremendous amount of speculation coupled with low interest rates and creating financing aka ‘affordability products’ that allow people to borrow more and more money in relation to their income. Currently, affordability is at historic lows, interest rates on the adjustable rate mortgages are rising, median prices have flattened, sales volumes have dropped, and inventories are rising back toward historic highs. The number of greater fools is shrinking….
The state of the general housing market in the United States is a HUGE problem and it is interesting to see how it is underreported in the mainstream media. Given the fact of the inverted yield curve(typically signals a recession) and the report of the first year-long negative savings rate since the Great Depression, I would think that more people would be taking notice.
Well, a friend of mine purchsed a to-be-constructed home in Arizona. At the time he purchased, it was a VERY, VERY hot real estate market. I think the median housing price went up by like 50% in a year. He has always been the ‘wanna get rich’ type of guy, so I know he only bought it because of the potential profit from flipping the property. It’s too bad that he is going to be one of the ‘Greatest Fools.’ The inventory in Phoenix/Maricopa County is so high that there is a listing for every 110 people. His house won’t be ready until mid-year and he won’t be able to sell it without a HUGE price reduction probably for a loss. I’m not sorry for him. I feel sorry for the poor resident of Phoenix who can’t get into a home now because a bunch of speculators wanted to get rich by driving up the cost of local real estate. The housing market is being driven by fools who will lose their shirts, and I won’t be sorry.
Well, I was fully intending to write a blog entry on my oft postponed topic - quantum theology. Instead I spent a couple of hours reading up on a quite excellent financial blog.
One of the challenges in getting advice is obtaining quality information from sources that do not profit from the dispense of such information. Failure to heed this principle is why my *unnamed person I know* foolishly purchased a house with her husband a couple of years ago. She has two sound financial options, refinance into a fixed rate loan(while they are low) with intentions of staying in the home for the long term, or selling the property ASAP for a profit and return to renting until home ownership vs rent costs align again in San Diego. The other two *BAD* choices would be to refinance into another interest only ARM or to continue with the current ARM after the rate adjusts and principle payment starts. Come to think if it, a low fixed rate loan would be an ideal place to be in the event of higher inflation while also not being a bad thing if inflation stays at its current rate. Really, her best bet is to sell. They can’t afford to carry the mortgage on a single income, so quitting the job to raise the family is out of the question. You either dispense with family or do the day-care while mommy and daddy work 50+ hour weeks. At least with rent you have options not to mention some nice cash from the sale of your home. San Diego is running out of greater fools purchasing property, so better find one before they are gone!
Wow, the end of that rant….
I have found the blogsphere to be an execellent source of financial investment not tainted by a conflict of interest. Check out Patrick’s Blog. The blog postings are nice, but the comments are better. A lot of free, and good quality advice can be found. A lot of the posts have 100+ comments, so they can take a while to sift through.
These are the fundamentals, and the current price of housing are drastically out of line with these fundamentals. The way I see it, it is a REALLY REALLY bad time to purchase a home in San Diego and it will remain so until the fundamental metrics say otherwise. Unless you are VERY well off, any first time home buyer is a fool for buying right now. While sales have dropped recently here in SD, there are still high enuf to show that a LOT of fools are still buying houses. What we are seeing now are the ‘greater fools’ in real estate. The trick with speculation is that you never want to be the greatest fool. As long as there exists a greater fool out there….
There IS a housing bubble in San Diego, and if you don’t agree with this you should find another blog to read. But since I can count my blog readers on one hand I probably shouldn’t be trying hard to alienate any possible readers. oh well.
I want to take a brief look at any possible ethical and moral issues with a runup of housing prices. At first when I looked at the issue I thought there were some moral problems with this asset bubble. Take a look at another type of bubble, the stock market bubble. The dotCom stocks were driven upwards by the number of speculators creating a bubble market which eventually collapsed. This type of bubble is different from the housing bubble in many ways but I want to focus on a single area. The rising price of stocks put no undue hardship upon those choosing not to invest in stocks. Furthermore, the price per share was so small that anyone with 100 bucks could invest in a typical stock. The housing bubble is quite a bit different - the median ‘price per share’ in San Diego is about $515,000. Unlike stocks, speculation driven prices in housing affects not only the speculator themselves, but also anyone looking to purchase a property with something other than investment in mind. I think that the speculative driven mania over a certain assest is NOT ok when it comes to a basic need - shelter.
So anyways, back to an moral issue. Is it moral to sell a house for a $100,000 profit after holding the property for only 6 months? I thought so, until I remembered rent. Thats right, rent. That thing I have been paying for the last few years. Rent has not undergone a speculative bubble, let the greater fools purchase their properties while the lesser fool ( me ) rents.
I have a possible job opportunity in Colorado Springs that just may come together in the next couple of weeks. I may be in Colorado sometime in March if things don’t fall through.
On Saturday I dropped some money into getting new tires and a tune up for my motorcycle. The thought of selling it has crossed my mind as I have been looking for my next bike. When I was driving it home late on Saturday, I had a feeling like I needed to see a sunset from the La Jolla cliffs for what may be the last time. Well, La Jolla never disappoints. I really didn’t get to see a sunset for the fog bank that rolled in just on cue. I did get a bonus, I stumbled onto Black’s beach(the local nude beach).
I went to college right across the street for 4 years and I never ran into it. Great timing…
On Sunday, which was another beatifull day, I decided to take a ride out through Julian and down into Borrego Springs(desert). The new tires I had put on my bike made a HUGE difference in the handling of the motorcycle. Unlike my previous set, the bike just seemed to fall into the turns naturally. I didn’t have to force the bike into the turn and it just felt a lot more stable in the twisties. I just don’t know if I can sell the bike now. It was a landmark day for my skill in the turns. Due to the increased confidence from the tires I was able to accelerate through the turns even while going downhill. I even accidentially dragged my toe during one turn - surprised me a bunch.
If riding a motorcycle isn’t better than sex, its got to be pretty close.
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