economics

Voting With Feet

Hawaii and California are the two states with the lowest percentage of whites at 20 and 36 percent, respectively.

Hawaii started that way, with native Hawaiians being the majority. California is becoming increasingly less white as taxpayers flee the high taxes, crime, and general loonieness of the Golden State.

Mark Wahlberg lowered the asking price of his home by $32 million in order to cut ties with the place before the wealth taxes that would tax unrealized capital gains went into effect.

Please, California refugees, when you get to your new home state, don’t continue to vote for the same policies that made you flee California.

By Divemedic, ago

Tax Problem

My wife bought our current home 5 years before we met. It’s still deeded in her name only. When we move, we want to convert it into a rental.

The problem is this: That house has appreciated by $200k since she bought it, and unless we sell within 3 years of moving out, we will have to pay capital gains taxes on that $200k.

My position on this, is that we should sell it and use the proceeds to buy a different rental so we can reset the tax basis. My wife is vehemently opposed to this and wants to keep it. She remains convinced that there must be a way to avoid the capital gains taxes.

I have an appointment with a tax attorney this week, but my own research says that we either sell within 3 years of moving, or we will owe the taxes when we eventually sell, even if that sale is 15 years from now.

By Divemedic, ago

Childish, Magical Thinking

Watch this, and read some of the comments.

My initial thought was that it can’t be real. Then I reconsidered. This is the kind of childish, magical thinking that my children displayed when they were 8 or 9 years old. My daughter once asked me why I wouldn’t buy some expensive car or another. I replied that we didn’t have money for that. Her answer was, “Just go to the ATM and get more.”

That is the exact level of thinking displayed by this man-child, and the comment that followed. Just who is going to provide or pay for the basic, no frills life that you feel should be provided to you?

I had a similar conversation with my niece less than a year ago. My niece made the statement that people should get things that are necessary for free, because we all have a right to the necessities of life. She used feminine hygiene products as an example.

I pointed out to her that, since no one was paying for tampons, there would be no money to pay the people who worked in the tampon factory, so why would anyone work there for free? Her first reply was, “Wait! There is a tampon factory?”

I said, “Well just where do you think tampons come from? Is there a tampon tree somewhere?”

She replied, “Well, in that case, I suppose you could get women to work there and pay them with free tampons.”

I said, “What would that be worth? If everyone already gets tampons for free, what good is it to pay them with free tampons? So how are your employees going to eat, buy gas, or buy a house?”

She said, “That’s my point. Money is stupid. Why can’t everyone just trade and barter for stuff? Why should we all have to go to work just to be able to afford the things we need to live? The government can just print all of the money we need.”

I tried to explain money to her, but she didn’t get it. She is only 14, so I can excuse that. It’s her older sister, who is 21, that is evidence of an entire generation that doesn’t understand money. All they know is that they think somehow it’s their right to receive a living without having to do anything. This is why they all are demanding a living wage, or whatever they want to call it. It’s why they love socialism. They all want something for nothing.

There is a word to describe people working to provide things to people who aren’t doing a thing to earn what they receive, and that word is slavery.

By Divemedic, ago

Free Welfare House

Substitute teachers in Highland county make $119 a day. It’s a part time job, where they only work when there is a classroom needing a teacher for the day. They are only needed on days that there are students in the school in need of supervision, so at most they can work 180 days per year. That maxes out their earning potential at less than $25,000 a year.

One of those substitutes, Lashawn Kinsey, bought a house in Highlands County, Florida on January 13, 2021. She did it by getting a mortgage for $127,645, meaning that she made a down payment of $2,355. At the time of the mortgage, she had three kids, which placed her below the Federal poverty level of $26,500 for a family of four. I can’t confirm this, but she is almost certainly on public assistance. On top of that, she is a college student, meaning that we are likely paying for her education with Pell grants, because she is a black single mother.

It’s no surprise then that she was soon unable to make the payments, and had to seek assistance from the Florida homeowner assistance fund to avoid foreclosure. The state has been picking up the tab for her mortgage and utility payments, or at least they were until an administrative screw up caused payments to stop back in October.

I don’t feel sorry for anyone in this story, except the US taxpayer. As all of you know, I am shopping for a new home. In order to do so, I had to allow the bank to do a net worth audit, income verification, and credit check. How could a bank loan money to someone with a part time job and no assets? This sounds like the stuff that was going on in the early part of the 2000s that caused the mortgage collapse.

The fact that I had to work a full time and a part time job while going to school, so I could afford to pay tuition, then had to save money and build credit in order to be able to buy a house, while some black woman gets a free one at taxpayer expense must be all of that white privilege I keep hearing about.

By Divemedic, ago

If the Test Were Valid…

A group of 25 people were caught forging transcripts from shuttered south Florida nursing schools. They were using the forged transcripts in a scheme to show eligibility to sit for nursing licensing exams.

I’m torn on this. If the exam were a valid measure of the knowledge and skills of the nursing profession, then why does it matter whether or not you went to a nursing school? Alternatively, if passing grades in the school were a reliable indicator of proficiency, then why have a licensing exam?

This is simply a continuation of our licensing discussion. The transcript is a certification- the school is certifying that you are proficient. With that being the case, why require an exam? Are you saying that the school’s certification isn’t reliable? Or is it the exam that isn’t reliable?

Or is this simply a money making scheme that allows colleges, testing centers, and the state to rake in thousands of dollars from each nursing candidate?

There are nursing schools that charge upwards of $50,000 for an associate’s in nursing. Many nursing programs have completion rates that are below 50 percent. That is, less than half of the nursing students who begin the program actually complete it. On top of that, less than 60 percent of those who complete nursing programs in south Florida actually pass their certification exams. That means less than a third of students who begin nursing education in south Florida wind up becoming nurses.

My own nursing school had a 45 percent completion rate and a 90 percent exam pass rate. That works out to about 40 percent, and doesn’t include those students who began the prerequisites but were never admitted to the school.

That’s why there is such a nursing shortage. For every 100 students who begin the nursing pipeline, only about 25 of them actually become nurses.

By Divemedic, ago

No Money for White People

Wells Fargo was sued in April 2022 for not loaning money to enough black people. On December 21, the bank reached a settlement agreement where they agreed to pay $3.7 billion in damages and civil penalties.

The bank has decided to take the only path that makes sense from a business standpoint. They are not going to lend any more money to white people. The noose tightens. If you are a white person with a job, you aren’t wanted in this society.

By Divemedic, ago

Market Forces

Many cities have rent control laws that prohibit landlords from raising rent on their property. So they are finding ways around it. Landlords do all that they can to catch tenants breaking the terms of their lease so they can remodel the rental property in order to avoid the property being regulated by rent control laws. One way that they are doing this is through the use of surveillance technology.

The tenant is violating the terms of the lease by subletting, throwing wild parties, or otherwise endangering the property and the landlord has a significant financial incentive to catch them. When they get caught, they are evicted. This somehow makes the landlord into the bad guy, because making a profit is no longer seen as the proper goal of owning a business.

The left is using government to force business owners to accept fixed pricing while at the same time costs such as property taxes, insurance, and other costs eat into and eventually eliminate profits. So the market is doing what the market does- it’s finding solutions.

Price controls never work.

By Divemedic, ago

Spinning Inflation

Egg prices were $1.79 a dozen in November of 2021. By November of 2022, a dozen eggs cost $3.59. As of today, eggs are now $6.17 a dozen. So they doubled in a year, now are on pace to double in three months. The powers that be are claiming that it is due to a Bird Flu pandemic amongst egg laying hens.

Poultry farmers are telling a different story. They are claiming that everything needed to produce eggs is more expensive. The price of feed is up, which would not be the case if there were fewer birds due to a pandemic. The price of egg cartons is up, having risen from 30 cents to 50 cents per carton.

No matter the cause, everything that requires eggs: from breakfast and pasta to cakes is going to be more expensive. Stand by. The price increases are going to continue.

By Divemedic, ago

Licensed Vs. Certified

We began a conversation the other day about licensure being a grift. There is a difference between licensure and certification.

A license is a permit, issued by the government, that allows a person to carry out a certain activity. In order for licensure to exist, the government must first make it illegal to perform the activity, then issue licenses that permit those possessing those licenses to perform the activity.

Certification is where an entity certifies that a person meets certain standards. The entity issuing the certification can be a private business or a government. The value of the certification lies with the reputation of the entity that issues it. A certification can be issued without license- for example, UL laboratories. The government even issues licenseless certification- high school diplomas.

The issuance of a license can involve certification by the same agency that issues it- an example of this is a driver’s license. The DMV both ensures that the applicant for the license meets certain criteria and issues the license.

Alternatively, a government may require that another, outside entity certify that the applicant meets licensing criteria prior to issuing the license. Examples of this include lawyers and nurses. Passing the Bar exam or the NCLEX is a precursor to receiving a license to practice those professions.

A license can be issued without certification at all. Fishing licenses, for example. No one cares if you know how to fish- FWC just wants your license fees.

The only real reason for licensure is so that the state can control who can and cannot perform certain activities. The state always uses safety and quality control as the reason for requiring licenses, but this is the government we are talking about here. This means that politics eventually carry more weight than competence or safety.

This becomes a problem when the certification required to obtain a license is different for one group than it is for another. Say an American doctor or nurse has to pass certain hurdles while foreign doctors and nurses have different, lower standards. The oft quoted problem of a barber requiring more hours of training than a paramedic in Florida. (it’s true- Florida requires 1,200 hours of training in order to take the exam to be a licensed barber, but 1,112 hours of training and clinical time to be a licensed Paramedic)

Nursing is a great example of colleges grifting the system. In order to sit for the registered nursing exam, you must have at least a 2 year degree. That means 72 credit hours, but 30 of those 72 hours (42%) are courses like US History, English Composition, and Humanities that have absolutely nothing to do with nursing.

The reason that this happens is the people who are already practicing in that field want to make sure that there is a restricted supply of their skillset, so that pay remains high, or in some cases it is because colleges want to make lots of money. This is why Physician assistant programs also lobby so hard to have the degree requirements increased. There are a few colleges that teach PA as a 2 year associates degree, a couple that make it a 4 years Bachelor’s degree, while most schools make it a Master’s degree. In each of the preceeding cases, the PA applicant is still eligible to sit for the licensing exam. Making it a more rigorous educational requirements doesn’t make for better PA’s, but it does make for fewer PA’s, meaning that PA’s make more money.

So yes, licensing is nearly always a grift. In fact, I can’t think of a single time when it isn’t.

By Divemedic, ago