Category Archives: pets

Gold? Fuggeddaboudit!

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After the financial blogs of the past two nights, let me pass on another warning about the approaching housing market disaster: I’ve have lots of questions about using gold as a hedge against whatever is coming.

Please listen carefully: Do not! Do not! Do not buy gold unless you truly understand it, which I seriously doubt anybody does!

Look at the charts linked below: every peak represents a person who’s won a fortune in gold investing at the right time.  But that subsequent valley represents an investor who’s lost a fortune in gold investing. If you think you can time the market you’re just flat out wrong. Many’s the speculator who bet on gold to hedge a collapsing economy and ended up as a net loser.

If you ever see that I’ve made a fortune in the gold market, then I give you carte blanche permission to tell everyone, “Ward cheated. He’s a liar. He’s a shyster.”

Betting on gold is worse than going to Vegas. Stay home. Pay the bills. Buy some emergency rations, enough to last your family for a few months. Don’t go nutty on me. We who are questioning the HOA debacle aren’t survivalists. (I have serious doubts that a survivalist can survive much of anything, anyway.) We’re just carefully analyzing an approaching disaster that every economist in the country is talking about… and puzzling over. There are just no clear answers. But I guarantee there’s a phalanx of con men out there being trained to take advantage of your fears.

(is gold really a good investment?)

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/personalfinance/investing/gold/10019128/Is-gold-really-a-safe-haven-asset.html

 

Neighborhood Snit In Austin

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It’s happening all over the country, but another old neighborhood in Austin, Texas has decided to create a community improvement association to encourage homeowners to clean up their properties. The old time homeowners who’ve been in the Hyde Park neighborhood generally don’t want to turn the association into a mandatory HOA. Newbies in the neighborhood definitely want that kind of dictatorial power.

One homeowner says he’s spent a fortune upgrading his house. So have other residents. But there’s one neighbor who won’t go along.

“It’s just not fair!” the clean guys say. “Just no fair!” Gosh, when you hear a whiner throwing that kind of phrase around, watch out! Life isn’t fair. What’s fair about a crippled kid, or racism, or crime, or any of the other unfair things that happen in life.

This neighborhood’s first step is a good one. A voluntary group that encourages a cleaner neighborhood is a boon to property values. When a homeowner resists improving his or her home, that’s a time for diplomacy, not threats or humiliation. Not ostracism or confrontation. This is a chance to prove the benefits of inclusion and good will, volunteerism and neighborliness. It actually works, folks!

Well, these ‘clean’ neighbors now want the fascist rules of the HOA movement imposed so they can snatch the offender’s house, clean it up themselves, and sell it to a new owner who’ll agree to abide by the ‘clean rules.’ And suddenly you’ve got a fascist government arising from the ashes of what used to be a relatively free neighborhood.

The place to fight for mandatory rules is with the local zoning commission. If an HOA is created then it creates a neighbor vs. neighbor mentality where the most vicious of personal attacks are made. If city zoning rules are imposed, the disputes are less expensive, less confiscatory and peace in the neighborhood can be maintained.

If Hyde Park homeowners think an HOA will raise property values, think again. Those who don’t want to live, or don’t like living in an HOA amount to about 90% of the population. Think about it. 90% of all potential home buyers won’t even look at your for sale sign. What’s your nice clean home really worth now? HOAs have just been developing a stinky reputation over the past few years. And you’ll see my predictions come true. HOAs do not improve or preserve property values, and there are thousands of examples around the country.

(click here for Hyde Park story)

http://www.austinhydepark.org/2014/04/is-there-a-homeowners-association-in-hyde-parks-future/

Murdered By Swans, HOA Sued

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I’m not sure how far this lawsuit will go, but homeowners in this HOA will end up with special assessments to pay all the lawyers.

Have you ever heard of someone being murdered by swans? Me neither. But according to this Illinois lawsuit mute swans are capable of breaking a man’s leg. That probably makes them as dangerous as a vicious dog. And we all know that HOAs which use vicious dogs in their common areas are not immune to lawsuits.

Don’t count me as a skeptic on this one. I vividly remember being attacked by a vicious goose in the Quadrangle at Fort Sam Houston when I was just ten or eleven years old. My younger brother and I were both attacked and injured and it’s given me a lifelong fear of certain angry birds.  So believe me that large birds won’t hesitate at taking on a human. And even though I love animals, I get a special kind of glee roasting and serving certain birds on holidays.

Maybe this lawsuit will be tossed out of court because it’s frivolous. Maybe that won’t happen until the lawyers make a few hundred thousand bucks in legal fees. In the end, though, the homeowners will get pummeled. And these angry birds will get away with murder.

Count on it.

(link to murderous swans)

 

“Wrong Way, Lady!”

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A Democratic State Legislator in Virginia is crowing about getting a law passed in her state. The new law will allow HOA officials in self-managed communities more time to answer written requests by homeowners for information. Current Virginia law requires HOAs to provide paperwork or answers to inquiries within five days. The new law Ms. Filler-Corn loves so much doubles that time to ten days.

Delegate Eileen Filler-Corn brags that this will help ease the burden on HOA officials. She says the five-day requirement is too much of a burden for neighborhood volunteers.

Listen, Lady! You’ve got it exactly backwards. Virginia HOAs are just as mean-spirited as those in other states. Your law does NOTHING to help beleaguered homeowners. How about actually pushing for some real reform? How about a two-point law that will really make Filler-Corn a household name.

First, you mandate that all neighborhood paperwork is posted online and available at all times! Then no homeowner would have to beg and plead to see HOA budgets, and how much board members were soaking the community with their hotel food-and-booze tabs. And no resident would have any questions because everything they could possibly need is instantly available.

Second, forget the First Point. Just abolish all HOAs as being fundamentally flawed. They’re all constructed to purposely allow agenda-driven ‘volunteers’ to get their claws into their neighbors’ throats. Actually, this law might make you a statewide hero!

What do you think, Del. Filler-Corn?

(link to Virginia story)

 

Nasty, Nasty Duck Dynasty!

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A&E’s TV series, Duck Dynasty, is truly one of the most remarkable shows on television. Yes, it’s been controversial at times, but members of this West Monroe, Louisiana family appear fearless as they deal with personality differences, and walk viewers through the intricacies of their lives.

I also know, after a lifetime of working in television, that almost all of these ‘reality’ shows are heavily choreographed and orchestrated. Sorry if that pops your bubble, but those are the facts of life.

Still, there are some things that can’t be faked. Many of us saw a Duck Dynasty episode a year ago when the Robertson family showed up at their HOA board meeting after being dinged for owning chickens and for burning leaves. The faces in the room are priceless. The vacant far-away, shell-shocked expressions among homeowners should be given some kind of acting award. The matriarch’s repeated statement that she brought a casserole to the HOA meeting had me rolling in laughter. Faked or not, this episode was hilarious.

If anyone among our readership has contact with the Robertson family, or their producers, or the many actors and technicians who work on their set, please let me know. I want to send them some copies of Neighbors At War!

(link to Robertson family’s HOA appearance)