Chile Forum

Regarding Mauldin, I always read what he has to say- he has that going for him and I respect him that much, I guess. I just have not seen much that he writes that a knuckle-dragger like myself hasn't already figured out. I get a strong sense about all this prediction/analysis stuff (coming from anybody- I'm not singling out JM) that one simply can't see very well from inside the bubble. There was a good recent article from Institutional Risk Analytics (Chris Whalen's outfit) that specifically mentioned (one of) the basic tenants of their approach, and that is to never lose sight of the fact that it's all theory until you get down to the guy on the street.

One thing I will say, many people are disingenuous when they rip into banks and it turns out they are in varying degrees of debt. It seems to me it's a simple thing: don't like banks? Then don't deal with them (an approach you mentioned in an earlier post). Banks won't survive without that willingness to take on debt for purposes of personal consumption (which includes home ownership). It's easy enough to starve the beast.

I always applaud the working down of debt- good luck on your effort and on being one of the producers. My father was also in the rental biz- apartments. I put in several years renovating those places. He taught me most of what I know of real estate- all from a business point of view. He taught me the numbers-crunching end of it (his real job was aeronautical engineer- he led the team that designed the Tomahawk cruise missile- he knew numbers). I once asked him, shortly before he passed in '05, what he thought about the real estate market. Simple: "fraud". And that was years ago.

How on earth did this topic get onto a Chile forum?

Cheers

John Ryan

How on earth did this topic get onto a Chile forum?

I think EEUExpat said it well (although I did not say that since we two do not talk). In my view, a fair number of expats leave their homeland for political reasons, at least in part. Such people tend to have well-developed political views, are more likely to hold views dismissed by the mainstream and take those views very seriously - seriously enough to make a major, major change in their lives by moving to a foreign place. As such, a pretty robust bit of political back and forth comes quite naturally when such people are present.

I would agree that one needs both good theoretical reasons for how things work, as well as a good appreciation of down-to-earth practicality of how thing really work. It strikes me as rare to find both in one source. A guy like Mauldin, for all that I like him, is one blip in the sonar picture. There are a lot of much less formal indicators.

I am totally against debt for personal consumption with the possible exception of a very well thought-out mortgage. We have two more years until ours is gone. After that, all that remains is business debt on income producing property, in reasonable ratios, and much of that non-recourse to me. In terms of our present income-debt ratio, I am not at all nervous about having a home mortgage, though that was not always the case. Not having one strikes me as....security, nice and warm & fuzzy. I have to admit, my attitude in that regard has changed over the last few years, largely as a result of influence stemming from an excellent "mastermind" group of entrepreneurs to which I belong, not to mention some uncomfortably close calls. In terms of business debt, I am fairly conservative, though probably not so much as Red.

As to cycle of really useless university types, err, humanities professors in Chile.....interesting topic. I'd be especially interested in TomB's input. This is far from the first thread to suffer a wee bit of hijacking, it will doubtless fail to be the last.

John Hyre

The question was really asked tongue in cheek, as in: isn't it strange that we have to go to the Chile forum to find people with whom to discuss something like this? Perhaps it speaks more to the paucity of real discussion here in the US these days. It can't be a good sign that so few are engaged in, at least in what some of us consider to be, important ideas.

Spot on on the other ideas about relocating; that's why we were down there for 2 months late last year. Checking it out, driven partially by political concerns, as are so many others.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142 ... TWhatsNews Note the last paragraph from our esteemed (NOT) Attorney General here in Ohio: He wants to sanction people for fraud (or perhaps "fraud"), but did not say that the foreclosures would stop. Election year grand standing and typical AG "I is for da peeps" demaguogery. Elliott Spitzer without da hoes (sic).

As to political discusion: This forum swings wildly in quality - some great disucssions, plenty that are not worth the read. There's also plenty of good discussion in the US when people choose to get informed. Unfortunately, things have been so outwardly good for so long that most people do not get informed until things get bad, like say, now. Victims of our own success & all. Given where the system is at, having a fall-back or bolthole makes sense and Chile is not a bad choice at all. Leaving without fighting for this great country and a still salvageable system (admittedly, against the odds), essentially what I think present political refugees have done, does not. I am not fond of those who let others do the heavy lifting while complaining all the while.

John Hyre

Well, here's some nice chum for some AllChile sharks to tear into - how the feds went after a small guy for fraud on a "liar loan". Especially frightening: Note how it started, and what attracts the attention of our civil servants at the IRS. Don't worry, Uncle Obama's "Healthcare Reform" funds 16,000 more IRS agents! And if they cannot get you for tax fraud, perhaps something else will follow. Remember Elliot Spitzer? His payments to the ho were first spotted by IRS. I do not feel especially sorry for him, but I also do not especially care for this method of fishing at Internal Revenue. Even if you are completely innocent, they can bankrupt you while you try and prove it. Well, here it is:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/26/busin ... 1&src=tptw

I've got to stop quoting NYT before the Fox/National Review/WSJ thought police come take away my vast right wing conspiracy decoder ring.

John Hyre, You Never Know Who Is Wearing a Wire or Reading Your Garbage or Noticing Your Ferrari

More here: http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/another- ... f-the-irs/ and here http://mexicanrunningwild.blogspot.com/ ... engle.html

This part of the Cato piece really hits home for me:

The most upsetting part of the story, though, is how the government wound up targeting Mr. Engle. It turns out that an IRS agent, Robert Norlander, must have been competing for the IRS's Bully-of-the-Year Award because here are some of the things he did:


•Norlander decided to snoop into Engle's affairs because he saw a film about him training for a marathon. In other words, there was no probable cause, no reasonable suspicion, nothing. Just the perverse decision of an IRS bully to go after someone.
•Norlander admitted a pattern of thuggish behavior, stating that he will snoop into someone's private life simply because that person drives an expensive car.
•Norlander continued to investigate and persecute Engle, subjecting him to undercover surveillance, even though his tax returns showed no wrongdoing.
•Norlander even engaged in "dumpster dives" to look for evidence of wrongdoing in Mr. Engle's garbage. Keep in mind that there is no probable cause, no reasonable suspicion, and Engle's tax returns were legit.
•Norlander used a sleazy KGB tactic by sending an attractive woman to flirt with Mr. Engle in hopes of getting him to somehow admit to a crime.
•Norlander failed to find any evidence of a tax crime. He couldn't even hit Engle with a money-laundering offense. But the undercover agent who was part of the "honey trap" was wearing a wire and supposedly got Engle to admit to mortgage fraud and Norlander used that extremely flimsy evidence to justify a Justice Department case against Engle.
In other words, this whole thing has a terrible stench. Assuming the details in the story are accurate, we have an IRS agent engaging in a random vendetta against someone, and then apparently justifying his jihad by figuring out how to nail the guy on a very weak charge of mortgage fraud. I would describe Norlander as a "rogue agent," but apparently this behavior is business-as-usual at the IRS.

I think I am going to pull the case and the transcripts.

John Hyre, Wow. Just wow.

RE J. Hyre.....

Good comment. So zip the lip, shut ones yap,,,,, burn ones paper garbage, and drive an old VW Beetle. Not exactly lady magnet, but keeps the banksters away.

JvG wrote:RE J. Hyre.....

Good comment. So zip the lip, shut ones yap,,,,, burn ones paper garbage, and drive an old VW Beetle. Not exactly lady magnet, but keeps the banksters away.

Probably need to even do in Chile because of TISA USA-Chile.