Politics

[rookhawk]

If you look at condos which are labeled under multi family 20-50% are owned by investors depending on area. Makes sense that it’s historically been a smart choice for vacation rentals,college students, retirees, and city families. Though buying by investors has declined since 2008 and shifted to single family

The institutional investment in real estate is inaccurate and underreported.

I worked for one of the 2-3 firms that you hear about most as "buying up all the real estate".

LLCs within LLCs within LLCs within holding companies. Their profits roll up into tranches of REITs.

There is no way to tell the difference between a mom and pop that owns a 16 unit apartment building and if say a company we'll call WhitePebble owns it.

The property management is not the same entity as the property owner. All of this obfuscates ownership stakes and investment concentration in certain markets or sectors.

REITs are not SEC regulated per se, the reporting and disclosure rigor is not the same as for a publicly traded company.

 

[Hunt anything]

If you look at condos which are labeled under multi family 20-50% are owned by investors depending on area. Makes sense that it’s historically been a smart choice for vacation rentals,college students, retirees, and city families. Though buying by investors has declined since 2008 and shifted to single family

A couple of years ago when my daughter and son in law were looking to get out of their condo into a house the majority of the people that looked at the condo were companies or investors. Same was true when they looked at houses, very few were actually owned by an individual or family. This was in Stone Mountain, Georgia. The condo was in Atlanta.

 

[Killingtime]

The institutional investment in real estate is inaccurate and underreported.

I worked for one of the 2-3 firms that you hear about most as "buying up all the real estate".

LLCs within LLCs within LLCs within holding companies. Their profits roll up into tranches of REITs.

There is no way to tell the difference between a mom and pop that owns a 16 unit apartment building and if say a company we'll call WhitePebble owns it.

The property management is not the same entity as the property owner. All of this obfuscates ownership stakes and investment concentration in certain markets or sectors.

REITs are not SEC regulated per se, the reporting and disclosure rigor is not the same as for a publicly traded company.

I had a suspicion that was the case but I’m not in that field. I’m glad you confirmed it.

 

[Killingtime]

A couple of years ago when my daughter and son in law were looking to get out of their condo into a house the majority of the people that looked at the condo were companies or investors. Same was true when they looked at houses, very few were actually owned by an individual or family. This was in Stone Mountain, Georgia. The condo was in Atlanta.

When Sold my last house in Florida I had two groups from California offer cash price and quick closing

 

[Scott CWO]

But Trump’s Ballroom will be paid for by private donations! It wont include any tax dollars!

View attachment 762987

Have you been inside the WH? There’s nothing approaching a large room for functions. I’m sure you have heard this? Quit beating a dead horse. The dinner the other night is but one example of an event that could be safely hosted at the WH with a decent conference/ball room. Educate yourself.

 

[Brent in Az]

Have you been inside the WH? There’s nothing approaching a large room for functions. I’m sure you have heard this? Quit beating a dead horse. The dinner the other night is but one example of an event that could be safely hosted at the WH with a decent conference/ball room. Educate yourself.

Big easy dances to the Democrat dog whistle.
Tesla owner, man bun, skinny jeans, and pumpkin spice lattes.
A true social media warrior on the Bluesky platform.

 

[Scott CWO]

Big easy dances to the Democrat dog whistle.
Tesla owner, man bun, skinny jeans, and pumpkin spice lattes.
A true social media warrior on the Bluesky platform.

Yes, a TDS warrior who feigns being upset by the cost of a ballroom that will be used for dozens of events every year for several decades but probably isn’t upset at all about crazy expensive electric car charging stations built by Biden that either weren’t built or were built in stupid locations like Craig, CO, of all places! Probably half the vehicles in Craig are F250 diesel trucks. Probably just a few electric vehicles in the whole damn county! Idiots! I’m tired of it.

 

[PARA45]

Yes, a TDS warrior who feigns being upset by the cost of a ballroom that will be used for dozens of events every year for several decades but probably isn’t upset at all about crazy expensive electric car charging stations built by Biden that either weren’t built or were built in stupid locations like Craig, CO, of all places! Probably half the vehicles in Craig are F250 diesel trucks. Probably just a few electric vehicles in the whole damn county! Idiots! I’m tired of it.

How about the $231B Kalifornia rail system? There is a cluster phuck of wasted money, but not a single bleeding liberal complains about that one.

 

[Killingtime]

How about the $231B Kalifornia rail system? There is a cluster phuck of wasted money, but not a single bleeding liberal complains about that one.

Para I’m thinking of going to cali to open up a business as a high speed rail way engineer. I’m not qualified to do that, and have no intention of building anything but it doesn’t seem like that will be a problem.
Once I get my first 100million from them as a deposit I’ll take everyone here to hunt a safari on cali’s dime.. might end up being the best used money that state has spent in My lifetime.

 

[spike.t]

Probably not a good outlook...

Gulf economies face long-term hit from Iran conflict

Commentators say it will take years or even decades to repair the damage.

www.bbc.com

 

[WAB]

Back to the war, China has issued an order to their energy sector to ignore US sanctions on Iranian crude. While an escalation in diplomatic terms, it has little to no practical effect. The only way Iran can bypass Hormuz is through Jask. It is only operating at 300,000 bpd and is likely under US Naval scrutiny, although technically not inside the blockade.

 

[Brent in Az]

U.S military fires on Iranian oil tanker trying to break through the blockade

 

[deewayne2003]

The problem with that data is the 3% is defined as large institutional investor firms owning atleast 100 properties. The industry defines firms under that as mom and pop operations most of which own under 10 properties though some obviously can own 99 and not fall in that bracket.

Roughly 20% of all residential single homes in America are owned by investors. 3% by wall street

And almost 35% of homes bought in 2025 were bought by investors

And that's single family homes, private capital has been buying up trailer parks all over the nation for the last 15 years.

Why trailer parks?....
1. It's the cheapest form of housing
2. Lots of people in trailer parks own the trailer and rent the land it sits on.
3. You get to charge utility fees
4. The poorest segment of society will have the lowest access to legal services to impede you from doing as you please.

So you buy the trailer park from "mom & pop" operators and double the rent - you milk these low wage people as hard as you can for profit but also to drive as many of them out of their trailers as possible.

It costs more to move those trailers than their worth, so when the owners can't afford the land rent they abandon it and you take possession of the trailer and you have a 100% owned rental unit.

Then when urban sprawl takes over the trailer park you push out all the renting residents and cancel lease contracts and develop the sight for housing; most often getting grants and funding for ....
"Low income housing" which you then milk government section 8 housing for cash.

It really is a self licking ice cream cone of profit.

 

[Tanks]

guess I don’t see a species surpassing us in technology as being superior to us. They may not have been granted free will as God gave us. They may know have knowledge of good and evil.

They may be a very base species with a unique technological skill.

Well, we are a very base species with a unique technological skill compared to the orangutans. Not much they can do if we decide to eradicate them.

 

[WAB]

I think I’m going to start stocking up on tinfoil hats. It seems there may be quite a marketing opportunity in the near future.

 

[Russ16]

Well, we are a very base species with a unique technological skill compared to the orangutans. Not much they can do if we decide to eradicate them.

I agree with that. I don't equate the ability to eradicate with superiority.

 

[jruby]

Stephen Hawking warned that contacting advanced alien civilizations could be dangerous for humanity, comparing it to Native Americans encountering Columbus. He believed extraterrestrial life likely exists but urged caution, suggesting superior civilizations might be "nomads" seeking to conquer and colonize.

Be careful of who comes to dinner

 

[SaintPanzer]

Fair point. The new regulation replaces the rank insignia on the Army ACU/OCP uniform. Previously, with respect to the Army, the chaplain's insignia (the only branch that did so) was worn above the name strip. On the patrol cap, the chaplain's insignia was worn instead of the rank. So, on the ACU uniform, the rank is removed from the center tab and replaced with the chaplain's insignia. That strikes me as much ado about nothing, except that is does subtly undermine his authority when performing duties other than preaching and praying which represents 80% of his duty expectations in garrison where the ACU is the daily work uniform. I hasten to add that I have no direct personal experience how chaplain's are utilized in the Navy.

I too have not seen the new service specific regulations, but both grok and google indicate that rank will be removed from all uniforms - which, if true, would tend to make a rather ridiculous looking class A uniform.

The tradition, in the Army at least, has been to address a chaplain as "chaplain" rather than by rank, but to render military courtesies appropriate to the rank of the officer. In other words as a LTC commanding a battalion I would refer to both my battalion chaplain, typically a captain, and the division chaplain, typically a colonel, as "chaplain," but I would render a salute to the O6.

Perhaps we are creating a religious commissariat.

Naval Chaplains have similar responsibilities. What I think is really bizarre is the Secretary getting involved in uniform design at all. Seems to me there are other things that require focus.

 

[SaintPanzer]

Stephen Hawking warned that contacting advanced alien civilizations could be dangerous for humanity, comparing it to Native Americans encountering Columbus. He believed extraterrestrial life likely exists but urged caution, suggesting superior civilizations might be "nomads" seeking to conquer and colonize.

Be careful of who comes to dinner

Reminds me of the Twilight Zone episode: "How to Serve Man". Last line in the episode was "Wait! It's a cook book!"

 

[Rocked and Loaded]

I guess I don’t see a species surpassing us in technology as being superior to us. They may not have been granted free will as God gave us. They may know have knowledge of good and evil.

They may be a very base species with a unique technological skill.

To use an analogy form star trek. Vulcans are technologically and intellectually more advanced than humans. But the whole point of the character line is showing that they aren’t superior to humans because they lack emotional components.

Putting on my nerd hat here but Vulcans don’t lack emotions, they suppress them. In fact Vulcans are biologically far more emotional than humans, to the point that they nearly went extinct due to internal wars.

The practice of suppressing emotion and adopting logic to an extreme degree is a cultural one that was a way to save their species from another nuclear holocaust.

Trek pedantry aside, you’re right about the characterization in-show. The inflexibility of Vulcans and over reliance on logic is often shown as a weakness to human intuition.

Back to your regular programming.