Email

You'd think that once J retired, we'd never send one another email again.  After all, our computers are about 30 feet apart.  But we still email one another at least a few times a week--mostly sending links.  Mostly, though, I just yell.

Sheila Bair and Big Bird

I hope the Obama campaign doesn't get rid of the Big Bird ad--it's cute.  And why does the right want to take down PBS anyway?  Big Bird is a miniscule portion of the federal budget, but then many of our fellows have problems with addition and subtraction.  Hmm.  We really need Big Bird.

And while Sheila Bair has her disagreements with many of her fellow regulators,
she.really.really.doesn't.like.Timothy.Geithner.  It's too bad, though, that she didn't have a better editor, as it is possible to explain complex economic topics without being nearly so wordy.  And she's wrong on Social Security, but that's pretty common among almost all Republicans and most Democrats.

Peon Is Grinding Her Teeth

Once upon a time, when Peon was a little younger, she wrote a long blog for tenants in foreclosed properties.  She would occasionally receive emails and comments that were abusive and unpleasant from landlords and realtors.  She deleted them, believing that someone who called her a "communist bitch" did not deserve a reasoned response.  The Emails From The Stupid trickled off after awhile, but Peon must admit that a little corner of her life had been enriched by having people who couldn't construct simple English sentences denounce her.

But this morning she discovered that these people have just gone elsewhere.  They've moved to a place where they will find more congenial co-dependents.  After all, would you really want to commune with those who suggest that your behavior is reprehensible, that your sense of entitlement makes a mockery of the "personal responsibility" you expect of others and that, in a rationally ordered world, you would be sued for a large sum of money to make whole the people you have harmed?  Of course not.  You would want to hang with those who feel your pain, and understand that you, as the landlord,  should make all the money you can until the day the bank takes YOUR property.  And if you stomp some of the ant-people in the process, well, that's why we have ant-people.

Now wrecking up tenants' lives is not new.  Our local newspaper, The Sacramento Bee, once suggested that homeowners in trouble rent the place out prior to the foreclosure to eke out every penny they could from their property before the bank took it.  That they'd be making a hash of the lives of people who just needed a place to live didn't enter into their deliberations.

But I did find one good idea in the Place of Congenial Co-Dependents.  Tenants should consider writing into their leases a provision that the landlord states that he is not in default on any mortgage taken on the property or using the property as collateral, and that if this turns out not to be true, the tenant may sue for twice the move-in costs, including first month's rent, the amount of all deposits, reasonable moving costs, and so on.  When a landlord realizes that sum often exceeds $5K, he may think twice about renting his soon-to-be-foreclosed property.

Yippee

We saw Endeavour twice--once when it was flying toward Mather and then again when it came along I-5 for its run over the Capitol.

Gee

the map of poverty in the US by state is remarkably similar to the map of population not paying federal taxes.  And as quite a number of people have noted, the states with the most non-payers are those most likely to vote for Romney.

A Fun Site

Everyone, go there and read.

Yet Another Scam

Will they never end?  No.  So here is a new scam, intended to part you from your meager income.  I haven't been the victim of this one, but found it on Credit Slips, and thought I should pass it along.  This one works because, somehow, the scammer already has your credit card number--scary, in itself.  What they're looking for is the three-digit security code on the back, you know, the one that changes every time you get a new card and sends you scrambling for your wallet when you want to make an Internet purchase that asks for it.  When you give them the number, you've given them the information they need to charge your card.  And they do.

I'm sure that I don't need to tell my readers that you don't pass out personal information of any kind over the phone unless you initiate the call.  Not ever.  And if this scam comes to the West, cancel your card immediately and get a new number.  Then file a police report with the local Gendarmerie.  If the police get enough reports in your community, they'll issue an alert that will get much more attention that I do.