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40 Acres
27 minutes. I was 27 minutes late, and I left 45 minutes early.
This city has a traffic problem. That'd be forgivable if there were places to go and people to see, but there aren't. There's just college football. Fleming’s counts as a "night out" if that tells you anything. That's where I was going. Or trying to go. Fleming's. The locals think it's The French Laundry.
After inching through a bumper-to-bumper miasma on the main thoroughfare, my E350 meandered cautiously into a suburban dystop
H-Man, a very good piece and when I say a good piece, it is one that makes you think rather than simply rolling with the discourse,
P.S. This adventure to the city should be over and it is time to return to the island for your own well being.
The article is thought provoking and supports it’s points with numbers. I got the impression that all your writing here could lead to a book or more. At first I was thinking a sermon, but later a book. Who knows, a great courses presentation maybe?
Some of the discussion of personal accessories made me think I have a picture in my mind of a different person than you are.
I think the more accurate way to think about my accessories and wardrobe is that you probably have the right picture in your mind about me, you just didn’t think someone like me would wear those clothes and accessories. Haha.
As mind reading goes not too bad. However I had more in my mind’s eye that will remain there.
Thank you for that, Engineer. This is a family-friendly forum ….
😉
My own mental image is firmly lodged in New Jersey mafia chic. Track suits for days.
There you go. I do the Palm Angels track suits these days, though. They weren’t around way back when. I try to keep up with the trends. I’ve got five colors in these: https://heisenbergreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/IMG-4441-scaled.jpg
That 4% is about to get a lot smaller as the existing housing market remains clogged up for years (maybe longer), due to what I believe, in hindsight, will be the biggest mistake that this Fed made: lowering interest rates too far.
For the foreseeable future, the only people who will be able to afford to buy a “first time” house will primarily be those (mostly not Black Americans), who get financial help from family. This situation will further separate the “haves” from the “have nots”.
Having said that, gifting cash always comes with uncontrollable and unintended consequences that may not be objectively “good” for the recipient. On one hand, I would love to make some major cash gifts to my 3 kids- but I am also afraid to do so because I don’t want to interfere in their lives; even though one lives in a big city near gangs, where one neighbor was recently arrested on murder charges and a drive by shooting occurred on a recent Saturday afternoon. Maybe I could match their savings, dollar for dollar? I am not sure and am taking my time to think this through.
I have not been to Nashville in decades- but am curious H, if you have ever tried this restaurant?
I recently sent a gift certificate for this restaurant to someone who lives outside of Nashville, who did me a very nice favor.
Great piece, as usual. 🙂
https://www.harpersnashville.com/our-story/
I haven’t tried that place. I ended up in a pinch for time when I was there, and I got overwhelmed with the restaurant choices. Like you, I hadn’t been there in a very (very) long time. It was all “new” to me and I ended up not eating out.
When reading this I was thinking about one of my favorite topics, the role that real estate tax shelters play in promoting the described economic distress.
Currently I believe tax policies favor investors over individual owners by way of 1031 exchanes, tax write-offs and accelerated depreciation. Our former policy of everyone can afford a home has been decimated by these policies requiring your young woman to compete with sophisticated investors who also can obtain cut rate mortgages. I believe we need to reform real estate tax shelters to give younger and minorities a chance to avoid serfdom. Othwerwise all but the top will be most accurately classified as economic serfs.
I’m caring for my elderly and dependent mother. I have a home care worker come 5 times a week for a few hours for some respite. I want to give this hard working young woman a gratuity and offered to start and fund a ROTH IRA for her to get started. She vehemently refused even after I told her a weeks salary is the customary tip. Planning for this I bought her a copy of “Random Walk Down Wall Street” which she accepted.
I told her that when I was 16 my father sat me down with the stocks and funds section of the Times and explained investing to me. Something no one has done for our young freelancer.
This article also reminded me that I started my wife’s credit history with a $500 cash secured credit card. When the flood of card applications started coming, we signed her up for a nice 2% cash back card and closed the secured card account. Perhaps that would be a better idea for our care aid.
I understand she may perceive our tip is charity and not appreciation.
Some will look at the story of the almost purchase of the BMW as evidence that the poor are responsible for their situation as a result of poor financial decisions. Now, I am fortunate enough to never, in my entire life, been close to being considered poor. But, I have noticed that whenever I have felt a little more financial stress than usual (which stress would be minuscule compared to that experienced by the bottom half of the population daily) I tend to buy lottery tickets. Just saying …
Finally found time to read this. Excellent article as always. Someone else mentioned writing a book, but I would suggest submitting to The New Yorker.
Your mention of tipping stereotypes reminded me of working with Randy. For several years, I bartended at a struggling tiki bar & grill. Because of its struggles, Randy & I were the only bartenders, and we did it all: bar, table service, opening, closing. Even dish. Randy helped out in the kitchen some times, which I managed to mostly avoid.
Randy, who is black, is one of the most generous tippers I’ve ever met. We had another black regular who was similarly generous. At the same time, plenty were ungenerous. When talking to Randy once about tipping stereotypes, I observed that black people were the least likely to tip between 15 – 20%. It was either >25 or <10. Randy explained that black people are aware of the stereotype, so they either play into it, or overtip to compensate for all the bad tippers.
We pooled our tips, so when people came in, we would ruthlessly divide up the work based on who was likely to get the best tip. Young women and minorities of any kind would get Randy, while I took older and whiter tables. No one wanted high schoolers or anyone from the after-church crowd. People who just went to church are notoriously bad tippers while also being exceptionally high maintenance. Ironic, eh?
In general, boomers were bad tippers. The men would round up from 15% while the women would round down. Middle aged women (of any race) also tend to be bad tippers. The best tips come from younger men–especially if they’re on a date, but even when not. The after work happy hour crowd was great–a bunch of young professionals with money to burn and a powerful need to drink away the week.
Anyone who asks for a favor and promises a good tip, and anyone who proclaims ahead of time that they’re great tippers, will tip badly, along with anyone who announces that they used to bar tend & then tries to tell you how to do your job. Finally, anyone who orders Patron will leave a bad tip. The Don Julio is sitting right there next to it, what is wrong with you?!
Never order Patron people. There are so many good top-shelf tequilas out there. Patron tastes like it smells: dirty feet.
Critical history is for luddites. Becoming is innocent
Well written article. The facts presented graphically demonstrate further those disparities.
Curious. Why the Glock 43x ?
Size. And design. That particular “shoulder” bag is technically a belt bag, I just carry it over my shoulder. The compartment’s small, so if you want to have room for anything else in there, you can’t really carry something much larger than that 43x or something similar. And Glocks are pretty sleek. There’s not a lot on them that might catch and tear the inside of a nice bag.
Thanks. Probably not going to work in the O’Neill board shorts that I wear then, as I’m short a D&G Shoulder bag.
H&K VP 9 Sk
I have a P30 which I love for the look (and for the H&K pedigree), but it’s got that LEM trigger, which I should’ve read up on before I bought it. To be totally honest, I’m still not entirely comfortable with that mechanism. I need to take it to the range and get some more practice with it.
Understood
Old school S&W 442 for me. Although I wouldn’t say no to a G26 or similar.
Years back, I traded a guitar for a 380 Walther, in homage to Travis Bickle. (Remember Easy Andy?)
But automatics are a PITA to clean and reload under stress, so I’m back to one of Mr. Andy’s other offerings. “They use these in Africa to kill elephants!” Plus they can put a FMD shell through the engine block of a MAGAlyes sacred Dodge Ram pickup.