On my way to office this morning, I did another stair-stepping thru districts I hadn’t traversed in some time, just to get another ‘feel’ of neighborhoods which at one time were up and coming, but now they’re dotted with low-end rentals with their porches full of toys, bicycles, sofas and garbage bags, and as chance would have it, one of those particular streets was one in which I took a keen interest in selling to industrious young people who transformed their residences into smart-looking turn-of-the-century homes. Unfortunately, the 2008 Financial Crisis wiped away all that work in a matter of five years, and only because there were a number of them which were sold at bargain basement prices to our rental barons. How sad.
I had early-morning banking to get done, and afterwards I grabbed my checkbook and headed out to Jiffy Lube to get the oil changed on my vehicle. Since they only had one bay open, I had to wait a good fifteen minutes, so I ended up visiting with the person who’s truck they were working on, and as chance would have it, he lives in Wright County. Of course I couldn’t help bringing up the subject of the slaughterhouse they built in Eagle Grove which they wanted to build here, and thank goodness we dodged the bullet on that one, because he personally knew someone who got a relatively good job there, but ended up quitting because of personal safety issues. Yes, I’m sure there are some on-going problems in that plant, and likely so because working on killing floors, does change a person’s personality. I still remember some of the old ones talking about working in ‘the kill’ at Decker’s which is now long gone from the memories of the bulk of our current residents. Yes, the pay was good, but the work was hard. As chance would have it, I still have in my possession, two very deadly looking German-made butcher knives which came from Deckers. Every time I look at them, I continue to wonder how anyone could be handling one of those for eight or more hours a day.
After they were finished with my car, I walked up to the counter with checkbook in hand, and when the guy saw it, he most apologetically said they no longer accept checks, so I either had to pay cash or use my credit card. Not being in the mood to use my card, I asked if he’d let me take my car to and go get the cash I needed at my bank, which he was OK with. It didn’t take me long to get it handled, but I do wish they would’ve had prominent signage stating they didn’t accept checks. It kinda makes a person wonder where this business of writing checks is going.
When I returned to office, I began working on a stack of monthly bills which had recently arrived, and after those were paid and placed in the mail, I buried myself in the monthly reconciling of my office accounts, and thank goodness they all balanced to the penny, so I have to wait for one more to arrive, and then I’ll have it completely finished for another month. For whatever reason, the mail seems to be moving faster than usual, and only because I normally don’t get those statements until the 5th or after.
During my lunch break, I did some online news-reading, and one article I happened upon, was talking about how the Chinese government has been hacking into our government’s departments, along with the many gas and electric utilities which supply our Nation’s needs. I was really creeped-out because I’d been speaking about it for almost ten years, and became especially concerned when I found out they have an entire ‘closed’ city where all their workers are online each and every day, continually hacking into off-shore governments, public utilities and corporations. All I can say, is all those higher-ups in our world’s governments had better start going on the offensive with those hacking devils.
Since we’re speaking about the Chinese, I recently discovered that nearly all the packaged and frozen salmon we find in our groceterias, is stamped in small print as being products of China, but in the bigger print, it’s showing that very salmon being distributed by an American company. As much as I like salmon, I will continue to pass on any and all that’s be caught by those monster fleets of Chinese trawlers which are raping our oceans. I tell you all now, if our oceans die, we’ll not be far behind. It’s no wonder there’s that movement of ‘lying flat’ now taking place in China, and likely due to their general public finally realizing they’re nothing more than gerbils on their mills and being worked into meaningless early graves. Hopefully more sooner than later, they’ll be breaking free of their communist yokes.
When looking at the sale prices of homes that just closed this week, I was once again shocked by it all, and especially when knowing how our mortgage rates have almost double over this past year and a half. I used to consider it impetuous buying, but now I’m thinking it’s more ‘maniacal’. In the past, we all knew that the neighborhood in which a home was located, was a key ingredient in valuation, but not in today’s market, so when we do have a correction, there’ll be some pretty sorry souls wishing they’d never purchased. It’s reminiscent of what took place several years before our 2008 Financial Crisis which took nearly everyone to their knees.
While on the phone with one of my colleagues today, I couldn’t help being a little wicked when saying, “Some of these real estate salespeople who’ve had a very good run of it over the years, have become so aggressive that I’m left to believe they’re living in parallel universes where they have a dirt-floored shack out in a grove somewhere with about six of their unfed kids sitting around a bubbling cast iron pot with an onion floating around in it, and if they don’t make a ‘kill’ that day, they’ll starve to death.” Oh did I get roaring laugh out of that remark. But, there’s more than a grain of truth because I also foresaw such changes in their mentalities when our inventories started dropping. Gosh darn it! I do sometimes hate being right.
Tonight’s One-liner is: The more we have, the less we own.
