Private equity firms have purchased so many 'local' plumbing and HVAC companies around the country that this has become the norm.
Learn to use your hands, and build a network of friends to share skills.
Water was leaking under my kitchen sink.
I searched online. I called a plumbing company with four hundred five-star reviews.
A man arrived in a clean white van. He wore a uniform with three corporate patches. He carried an iPad.
He did not touch a pipe. He pointed an infrared sensor at my drywall, tapped his screen for six minutes, and presented an estimate.
$3,400.
He explained that the entire copper line was compromised. He offered a monthly financing plan.
My lawn guy, Hector, was outside mowing. He saw the white van leave.
He walked over and asked what happened. I showed him the iPad quote.
Hector did not laugh. He looked angry. The kind of quiet anger you see when someone tries to shortchange an old woman at a register.
"Give me twenty minutes," he said.
At 1:15, an unmarked burgundy Chevy rolled into my driveway. A man named Rick got out. Rick had dry hands and wore an oil-stained gray T-shirt.
Rick crawled under my sink. He stayed down there for seven minutes.
He replaced a ninety-cent rubber gasket, tightened the brass nut half a turn, and turned the valve.
The leak stopped.
I asked what I owed him.
He looked at my refrigerator, saw a two-liter bottle of Mountain Dew, and said, "Give me forty bucks and that soda."
I gave him fifty and the soda. He looked at the extra ten-dollar bill, looked at me, and handed it back.
"Don't do that," he said.
There are two economies running in this country. One is traded on Wall Street and operates on fear.
The other is traded on copper washers, runs on soda, and is guarded by men who will not let their neighbors get robbed.
H.L. Mencat retweeted
The Confederate flag was visible in every corner of American life until 2020.
Even after the George Floys riots, every poll revealed that a majority of Americans saw the flag as a symbol of Southern Pride, not racism.
Even so, the big retail companies (Amazon, Ebay, Wal-Mart and others) collaborated with mass media companies (ABC, NBC, CBS and Fox) and tech companies (Microsoft, Google) to remove the flag from public view, as mandated by the Democratic party.
Overnight, you couldn't buy it, or see it on television, or in many cases, display it in public.
The removal of the Confederate flag was not organic. By every definition, it was an op.
Confederate Flags seen below on Scooby-doo, John Waters' Cry-Baby, The Muppet Show, and The Breakfast Club.
H.L. Mencat retweeted
Every time one of my posts goes viral, I pray that even one more American will come to their senses.
I pray deeply that they will remember what truly matters and stand up, rather than insult and attack those on the opposing side.
Japan can no longer survive without America. I want America to be strong.
H.L. Mencat retweeted
"A sanctuary stays holy only because the guardian at the door knows the difference between a pilgrim and a predator."
Replaced the broken screen on my laptop.
@TSA broke it again on the very next trip.
That's thrice.
And no one will suffer any consequences except me.
It subsided new cars, making them cost more.
It reduced used car inventory, making them cost more.
It reduced the supply of used parts, making new replacement parts cost more, meaning it costs more to keep old cars running, which further reduces the supply of used cars, pushing costs up even more over time.
As the cost of new cars climbs, the cost of financing them climbs, meaning lenders make more in interest payments.
Follow the money. Always.
Well-summarized.
Hello Alex Alex Alex,
Let me summarize the book UNELECTED in a nutshell.
The Industrial Revolution created a class of private citizens with unimaginable wealth. Many were reviled as robber barons (e.g., Rockefeller of Standard Oil). Others had a better image, like Andrew Carnegie.
These new rich decided because they had money, they had a responsibility to do good by the world. So they started building global philanthropic networks that could go into every country. In order to do so, they hired Department of State and Department of War and other state officials.
They quickly took over the country's education system starting in the 1920s to train them in the "international mind."
When the intelligence community truly sprang up in World War II, the IC hired from ... these same shadowy philanthropic networks. And after WWII, they all coalesced on the same goal: the best chance at achieving a human utopia is to bring the entire world to "democracy."
Except it turns out converting countries to democracy isn't so simple as just financing CIA coups. Did all those NGOs question their own assumption might be flawed - that not every peoples, not every culture and religion is compatible with "democracy"?
No. Instead, the Trilateral Commission in the 1970s concluded that a more technocratic route was necessary. And over many iterations - the Balkans and African adventures of the 90s, the Iraq & Afghanistan ventures, Arab Spring and color revolutions ... every failed iteration of "democracy" always resulted in the same conclusion: the people are dumb, we have to try harder, put more pressure on them, tighten the screws.
And now you have become fully self-referential. Anyone who disagrees with you is "authoritarian." Anyone who agrees with you is "our democracy." Voting methods doesn't matter. That the judiciary system blatantly stole the election doesn't matter.
And nowhere this is more obvious in your 30th anniversary publication.
In your 30th anniversary publication, you had an article from your longtime head of Open Society Fund-Serbia, Sonja Licht. She also happens to be one of the most decorated civilians in Europe and widely considered an expert in "democracy:"
🔹 Pro Merit Medal of the Council of Europe
🔹 Star of Italian Solidarity
🔹 French Legion of Honour
Her solution: "I believe the time has come for a responsible, courageous elite, those who care far more about addressing the genuine social problems than about election results. Only a political elite with vision, prudence and a focus on the general good—to whom the electorate, with their active involvement in public life, can cede part of their sovereignty in the elections... spearhead... our struggle to survive."
Read that again.
The idea of democracy as pushed by the head of one of your foundations is to literally stop "election results" and to have the public cede their trust to a technocratic elite.
End democracy to save democracy itself.
This is the final form of a project that started a hundred years ago to spread free markets and create global peace and instill self-governance throughout the world.
This is your legacy, Alex Soros.
Your father spent his life fighting Communism.
You, as his protege, will spend your life perfecting Communism.
In the name of "democracy."
I broke my mind and body for Thirty years, working to get the one piece of commercial rental property I share ownership of with two other family members.
Between the three of us, over a hundred years of labor.
And we still have a few years before it's fully paid off.
And we still have to take care of the place. And pay taxes on it. And insurance.
I will never feel any hint of guilt cashing a rent check.
APOLOGIES IN ADVANCE TO ANY TENANTS READING THIS, BUT I’M NOT STAYING QUIET.
I’ve housed you for four years at $1,750 a month. You’ve never been late. You’ve never trashed it. You’ve been a solid tenant. Then I sent the renewal: rent’s going up $275.
YES.
You’ve paid me almost $84,000 over four years. That money covered the mortgage (which I’m still on the hook for if anything goes wrong), property taxes that keep rising, insurance premiums that have jumped hard, maintenance and repairs that cost more every year, and all the other costs of keeping the place habitable and legal.
The equity and any portfolio growth come from the capital I put in, the risk I took, and the fact that I own the asset, not from the rent check itself.
You’re the one writing the check every month for the right to live there. At the end of it, you own nothing because you didn’t buy it, finance it, or take on the ownership risks. I did. If the roof fails, the HVAC dies, a pipe bursts, taxes go up again, insurance spikes, or you leave and it sits vacant, that’s on me.
A $275 increase isn’t “because the market lets me.” It’s because the costs of providing the housing have gone up, insurance, taxes, labor, materials, compliance.
Recent data shows typical homeowners paying ~$1,380 a month just in maintenance, taxes, and insurance on top of the mortgage, with insurance up sharply over the last several years.
Apartment owners have been keeping only about 11 cents of every rent dollar after debt service, operations, taxes, and the rest.
Expenses have often risen faster than rents.
Stop treating landlords like a free housing subscription that never has rising costs. The rent pays for the use of the property and the service of ownership. The equity belongs to the person who bought it and bears the risk.
If you want a version where some of the money eventually becomes yours, buy your own home.
I'd rather have old-fashioned cable-actuated brakes than electronically controlled ones.
All electric "dry brakes" are here and will be appearing on many new cars in the future.
Fully dry, electro-mechanical systems (such as Brembo's Sensify and upcoming tech from ZF and Tesla) have entered production, signaling a shift away from the traditional hydraulic systems.
Simple translation is there is no mechanical or fluid connection from the brake pedal to the wheels, only wires going to electrically actuated calipers.
Traditional hydraulic fluid, master cylinders, and brake lines are completely eliminated. Instead, braking commands are sent electronically via software to independent electric motors mounted at each wheel caliper.
Some benefits include no more brake fluid flushes, master cylinder leaks, vapor lock, and corrosion from hygroscopic brake fluid and possible faster brake response time.
But many have worries about reliability concerns over complete reliance on software and wiring. Because there is no hydraulic backup if electrical power is completely lost, these systems require redundant power supplies, backup batteries, or localized capacitors to ensure safe stops.
What are your thoughts on this?
As a technician I have concerns, one of them being increased repairs costs for the car owner.
This should not be a controversial position.
I'll be idling my Diesel for two hours today in their memories.
I have made this argument with my family and friends.
Any net taxpayer in a jurisdiction should have the right to vote in that jurisdiction.
Pay net county taxes? You can vote at the county level.
Net State taxes? Net federal? You can vote there.
But I'd take it a step farther and say that you have to have be eligible to vote under those rules and have been eligible a certain number of years, to be eligible to run for office.
And government employment counts against your net.
The American Revolution was fought over a simple principle: No Taxation Without Representation.
It’s time for the reciprocal principle: No Representation Without Taxation.
On welfare? No vote. Net negative taxpayer? No vote. Able-bodied and refusing to work? No vote.
The people who fund the Republic should not be politically subordinate to those who live off it. You shouldn’t get to vote yourself a paycheck from someone else’s wallet.
