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Southern CA Fires- Extreme Santa Ana Winds
Muny_Tex replied to Wilcox Cummingtonite's topic in Daily Texan
So what is the actual containment/mitigation + go-forward suppression plan at this point? This is an honest question. There is clearly no forecasted weather relief whatsoever, and the firefighter conditions on the ground have (and continue to) massively deteriorate given the apparent hydrant issues. And everytime I open this thread there's seemingly another blaze brewing in heavy populated (and enormously/pricelessly culturally significant) areas. Is it now just a sole reliance on air support (when wind conditions allow)? Along with waiting for "70 Oregon Forest Service personnel" to arrive? I am not trying to be flippant, I truly am at a loss for why every surplus fire asset and emergency response team on the entire West Coast is not en route to the LA Basin right now. Even if by some miracle the fire conditions improve, what about the thousands of overnight homeless people? Wholesale destruction of public service infrastructure? Decimation of schools? Not to mention the rapidly increasing probability of civil unrest (or opportunistic havoc) once it becomes clearer that situation is officially apocalyptic? I am admittedly very far from ground truth/real-world facts, and perhaps and being overly alarmist (pray to God I am)...but this is starting to give some pretty strong Katrina-like vibes right before the complete unraveling that did not stabilize until GEN Honore and the 82nd ABN arrived. I just saw a PIVOTAL L.A.public figure literally petrified with befuddlement on broadcast television....are we sure this is team we want to go to war with? And then lead the humanitarian response? -
Guy persevered (rather impressively, IMO) through two psychotic left-wing invasions in less than 5 years. UT could (and absolutely would) be in drastically worse shape today had many others been in charge. Very easy role/position to criticize but extremely difficult to effectively manage given the cultural/political dynamics. It is both unfortunate and embarrassing for the State of Texas if straw that broke camel's back was in fact the meddling from Abbott, Paxton, et al
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Roth conversion makes most sense IMO given her income situation. Presuming she is single and stays below $49K of topline earnings (including the converted funds) that will keep her in that low 12% fed tax bracket and offset a lot of the negatives. I am also 99% certain that she will NOT be subject to the 10% early withdrawal penalty as long as the converted funds remain in the Roth untouched for 5+ years...which further boosts the benefit in favor of moving out of the 401k. I'm also 99% certain that the 401k admin will NOT do a federal/state withholding on conversions, so she will need to be disciplined enough to keep $1k or so extra 'cash-on-hand' when that tax finally comes due...or I guess hope that her tax refund is sufficient to cover that delta. My advice to her would be to get that $10k into a Roth starting our as cash only.....then DCA $1k per month into a couple of standard index funds and then concurrently try to save-up $2k more over course of the year to finish Nov/Dec with similar "deposits". This will give her a specific investment "goal" right off the bat and also get her some visibility into market trends without overwhelming her. Most importantly, the DCA strategy protects against the psychological outlier risk of her dropping $10k (which I assume is a lot of money in her mind) and then market immediately taking a shit and her potentially swearing off investing forever. Building off that early momentum, I would then encourage her to build her career/budget framework with 5% auto-contribution to new employers 401K (assuming her company match will be somewhere in that range)...along with another 5% into her Roth going forward. Given the $12k head-start she will have given herself with the Roth, the accompanying 401k should evolve into pretty nice pre/post tax combination for her long-term future.
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Don't know enough to properly evaluate Walker; but I was not even remotely enthused about overpaying for Bregman.
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All Encompassing Mortgage and Real Estate Thread
Muny_Tex replied to UTPhil2006's topic in Business and Markets
@trophIf you're in that situation based on "total value" I can only imagine the horrors of your property tax. At least you're rich? -
Cryptocurrencies (Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin, etc.)
Muny_Tex replied to surlybevo's topic in Business and Markets
This was very thoughtful and well-written...only exception was the improper usage of "its" (you kept using the contraction of it's (e.g. it is), rather than the possessive form) which short-circuited my OCD. Main takeway I had was the computation limits/scalability issues which I had never seen analyzed before. If the fundamental use case is "bro, it's gonna completely remove the middle man and make all exchanges safer, cheaper, more efficient" then it certainly appears quite moronic through the lens of such poor transactional bandwidth. This is obviously hyper-simplistic, but as far as I'm concerned Venmo already figured this shit out 15 years ago. All the BTC action since then is essentially just greater-fool theory expressed to the most extreme degree imaginable. -
Also, thought for a minute longer about my favorite teams. I think Top 5 would be: 1.) 2019 (by far) 2.) 2004 (peak Roy O, Cy Clemens, Kent/Beltran/Berkman all badasses, and last flash of Bagwell being good) 3.) 1998 (OG Killer B's, Lima Time, Summer of Big Unit) 4.) 2015 (Return to legitimacy/excitement, #ClubAstros, Correa ROY) 5.) 2020 (Salvaged worst year of humanity with a lot of grit/heart and damn near pulled off the miracle)
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My post was made in jest, but they'd definitely sell some tickets (and would probably be an HEB marketing depts wet dream). And if by some miracle they stayed healthy, would very likely be lot more productive than vast majority of lineup configurations that were rolled out last year.
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George is owed $50M for his final two years in TOR, I'm sure they'd dump that back for almost nothing in return. So do that, tell Bregman to take the hometown discount, and get the whole band back together with a Correa trade. I bet Yuli would be glad to come hang out for the league minimum too. 2019 was my favorite squad of all-time, not really a close second. Tucker and Framber both sucked on that team anyway, so all the more season to trade them now and protect the reunion vibes.
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Am I correct that Correa is essentially 4 yrs / $134M at this point? If so, I would way rather have that than 6+ years of Bregman overpaid and only one remaining year of Framber. EDIT: He'd be a great 3B (has done it already for WBC), and it would probably prolong his prime / reduce injury risk
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All Encompassing Mortgage and Real Estate Thread
Muny_Tex replied to UTPhil2006's topic in Business and Markets
The bear case against Austin (especially as a family destination) is much different than Texas statewide. We will need to swing over to Cloak Room to spell out the details (and I'd certainly prefer not), but surrendering downtown (and many valued spaces) to violent bums/junkies and turning public safety into an ideological debate instead of a core imperative is a good place to start. -
All Encompassing Mortgage and Real Estate Thread
Muny_Tex replied to UTPhil2006's topic in Business and Markets
There are currently 500+ homes for sale with Austin addresses listed between $600k - $1.1M --368 of those homes have been on the market more than 30 days --276 of those homes have been on the market more than 60 days --200 of those homes have been on the market more than 90 days Seems to me there are a lot of people clinging to hope of swift and significant rate improvement; otherwise it's gonna be very steep drop once these sellers finally capitulate. I personally think the AUS bear case runs much deeper (regardless of rate conditions), because the main drivers of the 15+ year boom (affordability, quality of life, weather, adults in charge) are basically all massive losing propositions now. If you can afford to insulate yourself in Westlake (or I guess parts of Lake Travis), then yeah good for you...otherwise I think the cachet train has run almost entirely out of steam in Austin-proper. -
All Encompassing Mortgage and Real Estate Thread
Muny_Tex replied to UTPhil2006's topic in Business and Markets
^^Versus the 2021/early 2022 peak boom (or I guess bubble?), yes.....But Spring of '20 was still pretty calm while folks were reacting to the initial shock + gauging their personal level of impact, IIRC. I bought a place in Brentwood during Fall '20 and bid for several others in Central/West in '21....it was massively different climate w.r.t. price action + competition. My takeaway is that we're pretty much "back to normal" on most pricing now relative to pre-Covid in a lot of areas (78746 will probably remain a permanent outlier)....Except rates are still 2.0-3.0% higher than 2019 which I think still spells some trouble unless conditions improve quickly. Same point I made about condos few posts/pages ago, just interesting to see same trend reflected in SFH now as well. -
All Encompassing Mortgage and Real Estate Thread
Muny_Tex replied to UTPhil2006's topic in Business and Markets
Doing some Redfin browsing, and came across an interesting market/pricing anecdote today. Mid-tier, minimally updated South Austin home on a large/functional/nice-looking 0.5 acre lot. Price history shows it listed for $615k back in May 2020, went under contract only 4 days later (presumably for over-ask based on that era). Came on the market this week for $595k, by all accounts in good/equivalent condition as before (including a brand-new HVAC). How many of us would have predicted cumulative price depreciation of -5% (or more) 4 years ago? -
I presume this was already covered up-thread, but lack of situational awareness on the fake punt was also really bad. Banks is a jackass and a personal embarrassment to the program. Also CDC's "gay cowboy dad" costume needs a rest until this team wins a meaningful game.
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