I don't own a home. I view big homes as money pits. Once you factor in the property tax, possible HOA fees, and maintenance costs, stocks and bonds don't seem too shabby. Here's an interesting article about one couple's journey to homeownership:
http://escapebrooklyn.blogspot.com/2009/01/dhs-long-awaited-guest-post.html
"And if an epitaph be my story, I'd have a short one ready for my own: I had a lover's quarrel with the world." -- Robert Frost
Tuesday, January 6, 2009
Religious Profiling
A t-shirt with Arabic script? 10 dollars. TSA costing taxpayers 240,000 dollars because of its ignorance? Well, 240,000 dollars. Government ineptitude in action? Timeless.
I wish the article mentioned the name of the attorneys handling the case [Update: according to the ACLU's website, the attorneys were Aden Fine, Reginald Shuford, Dennis Parker, Director of the ACLU Racial Justice Program, and Palyn Hung of the NYCLU]. Raed Jarrar was the plaintiff.
I was laughing at the TSA's stupidity until this line: "Last week, nine Muslims, including three children, were ordered off a domestic US flight after passengers heard what they believed were suspicious remarks about security...[E]ight of them [were] US citizens, were cleared by the FBI, [but] they were reportedly still barred from the AirTran flight."
"If the pilot is uncomfortable with someone flying on their plane, that's their decision," said Christopher White, a federal Transportation Security Administration spokesman. Is the TSA serious? Under their logic, if you pay for a ticket, and you say something the driver/pilot doesn't like, or you just happen to look at him the wrong way, s/he has the complete discretion to kick you off. Sounds like another lawsuit is in order.
Update: here's a link to more information, including a neat vid:
http://www.aclu.org/freespeech/gen/jarrar.html
Hat tip to Political Colors for the link.
I wish the article mentioned the name of the attorneys handling the case [Update: according to the ACLU's website, the attorneys were Aden Fine, Reginald Shuford, Dennis Parker, Director of the ACLU Racial Justice Program, and Palyn Hung of the NYCLU]. Raed Jarrar was the plaintiff.
I was laughing at the TSA's stupidity until this line: "Last week, nine Muslims, including three children, were ordered off a domestic US flight after passengers heard what they believed were suspicious remarks about security...[E]ight of them [were] US citizens, were cleared by the FBI, [but] they were reportedly still barred from the AirTran flight."
"If the pilot is uncomfortable with someone flying on their plane, that's their decision," said Christopher White, a federal Transportation Security Administration spokesman. Is the TSA serious? Under their logic, if you pay for a ticket, and you say something the driver/pilot doesn't like, or you just happen to look at him the wrong way, s/he has the complete discretion to kick you off. Sounds like another lawsuit is in order.
Update: here's a link to more information, including a neat vid:
http://www.aclu.org/freespeech/gen/jarrar.html
Hat tip to Political Colors for the link.
Law Students: Caveat Emptor
This WSJ article, from 9/24/08, has information for aspiring attorneys:
http://online.wsj.com/public/article_print/SB119040786780835602.html
He's making less money than at his last job and has thought about moving back to his parents' house. "I didn't think three years out I'd be uninsured, thinking it's a great day when a crackhead brings me $500."
http://online.wsj.com/public/article_print/SB119040786780835602.html
He's making less money than at his last job and has thought about moving back to his parents' house. "I didn't think three years out I'd be uninsured, thinking it's a great day when a crackhead brings me $500."
Monday, January 5, 2009
Bankruptcy Filings Show Consumer Overspending
UC Davis Magazine (Winter 2009) published an interesting study on bankruptcy filings:
Simple overspending has driven most personal bankruptcies in recent years, a change from previous decades when illness and unemployment were major factors, concludes a new study from the University of California, Davis, Graduate School of Management.
"The reasons people file for personal bankruptcy indeed have shifted during the past couple of decades," says Ning Zhu, the study's author and an associate professor of management at UC Davis. "Although our research supports the notion that adverse life events, like losing one's health or job, contribute to personal bankruptcy filings, excessive consumption contributes more to the recent increase in personal bankruptcy filing."
According to the American Bankruptcy Institute, 2,039,214 personal bankruptcies were filed in 2005, up nearly five-fold from the 412,510 bankruptcies filed in 1985. Indeed, personal bankruptcies jumped from 0.3 percent to 1.8 percent of all U.S. households during the same period.
The UC Davis study looked at all personal bankruptcy filings in Delaware in 2003, because the state was among the first to make its bankruptcy filings available through the Public Access to Court Electronic Record system and its demographics closely resemble those nationwide. The year 2003 was chosen because it allowed the study to follow cases to their conclusion, and permitted observation of filing patterns before 2005. (Filings may have been accelerated in the months leading up to October 2005, when the federal Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act took effect, by households wanting to avoid the new act's stricter requirements.)
So that he could compare bankrupt households with solvent ones, Zhu also collected information from the Federal Reserve Board's national Survey of Consumer Finance about households that had never declared bankruptcy.
Overall, Zhu concluded that debt accounted for more than 50 percent of recent bankruptcies, while medical problems caused just 5 percent and unemployment led to only 13 percent.
Zhu found that bankrupt households have bigger mortgages, car loans and credit card balances than solvent ones, but make less than half as much money.
Among bankrupt homeowners, mortgages were 3.21 times higher than annual household income, versus 1.73 times for solvent households. Auto loans were double the annual income for bankrupt households, versus 0.4 times for solvent households. And bankrupt households carried credit card balances that almost equaled their annual household income, while the average credit card balance for solvent households was 6 percent of annual income.
In addition, bankrupt households had a median annual income of $25,738, versus $43,341 for solvent ones. (The median is the midpoint in a set of values; a median income of $25,738 for bankrupt households means that half of the bankrupt households in the study made higher salaries and half made less).
Interestingly, more than 5 percent of bankrupt households owned at least one luxury automobile (average age of the car was 7 years), compared with 8 percent of solvent households (average age was 8 years).
The study also suggests that some Americans deliberately spend beyond their means with the intention of using the bankruptcy system to erase some or all of their debt, and recommends reforms to discourage such abuse.
"Our results emphasize that bankruptcy law reform should aim to address the issue," Zhu writes. "Current means test focusing on income, rather than consumption patterns or adverse events, may not set the best criteria for sorting out the households who truly need bankruptcy protection from those that consume beyond their means to take advantage of the system."
The research has been presented at Boston College, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, UCLA and Yale, and will be published in an upcoming issue of the Journal of Legal Studies, a publication of the University of Chicago Law School. The working paper is online at [PDF file]:
http://www.gsm.ucdavis.edu/Faculty/Zhu/PersonalBankruptcy [PDF file]
Zhu earned his doctorate in finance from Yale in 2003. He specializes in individual behavior in financial markets, bankruptcy and distress, and investments.
Simple overspending has driven most personal bankruptcies in recent years, a change from previous decades when illness and unemployment were major factors, concludes a new study from the University of California, Davis, Graduate School of Management.
"The reasons people file for personal bankruptcy indeed have shifted during the past couple of decades," says Ning Zhu, the study's author and an associate professor of management at UC Davis. "Although our research supports the notion that adverse life events, like losing one's health or job, contribute to personal bankruptcy filings, excessive consumption contributes more to the recent increase in personal bankruptcy filing."
According to the American Bankruptcy Institute, 2,039,214 personal bankruptcies were filed in 2005, up nearly five-fold from the 412,510 bankruptcies filed in 1985. Indeed, personal bankruptcies jumped from 0.3 percent to 1.8 percent of all U.S. households during the same period.
The UC Davis study looked at all personal bankruptcy filings in Delaware in 2003, because the state was among the first to make its bankruptcy filings available through the Public Access to Court Electronic Record system and its demographics closely resemble those nationwide. The year 2003 was chosen because it allowed the study to follow cases to their conclusion, and permitted observation of filing patterns before 2005. (Filings may have been accelerated in the months leading up to October 2005, when the federal Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act took effect, by households wanting to avoid the new act's stricter requirements.)
So that he could compare bankrupt households with solvent ones, Zhu also collected information from the Federal Reserve Board's national Survey of Consumer Finance about households that had never declared bankruptcy.
Overall, Zhu concluded that debt accounted for more than 50 percent of recent bankruptcies, while medical problems caused just 5 percent and unemployment led to only 13 percent.
Zhu found that bankrupt households have bigger mortgages, car loans and credit card balances than solvent ones, but make less than half as much money.
Among bankrupt homeowners, mortgages were 3.21 times higher than annual household income, versus 1.73 times for solvent households. Auto loans were double the annual income for bankrupt households, versus 0.4 times for solvent households. And bankrupt households carried credit card balances that almost equaled their annual household income, while the average credit card balance for solvent households was 6 percent of annual income.
In addition, bankrupt households had a median annual income of $25,738, versus $43,341 for solvent ones. (The median is the midpoint in a set of values; a median income of $25,738 for bankrupt households means that half of the bankrupt households in the study made higher salaries and half made less).
Interestingly, more than 5 percent of bankrupt households owned at least one luxury automobile (average age of the car was 7 years), compared with 8 percent of solvent households (average age was 8 years).
The study also suggests that some Americans deliberately spend beyond their means with the intention of using the bankruptcy system to erase some or all of their debt, and recommends reforms to discourage such abuse.
"Our results emphasize that bankruptcy law reform should aim to address the issue," Zhu writes. "Current means test focusing on income, rather than consumption patterns or adverse events, may not set the best criteria for sorting out the households who truly need bankruptcy protection from those that consume beyond their means to take advantage of the system."
The research has been presented at Boston College, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, UCLA and Yale, and will be published in an upcoming issue of the Journal of Legal Studies, a publication of the University of Chicago Law School. The working paper is online at [PDF file]:
http://www.gsm.ucdavis.edu/Faculty/Zhu/PersonalBankruptcy [PDF file]
Zhu earned his doctorate in finance from Yale in 2003. He specializes in individual behavior in financial markets, bankruptcy and distress, and investments.
Media contacts:
* Ning Zhu, Graduate School of Management, (852) 9848-2096, nzhu@ucdavis.edu (Ning is on sabbatical in Hong Kong; note time difference when calling his cell phone.)
* Tim Akin, Graduate School of Management , (530) 752-7362, tmakin@ucdavis.edu
* Claudia Morain, UC Davis News Service, (530) 752-9841, cmmorain@ucdavis.edu
Law and Verdicts
Below are recent stats for employment discrimination jury verdicts. Remember, these only apply if the case actually goes to trial.
In 2007, the median discrimination verdict rose some 70 percent to $252,000 from $147,000 in 2006.
Employers won only 38% of discrimination cases in 2007, prevailing most often in race discrimination cases (43 percent) and losing most frequently in sex discrimination cases (30 percent).
Employers in the manufacturing and industrial sectors had the biggest verdicts, followed by the government, transportation and service sectors.
Source: Employment Practice Liability: Jury Award Trends and Statistics, 2008 report by Jury Verdict Research.
In 2007, the median discrimination verdict rose some 70 percent to $252,000 from $147,000 in 2006.
Employers won only 38% of discrimination cases in 2007, prevailing most often in race discrimination cases (43 percent) and losing most frequently in sex discrimination cases (30 percent).
Employers in the manufacturing and industrial sectors had the biggest verdicts, followed by the government, transportation and service sectors.
Source: Employment Practice Liability: Jury Award Trends and Statistics, 2008 report by Jury Verdict Research.
Letter to Miss Manners
It's blast-to-the-past time again. I found another letter I wrote, this time to Miss Manners. She doesn't list the names of people who send in questions, but this one's mine:
SJ Mercury News, November 13, 1999:
Dear Miss Manners:
I am a young adult who is hearing-impaired and consequently wears a hearing aid. I am often approached by curious children of friends and strangers who ask what is in my ear. The "glasses for ears" analogy is getting old, and I wonder if the 4-9 year-old children understand what I'm talking about anyway. Do you have any suggestions as to what I can do when approached by these young people? I have not been able to come up with an answer that successfully satisfies their curiosity and also dissuades them from attempting to touch my ears.
Gentle Reader:
"It's to turn up the volume." If it weren't for the satisfaction of answering your question, Miss Manners would regret that no child will fail to understand this. Your next problem will be what to say when those children ask where they can get these for themselves.
To this day, Miss Manners' advice works for me. It's stunning how she was able to come up with the perfect answer.
SJ Mercury News, November 13, 1999:
Dear Miss Manners:
I am a young adult who is hearing-impaired and consequently wears a hearing aid. I am often approached by curious children of friends and strangers who ask what is in my ear. The "glasses for ears" analogy is getting old, and I wonder if the 4-9 year-old children understand what I'm talking about anyway. Do you have any suggestions as to what I can do when approached by these young people? I have not been able to come up with an answer that successfully satisfies their curiosity and also dissuades them from attempting to touch my ears.
Gentle Reader:
"It's to turn up the volume." If it weren't for the satisfaction of answering your question, Miss Manners would regret that no child will fail to understand this. Your next problem will be what to say when those children ask where they can get these for themselves.
To this day, Miss Manners' advice works for me. It's stunning how she was able to come up with the perfect answer.
Letter from the Past
I am going through my old things and found this letter I wrote way back in 1999. Even then, you could see my libertarian leanings:
San Jose Mercury News, July 25, 1999, 7G:
I never cease to be astounded at how utterly stupid people show themselves to be while judging "moral" content. All the hoopla over "Austin Powers" neglects to see that the movie is a farce that lampoons filmmaking and general society. As such, it isn't meant to be the focus of discussions on the same level as, say, Kantian ethics. If you have something against laughter, stay near your white picket fence and watch a Disney flick with your 2.2 kids--the rest of us will be at the theaters, trembling and writhing on the floor in our moral bankruptcy.
The best part? On the same page is an ad for "Austin Powers, The Spy Who Shagged Me."
San Jose Mercury News, July 25, 1999, 7G:
I never cease to be astounded at how utterly stupid people show themselves to be while judging "moral" content. All the hoopla over "Austin Powers" neglects to see that the movie is a farce that lampoons filmmaking and general society. As such, it isn't meant to be the focus of discussions on the same level as, say, Kantian ethics. If you have something against laughter, stay near your white picket fence and watch a Disney flick with your 2.2 kids--the rest of us will be at the theaters, trembling and writhing on the floor in our moral bankruptcy.
The best part? On the same page is an ad for "Austin Powers, The Spy Who Shagged Me."
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