1. All purpose cleaner: For an all-purpose cleaner, use a mixture of salt and vinegar, but don't apply it to materials which may be sensitive to vinegar such as linoleum, marble, or waxed surfaces.
2. Brass or copper: For general shining purposes, mix together equal parts salt, flour, and vinegar. Apply to metal with a cloth, let sit about an hour, then wipe down and buff. For tarnished brass or copper, add salt to a squeezed-out lemon rind and rub down metal then rinse and buff.
3. Cast iron cookware: If your cast iron cookware is due for a good cleaning, heat it up over medium-low heat and add enough oil to cover the bottom of the pan. When it's heated up, remove from heat and add 2-4 Tbs of coarse salt to form paste. Scrub. Add more salt or oil as needed. Rinse off with hot water, wipe dry, and then coat with a thin layer of oil as usual. You can also use a little salt with hot water after each cooking, followed by a light layer of oil. This will keep your cookware clean and prevent rust.
4. Carpet: To get rid of a carpet spot, run in a mixture of equal parts salt, vinegar, and borax. Let this dry and then vacuum it up.
5. Chimney: Tossing a handfull of salt on your fire on occasion is supposed to keep the chimney clean.
6. Coffee pot: To clean, add 2-3 tablespoons salt to the pot and bring to a boil.
7. Enamel: Cookware and dishes -- Apply equal parts salt and vinegar and rub thoroughly.
8. Gold: Same as other metals, mix together equal parts salt, flour, and vinegar and rub down.
9. Hands: Use a mixture of salt and vinegar to remove garlic or onion scent from your hands.
10. Liquid spill: If a colored liquid spills on the carpet, like wine, dab it up and then apply salt to the still wet area. Wait until it dries and then vacuum.
1/31/2011
25 Ways to Clean with Salt
1/28/2011
The Challenger video, if you want to relive that disaster.
It was 25 years ago today. Its still shocking. I hope it always will be.
World War II Hero Cursed Out For Driving Speed Limit | The Onion - America's Finest News Source
World War II Hero Cursed Out For Driving Speed Limit
January 28, 2011 | ISSUE 47•04
JAMESTOWN, ND—A decorated World War II veteran who was still a teenager when he first saw combat and witnessed the bodies of friends being torn apart by heavy artillery was cursed at by a passing motorist Tuesday for driving the posted speed limit. "Move it, you old fossil!" 32-year-old Brian Forsythe yelled at the man who charged into enemy fire to take out a machine-gun nest during the Allied invasion of Italy and was driving 65 miles an hour. "Get out of the fucking left lane!" The man, 85-year-old Carl Palmer, was on his way to the local VA hospital to receive the intensive weekly physical therapy that allows him to walk despite the chronic pain of a massive shrapnel wound he sustained 67 years ago.
1/27/2011
89th and Broke - $2 Burgers in Midtown today!
Until 10 pm.
Thanks to Laura at the excellent Meal-deal blog 89th and broke for this!
Whatever You Do, Don't *Buy* an Airline Ticket on the Weekend
The article also notes that Twitter and other social networking options are disrupting the pattern by allowing more targeted sale prices.
1/26/2011
Facebook Will Be Using Your Face in ‘Sponsored Stories’ Ads (And There’s No Opting Out) - Kashmir Hill - The Not-So Private Parts - Forbes
It’s a brilliant idea: Organic advertising for companies. A payday for Facebook. The downside? Users are going to freak out a bit. It’s not just a privacy issue. Facebook users likely won’t be happy about the fact that they’re not getting paid for their “celebrity endorsement.”
This isn’t the first time Facebook has plopped users’ names and photos into ads. And it’s not the first time people have gotten upset about it. Facebook previously called a version of this “social ads” and users had the option to opt out of appearing in them in their privacy settings, by unchecking a “Appearance in Facebook Ads” option. (See my post on this from June 2009.) But now that option is gone.
Here’s a sample of a Starbucks check-in turned into one of these ads (from Facebook’s video):
I asked a Facebook spokesperson about whether users’ can opt out of spokesperson duty. “Facebook’s privacy controls give people the power to decide what and how much they want to share, and Sponsored Stories respect people’s privacy settings,” she says. “For example, if your privacy settings exclude certain friends from seeing content you post, those friends will not see Sponsored Stories created from these posts.”
In other words, anything you do on the site that your friends can see can be re-purposed for ads. As in 2009, my privacy alarm doesn’t go off on this one. And I probably wouldn’t opt out if given the opportunity.
Monetizing word-of-mouth advertising
It’s a nifty way to monetize word of mouth marketing… as long as users don’t revolt against it.
So when can you expect your face to appear in an ad? The Sponsored Stories will draw from page likes, application plays, Place check-ins, and posts to pages. So, if you’re a Facebook friend of mine, you may catch me endorsing the Scrabble-like game Lexulous in the near future."
But THIS. This is exactly the problem with Facebook. Its also one of the three main reasons I quit. Ultimately, signing up for FB is a business decision. They give you their platform in exchange for the rights to whatever you put on it. I decided that it was no longer a good deal for me; the content I provided facebook was more valuable for them and me than what I was getting from them. So I quit. Last May. And I didn't become a social pariah.
This move was as inevitable as it is stupid. Users who accept this are likely not taking the time to ask themselves a fundamental question - Who is getting what in this negotiation? Some who ask that may well decide FB is a good value. But I think that once real dollars become more and more a part of the trade, that number will diminish. Getting real money involved complicates relationships in ways that are very hard to predict.
1/21/2011
Horoscoped
The desire behind people's love of horoscopes is understandable. Who doesn't want a bit of advice on how to deal with the trials and tribulations of life. But unfortunately, horoscopes are a load of b.s. Try a little philosophy instead. I'd be happy to recommend some.
1/18/2011
Lieberman Will Not Run For Re-Election
If this holds up, and if we've learned anything over the last 10 years is that this man is a cut-throat opportunist, snake in the grass, it will be a tremendous boon for the U.S. Senate and U.S. politics in general.
Al Gore probably regrets nominating him for VP more than any other decision in his career. His lasting legacy will be that he was the sort of politician that gave politicians a bad name.
Health Care Reform maths
First of all, says the analysis, the true cost of reform includes the cost of the “doc fix.” What’s that?
Well, in 1997 Congress enacted a formula to determine Medicare payments to physicians. The formula was, however, flawed; it would lead to payments so low that doctors would stop accepting Medicare patients. Instead of changing the formula, however, Congress has consistently enacted one-year fixes. And Republicans claim that the estimated cost of future fixes, $208 billion over the next 10 years, should be considered a cost of health care reform.
But the same spending would still be necessary if we were to undo reform. So the G.O.P. argument here is exactly like claiming that my mortgage payments, which I’ll have to make no matter what we do tonight, are a cost of going out for dinner.
There’s more like that: the G.O.P. also claims that $115 billion of other health care spending should be charged to health reform, even though the budget office has tried to explain that most of this spending would have taken place even without reform.
To be sure, the Republican analysis doesn’t rely entirely on spurious attributions of cost — it also relies on using three-card monte tricks to make money disappear. Health reform, says the budget office, will increase Social Security revenues and reduce Medicare costs. But the G.O.P. analysis says that these sums don’t count, because some people have said that these savings would also extend the life of these programs’ trust funds, so counting these savings as deficit reduction would be “double-counting,” because — well, actually it doesn’t make any sense, but it sounds impressive.
1/14/2011
NFL Season Seems To Be Building To Some Sort Of Climax | The Onion Sports Network
NEW YORK—Though fewer and fewer games are being held each weekend, sources confirmed Thursday that anticipation and tension throughout the NFL seems to be gradually increasing, and the entire 2010-2011 season appears to be building toward some sort of momentous climax.
"Traditionally, there are 13 to 16 professional football games played on any given weekend, but last week there were only four," AP football analyst Larry Lage said. "That's right, four. And, perhaps more telling, the general consensus seems to be that those games were markedly more intense than usual, as if there were more at stake. Clearly, something big is looming on the NFL's horizon, but I can't put my finger on exactly what that is."
"I think it all must be leading up to some sort of ultimate NFL extravaganza," Lage added. "And I feel like it's going to be on top of us before we know it."
According to sources, a sort of "win or go home" mentality began consuming the league and its players just after New Year's, with Jan. 2 marking the last time that all NFL teams played. The following week, the league shifted to the four-game format, and teams who seemed to have not performed as well throughout the year did not play, leaving many to wonder if their seasons were completely finished or if they would eventually be coming back for some sort of season-ending grand finale.
Eyewitnesses present at the games played on Jan. 8 and Jan. 9 claimed that the atmosphere at those contests was electric, describing fans and players alike as "unusually excited" and "much more demonstrative," as if whatever these games are building toward is extremely important to them. In addition, teams who won were seen to celebrate in an unusually exuberant fashion, whereas losing teams seemed dejected to the point of misery, as if some crushing finality had taken place.
"I couldn't help but have this weird sense that the game was some sort of huge rivalry, even though the Seahawks and Saints almost never play each other," said Bellingham, WA resident Jill Bourne, who accompanied her coworkers to the game last Saturday. "There was definitely a feeling of this matchup being more important than most, and that feeling only increased after Seattle won, as if their victory had intensified the pressure upon them."
In a development that may or may not be related, teams that played last weekend and lost, most notably the Colts and Saints, do not appear on the upcoming schedule.
"Whatever they are playing toward must be very important to both the players and their fans, and the pattern seems to suggest that in order to get there, they have to win," said New York Times sportswriter Dave Caldwell, who covers the Jets. "What I've gleaned from the whole thing is that these teams desperately want to make it to Arlington, TX. For what, I don't know. But whatever is going to happen is going to happen there."
"However, all my sources in the Cowboys front office indicate that organization has no football games scheduled in the near future," Caldwell continued. "Perhaps these teams are playing to gain backstage passes to a Black Eyed Peas concert."
At press time, football sources noted that the NFL had planned for just two games the weekend of Jan. 22-23. The league had not yet disclosed which four teams would be involved, or indeed where the games would take place. Calls to league headquarters were met with denials that any major policy changes with regard to scheduling had taken place for the new year.
"There is no denying that as they play fewer games, the excitement becomes greater," Fox Sports football correspondent Adam Schein said. "That's only natural, but why this buildup? What's at stake?"
"Because if this is all just some sort of results-based elimination sequence to boil the league down to one team, well, that's a lot of anticipation for not a lot of payoff," Schein added. "Especially if all the teams are just going to come back later in the year and start playing again."
Personally, I'd like a Jets Bears Superbowl.
1/13/2011
President Obama: Memorial in Arizona
I'm still impressed at what a great memorial this was. It not only paid respect to those we lost, had tremendous words of care and encouragement for the mourners, and rose above party politics, it also gave me a bit of hope that we can move past the bickering of the baby boomer generation.
1/12/2011
Senator wants changed seating for State of the Union – CNN Political Ticker - CNN.com Blogs
I absoultely love his idea, basically make the Congress sit next to eachother instead of across the aisle by party. I'll be shocked it if happens.
1/11/2011
Free access to Oxford English Dictionary until Feb 5
Through Febuary 5th, you can access the Oxford English Dictionary online for free by using trynewoed/trynewoed as a login.
Folks, this is pretty great. I can't tell you what a boon it was to have access to this website while working on my dissertation. Tracing back the roots of words is not only educational, its actually really fun and interesting too. And this is THE source for the English language.
Hat tip: Kottke.org
1/10/2011
United in Horror
But Lee Harvey Oswald was not a right-winger, not a John Bircher, not a segregationist. Instead, he was a Marxist of sorts (albeit one disillusioned by his experiences in Soviet Russia), an activist on behalf of Castro’s Cuba, and a man whose previous plot had been aimed at a far-right ex-general named Edwin Walker. The anti-Kennedy excesses of Texas conservatives were real enough, but the president’s assassin acted on a far more obscure set of motivations.
Nine years after Kennedy was killed, George Wallace embarked on his second campaign for the presidency. This was the early 1970s, the high tide of far-left violence — the era of the Black Panthers, the Weathermen, the Symbionese Liberation Army — and Wallace’s race-baiting politics made him an obvious target for protests. On his final, fateful day of campaigning, he faced a barrage of coins, oranges, rocks and tomatoes, amid shouts of “remember Selma!” and “Hitler for vice president!”
But Arthur Bremer, who shot Wallace that afternoon, paralyzing him from the waist down, had only a tenuous connection to left-wing politics. He didn’t care much about Wallace’s views on race: he just wanted to assassinate somebody (Richard Nixon had been his original target), as “a statement of my manhood for the world to see.”
It’s possible that Jared Lee Loughner, the young man behind Saturday’s rampage in Tucson, will have a more direct connection to partisan politics than an earlier generation’s gunmen did. Indeed, many observers seem to be taking a kind of comfort from that possibility: there’s been a rush to declare this tragedy a teachable moment — an opportunity for people to cool their rhetoric, abandon their anger, and renounce the kind of martial imagery that inspired Sarah Palin’s PAC to place a target over Gabrielle Giffords’s district just months before Loughner gunned down the Arizona congresswoman.
But chances are that Loughner’s motives will prove as irreducibly complex as those of most of his predecessors in assassination. Violence in American politics tends to bubble up from a world that’s far stranger than any Glenn Beck monologue — a murky landscape where worldviews get cobbled together from a host of baroque conspiracy theories, and where the line between ideological extremism and mental illness gets blurry fast.
This is the world that gave us Oswald and Bremer. More recently, it’s given us figures like James W. von Brunn, the neo-Nazi who opened fire at the Holocaust Museum in 2009, and James Lee, who took hostages at the Discovery Channel last summer to express his displeasure over population growth. These are figures better analyzed by novelists than pundits: as Walter Kirn put it Saturday, they’re “self-anointed knights templar of the collective shadow realm, not secular political actors in extremis.”
This won’t stop partisans from making hay out of Saturday’s tragedy, of course. The Democratic operative who was quoted in Politico saying that his party needs “to deftly pin this on the Tea Partiers” was just stating the obvious: after a political season rife with overheated rhetoric from conservative “revolutionaries,” the attempted murder of a Democratic congresswoman is a potential gift to liberalism.
But if overheated rhetoric and martial imagery really led inexorably to murder, then both parties would belong in the dock. (It took conservative bloggers about five minutes to come up with Democratic campaign materials that employed targets and crosshairs against Republican politicians.) When our politicians and media loudmouths act like fools and zealots, they should be held responsible for being fools and zealots. They shouldn’t be held responsible for the darkness that always waits to swallow up the unstable and the lost.
We should remember, too, that there are places where mainstream political movements really are responsible for violence against their rivals. (Last week’s assassination of a Pakistani politician who dared to defend a Christian is a stark reminder of what that sort of world can look like.) Not so in America: From the Republican leadership to the Tea Party grass roots, all of Gabrielle Giffords’s political opponents were united in horror at the weekend’s events. There is no faction in American politics that actually wants its opponents dead.
That may seem like a small blessing, amid so much tragedy and loss. But it is a blessing worth remembering nonetheless.
He's right, there's no "faction" with any real involvement in politics that wants its opposing party dead, but certainly some influential individuals that have at least a business interest in politics speak with conviction in their voices that such an outcome will soon be necessary. They makes me sick. But at the end of the day they wouldn't have an audience of millions if their listeners had received a decent education.
In Blow to BP, Trans Alaska Pipeline Shut by Leak
Officials said they had not determined the cause or full extent of the leak in a pipe that connects a huge storage tank to a pump that pushes oil down the pipeline. In all, the 800-mile pipeline system carries about 10 percent of the oil produced domestically.
The Alyeska Pipeline Service Company, the pipeline operator, reported that there was little or no environmental damage from the leak, which was discovered on Saturday morning. Only about 10 barrels of spilled oil were recovered from the basement of a pumping station, but Alyeska officials said they could not say how long it would take before the piping was secure enough to increase pressure down the pipeline.
“The significance is having to shut the pipeline system down,” said Michelle Egan, an Alyeska spokeswoman. “We want to make sure we can restart the line safely and without any damage.”
BP owns the largest share of the consortium that runs the pipeline and depends on revenue from North Slope production to pay for damages caused by the blowout of a BP well in the Gulf of Mexico last year. BP officials said they hoped the pipeline could reopen in four to six days, but that would depend on the approval of government regulators.
Engineers are developing options on how to repair the leaky pipe section or find an alternate way to move the oil to the pump.
Crude oil prices have risen about 7 percent in the last year and now hover just below $90 a barrel in the United States, with supplies tightening around the world primarily because of growing demand in China and other developing countries. Gasoline prices have risen to an average of $3.08 a gallon from $2.73 a year ago, according to AAA. That is a high price for January, normally a month of low demand, and energy analysts are predicting $3.50 a gallon by the summer.
“The market was already in the mood for oil to go to $100 a barrel,” said Amy Myers Jaffe, an energy specialist at Rice University, “so any disruption of a major size — like stopping Alaskan oil from coming to market — is going to give instantaneous momentum to prices.”
The Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation reported that the cause of the spill was under investigation, and that oil vapors were being ventilated from the pump building so that leaking oil could be removed.
“Neither the booster pumps nor other facility infrastructure suffered damage from the oil release,” according to the report. “Vacuum trucks are on scene for oil removal.”
The facility, Pump Station 1, is the northernmost of about a dozen stations that produce and sustain the pressure that pushes the oil down the pipeline for shipment from the tanker port of Valdez to the lower 48 states.
One possible cause of the problem, experts suggested, was that water could have built up in the concrete casing surrounding the piping, causing corrosion.
Officials say the damage is in piping outside a booster pump building, causing the leak to back up into the basement of that building.
There have been repeated leaks and spills in the Alaska pipeline network over the last several years. The most serious occurred in March 2006 when corrosion in BP’s network of north Alaska feeder lines caused a spill of more than 260,000 gallons of oil, the worst in the history of the North Slope. BP eventually paid more than $20 million in fines and restitution.
That spill was one of several costly accidents for BP leading up to the blowout on the Deepwater Horizon rig in the gulf in April. That accident took 11 lives and sent millions of barrels of oil into the sea. BP is expected to pay as much as $40 billion in cleanup costs.
The last time the Alaska pipeline system was shut down was in May, when a pump station about 100 miles south of Fairbanks experienced a power outage that produced a spill from a storage tank.
The North Slope is one of BP’s most important oil fields, and provides a vital income stream. BP produces nearly two-thirds of the 600,000 barrels a day that come from the North Slope, a giant oil field that has been in decline for many years but still produces about 3 percent of the oil consumed by the United States.
BP owns 47 percent of Alyeska, whose other owners include ConocoPhillips and Exxon Mobil. BP’s stock price had been rising smartly in recent days as it appeared to be recovering financially from the gulf accident.
A short-term stoppage would probably not have a lasting price effect since oil storage on the West Coast is at a high level, said Tom Kloza, an oil analyst at the Oil Price Information Service.
BP didn't get enough press in 2010, so they are starting strong in 2011.
1/08/2011
Goldman’s Leaked Memo to Rich Investors Exposes Facebook’s Actual Earnings -- Daily Intel
This is so wonderful. Extrapolating out from 9 months to 12, Facebook will make a profit of $444 million for 2010. That means its price to earnings ratio is 113. From 08 to 09 the amount of money it took in rose by 25%. From 09 to 2010, its revenue rose 20%.
Now, consider that according to the official Facebook Timeline, it had 100 million users in Dec 08, 150 million in Jan 09, 350 million users in Dec 09, and reached 500 million users in July of 2010.
And remember that it's the #2 most popular website in the world and in the U.S. (http://www.alexa.com/topsites)
So, from the info we have, their revenue is rising, but the rate at which it is rising is slowing down. At the same time, their user base has absolutely exploded and is reaching its upper limits. I mean, just how many internet users are there that don't know about facebook? And at this stage how many people know about facebook, aren't on it but can now be convinced to join? (Add to that the fact that the most *profitable* types of consumers are the ones already on FB.)
So where is any more growth supposed to come from? How can they improve on their profits? (By selling more about you to advertisers?). Look, I'm shocked that FB is making a profit at all, and I'll have to eat my words that the company will never make a dime. At least for 2009-2010. But I simply don't grasp how this company will actually be profitable. I think it will fail, and fail spectacularly, just like Friendster and Myspace. And they will lose a ton of money in the process.
Here's the whole piece:
Well, now we know why Goldman Sachs was so reluctant to give its millionaire clients any concrete details about the Facebook deal (save that vague appetite-whetting pitch letter that could easily have been mistaken for an entreaty from a Nigerian prince). Leaked copies of a 101-page private placement memo Goldman hand delivered to hand-picked potential investors a little after lunchtime yesterday — probably as they were leaving the Grill Room — reveal closely guarded details about Facebook's actual earnings, its plans for an IPO, and the SEC's investigation of Goldman's attempt to value Facebook at $50 billion. According to the document, Facebook earned $355 million in net income in the first nine months of 2010. Net earnings were a crucial detail left out of another leak, now confirmed by the document, that Facebook earned $1.2 billion in revenue during that same time period. In case you're keeping track, that means that $50 billion valuation is roughly 142 times what they earned (during those nine months). But after looking at the memo, Ryan Jacob of the Jacob Internet Fund told Reuters, "It just shows you that these business can generate 30 percent to 40 percent, potentially, operating margins."
However, the six-page financial statement included in the memo is unaudited, and sources say it doesn't address how Facebook earns its revenue. From acai berry weight loss ads and blackmailing you for that private Four Loko Me = album, obvs! The document also says Facebook plans to increase its number of shareholders above 500 this year, a threshold that would require it to start disclosing (audited) reams of financial data on executive compensation and profit and losses and its competition in advance of going public by April 2012.
According to the Journal, it wasn't just Goldman and its Russian buddy at Digital Sky Technologies that were interested in getting that $50 billion valuation. "People familiar with the matter have said Facebook sought a benchmark valuation from a leading investment bank in preparation for a potential initial public offering next year and was keen on a 'round-number' valuation of $50 billion." Yeah, the roundness was what they were worried about, not the teeteringly high sum.
Goldman's memo to investors also confirms speculation that the SEC is looking into the deal. Sources tell DealBook that they're investigating several issues, "including the structure of the deal and media reports about the offering, which was supposed to remain private." That's ridiculous. How could Goldman create a giant bubble out of Facebook frenzy if they kept the deal private?
1/05/2011
Washington has already "corrupted" the new GOP congress? No, Washington doesn't change congress, it just recruits well
GOP Plans to Use Derided ‘Demon Pass’ to Push Diminishing Goals
House Republicans aren't just backing away from their unrealistic plan to cut domestic spending by $100 billion in a single year, they also plan on using the "demon pass" to do it. Yes, the same "demon pass" (technically a "self-executing rule" long used in politics) that John Boehner called "the ultimate in Washington power grabs" when the Democrats tried to use it to pass health-care legislation early last year. Maybe its more demonic aspects found Jesus after the War on Christmas? As the new House (now with Republicans!) prepares to take office today, GOP leaders are cutting the $100 billion goal by as much as half, seeing as the fiscal year, which started October 1, will be half over before any spending cuts could become law. To be fair, the federal fiscal year has only started in October since 1976, so how could they have known that back in September when the House Republicans signed their "Pledge to America" stating, “We will roll back government spending to pre-stimulus, pre-bailout levels, saving us at least $100 billion in the first year alone.” Now that that resolution will put Republicans on record as backing cuts up to 30 percent in law enforcement, transportation, and education, however, the goal posts have been quietly changed.
House Budget Committee chairman Paul Ryan plans to use the "demon pass" to cut discretionary spending levels since the Democrats didn't pass a budget. But there's also the matter of another GOP promise that's looking less and less realistic the more they face reality: Many of the Republicans' key policy goals will actually increase the deficit. Not to worry, though, they're looking into including a measure in the new rules package that will exempt their priorities — like the health-care repeal bill and the 2001 and 2003 Bush tax cuts — from being considered part of the deficit.
House Republicans aren't the only ones backing away from campaign rhetoric. Now that they're actually in Washington, tea party freshman have wasted little time embracing the culture they once bashed. They're hiring lobbyists to lead their congressional staffs, asking lobbyists for campaign cash, and even hosting events in swanky D.C. hotels, like the California representative Jeff Denham threw at the W hotel for $2,500 a ticket. Leann Rimes performed at the fund-raiser, though probably more for the down-home country appeal than her family values.
After some initial struggle giving up the gavel, even Nancy Pelosi is coming to terms with the harsher realities of political life. After technically losing her title on Monday at noon, last night, she demoted her Twitter handle from @SpeakerPelosi to @NancyPelosi, but not without a little spin, adding that the change was "2 characters less."
Republicans Lower Goal for Cuts to Budget [NYT]
GOP Exempts Deficit Busting Policies From New Budget Rules [TPM]
GOP Plans To Implement The 'Demon Pass' They Once Decried [TPM]
'Tea party' freshmen embrace status quo [LAT]
'Speaker' Pelosi finally gives up title on Twitter [Politico]
Why anyone expected anything else is beyond me. Of course the real answer is they didn't expect things like budgetary tricks to hide debt because their voters weren't aware of such tricks the last time they were pulled. They weren't aware that the Obama administration put the hidden debt on the books, either.
In large part, they simply voted because they hate the idea of government that helps non-whites.
1/04/2011
Reasons why you shouldn't own your home outright
For most homeowners, paying down their mortgage loan is akin to fighting off the plague, but the dream of one day owning their home in full keeps them going. Unless you’re flush with cash, buying a house usually means taking on a sizable amount of mortgage debt, and with that, forking over a fortune in interest payments.
Conventional wisdom suggests that owning your home outright is the smarter financial strategy. You don’t owe lenders anything, you save money on interest payments and you’re one major step closer to financial independence.
That said, there are some disadvantages to owning 100 percent of your home equity that should be considered.
Disadvantages of Owning Your Home in Full
Though it’s debatable whether or not there is such a thing as good debt, paying off your mortgage in full does reduce certain opportunities for better use of your money. Home loan debt isn’t necessarily a bad thing and here are a few reasons why:
- Tax Deductions: One of the most popular reasons for maintaining mortgage debt is the tax advantages that you enjoy on interest payments. It doesn’t necessarily make sense on its own because owing money just to save money on interest defeats any economic purpose. It does, however, effectively reduce the cost of that debt.
- Greater Financial Flexibility: Instead of having no cash in the bank and a mortgage paid in full, it may be a good idea to tap into that equity just to ensure that you have some access to cash if an emergency arises. If you pour every dollar into paying down your mortgage and don’t have anything left over for home repairs or one-off incidents, you could be positioning yourself in a tough spot to handle any costs of unforeseen events.
- Cheaper Debt: If you can get a good mortgage rate, chances are it’s multiple times less than your credit card, personal loan or auto loan interest rate. Consolidating your debts with a HELOC or home loan refinance can provide you some debt relief and help you save money on interest payments. Plus, mortgage interest payments are tax deductible, unlike credit cards or other personal loans.
- Property Value: Since your property value isn’t affected by your mortgage balance, you can put your equity to better use than just having it sit around idly by, waiting for you to sell your house. You may want to consider taking out a loan against your home for value-added investments like remodeling your home or adding another bedroom that will increase its market value.
- Return On Investments: By the same token, you can probably do better with your home equity than having it sit around earning a zero percent return. Depending on your risk tolerance and the potential return on investment, you may be able to outpace a low fixed mortgage rate. Granted, no investment is guaranteed and you’d be hard pressed to find a CD rate that trumps your mortgage rate. So for practical purposes, putting your home equity at risk to pursue any investment may not be a shrewd idea.
Keep in mind that these options should only be considered if you own a majority of your home equity or own your property outright. Mortgage debt is still debt. Whether you owe a balance on your first mortgage, are refinancing to consolidate other debt with higher interest rates or using it to fund a home improvement project, you’re still taking out debt on your home. Before agreeing to any home loan, use a mortgage calculator to ensure that you can afford the monthly payments first.
Advantages of Home Equity
Owning your home, whether outright or just a majority of the equity, has undeniable advantages. The more equity you own in your home, the more stable your financial situation may be. The peace of mind and stability of not having to worry about meeting mortgage payments is hard to put a price on.
You shouldn’t consider taking on more mortgage debt against a home you have little or no equity in. In addition, if you are fortunate enough to be in a financial situation where you can own your home outright, be debt free and have a surplus of savings to invest wisely, you may not need to access your home equity at all. The key, as always, is to find the right balance that fits your financial strategy and maximizes the efficiency of your money.
Do you think it’s better to own your home outright or to owe a small mortgage balance?