 The closed loop “For decades, the real estate industry has operated under the principle that the less information buyers and sellers have, the better it is for agents, lenders, title companies, and all the other folks who eat from the trough. But the real estate tide seems to be turning, as the housing and credit crises of 2008 have heightened awareness in Washington, D.C., and on Wall Street about the catastrophic consequences of a closed information loop – Michelle Singletary of Washington Post quotes Ilyce Glink in “Buy, Close, Move In.”
 Dr. Brian Stacy of NOAA prepares to clean an oiled Kemp's Ridley turtle.  An oiled Kemp's Ridley turtle-Click to enlarge  Deepwater Horizon Gulf of Mexico Oil spill The Gulf of Mexico is a very big ocean. The amount of volume of oil and dispersant we are putting into it is tiny in relation to the total water volume – Tony Hayward, Geologist and Chief Executive, British Petroleum quoted in BP boss Tony Hayward admits job is on line over Gulf oil spill by Tim Webb of The Guardian  May 14, 2010
President Obama considers Cleveland Clinic and Mayo Clinic as role models. He said “You know, I’m going to be visiting . . . the Cleveland Clinic to show — to show why their system works so well. And part of the reason it works well is because they’ve set up a system where patient care is the number one concern, not bureaucracy, what forms have to be filled out, what do we get reimbursed for. Those are changes that I think the American people want to see.”
President Obama also held a meeting in Shaker Heights. Shaker Heights ranks high in this list of top Cleveland suburbs.
 Think of a home as an interesting opportunity, then follow Warren Buffett's quote Designer-builder John Abrams of the South Mountain Company describes three factors that are driving the popularity of large size homes:
“First, with less of a sense of community and public life in our culture, the home becomes a fortress which needs to contain everything we need, including multiple forms of entertainment, rather than basic shelter;
second, the building industry has been selling ‘big is better’ and the message has been heard; and
third, diminishing craft and design generosity has resulted in sterile homes — people mistakenly think that what’s missing is grandeur: more space.”
We will reject interesting opportunities rather than over leverage our balance sheet says Warren Buffett. It should be noted that Warren Buffet does not refer to the financial balance sheet, I reckon he means the life’s balance sheet of which the financial balance sheet is a small part. Warren Buffett is reported to have defined leverage as a fancy term for debt by Wall Street.
I hear media reports where financial advisors talk about about good debt and bad debt. I think there is no good financial debt, whether its origin is your local pay check cashing business or a Wall Steet firm. If debt was good, Microsoft Corporation and Cisco Systems would not have billions of dollars of cash on their balance sheet. If debt was good, Warren Buffett would be borrowing money from Goldman Sachs and Harley Davidson and not investing in them.
Debt always comes with strings attached and the borrower becomes one of the puppets in the show whether the borrower is an individual or corporation. Debt is anti-personal freedom and therefore is not a value of Americaneers. An exception, an example of a good debt is that intangible obligation that one owes to one’s parents or to your teachers or to one’s country.
Related Post: Sarah Susanka Defines a Beautiful Home
 Amish fishing in Lake Tomah “We want to be producers, to be an overall good to the community and to the nation and not be dependent upon the nation for our livelihood or for the federal or state governments to give us our livelihood,” – David Kline, an Amish minister from Mount Hope, Ohio.
Source: Money or tradition: Indiana Amish face uneasy dilemma by Tom Coyne, Associated Press Writer, May 10, 2009
We have created a system for growth that depended on our building more and more stores to sell more and more stuff made in more and more factories in China, powered by more and more coal that would cause more and more climate change but earn China more and more dollars to buy more and more U.S. T-bills so America would have more and more money to build more and more stores and sell more and more stuff that would employ more and more Chinese …Thomas Friedman, in The Inflection is Near, The New York Times
Only when the last tree has been cut down; Only when the last river has been poisoned; Only when the last fish has been caught; Only then will you find that money cannot be eaten. – Native American proverb
FENGHUA, China — Chen Hsien, an employee of Fenghua Ningbo Plastic Works Ltd., a plastics factory that manufactures lightweight household items for Western markets, expressed his disbelief Monday over the “sheer amount of shit Americans will buy. Often, when we’re assigned a new order for, say, ‘salad shooters,’ I will say to myself, ‘There’s no way that anyone will ever buy these.’ … One month later, we will receive an order for the same product, but three times the quantity. How can anyone have a need for such useless shit I hear that Americans can buy anything they want, and I believe it, judging from the things I’ve made for them,” Chen said. “And I also hear that, when they no longer want an item, they simply throw it away. So wasteful and contemptible.” from the ONION
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About  I am a Civil Engineer from Louisiana State University. I coined the compound word, Americaneer, as an expression of my tribute. |
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