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The man who spent forty-two years at the Beverly Hills Hotel pool (1993)

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Re: The man who spent forty-two years at the Beverly Hills Hotel pool (1993)

#171

Post by bdowling »

kamaal wrote: post #117
kristianp wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course when they bought their house it would have cost mere 10s of thousands. You can see why there's an attraction to owning your own house.

Owning a home is always good no matter what the finance influencers tell you. In fact, earlier the better. Its not even the buying vs renting thing, renting is bad, you don't get to own anything at the end of the journey, and often the kind of things you have to put up with to save rent, or avoid getting homeless in case of of a job loss or other life crisis is just worth your mental health. Most of your life is spen…

No one lives forever. You can’t take it with you. In the long run, we’re all renting.

Re: The man who spent forty-two years at the Beverly Hills Hotel pool (1993)

#172

Post by rmnwski »

mixmastamyk wrote: post #112
NathanKP wrote: post #7

If, like me, you were curious about the visuals to go with this piece, it appears that this is the pool today: https://www.dorchestercollection.com/los-angeles/the-beverly...

I found a picture of him here: https://patrickdowns.photoshelter.com/image/I0000Hbr_mkY_p2A

> uses the hotel Rolls to do errands

that's the way!

Re: The man who spent forty-two years at the Beverly Hills Hotel pool (1993)

#173

Post by kelnos »

yieldcrv wrote: post #126
kamaal wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Owning a home is always good no matter what the finance influencers tell you. In fact, earlier the better. Its not even the buying vs renting thing, renting is bad, you don't get to own anything at the end of the journey, and often the kind of things you have to put up with to save rent, or avoid getting homeless in case of of a job loss or other life crisis is just worth your mental health. Most of your life is spen…

its not renting vs owning that's the problem, its renting vs mortgage where mortgage is improperly considered synonymous with ownership. but that's because its so rare to be able to own the home near the places you can rent. so sure, renting vs buying a home in cash will give the cash ownership a leg up. but then it shifts over to people that would love to espouse about the 'time value of money' and leverage, where p…

This is a bit of a weird take.

For starters, people don't buy a house to live in solely because of the financials around it. They also buy the house because they want it.

When it comes to mortgage vs. buying outright, it just depends. I managed to get a very low interest rate for my primary home; the money I didn't put into the house is busy making quite a bit more than that very low interest rate for me yearly. If I were to rent out the house, I could probably get more for it than what I'm paying in mortgage interest + property taxes, so renting isn't really better (and then I'd be subject to the rent-jacking whims of my landlord). But even if I couldn't, I still just... want this house to be mine. There's value in that to me.

> if you HAVE to do a mortgage, then its likely that renting will be a better deal for you

This is very regionally-dependent. There are places where rents are significantly more expensive than mortgage payments, and places where homes cost so much that most people rent at a fairly reasonable rate in comparison.

Re: The man who spent forty-two years at the Beverly Hills Hotel pool (1993)

#174

Post by kelnos »

colordrops wrote: post #101
compiler-guy wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In those days you didn’t get divorced, you “stayed together” for the children. So they were effectively separated most of those years. Just informally so.

Many people still "stay together" for the children.

Many do today, but in those days nearly everyone did.

These days we realize that two unhappily-married parents can often be worse for the children than if they get divorced and continue to be active parents.

Re: The man who spent forty-two years at the Beverly Hills Hotel pool (1993)

#175

Post by vladms »

kelnos wrote: post #161

> ordered breakfast: scrambled eggs back in the days when people ate eggs, and, more recently, banana and granola with skim milk. It's funny how much life cycles. I do kinda remember a phase where people were eating a "healthier" breakfast of some kind of fruit, and when granola became popular, and when milk fat was considered the worst thing you could do to your body. But now eggs are fine, again. Great, even.

I always find fun these "generalizations". Like: "Eggs are fine". If you are a 50kg person that eats 20 eggs for breakfast each day I doubt it would be fine.

We would need something like LD50, or even better a range over a period (eggs are mostly fine if you eat between 2 and 5 per week)

Re: The man who spent forty-two years at the Beverly Hills Hotel pool (1993)

#176

Post by [deleted] »

yieldcrv wrote: post #126
kamaal wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Owning a home is always good no matter what the finance influencers tell you. In fact, earlier the better. Its not even the buying vs renting thing, renting is bad, you don't get to own anything at the end of the journey, and often the kind of things you have to put up with to save rent, or avoid getting homeless in case of of a job loss or other life crisis is just worth your mental health. Most of your life is spen…

its not renting vs owning that's the problem, its renting vs mortgage where mortgage is improperly considered synonymous with ownership. but that's because its so rare to be able to own the home near the places you can rent. so sure, renting vs buying a home in cash will give the cash ownership a leg up. but then it shifts over to people that would love to espouse about the 'time value of money' and leverage, where p…

[deleted]

Re: The man who spent forty-two years at the Beverly Hills Hotel pool (1993)

#177

Post by kelnos »

endoblast wrote: post #77

My goodness, 42 years of sun bathing at the same latitude as Tunisia. Should he have got skin cancer or did he benefit from all the naturally produced Vitamin D?

The article takes some poetic license, and makes it seem like he sunbathed daily. There's another article in the LA Times, linked in a few comments here, that is a bit more "serious". He certainly didn't sunbathe every day, and it seems there were periods of time (not even only during his "riches to rags" time period) where it seems he didn't visit the hotel every day.

He also had a poolside cabana that he used often; cabanas are usually covered and provide shade.

Re: The man who spent forty-two years at the Beverly Hills Hotel pool (1993)

#178

Post by rightbyte »

DanielHB wrote: post #170
oarla wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Assuming fixed rate mortgage, in most places the rate at which rent can grow is faster than rate of property taxes+insurance can grow. So the cost of ownership will generally be cheaper than renting. Not to mention increasing equity in an asset with time

Not in the US, but I live in a CoL place in Europe and when I bought my first apartment I was baffled by the amount of money I was saving every month. My previous rent was about the same as my mortgage, but 40% of my mortgage was going down to reduce the principal. And I only had 15% downpayment. Bought the apartment in 2018, sold in 2024 (close to the bottom of the local-market slump). Still profited ~10% (before fe…

Ye it is strange. I mean to some extent the lesser service you get explains it. But shady land lords does not provide the required services and still charge a premium for rent.

To some extent the apartment board might be to optimistic on future maintenance costs too.

Re: The man who spent forty-two years at the Beverly Hills Hotel pool (1993)

#179

Post by dominicrose »

bdowling wrote: post #171
kamaal wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Owning a home is always good no matter what the finance influencers tell you. In fact, earlier the better. Its not even the buying vs renting thing, renting is bad, you don't get to own anything at the end of the journey, and often the kind of things you have to put up with to save rent, or avoid getting homeless in case of of a job loss or other life crisis is just worth your mental health. Most of your life is spen…

No one lives forever. You can’t take it with you. In the long run, we’re all renting.

That's a good reason to sell an extra home when you need/want cash, not to rent where you live. Even if you don't have children to inherit, it's nice to own a home, but I guess it depends on ones lifestyle.

Re: The man who spent forty-two years at the Beverly Hills Hotel pool (1993)

#180

Post by rightbyte »

smogcutter wrote: post #121
thewanderer1983 wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Children seem to benefit primarily from watching relationships that genuinely make both parents happy. I think you'll find the data supports chidren benefiting from a happy loving home. Not from the concern of the parents relationships with others. My childhood friends were mostly from divorced parents and it very much impacted them all in negative ways. Parents are security blankets for children. It's who they run…

Most people with happy loving homes don’t get divorced.

I know people with kids that have divorced for the most stupid reasons.

In many cases I feel the problem could have fundamentally been solved by being better at dividing household work such that someone can rest one or two days and then switch.

For many divorce seems to be a way to divide labour, which they could have done without one.

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