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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)

#201

Post by fifticon »

blakesterz wrote: post #4

I don't know why I found this so interesting to read. After the first few paragraphs I wondered why this was in The New Yorker, afterall, this is about a place in CA. The answer did appear, eventually... “My story begins on the Lower East Side of New York,” he said...

one national newspaper where I live is famous for viewing everything from the perspective of 'their office'/the city they are in. An great example of this was when they discussed something happening in a different city in same country, and they would proceed to write

"... (that is 275 km west of here) ..."

which only makes sense when you are in their offices/city.

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

#202

Post by LudwigNagasena »

vladms wrote: post #175
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)

It's a fine generalisation because it's assumed that people eat 1-2 eggs for breakfast, not 20. "Something like LD50" can't help because it is literally another generalisation that may not apply to you personally: eggs are mostly fine unless you have an eggs allergy or problems with cholesterol or whatnot.

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

#203

Post by eru »

pjc50 wrote: post #199
eru wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For a proper comparison, you need to pay up the guy paying off the mortgage with someone who eg invests similar amounts in an index fund. To be even more proper, you'd need to allow the stock market investor to use leverage, just like the guy with the mortgage does. Or, if you want to avoid the mortgage/leverage complication, we can compare someone buying a house outright with someone investing the same amount in sto…

> Results also depend on taxes and jurisdiction If things were different, then the results would be different; but, being as they are, for most people in most Western jurisdictions the rules favor homeowners.

> [...] but, being as they are, for most people in most Western jurisdictions the rules favor homeowners.

Alas, no, not necessarily. There are feedback effects. The rules favouring owner-occupied housing mostly drive up the demand for that, and if you don't allow supply, then all you get is higher prices, that those would-be homeowners have to pay.

But in any case: my point is that it's down to circumstances which path is better. It's not an automatic 'home-ownership is always better'.

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

#204

Post by eru »

DanielHB wrote: post #188
rightbyte wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

No, it is just the messed up rental market in Stockholm. Government and HOA controls don't let people be landlords for more than 2 years of a time and require you to ask permission from the HOA and to have a reason. The actual apartment I was renting was pretty well kept though, proper cleaning, air ventilation inspections, very good laundry room, fully renovated less than 10 years before I moved in. The apartment I…

Doesn't Stockholm have cray rent control, too?

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

#205

Post by kamaal »

jajko wrote: post #197
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…

Quite limited view thats valid in certain times in certain cases, in certain countries etc. What about drawbacks of owning a house? You will spend non-trivial amount of your time, energy and money just to keep it up, keep fixing all things that deteriorate. And everything deteriorates. I mean really non-trivial, count how much your hourly rate is and how much you will waste instead of making some fun good activities,…

>>You will spend non-trivial amount of your time, energy and money just to keep it up

To up keep your home! You also pretty much up keep your rented home too. And at the end you spend to maintain other people's home.

>>Is that really how you want to spend some part of your me-time?

Most of the times its not that bad, you talk like you are on-call 24x7 throughout the year.

>>You are also locking yourself down at very specific place which may be a craphole in a decade, without good jobs around etc.

That's called stability, and that brings wealth and happiness. Honestly people look down upon these things, people use wrong words(lifer, coaster etc) to put down stability. In reality stability, with a predictable schedule is one of the best things that you do to your health, and overall life stability/happiness.

>>Also it will in normal cases vacuum your savings, degrading quality and fun in life in (at least) initial years after purchase - those are often the best years of one's remaining life.

This is mostly an assumption, in my experience the exact opposite is true.

>>People tend to look back with rosy glasses on the past, highlighting positives and shrinking negatives, thats basic psychology of each of us. Looking back at period of ownership people mostly look at money made, not all that stress and time with just keeping some property in same state.

Its always a bad idea to make any investment today, and you feel deep regret to have not made an investment 20 years back. Im not talking about real estate in specific, but even things like education, or exercise, look pointless and something you can do without today, but you wish you had done more or atleast started decades back.

>>Middle grounds are apartments, very little maintenance compared to house&land, much lower costs, but also less privacy and less feeling of 'in my own'.

You don't even own walls in a apartment, its like the worst of all the worlds.

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

#206

Post by kamaal »

oarla wrote: post #153
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…

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

>>So the cost of ownership will generally be cheaper than renting. Not to mention increasing equity in an asset with time

With age your ability to earn decreases as well.

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

#207

Post by DanielHB »

eru wrote: post #204
DanielHB wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, it is just the messed up rental market in Stockholm. Government and HOA controls don't let people be landlords for more than 2 years of a time and require you to ask permission from the HOA and to have a reason. The actual apartment I was renting was pretty well kept though, proper cleaning, air ventilation inspections, very good laundry room, fully renovated less than 10 years before I moved in. The apartment I…

Doesn't Stockholm have cray rent control, too?

Yes for first-hand contracts, which are impossible to get. So your options if you are not born into the first-hand contract queue (people put their 5 year old children on the queue) is to rent second-hand which was what I was doing.

The HOAs don't let you be a landlord and rent out your apartment for more than 2 years at a time, and you need to have a reason like you are moving to another country for studies.

Technically when you buy an apartment in Sweden you are (almost always) not actually buying the apartment, but rather just a stake in the HOA corporation with the attached right to live in the apartment. So the HOA has last say about who can live in the apartment (and what renovations you can do).

It is all very complicated and specific to Sweden, but this HOA corporation thing avoids a lot of fees/taxes when selling/buying the apartment (which is a BIG deal, stamp tax alone is 4% of the asset last I heard). But you get these downsides as well.

Detached houses usually don't have HOAs, those you can rent out more freely. However they are not exactly affordable housing, especially considering heating costs of detached houses triple during winter (maybe they only double _if_ you have modern heat pumps). Banks won't lend you money to buy real state with the intent to rent out either.

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

#208

Post by theshackleford »

zeroday28 wrote: post #158
endoblast wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well I agree, and I myself supplement with D3; however the mainstream advice is to avoid sun exposure, for example: https://www.skincancer.org/skin-cancer-prevention/ Clearly more research is needed.

Insufficient sun exposure is responsible for approximately 340,000 deaths annually in the United States and 480,000 deaths annually in Europe, while non-melanoma skin cancers account for 63,700 deaths worldwide. Skin cancer only occurs due to excessive exposure combined with a weakened immune system, which is really rare. You're more likely to die in a traffic accident or from insufficient sun exposure than to ever d…

> You're more likely to die in a traffic accident or from insufficient sun exposure than to ever develop skin cancer.

In your neck of the woods maybe. This is not accurate everywhere.

It’s the complete opposite where I live.

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

#209

Post by fragmede »

theshackleford wrote: post #208
zeroday28 wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Insufficient sun exposure is responsible for approximately 340,000 deaths annually in the United States and 480,000 deaths annually in Europe, while non-melanoma skin cancers account for 63,700 deaths worldwide. Skin cancer only occurs due to excessive exposure combined with a weakened immune system, which is really rare. You're more likely to die in a traffic accident or from insufficient sun exposure than to ever d…

> You're more likely to die in a traffic accident or from insufficient sun exposure than to ever develop skin cancer. In your neck of the woods maybe. This is not accurate everywhere. It’s the complete opposite where I live.

Which is where?

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

#210

Post by tim333 »

vladms wrote: post #175
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)

Yup fine https://www.quora.com/Can-you-survive-by-only-eating-eggs
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