Blog

Short blog posts, journal entries, and random thoughts. Topics include a mix of personal and the world at large.

Stop it. Get some help

Headlines are buzzing about the high price of new cars. The average transaction price for new vehicles in America is now over $50,000. The average monthly payment for a new car is nearly $750. As is the wont during these high inflation times (why would Joe Biden do this?), people are grumbling about the ever increasing cost of personal motor transport.

I do not have an ounce of sympathy for this situation. The beauty of the capitalistic system is that it takes two to proverbially tango. Sling all the greed accusations you want against the automakers and dealerships: car buyers still have to sign on the dotted line. The Truth in Lending Act dictates that consumers are given complete information on exactly what sort of loan they are contracting themselves for. No excuses.

The average new car may be selling for over $50,000, but a perfectly fine Toyota Corolla sedan can be had for $22,275 starting. It’s got power everything, and Apple CarPlay. And because it’s a Toyota, it will last forever with minimal maintenance. Now you may say that you need something bigger for your family. That’s a want, not a need. The Corolla is equipped with child seat anchors in the rear. For sure it’s not as convenient as a Toyota Sienna minivan, but do you have $40,120 starting for a Sienna?

New cars aren’t expensive - the cars people want to buy, are. If stretching your wallet for that three-row SUV is going to be financially difficult, then perhaps it’s just not in a cards for you. No one is entitled to a fully-loaded SUV with all the trimmings. Consumers’ unwillingness to purchase within their means isn’t the fault of the banks or the automakers. Let’s not strip agency - and blame - from fully functioning adults.

I will however get on Porsche’s case for raising prices so dramatically over the last year…

Traffic on traffic

Our local thoroughfare - 19th Avenue - is getting some much needed surface repair work. In order to do this, the authorities must interrupt traffic for a solid year. The locals aren’t happy because an already congested road will only get even more so. But what’s the alternative? If the road never gets repaved, then drivers are going to be gripe about the horrendous condition.

Is it ideal? Of course not, but the job has to be done. Roads need repaving, the Golden Gate Bridge needs repainting. We all have to endure some civic pain in order to have nicer things.

Albeit I am writing from my high horse of never needing to commute on said road that will be severely interrupted. My tune will surely be different if I’d the misfortune of taking 19th Avenue to work. Perhaps they should have put the repaving project up to a vote! Just like how they put the fate of the Great Highway to the people.

And look how that turned out! San Francisco voters elected to permanently close the Great Highway off to motor vehicles. However, a majority of residents in the district directly adjacent to the road did not want this, because they use the Great Highway to commute. Closed road, more congestion elsewhere. It’s simply math. Sunset district residents were so incensed that they recalled their representative supervisor.

Resurfacing 19th Avenue - also in Sunset district - seems to be pouring salt onto the wounds. One thoroughfare is closed forever, and the other will be choked up for a whole year. To quote the great Xzibit: “Yo dawg, I heard you like traffic…”

Some people just go bowling

Bowling. Not a sport I would watch in a million years. (I can admire the skill for sure.) However, I think it’s a fabulous sport from a recreational perspective. Gather your mates and go bowl a few games. Maybe one of you might even break 100. About $20 for two hours of fun is way more economical than going out to eat these days. Though you should definitely do that afterwards as well. It’s all about hanging out.

My problem is I can’t seem to get a feel for the game. Of course it’s doubly difficult when I only go bowling perhaps once a year. Therefore every time it’s like relearning how to walk. The hand and wrist just doesn’t get used in that fashion in normal day life. So rather than trying to curve the ball, I end up bowling it straight, hoping the ball goes where I want it to. It usually doesn’t.

Not that I need another spendy hobby in my life. But if I were to bowl somewhat seriously, I’d definitely be taking lessons. I’d also buy a bowling ball of my own, cut specifically to fit my mangled fingers. The standard hole sizings at the alleys aren’t conducive to to proper gripping. Though I’m sure that’s a skill issue on my part as well. A seasoned amateur can probably make strikes with those standard issue balls all the same.

Ultimately, I prefer my hobbyist sport to be more of a complete workout than merely one single limb. Running is an excellent full-body workout, and it can be absolutely free. Less social points than bowling, of course. But that’s why you have the meal afterwards!

Right on queue

Recently I was at Whole Foods picking up an Amazon package. I like to do this for the important stuff, so the eliminate the possibility of theft when going the typical ship-to-your-front-door route. Not that I’ve ever had a package stolen, now that I think about it (knocking tremendously on wood). But when I got to have something for certain, the pickup option at Whole Foods is the method to go when shopping on Amazon.

It also helps the local Whole Foods is but a third of a mile away from me.

Ahead of me at the pickup line is a woman with a cart full items to return. There’s about a dozen things in there, and each of them have to be scanned and bagged individually. Needless to say, this process took way longer than the typical counter transaction.

The guy behind me in line was audibly upset with many groans and grunts. Come on, dude: what can be done about it? The woman with many returns have every right to the service as we do. Word on the street is Amazon actually does ban serial abusers of the return system, but that threshold has got to be high, I presume. Either way, we just got to wait. That’s like getting angry at a grocery store because the person in front has a cart full of products.

Whether or not a person is capable of waiting in a queue in a calm and patient manner can reveal a great deal about their temperament. The folks who are incapable of doing so likely have a strong overlap with the population of road-raging drivers. The most trivial of inconveniences are enough to trigger an adverse reaction tantamount to grievous personal offense. We can also blame this on social media, right? (Sarcasm.) The instant and constant dopamine drip have conditioned us to be intolerant of waiting.

If you can’t be happy waiting in a line, you can’t be happy.

Black Friday strategy

It is Black Friday season. That’s right: what used to be just a single day of sales (the Friday after Thanksgiving, obviously) have stretched onto many weeks. And I hate it. REP Fitness has had a weekly rotating category since the start of November. Amazon has been doing Black Friday flash sales starting last week.

As a consumer it’s frustrating to have to be on alert over a period, instead of knowing for sure that all deals are available on the day of Black Friday. Amazon does these lightning deals where if you missed it on that particular day, it is gone. So you kind of have to scope things out ahead of time, and keep visiting the website everyday during the holiday season.

What I’ve done is add what I want to buy to the cart. On my daily visits to Amazon, I go straight to the shopping cart to see if any items are on Black Friday sale. As of writing I already knocked off two things on the list using this strategy. Black Friday discounts can be rather significant, so it’s worth waiting until the sales to buy what you want. Since the season turned autumnal I’ve been queuing up items at various vendors, waiting for the right prices to press checkout.

Of course there are no guarantees the stuff you want actually goes on sale. In that case the calculus is simple. If it’s a want, no purchase. If it’s a need, then the listed price is the listed price. Like these packs of gum. Excellent for teeth cleanliness, will buy regardless.

Happy hunting this Black Friday. The health of the U.S. economy is depending on us!

The best seating material in a car under $100,000.

My time is now

Break out the winter blankets! San Francisco weather has gotten properly chilly now, which is just fantastic. You do have winter blankets, right? Who can afford to heat the home during slumber hours? Besides, I’m Asian: winter heating is for emergencies only, not a regular occurrence.

Granted, I’d for sure be singing a different tune if I lived in a place with a true winter.

The dream of course would be to have a house with enough solar panels and batteries to climate control the home year round. But that’s putting the horse way before the cart. Can I even buy a house, anywhere in the Bay Area? Get back to work, peasant.

San Francisco has a low income home buying program for people like me. Don’t let the low income term fool you though because it’s all relative. You can cross six figure annual and still be too poor for housing in this town. The issue I have with the program is that what’s available are all condominiums. Single family home? Not a chance.

I love condos, just not in this country. In Asia with fast and reliable public transportation, and many shops clustered in neighborhoods, condominiums make sense. Car ownership is entirely optional. Here in America, it’s the opposite - and that’s okay! That means the one bedroom on sale for $400,000 with no parking is not going to work.

Then there’s the HOA fees. I don’t see how this one bedroom gets resold when the monthly HOA fee (nearly $1,700) is likely more than the monthly mortgage. Even at the more normal $500 - $700 going rate, I feel like I’m not getting an enough return on that money. Mortgage payments are a kind of stored value; taxes, insurance, and HOA fees are gone forever. Nothing we can do about taxes and insurance, obviously, so HOA is best avoided.

Honestly, if I’m putting down some considerable sum for a home, it’s got to be a proper single family house, with a garage and a yard. My own kingdom that’s beholden to no-one, except for the municipality collecting taxes. This may not happen anytime soon, given the Bay Area housing market, and my current meager salary. But opting for the SF home buying program would simply be an ultimately unsatisfactory solution.

50 years a mortgage

President Trump is floating the idea of a 50-year mortgage loan, superseding the current standard longest of 30 years. I think it’s a wonderful idea, because I can finally afford a home around here! All it takes is for a bank to practically own me for the rest of my life. If I were to buy a house today and it’s a 50 year loan, I will be 87 when the final payment schedule hits. Will I even be alive by then?

In simplistic mathematic terms, the 50-year mortgage makes sense. Housing is expensive, so let’s extend out the loan term so people can “afford” it. It’s the same thing happening in the automotive industry. The average new car price crested over $50,000 recently. Along with it are ever longer loan terms. 60-month used to be the maximum standard, but now 72 or 84-month is popularizing. Just so folks can squeeze in a monthly payment that is somewhat palatable.

Is that not a similar goal in floating a 50-year house loan? Perhaps it’s too big of a jump from 30? For sure 50 years will be more than half a lifetime for most of us. Also, think of the amount of interest that’s going to be paid for a loan that long. You can more than likely buy a whole other house on total interest payments alone.

But I think it’s a problem only from an investment lens. For a home that you want to stay in forever until death, a 50 year loan doesn’t seem that ridiculous. So what if the cumulative interest payments amount to a crazy high number? The most important number is for the monthly mortgage cost to come beneath an affordable threshold. Indenturing myself to a bank for the rest of my life is quite alright if I get a stable and comfortable home in return.

Surely the banks also wouldn’t mind that extra 20 years of accrued interest! I think mortgage terms longer than 30 years should be made available; as a tool, an option, but not a panacea to a problem.