This week we’ve had a spider at our front porch. She’s a beautiful pumpkin color and I couldn’t bear to take down her web. She’s put it out of our way and unless someone’s deathly afraid of spiders, having her there is not a problem. I’ve named her “Pumpkin” and I’m fascinated by the bugs she manages to snag in her huge, intricate web.
This is our first Halloween Spider, so I just thought I’d share!
Keenland is most certainly a very friendly place. Just because the weather was bad, doesn’t mean you can’t have fun! This young man will always remember petting the big horse at the racetrack. Grampa won’t forget it soon, either! In between rain showers, and during some, the horses were still running!
Between storms the horses are still grazing, the grass is growing and it’s a beautiful place to be. The horses love it.
Allow me to present an ethics dilema. There’s money out there for the taking! Grant money! The government is giving it away, so you’d be foolish not to take it. After all, somebody will. They’ll go out, apply for those grants, buy property, “employ people to fix up that property” and then sell that property to build their own wealth.
Lets say I go out and get a $20,000 grant to buy and rehab a piece of property.
That’s about the gist of the sales talk I heard the other day. Of course, this company wanted to get a fair share of the money to be made for helping you get your business going. It sounded great, until I started wondering about the grants. After all, I like money, too. I’d love to be rich and I’d love to make a few million in the property market. There’s a lot of money to be made now. So, lets look at it closely.
I add to the community by hiring people to work on the house, so that’s good. I provide decent housing for the community, so that’s good. I make money, lets don’t underestimate how good that is! So, what’s the problem? I don’t have to pay it back!
So, where does grant money come from? Our goverment hasn’t been working in the black for years, so the grant money is borrowed money. Borrowed in the name of the people of the United States of America. And, yes…somebody is going to have to pay back that $20,000 . Who? The taxpayer. My children, your children, all of us. So, what’s the big deal? It’s only $20,000 after all. But, it isn’t only $20,000. It’s millions, billions…even trillions. As it is, they’re giving away borrowed money.
One day that money is going to come due and here’s the worse part. All those years it’s waiting to be paid, that debt is growing. It’s seeped into every nook and cranny of the government…one department keeps track of it, the other dispenses it, the other finds more to give away, and one (our beloved IRS) sucks it out of each and every taxpayer.
All that government overhead does nothing but build up more debt and I want no part of it.
Not such a good deal anymore, is it? More like, really bad karma.
I Love Money!
I’m turning this blog post over to Maj. L. Caudill USMC (Ret) because I believe our country is in a dark place right now, and it’s important to let people know what’s important about the Second Amendment. Don’t miss his post. It explains things perfectly.
The Gun is Civilization,
By Maj. L. Caudill USMC (Ret)
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Human beings only have two ways to deal with one another: reason and
force.
If you want me to do something for you, you have a choice of either
convincing me via argument, or force me to do your bidding under
threat of force. Every human interaction falls into one of those two
categories, without exception. Reason or force, that’s it.
In a truly moral and civilized society, people exclusively interact
through persuasion. Force has no place as a valid method of social
interaction, and the only thing that removes force from the menu is
the personal firearm, as paradoxical as it may sound to some.
When I carry a gun, you cannot deal with me by force. You have to use
reason and try to persuade me, because I have a way to negate your
threat or employment of force.
The gun is the only personal weapon that puts a 100-pound woman on
equal footing with a 220-pound mugger, a 75-year old retiree on equal
footing with a 19-year old gang banger, and a single guy on equal
footing with a carload of drunk guys with baseball bats. The gun
removes the disparity in physical strength, size, or numbers between
a potential attacker and a defender.
There are plenty of people who consider the gun as the source of bad
force equations. These are the people who think that we’d be more
civilized if all guns were removed from society, because a firearm
makes it easier for a mugger to do his job. That, of course,
is only true if the mugger’s potential victims are mostly disarmed
either by choice or by legislative fiat — it has no validity when
most of a mugger’s potential marks are armed.
People who argue for the banning of arms ask for automatic rule by
the young, the strong, and the many, and that’s the exact opposite of
a civilized society. A mugger, even an armed one, can only make a
successful living in a society where the state has granted him a
force monopoly.
Then there’s the argument that the gun makes confrontations lethal
that otherwise would only result in injury. This argument is
fallacious in several ways. Without guns involved, confrontations are
won by the physically superior party inflicting overwhelming injury on
the loser.
People who think that fists, bats, sticks or stones don’t constitute
lethal force watch too much TV, where people take beatings and come
out of it with a bloody lip at worst. The fact that the gun makes
lethal force easier works solely in favor of the weaker defender, not
the stronger attacker. If both are armed, the field is level.
The gun is the only weapon that’s as lethal in the hands of an
octogenarian as it is in the hands of a weight lifter. It simply
wouldn’t work as well as a force equalizer if it wasn’t both lethal
and easily employable.
When I carry a gun, I don’t do so because I am looking for a fight,
but because I’m looking to be left alone. The gun at my side means
that I cannot be forced, only persuaded. I don’t carry it because I’m
afraid, but because it enables me to be unafraid. It doesn’t limit the
actions of those who would interact with me through reason, only the
actions of those who would do so by force. It removes force from the
equation… and that’s why carrying a gun is a civilized act.
God Bless America
Here in Lexington we have a Starbucks where the management has thoughtfully planted Blackeyed Susans for those of us who use the drive-thru. I don’t know if they realized that their flowers would be only part of the show for us.
Starbucks Bird
If I hadn’t looked down at the beautiful flowers at the drive-thru…If the flowers hadn’t been found by this little bird… I would have simply bought my coffee and moved on down the road. Instead, I got to watch this little guy enjoying his feast of seeds, and it made my day so much brighter.
Thank you little bird.
Is it Spring Yet?
The babies are here! Spring can’t be far. Lexington, KY’s horse farms are starting to sprout. This is the most exciting time of year around here. Every day someone new shows up, and someone takes his/her picture! This little guy will be fat and sassy soon!
Mom's Everywhere Try to Keep Up
Check out the farms around Lexington. You just might find something you’d fancy!
Your New Kentucky Home
Are you waiting for the prices to drop more? They probably will. But, consider this, there will be more foreclosures, and this will place more homes on the market. The more houses available, the cheaper they will be as sellers try to entice buyers to their property. It’s simple supply and demand economics. When the world is covered in gold, the value of gold will be less. When gold is rare, it’s priced higher.
This would seem to be a good thing for shoppers, but here’s the catch…looks like about April 1st the government will allow the interest rates to rise and we’ll see the interest rates go up substantially and quickly.
So, here’s the thing…you might get a better price on a house, but it will have to be a lot to make up what you’ll be spending on the higher interest rate. Unless of course, you have the cash to buy what you want without worrying about the interest. In that case, lucky you!
These days Kentucky seems a bit chilled. Even our garden girls are cold. The little pond is frozen and the koi are sleeping beneath the ice…waiting for a quick thaw. This is when those of us who work in Real Estate rest up and prepare for the busy spring ahead. One day soon the Bluegrass will be growing and flowers blooming. FOR SALE signs will be popping up all over, with something for everyone. For now though, winter has come upon us and it’s time to prepare our businesses and plan our gardens. Spring will be here soon, with Thoroughbred colts, spring calves, and that gorgeous Kentucky Bluegrass. Rest up.
Banks are going down the proverbial toilet, Stocks can’t be counted on anymore…who knows what the government is going to do next? What should you do with your savings before it has lost even more value?
KY Farmland Investment
Invest in farmland. It’s safe, it’s secure, and farmland is getting more scarce by the day. If you have a good piece of farmland, it’s going to be producing an income with the crops it provides, whether you farm it or someone rents it from you. Managed well, it’s going to produce income enough to pay its taxes, as well as give you a hefty tax deducton on anything you spend on it…including your trips out there to check fences and livestock. And in a few years if you decide to sell it, there will always be a market. Unlike stock, it will never be worth nothing.
If you buy a piece of land with water, either a creek or a large pond, and with a good fence, you’ll aways be able to rent it out to someone for their horses or cattle. Put a good barn on it and your land value goes way up. Now you have a place for the tractor.
And, you can depreciate the barn.
You’ll also have a place to go when city life makes you nuts. Go to your own farmland, where the smell of good cow manure can bring you back to your senses.
Why should I invest my savings in farmland? Ask your accountant. She’ll tell you.
“Millions More Foreclosures Coming”
“The other shoe is about to drop. More bargains are going to be showing up on the local markets. I suggest that people with money start looking into investing that cash in real estate. It may be more secure than the banks. At least it will still be there down the road, even if the banks are not.”
John Mulkey, Housing Guru (TheHousingGuru.com)
If the economy is improving, do we really have millions more foreclosures coming? According to the U.S. Treasury, the answer is yes. In written testimony to Congress, Assistant Secretary for Financial Institutions, Michael Barr said that, regardless of the success of mortgage modification efforts, we should still expect millions more foreclosures.
Mr. Barr’s testimony is certainly not welcome news for those anticipating a significant recovery in the housing market. In fact, it is an indication that significant recovery is still years away.
And, there are other factors that confirm the fragile state of both the economy and the housing market. Recent reports have indicated that there are almost 3 million active, interest-only loans with a total value of almost $1 trillion, with loans of about $500 billion set to reset within the next 30 months. Then we have a large group of Option Arm mortgages set to recast during the next 2 years. These loans have a combined value of more than $125 billion.
The rising number of bankruptcies, up 36% in the second quarter over last year, with wealthy families filing at double that rate, creates a “perfect storm” of disastrous consequences for the housing market. With the likely prospect of millions more foreclosures coming, home prices and home sales will remain depressed until the market can achieve stabilization. And achieving stabilization will be a slow and painful process.