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Cake day: June 11th, 2023

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  • Is there anything you have done for which, if I had done the same actions, I would be irredeemable?

    Is there anything that you have done, for which if I had done, you would expect me to jump into the volcano?

    Feel free to judge yourself just a tiny bit more harshly than you would judge others. But only slightly. Give yourself as much of a break as you would give me after expressing remorse for my actions.



  • You can give a mortgage to anyone who wants it, just not the type of mortgage that you’re thinking of. Private mortgages don’t have the follow on effects that traditional mortgages have. Private mortgages aren’t bought and sold on a secondary market. Private mortgages aren’t wrapped up into CDOs or other derivative investment products. A lender who issues a private mortgage can’t turn around and sell it to a different lender. They can’t package up a bunch of garbage loans into a new security and sell it to an unsuspecting buyer. The 2008 housing market collapse wasn’t because of bad mortgages. It was because of the entire house of cards that was built on top of them.

    Whether Adam rents a home to Bob, or Adam issues a private mortgage and sells to Bob, Adam is taking substantially the same risk on Bob. Adam is already prepared to take that risk as Bob’s landlord; there is no valid reason why he shouldn’t take that exact same risk as Bob’s lender.

    Land contracts are another option.

    A land contract is, effectively, a rent-to-own arrangement. The tenant/buyer earns equity from day one. But, if they default on the contract on the first 3 or 5 years, they lose that equity. After that 3 or 5 year period, the equity they built is, effectively, the down payment on their mortgage.


  • Rivalarrival@lemmy.todaytomemes@lemmy.worldResponsible guidance is a choice
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    18 days ago

    Owner occupancy credit against property taxes to hold them at their current rates, or even drop them a bit. Next, we target an 85% owner-occupancy rate, increasing the property taxes every year that owner-occupancy rate is below 80%, and reducing them any time it is above 90%. We will end up with a massive increase in property tax rates, but those increased taxes will only be paid by investors.

    On-site landlords, living in one unit of a duplex, triplex, or quadplex will be able to claim the credit. Off-site landlords, (or landlords living in a complex of 5 or more units) will not be able to claim the credit.

    Investor-owners will be fighting tooth and nail to convert their tenants into buyers: they will be offering land contracts, private mortgages, converting apartments to condominiums, etc. They will be earning considerably greater profits selling than they would be able to renting, while charging less.

    Lenders who elect to foreclose will be saddled with the property tax rate from the moment they file, so they will have one hell of a financial incentive to cooperate with the borrower.

    An owner-occupancy tax credit will give renting the death it deserves.





  • Don’t worry about the accuracy of the specific diagnosis. Focus on whether treatment is effective.

    The treatment options are the same for many similar conditions, so even if the diagnosis isn’t quite accurate, treatment can be effective.

    Also frustrating: not all treatment options are equally effective, not all individuals have the same treatment expectations, and diagnostic science is not able to reliably and immediately predict the best treatment for your specific circumstances. It can take weeks or months to find a combination of medication, diet, mentality, routine, and lifestyle factors that work for you, and those can potentially be disrupted by factors as simple as the changing of the seasons.

    I don’t mean for that to sound discouraging. I am only trying to manage expectations. You are very likely to see some positive changes, possibly large, probably small. You’re also likely to experience some side effects, possibly small, probably large. The objective is to continuously adapt and tune your lifestyle to maximize the positives while minimizing the negatives.












  • The UU MOU demonstrates that “atheism” is not inherently incompatible with scouting. The memorandum does not mean that if you want to be an atheist and a scout, you must also be a Unitarian. It means that the duty required of the oath can be fulfilled by an atheist. How is it possible to fulfill a duty to “god” without believing in “god”? That MOU serves to clarify the distinction between what the BSA refers to as “god” and what other entities refer to as “god”. It demonstrates that the BSA uses a non-standard definition of “god”, and that we need to understand what they mean by that term before we can make a meaningful judgment of their policies.

    I don’t believe in any gods, and would never say that something was a god if I did not think it was a god. Consciousness is not a god, nature is not a god, the laws of thermodynamics are not gods. Labeling these things gods only serves to imply some sort of mystery thing about it when there is none, I would consider it lying to do so.

    I consider it lying for me to deliberately substitute my meaning of a word for the meaning intended by another. What you (and I) would and would not call “god” is completely irrelevant to how BSA uses the word. BSA does not hold to the idea that “thermodynamics cannot be god”. Quite the contrary. If a scout wishes to define god as thermodynamics, BSA accepts it.

    BSA does not hold to the idea that “consciousness cannot be god.” If a scout wishes to claim consciousness as god, BSA accepts it.

    BSA does not hold to the idea that “God can only be a supernatural entity” or that “God refers to a sense of mystery”. If a scout does not wish to declare God to be a supernatural entity, BSA does not force them. If a scout determines that a sense of mystery is not necessary, BSA does not require it.

    BSA developed their policies using one definition. You are using a completely different, contradictory definition. Your conclusions do not at all reflect their actual intent. It is intellectually dishonest for you to impose your meaning in place of their intended meaning.


  • Dishonesty does, indeed, go against scouting principles, but I am in no way being dishonest.

    What I am doing is explicitly following BSA policy, both the letter of the policy, and the intent of the policy. That policy was specifically established to be inclusive on the basis of religion. Scouting follows it’s own law: it is “Reverent”, which includes a requirement to respect the beliefs of others.

    Buddhism does not include a concept of a deity, yet Buddhist youths are welcomed within the BSA. The “God” that BSA refers to can be found within a religion that does not include the concepts of a god.

    Unitarian Universalism does not require congregants to have a belief in a supernatural entity. While some UU members are theistic, there are many atheists and agnostics among them.

    I mention UU specifically, because the BSA entered into an MOU with the UUA on the subject. UU organizations are welcomed to charter Scouting programs, without requiring their atheist members to abstain. The “God” that BSA refers to can be found within an atheistic Unitarian.

    If I were asked how I, personally, perform my “duty to god” I would say that within my worldview, the concept that BSA refers to as “god” is usually thought of as “consciousness”. My duty is to utilize that consciousness in my daily life, to experience, to learn, to discover, to teach. I would recount one of my memorable experiences to my inquisitor, and thank them not just for asking, but for giving me an opportunity to perform that duty.

    BSA policy charges me with defining “god” for myself, and nothing in BSA policy prohibits me from appointing “consciousness” to that role. I am, indeed, an atheist as the term is normally used, but my belief system is compatible with Scouting.