I just love how I feel when I ride my mountain bike to work, that blast flying down Corning’s Hill and how pumped I am in the office. After at somewhat rough night’s sleep and opening up a new pouch of coffee and downing some homemade banana and Maine wild blueberries, I am getting ready to shower and head off to work.
Yesterday was pretty goddamn cold riding my bike down to the dentist. 🚲 I should have gotten an earlier start and put my bike on the bus, but then I would have been there early with the dentist. 🦷 Of course, my flustered nature, a soaked duck 🦆and the dentist kindly suggestions about how awful stained my teeth are from all the coffee ☕ I drink, allowed him to scam me out of $27 into the flouride paint they put on your teeth but it’s certainly gone almost as quick as the money is out of your account. But the doctor ordered it, your teeth are bad, yeah, whatever. You got my $27. I guess it’s a lesson learned for car shopping. 🚙 Don’t shop when your flustered or feeling pressure. Just thank them and walk away. My usual hygentist also used to play that game but I had gotten good at pushing back and he stopped doing that.
I dried out by midday with the always hot office where I work and a fan blowing on my boots and feet. ⚛️ It was good, kind of a busy day, a lot of usual shit come down and thinking breaking in the data work. It’s fun when you can write a 5-liner R script and solve some big problem people are having. Though mostly things are held up because of a vendor issue, so there was also a lot of downtime before we can preform the next big update. Of course, it was kind of late day, because I didn’t get in until 10:30 AM with the dentist appointment, followed by of course the required strong cups of coffee. ☕ That’s because I sleep like such shit and are up half the night reading about the automobile business and pickup trucks, and random shit like goat farming 🐐 and private equity owning rental real estate.
Been continuing to study the auto industry and car shopping and the art of negotiations. 🔎 It’s really fascinating how to play the game and get a fair deal. Basically the trick is to get a total out the door price, and then a written broken down quote of all fees and taxes that go into the OTD price. Never discuss anything but those things until you are in the finance office. And then you look at the fees and negotiate over them, as most of them aren’t real, and even those who are real but excessive can be reduced by changing other parts of deal. 🤝 Get quotes from multiple dealers. 🚘 Find out what incentives are out there, which ones the dealer is likely to claim but not tell you about. I figured out 14 years too late that the dealer on my Chevy made my deal work at the rate I wanted to pay, by claiming to the manufacture I lost my previous truck to Hurricane Irene, even though I sold it. GM at the time had a program that if you didn’t trade in your old car, and you were impacted by Hurricane Irene by any way, I don’t know, my office flooded in Utica, you could claim a $3,000 rebate from GM. Dealer questioned me about it, and honestly told him I didn’t think I was impacted by the hurricane and the rebate is not on the bill of sale based my answer, but dealers actually apply for manufacturer’s rebates after the sale and can request any reasonable ones – only audited after the fact by manufacturer when they choose. 🤪 So who knows what the dealer told GM, probably my house and old truck was washed on the down the Schoharie in their telling. I’m honestly not crying that much about the stealership scamming the General, I mean manufacturers often set up their rebate programs with vague language that are intended to be scammed by either the buyer or dealership.
And take your time, walking feels good, put the pressure on the salesman not yourself. 🚘 Don’t get the scam of the rushed sale on doctor’s advice at the dentist office, as you’re a wet skunk 🦨 after riding in 34 degree freezing rain. I’m glad I’m in no rush to get a truck but I do want one by end of March or sometime in April. Despite what dealers may claim, prices do not change day from day, the only think that changes each month is manufacturers’ rebates, and dealers don’t know what next month will be until it’s announced to general public. People say auto dealer’s are scammy, and some ways they are, but also if you understand how the game is played, it doesn’t have to be game, and you can get a fair deal and be respected by understanding how the auto dealership system actually works. 📚 I still have a two plus months to keep reading books and learning everything I can about he auto industry. It’s fun to learn about big trucks and auto dealerships, and far more practical then let’s say goat farming or building an off-grid cabin at this point in my life, but being informed on such things too isn’t a bad thing for the future. 🔮
Black Rock, Vanguard, and State Street don’t actually own homes but they do purchase on behalf of their clients, large numbers of shares in Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs) and other real estate-related companies. Why does Vanguard et al buy REITs and real estate investment companies? Many investors from 401k plans to pension plans to general investors want exposure to diversified real estate across the nation and the world.
When you invest in a real estate fund, you are effectively buying a slice of a diversified portfolio that includes stocks of numerous real estate companies. For example, Vanguard offers mutual funds and exchange-traded funds (ETFs), such as the Vanguard Real Estate ETF (VNQ), which track real estate market indices.
I’ve never invested in any real estate ETFs but they do offer diversification across millions of properties and real estate has certain tax advantages that can increase its return. That said, it’s only one sector and sometimes the global housing and commercial sectors can loose value all at once.
Many REITs are relatively small to moderate in size, but when you aggregate many REITs together you get real diversification and also buying leverage.
Progress Residential (about 85,000 houses), a privately-held company. Invitation Homes (about 80,000 houses), a publicly traded REIT [INVH]. The company was formed by Blackstone during the Housing Bust in 2012 and later spun off to the public. Blackstone sold is last shares in 2019.
American Homes 4 Rent (about 60,000 houses), a publicly traded REIT [AMH]. The company was founded during the Housing Bust in 2012, and was spun off via IPO in 2013. In 2016, it merged with American Residential Properties. At the time, AMH owned 39,000 houses, and American Residential owned 9,000. Combined, it became the largest landlord at the time.
FirstKey Homes (about 50,000 houses), privately-held company.
Blackstone got back into single-family rentals by acquiring other big landlords. In 2021, it acquired Home Partners of America with 17,000 rental houses. In January 2024, Blackstone announced it would acquire Tricon Residential, a publicly traded Canadian company [TCN], with about 38,000 houses in the US and multifamily apartments in Canada. When the Tricon deal closes, Blackstone will once again be one of the biggest single-family rental players. Blackstone is not acquiring individual houses.
These five companies combined own about 330,000 single-family rentals, or about 2.4% of all single-family rentals, and about 0.3% of the 95 million single-family houses in the US (occupied and unoccupied, attached and detached).
I was looking at the new nutritional guidelines put out by the Trump administration. Like so many things, I agree with the sentiment but I think they get it wrong with the details.
To Make America Healthy Again, we must return to the basics. American households must prioritize diets built on whole, nutrient-dense foods—protein, dairy, vegetables, fruits, healthy fats, and whole grains. Paired with a dramatic reduction in highly processed foods laden with refined carbohydrates, added sugars, excess sodium, unhealthy fats, and chemical additives, this approach can change the health trajectory for so many Americans.
While so many things were broken in the old food guidelines – they were too unforgiving to processed foods and too pro-refined grains – the new ones are too much of a sop for the cattle industry. While a good glass of whole milk and a steak are a good treat, saturated fat still matters and eating too much red meat and dairy fats will still make you unhealthy. Cheese is wonderful, but it should be a dessert, not the center part of every meal.
If I were to build a pyramid, I would put fruits and vegetables, along with all the fiber they contain on the bottom of it. That has to be the basis of any healthy diet. Above that would be plant proteins like beans and legumes. On top of that is animal proteins, such as chicken, eggs, fish, and low-fat dairy. It’s not to say you can never eat a steak or drink a glass of raw milk or have a slice of a quality cheese, but it should be a treat just like that occasional slice of pie during a holiday feast when the family is all together. It shouldn’t be a pantry staple.
I get it that cattlemen and dairymen want to see their products have strong demand, so that at least in theory the commodity price goes up. But what we really should be encouraging is high quality dairy and meat products, not cheap every day meat and dairy. Spend your money on that quality grass fed steak from a local farm a few times a year, skip the hamburger and hot dogs. Get good locally sourced bacon, sausage, pork chops as an occasional – but pricey treat. But it doesn’t belong in your Walmart shopping cart every week.
At this point, the only time I eat meat is when I’m with family or at special events. I very rarely buy any meat. I do get skim milk for my coffee, but I don’t buy cheese to have at home, but if I get a chance to get a quality hard or soft cheese when I’m out or about at a special event or celebration, I will certainly try it. It’s protein, but it’s also heart-killing saturated fat. It shouldn’t be a daily staple. Long gone are those days of 2-lb blocks of cheese in my pantry.
Real foods matter. Dairying and castle-raising are an important part of our culture, but until modern times, meat and dairy were expensive, specialty items. People’s health would be much better off if they ate much more fruits, vegetables, and beans, and kept the animal agriculture products as something for special occassions, something you buy top shelf and savior as a treat rather then every day meal. And just say no to bringing any processed foods home, but don’t wreck family get together and those truly special social occasions with some good but not healthy food.
One thing I’ve learned as an adult is the importance of being a knowledgeable person about the subject matter that you are dealing with, but also realizing that in many cases you are not the subject expert. It’s important to listen, but be informed and give a judgement on the expert opinion you are receiving – as experts may be misleading, wrong, or just trying to sell you something.
Absolutely soaked in the 34 degree heavy rain leaving home, but it was too late to call an Uber or catch the bus to the dentist when I left home. I’ve actually never done one of those Uber/Lyft taxi services, so yeah, I wasn’t sure even how to get started. It was quick ride to the dentist in the rain, as when I was leaving to go to dentist, I realized I needed to put my 15-bean soup in the fridge, more grease on the chain after it rusted up after the road salt on Sunday the last time I rode. Made it to the dentist at 8:59 AM just in time, and the ride up to Menands wasn’t super wet or icy. It was kind of a blast riding down Morton Avenue. My jeans are drying out now in the warm office with the fan blowing on them.
New dental hygienist, Paisley that was covering for Hamid was nice, I agreed to see him for the next visit. New guy, but very friendly! Pretty obvious, he had the most rundown office in the whole clinic with paint peeling and obviously worn out equipment. Very through, spent almost 45 minutes, though he got me for with the $27 fluoride treatment scam, but whatever. He had that fluoride rammed in my mouth before I could object, and I feel like he deserved the extra $20 for the compensation for the fluoride or whatever he gets paid when the dental hygienists foist it on you. Next time he won’t get, but he made me feel a bit guilty, in a not mean way, for how stained my teeth where from all the coffee drinking I do.
