The Goat Pen

Excellent long read about Lima, Ohio and the struggle of the community, underemployment, politics and so economics...

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/ne ... s-20141014

The Scott Chaffins guy is someone I get. His wife, however, is the type of person that annoys the shit out of me. What I don't understand is how dude is unemployed for six months and burns through $60K in savings during that time and has a $199K mortgage that they pay $1,200 month in debt servicing. Something doesn't add up to me.

I could live for several years on $60K, easy...

Good lord, I just read the first paragraph, this guy is 75 years old, how much money does it take to live when you're 75? Esp. if you grew up in Appalachia and already know how to survive on possum and creek water...

Maybe a country boy can't survive..

LOL...

Bklyn wrote:The Scott Chaffins guy is someone I get. His wife, however, is the type of person that annoys the shit out of me. What I don't understand is how dude is unemployed for six months and burns through $60K in savings during that time and has a $199K mortgage that they pay $1,200 month in debt servicing. Something doesn't add up to me.

College?

I never knew Lima was so bad off. They make the Abrhams tanks there and there are several industrial sites along I-75 there.

Can't say I've been to Lima, just passing thru

hedge wrote:Good lord, I just read the first paragraph, this guy is 75 years old, how much money does it take to live when you're 75? Esp. if you grew up in Appalachia and already know how to survive on possum and creek water...

The guy in the first paragraph is the father who moved them from Kentucky to Ohio. The guy I'm speaking about is in his early 50s, iirc.

aTm wrote:

Bklyn wrote:The Scott Chaffins guy is someone I get. His wife, however, is the type of person that annoys the shit out of me. What I don't understand is how dude is unemployed for six months and burns through $60K in savings during that time and has a $199K mortgage that they pay $1,200 month in debt servicing. Something doesn't add up to me.

College?

What do you mean?

I didn't read it but it said at the beginning they have college age kids in school. Did they address who is paying?

I can't remember if they speak about their kids being in college. I'm thinking I may be confusing the elder Chaffins (who was the focus of the first paragraph of the article) with the younger Scott Chaffins dude. Either way, they both referenced the kids in both their stories, but I don't remember a statement about paying for their college (although I do remember that Scott Chaffins paid some ridiculously small amount to go to college).

As I think about it, I bet they do have some type of large debt load they are managing. They probably took out home equity (which is why they have a property initially mortgaged at $200K - at max - and are paying a monthly nut that is 40 - 50% higher than I would expect). Their property value has cratered and they are probably the type of people "too proud" to refi under the Obama HARP program...or even find out what it is.

Even with all of that said, I have a solid, well-paying job, with a decent NYC-sized mortgage, two little kids in private schools and no immediate threats to my cash flow, yet my wife would have to work fairly hard to do $10K a month in expenses. I'm not saying she hasn't ever, or would not easily meet the challenge if it was presented as such, but on a normal course we're not kicking out that amount per month. The Chaffins are not laying out everything that is going on with their finances.

That post reminded me of something that I experienced a few months ago...

A kid that is in the same kindergarten class as my son had a birthday party at his apartment in downtown Manhattan. My wife did not feel like going, so she and my daughter stayed home. So, me and my boy head over to this party and are looking for the address as we walk up the street. It's in an area of Manhattan that used to have a lot of warehouses and such back in the 70s, so we walk past a building like that which was obviously recently converted, or was converting, into a residential space. It turned out that was the kid's apartment building.

So, we go into the building and there was a doorman/desk attendant standing at a narrow desk. I told him the apartment number where we were going and he pointed me to where the elevator was located.

There was just one elevator for the whole building. Odd.

So, we get into the elevator and there were 6 buttons and one button displayed the apartment number of where we were going. So, I hit the button and the elevator goes up and opens on the floor (4th floor). When the doors open, I was staring into a living room. The place was a huge loft with a fireplace and grand piano in the living room area.

It had a yard. A yard.

It was an apartment on the 4th floor of a 7 floor building (top floor was a duplex) and it had a yard with picnic tables and kids were kicking around a soccer ball and running around.

Fast forward to the following week, I'm at work on a conference call and one of my analysts is in my office listening in, but has her laptop with her. So, I write the address of the family (who are great people, btw. They are nice, normal, unpretentious, giving and relaxed in every single way) on a sticky note and give it to my analyst saying "do your thing, researcher."

She starts researching on the apartment. By the time the conference call was over she had found the purchase price of the place ($6.5M), the amount put down ($2.5M), who holds the note on the mortgage (Goldman Sachs), the yearly taxes ($87K), the monthly nut ($24K) and famous neighbor(s) (Puff Daddy).

I have felt broke a few times in my life. Never have I felt poor. I felt poor on this one.

With all that said, the little boy is a great kid, the dad is cool and we get along smoothly and most important, our wives really like hanging out. So, I'm poor but at least I'm not benchmarking against an asshole. I'm basically the asshole for having research done on the economics of their living situation. I can live with that self-realization.

Contract work, which is often not full time, is rapidly becoming the major source of employment in Lima, as in many parts of the country. There are a number of temporary agencies – also known as staffing services – in Lima, who supply local businesses- with both blue- and white-collar workers. ''We used to see a cycle of employment where someone would be hired for 89 days'' – a traditional cutoff between temporary and permanent employment,'' says Jacqueline Fox, CEO of the Lima Allen Council on Community Affairs, a local community--action organization. ''Get laid off, go on unemployment and then get hired again, sometimes by getting reassigned to a different company, while the first one hires another temp.'' But now, Fox notes, temp jobs can last a lot longer – ''indefinitely,'' she says. Many businesses often use temp agencies as a way to prescreen for permanent employees; others, though, base their entire business plan on temporary hires. Says Fox, ''We can't get employers to make a long-term commitment to employees to move them from temp to permanent because, in my opinion, it's a cost-savings measure. You don't have to pay health insurance if you have temporary employees. And they're easily replaced.''

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that's the kind of shit that drives me insane - does a company have a right to do that? sure they do, but goddammit - just because you have the right to do doesn't mean its the right thing to do.

This is where I am the most liberal - somewhere in that company, or companies, there is someone who wouldn't think twice about doing that a person - because they're driven by a numbers goal, but at the same time, they wouldn't tolerate the company they work for treating them that way. You better fucking believe the person who told the board of directors that hiring temps to avoid taxes, health care and dodging the union - has every perk the company offers.

And that just makes me sick. Pay it forward, obligation, however you want to label it - this mentality is so far from those basic concepts - its more en vogue to donate your millions to fight malaria in some 3rd world shithole (presumably because you're protecting your future labor force) than it is to...say...build a college that offers tuition at 1/10 of the cost of State U. - its how we've ended up with about 5% of the population controlling the wealth in this country while 22% of the kids are missing meals and learning what it means to go a few weeks with the power cut off - and there is where I am most libertarian - because this dysfunctional environment of maximizing stock holder profit with lax financial controls, loophole tax breaks and fighting off attempts to support workers rights has created a culture of about 50m people in this country that just assume their income security is going to come from the government, not from a working environment.

I constantly rant about this, but I know I'm right on this and no Sean Hannity talking point new conservative pushing christian values and protestant work ethic can tell me any different.

btw, I couldn't sleep at night if I knew a shared elevator opened up into my living room - regardless of key cards or whatever.

fwiw, I'm at a point where I have well into 6 figure equity in my home now and assuming interest rates drop a bit, I'm probably going to refinance so I have a line of credit against my equity so I can make major purchases against my home equity and claim the interest on taxes - like a car purchase or land.

Anyone think that is a bad idea?

On paper, with today's interest rates it makes sense; however, last year I paid off my mortgage and there is this intangible of having a sense of freedom from not having a mortgage payment.

The 87K in property taxes on that Manhattan apt seems low compared to the value. My guess is a revaluation is gonna come quickly for him.

eCat wrote:I never knew Lima was so bad off. They make the Abrhams tanks there and there are several industrial sites along I-75 there.

Can't say I've been to Lima, just passing thru

I blame Dave Chappelle (sp). He could have done more.

eCat wrote:Contract work, which is often not full time, is rapidly becoming the major source of employment in Lima, as in many parts of the country. There are a number of temporary agencies – also known as staffing services – in Lima, who supply local businesses- with both blue- and white-collar workers. ''We used to see a cycle of employment where someone would be hired for 89 days'' – a traditional cutoff between temporary and permanent employment,'' says Jacqueline Fox, CEO of the Lima Allen Council on Community Affairs, a local community--action organization. ''Get laid off, go on unemployment and then get hired again, sometimes by getting reassigned to a different company, while the first one hires another temp.'' But now, Fox notes, temp jobs can last a lot longer – ''indefinitely,'' she says. Many businesses often use temp agencies as a way to prescreen for permanent employees; others, though, base their entire business plan on temporary hires. Says Fox, ''We can't get employers to make a long-term commitment to employees to move them from temp to permanent because, in my opinion, it's a cost-savings measure. You don't have to pay health insurance if you have temporary employees. And they're easily replaced.''

-----------------

that's the kind of shit that drives me insane - does a company have a right to do that? sure they do, but goddammit - just because you have the right to do doesn't mean its the right thing to do.

This is where I am the most liberal - somewhere in that company, or companies, there is someone who wouldn't think twice about doing that a person - because they're driven by a numbers goal, but at the same time, they wouldn't tolerate the company they work for treating them that way. You better fucking believe the person who told the board of directors that hiring temps to avoid taxes, health care and dodging the union - has every perk the company offers.

And that just makes me sick. Pay it forward, obligation, however you want to label it - this mentality is so far from those basic concepts - its more en vogue to donate your millions to fight malaria in some 3rd world shithole (presumably because you're protecting your future labor force) than it is to...say...build a college that offers tuition at 1/10 of the cost of State U. - its how we've ended up with about 5% of the population controlling the wealth in this country while 22% of the kids are missing meals and learning what it means to go a few weeks with the power cut off - and there is where I am most libertarian - because this dysfunctional environment of maximizing stock holder profit with lax financial controls, loophole tax breaks and fighting off attempts to support workers rights has created a culture of about 50m people in this country that just assume their income security is going to come from the government, not from a working environment.

I constantly rant about this, but I know I'm right on this and no Sean Hannity talking point new conservative pushing christian values and protestant work ethic can tell me any different.

I partially posted the article because I knew you would lose your shit over that temp policy and the corporate fuckery, overall. I agree 100% with you, but it's always good to see you go in on the topic.

eCat wrote:btw, I couldn't sleep at night if I knew a shared elevator opened up into my living room - regardless of key cards or whatever.

fwiw, I'm at a point where I have well into 6 figure equity in my home now and assuming interest rates drop a bit, I'm probably going to refinance so I have a line of credit against my equity so I can make major purchases against my home equity and claim the interest on taxes - like a car purchase or land.

Anyone think that is a bad idea?

Makes sense to me. I don't know if I would do it for a car (unless you own a business), but it's still not a horrible decision. I just like to put drawn capital into more capital.

We used to hire some temp contract nurses for unexpected peaks in census and acuity. They weren't cheap, and they never performed as well as regular staff. We avoided them, but sometimes we didn't have a choice.

That said, the agency that they worked for provided bennies. Retirement, insurance, vacation and the like.