Crazy News Stories

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well, for one, they’ve deleted his channel completely and have refunded over $70,000 in total to all of his active subscribers. It sure seems like it’s not a joke.

It seems it must be a legal issue, as that is the only reason I could imagine they can’t (or won’t) comment on it. The ppl who are in fact aware of the reason (him included, though ofc he can pretend otherwise) also have declined to disclose it, and the only thing they’ve said so far is that it’s pretty serious.

(as for the bathroom thing, he got a 2-week ban for that, and honestly, if you’re unaware it’s illegal, it could have happened to anyone [i dont know exactly what he filmed etc. so don’t crucify me for it] given that he was just messing about. I mean, look at the shit Cow Chop have pulled of in the past [i stopped watching them a year or so ago, don’t even know if they still exist])

(and I’m not defending what he did regardless. I’m just saying there’s “filming a kid in a bathroom” [just cuz u happen to be filming in a bathroom and there just happens to be a kid there and you’re an idiot] and there’s “filming a kid in a bathroom” [cuz you’re a closet pedo])

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308

I can neither confirm nor deny…

but u know i love Chrono :joy:

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309

The walking ghost phase is about to end in 'murica. This shit’s going to get ugly and fast.

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Some of our friends are jobless already, and a few had to move because they can no longer afford the rent. And they were sharing the place.

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While I love Last Week Tonight and I normally feel like it’s a good resource, I think they really dropped the ball on this one by characterizing landlords in general as greedy bastards who should be forced to completely forgive rent, not just accept late payments. To be clear, I do not think evictions are the answer right now, not at all. A landlord should, where possible, work with their tenants on a mutually-acceptable payment plan without interest, so the tenants can have a chance to get back on their feet.

But what got completely left out is that:
A) not every landlord has a rental empire
B) not every landlord is charging exorbitant rent
C) owning property is very expensive and there is no talk of relief for that

-I rent out part of my house to help pay for taxes. Property taxes vary a lot by city in the US, but here I have to pay $6k a year, and it goes up every year. There is no talk of relief for that.
-Any money I charge for rent is income, so a large chunk of that gets taxed away itself. There is no talk of relief for that.
-It’s my house, so I pay for the utilities and internet. That cost doesn’t go away if I stop charging rent, in fact water and electricity bills are significantly higher with someone home all the time.
-In order to rent that part of the house, the law requires that I register it as a separate unit (that license costs money, too) and have it regularly inspected (which I also have to pay for). And because it’s a “separate unit” I pay double for sewer and trash, even though (as you might guess) I only have one sewer connection and I still only get one trash bin. That cost doesn’t go away.

When it’s all said and done, there’s nothing left you would traditionally call profit - the best I can do for a reasonable rent is offset only part of my property taxes. For a “casual” landlord like me, with a job and who exists in the same fluctuating economy with its layoffs and furloughs as everyone else, the financial burden has only increased. As I mentioned before, I do not think evictions are the answer and I am not even considering it. But with no talk of relieving the burden of property ownership, neither is demanding rent forgiveness an acceptable answer. Tenants need to pay when they have the money, and it’s fine for me if that time is down the road. But not every property owner here is going to be completely prepared for the propety tax bill that shows up tomorrow, 7/1, and those people are citizens too.

My suggestion would be a property tax credit that must be passed on in savings to the tenants. So if they want to temporarily abolish rent, the credit would be for the full rental amount. If they want to cut rent in half, the credit would be for half the rental amount. Etc. Simply forcing the financial burden on to property owners is not the answer, but so far as I can tell, it’s the only thing being considered.

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You’re right, it did mention one city that was contemplating if it should help out the property owners. But that’s 1 of about 20000 US cities, and it’s not my city.

I felt like it did characterize landlords as scummy, but possibly that was my own interpretation. That episode gave me a vibe of “most landlords are terrible people, they don’t deserve any of the money they want, rent should be forgiven because it doesn’t hurt anyone.” There was a lot of talk about the financial situation of tenants, but not the barest hint of talk about the economic impact of what happens to property owners who might be in a difficult position right now, who were already in a position of not being able to collect bills but who still have to pay bills themselves. So even though I feel like I’m handling the situation correctly while I’m sure many property owners are not, I felt attacked for being a part of that demographic.

In any case, thanks for providing another perspective and for your positive thoughts on my suggestion.

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What I’m not really getting about seeking to evict people is that I can’t quite see the benefit. Is there such a great pressure on the rentals market that they can reliably expect a new tenant within the month? Even in this environment? Otherwise you’re still out your rent money with empty units in addition to whatever costs are associated with the eviction.

That is of course assuming the evicted tenant has been a model renter until this point. Surely it’d be worth keeping a long term reliable tenant even if it meant a few lowered, delayed or possibly even missing payments? With the understanding that they will return to being reliable as soon as they are able to.

I can see that this is a golden opportunity to rid yourself of troublesome tenants, people you’ve had a long history of issues with but that would not be cause for eviction. I’m assuming how easy or hard it is to evict people varies rather widely from state to state but I hope it isn’t exactly easy in any of them.

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As you suggested, my opinion regarding reliable tenants (like mine) is to stick with it. To answer some of your questions:

Yes, there are plenty of people looking for housing. An unemployment rate of 13.3% is a huge number (21 million) that puts a terrible strain on the country, but it means 86.7% (a much much larger number!) are still going about their business. There are also decent segments of the population (retirees) who’s income does not depend on a traditional paycheck in the first place.

Yes, in my opinion it is worth sticking with it even if there will be delayed payments.

No, it is not worth sticking with it if payments are completely missed and never made up. Did you read my post? Actually read it? It’s not merely a question of getting free money vs not getting free money. Having tenants often increases the cost of ownership. You’re assuming it doesn’t cost me anything, when in fact I could shave $250 off my utility bill alone if there was nobody there, and all I’m renting is part of my own house. I suspect you would object if you were told to start paying for other people’s bills, wouldn’t you? Thankfully for me, I would call my tenant scenario reliable and so I haven’t had to consider this angle. But I can’t fault someone who does have to.

Ultimately, the root of the problem is high property taxes. Like I said before, even with a reasonable rent I can only offset part of my property taxes. I’ve got some strong opinions on the misapplication of tax, so I don’t want to go too far off the rails with it, but I believe it would make more sense for more tax to come out of income and goods instead of property. Much of the economic crisis that’s really being showcased here is that it’s just so dang expensive to exist. And that’s driven by high property taxes. That’s why rent is as high as it is, and why mortgages are as expensive as they are (much of what someone pays to their mortgage is actually going towards property taxes, so the regular payments do not take nearly as much out of the principal as you’d hope). It’s tempting to think that lowering property taxes would only benefit landowners, but the fact of the matter is that it drives all housing costs.

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I’m sorry if you felt my questions were directed at you personally and your particular situation, they were not, it was more of a general thought. I was primarily thinking of apartment complexes and the like where utilities for sure is not tied to the owner of the building but the tenant renting the unit. That’s where I have a hard time seeing how an empty unit would be preferable to one which at least pay something.

If I were to just pay the company that owns the building I live in $5 this month then that would be $5 more than they’d get out of this place sitting empty. Any utility bills would still fall in my lap, taxes for owning the place would still have to be paid by them. So if they were to kick me out I’d take my $5 and leave! : )

I’ve pondered it for a while to try and figure out any hard costs involved with just having a tenant and I can’t come up with any. They pay for trash and recycling collections, which is the only thing I can come up with. An entirely empty building would “save” that cost but a single unit would seemingly not change anything.

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I’m just trying to emphasize that “landlord” is such a broad term as to be almost meaningless, but any rules, legislation, or protests directed at landlords in general is going to affect a lot of people like me who are just trying to make ends meet themselves. It’s less that I thought your comments were directed at me and more that I feel like part of a group that’s being caught in the middle and not even noticed.

As for apartment buildings, yes, I would largely agree with you. The marginal cost of an individual tenant is very low. Just keep in mind that the rent in aggregate might be the owner’s entire livelihood. Even if you own the building outright, if you are delinquent on your property tax the government will take the entire building from you and sell it at auction for peanuts just to get their “fair share.” So it’s quite possible that having unpaying tenants could cost the owner almost their entire net worth.

This is why I suggested that short term property tax breaks be considered, and long term tax restructuring is ultimately needed to solve the problem of how expensive it is to just exist.

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318

Old crazy news while we’re talking about landlords.

UNowner

I have an owner now. Thanks UN!

And I found interesting crazy news. It’s not USA gun sales, it is backround checks. Which I think it a better measure of how many people/households will have weapons.

https://www.fbi.gov/file-repository/nics_firearm_checks_-_month_year.pdf/view

Remember that a background check is done with every purchase which may be one purchase of several weapons. So it is not exactly every person because a guy can buy something once a month in a year and pop up as 12 background checks.

BUT! It is still interesting to see the numbers increase to +150%-200% compared to last year.

My funny semi-related personal story

Also, I got in touch with some people. Apparently, the large number of guns sales are true because they are buying 3 weapons minimum. 1 pistol concealed carry/in vehicle, 1 shotgun at home, and 1 “scary” gun which I think they mean is a semi-automatic rifle. These guys make me laugh sometimes.
The gun sellers must have been having a good time telling them how they can’t carry a shotgun around town for protection. They are mostly for new buyer’s home defense. So they needed to buy a pistol. But if you reeeeealy want safety, get this (say a lot of words they won’t understand) gun. It’s metal, coated black, has a strap, and has that oh so scary looking muzzle.
It’s fine though, I told them to take a gun safety class like any responsible person should.

Also, on 4th of July. Where it is simultaneously protested and celebrated, there will be a partial full moon in Asia, Aus., Pacific, Americas. The best night for fireworks and it may be a crazy sign of foreboding!

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Fighter, you crack me up.

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So with extrapolation:

Man: Fighter
Woman: WoFighter
Chairman: ChairFighter
Human: HuFighter
Snowman: SnowFighter

:thinking:

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Further extrapolation and reversal leads us to that band started by the drummer from nirvana. Foo Men. Expressions like “man back your tears” and an air force full of man pilots.

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Looking at the picture, the problem with partner vs boyfriend/girlfriend is that it really suggests something more ongoing and long term whereas bf or gf is not necessarily so haha

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Here’s Batfighter - the original fisherfighter:

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Bruh we have to account Batman and Robin for shark abuse. Forget the declining mental health of criminals and the increase in crime, this is a problem of a global scale.

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that’s exactly why i always have a can of ocean repellent spray on me

Sharks do explode! I knew it!

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This is insane, a week has gone by, and still no one has talked. No one has leaked anything at all. Who would’ve thought that a Twitch ban would be kept more secret than stuff happening at the White House, even national-security-related stuff?

The world is so weird right now.

There’s some rumors out there, some nasty, some plain dumb, some already debunked, but nothing confirmed still.

You’d think some “anonymous source” would just “leak” it, but no, nothing at all so far.

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