The Texas Lifestyle

I received this heads-up in an investment newsletter yesterday.  This story appeared in The Times of London on January 8th.  Its the Solution to our current financial crisis: "Punish savers and make them spend money" In the article, Mr. Kaletsky points out that interest rates have been pushed to ...

There is a big problem in this country with property taxes, especially in Texas, escallating and basically taxing people out of their homes. Many solutions have been proposed, implemented and failed. In Texas, originally there was "Homesteading" which was supposed to give a home owner a break fro...

I was recently in a discussion with a few casual acquaintenances when the topic of real estate and prices and commissions came up. After the usual lament on the overall decline in property values, one of the participants brought up real estate agents and commissions.  I just sat back to see where...

I subscribe to several RE sites and this just came in on one of them. Obviously, the author, Diane Kenney (CPA and tax strategist) is wanting to sell subscriptions to her CPA "IRS Survival Guide".  This post is not what this is about.  I don't know her, use her services or endorse anything she do...

  Tired of working?  Need a break?   Then do this:   You have just received the Amish virus.  Because we don't have any computers or programming experience, this virus works on the honor system.  Please delete all the files from your hard drive and then manually forward this virus to everyone on ...

Its cold, wet, rainy and icing up in the trees.  Here's the view from my windows today as I work online and prepare for an investors meeting tonight.     Living in the middle of the woods like this is wonderful.  Inspite of all the news, I wish everyone a prosperous and peaceful '09.  

The blog by Kristal Kraft was an interesting thread about the Russian professor that predicted that US could break up into several countries influenced by other countries. Here's the post if you want to catch up: Doom and Gloom This blog is about doing something about the issues behind the articl...

My brother and I were visiting during our New Years party for my family. The discussion turned to what's going on in the economy and how we got to where we are. He reminded me of an 8th grade book that our kids had used in school. It describes in very simple terms how economies work and the impac...