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I was on a property tour with this real estate agent..

1) She came late 30 minutes. we were supposed to meet at 9 AM.

2) I call her at 9:10 AM asking where she is. She says she’ll be there in a minute. She calls me at around 9:25 AM asking me where she is.

3) When I see her I put my hand out to shake her hand/greet her. She ignores it. AT this point, she looks like she’s drunk or something. SHe has a delayed reaction… she looks at my hand then looks away… then looks down again, THEN shakes my hand. Her eyes, at this point, glaze over everything.

4) She drives out of the parking a lot and into another parking lot for NO reason whatsoever. I thought she was going to GPS the first property but no. She just pulls in and asks me what my intentions are with the 1st property I buy. By the way, when she says this, she’s on the parking lot “row” that’s facing the oncoming traffic.

5) She’s driving at 70 MPH on the freeway tailgating every car she sees. Literally, i can’t see the rear wheel of the car in front b/c she’s that close.

6) At times, her eyes are completely shut. She even hits on of those wake-up-sleeping-drivers-by-rattling-the-car tiny marks on the road at least 4 times.

7) We almost hit a car… TWICE

9) She misses our exits… TWICE.

I’m freakin’ out in the car. The whole time, she asked me what my intentions were with the first property every 2 minutes or so. I ask her if she’s on something and if so, it’s ok just pull over and let me drive. She says no of course (fearing loss of her real estate license I bet) but CLEARLY she is on something - she is WAAAAAY too incoherent and the last two trips with her were NOT like this.

At this point, i was fearing for my life. Shoot, if she wants to kill herself, fine with me as long as I’m not in her car. I ended the trip. I take control of the car and go back to the office. So I started touring ANtioch w/o her in my car.

If you’re a real estate agent, don’t smoke crack before meeting your client. If you have to, at least warn the client so he/she can drive separte.

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When shit hits the fan (i.e. current bank failures, real estate bubble bursting exploding, people losing jobs, terminal diseases, wars, natural disasters…  make your choice), people seem to have this spiritual argument: is God fair? In fact last night, I went to mass and this was exactly the topic.

This is obviously a dumb question: of course, God is fair. If you believe that God created everything, then why not random chance? Randomness is His creation too, right?

Randomness is great because it really does not care who you are.. how, what, when, where you are in fact. THis isn’t probably a good example, but Joker from the movie Batman says

Introduce a little anarchy, you upset the established order, and everything becomes chaos. I am an agent of chaos. And you know the thing about chaos, Harvey? It’s fair.

It’s not to say that chaos is same as random chance but the principal is the same. We are all little boats on this shaky ocean of life. We all get shit to a certain degree: some of us have more skills, some have more money, some are better looking, some are well spoken…. but to a certain extent, some of us have more fear, some have more jitters, some have more anger, some have more addictive personalities, etc.

No one is perfect and everyone is subject to the same human faults, expressed in different characteristics. And because we are all boats on this turbulet life ocean, we can choose to set our sail and exert our force + focus in the direction that we want to go. Some will suceed, most will fail (why? that’s another ph.D thesis i can get into) but the truth and matter is, we all start out from the same ocean… the same random chance of life or cards we were dealt.

People ask… “well, what about a baby who’s born into this world and die at very young age. Do you think that’s fair even if he had no chance of ’setting his sail’?” Of course not… but what if you had time machine, go to future in time, and find out that he turns out to be a serial killer who kills babies for fun? Then was it fair? We can go into zillion different if’s… but we can always think of these other if’s that support or destroy our argument too.

No one can predict or change the future… but each and everyone does have the capacity to change his/her reaction toward’s a life’s event that would ultimately dictact whether or not God was fair.

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People keep saying that the bailout is not good b/c

1. we’re meddling with free market
2. the bailout is really bailing out greedy wall street executives who took big chances with other people’s money… (i.e. no free lunch if you mess up)

I agree with both of them. Heck, I agree with all of the arguments against the $700 billion bailout. But this time, we have to look at the greater picture.

The credit market ONLY works if there’s credit (i.e. people and companies can borrow to buy whatever they need). With no credit, businesses and producers of society cannot have the debt capital to expand their business or acquire assets. The fundamental problem with the real estate bubble is that people borrow to buy liabilities. This credit crunch doesn’t care WHY you are borrowing, just the fact that you ARE borrowing.

If the businesses and investors cannot borrow, they cannot do business. No business, no jobs, This bailout, yes, is equivalent to bailing out someone who drank too much and is about to have a heart attack from the years of damage he has done to his body. People want him to get better, but guess what, he has to LIVE first before any long term repair can be put in place.

Under all other circumstances, I am against ALL forms of gov’t messing with the natural market forces. But clearly, the current situation is beyond any regular player in the natural market can do. The only player left, unfortunately, is Uncle Sam.

It’s very simple folks: either we pay more taxes or we go into a very long depression. Your choice.

PS: By the way, if you have 401k, pension plan, life insurance, or any long term investments, it’s in your best interest to support this… why? Read this.

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