All Forum Posts by: Susan Maneck

There's a recent thread here about investing in Mississippi, someone posted about readily available brrrr/flips within your price range. Run a search and you will find it. Potential does exist there 

Mississippi landlord here. Good cash flow is virtually guaranteed here, appreciation not so much. Our properties appreciated during the pandemic and rents rose, but before that the last wave of appreciation I've seen was in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina (New Orleans doesn't fit in Jackson.) If someone is interested in Jackson properties I do have a couple of properties I'm going to be putting on the market soon if anyone is interested and wants to contact me privately. 

Regarding something like people being employed in academia.  Yeah.  For a lot of academia, that's the point of academia.  Not to teach anyone anything useful, but to employ the previously graduated class of people they pushed through it.  Because if they can keep employing them, they can do better to guarantee future attendance.  It's like the most genius pyramid scheme ever because people outside of the organization are the ones who pay for it.

You can't have read what Stalin said during WWII and think he was not a nationalist. 

Your statement academia is absolutely ridiculous. Only a very few people get hired in academia. In American history it is one out of 200 applicants; the opposite of a pyramid scheme. If we didn't teach something useful, valuable or interesting, students would not take our courses. 

Quote from @Greg R.:

Not really sure the purpose of this post... are you trying to provoke a heated discussion? 

Several flaws with your post... " people born between 81 and 96 are getting poorer while the rest of us are getting richer". There are plenty of older folks who are flat broke - much of my family (great people) fall in this category. Likewise, many millennials (particularly the older part of the generation) are filling a significant amount of senior manager, director, vice president, and c-level positions.  

For the older folk that are doing good for themselves, well duh. Many of them have spent their whole lives building wealth. Of course they are going to be doing better than a dummy 28 year old who spent 200k on an art degree from New York University. They are at different stages in life. Where was that wealthy 70 year old 40 years ago? I'm sure many of them were broke and working minimum wadge jobs. 

I don't understand the comment about race. Are you making the argument that white folks have significant advantages over non-white folks? If so, I'd like for you to explain in detail and with data, how white people have more advantages in real estate investing. Last time I checked all minorities are welcome to join the military, get the VA loan, use the GI bill for free education, etc.

And lastly, if you want to pay for blue and pink hair kids to get gender studies degrees, be my guest, but don't try to force that on the rest of us. 

 Oh boy, here come the art and gender studies degrees again. How many people do you know who got a degree in gender studies? I know one and he is gainfully employed in Academia, but in a history department not gender studies. 

My father's generation didn't have to make that choice. If you served in the military you got the GI-Bill, no questions asked and no CO trying to intimidate you and trying to talk you out of it. I find it disgusting that they would do this. 

Quote from @Dan DiFilippo:

Quote from @Susan Maneck:

I would hasten to point out that both Stalin and Ho Chi Minh were ultimately nationalists. 

Stalin?  A nationalist?   Are you posting in bad faith?

 I have a PhD in history and taught in higher education for thirty years. What's your credentials? 

The split between Trotsky and Stalin only makes sense if you understand Stalin's nationalism. 

 The nationalists and communists used to cooperate when their country is under foreign power but fought each other after they kicked out the colonialist.  Hence what happened in Asia is typically a civil war between communism and nationalism. 

While rabid nationalism appears to have raised its ugly head wherever communism has fallen, I would hasten to point out that both Stalin and Ho Chi Minh were ultimately nationalists. 

 Of course. One interesting thing that I noticed from your discussion with Susan was......during 1945-1990 cold war era it seems US is doing a lot of thing in the right direction and "models for the free world", but after the Soviet falls; especially after the liberalization era of early 2000, it seems Wall St is taking over everything.

Somewhat. We followed the development theory. The US perceived rightly that contrary to what Karl Marx believed would happen, that it was poor, agrarian countries that were attracted to communism, not ones with industrial economies. Therefore, if we helped the "Third World" develop they would not fall prey to communism. Of course we did few bad things too like have the CIA intervene in Iran and Chile. One thing that should be recognized, though, is that the reason Industrialized nations did survive without communist revolutions is because eventually governments bridled capitalism, allowing unions to form, enfranchising the working class, cutting back on abuses, enacting Social Security (Bismarck did that first.) In other words the became mixed economies. Indeed, the communist countries which have survived like China and Vietnam essentially did the same. 

Karl Marx also said that it would need to begin in fully industrialized nations. Not what happened. If Lenin and Mao had been listened to Karl Marx they never would have started communist revolutions in feudal and agrarian countries. Also, Karl Marx did not believe there would be a communist revolution in America because land was so plentiful the working classes always had another option besides working in factories. 

Unfortunately it is a meme which comes up again and again with people who have no problem with young people having to rack up a ton of debt it order to get an education. If the last few years have taught us nothing else it is that if you repeat a lie often enough people come to believe it. 

 And also, I think it’s wrong to be telling people of color that they’re not gonna be successful without going to college due to the color of their skin. 

I don't tell them that but the statistics are certainly at the forefront of my mind when I consider the importance of what I need to with these young people. 

I'm not putting them down for the color of their skin, although I am saying something about the state of things in Mississippi where they live. They only got rid of the Confederate Stars and Bars in their state flag after the George Floyd protests. During the recent floods in Jackson, the Governor gave a press conference where he didn't bother to invite the black mayor or Bennie Thompson. The State Legislature made Jackson ineligible for Build Back Better monies because they demanded matching funds from a city that had none ensuring the monies went to white suburbs instead. A black person who commits even a misdemeanor can lose their right to vote permanently.