Open Letter to California Gubernatorial Primary Candidate Tom Campbell

This a post I submitted on Tom Campbell’s website under his views on immigration.

Dr. Campbell,

I watched your debate held at Chapman and although I agree with many of your ideas, I can’t help but to cringe when you focus your immigration solution on building a physical barrier. If you think a physical barrier will keep illegal immigrants out then you must imagine that it will keep out drugs as well, right?

Supporters of a physical barrier are highly underestimating the level of human ingenuity that comes from desperation. As long as there is a strong incentive or benefit for people on one side of the border to get to the other side there will be a number of creative methods to cross. If there was no demand for cocaine in the U.S then there would be no lucrative incentive for traffickers to dream up creative importation methods.
The illegal crossing of a substance or person is a variable dependent upon the destination. Placing a futile wall up on the border just opens the door to different ways of crossing being created and potentially adds to an underground smuggling market.

Unlike drugs, the crossing of illegal immigrants should be easier to reduce because the incentive to come here is controllable. Quite simply the reduction of social services and state subsidized accommodations utilized by illegal immigrants will decrease the incentive to come here. When we look at the birthrate among immigrants, coupled with the cost of having a child, and relate that to the average income among immigrants it is obvious that we are completely subsidizing childbirth and pre/post-natal childcare. The cost ranges from thousand to tens of thousands of dollars per child. This is a small glimpse of a program that acts as an incentive for illegal immigration among the poorer citizens of our neighboring country and an example of scarce public dollars that could otherwise be saved or spent elsewhere.

Your idea about penalties for employers of illegal immigrants is along the same lines of making the state less hospitable to illegal immigrants, however the public assistance issue cannot be ignored as being a huge factor of attraction for them. I do imagine the issue of illegal immigration is such a key issue not because of cultural clashes but rather the absorption of public resources consumed by non-citizens, for this reason eliminating incentives need to be examined as the most compelling element to reducing illegal immigration.

You also speak of deploying the national guard to our border. This is just another form of a wall or barrier that disregards the whole reason we have illegal immigrants wanting to come here. Essentially, I’m hearing that you want to beef up the border to reduce immigration yet we cannot forget the reason they want to come here and that an organized war on an unorganized and underground effort like people trafficking or drug trafficking yields little in return for large effort and resources spent.

I recently took the 8 freeway from Arizona to San Diego and was subjected to three border patrol checkpoints. Would it be your intention to turn life at our border into a militaristic police state? At what point do you think citizens will become angered by being subjected to consistent inspections? Unwarranted stops like this are an encumbrance on Americans’ peaceful and private lives. Sure we may catch the occasional criminal, same if police were ordered to stop all cars operated by Hispanic looking people to check if they are American citizens, we may catch the occasional offender however we certainly wouldn’t be living in a free country.

His Response:

TomCampbell

Thank you for your thoughtful comment. Curbing welfare and maternity services for those who are here illegally will help reduce the incentive to cross illegally. And I’m glad we agree regarding my position about fining employers who hire those who are here illegally. However, I don’t agree with you that, because a physical barrier and use of national guard troops won’t be a completely effective step, we shouldn’t pursue them. Why do we have immigration and customs at the airport, when you return from an international flight? Really think about it. Isn’t the logical extension of your position that we should all be free to get off the plane, pick up our bags, and go to our cars?

We need to work on all fronts. We agree on some approaches; I just would do more.

California Purchase Agreement, Counter Offer, and Addendum

A helping hand for California real estate transactions.

Click here for a PDF of a purchase agreement

Click Here for a counter offer

Click here for an addendum

The basic forms for California real estate

The Bailout AKA No CEO left Behind

Unlimited Wealth From Passive Income

I would rather earn 1% off a 100 people’s efforts than 100% of my own efforts. -John D. Rockefeller

There are two types of income:

1) Passive

2) Everything else

Passive income is simply income from a source that requires little to none of your time. Essentially, you earn passively.

Everyone has the same amount of hours in a day. So why do some people make thousands a day while most make $100? What are these people doing that you aren’t? What is their secret?

Here’s a clue: It has nothing to do with their job.

These people understand how to leverage time.

Let me ask you a question. How many full time jobs could you work at once? Maybe two? Combined equaling an 80 hour work week? Miserable but possible. If you made $45,000 at one job you now make $90,000 with both jobs but your most valuable resource- time is spent up. Money and time are never equal parts. This means that the more one works, the less their true monetary gain. Any overtime wages are eclipsed by opportunity cost.

Inability to grasp this concept destroys small businesses and franchisees all day long. Here’s why:

Let’s say you owned a Subway franchise and worked 30 hours a week overseeing the operations and employees. Just for the sake of the conversation, imagine you net $50,000 a year of personal income. Basically, you have created a job for yourself with a few additional entrepreneurial headaches. Let’s also say that your first Subway location went so well that you opened a second one based on the business model of your first. At this point you would have 2 locations, work 60 hours, and make $100,000. You have now capped out. To even consistently work 60 hour weeks is brutal plus the responsibility of being a business owner places additional stress on you. The option of opening a third is not realistic because of the time, energy, stress, and other limitations.

Under that same scenario, Imagine if instead of collecting $50,000 a year, you spent $25,000 of your income on increasing the budget for quality labor which would reduce your net earning to $25,000. The difference is rather than overseeing the operation, you have a 2 hour meeting once a week with the general manager you gave the pay raise to.

You make only $25,000 a year, but you work 2 hours a week. Now your time is open. Imagine if you wanted to work 30 hours a week to keep yourself busy. In a perfect scenario you could open a total of 15 locations, and if each location paid you $25,000 a year you’d earn a personal income of $375,000 for the same 30 hour work week that paid you $50,000 before.

Even more, that same philosophy can be applied to hire another “senior manager” that oversees the managers of your 15 locations. You pay that senior manager $110,000 and pocket $265,000. Your new workweek reverts back to a meager 2 hours that you spend meeting with the senior manager.

This same idea can be applied universally.

In real estate people often buy homes to rent out. Many times I’ve seen people that make the stupid decision to buy a property that loses money counting on the property to appreciate over time. The problem is that like a job that bleeds your time away, a property with negative cashflow bleeds your monthly budget crippling your potential and growth. Let’s say that after all your bills are paid you have $1000 leftover at the end of each month. You then buy a property and rent it out for $350 less than all your expenses associated with that property. With a $350 monthly negative cashflow how many similar properties can you afford to buy? One more? If you own two you will be in the hole faster than you can imagine once a repair is needed.

What if you bought a property, rented it out, and gained $350 a month positive cashflow? How many could you afford to buy? An infinite amount. This is the same idea as the Subway scenario, the only difference is the resource- time or money.

Once someone grasps this concept, the next step is choosing the right passive income investment vehicle. That itself is an art that must be based on these principles.

Kicking The Filthy Habit Called A Job

A few people love their job and make due with what they earn, God bless them. Most people, however, hate their jobs but are dependent upon it. Similar to smoking or a drug habit, people are addicted because they need the fix (paycheck), but they hate the addiction and can’t break it cold turkey. A job will always be a drug-like viscous cycle for two Reasons:

1) Your superior’s job is to work you as hard as they can for the least reasonable amount of money. Every prudent company self audits their costs to boost the company’s profitability. So why on earth would they overpay any employee 10k-20k a year? This is highly apparent in American and European companies outsourcing IT to India/Phillipines, and manufacturing to China, Latin America, and Eastern Europe. If companies can eventually replace your position with an inexpensive foreign counterpart they will.

You personally do the same thing running your household. You want to get the best furniture or television at the best price. You know that you pay your gardener or pool man the least you can to get the job done. You’re not offering to add cost of living adjustments to his wage, you aren’t contributing to his 401k. Honestly, you don’t give a damn about the financial future of your gardener, you just want the grass cut every Thursday. That is the same perspective of whoever financially plans for your company.

2) If your company paid you more, you’d just spend more. A raise is worthless.

If you can find a profession that you truly enjoy, live within your means, and not be financially ambitious, then you are a winner. Some people are like that. I personally find, however, that many more people are financially ambitious. If you don’t believe me go to your local college and ask the college students why they attend. They aren’t attending school to quench their deep intellectual desire and curiosities of history, language, arts, and economics. Rather, they want a degree for a better paying job.

If you don’t like your job, and you are financially ambitious then a job should be nothing more than a period of paying dues. The smart few live modestly and contribute money towards passive income vehicles to transition away from their job into a position of infinite financial possibilities.

Don’t be fooled, a job will never make you rich.

The Reason You Won’t Get Rich Even If I Doubled Your Salary

This is the most simple financial concept and most simply ignored. I have a theory that states: If a person receives a lump sum of money (inheritance, settlement, lottery, etc), that is more than that person could have earned with their own business potential, then they will lose every penny. By lose, I don’t just mean poor investing or gambling but rather I mean spending money on luxurious crap and depreciating goods. We’ve all heard of lottery winners that go broke, but believe me, they are no more pathetic than you, and you would probably do the same thing if you won the lottery.

Let me take a step back. People’s overzealous spending habits drive up prices for everyone. The use of credit and leverage is at an all time high. Who pays cash for a new car anymore? List five friends, how many of them can afford to buy a home cash right now? Even when someone can afford a modest car with cash, they use that money as a down payment on a lease or purchase of a nicer vehicle. When artificial money (financing) is being used to purchase goods it inflates prices. The more eligible consumers with more spending power (bank lent money) increases demand and gives suppliers the opportunity to raise prices. The average budget of a consumer for a good that can be financed is higher therefore prices inflate. The more prices climb, the more people depend on credit to afford a standard living. It’s a financial trap, a maze that few can find their way through. The real estate boom is a prime example of how this works:

Why was there a real estate boom? The real estate boom can be credited to an unprecedented flow of inexpensive bank money to buy homes. Everyone became an eligible buyer and that inflated prices like crazy. When an abundance of money is pumped somewhere rest assured prices inflate.

People are consumed with matching their monthly expenditures with their monthly income. I credit this to materialistic binges of consumerism and a need for instant gratification. Don’t blame your income either. If you only make $30,000 a year, your doctor who makes $130,000 is broke at the end of the month just like you, the doctor just lives in a better neighborhood.

I once had an assignment in an accounting class about what we would spend $10 million cash on. Everyone I had the appalling pleasure to listen to assembled a luxury shopping list of exotic cars to extravagant mansions. Let me oversimplify the flaw in that type of thinking: If you bought a mansion on the beach for $10 million, where would the money for the yearly property taxes come from? The upkeep would financially bleed you and you no longer have a lump of money to throw at problems. Eventually, you’d be at square one with nothing but a story to tell. It’s easy to see financial stupidity on a large scale example, but people that finance a Cadillac Escalade instead of purchasing a Toyota Corolla cash commit the same act.

If you stopped working today what would happen? Unless you have a fortune liquid in the bank you are about to enter a world of financial peril. All those recurring monthly bills would eat you alive, they are what owns you, you are their slave. If you are getting by comfortably at $40k a year and your boss suddenly upped you to $80k a year, would you research ways to invest that additional $40k a year to create an additional passive income source? Maybe, but I doubt it. 99+% of people would upgrade their lifestyle from a financial raise. They will still be a slave to their expenditures. The only difference is that the expenditures are nicer and costlier. Even when people save money they are wasting it just at a slower pace.

I have no problem with the finer things in life. Everyone should treat themself, as my etiquette role model George Hamilton says: “If I don’t pamper myself, then who will?”. My issue is where the money comes from to pamper oneself. One’s monthly expenses should be a fraction of their non-passive income and even a smaller fraction of the net worth. I challenge any reader of this post to write out their monthly expenditures on paper, and their monthly passive income and see if the income covers the expenditures. What, no passive income? Well, then you are a slave to your possessions. You’re working for your possessions, and they are your boss. Look for a future posting of passive income investing and breaking the shackles of financial slavery.

The only way to get rich (or stay rich) is to minimize your expenses and put as much money into investments that pay large returns with very small time requirements from you. Don’t work for your money, make your money work for you…we’ve all heard it, but do you live it?

HOW TO SELL A HOME FOR LESS THAN YOU OWE FOR FREE (SHORT SALE)

Most people that bought a home in the last 4 years owe more than their home is worth. Actually, I would bet that everyone who bought their home with less than a 10% down payment recently owes much more than their home could sell for.

So what can a potential homeseller do about it?

A homeowner can sell their home for less that they owe without paying a penny at the close of escrow. Its called a short sale.

In every case I’ve seen a homeowner has to be 90 days delinquent on their mortgage payment in order to be eligible to negotiate new terms with their lender(s). So if your mortgage is current you’re stuck, and if you really can’t afford your mortgage payments then you’ll be delinquent soon enough and be eligible.

Short sales are simple by process and principal, yet there will always be catches and curveballs. In addition to following the steps of the process, extreme persistence and resourcefulness are essential to make it work.

The first step would be to open up the line of communication with the lender(s) of any mortgage liens on the home. Make them aware that you will be submitting a short sale offer. Verify that the lender(s) does cooperate on short sales (almost all do), and request all pertinent forms. The lender(s) will send you a checklist of items they need. The list usually includes a personal financial statement, tax returns, bank statements, a HUD statement, and possibly other items depending on the lender(s).

Run a comparative market evaluation of what homes similar to yours are selling for and decide upon a fair selling price at market value. Once you have chosen a price that will procure an offer within 30 days, contact a title/escrow company, request a preliminary title report.

After you have received an offer that you’ve agreed upon, forward it to escrow. You will then ask escrow to prepare a HUD statement according to the terms in the agreement and any other liens found on the title report.

Gather all the forms and documentation required by the lender and fax it in.

Now you wait. This process can take weeks to month. I strongly recommend making phone calls to check status every 3 days. Your job at that point is to push the lender into doing their own appraisal. I cannot stress enough the importance of persistence. Call at least once every three days, and up to 3 times a day.

Eventually, the lender will order an appraisal. Once the appraisal is done it is then sent to the lender in order to review your offer. Stay persistent and within weeks you will get an approval or denial.

If the offer is denied, find out what the lender(s) bottom line is and give the current buyer an option to increase their offer or readjust the asking price to bring in a new buyer.

This is a very simplified view of the process, and although a seller could do all this without broker representation, the difficulty level would near impossible and the legal risks would be substantial.

The reason I mention “free” in the title is because a seller can hire a broker for the standard 6% and the lender(s) will pay the commission and the seller’s closing costs. A seller should not have to come out of pocket a penny in a properly executed short sale.

Boo Truong and Silky Terrier History

Boo Truong - Direct Descendant of The Royal Melbourne Lineage and heir to Lord Wallamazoo Fossicker of the Brisbane Pet Monarchy.

Genealogy

Boo Truong was born August 11 2007 to Lady Grace Beaumont Sur Mer, named after her great great grandmother Judy, lap dog of Grace Kelly and Prince Albert II of Monaco. Her father, Sir Nigel Camden of Chula Vista, is 10th Generation pet royalty dating back to 1840 when Lord Byron Bellingham a Royal Yorkshire Terrier had an illicit interspecie affair with a Lady Jilaroo MonkeyJacket (an Australian Terrier) who was visiting England from Australia on a diplomatic mission with her royal master. The newly pregnant Lady Jilaroo was hurried back to her native Australia to prevent any possible exposure of the scandal. Upon Lady Jilaroo’s return her husband Prince Phillip Monkeyjacket of Melbourne was delighted to find she was pregnant thinking he was the father. The litter was born and as the puppies grew people and pets could see that the sovereign royal lineage of the Australian Terrier had been tainted by an affair with a Yorkshire Terrier. Lady Jilaroo and her pups were exiled form Melbourne and lived as vagabonds for 9 mos. (5 dog years). Finally, Lord Wallamazoo Fossicker of Brisbane an English expatriate and the only Yorkie in Australian canine aristocracy, adopted Lady Jilaroo and her interspecie puppies. As the puppies became full grown, the people and pets of Brisbane embraced them as their legitimate pet royalty and dubbed them the Silky Terrier after their luxurious silk textured coats. 10 years later (70 dog years) the Silky became the last remaining blood descendant to the Melbourne Royal Lineage and returned from Brisbane to reclaim the pet throne in 1872. Since then the silky has pleasured the world with their elegance of a Yorkie and Personality of an Australian Terrier.

Coming to America

Boo’s father, Sir Nigel Camden, was born in Melbourne among four other puppies. Sir Nigel always had a rebellious streak prompting his father Lord Reinhold Tittybong to send him to a private grooming school in La Jolla, California. Away from home, Sir Nigel spent debaucherous weekends binging on fine grass and vomiting until the wee hours of the morning. One evening sir Nigel consumed grass from a freshly fertilized lawn and became violently ill. He returned to his kennel at the grooming school where he was quickly rushed to a vet. After a tumultuous night of severe stomach pains Sir Nigel awoke to the sweet yelp of his future mate, Lady Grace Beaumont Sur Mer. Lady Grace had been sent abroad from Monaco by her masters as a pet grooming school graduation present. Both attractive and full blooded silkies, it was love at first sight. After weeks (months in dog years) of dating and sniffing, Sir Nigel got down on his hind legs and presented Lady Grace a diamond collar. Lady Grace ran away fearful. She ran and ran and ran. Sir Nigel followed and followed and followed. Finally, miles south of La Jolla in a border town called Chula Vista Lady Grace stopped running. Sir Nigel whined to hear an answer. Lady Grace explained that she was committed to a family arranged marriage with Pierre Du Narbonne back in Monaco. Sir Nigel knew how royal families worked and knew Lady Grace’s masters would never except a canine they didn’t know about. He then offered to renounce his royal title and stay in California with Lady Grace forever. Lady Grace agreed and they both seeked refuge in a nearby vacant new construction home. Later, peasant humans moved in without permission, but the loving couple of dogs accepted the humans’ imposition. Doing charitable work like delivering newspapers and warning humans of when their child was in danger earned Sir Nigel and Lady Grace the title “of Chula Vista” as newly established American canine royalty. Along came the birth of Boo Camden-Beaumont Sur Mer of Chula Vista. A high pedigree Silky specimen with a dashing fox-like face. Believing in assimilating into American society, Sir Nigel and Lady Grace gave Boo up for adoption. Boo was adopted by Nhung Truong and has lived a charmed and privileged life. She now resides in Orange County, where she studies English, Vietnamese, and Spanish. In her free time she enjoys sleeping and barking at her reflection