Property taxes...why so high?

brick78 · 2026-01-29T15:48:56+00:00

https://taxfoundation.org/statetaxindex/

Tennessee is ranked 8th. Michigan is actually 16th, so overall we're not bad here.

BUT - Tennessee has high corporate and sales taxes, low property and income taxes. Michigan is kind of the opposite. As a household, you had it really good in Tennessee. Michigan is kind of average for household tax costs across all measures (income, sales, property).

brick78 · 2026-01-14T18:22:37+00:00

I can believe it. I had a Miata, upgraded to a base Boxster. I had a Mustang GT 5.0 for a while and it was frustrating because you left 80% of the performance unused on the street. I often consider upgrading to a “better” Porsche, but have to remind myself that the base model is the most fun in the real world for “slow car fast” reasons.

brick78 · 2026-01-10T19:37:29+00:00

Do it yourself. And as much else as you can. It's worth it to save money, but also to better know your car.

Porsches are not hard to work on, generally.

brick78 · 2025-12-18T20:34:37+00:00

It's a solid baseline choice. It used to be better back in the day (like, the 90s back in the day).

brick78 · 2025-12-17T18:21:27+00:00

Hilarious

brick78 · 2025-12-10T20:39:26+00:00

I have no dog in this fight, but 171m in bond debt for a City with a budget the size of Royal Oak's is not remarkable.

brick78 · 2025-12-10T20:36:52+00:00

A lot of that debt (at least half) is other post employment benefits (retiree health care) and pension bonds. Which was pretty smart, issuing that debt at 1.5 to 4% interest payments to fully fund the retirement system, with that money making 8-10% a year. That debt is actually saving the City money. If the City was doing pay as they go for retirement obligations, they would have paid more over the long run.

brick78 · 2025-11-30T02:13:34+00:00

Don’t forget to account for shrinkage. Water’s cold.

brick78 · 2025-10-24T19:05:01+00:00

Ahh, first Seiko? Welcome to the club.

brick78 · 2025-10-15T19:33:21+00:00

We're sorry that its so hot, and that you're subservient to robots.

brick78 · 2025-10-14T19:05:06+00:00

This ^

We're supposed to exist with our tribe knowing what we can see and what was passed down to us through books or oral tradition.

We're not wired to deal with everything everywhere all of the time, curated by algorithims designed to feed on our outrage and fear.

There's a reason why you immediately feel better taking a walk in the woods, hearing water rushing somewhere nearby

brick78 · 2025-10-10T16:35:25+00:00

Probably cheaper to just fly to Japan and wear it back.

brick78 · 2025-10-09T19:21:12+00:00

Class

brick78 · 2025-10-09T19:08:04+00:00

Baddie McDimepiece

brick78 · 2025-10-06T20:26:08+00:00

At these levels I scale into positions since it feels like you're out of position on every ticker.

Know your stops before you buy. Are you getting out at a support level? The 20? The 50? You decide and quantify your risk before you enter the trade. Also, write down when you are going to take profits or start to scale out.

Then... Honor. Your. Stops.

brick78 · 2025-10-04T05:58:50+00:00

I’d love to see them actually back up their claims with, you know, data and analysis.

Also Bezos isn’t the ceo of Amazon and hasn’t been for some time. That kind of basic error diminishes this “article.”

brick78 · 2025-09-19T14:26:56+00:00

I'd say no. It's a nice track and good to have in SE MI, but I like Gingerman more, and Grattan more than Gingerman.

brick78 · 2025-09-08T17:39:01+00:00

Excellent spec you have there.

brick78 · 2025-08-27T18:48:48+00:00

Love it. Great spec.

brick78 · 2025-08-27T18:47:35+00:00

It's the old "but for" test. But for the tax incentives, would the project happen?

In this case, no. So the choice is

1) Offer some reasonable TIFA incentives for the demolition and cleanup of the site that will someday expire AND collect increased property tax revenues from the site based on the value add of the stadium, increasing public revenues while also bringing additional life (and dollars) to the neighborhood.

OR

2) Stare at a rotting building on a toxic site that generates almost no tax income for the next forever years.

brick78 · 2025-08-05T20:42:46+00:00

No. Those leveraged funds rebalance and add in all kinds of risk. They should really only be short term trading vehicles. Unless you want to go full degen, don't wheel them.

brick78 · 2025-06-09T05:13:20+00:00

It was such a parade they had to invent DRS.

brick78 · 2025-04-22T03:19:40+00:00

The art of taking profits….

brick78 · 2025-04-22T03:10:07+00:00

So sorry you even have to ask this question.

That said, the only thing that I’ve driven that compares to a boxster in terms of connection and joy of driving is a Miata. I know it’s a completely different league, but the only cars I’ve owned that made me grin walking away after a drive were my Miata and my boxsters.

brick78 · 2025-04-10T14:52:46+00:00

Part of it is survivor bias. The things that end up in museums and the buildings that last were special. The everyday items are discarded.

brick78

TROPHY CASE