Letters to the Editor
Dan
Published Letters: 25 Editor's Choice: 3
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Universal rights
[Read the article: Court rules against Guantánamo detainees]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Yesterday, George Bush said, "And as we work to advance the cause of freedom around the world, we remember that the father of our country believed that the freedoms we secured in our revolution were not meant for Americans alone."
While the president argues that our freedoms are universal, he advocates the removal of one of the most fundamental right of all--Habeas Corpus--for non-Americans.
This is not logical. He is either too simple-minded to understand what freedom truly is, or he is purposefully spewing empty rhetoric.
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Do you have any data, RealName?
[Read the article: No one wants to buy a home. Whose fault is it?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I'm skeptical of your claim that home prices are rising substantially in the 50 largest cities.
In Suffolk County, Massachusetts (comprised mostly of Boston), the median price of a single-family home decreased 2.9% from April 2006 to April 2007.
I'm sure data from other cities would be similar, or, at the very least, would not be showing double digit growth.
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Location, shmlocation
[Read the article: No one wants to buy a home. Whose fault is it?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I don't care how great the location is. If the costs of the home is unaffordable for most of the people who live in that kind of community, the price will drop.
I live near Boston, so let's take the town of Arlington. It's a a nice, inner suburb that is close to Boston. The average home costs about $500,000. To give you a sense of what kind of community it is, the median family income as of 2000 was $64,344. Considering that wages have remained mostly stagnant for most people, that number is probably not much higher than $68,000.
To be able to reasonably afford a $500,000 house (historically, your a should cost 2.5 to 3 times income), a couple should earn in the neighborhood of $175,000. A household income at that level would put you in the top 4% of wage earners in this country. Those people aren't going to live in Arlington. They will live in towns like Wellesley, Lexington, and Weston.
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Neilpaul
[Read the article: No one wants to buy a home. Whose fault is it?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]The reason your high income family lives in Dorchester is because of a truly irrational real estate market. If an affluent family can only afford to live in an area like Dorchester, then where are traditional Dorchester residents going to live?
My letter may not have made this clear, bur I was talking about what will have to happen in the future. Perhaps Arlington is unaffordable for you now, but it won't be unaffordable in five years.
Basic common sense tells us that families making over 150K should not live in Dorchester. They should live in Newton. The real estate market of 2001-2005 was not sustainable and that's why we are seeing the first signs of a bursting bubble.
Fixed rate mortgages have never been 2%. And the only time we saw 15% was in the early 80s when interest rates were astronomical. Check out this graph:
http://mortgage-x.com/general/indexes/contract_rate_history.asp
It seems likely that mortgage rates will rise to at least 7%.
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Home values since the 70s
[Read the article: No one wants to buy a home. Whose fault is it?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Laurel,
I disagree with your assertion that homes began to appreciate rapidly in the 70s and has not slowed down since. The facts state otherwise. While there was a housing bubble in the mid to late 70s, by 1980, it started to deflate. Same thing happened in the late 80s and early 90s. Adjusted for inflation, home values were generally flat from the early 1950s to the late 1990s. Then things went absolutely kablooey.
Nothing illustrates this reality better than the Case-Shiller housing index:
http://www.nytimes.com/imagepages/2006/08/26/weekinreview/27leon_graph2.html
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skyrocketing prices
[Read the article: No one wants to buy a home. Whose fault is it?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Yes, a home bought in the 1970s has skyrocketed to an irrational level. So has a home bought in 1955 or one bought in 1995.
What it sounded like Laurel was saying was that the beginning of the exhuberance began in the 1970s due to the entrance of baby boomers into the housing market. But if you look at the Case-Shiller index, you'll see that prices were relatively stable until 1997, when the insanity began.
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nice guy vs. asshole vs. confident guy
[Read the article: The artful seducer]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Being the quintessential nice guy is not the best way to land a woman--we all know that. But you don't need to be a prick, either.
Like many others, I was once that typical nice guy who had trouble attracting women. I am much more successful now. But I didn't need to become an asshole. I simply became more confident and simply grew a pair of balls.
It's not that complicated: Don't be afraid to ask a girl out. If you had fun on a date, go in for a kiss. Suggest an idea for a date. Don't be too eager to bend over backwards for her. This is the behavior of a confident guy. Does that make him an asshole? Of coure not.
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Of little consequence
[Read the article: Party of two: Lieberman and McCain]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Lieberman's endorsement of McCain will have about the same level of impact that Al Gore's endorsement of Howard Dean had. Joe Lieberman's political influence is close to nil.
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The lone dissenter
[Read the article: Obama is wrong about the gas tax]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Amongst the countless experts out there, you have found one of the few who says that Obama is wrong about the gas tax. How is this any different than giving voice to one of the dozen or so scientists who say that global warming is a hoax?
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Quintessential satire
[Read the article: The Obama cover kerfuffle]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Perhaps many people will not understand the satire behind the cover, but that's not the New Yorker's responsibility. The cover is brilliant and to anyone with a brain, clearly meant to be a joke. It is the ultimate example of theater of the absurd.
Like This is Spinal Tap--a classic example of absurd humor--this cover may fly well over the heads of most people, but that doesn't mean it isn't funny.
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Silly season
[Read the article: Hammering homeboy]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I guess the Obama campaign has decided it's time for them to get into silly season. I don't like it, but I can't blame them. The American people have made it abundantly clear that they are more likely to respond to stupid, visceral arguments than intelligent, complex ones.