Shabbir's Diary

Judge Voids Some 2002 D.C. Assessments

A dispute between the Office of Tax and Revenue and several communities in DC over property tax rates had another small milestone today.

"I describe a lot of what's going on around the country as sticker shock," said Wayne A. Tenenbaum, a property tax lawyer and former assessor from Kansas City, Mo., who sits on the legal committee of the International Association of Assessing Officers. "Here in Jackson County [Mo.], for the first time in 10 years, they revalued the high-value residential properties, and some went up 200 to 300 percent. People were calling, saying: 'You got to help me. It's terrible. I can't afford the taxes.' "  Link to WP story

Honestly, this isn't about the methodology DC uses to assess property taxes, it's about the concept of property taxes as a state revenue tool.  It's just a bad way of raising money.  Rising tax assessments basically eat away at the livelihoods of senior citizens and the middle and lower class, making it harder to stay in their own homes.  Furthermore, when prices fall, people simply sit on their homes.  It isn't worth it to them to sell, and so unlike a commodity with liquidity, you no longer know what a house will sell for, because there's not enough data. 

During such an event, I suspect we'll all continue to get tax bills at the previous year's rate, which also isn't an accurate reflection of what the house is worth.  Ugh.

You know, it's just tacky.

All day long I watch demos of other people's products.  Demo demo demo.  In the process of sharing their desktop with my via Webex or Livemeeting, I see a lot of people's desktops, and browsers, and occasionally their e-mail.

To Conserve Gas, President Calls for Less Driving - New York Times

I would have thought that one thing that electing George W. Bush would get us, since he's a former oil executive and spankboy for the Saudis, is a consistent and dependable supply of energy.

"With fears mounting that high energy costs will crimp economic growth, President Bush called on Americans yesterday to conserve gasoline by driving less. He also issued a directive for all federal agencies to cut their own energy use and to encourage employees to use public transportation."

Link: To Conserve Gas, President Calls for Less Driving - New York Times.

Sunday's papers: Sep. 25, 2005

The adoption of the automotive hybrid technology, the price of gasoline and where it actually comes from, and economic integration of schools.

By the way my mom finished her chemo with a trip to the hospital for fluids.  Thanks to everyone for their notes of concern.  She starts her approximately 15 or so remaining radiation treatments this coming week, so the worst is still in front of us.

By the way, I do not like the new funny section of the NYT magazine.  It's not funny.

Is it price gouging? Or is it the free market reacting to extraordinary circumstances?

My name is Shabbir Safdar, and I'm a nearly unapologetic free marketer who doesn't believe in price gouging.  Imagine, just for a second, that you're a gas station franchise owner, and your supplier tells you this may be the last shipment of gas they can guarantee.  You can't depend on a tanker to come fill you up every Tuesday anymore, because the hurricane has interrupted the regular flow of supply.

Chemo, days 2 and 3

The phone rang this morning.  My mom, dad, my wife Sarah, and I were all sitting around the table eating kolaches and making googly faces at the baby.  My dad looked at the caller id on the phone, didn’t recognise the phone number, and said, “We’ll let the machine get it.”  They get a lot of telemarketers.  My mom remarked at how this round of chemo wasn’t giving her diarhea, wasn’t really killing her appetite, and how she hadn’t thrown up yet.  Mostly it had just made her tired.

The answering machine clicked on.

“Have you planned for your funeral?” a voice asked.  “A funeral today costs thousands of dollars, and creates an additional burden upon your family while they’re already grieving for you.  Save your family the emotional and financial toll by planning and paying for your funeral today.  Call xxx-xxx-xxxx to learn more.”

I am not making this up.

Nobody laughed but me.  And I was laughing only on the inside.

Day 1 of chemo

"Can I please have the chemo today?"

Such was the unlikely thing I heard out of my mom's mouth this morning at the Cancer center where we started our week.

A lesser publicized poker evening

Sarah insists that my previous post about my Friday night poker triumph isn't the whole story, and that the story isn't complete with telling of my Saturday poker exploits. 

Greetings from the road

I got a hall pass to go play poker on Friday and cleaned up at a $1/$2 S.H.O.E. game.  SHOE is a mixed game, where we played one round of 7 card stud, one round of Texas Hold'em, one round of Omaha hi-lo, and one round of 7 Card Stud hi-lo.

One of those choices

I recently said to Sarah and Jennifer that you are infrequently presented with choices in life that define who you are.  The choices you make leave their fingerprints on your very soul.  I don't mean to be all new-agey about it.  Make the wrong choice and you will turn it over in your head every night for the rest of your life, trying to fall asleep.

This is the story of someone with such a choice.