Gyroscopic Investing

tomfoolery wrote: ↑Thu Apr 09, 2020 5:52 pm

WiseOne wrote: ↑Thu Apr 09, 2020 4:13 pm I think he means low SES getting generous welfare entitlements that the higher SES population must pay for. As Harry Browne pointed out, a low SES population living within its means can be a net contribution to society.

When I say low SES, that’s my politically correct way to say poor people. Statistically, poor people are more likely to smoke cigarettes, wafting over my backyard fence, more likely to set off fireworks at midnight, have drive by shootings for gangs and drug dealing, burglarize cars and homes, litter, leave old cars up on bricks in their front lawn, blast loud music from their cars, have barking dogs all day and night and a host of other behaviors I want no part of.

Yes all of those things can happen in upper middle class neighborhoods. But I can also die while driving a car. I still wear a seatbelt to reduce some of the risk. I want to reduce the risk of living with the problems above by putting myself as far away from poor people as possible.

It’s not the lack of money that makes them act this way. So I’m not judging people by wealth level, I’m judging by action.

A lot of it is tied together, isn't it? Have money to pay $10 a day (or more) for a pack of cigarettes but too poor for what some of us would consider to be more essential, higher priorities. Then, of course, all kinds of other health problems come from both the financial investment in cigarettes and actually smoking them!

Vinny

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of ... ity_Survey

I find this list is helpful.

Pick your state from there.

Re: New Hampshire:

My wife has mentioned that state as a possible retirement destination for us. It's a little too cold and a little too "out in the boonies" for me. Great hiking/mountains, but not enough in the way of "civilization", restaurants, etc., for my liking. I'm by no means a "city person," though. Both my wife and I hate the busy-ness/dirtiness/congestion of most cities (e.g., NYC). But I'd like some semblance of civilization, restaurants, etc.

But the main reason for replying is that even though property taxes are "high" in NH (though no higher than where I am in CT), there's no income tax. So that's extremely appealing to me.

But I long to live near water. And, ideally, ocean water. So we've been planning to get our house cleaned up and ready to sell so that we can possibly move to a house closer to the shore in CT, even though CT is absolutely awful in terms of taxes. We've got high property taxes (including property taxes on cars), high income taxes, high gas taxes, taxes on *EVERYTHING*. But I grew up here and feel comfortable here, and some towns near the shoreline are really very nice.

And despite the liberal-bias in CT, it's actually gun-owner-friendly.

I also would be open to moving farther down South (near the shore), but I have no real experience with how those areas are, and my wife is strongly opposed to being in too warm a climate (even though I tell her that we could just stay inside with central A/C during the hotter months).

There is tremendous variety in Texas of all kinds of landforms and environments. You can get a cheap house away from metro areas so that the taxes won't bite.

Do you just want gun freedom, or do you want a shooting/outdoors culture? The latter is not as common as the former.
Taxes, I'll leave those for you to look up.

I don't think you'd like Tucson. It's very low income, high crime, very liberal govt, homeless, non-white etc. The airport is small and it's a long drive to PHX.
You might like Casa Grande. It's not as nice as say Chandler, it's more small town AZ which means lower income and more petty crime. But it's a friendly town with a lot of well-off snowbirds half the year. Easy to get around, stores are always close by, etc. Very close to PHX airport. If you are more of a small town guy, check it out.
You could check out Payson and places out that way, which are not too far from PHX. You'd probably really like Wickenburg or Prescott, but prices could be an issue.

Albuquerque, I'm saying no.
Las Cruces is a lot like Tucson. Not as liberal and homeless, but if you are white you will be in the minority. They fly out of El Paso.

Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, would be great for you except for airports. Maybe Boise is big enough, I don't know. Probably is.
East Texas is like the South you don't like.
Draw a triangle with the corners being Abilene, Ft Worth, and Austin. Put your finger in the middle of the triangle and you'll be in good country. Maybe too far from DFW? Depends where.

Central Florida, for example Winter Haven area, is not expensive, and is close to MCO and other airports too.

Indiana, you know about. NW Indiana is not far from Chicago Midway airport, which is a big Southwest hub. Costs are quite reasonable. You won't get "Chicago crime".

Oklahoma, Missouri, Arkansas. Here you get the outdoor culture, hillbillies, blue collar, low costs, etc. Airports are probably as good as Indy. OK is a funny state, I don't care for it. It just seems gritty and unhappy. Actually I'd not like to live in any of these three, but I don't know your personality. They certainly don't attract well educated liberals, lol.

To which I'll add, you want higher income people but not liberals. This narrows it down a LOT. That's like a unicorn.
I honestly think you should look at a nice suburb or exurb of Houston or Dallas. I understand the property tax thing though.

Check out Wickenburg.
And maybe some nice part of Boise.

That's the short list.

I Shrugged wrote: ↑Thu Apr 09, 2020 10:47 pm To which I'll add, you want higher income people but not liberals. This narrows it down a LOT. That's like a unicorn.
I honestly think you should look at a nice suburb or exurb of Houston or Dallas. I understand the property tax thing though.

Check out Wickenburg.
And maybe some nice part of Boise.

That's the short list.

This is a great list. I'm keeping it for reference for myself. And I second your opinion of Boise. I stayed there for the first time last year and I felt I had fallen into Mayberry USA. Extremely well maintained downtown, plenty of parks, no graffiti or homeless. Delightful in every way.

MangoMan wrote: ↑Thu Apr 09, 2020 8:54 pm

vnatale wrote: ↑Thu Apr 09, 2020 7:08 pm

Go to that web site above and put in Illinois and then your county and it will tell you the median income for your county and other information so that you tell us what % the average tax is of median home value.

Vinny

That site is BS. It estimates I should be paying half of what I do. Except most people around here pay more than I do for a similar size house.

Yeah, seriously. I would LOVE to be paying just $4.4K per year in property taxes, and NYC is relatively low tax compared to the surrounding suburbs. Across the river in NJ, property taxes are $10K...MINIMUM, and they could care less what your income is. In Westchester, you won't get away with less than $20K, and it goes as high as $40K for what you might consider to be a modest house.

The problem is that there are two parts to the property tax equation. One is the percentage rate. The other is tax assessed value, which is often unrelated to a home's sale price or appraised value. Basically, cities can do anything they want by monkeying with tax assessed value; conversely, a high tax rate doesn't mean squat if tax assessed values are kept low. That's how Bill deBlasio has been making property taxes skyrocket over the past several years, while claiming that taxes have not changed because the rate has remained fixed. He somehow thinks he's fooling everyone with that, and that we'll somehow forget that the $4,000 tax bill from 2-3 years ago is now a $6,000 tax bill.

I Shrugged wrote: ↑Thu Apr 09, 2020 10:47 pm I honestly think you should look at a nice suburb or exurb of Houston or Dallas. I understand the property tax thing though.

+1. Property taxes are high, but you'll also be able to find a house closer to the bottom of your range than the top. So in absolute dollars it may balance out even before you account for the lack of a state tax.

One city always near the top of my list is Colorado Springs. It's a beautiful area with low property taxes. And while I don't know about the gun culture specifically, I do know that it's a relatively conservative city overall.