Archive for April, 2010
Apr
06
Mutant Zombie Bikers… Choices
Posted by: | CommentsAgain, I apologize for the lack of regularity in the posts right now but they should begin to level back out to 4-5 a week in the near future. I do appreciate the inquiries into our well being! It’s nothing like that, just the reality of additional hours needing to be worked to try to keep a regular payday coming in. The Western Washington real estate market is taking it’s time deciding if it wants to make a come back or just roll over and die. Until it decides, it’s extra hours for me! Oh well? I have another post on the status of those MZB’s for you today…
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Ignoring the pleas your better judgement continued to make, you walked on. Angry words in the distance gave way to the view of a crowd of at least 150 individuals, many of whom you couldn’t recall having seen around the neighborhood. They all were interacting as though they were indeed your neighbors though. They had the casual familiarity of people that knew each other but all was not well!
As the group you were with, for lack of a better description, approached the back of the crowd the words became more clear. There was a loud disagreement between someone near the front and the apparent ring leaders of this circus. What exactly was in dispute was not immediately evident. The crowd had formed around the baseball diamond and the bleachers were being used as a podium of sorts. For the next few minutes you listened to the bantering and bickering to try to get a feel for what was taking place.
Slowly the story became clear. The “leaders” who called the meeting were up on the bleachers along with their relative that had brought the news of the coming threat. Opposite them was the “crowd”, this group made up of neighbors from your subdivision as well as some from the surrounding homes. While these other individuals weren’t part of the neighborhood they couldn’t exactly be seen as outsiders. The rational for including them was sound by your estimation as the threat would certainly effect them too.
As close as you were able to come to a full understanding of the argument was that it unfolded something like this… The leaders had called the meeting to alert their friends and neighbors. The logical urgency had already been felt by most of those that had become privy to the details over the last 24 hours. They had in turn been the ones to start making the initial defense plans and preparations. This however was seen by some of those in attendance at the meeting as a sign of the leaders disrespect for the groups ability to come to a single conclusion before anything was done that effected the entire neighborhood, such as the barricades that you had just seen being constructed.
The meeting hadn’t even officially come to order before the infighting had begun. The folks that were leading the meeting had not even been given the opportunity to deliver the message and you for one wanted to have the details before you were forced to chose sides. You noticed that it appeared to be a single voice of opposition that could be heard above all others. This man was among those you hadn’t seen before and his language and demeanor wasn’t setting a very good tone for a friendly meeting of neighbors coming together for the common good. The longer you listened to this guy spew his noxious attitude, the closer you were coming to inserting yourself into this situation. If nothing else you could sit on the guy long enough for the information to be disseminated.
Without fully realizing what you were doing you made your way through the crowd of people and found yourself coming up behind the loud mouth. Several of the group he appeared to be with or maybe representing noticed you but he hadn’t. He continued to argue and talk over the relatively calm “leaders”, who clearly had called the meeting in a genuine effort to be helpful. You could read the emotions on their faces, they were frustrated by this clowns behavior. It was clear that they were wishing they hadn’t even bothered.
You quickly sized the crowd up and concluded that the majority of the people were just like you, looking for information and nothing more. The behavior from this small group of individuals, mostly just the one man, was making many uncomfortable to say the least. The faces of those around you were growing impatient and if something wasn’t done quickly to remove this provocateur the crowd would disperse before they could hear from the man who had come to deliver the information.
Thinking quickly for the first time since you had left your back door, you came to the conclusion that attempting to verbally persuade this joker to shut up and calm down would be fruitless. Having no formal training in hand to hand combat you also could conclude that a straight up fist to cuffs wouldn’t be in your best interests either. The man had several years and 50 pounds on you, the only alternative would be a sucker punch. Without further thought or strategising, you grabbed the mans shoulder and spun him around. With a quick solid punch to his mid section, you succeeded in knocking the windbags air out of him.
The man had obviously been taken off guard and crumpled gasping for air. His eyes met yours and you could see he was trying to make sense of this assult. A second passed as he was looking at you and then you saw it… The spark of anger returned to his eyes, you weren’t done yet. You had been prepared to see that anger and followed the first punch with a second but this time to the bridge of the mans nose. The blow had easily broken it. It wasn’t as if that was the effect you intended but it was enough to take the fight out of him. His eyes welled up with tears and blood streamed out from around his hands as he grasped his broken face.
Another man who had been standing beside the first guy moved as though he was going to grab you. As you turned to face off with him, he ducked to the side and moved away into the crowd. The only person that remained standing next to “loud mouth” was a woman, you assumed it was his wife. She glared at you but didn’t say a single word. Your adrenaline was still pumping hard and the sound of the crowd had all but died in your ears. You took a few steps away from the bleeding man, making your way toward the bleachers.
The thoughts were again running through your head… “Did I act to rashly? Was that the right thing to do? He deserved what he got and more!” All of these things and more ran through your mind, seemingly all at once. It was to late to change the direction this afternoon was taking but you had come to hear some one talk and it hadn’t been that windbag from who knows where! It felt as though you had a case of tunnel vision and all you could see was that you were almost to the bleachers and whatever would come next…
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Prepper
Apr
05
Business Opportunity? 2
Posted by: | Commentshttpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=COy1YyVUPQ8
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Did this idea give anyone any business ideas? Is there enough of these bank owned homes to keep more than a few of us busy and profitable? Maybe it’s just me that sees some potential in the second hand lumber industry… That’s cool, the less competition a business has the better the bottom line can be!
Since I’m not a builder and have never worked in the construction industry, I’m at a bit of a loss for figuring material costs. How much would one of these homes that’s being destroyed cost, in materials? Really, how much of the cost is material, separate from the labor, permits and profit? That seems to be the first question that would need to be answered. A real life analysis of what exactly it is that we would be salvaging…
For the purposes of this venue I’d like to just assign a value so we have a starting point to begin. I spent some time thinking this through and of course could be way off but I’d hazard a guess of $60,000. That would be for the material sheet for one of the McMansions we have been watching bulldozed… Possible? I ran a materials list for one of the potential homestead building designs I was dreaming about a couple of years ago. It wasn’t fancy, nothing more than a small house (apartment) above a 2-3 car garage… Those materials were going to run in the $28-40K range, so a whole house would almost have to be quite a bit higher.
Let’s just look at this number and if it needs to be adjusted, we could always do that later. Could we get a .50 cents on the dollar price for used lumber? There would be more than just lumber and I suppose some items would fetch higher margins while others would come in less… Let’s just call it 50%, I’m hoping that this would account for some waste materials too.
So, that would be $30,000 – right? The labor costs would of course have to come out of that as well… What would we have to pay some fairly competent labors to help us? I again can’t say for sure but was told the semi-skilled labor rate in my area of the country would be $12 bucks an hour… Well, how many guys and for how long to reverse build this place? I don’t see why we would need any particularly specialized craftsman to undo what was done by the trades people involved with the original construction.
I’m sure my timetable might need to be given a good reality check but even if it were to take one entrepreneur and two full time laborers 2 full months at $12 bucks per hour – paying the appropriate employment taxes too, of course… The labor would only come to $8,500. So that would leave us a $21,500 potential profit? Oh wait, we need the appropriate insurance and a couple of LARGE dumpsters, fuel and saw blades, etc… Could we just add an additional $6,500 for these items and any other unforeseen miscellaneous line items? That would leave us an even $15,000.
Could this be done? I think so… but what about all the concrete? Well, what I have still been thinking about is that bank money? We already established that the bank HAS TO BE paying these contractors something for the demolition, right? Why couldn’t we figure that the money from the bank would be sufficient to pay for the dozer to come demo and haul off the foundation. The contractors are doing that now when they doze the house! It wouldn’t be unreasonable to think that they could still be hired to do that part of the job.
I would think it’s safe to say that the money changing hands for the demo jobs now would be fairly profitable for the contractors to even raise the blade on the dozer. We might be making additional profit still after paying the dozer and crew? What am I missing? There are variables that would have to be investigated before something like this could be entertained in any major way but am I getting my idea across?
I heard this comment come from somebody near the back of the room… “Why would some store buy this lumber from us anyway?” Good question! First, I would point to the fact that they would be getting the material in good condition for half the price or maybe even less depending on how the numbers actually played out… Second, I would promote the project as a “Green” idea, you know recycling and all! There are tons of people in the larger cities that would even pay extra for reclaimed building materials. Now I’m not saying that I agree with these folks but if their “Green” inclinations would be profitable or help me keep my business viable, GREAT!
I go to to church with a couple that own a “Green” building design business. While this idea isn’t exactly a fit for the type of “Green” products that their builders are using, it isn’t much of a stretch either. With the proper marketing these materials could be seen as a treasure rather than just the second use wood products they really are. Anyone think there might be some tree hugger types that would relish the idea of saving not only a few dollars but a tree in the process?
Alright, alright, you think I’m crazy and know my idea would never get off the ground. Fair enough… How about this then… You use these materials yourself? How about you find one of these houses and cut your own deal with the bank. You could walk away with a whole house worth of lumber for little more than your time and trouble. Oh yeah, the labor! Yes, you would still have to pay for your helpers. If it were me I would try to negotiate a deal with the bank to get enough money from them to pay for the contractors foundation removal and the laborers wages as well.
Well, that’s what I was thinking on this topic… I’ve proposed a potentially profitable business idea and a great cost saving one too! If there’s one thing I see alot of on the survivalist forums is people trying to accomplish a lot of prepping on a very tight budget. Just imagine what a motivated prepper could do with a literal pile of building materials? I’d be willing to wager that a very nice snug homestead could be built with the materials from just one unwanted McMansion. Since the price would be largely “right”, it would even be possible to have a mortgage free home employing a strategy like this… Could this be done? Who knows but it’s certainly worth thinking about! Everyone already knows folks like us think outside the box, so why shouldn’t we be the one’s to pursue an off the wall idea from time to time?
Prepper
Apr
01
What’s Up?
Posted by: Prepper | Comments (0)Another article over at the silver bear cafe, we’e not in a recovery yet… More evidence that we have reached a point of no return!
http://www.silverbearcafe.com/private/03.10/theend.html
The last cars made in California, Toyota Tacoma and Corolla, have been completed. Now the auto plant is shuting its doors… More jobs down the drain. These workers will probably be able to flip burgers and keep up on their mortgage payments , right?
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D9EQEAHG0&show_article=1
This ABC News article tries to make the claim that the US Economy has turned the corner and in about 5 YEARS the jobs lost will be back. WHAT? We’ve turned a corner and only 5 short years will see us back where we were? If anyone believes this – please hold your breath!
http://abcnews.go.com/WN/Business/economist-mark-zandi-economy-turned-corner/story?id=10272810
MSNBC brings us an article talking about the trend of States holding on to their citizens state tax return checks. Tick,tick, tick – time is running out and I believe that people’s patience is too!
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/36122550/ns/business-personal_finance/
More bubbles in the housing market… Lot’s to look forward to!
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article25124.htm
What will the next shoe to drop be… emerging markets? Maybe – yahoo finance thinks so…
http://finance.yahoo.com/tech-ticker/next-meltdown-will-be-driven-by-%22big-collapses-in-emerging-markets%22-johnson-says-459869.html?tickers=^dji,^gspc,dia,spy,euo,fxi,uup&sec=topStories&pos=8&asset=&ccode=
NY Times says not to expect housing prices to rise anytime soon!
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Why-Your-Houses-Value-nytimes-2302299535.html?x=0
Ge ready for the real threat of excessive tax increases. If you still have the ability to earn a dollar, better get ready to share it with your unemployed neighbors!
http://www.zerohedge.com/article/inevitable-surge-tax-rates
How to survive the 3 most imminent threats from 2010-2012…
http://www.howestreet.com/articles/index.php?article_id=12751