Re: AKICIF: "X-Kaspersky:" header

"Keith F. Lynch" <kfl@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote in message 
news:fsm8f3$h4o$1@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Karl Johanson <karljohanson@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
>> "Keith F. Lynch" <kfl@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
>>> <rkshullat@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
>>>> If you suddenly wanted to borrow a lender might be curious as to
>>>> why someone your age had no credit history ...
>
>>> Is that unusual?  I had the impression that most Americans -- or
>>> at least the ones who go to cons -- are wealthier than me.  So
>>> presumably they'd be even less likely to ever borrow money.
>
>> Borrowing can be a tool of wealth creation.  We bought the house I'm
>> writing from in 1988, mostly on borrowed money.
>
> Good point.  It's less money to save money at interest until you can
> afford a house than to borrow money at interest to buy one sooner --
> but the amount you save in rent may more than compensate for that.
> You have to live somewhere while earning the money to pay for a house,
> and it might as well be that house.
>
> I'd have liked to do that myself, except that houses were initially a
> little out of my reach and are now way out of my reach.  Especially if
> I were to go by the old rule of spending no more than a third of my
> income on housing.
>
>> We could have saved the money, and bought when we had enough, but
>> note that it's appraisal is now more than 4 times what it was in 
>> 1988.
>
> David Friedman keeps insisting that houses are just as affordable as
> ever, if not more so.  That disagrees with your and my impression that
> housing costs have increased much faster than inflation.

I haven't done 'inflation to housing costs' studies in depth, so I can't 
say if he's right or not for the general case. However, yes housing 
costs have increased significantly here in south western BC, driven by 
multiple factors, including government promoted population increases 
(some domestic & some imported). It's spreading from here, as many 
people move from Greater Victoria and Greater Vancouver, looking for 
cheaper housing, helping drive increases where they move to.

At the same time, I could likely sell this place and buy several places 
in Midlleofnowhere Northern Saskatchewan. If I brought my firewood pile, 
I could afford to heat one of them for one week of the winter.

> However, excluding the buying of houses, or perhaps a loan to afford
> college, I can't see any point in ever borrowing money, except in
> desperation.

When one has a mortgage on a house, any money you spend is money you 
could use to pay down your mortgage. Buying on credit or with cash works 
about identically.

> (I'm speaking of an individual borrower, not a business.)

The two mix together sometimes. As an individual, I borrowed money to 
buy into a company when the BC government told I and some other 
government employees that we were going to be privatized. I bought the 
shares for a trivial amount and each of us loaned a larger amount of 
money to the company. The bank considered the money we loaned to the 
company as 'equity' so the money we loaned the company was intended to 
keep our 'debt equity ratio' at a level the bank didn't mind. My buy in 
to the 'privatized' company allowed me to keep a job making signs for 7 
or so years, at which point I sold out my shares to my remaining 
partners. The interest on the money I borrowed to buy into a Canadian 
company was a write off for my taxes (my mortgage interest wasn't).

Karl Johanson