Shirley Chisholm on Extreme Personal Freedom

Perhaps some of you will remember Shirley Chisholm. She was a fiery black woman who was educated at Columbia University in NYC. She was the first black woman to run for Congress and for seven terms represented the 12th Congressional District of New York. While a powerful Congresswoman she wrote the book Unbought and Unbossed  (now out of print), She even ran for president of the United States.

She was an entertaining speaker, an intelligent debater and an educator with a powerful mind. She had a great understanding of and love for the Constitution.

I had privilege of hearing her speak in an outdoor arena one chilly fall evening when I was in graduate school at the University of ST. Thomas. Ms Chisholm said that she had come to the University to speak because she feared an extreme individualism was taking over America. In America she told us individual rights were becoming the only only thing that mattered, and she feared it would tear us apart.

At the time I disagreed with her. I resented state control over my personal freedom. The only kind of law I felt was justified would be a law to protect individual rights and liberties. I believed the individual was entitled to complete personal freedom from society-  as long as you didn't kill anybody. I believed the American mythology which focuses on the autonomous in control of his destiny individual. Think - the frontiersman, the myth of the self made man who did it all by himself, etc.,

The truth is we are the frailest of social creatures we die outside society.  As individuals need from others and in return we owe each other civility, we owe each other respect, and we owe society. . .  taxes for all the goods it supplies us with which aren't going to appear because the free market mandates them. (Though today in America the free market is thought to be the best way to supply everything - even government to a large extent ), The problem with the free market is everything we value has to have a  price, and money and the market are the way we measure everrything.

When the focus is strictly on the impartial market, people do not easily understand why they should pay taxes to send some other person's child to school. They don't want to pay for the healthcare of the poor in America if they have to pay more taxes for it. People may still want to have everything they need from the government but they want it for free and and they want all they can acquire in the market for free too. They think that is their right. They look out for themselves and their loved ones only. And law focuses solely on personal empowerment.

A good example of America's unntural focus on individual liberty, can be seen so plainly (May 18, 2012)in the story of Eduardo Saverin, a founder of Facebook who was born in Brazil and lives in Singapore, who gave up his American citizenship because he did not want to pay taxes.

In Mr Saverin's case he owes America a great debt because he used the government created Internet to conceive his facebook company, he studied at one of our fine educational institutions which was sponsored by U.S. tax policies, and he was free to explore and use his mind in ways a poor child back in Brazil couldn't dream of. And now that he has become a billionaire from being a part of America he is going to turn his back on the share he owes America back as if he had only himself to thank for all that money he made! Lets just say Shirley Chisholm would not be surprised. There are so many examples of egregious behavior on Wall Street and in so many other industries. An irresponsible attitude that puts selfish gain above everything else.

Though Shirley was against extreme personal freedom and fulfillment, she had a strong sense of her own individualism and personal freedom. As she put it:

"I want history to remember me not just as the first black woman to be elected to Congress, not as the first black woman to have made a bid for the presidency of the United States, but as a black woman who lived in the 20th century and dared to be herself."

 In return for what she had become she felt compelled to serve the common good of the America people - to pay back!

What a different Congress we would have today if  Shirley Chisholm was still representing the people of the  12th Congressional District of New York! I don't know what she would say today, but I am sure we would elect her for president this time!

Be happy!

Flat Fee Real Estate Brokerage

About five years ago I started marketing myself as my web address callvolley.com. I was looking for a new business plan for a real estate business. Most important to me was that I be true to my values and stay in control of my destiny. I also wanted to do something different from the traditional real estate business model and I wanted to incorporate some of the great business Ideas I had gained in 40 years of excellent business experience.

While looking around for new ideas I ran on to the web page of a flat fee real estate broker. I found the idea interesting and appealing because I felt it took the greed out of the sale when an agent was working for a flat fee. By working for a flat fee I would work with my clients to sell their home. No two clients are alike and all have different needs. By working with clients instead clients just taking orders from me we would all benefit from working together for the best result. The realtor I copied charged a $1500 flat real estate fee up front. He never treated it as a commission. After collecting the fee up front for three years, last year I began collecting the $1500 fee at closing and I am all the time thinking I should increase that listing fee because each and every client requires so much time and attention.

I saw myself as a sort of knowledgeable and capable assistant to the person doing the sale, the homeowner. I also felt my services could be useful anywhere in any neighborhood in Houston. In real estate you simply do not have to be "the neighborhood expert" any more. Real estate has become an Internet business and that implies people can and generally do get all the information they need from the Internet even before they speak to a Realtor.   So basically, I believe there is no longer a need to be a neighborhood expert. Being a Houstonian since 1976 I know the different parts of town and have done business in almost all of them. I wanted to do business in all neighborhoods with people who felt responsible enough to make their own decisions and who also needed the expertise of an excellent Real Estate Broker so I decided to become a Flat Fee Real Estate Brokerage.

This is my fifth year in this business. Listings are down everywhere and there are more people hoping to buy a home. The problem this year is prices are so far down some people are not going to offer their homes on the market, and supply is down as a result. That is good news for the business of real estate. Less supply causes more competition and prices rise.

My idea was to create a business doing business with lots of different people from all over Houston. It costs a lot more in gas and you really put mileage on  your car, but I have enjoyed learning so much more than I would have had I been a traditional broker concentrating on 300 homes in my neighborhood.  I don't have to read about real estate conditions in different sections of Houston. I am participating in them.I love meeting all the people I can because I am always looking at real estate from their perspective and I learn a great deal from people I do business with.

My idea was to create a business concept other people would readily buy into. I have stayed in business five years now and more importantly, I have stayed completely busy with the work generated by this idea. Most of my business I have gained the hard way through personal meetings and referrals, however, I feel like once I get my website working correctly according to SEO standards and gain a better understanding of google, I will reach many more people in Houston. I am really busy now all day now but I would like to test the idea I originally had that was to have a great Internet site. But creating a great Internet Site is a job in and of itself.

Next blog I write I want to cover how I as a flat fee realtor differ from so called full fee brokerages. The differences are are actually pretty minor.

Nature Compensates

If you live in Houston, you will inevitably visit Memorial Park and even if you don't get to drive along the park on Memorial PKWY for work or just getting across town, you love it. But I think you love it a lot more if you are one of the many thousands of people who jog around the jogging trail every week as I have for the past 31 years! It becomes for you a place of communion with nature. A place to feel humble and meditative. A sacred place of prayer.

Things change. So when as a result of the worst drought in our history last year fully half of the great trees in southeast Texas died of thirst, many trees in Memorial could not be saved. I have watched as so many of the magnificent old trees have been removed. During last week's jog I saw them cutting a magnificent tree over three stories high, I stopped and jogged backwards of a minute. I later heard it fall to the earth with a great crash. I felt the loss in the pit of my stomach.

With the economy so awful, sometimes I think the world appears to be becoming denuded of wonderful old venerable things like the trees of Memorial Park. They might be ways of doing business and they might include getting used to vast numbers of hard working Americans being unexpectedly without jobs - some jobs they tell us that will never be back.

Since January, however, we have had many wonderful thunderstorms and wonderful soaking rains that lasted for days. I noticed the ligustrum had begun to not just bloom but bloom profusely. My mother called to tell me that the orange tree was absolutely covered with blooms and you can smell the sweet perfume from the deck. And from the huge number of blooms on the Bird of Paradise, it appears to be obvious this spring will be full of lovely profuse flowers!

It is obvious that we have been through some bad economic times. Listening to the news or to political speeches, one feels like one is in the dead of winter and nothing good is going to happen. We have so many ways of approaching it. A popular song repeats the saying over and over, "What doesn't kill you makes you stronger." I love it every time I hear it because I think its a great commentary on our world in addition to being a wonderful song to listen to.

And even though politically Americans have not been the best of partners in the process of keeping America alive during the worst economic crisis of our lifetime, I believe our greatest success might just be that we have survived. We can't see most of what has happened yet but maybe in the denuded forests of our economy nature may be getting ready to dazzle us with a glorious display of new and evolving ways to live and work.

There are quite a few people, however, who think that things are going to get worse. For example, I saw a program about a man who had taken his family to live in the wilderness. They spent every day practicing self defence. As a family they lived off to themselves. They believed any minute craized bands of hungry people would descend on them to steal their food. They had to be prepared to fend them off!!

I meet people who are selling their homes and leaving the country in advance of the coming downfall of America. People are scared, but they don't want the government to interfere!

Speaking of real estate, they tell us the best time to purchase something is when prices are down, when people are scared they are easily convinced. In the world today the price of labor is down. Too many people looking for work forces wages [price of labor] down.

It is the same for the price of real estate which is declining because people cannot sell their houses for what they have borrowed against them. When it comes to buyers, people are paying more to qualify for a loan. Credit ratings have to be higher.

The market is asserting itself. Times like this are times of innovation. We like nature succeed because we make adjustments. Some older business models are dying new ones are being born. I have always enjoyed the business model of real estate brokers. It was independent and it required responsibility. I love the challenge of new ideas coming from clients and other professionals I work with.

callvolley.com is my idea of an adaptation to the crisis in real estate where prices have declined to make it more difficult to sell a home without actually taking a loss. I can also help buyers with my brokerage services. I offer brokerage services to smart, professional decision makers who need the professional services of a real estate broker.

I always need new clients because I have to do more sales than most people to stay in business. It is a challenge, but I am having a great time doing it.

Though change is occurring everywhere good homes are selling and not so good homes are being rehabilitated and resold. The population is growing and more housing is needed. There are a lot of reasons to be positive about the real estate business.

Whether you are in the market to purchase or sell your home, I hope you will consider Callvolley.com for all your listing and buying needs. In the future because I have to get the rankings up for my page, I will write more about flat fee real estate brokerage.

Best of luck to everyone! Till next time!

This is what Economic Recovery Feels Like

February Twenty Twelve

You get a lot of negativity today. The economy is uppermost in the minds of all Americans who have experienced a huge re evaluation of their net worth through declines across the board in real estate and the loss of income and jobs that used to be supported by 14 million more workers.

Many people are working at jobs they would never have dreamed of taking just a few years ago. Young people are staying longer with their parents due to the low wages and competitive nature of the job market. Many are questioning even the usefulness of education. A blogger spoke of his feelings in the NYT today. He/She said:

A BA in many fields is worth nothing. In some cases it can be a hinderance showing you to be overqualified. With a masters you are over-specialized and if you have a doctorate but no high tenure track / corporate position you schlep teaching classes at various colleges for pathetic pay and no benefits.

With all the negativity, how in the world can anyone call this an Economic recovery? Well, experience is one way of knowing.

I have two favorite market indicators I look at a positive and a negative indicator both of which lead me to believe the year 2012 is going to be a good year for the American Economy and by implication the real estate market will recover a bit too.

On the positive side, one of my favorite economic indicators is the Stock Market. Financial Advisors look at the month of January as an indicator of the direction the market will take in the next year and the stock market is an indicator of the direction the entire economy will take in the next year. So if January is a good month in the stock market the economy is probably going to do well over the next year.

The January stock market indicator is not scientific, but like all economic indicators there is some reason to think of it as a good indicator of where we are in the Economic recovery. Over many years of personal observation it has become clearer to me why the January indicator works. Take the general market as an example.

When the market goes up, it is generally because people feel good about the future. Generally the market goes up the day before Thankesgiving, Christmas - feel good days like holidays etc. Conversely, the market goes down when people are pessimistic i.e., when President Kennedy got shot or more recently when Iran threatened to shut the gulf of Harmuz.

January is the first month after the December year in review people unconsciously experience during the holidays. The January indicator shows us how the financial world views the future year because people are thinking more about the new year's prospects I think. Anyway if the January market ends up flat, the year would be flat and if it was down the year would be down. This year dear readers, the market had its best January in history. If the real world confirms the January indicator, the bull may be on the loose!

On the negative side is sentiment. For example most people will tell you that they don't feel like we are in a recovery. The whole country is pessimistic it seems. And we know that when people are most negative things are more than likely about to turn around because it is much easier for things to turn around in bad times than it is for negative things to keep on happening. Conversely we know we are at the market top when everyone is euphoric and thinks they are geniuses. They have reaped nice (often underserved) rewards from the system. They think everything is going to continue on forever. It is just because things are going well, but things can reverse quickly as we always see in euphoric times.

Today nobody feels like they have any answers. Pessimism means nobody thinks anything good is going to happen. That is exactly the way people feel at market (economic) bottoms.

Taken together these two indicators are pointing to a recovery. You can see it in the number of people who are being hired, new businesses are emerging from the ashes and destruction of 2008, General Motors as the President said at the State of the Union is once again the world's largest automobile manufacturer. People feel insecure, there aren't enough jobs to go around and that is the environment that fosters growth.

This is what it feels like to come out of a terrifying economic storm. It doesn't feel good like it does at economic crests. It isn't worry free, there are terrible things happening to people everywhere. We feel like we are behind in the fourth inning, we are forced to take risks, make Hail Mary Passes and hope to get through.

Times may be tough but as Ronald Reagan once said When the going gets tough the tough get going. It is not easy like it was in 2006 but there are possibilities if you are willing to let go of the past and embrace the present.

Oh and then, of course, there is real estate. How is the once easy market of real estate going?

Today's buyer is better prepared to buy a home. They have higher credit ratings, better jobs, a twenty percent down payment! There are a lot less of them. Not every house is going to appeal to them, but the ones that do will be outstanding or special. If you are going to list your house, please, don't expect them to buy it to fix it up.

Fixing up houses has now matured into an industry. If your house needs repair and is out of date, you may have to sell it to one of these new builders who will reproduce your home for today's market. They will buy it at a punishing discount too.

Pricing is always key in the real estate market and it is a moving target at the moment. If you have an idea your property should sell for what you were offered in 2006 (but you didn't take), you are wasting your time trying to sell it at the price it would have sold for in 2006 today. Even in the best areas of Houston there has been a 30% decline in real estate valuations since 2006. You may not think that but take a look at the Harris County Appraisal District evaluations for your neighborhood. I am not saying the Harris County Appraisal is as accurate as using the last six months of sales from MLS, they do not claim to be, but their appraisals are in indicator of the way real estate has declined.

Most progress I believe comes about in insecure times like this when people cannot see the outcome of what they are doing. Change is both constructive and destructive. As the recovery matures, I believe people will buy more homes and that is good news for real estate in the future.

Malaise and Manufacturing

For a long time the supporters of the efficient market theory have preached a sort of Economic Theological belief that everyone in the world would be better off if there were no barriers to trade and those countries with lots of cheap labor should manufacture while countries like the United States were transitioning into a service economy.

It started out in the 1980s and accelerated in the coming decades as manufacturing jobs left the United States at the speed of super sonic planes loaded with investment cash for the growing factories of China and the growing technological outsourcing hub India.

In the 1970s when I was studying Economics at the University of Texas, one of my Economic professors made the statement that what did it matter if the U.S. uses up most of the worlds resources per person, we produced it all ourselves. - We produced our own jet planes, our own nuclear weapons, dishwashers and televisions, we were the most efficient country in agriculture, so it didn't matter about the rest of the world. The United States could go its own way thank you very much. The U.S. needed very little from the world. - Oh and the argument about debt was academic because Americans were the main owners of American debt.

It is stunning to witness America's fall from the heights in my life time because of a pervasive belief in Classic Economic Theory. Think Smith, Ricardo and Malthus. I loved studying Economics at the University of Texas and I never thought at the time that at 61 years of age I would be hearing people taking the writings of the Classical Economists so seriously, but they are.

If you are one of those people who say workers are unemployed because they refuse to accept lower wages and if wages were allowed to decline more workers would be hired and we would be at full employment, congratulations you didn't invent that line of reasoning Ricardo published it in 1817 in his Principles. Of course that is laughable to everyone but the likes of Herman Cain and his supporters who blame the unemployed for their problems.

Anyway today the United States has a vast unemployment problem while in China everything is on the upswing. Our workers must compete with workers who have no protections or rights or even decent standards of living.

If you take a look at the world today, its the countries like Germany, China, Switzerland and Brazil where manufacturing dominate that you are seeing strength in the face of the financial cricis. Now take a look at our country you cannot help but think we should have thought it out a little more before we wholesale shipped all the manufacturing jobs over seas.

Look at what America abandoning manufacturing has brought us. Our financial system became way overbloated (over 40% of our economy comes from financial services). Isn't it a little incredible that much of the economy is in the hands of so few - masters of the universe? And what democratic country in the would would allow the main industry in a country of 350,000,000 to be financial services?

Capitalism would dictate that all parts of the economy be competitive. Financial Services is the main service America provides today. It is getting a government guarantee and an immunity of sorts from prosecution. Occupy Wall Street has it right!

But if we started manufacturing again the energy and the genius of the American people would once again be loosed and their struggle would truly lift the world out of recession and into the stars.

The Economic Problem 2011

In 1991 the Communist system fell in Russia and America rejoiced. Capitalism and market driven economics had won the economic war between the East and the West. Everywhere the free market was hailed as the answer to every problem in the world - not just in the economy but in everything. The free market (called the Invisible Hand, a term invented by Adam Smith to describe how my selfish need to feed myself would lead me to provide products for the good of others) would discipline bad behavior and promote good behavior.

People began to think of the market as if it was some force of nature, even God's will. Certainly Adam Smith who was a minister of the Church of England thought the Invisible Hand was God's will. When the Potato Famine struck in Ireland the English Parliament refused to provide relief because it was thought at the time that feeding the poor people of Ireland would just make them healthier and more fertile thus increasing the population of the poor even more and aggravating the problem. Never mind that Ireland was producing plenty of every other kind of food to export to England at the time. The Potato Famine was devistating the Irish because England had restricted the Irish diet to potatoes by law, and if there weren't enough potatoes beef could not be substituted even though there was plenty of beef.

So in the late twentieth century Capitalism which is based on the Invisible Hand (Read Selfishness) replaced Socialism (benevolence) as the driving principal of life. In plain words Capitalism believes that by pursuing my own selfish course - my own good, that I will provide for the good of others. That is contradictory, but it requires a little thought and there are many in the world today who want a simple answer. Difficult answers requiring thought don't get very far today.

I challenge you today to think about whether selfishness really is what provides the greatest good for everyone.

Who, for example, do you admire the most in your life? What are the characteristics of a person you admire. Do you admire the person who always puts themselves first? Would you admire a wealthy person who refused to give a loaf of bread to a hungry person? Would you admire a government that refused to feed the poor and hungry because it would only encourage them to reproduce like rabbits - like the English parliment said during the Irish Potato Famine that caused my ancestors to flee to America?

Herman Cain recently jumped to the front of the Republican pack when he told a reporter on television and the out of work Occupy Wall Street protestors, "Don't blame Wall Street, don't blame the big banks, if you don't have a job and you're not rich, blame yourself. "

Perhaps memory has become as selective in modern day America as it was in England during the Potato Famine.

It was greed and selfishness on the part of the Wall Street bankers that caused them to produce the Credit Default Swaps that forced ALL the world's governments to intervene with tax payer money when those Credit Default Swaps threatened to bring down the system that keeps the international economy functioning. The huge lay offs and resulting unemployment we are now experiencing are a direct result of the failure of our Capitalist financial system and a government that refused to regulate Credit Default Swaps that Warren Buffet had warned early in the decade were weapons of mass financial destruction.

It was our belief as a nation and a world that Greed was good. It was the result of putting absolute faith in an unregulated private sector with little to no oversight. It was our belief that selfishness would save us that has led to the very downfall of Capitalism in the world.

I remember as a child that once we were so hungry that my mother collected all the change she could and went down to the store to buy some hamburger. She cooked it and we were so hungry ate it all up like ravinous little animals without realizing that mother was not eating along with us.

After we had eaten and were full, I realized that momma hadn't eaten a thing herself. Who knows when she finally ate anything. Her action was one based on love (Read Benevolence). Of course, she would not have been a very good Capitalist because if she had been she would have fed herself first. Maybe she would have left us there to starve while she went out to look out for her own welfare. - That is what selfishness is and there are plenty of examples of it everywhere today. Selfishness is based on self. Benevolence puts the good of others and the world above the self.

Today, I believe America should reexamine its priorities. Our country is a rich country yet I read that more people as a percentage of the population are hungry in America than in Egypt which just had a revolution.

I speak to people everyday who hate President Obama because they say he is taking from the rich and giving to the poor. - If only that were true!

The truth of the matter is that in America Herman Cain's Capitalist selfish stand is the philosophy guiding our Congress and to a great extent our Executive.

It is time for a change. I have every confidence the 90% will in time overturn the selfishness that has lead our country to the brink of destruction. Change is inevitable. I look forward to it!

Cisco Systems and The War on Jobs

Today everyone is talking about jobs. We all know people who are out of work and who have been looking hard for a job sometimes for over a year or more. Our political parties are continually pandering to the need for more jobs. They cannot seem to agree with anything, but no one is actually trying to address the issue directly.

I will not try to analyze the motives behind the different approaches of the two major parties but I do have some observations. One in particular comes to mind.

A couple years ago when the economy was so bad (2009) and people were canciling hard worked for contracts in real estate I did what many real estate agents do when times get hard and the phone is not ringing. I got a job to avoid bankruptcy.

I got a job at Cisco Systems. I worked there about a year getting up at 4 every morning so I could send out real estate flyers to prospects and driving like a wild man to appointments during my lunch hour and after work. It was hard but Cisco kept me from missing a credit card payment while the banks were getting trillions of dollars in bail outs from the government in the hope that they would begin lending again and get the economy running again. They did not.

I tried for a small business loan and Chase let me go through the whole process and then turned me down on a technicality. My bank Wells Fargo did not want to participate. There was always a reason. I guess when you want to you can always find a reason not to lend, but that is not the point.

As the title says I believe there is a war on jobs which is being orchestrated by Wall Street and this is where my job at Cisco Systems comes in.

During the Great Recession Cisco refused to cut back on employees. They did cut back on free cokes and some things but they steadfastly held on to their good workers. The policy paid off because during that period. Quarter after quarter Cisco returned record profits until the company had amassed over $46 billion in cash.

Funny thing though as well as Cisco was doing with its balance sheet Wall Street panned it. The stock went into the tank. It was the stock Wall Street suits loved to hate even though it was well managed and hugely profitable.

This summer on CNN I read an article written by one of the business editors which gave the reason Wall Street was panning Cisco - they hadn't laid off any people!

How reasonable is it for a company which is doing well by keeping good people - flush with a huge amount of cash to do what another company - lets say Bank America or Chase or Wells Fargo (read Wall Street) has to do because their business is down and the government dole isn't so generous to them any more?

But Cisco stock kept declining until the stock was trading under $15 a share. Then this past summer Cisco CEO John Chambers got religion. He announced a plan to lay off 6000 employees and voila the stock is climbing again and one can read how Cisco is bucking the tech trend and going up again in todays Wall Street run stock market.

Cisco will save 1 billion dollars by laying off 6000 people - hardly necessary for a company that already has $46 billion in cash.

So one is left with the question, why did Cisco bow to Wall Street and start doing crazy things. The answer is John Chambers had to get the stock up or face some kind of investor revolt. He had to join the Wall Street crowd who has its mind set on squeezing the American public of every job it can even as Chase & Bank America collect upwards of 12% on credit card balances while borrowing from the Fed at 0%.

I am very disappointed that Cisco has joined the losers on Wall Street but I can understand it. The pressure is on everywhere not to hire, not to lend and not to lower interest rates so people can pay off their credit cards faster so they have the purchasing power to start the economy rolling.

One has to ask if this is Capitalism. Apparently anything you do to help the people at the base of the pyramid is Socialism. At the top, of course, it is considered to be Capitalism to bail out the big banks because banks are too big to fail and if they fail the financial system might implode.

Whatever this is we will remember it as a war on jobs and everything the government has done to mitigate that has failed.

BTW I am a Realtor and I am supposed to include a disclaimer that I acquired the information from what I believe are reliable sources but no guarantees should be assumed and you should independently verify everything.

Go ahead look around with open eyes. Don't you see it?