Soundproofing for an air conditioner/heat pump (success story)

by philg

We had a Princess and the Pea situation in our house in which a moderately quiet A/C condenser next to a bedroom was deemed too loud, especially when clicking on. This is a high-end Carrier-built unit, so it is somewhat louder than a Japanese split-system, but quieter than almost anything else U.S.-built.

We were able to eliminate the annoyance with a blanket from Acoustical Solutions that we hung on the wall adjacent to the condensers (quilted part facing the A/C unit; smooth part against the wall). We also wrapped one that was roughly the same height as the condenser around the side so as to block transmission to a window. It would be a lot more attractive it we built a wooden hutch around it, but it is highly functional just hung on a metal fence U-post (less than $10 from any hardware store).

We bought the ABBC-13 two-inch thick “AudioSeal” blankets, one 96″x54″ (custom made to have the grommets on the long side) and one 54″x54″. Total cost, including shipping and Maskachusetts sales tax, was $890. We’ve had them outdoors through one New England winter and they still look good.

Leaving this here in case anyone is searching for a similar solution.

Full post, including comments

Portuguese stocks or Lisbon real estate for the next five years?

by philg

At least to judge by our media, the U.S. is embroiled in white v. Black, white v. Asian, white v. Latinx, and hetero cisgender v. LGBTQIA+ fights. We’re also adding $trillions in debt, welcoming millions of new welfare-dependent citizens, and instituting dramatic changes in government (every day we hear a new and exciting idea for a bigger more powerful central government!). It seems like a good time to ensure that children have the option to study, work, and live in Europe. The Europeans bumped up against the limits of how much government could be responsible for and don’t seem anxious to go back to the 1970s.

There is no way to predict whether Portugal, Italy, Germany, France, or Sweden will be a better place to live than the U.S. in 2030, but keeping only a U.S. passport is essentially a bet that the U.S. will be a better place to live than anywhere in the E.U. Would we want to make that bet?

Portugal operates a “golden visa” program in which folks who purchase real estate (500,000 euro) or invest in Portuguese stocks and bonds (1 million euro) can obtain citizenship after five years of periodic visits (roughly one week per year) and demonstrating a reasonable command of the language. After a passport is obtained for one or both parents, children can then get Portuguese citizenship as well. Then they can hang out in the wonderful Azores or the historic cities of the mainland and wander at will among the rest of the EU nations.

The most obvious place to purchase real estate is Lisbon, but the property market could be vulnerable to a crash since it has been pumped up by all of the other folks purchasing real estate to meet golden visa requirements. There are some developers who promise to pay 3-5 percent as an annual return for anyone who buys an apartment in one of their buildings, but obviously they won’t be paying if they run out of money after a collapse.

I’m wondering if it is safer and simpler to purchase Portuguese stocks, of which there are only 56 currently trading on Euronext Lisbon. The PSI-20 consists of the 20 largest stocks. A March 2021 Factsheet shows a P/E ratio of about 18 and a dividend yield of 3.63 percent. The big components seem to be energy companies and utilities, retail, and a bank (i.e., fairly conservative investments and maybe not a terrible hedge against U.S. stocks). The PSI-20 does not have a great track record. It is a good thing that there are dividends because the price is quite a big lower than it was in 2010:

I’ve never liked real estate as an investment, especially for a foreigner. You have to trust a city, a neighborhood, a developer, a building, etc. But folks in countries that have had a lot of economic ups and downs love real estate! They also like bonds, but right now yields are minimal (see “Portugal Sets Precedent with Near-Junk Bonds That Yield Nothing” (Bloomberg, December 2020))

European readers: What do you think?

American readers: send me an email if you want to copy this idea. I have found some attorneys that seem reliable (referred by a major international bank). There are some ways to do this with a capital stake of only about $350,000.

Related:

  • “Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt applies to become Cyprus citizen, along with his wife and daughter…” (Daily Mail), i.e., the Biden advisor won’t suffer too badly if his advice to President Biden doesn’t work out
  • “Golden visas to be scrapped for Lisbon and Porto” (starting in 2021): S… the PS parliamentary group decided it was time to address the galloping property speculation that golden visas have generated, as well as try to dynamise ‘poorer regions’ where people could do with increased job opportunities.
  • “Call to rent out vacant golden visa homes” (March 13, 2020): In the motion signed by the BE councillor in Lisbon, Manuel Grilo, to which Lusa had access and which should be presented on 12 March, in a private meeting of the municipal executive, it is defended that the municipality urges the Government “to proceed with the survey of vacant properties acquired in connection with the granting of gold visas”. In addition, and under the current legal framework, “the requisition mechanisms for public purposes must be considered in order to reinforce the housing supply in the municipality and, in such cases, define the obligation for these properties to be leased, within the scope of the Affordable Income Programme”. (If the U.S. government, via the CDC, can order an eviction moratorium for more than a year surely the Portuguese government could issue regulations around how these apartments are to be rented.)
Full post, including comments

Psychology of Shutdown Karenism

by philg

A Facebook friend (she’s around 30 years old) psychoanalyzes those who love COVID shutdowns:

Maybe the reason people born in the 60s-90s are the biggest pro-lockdown people is that it was the “grounded generation,” where parents trying to limit or stop corporally punishing their children instead would keep them indoors, only doing necessary activities, until they’d learned their lesson — longer time periods when the misdeed was larger.

All the “fun spreads the virus” crazytown rules that people have accepted with absolutely no scientific basis for their efficacy, from curfews to live music bans to hair salon closures, align very well to what your parents would stop you from doing when you were grounded.

There’s a lot of free-floating guilt in our society and very little way to dislodge it effectively. Perhaps many of the most devoted lockdowners felt, in their heart of hearts — whether they realized it or not — like humanity needed a good grounding and to not come out until we’d changed our attitude, mister.

Her friend (actually named “Karen”!):

Yes. I think this is absolutely spot on.

From Elizabeth:

And so much of it is about making people change their attitude. People who wear masks that say “I’m only wearing this because I have to” still get treated like shit, as though they weren’t wearing masks at all. Because they dare to disagree with the status quo. It’s not enough to wear the mask… you have to love it too.

Laurel:

Hmm younger generations get banned from specific gadgets ie phone or PlayStation, so they’re being primed to associate entertainment media access with compliance.

The psychology industry has so far provided more literary interest than practical assistance and the above is certainly consistent with that history going back to Freud. (I.e., the above might not be right, but I thought that it was interesting to contemplate.)

Full post, including comments

CIA Officer: My existence is not a box-checking exercise

by philg

“I am perfectly made” and “My existence is not a box-checking exercise”:

(Note that I disagree with this Twitter user’s comment, “I think it’s safe to say the contemporary American left has failed.” First, I don’t think politics in the U.S. is supported by any coherent philosophy and therefore there is no “left” or “right”. Second, to the extent that checking victimhood boxes is associated with “left”, this ad would be evidence that the contemporary American left has succeeded.)

Full post, including comments

Why do governments have to steal vaccine rights? Why not print more money to buy them?

by philg

“Taking ‘Extraordinary Measures,’ Biden Backs Suspending Patents on Vaccines” (NYT):

The Biden administration, siding with some world leaders over the U.S. pharmaceutical industry, came out in favor of waiving intellectual property protections for coronavirus vaccines.

The United States had been a major holdout at the World Trade Organization over a proposal to suspend some of the world economic body’s intellectual property protections, which could allow drugmakers across the globe access to the closely guarded trade secrets of how the viable vaccines have been made. But President Biden had come under increasing pressure to throw his support behind the proposal, drafted by India and South Africa and backed by many congressional Democrats.

If we’re comfortable with borrowing and spending $trillions (i.e., printing money) every few months during coronapanic, why not print a little more money and buy, rather than steal, the rights to the vaccines that we think should be free and open-source? Surely there is some price at which at least one of the vaccine makers would sell voluntarily. Pick the one that is easiest to manufacture, buy the formula, put it on a web site, and pay the inventors additional $$ to help anyone who wants to make it.

From earlier today, “Federal judge vacates CDC’s eviction moratorium” (The Hill): A federal judge on Wednesday vacated a nationwide freeze on evictions that was put in place by federal health officials to help cash-strapped renters remain in their homes during the pandemic. … “The question for the Court is a narrow one: Does the Public Health Service Act grant the CDC the legal authority to impose a nationwide eviction moratorium? It does not,” Friedrich wrote [full text].

Same question for that one. Why did the government, which can print as much money as it wants to (and where such printing has no cost, according to an MIT economist), need to steal from individual landlords? If the CDC wanted everyone to have a rent holiday, why didn’t the CDC pay the rent with borrowed/printed money?

Related:

Full post, including comments

Automotive evidence of people escaping to Florida

by philg

From a late April trip, our Hertz rental. Note the California plates, evidence that a modern-day Joad family escaped California’s lockdowns and 13 percent state income tax via a one-way trip:

It was common to see cars with insignia relating to dealers in New England or New York and Florida plates, indicating a permanent move. Example:

Separately, Matty’s Gelato (Juno Beach, near Ivanka Trump’s new house in Jupiter, Florida) is great!

Related:

Full post, including comments

When is having sex with the boss a good idea? (Melinda and MacKenzie)

by philg

We are informed that sex between a high-income senior worker at a company and a lower-income junior worker is bad. Yet MacKenzie Scott, then a secretary (“administrative assistant”) at D.E. Shaw, turned sex with Jeff Bezos, a vice-president at the firm, into a multi-$billion fortune. And recently we’ve learned that Melinda Gates, who had sex with the founder/CEO at her employer (Microsoft), will soon join the ranks of strong independent female billionaires. Nobody is saying that it was a mistake for these women to have sex with their respective bosses. Nor is anyone criticizing the bosses for having sex with subordinates and then paying them $billions.

(What if the boss is already married and only “high income” rather than rich? Sex with the boss can still be far more lucrative than continuing to work, depending on the state (see Real World Divorce for each state’s child support formula and this calculation of how much better Ellen Pao would have done by having sex with her boss compared to suing Kleiner Perkins).)

How are people supposed to distinguish between bad-sex-at-the-office and good-sex-at-the-office?

An immigrant friend has been writing about Melinda Gates pulling the ripcord. A sampling:

[14-year-old] read Bill Gates’ divorce tweet and reacted: I so hate it how Americans always describe these things in this annoying sugary way: “we no longer believe we can grow together as a couple” or “we’re no longer a perfect match.” A Russian woman would have said directly: “He got boring” or “He is crazy, I don’t want to deal with him anymore” or “he is running out of money” or “screw him, I am out of here.” In fact, I don’t think any European would talk like Americans do. They wouldn’t probably even say anything because who cares?

I am anticipating a firehose of stories: “Melinda Gates is the real founder of Microsoft, while Bill with the rest of the white men took all the credit”, “Melinda breaks the next layer of the glass ceiling in philanthropy”, “The rising tide of female billionaires: here is how divorce can empower you too”.

From a U.S.-born friend:

So I heard Bill Gates is having a massive parasite removed. The surgical process should cost about 65 billion dollars.

The actual complaint for divorce (“petition” in Washington State) filed by Melinda Gates:

Related:

Full post, including comments

New York City High School: two days per week, two hours per day

by philg

I was chatting with a friend last night. His son is a high school student in the New York City public school system. What’s the experience, 14 months into coronapanic and four months after teachers became eligible for vaccines? “It’s two days per week, two hours per day,” he explained. “But there is no teaching. It’s like a study hall. We just talk to our friends.” What about the rest of the week? “We are online for two hours per day.”

Separately, though the son may not have learned much academic content since March 2020, he is fully educated on Mask and Shutdown Karenhood. He is a big believer in the efficacy of masks for the general public (#Science proves they work; practical trials in the Czech Republic cannot contradict #Science) and is happy to follow the dictates of Governor Cuomo and Dr. Fauci. What’s his personal experience with COVID? After a year of cowering and being masked any time he was outside of the family apartment-bunker… he got COVID. He, his sister, and his mom all had slight cold symptoms (the father had been vaccinated at this point).

Here are some photos from a May 1, 2021 COVID-safe fly-by, up the Hudson River at 1500′ in a friend’s Cirrus SR22T (with A/C!):

#StaySafe everyone!

Full post, including comments

Why not a one-month shutdown of casual sex?

by philg

PeterReed’s comment on Why don’t migrants get COVID vaccines at the border? (which references an Atlantic magazine article by a fat guy complaining that the righteous vaccinated Americans will be paying for COVID-19 treatment for Republicans (mentioned 12X in the article) who refuse to #FollowExperts and take the vaccine):

This future burden from lack of covid vaccine is no different than similar righteous talk about smoking, overeating or reckless lifestyle. It is convenient to bring this objection out now for a certain political view about vaccines, but better not bring it up about drug use or casual sex.

My response:

That’s a great point. https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2021/04/14/986997576/once-on-the-brink-of-eradication-syphilis-is-raging-again : In certain circles of San Francisco, a case of syphilis can be as common and casual as catching the flu, to the point where Billy Lemon can’t even remember how many times he’s had it. “Three or four? Five times in my life?” he struggles to recall. “It does not seem like a big deal.” At the time, about a decade ago, Lemon went on frequent methamphetamine binges, kicking his libido into overdrive and silencing the voice in his head that said condoms would be a wise choice at a raging sex party.

If a hater were to complain that Mr. Lemon should have cut back on his recreational meth and trips to the local bathhouse so that our society’s spending on health care could be reduced, we would all condemn that hater.

Similarly, in https://www.usnews.com/news/health-news/articles/2021-04-14/stds-hit-record-high-again-cdc-says

Meanwhile, approximately 31% of chlamydia, gonorrhea and primary and secondary syphilis cases were among non-Hispanic Black individuals, although they accounted for only 12.5% of the U.S. population, according to the report. Men who have sex with other men were also disproportionately impacted by STDs, the report says.

These disparities likely aren’t caused by differences in sexual behavior, but “rather reflect differential access to quality sexual health care, as well as differences in sexual network characteristics,” the report says.

—————–

It is fine to shut down schools for a year or more, but it is certainly #NotOK to suggest telling people to have sex with just one other person (or none, in the case of many married individuals; see below) for a month so that everyone could be tested and treated.

I hope that we can all agree that nothing is more important than preventing deadly disease. A month with a single boring partner will be a sacrifice for a happy Tinder user, but, as with American schoolchildren, we should be able to find experts to tell us that he/she/ze/they can make up for this after the shutdown.

Readers: What is the justification for allowing this expensive and destructive plague of STDs to continue? (If the objection is that the shutdown won’t end the plague forever, the same can be said for coronapanic interventions, including the vaccines.)

Related:

Full post, including comments

Mass vaccination campaign meets American health insurance (and Happy Freedom Tax Day!)

by philg

From my inbox:

An Explanation of Benefits (EOB) has been posted to your *** Plan online member portal. To log into your account and review your explanation of benefits (EOB):

Go to https://****.com/login

Enter your Username (email address) and Password

Click on the Claims tab at the top of the page, choose claims.
Member claims are listed by date, with the most recent claim appearing at the top of the list. To view an EOB, click on the claim you want to view, then click on the pdf icon under View EOB.

(name hidden to protect the guilty)

So an Explanation of Benefits is available from my vaccine shot? Let’s actually log in…

Even if the promised Explanation of Benefits did not exist, there was a page devoted to my Moderna shot. Two claims hit the insurer’s computer systems, one for $0 (the vaccine itself? Which Donald Trump arranged for the government to pay for?) and one for administering the vaccine:

The actual price is $33.50 to deal with me? But why bill $67? This is one of those rare situations in which there is no way to cheat the uninsured by hitting them with 2X or 5X the “negotiated” price that 98% of customers pay.

(Separately, I’m not sure how $33.50 makes this profitable for the clinic. They paid someone to build a web site where I could register and schedule, paid for a receptionist to check me in, paid an RN to ask me some medical questions, paid for a place where I could sit for 15 minutes after the vaccine, paid for people and systems to send this $67 bill to the insurance company, etc. Unless the Feds are giving them additional money for each shot, why do they want to be in this business?)

I wonder if the goal of the American health insurance system is to make our federal tax system seem logical, clear, and simple. Happy Tax Freedom Day to everyone! (filing is extended this year to May 17 #BecauseCoronapanic)

Note that Tax Freedom Day, on which you stop working for the government (pay all of those government workers who sat home for the past year!) and begin to work for yourself varies from state to state. It is May 3 in New York, April 23 in Maskachusetts, and April 20 in California. It was April 5 in Texas and April 4 in Florida. Before World War I, Tax Freedom Day was in January:

As best historians can tell, the American colonists-turned-rebels-and-traitors were paying roughly 2 percent of their total income for all taxes. So they achieved Tax Freedom about one week into January while complaining that being British subjects was oppressive (the Brits, meanwhile, were shelling out huge $$ to fight with “Indians” on all of the borders).

How about going forward? If Presidents Biden and Harris spend $1.9 trillion every few months on coronapanic Band-Aids, would the “deficit inclusive Tax Freedom Day” move to mid-summer, or, for those here in MA, into foliage season?

Full post, including comments