Life for Rent

I was on the market for an apartment for the last weeks and I've finally found a place where I want to spend the next two years of my life. It means had a lot of discussions about renting vs. Buying. I've been, once again, showered with opinions of people who think that buying is so much better than renting.

I beg to disagree.

To start with, the economics are not as straightforward as it seems. I grind my teeth every time I hear "Paying a rent is throwing money out the window!" Rarely do I dare to say what I really think: no, it's not. You get housing in return. It's an expense like a meal at the restaurant, like a show ticket or whatever else whose consumption is limited in time. Yes, you spend money and after a while, you don't have access to the good you paid for. So what? Life goes on. Don't go thinking that you own forever all that you buy. It's mostly the opposite: so many things that you buy are actually rented. Think of your clothes: if you buy a shirt for $60 and wear it for 5 years, how is it different from renting it for $12 per year? As life goes by, you throw away as much as you accumulate since "oh boy when you're dead you don't take nothing with you but your soul, think" as said a great Asian philosopher.

Your life is rented.

Everything you own is rented: you own it only for a period of time. You can buy a house, but you can also rent it for 40 years.

There's a much more complex aspect of the economics of renting vs. Buying and the New York Times has done a very good job at explaining it. In cities like Washington, you don't make any profit from buying over renting. I won't go into details, but think of all the money you can't invest in mutual funds because you gave a cash down. Think of annual taxes, of renovation, of the closing cost of a buy, etc. A house can really be a money pit.

There's also a question of timing. As I don't pay a cash down, taxes and whatnot, I can afford a much better rental than what I could afford to buy. It might (or might not, as we saw above) reduce my likeliness of having a large house in the future. But do I want to live now or visit Italy with a cane at 70? Should young parents live in a small apartment (and move to the suburbs once all the kids want is to go out downtown) or rent a large house from the beginning to raise their kids?

Domestic economics are about finding the perfect balance between earning, saving and spending. It's not all about irresponsible spending, but neither is it about useless savings. And most of all, one should always remember that we are not eternal and that ownership and accumulation are a lost race in the long run.

I can predict the future

If you want to know the weather forecast in Washington DC, just call me. I'm way better than the weather man - it's not that hard: the poor guy doesn't even seem to have a window by which he can see the clear blue sky he's denying on his website.

So, here's what you might want to ask.

- "Are you carrying an umbrella today?" If I answer yes, then you know it won't rain. I won't complain: it makes for a very effective umbrella.
- "Are you working today?" I say yes, then you know it will be Hell's Barbecue in DC from 7 am so that I arrive at work soaked in my own sweat from walking 30 minutes in my navy suit. At least, my work relates to fighting global warming so it pumps me up for the day.

Today, you might have asked: "What are you doing this afternoon from 4 pm to 6:30 pm". I would have said: "I'm playing non-American football at the Ellipse". Then you would have known why your neighbour Noah had been so busy for the last 6 months making round trips at the pet shop and Home Depot.

It rained like Zeus had been holding it for the last 5 days.

My glasses don't sport wipers, so I took them off. But then again, nor are my eyes, so it didn't help much. I was wearing a white t-shirt, much to the enjoyment of the ladies (I wish) and I didn't have an umbrella (see question 1 above).

So there in the rain, we had our very own End-of-the-World Cup. Thank God it stopped raining for an hour or so during the game, otherwise we would have had to switch to the rules of water-polo. The upside is that we looked like warriors, sport addicts, not the sissies that we really were secretly wanting be home and dry.

Game was fun. No need to mention who won here because it was just about having fun and I wasn't in the winning team. I got to plunge once to block a kick, hurting my back and my leg in the process, in exchange for a "Great play!" shouted from afar. Good enough for me. I didn't score, but I take consolation in the fact that very few on my team did.

If you left at the end of the game, you missed the end of the show. Remember: I was still outside and vulnerable. I guess a cloud saw me and decided to have a go at it. The rain fell like cloud #2 wanted to outdo cloud #1 that had reigned over Washington two hours ago. I believe it was a tie.
As planned in the Grand Master Plan it stopped raining when I arrived home. I'll leave my freezing encounter with the A/C of the building for another post. Let's say that I had the fourth season in one day that I was missing and it wasn't summer.

The front page issue that you never noticed

Did you know that the presentation of your newspaper provides jobs, heated debates, heros and villains, and awards? As I can spend half an hour pondering over a 1 mm space, the kerning of a letter or else, I wasn't that surprised.

As I'm doing a little graphic design on the side, I got to search newspaper front pages and discovered two amazing resources. First, there's Today's Front Pages from News Musem. All the front pages from today. Some might find it interesting to see what's news around the world - and I do - but what I find most interesting is how newspapers look. I've been surprised at the unity between them. Is it a question of fashion or mergers? Hope it's note the latter.

The second resources is the Best Newspaper Design from the Society of News Design (they have a society!). The Guardian, from the UK, well deserves its price. I like Rzeczpospolita
too, but I find it just "very good", not "awesome" like The Guardian.

I got to go back to my fake newspaper and to fine tune the product by looking at real front pages and try to catch the details that differentiate a real newspaper from an amateur one. So far, I haven't quite arrived...

The birth of the American Aristocracy

I got into a heated discussion (or at least, my brain got overworked) about social democracy - the classical "How to tame capitalism?" dilemma. My friend, a middle of the road liberal (I mean, middle of liberal, not middle of the US spectrum) was about satisfied with the Canadian model and the level of inequality it leads to. I was positive that there are some ways to make it better, to find a way to keep the engine of capitalism running, but to better redistribute its benefits. I suggested a 100% estate tax. This means that all inheritances would be given to the government rather than to the relatives or descendents of a deceased person.

My friend was at first skeptical, saying that he would want to do all that he could to assure the future of his children. I can understand this. But isn't the best way to ensure the future of children to teach them to be resourceful and to make their own way through life rather than relying on daddy's accumulated wealth? This may sound like a very American perspective, since the US are champions of the "take care of yourself" approach. But apparently no: Congress is about to vote to repeal the current estate tax that affects only the richest 2% of the population - those who have more than 2 million USD to give in inheritance.

To understand how counterproductive that is, be it from a liberal or a conservative perspective, read Sebastian Mallaby's column in the Washington post.

Barthelona

Because of circumstances beyond my control, I got a month of holidays in May (hence the blogging silence). I seized the opportunity to spend a week or so in Barcelona. It became officially my favourite city in the world. How can you beat such architecture, the beach, the atmosphere? It puzzles me that the whole planet hasn't emigrated to Barcelona yet.

Your Prius Pollutes my World

Who knew that a Jeep Wrangler can be 5 times more energy efficient than a Honda Insight? It is, if you go beyond the milleage per gallon. See this study from CNW.

More on that once I read it all myself...