OBAMA VS. MC CAIN OR.....

It's Time to Consider Your Pocketbook
  

INCOME TAX  (find your bracket)

MCCAIN         (no changes)
 
Single making 30K - tax $4,500 
Single making 50K - tax $12,500
Single making 75K - tax $18,750
Married making 60K- tax $9,000
Married making 75K - tax $18,750
Married making 125K - tax $31,250
 
OBAMA  (reverse all tax cuts)
 
Single making 30K - tax $8,400  
Single making 50K - tax $14,000  
Single making 75K - tax $23,250  
Married making 60K - tax $16,800  
Married making 75K - tax $21,000  
Married making 125K - tax $38,750
 
Under Obama, your taxes will more than double!
           
INHERITANCE TAX
 
MCCAIN   0%     (No change, Bush repealed this tax)
 
OBAMA               Restore the inheritance tax
 
Many families have lost businesses, farms, ranches, and homes that have been in their families for generations because they  could not afford the inheritance tax. Those willing their assets to loved ones will only lose them to these taxes. 

NEW TAXES BEING PROPOSED BY OBAMA
  
New government taxes proposed on homes that are more than 2400 square feet.
 
New gasoline taxes (as if gas weren't high enough already)
 
New taxes on natural resources consumption (heating gas, water, electricity) 
 
New taxes on retirement accounts, and last but not least....
 
New taxes to pay for socialized medicine so we can receive the same level of medical care as other third-world countries!!!

 You can verify the tax information at http://money.cnn.com/news/specials/election/2008/index.html

I THINK IT STARTED WITH DONALD TRUMP'S "THE ART OF THE DEAL"

I blame it on Donald Trump and his personal how-to books.  Actually not him, but the public's interpretation of his how-to books. 

And I do because it seemed to have started about six months after The Art of the Deal hit the bookstores and was a run-away success.

While most Gentiles probably intuitively knew it, most didn't know that proper business dealings followed a Jewish mitzvah which paraphrased means, "Make certain there is something on the table for everyone."

The idea is that even if you have the upper hand in a negotiation, it is your moral obligation to make sure that the terms are fair and fair to all concerned.  When you don't, to Jews it is similar to having broken one of the Ten Commandments. 

I think I must have been about fifty when The Art of the Deal made amateur negotiators into pseudo-Donald Trumps.  I remember how appalled I was that one of my clients of many years started unfairly beating up --- making impossible demands --- on a poor fellow who was trying to sell his property to him for a fair price.

I stopped the meeting, and asked my client if I could speak with him in the hall.  When we went out of earshot of the others, I all but yelled at him, "What in God's name are you doing?"  He told me that he was doing what he had learned Donald Trump did.

Well, I told him, "That's not real, and even if it is, you're too honorable of a man to take those ideas into your bag of tricks."  Then I said, "There is a Jewish mitzvah  that says 'Make certain there is something on the table for everyone.'  We're going to continue doing our business together that way, or you need a new Realtor."  He knew I meant it, and we'd had too many successful dealings together for him to let me go on my way.

Then I learned he wasn't an anomaly.  Lots of people began thinking they were Donald Trump.  Even those guys on TV who push the books that tell you how to buy million dollar mansions with a buck and no risk to your credit.

Saturday, I presented a clean and full-price contract to a listing agent.  In the old days, the seller would have signed his name and been thrilled.  Not this time.  The contract was sent back to me countered with about twelve ridiculous Donald Trump Demands.  And, in reality, they didn't mean a darned thing to the seller except he didn't want my client to have them.

So what is my point?  It is that real estate agents and attorneys have a professional obligation to all parties.  They must do their very best to restrain their clients from being Donald Trump The Art of the Deal interpreters.

BILL CHERRY, REALTORS

DALLAS

1-800 314-7110

OUR 43RD YEAR SELLING TEXAS

Recently I’ve had three interesting experiences with the Office Max store in Dallas that is near the intersection of Park and US 75.

Let me set this up for you.  I have an HP printer for my computer that uses small ink cartridges.  In fact, so small that I buy at least one black cartridge a week, and one color cartridge every two weeks.  Both Office Max and Office Depot give you a $3 discount when you return the empty ink cartridge.

Last week, I bought a new black cartridge, installed it, and it had no ink in it.  I took it back.  The clerk, who appeared to be some sort of manager, insisted that I had brought back a cartridge I had already used, so he refused to replace it.  (I'm 68-years old, and was dressed in a coat and tie...hardly the age and look of someone on a binge to steal 15 bucks from an office supply store.)

He suggested that I let him refill the empty cartridge from some gizmo the store has so I could at least save a couple of bucks.  I was trying my best not to get into an argument.  So, OK, I let him refill it.  That cartridge spattered ink all over everything when I tried to print with it.  I took it back for a replacement.  Same guy told me it couldn’t possibly be the refilled cartridge, it had to be a malfunctioning printer.

I left and went to Office Depot, bought a new HP cartridge, installed it and it worked fine.  I swore I wouldn't go back to Office Max again, I'd watch how their corporate stock traded instead.

Today I was in a big hurry.  I broke my promise to myself to never buy anything from Office Max again.  I was inadvertently out of printer ink, and I didn’t have time to drive the extra distance to Office Depot.

I handed my empty cartridge to the cashier for my $3 discount, and she told me that the store no longer does that.  Instead, she said I’d need to apply for some sort of card and they would then give me a credit on the card.  I guess that would be used to purchase prizes or something.

I told her I didn’t want to apply, to give me back my empty cartridge, to charge me the normal shelf price for the cartridge I was buying, and to count me as a former customer, effective July 6, 2008.

In the past 52 weeks, Office Max’s stock has dropped from a high of $40.16 to the close this past Friday of $13.98.  And that’s because gross sales and profits have dropped.  The chairman of the board notified stockholders that he thinks this can be solved by raising prices and cutting overhead.  He says the whole thing has been caused by the lowering of the economy.

The real problem is he, his officers and directors, and his store managers and employees don’t get it.  All they have to do is read this piece to know almost all they need to know about what to do.

Texans’ arms were seriously twisted and they gave into the idea that deregulating the state electricity providers would bring better rates and better service than they were used to with the single, state-regulated franchise method.

I recall sitting in a Rotary Club meeting of 200.  The guest speaker was trying to convince us deregulation would be a good thing.  When he finished, I stood up and asked for a show of hands of the members who agreed.  Not one hand went up.

As it turns out, apparently just as the Rotary members speculated, rates and service have gone in the opposite direction.  Since January 2008, the state utility commission reports that it has processed 3,168 customer complaints. 

There are some thirty-seven providers with TXU having the most customers.  The commission shows that it has received 1,037 about it and its practices.  Texas Power is fifteenth on the list, and the commission has heard from forty-one of its customers.  I don't know what this means except that apparently a lot of people were dissatisfied enough to write the state a complaint letter.

Because my wife and I were dissatisfied with TXU, we decided to support one of KSKY-AM’s advertisers and change our service to Texas Power.  We’ve been dealing with them for about six months, and since I’m the bill payer of our family, I am ready to dump them.

Texas Power uses a bank box located in Dallas.  Most businesses that have large numbers of payments coming to it through the mail use a bank box.  The idea is quite simple. The post office box where you mail your check and payment stub is emptied everyday by the bank.  For a fee to the vendor, the bank updates your account with the vendor's customer, and clears your check.

Three months in a row, I mailed our check to the DAllas bank box the day after we got the bill from Texas Power.  Three months in a row, the check was apparently not processed by the bank until after the delinquency date.  We're talking about two weeks or so.  My checks to other vendors at their lock boxes cleared quickly.  Not Texas Power's/

But it gets even more perplexing.  Three months in a row, my check to them had cleared my account at my bank, so Texas Power was paid, yet a day or two afterwards, they sent me a letter threatening to turn off the service.

So this month, our bill jumped about 63% over the previous month.  No explanation.  It just did.  My wife called to ask that we be transferred to an accounting that would allow us to pay an average year around.

“Nope, can’t do that until you’ve been a customer for a year,” the person said, even though our payment records with both TXU and Texas Power are easily available.

Lenders are repossessing homes right and left, and many of those pass to FHA or one of the other governmental secondary market lenders for them to dispose of.  That's because the loans were sold to them by the originating lender or mortgage broker.

There are any numbers of those specially treated agents in Dallas.  I am familiar with three companies that have “teams” (a euphemism for a business within a business) composed of about six people, each whose total business is listing and managing foreclosed properties for the government.  One has so many of these listings that they don't bother to answer or return the phone calls of buyers. 

Just think, when some 14,000 agents in the Dallas and Ft. Worth area and where many are scratching to make a living, our government is consciously making the select few rich.  And there's no way to lose one of those listings because it will eventually sell at some price.

Why?  It was obvious to me that before the listing hit the MLS, the listing agent had already cut a side deal as to whose contract would be accepted. 

Perhaps you read that Clay Felker died.  He was 82.  And he was the husband of the writer Gaul Sheehy.  As a magazine editor and idea man, he had a serious and long lasting influence over the path journalism took.

Mr. Felker’s most interesting brainchild was the magazine New York. 

And New York became “indispensable in the 1960s and '70s for those craving the latest on the city's social scene, inside knowledge of its business and politics, and consumer tips from its endless ‘best of’ lists.”

Editors across the country adopted his formula along with “co-founder Milton Glaser's bold layout designs and the equally non-traditional "new journalism" writing style of contributors like Tom Wolfe.”  I suppose every big city has its interpretation of New York magazine.

One of the most successful clones is D Magazine (as in Big D) which was founded in 1974 by Wick Allison and Jim Atkinson along with Stanley Marcus’ daughter as a journalist and investor.  It was that wedge that encouraged Mr. Marcus to send a letter to the Neiman-Marcus charge card holders suggesting they subscribe to D Magazine, even before its first issue was ever written and printed.

Unlike New York, D has chosen to market its endorsements – you buy a certain ad, and what comes with it is the assurance that you will be picked by D as The Best Realtor, The Best Gynecologist, The Best Electrician…you get the idea.  And subscribers by the thousands assume The Best has some academic research behind it.

After all, those articles are framed and hung in the recipients’ offices and businesses all over Dallas.  And the barbeque joint posts that it was chosen as the best with large plastic letters on its back-lighted marquee.

So D Magazine and its sub-magazines now do a great deal toward influencing the taste and commerce of Dallas.  And I suspect it has made Mr. Allison and maybe Mr. Atkinson and Mr. Marcus’ daughter wealthy.

PLAYBOY PLAYMATES, NOW DECEASED

It occurred to me yesterday after I had posted my piece on my Playboy days, that surely some of

Dec 1953 Marilyn Monroe (6/1/1926 - 8/5/1962) [age 36]

Feb 1954, Apr 1954,Apr 1955 Margaret Scott/Marilyn Waltz (11/5/1931 - 12/23/2006) [age 75]

Sep 1954 Jackie Rainbow (6/6/1933 - 6/15/1988) [age 55]

Feb 1955 Jayne Mansfield (4/19/1933 - 6/29/1967) [age 34]

Jun 1955 Eve Meyer (12/13/1928 - 3/27/1977) [age 48]

Mar 1956 Marian Stafford  (?/?/1933 - 11/?/2006) [age 73]

Nov 1956 Betty Blue (8/14/1931 - 8/23/2000) [age 69]

Feb 1958 Cheryl Kubert (? - 4/25/1989) 

Jul 1958 Linne Nanette Ahlstrand 

Oct 1958 Pat Sheehan (9/7/1931 - 1/14/2006)[age 74]

Nov 1960 Joni Mattis (11-28-1938 - 9/4/1999) [age 60]

Mar 1961 Tonya Crews (2/2/1938 - 8/7/1966) [age 28]

Oct 1961 Jean Cannon (10/5/1941 - 11/17/2005) [age 64]

Jan 1962 Merle Pertile (11/23/1941 - 11/28/1997) [age 56]

Mar 1962 Pamela Anne Gordon (2/10/1943 - 9/21/2003) [age 60]

Oct 1962 Laura Young (5/22/1938 - 11/27/1999) [age 61]

Dec 1962* June Cochran (2/20/1942 - 5/21/2004) [age 62]

Nov 1963 Terre Tucker (10/9/1944 - 12/16/1990) [age 46]

Dec 1963* Donna Michelle (12/8/1945 - 4/11/2004) [age 58]

Apr 1965 Sue Williams (11/14/1945 - 9/2/1969) [age 23]

Aug 1965 Lannie Balcom (3/14/1941 - 1/12/1991) [cancer, age 49]

Jan 1968* Connie Kreski (9/19/1946 - 11/18/995) [lung cancer, age 49]

Nov 1968 Paige Young (3/16/1944 - 7/13/1974) [drug overdose, age 30]

Nov 1969* Claudia Jennings (12/20/1949 - 10/3/1979) [age 29]

Dec 1969 Gloria Root (5/28/1948 - 1/8/2006) [age 57]

Jul 1970 Carol Willis (4/17/1949 - 11/6/1971) [age 22]

Feb 1971 Willy Rey (8/25/1949 - 8/13/1973) [age 23]

Feb 1977 Star Stowe (3/19/1956 - 3/16/1997) [age 40]

Jun 1978 Gail Stanton (11/19/1954 - 11/21/1996) [age 42]

Apr 1979 Missy Cleveland  (12/25/1959 - 8/14/2001) [age 41]

Aug 1979* Dorothy Stratten (2/28/1960 - 8/14/1980) [age 20]

Jun 1981 Cathy Larmouth (7/15/1953 - 1/4/2007) [age 53]

May 1992 Anna Nicole Smith (11/28/1967 - 2/8/2007) [age 39]

Christa Speck Was the Most Beautiful of All

By Bill Cherry

It was in the days of bachelor pads and Christa Speck...the most beautiful Playmate ever. 

The cool jazz of Ella, Sinatra, Mathis and the Count with Johnny Rivers and Maynard thrown in every once in a while.  The apartment in a complex with as many airline stewardess neighbors as possible.  

Chevis and waters by the pool.  Trying not to look drunk when you were totally blatto.

Hoping to scope out ittsy bittsy, teeny weenie, yellow polka dot bikinied chicks if you stayed by the pool long enough, and even though you had a strange colored tan with dark orange hands, elbows and kneecaps compliments of a five buck bottle of Man Tan.

Trying to cook from the recipes of Playboy chef Thomas Mario (who, although I never saw a picture of him, I know was far cooler and more urbane than Emeril), smoke a pipe and basically live like Hugh Hefner said we should.  And to be sure we knew how, he told us every month in the Playboy Philosophy and the Playboy Advisor columns.

And I never doubted for a second this was the Real Me.  I just had a different name and was shorter than Hef.  And I lived in Denton, Texas and he lived in Chicago.  How could that really matter?  I knew they were nothing more than minor obstructions to Playboy bachelor justice.

So on my limited college budget I decorated my apartment with Danish Modern furniture on top of a turquoise and orange shag carpet, had Ella and the Count playing on the Gerrard record changer, puffed on my pipe and invited the airline stewardesses by for cocktails and a bit of my interpretation of the Playboy philosophy (which they hardly ever bought). 

And I made sure my turquoise and orange shag had been freshly raked before the cocktail hour.

For future reference, I saved every Playboy Magazine.  I've got them from January 1961 through December 1971.  And I had them all professionally bound just like good books.  Leatherette covers with gold lettering on the spines and fronts, sewn and glued

And then after all of that Playboy lifestyle concentration, wouldn't you know, I fell in love and got married, then did it again.  (No, neither time to an airline stewardess. And neither ever wore an ittsy, bittsy, yellow polka dot bikini)

So, I've been toting these volumes around for years.  Now I know it's time for me to accept the fact that my Playboy days are over.  Patty said last year that at 67 it was time for me to stop my sophomoric dreaming.  “It’s not gonna happen for you,” she told me. 

So I put my Playboy volumes up for auction on Ebay thinking that perhaps I had been replaced by another young man who lived in an apartment building with airline flight attendants.  He would surely pay a pretty penny for my vintage Playboys.  (I’d have included my pipe collection and humidor, but I don’t know where they are.)

Maybe he and his friends would come across dear Christa Speck’s pictures and know that she was the most beautiful Playmate (September 1961) every.  And contemporaneously I would have to admit to myself that she was never my real life girlfriend, and I would know for sure that she never would be. 

The Playboy volumes didn’t sell.  They didn’t even get a bid.  So Christa Speck, Hef’s cool bachelor counsel, the recipes of Thomas Mario and the dreams of a 1960s young man are stored again in the plastic tubs in my garage.  And a few days ago I hit 68-years.

One part of Dallas where the more expensive homes are located, has developed the most arrogant approach to sales.  I wonder where these people's heads are.  I wonder if the same approach is being used elsewhere?

The MLS listing instructions more frequently than not read like this:  Listing agent must accompany all showings.  Appointments must be made 24 hours in advance.  Owner's baby naps between 2 and 4 so no showings can be scheduled then.  Please do not request showings on weekends or before 11 AM or after 4 PM.  Dog will be pinned up in the master bedroom, so that cannot be shown.

I see these listings expire and renew over and over for months.  No one seems willing to grasp that it could easily be because they are not accommodating the prospective buyer, and quite frankly, in sales, the one with the money to buy is the one who is supposed to trump.

So what useful purpose accrues by expecting the guy with the prospect to deal with the schedule of the listing agent as well as the unreasonable demands of the seller?

Exactly what does the listing agent accomplish by being at the showing other than 1) getting in the way 2) offering a subtle but obvious insult to the showing agent and the client that the listing agent is there to keep them from stealing or breaking something and 3) interfering with the rhythm of the showing agent's sales presentation?

So to reevaluate this scheme, let's do this.  When Mr. Sewell initiates a similar plan in the sales departments at Sewell Lexus, Sewell Infinity, Sewell Cadillac and Sewell Hummer, go for it. 

Until then, the way the million buck home should be presented and sold is no different than the way the Century 21 agent presents and sells the hundred thousand buck home.

BILL CHERRY, REALTORS

DALLAS

Our 43rd Year Selling Texas

214 503-8563

On the Web

When I was in high school, Galveston Ball High School Class of ’58, our speech and drama teacher, Arthur Graham, insisted that to be and remain educated and cultured persons, there were three requirements that should be at the top of the list.  They were that we subscribe to and read the Sunday edition of the “New York Times,” the “Saturday Review (of Literature)” and “The New Yorker.”

So for most of the past fifty-two years I’ve done just that, save and except the “Saturday Review” which stop being published in 1986.

But I’ll admit that from time to time I’ve become so disenchanted with “The New Yorke