Family First! M.O. slapshots & bicycle-kicks | Flyers + PSU + ManUtd | 🇩🇪+🇮🇪+🇹🇼 | OG VeeFriends & ABS holder
Los Angeles | Philly | Taipei
Joined September 2009
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Kurt Kazansky retweeted
This is what the beginning of the surveillance state looks like in America
Americans in Connecticut received a bill for additional taxes on their car because cameras spotted it in a different city
A private company called Municipal Tax Service (MTS) is hired by cities to drive around and use automatic license plate readers on cars parked in different cities
It then makes connections if that car lives in that area and sends the owner a bill for new taxes on that vehicle for being in the city
The owner of this vehicle says she doesn’t live in that city, provided proof and says her car was only in a different city because her kid drives there for school
MTS didn’t care and said that the proof didn’t matter and they had to pay it. They appealed to the city, the city said they had to deal with MTS
But here’s the problem, MTS gets paid 38% commission on tax revenue they recover + $50 per vehicle billed to the owner. They made $9 million in commission in just one year from sending people additional tax bills
So this company has no incentive to ever help you and just deny you, which they did
Only after the mainstream media got involved would the city drop this one new tax bill which was false to begin with
In America we now literally have private companies driving around scamming our license plates to tax us more money
This is insanity and it needs to end
Kurt Kazansky retweeted
Well, that was unexpected.
Kid Rock won over Bill Maher’s audience with an epic monologue about the degradation of the modern-day Democrat Party and how progressive politics are teaching kids to hate America.
The moment the audience heard his final line, they erupted into applause.
ROCK: “A Democrat’s never scared me being in office until just recently when all this crazy stuff has popped up.”
“I think Bill Clinton loves the country. I believed Obama loved our country.”
“Now these whack jobs are coming in here and I’m like, wait a minute… even if they don’t hate the country as a whole they hate a big portion of it, and they’re spewing this.”
“And I believe our teachers have been a big problem, you know indoctrinating these kids for a long time now.”
“We’re starting to see the fruition, they’re starting to raise up, I’m a victim and everything’s bad and America is just a big racist piece of sh*t country.”
“Bad, bad America and we’re not celebrating what makes us great, which all of us being different and being together.”
“Being the greatest country in the world!”
It’s pretty seldom that a Republican gets cheers and applause from a liberal crowd with such an unapologetically patriotic message.
This was a great moment.
Kurt Kazansky retweeted
Ric Campo, Co-founder and Executive Chairman of Camden Property Trust, had $250 million of cash and two properties under contract. Then the 10-year Treasury went over 5%.
"If you can buy a 10-year bond from the US government... you can clip coupons and make five and a quarter, then why would you buy a four and a quarter, four and a half cap rate assuming it's gonna grow?"
"There's a stairstep raise of the cost of capital of anybody investing in real estate today."
Camden wasn't hard on the earnest money on either deal.
"We just said, 'Sorry, but the world has changed. We're not gonna buy these properties.'"
"I don't know what the price of real estate is right now. I don't know what it should be."
Today I sit down with Ric Campo, co-founder and Executive Chairman of Camden Property Trust $CPT. Ric and Keith Oden started the company in Houston in 1982 and took it public in 1993.
We discuss:
• How he and Keith Oden made a 45-year partnership work
• What Paul Volcker told him that made him sell everything
• How a dying deal in 2007 warned him the crisis was coming
• Why he measures leverage by cash flow instead of value
• Why he told his employees to turn off the TV in 2009
• Why Camden sold California to buy back its own stock
• Why he walked away from two deals when the 10-year Treasury passed 5%
• Why he's bullish on rents over the next few years
• Why AI at Camden has to raise revenue or cut costs
Timestamps:
(00:00) Intro
(01:00) Reinventing Yourself Every Few Years Over a 50-Year Career
(06:24) Working Alongside Co-Founder Keith Oden for 45 Years
(12:42) How a 1985 Meeting With Paul Volcker Saved the Company
(17:23) Losing a $1 Billion Loan Commitment in 2007
(20:25) Creating Urgency in a Slow Industry and the California Sale
(26:10) Selling California to Buy Back Stock at a Discount
(31:50) The Real Advantages of Being a REIT
(35:38) Why Camden Runs Low Leverage After Missing a $40 Million Trade
(42:26) Leading 1,800 Employees Through the 2008 Financial Crisis
(49:50) When Camden Knew It Had Survived 2008
(52:53) Why This Is the Most Unusual Multifamily Market in 40 Years
(56:08) Why Camden Walked Away From Deals When the 10-Year Hit 5%
(1:03:11) The Case for Rent Growth Over the Next Three to Five Years
(1:07:52) How Camden Measures the Return on AI
(1:13:22) Using AI for Predictive Maintenance and Site Selection
(1:19:18) The Hardest Part of Running Camden Today
Kurt Kazansky retweeted
I've uncovered why LADWP water rates are skyrocketing.
LADWP's supplier said water conservation was too successful, leading water use/revenue to collapse— justifying a 40% rate hike.
They asked us to save water, so we did. But we saved too much, so they're spiking our rates.
An independent, non-city-affiliated audit of Los Angeles Department of Water and Power rates has been ordered by Mayor Karen Bass, her office says. ktla.com/news/local-news/ind…
Kurt Kazansky retweeted
Nithya Raman Calls For More Social Workers to Make Los Angeles Safer
NITHYA: “There's thousands of calls for service for things you don't need armed officers for like the issue you had with a person on your sidewalk … if there's not a crime happening.”
GRAHAM: “There is a crime. They're doing drugs.”
Until yesterday, I had never run a half marathon.
Ever since a severe concussion in 2024, I hadn’t really pushed myself physically. That changed in part to my conversation w/ @BrofitAZ re: accountability.
I am officially announcing my retirement from running longer than a 5K
Kurt Kazansky retweeted
Each weeks @veefriends and @claudesilver host a new Character Matters space. In this week’s space it was asked how small things can make a huge impact and it reminded me of something that happened to me years ago. Here is a thread of that story. I hope it helps one person. 🧵
Kurt Kazansky retweeted
The Roar Zone with a loud response, as Penn State celebrates with them for the first of the 2026-27 season
Kurt Kazansky retweeted
We work and toil and sweat and bleed for our money.
They steal it from us.
Go for a WALK in nature.
A remarkable new picture is emerging of how the air around us could harm the brain washingtonpost.com/health/20…
Kurt Kazansky retweeted
Undocumented butcher 🔪
A transient who was blocking a sidewalk with a mattress in Santa Monica was found to have more than a dozen knives, including butcher knives, and several grams of methamphetamine, police said. ktla.com/news/local-news/san…
The @veefriends community is AMAZING!
This is entertainment. MUST WATCH @ToTheMoon_Cards is one of my favorite streams to watch. @iJayRob & @TGer_01 are hilarious
I didn’t plan on being on WN last night but saw they had a show. Ended up watching (& buy a few cards)
#VFam
Kurt Kazansky retweeted
Larry Page bought a $173M house in Miami that could save him $14.6 billion.
Here's how that works. On November 3, California votes on whether to hit every billionaire in the state with a one-time 5% tax on their entire net worth, every share of stock and every company stake included. The catch is that it only applies to people who lived in California on January 1, 2026.
Page made sure he wasn't one of them. In December, business entities tied to him moved out of California. That same month he paid $101.5M for a compound in Miami's Coconut Grove, and on January 5 he picked up the place next door for another $71.9M.
He's worth around $292 billion, and 5% of that is $14.6 billion. So he basically paid a 1.2% fee to skip a 5% tax, and he gets to live in the fee.
The people who wrote this tax actually saw this move coming. They filed it in October 2025 and set the January 1 date on purpose, which gave billionaires 77 days to get out. Their argument was that nobody could legally set up a new home in another state that fast.
Page, Sergey Brin, and at least four other billionaires publicly pulled it off anyway.
The $100 billion figure you've probably heard came from the economists behind the measure, and it assumed only 10% of the money would walk out the door. Stanford economist Joshua Rauh went through the list one name at a time and found 30% had already announced they were gone, before a single vote was cast. His team thinks the tax brings in closer to $40 billion. Add back the income tax those people will never pay California again, and the state comes out at least $25 billion behind over time. Even the state's own nonpartisan budget office, which is more optimistic than Rauh, will only commit to "tens of billions."
Polls have it somewhere between 45% and 52%. Two other measures, funded by billionaires, sit on the same ballot, written so that if either one gets more votes than the tax, the tax dies.
So in two weeks California votes on a tax designed so nobody could leave in time, and the two richest people it was aimed at already have Miami addresses.
Kurt Kazansky retweeted
We're suing Gavin Newsom over an health insurance premium tax! This illegal tax would cost families more than $400 just for health insurance. Here are the details of the lawsuit, and the likelihood that it will prevail - WATCH!
Do you think Newsom violated the law with this tax? Let us know in the comments below and be sure to check out the full video on YouTube!
Healthcare costs including State-funded is a national disgrace without any checks & balances. This story makes me livid.
My coworker's mother passed away last November.
She left her modest $190,000 house to him clear and free, no mortgage, completely paid off after thirty years of factory work.
He moved into the home in January to finally settle the estate.
Two weeks ago, a letter arrived from the state Medicaid estate recovery office.
Because his mother spent four months in a rehabilitation facility before she passed, the state quietly slapped a retroactive $114,000 lien against the property title.
He called the state health department, frantic, asking how a hospital stay could bankrupt an inherited home that had no mortgage balance.
The caseworker sighed and told him:
"Federal law requires state programs to claw back healthcare costs from deceased estates. The house cannot be sold or transferred until the balance is cleared in full."
He offered to pay a monthly settlement.
They said no. The full $114,000 is due in 60 days, or they foreclose on the property at a public auction.
A lifetime of working-class savings, wiped out overnight by a retroactive healthcare lien.
You don't own generational wealth.
You're just holding a property title until the state finds a legal mechanism to repossess it the moment you die.
