Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: investing reserve funds

[Brian Bartholomew (bartholomew.brian]

> From where are you getting your statistic about an 8% inflation rate?

The second chart on this web page describes consumer price inflation
as computed by the consumer price index formula used in 1980.  More
recent consumer price index formulas don't count major costs like
heating fuel and gasoline:

        http://www.shadowstats.com/alternate_data/inflation-charts

> In the inflationary days of the early 80s people did buy all kinds
> of goods and services trying to beat the inflation rate

If people believe the inflation rate is 2 to 3%, they will not pursue
those countermeasures.

| The Fed has been trying in recent years to get inflation up to 2%
| without much success

I believe both that measurement number and that description of
currency policy cause and effect are factually incorrect.  The book I
like best on the subject is free in pdf at:

        https://mises.org/library/mystery-banking

| we'll be able to replace the roof [...] twenty years after move-in

20 years of compounded 8% loss means you have 21% of the original
purchasing power left.  What kind of roof could you get today, if you
could only spend 1/4 of what you intended to?  I expect a compensating
technological growth in roof technology which will get you more roof
for less labor and materials, but I wouldn't want to bet it will be a
positive 8% over 20 years.

> Where are you from?  And do You have a Cohousing community with
> Which you are associated?

I was originally sold on coho in Florida as a way to share the garden
tools and the cooking, and I still believe in that.  My project ended
when zoning requirements for fancy sidewalks nearly doubled the price.
Many couldn't afford it, and I wasn't going to waste my money.  A
house is not an investment or a savings method, it is a durable good
which wears out, like an automobile.  House value doesn't increase
over time any more than car resale prices do.

The Boomers retiring is changing the ratio of pay-ins/pay-outs for
Social Security.  Due to these demographics, retirement payments from
the current system will fade out.  When the Boomers can no longer
afford to pay for as much medical labor in their nursing homes, they
will reorganize the nursing homes into elder cohos; the architecture
is fine as-is.  Coho may be a niche trend today, but it will be
mainstream before you retire.  Supporting their retired parents with
their own labor will move the working parents in, along with their
children.  The grandparents will watch and parent the children.

Imagine the Midwestern stereotype of the small town of family farms
with 20 acres and a tractor, and neighbors going to the same church.
Half the neighbors are family, habitations clustered on a dead end
street with greenspace surrounding.  Why not share tractors, barns,
assembly halls?  Why pay for individual copies of these expensive
items which sit idle 80% of the time?

It is not obvious to me that cohousing can't do farming without also
doing income sharing; can't do light industrial production on site;
will only appeal to knowledge workers; can't have a pet policy which
describes who responds when the dogs tree an opossum in the orchard at
3am; and must cost $500K/unit, or even $100K/unit.

Brian