Series: The Law In Our Lives

It's that time again, folks - moving time.

The way I figure it, I move on average once every year or so.  Even though it's been a while since I signed a traditional lease, it shakes out to be more or less an annual task.

With this most recent move, I'm shifting back to the land of the traditional lease handled by a property management company, and I'm having scary flashbacks to my last commercial landlord.  I had lots of closet space and a great location, but other than that, everything about that last commercial landlord was terrible.  They didn't care about the tenants, they didn't close requested work orders (my bathroom faucet leaked for three years - three years - before they fixed it), they took terrible care of the building and made shoddy repairs when they made them at all (the poorly-caulked shower had leaked through to the living room wall on the other side, and they fixed it by painting over the mold!).  Eventually, I just couldn't take it any more.  I was the last of the tenants in the building who paid regularly and on time, and they ran me out.  Probably not a wise business choice on their part, but they deserve what they have coming to them.

I'm getting nervous reviewing the application and lease documents for this new place.  Missouri is a very, very landlord-friendly state; tenant rights are quite limited, even when that tenant happens to be an attorney.  Everything is drafted in the landlord's favor, but the rental market is tight where I'm looking and if you fuss about their terms, you're out.  So, just like all the other schmucks out there, I just have to sign on the line and hope for the best.

Fingers crossed that it's better than last time.

Canyon

Just a few posts ago, I wrote about a tax quandary facing the heirs of Ileana Sonnabend.  Recently, I was in New York and saw the piece itself:

It's strange to be so close to a bald eagle, especially knowing what a controversy it's caused.

Marriage in America

This summer, the New York Times pulished an article entitled "Two Classes, Divided by 'I Do.'"

The gist of this article is that it's a lot harder for single parents than it is for married couples, which is not exactly breaking news.  Anyone who's been a single parent in the last fifty years could have told you that.  But it's interesting to see the treatment given to the subject in such a broadly-reaching publication, which includes concern about the fact that single parenthood - and especially single motherhood - is such a rapidly growing trend.

Series: The Law In Our Lives

I am not a homeowner.

For various reasons, primarily mobility, I have always been a renter.  But the housing and rental markets are such that it makes a lot more financial sense to buy.

Should I do it?

It might make more sense from a monthly, dollars-paid-for-housing perspective, but there are other financial and non-financial considerations.  Am I expecting the unexpected?  What if I need a new water heater?  Air conditioner?  What if I decide I don't like the neighborhood?  What if I decide I love the neighborhood, but not that particular condo?  What if bad neighbors move in?

I'm stuck - geographically and mentally.

An Interesting Tax Quandary

Generally, it's not a good idea to fight battles with the IRS.  However, I think in this case, the potential taxpayers have a good argument.

This New York Times article tells the story of the Sonnabend family.  When Ileana, an art dealer, passed away, she left her children quite an extensive art collection worth approximately $1 billion, including a sculptural work called Canyon by Robert Rauschenberg.  The kids have already sold off much of the art to pay the nearly $500 million estate tax bill, but they're now in a tiff with the IRS over Canyon.

The problem is this: one of the sculptural elements of Canyon is a stuffed bald eagle.  Under The Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act of 1940, it is illegal to "take, possess, sell, purchase, barter, offer to sell, purchase or barter, transport, export or import, at any time or any manner, any bald eagle ... [or any golden eagle], alive or dead, or any part, nest, or egg thereof."

Technically, Ms. Sonnabend's heirs are in violation of the Act by merely possessing the eagle, but they've gotten by with a wink and a nod from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service since the eagle was killed and stuffed decades before the Act protecting them was passed; the caveat is that the work must remain on public display, which it is (at the Metropolitan Museum of Art).

Whence the problem with the IRS, then?  Since Ms. Sonnabend's heirs cannot legally sell the sculpture, it was appraised with a value of zero dollars.  There is no market for it, hence it has no value.  The IRS disagrees, and values the work at $65 million in "artistic value"; they are seeking almost $30 million from the heirs as a combination of taxes and penalties.

My verdict: no taxes, value of zero.  Why?  The work can never be legally sold in a fair and open market transaction, therefore has no dollar value.

I bet the insurance company would beg to differ.

Punishment or Rehabilitation?

Yesterday the New York Times published a series of essays by different authors debating the treatment of juvenile criminal offenders in our current system.

The Supreme Court is set to publish its ruling any day now on a pair of cases it heard earlier this session regarding whether juveniles can be sentenced to life imprisonment with no option for parole.

More on Alzheimer's

The New York Times reported today on a clinical trial of experimental drug called Crenezumab that could delay the appearance of symptoms in a family in Colombia with a genetic history or early-onset Alzheimer's Disease.

The drug is currently in two trials, but both of them involve people who are already showing symptoms.  The Colombian trial will involve family members who have (and don't have, for control's sake) the gene in question.

There are still a lot of questions and much remains to be seen, but this is promising research!