Ravenswood Manor

It breaks my heart ... but I have to admit that AP is no longer my home. I lived there for 45 years and saw SO many different changes, some good, some not so good. The past few years have not been good and it pains me that the place that I called home for most of my life has changed so much. We are losing our home due to foreclosure, but making the decision to leave wasn't as difficult as it would have been a few years ago. We battled gangs and all kinds of problems during all of these years, but because of the increasing violence and change in atmosphere, we felt best to give in and get out. Fifteen years (or so) ago, we battled gangs and won. When apartment buildings switched to condos, the neighborhood became the "must move to" area in Chicago. The diversity was the most wonderful thing I could have given my children. But now? The elementary school that my children attended has gone from exemplary to the bottom of the CPS list. My beater of a cargo van was broken into - they tried to hotwire the wothless hunk of metal!!! The sirens that we have heard nightly have made us uneasy. Our alleys are dark, filthy and frightful. These new gangs and the vandalism that is prominent is like nothing we have ever experienced. We have heard that there are more than 4,000 foreclosures in AP (not sure if those statistics are correct, however). So many houses are up for sale and/or stand empty. We have seen many of the condos revert back to apartments. "For sale" signs have changed back to "for rent". The value of our house was almost halved after the economic crisis a few years back. Is it any wonder that the area is in chaos? :(

"Where is the tolerance that you preach?"

Expressing disagreement with your views is intolerance?

"Eric, I misunderstand corporate taxes?"

Yes.

"Sounds pretty simple to me that if you tax something to the point where corporations employ outside the US because of those higher taxes, we have less employment."

You still refuse to address my point. Taxes are assessed on profits (income less expenses). US workers increase expenses and so lower your taxable income.

I can domicile my corporation in Bermuda and create five jobs (all expat lawyers) there while employing twenty thousand people in the U.S. just to avoid U.S. taxes. I don't need to offshore any existing jobs to domicile somewhere else. In fact, this is exactly how Accenture (now domiciled in Ireland, but HQed in NY) started. Now we can talk about corporate domiciling and relative tax rates, but you need to understand what, exactly, taxable revenue is.

I appreciate your point that the United States has one of the highest quotable tax rates. However, the real tax rate is much, much lower. All of my hypotheticals above use real tax rates. As you can see here: http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d08957.pdf real tax rates are well below the nominal tax rate. My own corporation doesn't pay a 35% rate on revenue *or* our raw profits.

I'm thrilled that you linked to the OECD data site! As you can see from this xls: http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/28/31/49069402.xls in 2009, the United States was the third *lowest* in tax revenues as a percentage of GDP ahead of only Chile and Mexico. If you ever get a chance to play around with their database, I highly recommend you do so, it's great fun.

As you can see here: http://www.taxanalysts.com/www/features.nsf/Articles/FE9DCA58402875D7852573680064DA50?OpenDocument in 2004 only 50% of corporate income was even subject to taxation reducing the real rate to only 18%.

I'm all for corporate tax reform so that accounting can't be used to dodge responsibility and that results in a lower nominal corporate tax rates.

"What is that you do in the financial industry? "

I'm a software engineer currently specializing in regulatory compliance and tiered capitalization bases for large ETD and OTC derivatives trading concerns. I'm a hit at parties!

Most two bedrooms in Albany Park are going for just under $1k. A well-appointed unit will go for $1.2k. Obviously if you're on the north side of the street, against the el, you have to subtract.

In terms of gangs, this is traditionally Familia Stones territory. On the block in question, they've been largely gentrified out, but that doesn't mean that you won't hear the occasional gunshots over on Kedzie or have to put some footwork into your block.

If you're in it for the long term and the price is right, I wouldn't hesitate. If you're looking to flip within 5 years, I would shy away.

On the other hand the neighbors are fabulous!

I will get the name and post it on Saturday of the training place on Elston. It is so sad because my dog is so fear agressive now after being in those classes she is hard to walk with others around. It is great to hear someone in the area using Milankis they do small animals and do not charge these outrageous fees because they are exotics like the others places do. And the father is such a no frills he will tell you what you don't need. Not sell so much to you. They will even cut nails and clean ears during the exam if you need. The have even opened longer hours for me when needed who else would do that!

Albany Park is pretty much the center for cycling around Chicago.

To the east is the North Shore Channel trail which takes you up to Evanston and then on to the Green Bay Trail.

To the west is the North Branch Trail which takes you up to the Botanic Garden. You can got east to the Green Bay Trail or west to the Skokie Valley Trail.

Only a short way south to Elston, and you can take a marked bike lane to downtown.

Along Lawrence, from Western to a little past Milwaukee is another marked bike lane, with a short distance of "sharrows" instead of a lane between the river and Central Park.

To the lakefront, take Wilson to Lincoln, then a block or two south to Sunnyside one-way east to almost the lake front, jumping up to Lawrence or down to Montrose to finish the trip. Or just take the bike lane on Lawrence to Lincoln and then south to Sunnyside.

No matter where you want to go in Chicago, Albany Park is the best place to start from.