Lumber Demand Forecast To Fall Another 14%
Trade group says consumption will be at lowest rate since 1982
Source: PROSALES Information Service
Publication date: January 12, 2009
U.S. demand for lumber will drop 14.4% in 2009 from last year to total just 35 billion board feet, the lowest consumption rate since 1982, the Western Wood Products Association (WWPA) forecasts.
WWPA based its new forecast, issued Jan. 6, in part on the expectation that housing starts will total just 803,000 units in 2009, the lowest level since World War II. Traditionally, home building consumes as much as 45% of the lumber used each year, WWPA says. For 2009, it believes a total of 9.5 billion board fees lumber will be used in residential construction.
“Western [U.S.] mills are experiencing the largest downturn in lumber demand ever recorded,” WWPA said. In that region, production has slid from 19.3 billion board feet in 2005 to 13.4 billion board feet in 2008 to an expected 11.8 billion board feet this year. “Southern mills will follow the same trend, with production dropping 17% for 2008 and slipping another 13% to 12 billion board feet in 2009,” the Portland, Ore.-based association predicts. As for Canada, imports from that nation have declined by some 10 billion board feet to roughly 11.9 billion board feet in 2008. Another decline, to just over 10 billion board feet, is expected for this year.
“The downward trend is forecast to continue through 2009 before beginning recovery in 2010,” WWPA said, as housing starts finally start rising and both the repair/remodeling and commercial construction markets begin to see increases.
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My sil lives in central Washington state and drives/delivers trusses. Or, did.
Last year they were doing 6 day weeks and usually 8-10 hr days (some 12's). He's been completely out of work for 5 weeks now and his fellow driver is down to 20-30 hrs/wk.
He's a good hard worker but cannot find anyting within 75 mile radius. Just had a new baby before Christmas, too plus a 4 y/o.
We'll help any way we can, but dang, it's disheartening for so many. I feel so fortunate to be retired now.
...The unspoken word is capital. We can invest it or we can squander it. -Mark Twain...Be kind to your children....they will choose your nursing home....aim low boys, they're ridin' shetland ponies !!
With about a year of housing inventory on the market and another 1+ million homes more than could be sold, it's an understatement to say the residential housing market is overbuilt.
We'll be living with this well past 2009, it's really optimistic to say 2010 recovery.
I agree, saying early 2010 is ridiculously optimistic. I would say a minimum of 2011 but probably more like mid to late 2012. There are massive problems and what is coming out of washington will just prolong or increase those problems. The talk of a $800 billion to a $1.4 trillion "stimulus" bill which we all know will be full of wasteful spending and do nothing for the economy, and that's on top of the $700 billion they are still in the process of wasting on the financial industry.All of that will lead to significant inflation which will be very difficult to combat and look what the spending has done thus far. They gave tens of billions to AIG and they came back for more a few month later, GM is already saying the 15 billion they got will only last until March then they need more. And no one wants to buy their cars so when will the next request be made after the latest. It just goes on and on. Bottom line is anyone of us posting on this board could through darts at a board and do better than those in washington right now. They are flat out wrong constantly at least with throwing darts, you hit the mark once in a while.To all, these videos explain some of the issues. Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, Community reinvestment act, barney frank, chris dodd, etc. are to blame for the this and in the video, the congress nitwits defending the status quo before the meltdown are all still there and will be making the decisions going forward. The idiots who caused this are passing bills to fix it. I guess I just lack confidence in this bunch.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_MGT_cSi7Rs&feature=relatedhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1RZVw3no2A4&feature=relatedbtw, Chris Dodd, the senior senator from CT is the chairman of the banking committee (the ruling committee for all the finanical stuff) got a loan from countrywide finanical. The CEO angelo mozilo had a nice arrangement for two very powerful senators, exec's at fannie and freddie and at rates anyone of us could never sniff. How they are not in jail for corruption is beyond me. And Dodd and his corruption are still in charge of the senate banking committee. Dodd's daddy who had the senate seat he's in now was also corrupt but it stuck to him more so. Even the NY times rips dodd.http://wsj.com/public/article_print/SB121279970984353933.htmlhttp://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/22/opinion/22sun3.html
I keep hearing 10 years.
That "stimulus" bill might make it 10 years. There are differences in philosophy but that thing is just MASSIVE government spending on pork. Some poor kid that hasn't even been born yet owes money to pay for that pork. Look what the government did from '02 to '06, a huge increase in government spending. If that was good for the economy and increased growth, then why didn't it then?My gov. wants to start taxing candy, soda and add the sales tax to alcohol sales beyond the current taxes. I've seen Gov. Arnold in CA wants to tax everything short of breathing.For once in my life I want to see govt lay off people and cut spending like a companies do. They just continue to spend like crazy when the economy is good, then raise taxes when it slows. NO MORE TAXES, CUT SPENDING.
In the past the people who have got elected did the best thing for them.
Goverment officials act just like farmers. They hide money when its good and beg for money when its close.
Tim
That is unfair to millions of elected officials across the country. The vast majority do the job out of a sense of public service. Some may have an axe to grind, but it's usually "low taxes" or "education" or "fighting crime" or some such, not lining their own pockets.Kinda unfair to the farmers too.
The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness. -John Kenneth Galbraith
Mooney used to be a building inspector
and that's about as close to a secret agent covert spy public servant as yer going to get
having been elected by those who were elected.
I never did forgive Tim for becoming one of 'Them'.
DDay said it was ok to say this
Its the truth.
What is your explanation of wall street or the housing deal?
No body saw it comming , not even a lowly life official that was paid to watch over us . It was a complete surprize. Nobody is holding a hand up and saying I told yall this was gonna happen.
How come the price of gasoline came down when Obama got elected? Why was it an all time high when Bush was in power?
Why do we pay farmers to grow stuff that wont sell?
Why do we pay farmers to breed milk cows and the calfs are sold at beef auction after they have been paid to replenish milk cows? I know the answer.
In the good years farmers write off every thing they can and then in the lean years they ask the gov for help.
The politicians have always takin donations for a scratch on the back. There has to be some scatching back to do. People that give large sums of money expect somthing in return. Come to think of it any money at all just like you want somthing your self .[from the goverment ]
Its always been that way . Fact.
Edited 1/29/2009 1:18 pm by Mooney
First off, Wall Street, on a good day, is only about 5% controllable by the government -- it'll do what it'll do.But my bigger point is that, regardless of what you think about your senators and representatives, they're only a small fraction of the elected officials in the country. Most sit on school boards, town councils, county commissions, etc, and do it as a public service. If they get campaign contributions at all, it's generally only a few hundred dollars -- enough for a few lawn signs. True, some do line their pockets, but it's a small minority.
The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness. -John Kenneth Galbraith
"No body saw it comming ..."
not true - warnings were sounded and ignored by many/most -
the winners in this are not crying, they have their short sell profits - tho I think nearly everyone is holding their breath, worrying if the whole thing is going to collapse like a trade center tower -
I acquired the opinion that the whole thing is/was a sham some 30+ years ago - actually it's taken quite a bit longer than I thought to get to the precipice -
interesting times in which we live....
View Image"there's enough for everyone"
"In the past the people who have got elected did the best thing for them.Goverment officials act just like farmers. They hide money when its good and beg for money when its close. "I remember back before the election, I think it was early october or maybe mid october, Rassmussen did a poll. I asked, would you replace all of congress with people selected randomly out of the phone book. I think it was over 65% that said yes. I know I would, at least random people know what its like to work and pay bills, the pol's in washington are unaccountable and just live in their own world.
Remember a couple of years ago when about every guy on this site was busier than a cat covering cowpies? And they all had attitudes about the customer having expectations? And they was all whining about not making enuff?
What happened to those times? They was soooo good.
Musta been Bushes fault.
Personally I don't think it is Bush's fault , although I believe some of his decisions did contribute to it. But to say those were the good times is (IMO) extremely shortsighted. Anyone with any kind of an brain, eyes, and ears could have seen this coming. The "good times" were the mirage one sees in the desert before discovering your mouth is full of sand. Yep a lot of people were raking in the money, living in a dream world and believing it will always be that way.
Now the dance is over, the party is done and it is time to pay the piper. The place smells like the sour odors of spilt beer and cigarettes and no one has any coin to eat breakfast on. Yea it's the first Monday morning in a week of Mondays and it's gonna be this way for awhile .
They can't get your Goat if you don't tell them where it is hidden.
I guess the question becomes,
What does the average construction worker do for his next career? And what does he need to do to prepare?
excellant question. I network with a lot of contractors who used to build homes.. Most of them are either out of the business or so greatly cut back as to often been reduced to occasional odd jobs.. Those of my age who'd planned on a few more years are recalculating their earnings and wondering if they can hang on long enough to collect the minimum social security.
One common theme is to move where things are dramatically cheaper like Noth Dakota or Mississippi and try to subsist on whatever income they hope to have..
mississippi... ain't so bad... i have a shopping center in N. Mississippi... and it's rarei have an empty space... climate is not bad anywhere in the state... some great schools and school towns (that always have money) the mississippi gulf coast is one of the nicest beaches in the world... cost of living is low... and the people are nice...
you could pick a worse place to tuck in your wings and wait...
p
I'm sure the folks in North Dakota feel the same way..
I wasn't denigrating those places simply pointing them out as alternatives..
When my father found himself in a similar situation he moved to a small rural town in Wisconsin called Balsam Lake. Living there was dramatically cheaper than in Minneapolis. That lower cost of living was a temporary benefit until he needed medical care and then he spent the last year of his life with terminal cancer driving to and from medical attention while extremely sick from chemotherapy.
My point is there is no free lunch.
I didn't think you were slam'n them... and i think your point was dead on... if nothing is happening where you are... maybe go somewhere else... since i have not been to ND i couldn't comment on it... but Mississippi is not bad...
cheap housing (compared to most places) cheap utilities... and not a huge need for heating most of the year...
medical care is an issue... you about have to live near a large urban center to get it...
I could live on a boat... in an RV.... a small cabin by a lake... i think most guys could live pretty cheap ... alone :)
p
IN Oct. of 2002 Bush signed a republican bill into law which deregulated banking practices further and allowing no doc. loans.. His statement at the time.... "I want to have 5 million new minority home owners by the end of the decade."
He also allowed credit default swaps whereby banks could bundle home mortgages and turn sub prime mortgages into AAA ratings and sell them on the world market.
The resultant fiscal crisis is well known and understood..
" He also allowed credit default swaps whereby banks could bundle home mortgages and turn sub prime mortgages into AAA ratings and sell them on the world market."Frenchy, your facts are wrong on this. Credit default swaps were "invented" in 1997 by JPMorgan Chase and it actually became illegal to regulate them with the Commodity Futures Modernization Act signed into law by Bill Clinton.
Sorry I tried to oversimplify a combination of events and show how they are related.. we can go all the way back to the Veterns benefits bill of 1945 if you want and connect all the dots. I doubt people care that much about the nuances.
It is a complex history and for the most part the public isn't interested in the details. My only objection to most of the coverage and debate about this is that the financial market collapse is a result of actions and policy that both political parties undertook for political and personal gain. It's wrong to lay it at the feet of one person and for the most post no single person is a heroic figure either.
thank you, glad someone else can read and understand history. But this should be in the tavern,...sorry.
At its most basic level, capitalism offers people the freedom to choose where they work and what they do … the dignity that comes with profiting from their talent and hard work. … The free-market system also provides the incentives that lead to prosperity -- the incentive to work, to innovate, to save and invest wisely, and to create jobs for others.†-President George W. Bush
In other words, free-market capitalism is the best path to prosperity.
"Frenchy, your facts..." The words "Frenchy" and "facts" should never be paired in one thought. They seldom, if ever, have anything to do with one another. All problems in the world today are Bush's fault, facts be darned.
ooh, some one else has noticed that fact!!! The truth always wins out.
At its most basic level, capitalism offers people the freedom to choose where they work and what they do … the dignity that comes with profiting from their talent and hard work. … The free-market system also provides the incentives that lead to prosperity -- the incentive to work, to innovate, to save and invest wisely, and to create jobs for others.†-President George W. Bush
In other words, free-market capitalism is the best path to prosperity.
I've tried to knock bricks out of that wall before. They say insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, yet expecting the results to change (or something to that effect). I expect no change in results. The entertianment values remains high, though, I mean, give credit where credit is due!
Yeah, well I couldn't continue to do the same thing time after time. The ability to reason, process and comprehend is virtually gone with many on the other side. It became meaningless. So I withdrew my access to the tavern....and I haven't missed them at all. I certainly enjoyed it over the years, though.
At its most basic level, capitalism offers people the freedom to choose where they work and what they do … the dignity that comes with profiting from their talent and hard work. … The free-market system also provides the incentives that lead to prosperity -- the incentive to work, to innovate, to save and invest wisely, and to create jobs for others.†-President George W. Bush
In other words, free-market capitalism is the best path to prosperity.
I didn't know you could withdraw your own access. The thought has crossed my mind more than once. I can't tell you how many times over the last ten years I have deleted FineHomeBuilding from My Favorites, for various reasons.
Before Frenchy and Riverdance, there were others, and they were similar. Never did the personal attacks get as abd as they did in 2008. There are less than 10 people that would make this a much greater forum by their permanent absence.
Holding up both sides of the fight belong to us all. You will not be able to dislodge one firmly entrenched in their oft repeated, comfortable arguments. Nor they you. And so it continues. I've often been burned, but I still love fire...
I asked the mods to reverse my access. They did and I am much happier, as I did not want to eliminate the website from my favorites. You can find my email somewhere in there. I had one person on ignore which helped, but the newbies just never got it, and you have to have a modicum of intelligence to have a 2-way conversation. I strongly suggest you do the same.
At its most basic level, capitalism offers people the freedom to choose where they work and what they do … the dignity that comes with profiting from their talent and hard work. … The free-market system also provides the incentives that lead to prosperity -- the incentive to work, to innovate, to save and invest wisely, and to create jobs for others.†-President George W. Bush
In other words, free-market capitalism is the best path to prosperity.
I DO appreciate the advice. I generally stay out of the tavern but do enjoy lurking more than engaging there. Sometimes its fun to poke the bear and run like heck, illadvised though it may be.
I read a post from one of more/most left leaning agitators that basically said they regretted their return to the tavern after the imposed exile. I had to concur, I regretted their return as well.
Gentlemen,
This thread will be headed to exile in the Tavern shortly if we don't round up the loose cattle.
94969.19 In the beginning there was Breaktime...
94969.1 Photo Gallery Table of Contents
They shouldn't send it there. Everyone is fine thus far and the conversations are substantive and pretty civil.
Frenchy, That's a big pile of wood. I asked where you stored it because I have a smaller pile, but of red oak that I have stored in my uninsulated Morton steel building for about 10 years now. I just used 7-8 boards and found out it was plenty wormy, a problem with air dried wood that lays around too long. It was still usable and sound but took some doctoring to finish off nice. So be observant of the possible problems with many organisms that are waiting to live and build colonies in your pile of wood.
you don't know how big! Right now the whole shop area is wood stacked to the ceiling. That's roughly 30'x50' x9' over stocks are stored wherever a room isn't finished..
the widest pieces are 23 inches wide and the longest pieces are 20' long.. the only vulnerable wood, the maple is well stickered and will be among the first wood used the rest, black walnut and white oak are pretty immune to damage due to the tannic in them. there is a few thousand bd.ft. of cherry that I'm using right now as I make cabinets for the kitchen etc..
now that's funny.
At its most basic level, capitalism offers people the freedom to choose where they work and what they do … the dignity that comes with profiting from their talent and hard work. … The free-market system also provides the incentives that lead to prosperity -- the incentive to work, to innovate, to save and invest wisely, and to create jobs for others.†-President George W. Bush
In other words, free-market capitalism is the best path to prosperity.
so I've been out of the tavern for a couple of months now. I'm working on three projects, (part-time, no less!) and sort of miss the back and forth, but really do NOT miss the self-proclaimed financial and economic "experts". Politically, I would love to go back and rub several faces in the mud, but it's really not necessary. I find myself less on the website, but in general, happier in the long run. I guess you might say I have no regrets at withdrawing from the tavern.
At its most basic level, capitalism offers people the freedom to choose where they work and what they do … the dignity that comes with profiting from their talent and hard work. … The free-market system also provides the incentives that lead to prosperity -- the incentive to work, to innovate, to save and invest wisely, and to create jobs for others.†-President George W. Bush
In other words, free-market capitalism is the best path to prosperity.
"His statement at the time.... "I want to have 5 million new minority home owners by the end of the decade." "So you don't think that it is a good idea minorities to have homes?.
William the Geezer, the sequel to Billy the Kid - Shoe
I think it's a very good idea that every American own their own home.. which is exactly why Clinton proposed the no down payment idea for all Americans not just those eligible for the GI bill.
Where the train ran off the tracks was the idea of no doc loans.. and being able to bundle mortages together and sell them off as AAA rating.
What really derailed things was the idea that you could use your home as a cash machine. It's HELs, not first mortgages, that are the bulk of the problem.
The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness. -John Kenneth Galbraith
Edited 1/22/2009 5:19 pm by DanH
HEL's foreclosure rates would be a relatively easy thing to deal with if in the words of Alan Greenspan there hadn't been unwarranted exuberance due to overbuilding in an attempt to cash in on the subprime building boom.
We are over built by more than a million homes with many homes around here having a second and even third birthday without an owner.. That level of overbuilding caused the plunge the housing industry went through and since the housing industry was the only segment of our society that hadn't taken a hit lately. When it toppled the rest of the economy fell.
The real trigger was when those German banks found out what loans they had bought up thinking they were AAA rated with an "insurance policy" of credit default swap that started to whole slide which so far nobody has figured out how to stop..
Debt is fine, the world revolves around debt. It's when debt isn't regulated or verified that the train comes off the track.
Yeah, it's a bunch of things, but a big part of the problem is that HELs (and "cash out" refinancing -- same difference) ate up everyone's equity, so that when appreciation turned negative everyone ended up underwater.Most of the stinky subprimes were HELs, not first mortgages. If we only had first mortgages to worry about there'd be a problem, but not nearly as serious.Overbuilding occurred in large part because of the "trade up" mentality that said that if you're flush enough to not need a HEL you should buy a larger home, and keep doing that until you're hopelessly into debt with no equity. All part of the same "entitlement" mentality. (And of course it didn't help when builders kept building after homes stopped selling.)I'd like to see a breakdown by borrower income of the in-foreclosure mortgages. I'm guessing that a very large fraction are relatively high income folks who bought into the "trade up/cash out" craze.
The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness. -John Kenneth Galbraith
What I read about was that the same cause which forces most owners out of their foreclosed houses are the reason homes were foreclosed on..
#1 is loss of job, #2 is divorce #3 is serious illness or medical.
It's extremely easy to blame owners and if you assume that it's your fault you lost your job, got a divorce, or got sick then you are correct..
However if the overbuilding hadn't occured home values wouldn't have plummeted.. which would have allowed many to sell their home without being foreclosed on..
If you lost your job, got sick, or got divorced, it used to be that you could sell your home and get a little equity out to tide you over. But the "cash out" mindset led to a situation where very few home "owners" had any equity. Then, when home prices took a minor dive, lots of people ended up underwater and went into foreclosure. (The situation was not improved at all by the new, punitive bankruptcy laws.) This further drove down home prices, creating a spiral downward to where even those with a modicum of equity were in trouble, then those with considerable equity.It is always thus -- there is a trigger situation that sends the system out of equilibrium, resulting in a death spiral.
The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness. -John Kenneth Galbraith
I'm sorry to keep going back to WW2 but it's our best example and universaly understood.. Those returning vets bought zero down houses and had no more foreclosure rate than the previously 20% down buyers did.. (and the resulting building boom was good for America)
There is nothing flawed with zero down.. 60+ years of experiance has established that.
What was flawed was the credit default swaps which took responsiblity for issuance of good loans away from the requirement for a mortgage.
I thought that you said that the no doc loans was the problem..
William the Geezer, the sequel to Billy the Kid - Shoe
Several of you have mentioned the surplus inventory of housing as a basic cause of the collapse. And many have mentioned the easy access to money as a prime ingedient that made this building frenzy possible.
No one has mentioned another ingredient essential to the building frenzy; namely, millions (perhaps three to six million) of illegal-immigrant construction workers. Without that ready, inexpensive labor force, the building binge could not have occurred. About two years ago, JLC wrote an editorial that described immigrant labor as essential to the building industry. If I remember correctly, they quoted the NAHB to support their thesis.
They were right, of course; the new-housing building industry was extremely dependent on these young, cheap installers. If they hadn't had them, what would have happened?
First of all, they wouldn't have been able to build so many houses so fast. No matter what anybody says, houses don't spring up out of the ground of their own accord. Building requires energetic workers; building fast requires a lot of them.
Secondly, labor being in short supply, its cost would have risen. This would have helped American tradesmen--like me and many of you.
Thirdly, the price of new houses would have risen in response to the labor shortage.
Fourthly, This rise in price would have had a dampening effect on the new housing marking.
At this juncture, I'd say a little cold water thrown on the housing market over the last several years might have been a good thing.
Canada doesn't have the same body of illegal migrants yet has just come through a similar building boom.
Canada has the highest per capita immigration rate in the world. I have no idea how many of the immigrants took part in Canada's building boom.
The building boom in Canada--and most other things--can't seriously be compared to the US. Canada has a population of 31.6 million; the US has a population of 306 million.
The post I responded to referred to illegal migrants as the facilitator of the building boom. That is a rather different than suggesting legal migrants facilitate the boom.Given the difficulty most legal immigrants have finding work, it is no surprise so many of them end up as labour for construction. Given also that they are taxpaying citizens or citizens-to-be of their new homes, they are a legitimate part of the labour force.
The other institution not mentioned so far is the credit rating agencies. The S&P, AM Best, Fitch, etc. . The raters were on the take from the trading houses. A little vig on the back end and voila...Triple A! Without the rating the CDS would not be able to be bought & sold.
excellant point! However don't forget the leverage used against them to rate those bonds AAA. Without the wink and nod they wouldn't be selected as the rating agency.
If you choose to downgrade bonds your agency wouldn't be selected for future ratings and you wouldn't earn the fees..
The post I responded to referred to illegal migrants as the facilitator of the building boom. That is a rather different than suggesting legal migrants facilitate the boom.
Given the difficulty most legal immigrants have finding work, it is no surprise so many of them end up as labour for construction. Given also that they are taxpaying citizens or citizens-to-be of their new homes, they are a legitimate part of the labour force.
As the two articles I've posted demonstrate, illegal immigrants were an essential part of the building frenzy in the US. I never said the were "the facilitator" of the building boom. I stated that they were a vital part of the equation.
Nor did I suggest that legal immigrants aren't a legitimate part of the labor force. You see, the word legitimate means legal. On the other side of the coin, illegitimate means illegal.
The over 2 million or so illegal immigrants working construction in the US aren't a legitimate part of our labor force. In fact, they are by definition illegitimate. The often-repeated statement that they were "doing work that Americans won't do" has been a long-standing justification for letting them in. Now, with a huge stock of unsold houses, that argument rings hollow.
By the way, why wouldn't legal immigrants facilitate a building boom?
I can see why you picked that name. Sorry, I don't want to play.
So Ben Franklin's b*st*rd son was illegal? How?
The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness. -John Kenneth Galbraith
Here's the article from JLC Aug., 2007:
Hispanic Immigrants Crucial To Industry, Data Show
The Pew Hispanic Center has issued a fact sheet, based on data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics and the Census Bureau, that shows just how dependent the construction industry has become on immigrant workers. "Hispanic workers, especially those who are recently arrived, are a vital part of the construction industry," note the authors. "Despite the slowdown in the housing market, there are no indications that the role of foreign-born Hispanic workers in this industry might diminish in the near future." Other highlights of the fact sheet include the following: • Employers in the South and West continue to rely most heavily on Hispanic workers. Taken together, those two regions employed 2.5 million of the 2.9 million Hispanics who worked in construction nationwide during 2006. The South and West also accounted for an increase of 293,000 construction jobs for Hispanics between 2005 and 2006, or about 79 percent of the total increase nationwide. • While absolute numbers of Hispanic construction workers in the Northeast remained relatively low in 2006, at 249,000, that figure represents an increase of more than 30 percent from the year before — the sharpest increase in Hispanic employment of any region in the country. • Of the 2.9 million Hispanics employed in the construction industry in 2006, 2.2 million were born outside the U.S. These foreign-born workers accounted for 19.1 percent of all construction-industry jobs, up from 17.1 percent the previous year. • Nationwide in 2006, employment in construction grew by 559,000 workers. About 335,000 jobs — 60 percent of that increase — went to foreign-born Hispanics; of those jobs, 255,000 — or more than 45 percent of the total increase — went to recent arrivals, defined as workers who arrived in the U.S. in 2000 or later. Nearly one-third of all recently arrived foreign-born Hispanics worked in the construction industry at some point during 2006. • About two-thirds of the increase in employment among all recently arrived Hispanics (not just those in the construction industry) can be attributed to unauthorized immigration, the center estimates. If that figure holds for construction, something like 30 percent of last year's increase — about 168,000 jobs — went to newly arrived illegal workers.
Here is a link to the Pew study. If you accept their position that the 3 million Hispanic workers were "a vital part of the construction industry", it's pretty hard to escape the conclusion that they played an essential role in the building boom. Had they not been available, the building boom could not have happened on the scale that it did.
http://pewhispanic.org/files/factsheets/28.pdf
Edited 1/23/2009 3:59 pm ET by Mudslinger
The post WWII zero-down mortgages could have gone sour (in fact, almost certainly would have) if there had been a significant downward glitch in home prices at the wrong time. But post-war there was a strong demand for homes (in part because of GI Bill loans), so that wasn't really a possibility up until maybe the late 50s.I agree that the securitization of loans, along with such financial fictions at the credit default swap, helped to amplify the housing bubble and also created a less stable system overall, but there are many other factors involved as well. But mostly it comes down to the 0% savings rate, in all its manifestations.
The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness. -John Kenneth Galbraith
"I think it's a very good idea that every American own their own home.."Then why did you try to blame all of this on Bush taking about the same desires."Where the train ran off the tracks was the idea of no doc loans.."And those where around long before Bush was president..
William the Geezer, the sequel to Billy the Kid - Shoe
I'm sorry Bill.
I forgot, Republicans don't take responsibility for their actions. They blame others..
Yep, it's all my fault!
I spent 600 billion dollars on a war with no reason, I gave a tax break to my rich buddies that meant America's budget wasn't balanced anymore and I doubled America's debt in just 8 years to 2 trillion dollars when I started out with a 600 billion dollar surplus..
It's all my fault..
you republicans have done a wonderful job of ruining the country, oops I meant to say running the country, must have been a Freudian slip there..
"Yep, it's all my fault!"Thanks for admitting that..
William the Geezer, the sequel to Billy the Kid - Shoe
Frenchy is a funny guy claiming republican's are the one who point the finger? I guess he's never looked at the campaign contributions of all the "wall street fat cats" and where they once where, you know like Robert Rubin and John Corzine. Wall street is overwhelming liberal and put their money in the dem coffers.Also, frenchy seems to think like those pol's whose moronic actions caused this."I think it's a very good idea that every American own their own home.. which is exactly why Clinton proposed the no down payment idea for all Americans not just those eligible for the GI bill."He has a tremendous idea there. Allow people to buy a home with no equity. So when the housing market goes in a cyclical slump which is normal, millions of people become underwater on their mortgages and find it somewhat attractive to just walk away. Similar to what has developed this time around. And as more and more walk away, the normal housing slump gains a multiplier and becomes a severe problem.Don't give up your day job frenchy.
If you had read history you would know that following WW2 America created the VA bill of rights which gave every returning veteran a chance to buy a new home with no money down..
That created the post war building boom which was very good for this country and surprisingly those vets didn't all turn in their houses when the economy slowed down. (which it did at various times post war)
There is nothing inheritedly wrong with zero down..History has proven that!
There is everything wrong with Credit default swaps which side step insurance regulations and allow banks to bundle home loan packages of sub prime borrowers into AAA rated investment securities.
Don't kid yourself.. that's what this mess is about.. Banks making so much money and passing on the risks to others!
In a word that is fraud. In the banking industry billions of dollars are traded daily based on a person's and by extension an institutions' reputation. When that reputation has been destroyed the way deregulation allowed, The banking industry grinds to a halt.. same thing happened in 1929..
When will you learn rules exist for a reason even if you fail to grasp the reason!
The issue is not CDS's, it the underlying assets. Your just parroting some talking point you've heard. Blame the boogey man in the corner that 98% of people don't understand. Swaps of any kind are good and a very valuable part of the financial markets. Regulations will not solve things, it will just driving the market over seas. Just enforce more transparency.So no money down mortgages are great huh? And you only needed to go back 60 years to find supporting evidence? And the end of WWII the population was 141 million, now its 300 million. There complete structure of the country was different, financially, where people lived, everything. Also, just prior to WWII was the economy depression of the 30's which created a huge pent up demand that spurred high economic growth after the conclusion of the war. That does not exist now.No money down mortgages and allowing people to keep pulling equity out of their house to a very high percentage of the value create a pending crash. No money down works fine as long as the market trends upward, the second that market corrects those that have no or little equity in their house start seeing it less beneficial to keeping that house. Other than the blight on their financial/credit ratings what incentive is there for someone who bought a $400,000 house in 2004 that is now worth $325,000. They can simply walk away, ridding themselves of a $75,000 paper loss and work around the credit ratings system to get the same type of house but now for $325,000.A similar analogy, in a way, is the internet stock bubble that was created in the late 90's. Many of those companies were essentially worthless but as long as their were idiots willing to trade that stock higher, people made money. But when the correction happened, the stock fell off a cliff since there was no underlying value. NMD mortgages set up the same, people who were the last in have no value in the house, or limited value. And as the market turns down it creates a snowball effect that grows and the prices drop. So I didn't go back 60 years for an example, I figured a decade was enough.
Swaps of any kind are good and a very valuable part of the financial markets. Regulations will not solve things, it will just driving the market over seas
Unregulated Swaps are the major reason why your tax dollars are being used to prevent an economic collapse. Imagine a fire destroys your home and contents. You make a claim on your insurance only to find out that your insurance co. does not have the liquidity to pay the claim. Hard to imagine? Why? Because the insurance industry is regulated. They are required to carry liquid assets enough to pay a number of statistically determined claims against policies, or be bonded by another insurer who does. Issuers of CDS were not regulated, hence they could wing-it, betting that they would not be called to make good on claims.
The markets are already overseas. This is impacting the entire world.
When the potential for a mess made by any industry can create a threat to the economy that must be cleaned up by taxpayers then regulation is in order to protect the taxpayers.
People need to get over the fact that that this calls into question the image of free markets being the be all and end all. Properly regulated markets will serve us better.
No, I am not a Socialist. I just don't want to have to keep cleaning up the mess.
Regulation will not solve it. The financial industry changes far quicker than a behemoth government, so CDS's will be replace by another exotic before the ink is dry on any regulations. Plus it drives the derivative market over seas and underground. I am all for transparency. The market will correct what it can see, but regulations will just interfere with that function.The derivative market is FAR greater than CDS's, that is only one portion.
I'm on the couch recuperating from ankle surgery, with the laptop, of all places, on my lap, and C-SPAN on the tv. I've appreciated discussions like this. As this was going on c-span had the American Enterprise Inst. discussing the same topic (not as well as we did!). Anyway, the program hosted Phil Gramm and discussed regulation of financial markets. It will be repeated on c-spann II at 10 PM Est. Worth watching.
http://www.c-spanarchives.org/library/index.php?main_page=product_video_info&products_id=283592-1
Good luck with that. I enjoy the discussion too. I'll dvr that and check it out over the weekend.One thing people need to remember too is the mark to market requirement for assets which was a regulation that came out of the enron scandal where they were cooking their books. The well meaning regulation doesn't work. How do you mark a particular asset to market if their is so much risk that there are no buyers and the secondary market ceases to exist. That really affects banks and their capital requirements and other regulations.Read this about the head of the banking committee in the house, my former congressman Barney Frank. As head of that committee and his senior status in the controlling party he will have a very strong role in any new regulations. We should all start praying now. The best part in at the end when he says it would have been a "social tragedy" That's his guidance.http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123258284337504295.html
I agree with most of what you say, but I also agree with Mike that the unregulated swaps WERE a major problem. Basically folks were selling insurance without any reserve requirement, and that is never a good thing to have happening. There's also a moral hazard (which involves theoretical issues I only partly understand) when insurance is issued to someone not at risk (which was the case for the vast majority of CDSs outstanding).
The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness. -John Kenneth Galbraith
There is an old expression when things get confusing. Follow the money. Who earned billions of dollars selling off misrepresented subprime AAA rated mortgages?
Who is still paying for many mortgages that are massively upside down because they still have a job etc?
Zero down has worked for a long time.. My father bought his first house that way I bought my first house that way. Countless veterns have done the same..
"My father bought his first house that way I bought my first house that way." Yeah, we know it work 60 years ago. This is a different economy and a different country. Btw, I have a friend that got under water last year, and guess what, he just walked away.
Stupid people do stupid things.. either you don't know the full details of his life or he's really stupid.. Banks are more than willing to work with homeowners to allow them to remain in the home. They lose a lot of money on a repossession and even more if vandals break in..
By remaining in the home he has a place to live that with a workout program is likely much lower than rent..
In addition by doing a workout his credit rating won't take the same hit that a foreclosure does.. Plus with the new bankruptcy laws any shortage between what he owed and what the house eventually sold for less maintenance and legal fees he's still on the hook for..
Finally the value of a home is an abstract.. It's only what the market will pay on a given day.. prices go down and then they rise again.. it's extremely short sighted to believe that with our national debt and the Off books debt the Bush administration acquired the dollar will plummet further in relation to other currencies. That will cause severe inflation potentially similar to Germany between WW1 & WW2
IF that occurs a house that sells for $250,000 will within a decade be worth tens of millions..
However as I said you may not know all that is involved with your friends life..
He may be preparing for a divorce and by reducing his life style he reduces his potential divorce settlement. He may have had gambling debts or anticipated a job loss. He might also be going through a personal crisis like midlife crisis or he may want to do something radically different with his life.
Finally based on your insistance that things are so differant now than they were 60 years ago You simply lack the ability to connect similar events together to see cause and results..
Because we may not have had computers and I Pods 60 years ago does not mean that cause and effect 60 years ago has changed..
You sound like my teenage daughter, Dad you don't know what it's like to be young......
I know his situation very well. He owed $320,000 on a house that was now worth $260,000. That house is not going to be valued that for at a minimum 5 years and probably longer. It was better for him to walk than stay.Your just hopelessly naive. And quite foolish too. Maybe you should listen to your teenage daughter, she certainly must have a better grasp of nearly anything than you. Your intellect has been stuck in a previous era. If you cannot understand how naive and frankly stupid it is to relate today's environment, business, financial, housing, etc., to one 60 years ago then you really have no hope. The country and the world is a far different place, we are not an national economy based on manufacturing and agriculture any more. The country is far different than 30 years ago, much less 60. Bring up some examples how we should conduct our currency policy with examples from 60 years ago, it's just as absurd."ability to connect similar events together to see cause and results" So post WWII where there was pent up demand do to the decade long depression is similar to now where we are at the start of a recession. Yep, you definitely have identified similar events. A massive ramp up in manufacturing do to the war economy of WWII and steady but not exceptional economy activity since the minor recession after 9/11, again, you identified completely similar events. GM, Ford and other manufacturers were doing great back then, and now... Again, great job.Do your daughter a favor, don't help her on her homework. You'll have her stuck in 9th grade for 5 years.
In agreement with your thoughts, I have a theory which I call "critical mass" (probably not my theory, but don't tell anyone!).The point is, with today's technology eliminating jobs (think of post WWII: there might have been twenty "bookkeepers in a mfr plant, where today there is one accountant with a PC on their desk. Certainly in the construction trades vs, the 1950's, we use all of our nifty tools that allow a home to be built quickly with fewer tradesmen". With the growing US population (much less the world population), there is NO WAY to keep the bulk of the people employed at jobs with reasonable compensation. Not with the advancement of technology, that's for sure. This is a sinking ship - there is no way it will get better as long as the population continues to grow. And a person can't blame the woes of the US job market on jobs lost overseas, unless you're willing to pay $1500 for the microwave that you bought yesterday for $250 because of Chinese labor. We ALL benefit from overseas less costly labor. If these jobs are to come back, then "organized labor" will have to "reorganize" (the 1950's are gone) - think the Big 3 vs. Toyota, etc..Also, simply put, the main way out of this mess can be summed up in one word: CONSUME!If people aren't out there buying cars, TVs, clothes, lumber, toys, etc., then plants aren't making and people aren't working in the plants. Although I believe in the intrinsic value of "reduce, reuse, recycle", it is ultimately counter to a healthy economy. Being "green" will not produce the REAL green that this country needs.My $0.02DIA
doitall;
If we send even more of american money overseas to pay for more $250.00 microwaves etc.. America continues to lose.. You need to think one step ahead.
American labor is too expensive? OK I'll accept that so we build robotics to make stuff that machines are better of anyway.. by becomeing the worlds standard for robotics industry we've greated a whole new industry.. thats technology based and those kids who went to college and actaully learned something can be rewarded for their brains..
America has plenty of raw materials.. why are we sending our lumber to China to be made into furniture and shipped back? If you visit China and go into those furniture factories you don't see thousands of little children handcarving stuff into chairs etc.. you see robotics!
Giant factories run by a tiny handful of technitions. Whole products being made never touched by human hands untill they are unpacked here in America.. That's where we're losing..
Our factory owners are closing down American factories and using that money to invest in Made in India or China factories. That way instead of having to go to the factory every morning to supervise and run the plant plus go to a bank and borrow money to modernize they can cash out and live a life of leasure.. Jobs lost? Not their problem!
"America has plenty of raw materials.. why are we sending our lumber to China to be made into furniture and shipped back? If you visit China and go into those furniture factories you don't see thousands of little children handcarving stuff into chairs etc.. you see robotics!"We both know why. China pumps money into these businesses and subsidizes the production of the products. I think what states do here, some help with the infrasture costs and some tax breaks are ok but China takes it to a completely different level. What they do through their communist government is anything but fair. They don't have a marketplace with competition, the government controls it. I'm all for free trade but this is not legit free trade. There are lots of other countries with cheap available labor, china does have a fairly educated workforce but its the billions of dollars that china pumps in that sets it apart form taiwan, Vietnam, etc.
DDay
I can tell you don't watch much international news. If you did you'd understand that most of the money China spends on herself goes to improving infrastructure and it's housing stock. That's where she has a real advantage.. America spends a similar portion of her income on military. Our roads and freeways rely heavily on the original 1955 act signed by Eisenhauer. China is thus more than 50 years ahead of us.
The Communist party isn't funding factories etc.. That is done with private money. China has a 50% savings rate possible only because the average per capita income doubles every 3 or 4 years! That is due to those private investments.
In fact membership in the communist party has dropped down to around 5% and isn't even required to be a member of the ruling class anymore..
"If these jobs are to come back, then "organized labor" will have to "reorganize" (the 1950's are gone) - think the Big 3 vs. Toyota, etc.."The unions are their own worst enemy. The do inflate the wages but thats not the major issue companies have, its the work rules. I forget the exact number but the UAW contract with GM is something like 16" high. They have work rules in place where don't allow companies to move their resources (labor) around to fit their production for that day, week or what have you. They force you to call in the person in that position on the prior shift or the next shift and pay them over time. It really hinders a company plus I think each of those workers productivity suffers and at the same time because they are tired, they are more prone to injuries or mistakes.
I don't think you can "just walk away". You may think that's possible, but it's not. Its not just a major hit on the credit rating, which it should be, but you still owe that money even if your house is mortgage goes unpaid, your house forclosed and confiscated, at at least the portion left over after the auction and all costs are tallied up. Nobody should be allowed to get out from under "walking away", at least not for the next twenty years.
" Zero down has worked for a long time.. My father bought his first house that way I bought my first house that way. Countless veterns have done the same.."I thought you may find this interesting. Warren Buffett, who supported obama and is a very liberal democrat doesn't even support no money down mortgages. He says that and other forms of giving mortgages to people who were financial risks was at minimum much of the cause of this whole thing.http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=a1L50vuf_HiM&refer=worldwide
Much as a respect Warren's business knowledge, I believe he has it wrong..
The American middle class was basically started by returning veterns buying GI bill nothing down homes.
Having a 10% down payment won't protect you is the housing ,market slips 40%
Besides it pure and simple wasn't the 0Down buyers who caused the problem.. It was the Banks creating no document loans to get a even bigger slice of the mortage market.
60 Minutes two or three weeks ago explained it carefully so even the average person can understand it..
Banks were bundeling loans together and using Credit default swaps (UNREGULATED) to improve their tating from high risk to AAA rating..
Since it wasn't really their money at risk they didn't care and committed massive fraud.
If you ever want to know who's at fault about something,, follow the money..
People just wanted to buy homes.. Bankers wanted to get a lot of money and cheated the homeowners into it and then bundled everything together to sell the risk to others..
Bankers are getting millions/ billions of dollars of bonuses and homeowners are losing their homes and ruining their credit..
Who's coming out ahead here?
Well the banks are holding a majority of these credit default swaps so I guess they bought into their own fraud.
ANDYSZ2WHY DO I HAVE TO EXPLAIN TO FRIENDS AND FAMILY THAT BEING A SOLE PROPRIETOR IS A REAL JOB?
REMODELER/PUNCHOUT SPECIALIST
That's great, except it's created a lot of Zoombie banks which carry those toxic mortages on their books and because of the rules bankers work under those toxic loans must be dealt with before issuing other loans..
The problem with a few major Zoombie banks is that banks are no longer willing to lend to other banks for fear they will get involved somehow in the toxic loans themselves and become Zoombie banks..
PS zoombie is the word bankers came up with to decribe banks like Citibank and Bank America
"Having a 10% down payment won't protect you is the housing ,market slips 40%"It will for almost all. Say someone has to put 10% down on a $400k home. Even if the market goes down, 40% if someone just walked away they would be losing $40k of their money. You need to have people put something of value into the house other than a monthly payment.Yeah the investment banks knew some of these mortgages they were trading were bad but they were at the end when the products were already bundled by fannie and freddie. There are lots to blame, top of the list is fannie and freddie and the exec's of those franklin raines, jim johnson, jaime gorelick and their protectors in congress. Fannie had standards for the loans that they would accept to be bundled, the risky mortgages were never allowed in to fannie's, they would be bundled in higher risk bonds by other companies. Fannies were, and are suppose to be minimally risky. The marker always considered them slightly more risky than US treasuries which are considered virtually riskless.The garbage banks that issue the loans to high risk people, banks like countrywide. The mortgage brokers who collected their fees when they knew these people were certain to default, the assessors who over valued properties to allow people to refinance continuously and use their house as an ATM. There are many to blame. The people who bought the houses are right at the top too. They signed the contracts, some many have been naive or stupid others had no morals but bottom line is they signed the contract. They could have and should have had a lawyer or other advisor look over the contract before they signed if they had any questions or were unsure.You cling to that WWII thing. Let me ask you this. There were large numbers in the military back then, much fewer now. What do you think about the values (as people) of your typical military person vs. the general public. I trust the military, they are moral and decent people. I don't have much trust for the average person I see going about daily life. If you had two identical programs of no money down, one for only the military and one for the general public, what do you think the default rates would be? I'd venture to say the public one would default 5 to ten times higher at least.
DDay,
Well not to hurt your feelings but the military comes right from the general public.. no better no worse..
Some are decent and trustworthy some aren't.
Nothing about the uniform changes peoples souls..
We are simply well trained and disciplined to do a particular task..
Please note I served 9 years myself so I include myself in that grouping..
As for the loss of those with nothing down, Yes they lose.. Big time!
They lose their dream of a nice home they lose whatever equity they had built up be it six months or 5 years worth..
Take a longer view than a myopic examination of the instant now.
Property didn't really depreciate by 40-50% IT is really only a temporary bump in the road.. there are still 303 million Americans who need a home.. Home ownership is still a better deal than renting long term..
Drive around most neighborhoods and you won't see many homes vacant. People are living there and with the coming inflation they will be made whole again..
Eventually even the overbuilding will correct itself.
All we really need is some nice steady inflation for a while..
" They lose their dream of a nice home they lose whatever equity they had built up be it six months or 5 years worth."What? They lose their dream of a nice home? No, they walk away and try to buy again and be in a situation where they are not underwater. They rid themselves of debt, albeit paper debt.They lose equity? You crack me up. No, they are underwater so there is no equity. If they had equity even with the drop in prices, and they could not make the mortgage payment for whatever reason, they would put it up for sale and take their profit." All we really need is some nice steady inflation for a while.." Yeah, we really could use some good old fashioned inflation to diminish buying power. It would help holders of hard assets but would kill the banking system even more than it is now. Inflation is terrible and should never be wished for. There will be massive inflation within the next few years because of the massive amounts of money the fed has pumped into the banking system and the insane amounts of money the government is planning on spending. The fed will not allow anything more than a very minimal inflation period, so they'll unwind the monetary policy to arrest the inflation which is extremely important. This action by the fed will cause another recession which is completely necessary. Similar to what Volker did in the early 1980's." Well not to hurt your feelings but the military comes right from the general public.. no better no worse.. "They are trained and instilled with responsibility that the general public does not have. Why do private school students perform better than public school students? It's not money, teachers with higher degrees, its pride and a truly professional performance.
You think they walk away with their credit undamaged?
You think once they walk away their credit rating won't be greatly damaged? Tell me, if it was your money would you lend it out to someone who's credit rating was ruined because of just such an event?
They are only underwater because the market has tanked.. the market tanked because of the bankers greed not because some reach for a 4 bedroom instead of a three bedroom..
The three most common reasons people lost their home in the last decade (including last year) are...
Loss of Job,,
Divorce
Healthcare issues..
Greed barely makes the top 10.
I realize you need the fault to be other peoples greed but it's not.. it's a HANDFUL OF GREEDY BANKERS WHO HAVE RUINED IT FOR AMERICA AND MUCH OF THE WORLD!
One final point.. 92% of mortages are on time. 8% aren't.. Hmmmm we have about 8% unemployment
As for why private schools do better than public schools.. your answer is nonsense!
Most private schools turn away students so they can select better candidates going in.. In addition most private schools don't have to deal with uncaring parents. The parents willing to pay extra are motivated and will take effotrts to ensure the children do better..
Let's follow your example to it's logical conclusion.. eliminate all public schools and let parents pay for their own kids..
Right? Just like that intellectual powerhouse Mexico does..
I mean Japan, Germany,, most civilized countries have public schooling..
It's because it's in the public interest to educate their citizens.. Dumb doesn't achieve much..
You obviously have no real concept of the military.. We aren't all changed automatons when we enter.. We carry the same baggage as the average civilain.. we sometimes steal rape break laws etc.. just like civilians..
That's why the military has jails and MPs/SPs etc.
WE are trained to do a job better than our civilian counterparts.. (plus our jobs are defined by repetitive replacement)
that is the only real differance..
heh heh
Sounds like DDay's getting a real...
...shellacking.
LOL. Yeah, frenchy is wrong across the board, keeps clinging to his financial theory even though highly regarded professionals such as warren buffett completely disagree.Just go back to bumping threads, stick with your talent.
Yes, they walk away. Guess what, they see it's in their best interest. You were saying? http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=18958049http://columbusdispatch.com/live/content/home_garden/stories/2009/02/22/just_walk_away.ART_ART_02-22-09_H4_J9CV9DD.html?sid=101Google the subject, there were 2.2 million hits. "HANDFUL OF GREEDY BANKERS WHO HAVE RUINED IT FOR AMERICA" You sound like the tin foil hat crew that believe America is ruled by zionists who control American foreign policy.Yeah, the unemployment rate and mortgage defaults correlate perfectly. At least take a stats 101 class and get a clue.http://www.bls.gov/opub/ted/2008/jul/wk1/art02.htmhttp://www.portfolio.com/views/blogs/market-movers/2007/07/18/chart-of-the-day-fixed-vs-variable-subprime-default-ratesFive bankers to blame, right? It goes through the entire system, from top to bottom. Wall street traders are responsible for trading the junk but it was already on the market and securitized by the time they show up. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122204078161261183.html?mod=googlenews_wsjPublic schools are abysmal. They are in general a failed entity. The school system is comprised mostly of union workers punching a clock, not people concerned with educating kids. There have been countless examinations of public schools vs private, some using the same exact student. Read this and hear the first hand comments. What's better Wash dc public schools or the private schools. DC spends the most money per child for the country and the schools are absolutely terrible. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/06/08/AR2008060802041.html
Zionists?
I didn't think greed was restricted to any group..
But the fact that Bank America and Citibank control 25% of the nations loans does sort of limit things..
I think it's the top 40 banks that issue 90% of this nations loans..
If you are saying that not everybody who loses their job has their home foreclosed on I agree.
Look at me.. 16 months and I'm still current.
However I also haven't got a divorce nor have I gotten seriously ill either..
Again the top 3 reasons homes are foreclosed on..
You keep insiting it's because of greed and I keep replying greed is nearly the 1oth on the list of reasons homes are foreclosed on..
Like I said.. if you don't like public education why not move to Mexico or someplace else where parents pay for schooling directly?
I promise you we won't miss you..
"I promise you we won't miss you.. "Getting a little sensitive aren't we? I'll just send my kids to private schools and work on getting vouchers for all children so the the poor children of DC can get a great education just like the rich like obama and clinton who send/sent their kids to the sidwell friends school an elite private school.You rely on historical reasons for default, like you cling to your WWII things. This current default problem is far different than the historical.I'm sorry I upset you so much. With your reasoning, I know you've lost plenty of debates before, you should be used to it by now and not get so upset. When the facts are not on your side, get some new facts.You're a funny guy.
I'm sorry if you took offence to my statement.. I was going for sarcasism but I guess I missed.. The obvious referance to the Mexican education system should be a clear example to you why parent pay is a bad idea..
The fact is that society in general gains when every child is educated to their full abilities. In a perfect world that would happen regardless of the income level of their parents..
Since it doesn't happen we have wild disparities between achievement levels..
IF you do send your children to private school please don't try to drain the public school system of money by whining about the taxes you pay. You are smart enough to understand that education is the magic bullet.. Capable of raising a child above his less well educated peers..
Since not every child can beprivately educated it's in your interest that those who aren't are well educated.. I believe your president used the phrase no child left behind.. You want well educated people.. the next doctor you need might be a result of the public education system.. Or lawyer you engage etc.
By paying for it yourself you show your children how important education is.. That Proof will motivate most children to perform well.. You working with them on their school work will give them even more proof. Plus your obvious support and sacrafice will probably make the differance..
Even in a system whereby all students recieve the same fincial support your children will likely exceed the public educated children simply because of your sacrafice and involvement..
A sizeable portion of parents cannot or will not make those same sacrafices for their children.. Nor are they as involved..
That is the reason private schools do well.. Well that and the degree they can select their students, eliminating to a great degree trouble makers and those with poor attitudes..
As for our banking system failure.. I understand why you place such blind trust in large corporations In spite of obvious proof that private enterprise is just as likely to fail. Shall I say the names? like Enron and the savings and loan scandle I'd keep going or give you more depth but hopefully you have heard some news..
As for similarities with the past? some details are differant, true. The bottom line is regulations and enforcement are required or greed overwhelms and politicians ignore major contributors flaws in an attempt to retain power..
You understand so little, it's really quite sad.http://www.realclearpolitics.com/Commentary/com-1_18_06_JS.htmlhttp://www.viddler.com/explore/RazrHog4Life/videos/1/http://www.heartland.org/publications/school%20reform/article/887/Catholic_Schools_Excel.htmlIt's all about the teachers union http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/chi-0303edit2mar03,0,7733203.story
I'm impressed that you quote "real clear politics". I've been using that for the last month or so. Excellent source of data. I'm not sure that it will be understood, however!! You may have to offer "clarification".....
At its most basic level, capitalism offers people the freedom to choose where they work and what they do … the dignity that comes with profiting from their talent and hard work. … The free-market system also provides the incentives that lead to prosperity -- the incentive to work, to innovate, to save and invest wisely, and to create jobs for others.†-President George W. Bush
In other words, free-market capitalism is the best path to prosperity.
It's pretty good. I don't think anything is original to them, they just accumulate pieces from all over. It's much quicker than checking a bunch of sites. The also provide polling info that is the average of all the polls. The only problem with that though is some polls like the CBS/ny times poll is always way off and skews the results. Marist is usually poor too, along with the NBC/wall street journal one. Rassmussen, battle ground, TIPP are the best.
Some high praise for military types. As the saying goes I don't know whose man's army you are referring to.My first hand experience is I've seen records falsified, signatures forged and many and lessor ethical shortcomings from todays military type. Actually the case could be made the military like any other organization in our society is only a reflection of society itself.Hell I've even had commanders order me while in formation who to vote for. I've had superiors order me and my squad not to share food and water with Iraqi's (who carried AK's), soldiers we were training. 23 out of 120 Iraqi's I worked with and trained were killed (multiple incidents) because they worked with americans and yet we wouldn't trust them with a rifle when we allowed them to go home and see their families.Yes most soldiers are good people, but my experience wouldn't confirm they are any better on average than the next man. I hope my experience was the exception and not the norm.I wonder why pay day loan shops seem to be plentiful around military bases? Doesn't seem to reflect that military types on average are good financial managers.
Are you not making the argument that no one should get a zero down loan then.
ANDYSZ2WHY DO I HAVE TO EXPLAIN TO FRIENDS AND FAMILY THAT BEING A SOLE PROPRIETOR IS A REAL JOB?
REMODELER/PUNCHOUT SPECIALIST
The amount down is only one piece of the puzzle and in many cases zero down was and is fine. I myself at one time had one.The amount down is more a security factor for the lender and has no reflection on the borrowers ability to pay. Traditional 20% loans would have eased the current situation but in markets that have lost 40% or more of their value it still wouldn't have completely protected the the lenders and borrowers.However, a borrower with a zero down loan, and a 50% decrease in market value could still keep the house if they can make the payments. Although I realize some people in this situation feel overwhelmed and don't have any hope or vision of the market recovering for them and just throw in the towel even though they wouldn't have to.The people it affects are those that must relocate as a condition of continued employment and then must sale in a down market thus making the paper loss a real loss. Of course this same situation applies to people whose income decrease drastically for any number of potential reasons, including many of which may be outside of their control.Other factors such as debt to income ratios, savings, income sources, past payment history all must be factored in to make a sound lending decision. Percent down in and of itself doesn't present a very clear picture.
Certainly it should be said that some folks were in over their heads from the start -- mortgages they couldn't reasonably pay. Banks and brokers didn't really worry about such folks in the up market because they could always sell the house for "what it was worth" and recover the principle (plus whatever equity the sucker had in the house). It was a racket on the part of the banks/brokers, taking advantage of "unsophisticated" borrowers.My studies of the issue indicate that this category comprises less than half the total bad mortgages, though -- at least as many result from loss of jobs, medical expenses, etc.
The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness. -John Kenneth Galbraith
Frenchy...take it to the tavern. I just watched your beloved Bill Clinton explain that the brilliant duo Dodd and Barney's Frank WERE responsible. In fact they WERE responsible. by the way, FNMA and Freddie Mac were CONVICTED of fraud in 2005 for cooking the books. Why?? so Raines and Johnson could get THEIR bonuses. They were fined $400,000,000!!! They WERE cooking the books. Where did those books go? They were passed on to AIG and the investment bankers to securitize the bogus mortgages FNMA AND FREDDIE MAC GUARANTEED! AIG had cooked books that they were attempting to hedge (swaps). DUH! All because of the social engineering by the crooked duo: Dodd and Frank. Stop with the coolaid. I'm sick of it. And if you don't continue this in the tavern, I'm going to complain to the webmaster. So give it a break.
At its most basic level, capitalism offers people the freedom to choose where they work and what they do … the dignity that comes with profiting from their talent and hard work. … The free-market system also provides the incentives that lead to prosperity -- the incentive to work, to innovate, to save and invest wisely, and to create jobs for others.†-President George W. Bush
In other words, free-market capitalism is the best path to prosperity.
>>Warren Buffett, who supported obama and is a very liberal democrat doesn't even support no money down mortgages. He says that and other forms of giving mortgages to people who were financial risks was at minimum much of the cause of this whole thing
I didn't read the article, and no one would accuse me of being Warren Buffett, but that seems like a pretty simplistic view of the whole thing. Mortgages were bundled into securities, rated, and sold. A lot of them were rated very highly, as being very secure. There is a lot of demand for very secure investments with high returns, so they sold very well, creating demand for more. Mortgage-backed securities that were actually NOT very good were fraudulently rated as AAA and sold, all over the world. The perception was that as long as real estate prices didn't fall, it would be fine. Well, it wasn't. As far as I'm concerned it mostly comes down to fraud at the security rating level.
There's nothing inherently wrong with loaning money to people who are bad risks. If you ask me to loan you money for a house, and you have a good job and plenty of equity, no problem I'll write you at 6%. If you have a lousy job and minimal equity I'll write you at a higher rate and probably make you increase your down payment. A problem arises when you are a bad risk but your mortgage has been sliced and diced, securitized, rated AAA, and sold off.
I think if you were to ask Buffet---- he likes the simplistic view---and he wouldn't be insulted at ALL by your remark. I am sure i have read at least a dozen times that Buffet has a philosophy that if you can't explain your business in about one sentence--- he won't invest. Seese candy, Coke, Geico etc.--- very simple business.
Stephen
Not worried at all about insulting Buffett, or course. It seems to me that a lot of people want to blame various politicians, and while they do plenty of wrong, the optimistic rating of mortgage backed securities looks like the biggie to me.
The problem comes when banks were able to skirt laws without supervision which is what credit default swaps did..
Politicians should have put a stop to the practice, or at least regulated it so there was something to back up the "insurance"
This was when bankers were making major campaign contributions and no politicians wanted to rock the boat..
So yes politicians (of both parties) were plenty guilty..
That's the system we have and it's flawed!
The problem with the fannie mae bonds, the freddie mac and other Mortgage backed securities (MBS's) (although I don't think there is as much a problem with MBS's since they had much better standards than Fannie and Freddie. What the problem was and still is, is as you said, the mortgages are bundled. When you buy a Fannie Mae 30 yr bond, you know the interest rate, and some other info but two variables are prepay's which are people paying off their mortgage faster than the 30 years and defaults (a particular mortgage is forclosed) Both prepays and defaults lower the value of the Fannie or Freddie bond. There are typical/historical prepay and default rate formulas that you can use to value the bond.The problem now is the default rates are significantly outside the norm of historical values because so many of the underlying loans were so risky and were no doc, no money down, no assessment required, people were allowed to refinance many times resulting in a loan value that was inflated from what the traditional valuation of the real estate should be.So the problem right now is the underlying assets (mortgages) that make up these bonds. Since they are bundled, people are having a very difficult time valuing them. Does the bond have a typical default rate of say 5% or does this particular bond contain risky mortgages of 20%. It affects the value of the bond greatly. These bonds are not worthless, rather they have great value. But people cannot, with certainty, value these bonds so the holders of the bonds really cannot find a secondary market.The view is simplistic but you need to understand how large the mortgage market is. There are trillions of dollars of bonds. Plus there are exotic derivatives (very unique types of options, swaps, etc) based off the bonds and that market is extremely large. There are also hedge funds and to a lesser degree banks that can use leverage to increase there positions substantially. Foreign banks hold lots of US bonds, the market here has dragged them down too.
Not on my BACK thank you!!!
Where it ran off the tracks was when people began treating houses as a speculative venture and cash cow (California are you listening?) instead of a home, something of intrinsic value and to be valued. In other words, we lost our way when we lost our love and respect for land.
I think you are right.
And if the same market forces that precipitated a flipping frenzy and irresponsible borrowing cause a decline in home values, then TS. It presents a buying opportunity for younger people starting out. Maybe they will learn the lesson and treat the house as a place to live and not an ATM.
Once again, I'll point out that creating the housing bubble was a debt bubble. Something happened around 1984 to cause people to start taking on debt real fast:
View Image
The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness. -John Kenneth Galbraith
I bought my 1st home in 1984. 11% interest was a bargain. I had saved a 10% deposit and barely made my payments at first.
I would guess that falling interest rates had something to with it. Also, until '86 all consumer interest was tax deductable. The mindset then was that the party would never end. By 1987 we found out that was untrue as things (in the Northeast at least) cooled off.
I've tried connecting it with interest rates, but there's very little correlation. I did come across a web site that points out a relatively strong correlation with tax rates, though -- when tax rates go down borrowing goes up. And, despite what the Reaganonimists (?) will tell you, there's fairly good correlations showing that GDP growth goes up with higher taxes.
The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness. -John Kenneth Galbraith
Interesting.
I know one thing: When I need to buy a lot of lumber, lumber prices are high. When I have no need, lumber prices are low.
There; we're back on track.
Noticed 7/16 OSB is back down below $6 a sheet again.
And Ralph has a wad of cash burning a hole in his pocket. If it goes below $5 again I'm betting he buys a pallet.
be 2to1 odds for. Any takers?
94969.19 In the beginning there was Breaktime...
94969.1 Photo Gallery Table of Contents
That's the problem. Dern speculators.
Mike
When you buy lumber do you buy it from a big box store or lumberyard?
I don't!
I buy it direct from medium to small sawmills..
the differance in cost is massive..
When a lumberyard/store has wood at least 6 and maybe as many as 12 people have touched that wood and added their markup into it..
When I buy a 2"x4" x8' I pay a dollar.. what do you pay? A 3/4 inch sheet of plywood will cost you how much? I can buy 1 inch thick boards the same size for $6.40 .
Personally I like hardwood rather than SPF and I take ash, hackberry, or tamarack etc..I've taken eastern white pine on occasion when a soft wood is really called for but I have no love for it.. If a white wood is called for I'll take soft maple because it doesn't darken the way pines do with exposure to UV light..
How massive?
well I bought wood that would have retailed for about $850,000 for $25,000.
Now granted some of that was extremely lucky "finds" For example fiddleback maple which can sell for as much as $450.00 a bd.ft. I bought for 10 cents a bd.ft. My sister who is a staff interior designer for one of the HMO's most recent offer for wood I paid only $58.67 was $10,000.. Her boss really lusts after the planks I've got of solid burl that are 10 feet long and 22 inches wide..
I also bought well over 10,000 bd.ft. of black walnut for 17cents a bd.ft. That's cheaper than sheetrock!
I started buying in 1997 and continued through 2006 but I was always eager to take advantage of any surplus wood the sawmill had.. Normally such wood goes to the PALLET MILLS AND PALLET MILLS DON'T PAY MUCH FOR WOOD..
You can't just walk in and demand those prices but they are available..
Frenchy,
Why don't you seek out these deals you know of - then act as a re-seller for all this good wood.
Seems like a career you could really enjoy.
I have wondered that myself
stephen
"Frenchy,Why don't you seek out these deals you know of - then act as a re-seller for all this good wood.Seems like a career you could really enjoy."He's too busy studying issues from WWII.
Those who fail to learn the lessons of history are condemned to relearn them..
History isn't a unique one time only event.. there is a connection between cause and event. Once you understand that you might not be taken by surprise when the next change occurs..
There is no connection, you're living in the past.Wait, I did read that there was enormous amount of Freddie and Fannie bonds in the late 20's that wall street could not value and that paralyzed the financial system. I know there were all kinds of exotic derivatives that people traded too. Yep, its just like today.Your posts crack me up they are so illogical. I hope you have a strong back and take orders well, your family certainly isn't going to be taken care of relying on your brain.
Edited 1/25/2009 3:39 pm ET by DDay
you want the connection? it's the banks.. they were deregulated during the Hoover administration and banks used depositers money to invest in the stock market.. Market tanked and depositers lost their money..
Today the banks were deregulated during the Bush administration and banks used non regulated credit default swaps to rate poor subprime mortgages as triple AAA rating and thus lost all their credibility..
want to know whats going to happen next?
Read history and it will tell you what to look for..
Frenchy, I've watched you pi$$ people off on this site for almost a year now. Everyone has raised some interesting points on this thread, I'm inclined to agree with most of you. I'm not sure what that one guy's angle was on the illegal workers, though. Did they contribute to the housing boom? Well sure, I did too. But the money I make stays here in America, for the most part. I still get a little angry when I watch the news and see another plant closing with thousands of layoffs, then go to work the next day and notice the illegals outnumber the taxpayers. I won't fault them, I would probably go a long way too if the money was right. The companies that hire them I do fault. I think the economy could handle a little adversity with an extra 2.5 million jobs opening up, or at least the millions of dollars in fines would bail-out another Fortune 500.
I'm a little worried that too often all hispanics tend to be assumed as illegals..
That may certainly be in some locations although it's not around here..
Minnesota has the 9th highest hispanic population in the nation.. our meat processing plants and sugar beats are all high percentage of hispanics..
I sold a lot of equipment to hispanic crews. They knew that I would treat them fair and help them whenever possible and that kept getting me referals. Some second even third generation American hispanic workers spoke better Spanish than English. Easy to assume they were illegals. In reality there were some hispanics from Mexico but all those I met had green cards. I'm sure some were illegal. however based on those I met a large percentage weren't.
Maybe I'm overly sensitive to the subject because I'm only 3 generations away from Germany.
Read the Pew study, Frenchy. It estimated that at least two-thirds of the Hispanic construction workers were illegal.
I'm well-aware that not all Hispanics are illegal. My wife is from south Texas and didn't speak English until she entered the first grade. Her family was in Texas before Davy Crockett got there. Her family, like many Hispanic working class families, is hurt by the millions of illegal aliens that have taken jobs and driven the price of labor down.
I've wondered how someone finds out about legality in a survey.. I mean wander through construction sites and ask?
I think if asked if I was illegal I'd tend to deny it even if I was.. especially considering what some of them paid to come here..
I'm tend to doubt "studies" somebody paid for them and if you want to get more funding you'd better come up with results that those who paid for the study wanted..
So what do you base your assertions on ...INTUITION?
ANDYSZ2WHY DO I HAVE TO EXPLAIN TO FRIENDS AND FAMILY THAT BEING A SOLE PROPRIETOR IS A REAL JOB?
REMODELER/PUNCHOUT SPECIALIST
My assertions? Am I correct that you are still speaking about hispanics in the construction trades?
Frankly I haven't made any assertions.. Some observations, but those are tempered with the important disclaimers such as my local and my personal bias.
Studies never do that..
I've wondered how someone finds out about legality in a survey
Why don't you read the study.
From the study:
The estimates in this fact sheet are derived from data from the Bureau of Labor
Statistics and the Census Bureau. Most of the data is from the Census Bureau’s
Current Population Survey, a monthly survey of approximately 60,000
households. Monthly data are combined to create larger sample sizes and to
conduct the analysis on either an annual or quarterly basis. The analysis is for
2004-2006.
http://pewhispanic.org/files/factsheets/28.pdf
2 Key words.. , estimates & Survey. estimates is easy to understand. another word for estimate is guess.
A survey implies that people go out door to door knock and question the occupants when they answer..
Knock, knock, I'm from the federal government tell me if you're here illegally will you?
Look I don't doubt that there may be an estimated 12 million illegals. but that number is an estimate.. earlier people were saying that there are 19 million or even 22 million.. there is a pretty big spread with all those estimates which seems to indicate that numbers are fairly flexible..
However there is another way and the statement made alludes to the very nature of the flaws in the study.
Monthly data are combined to create a larger sample size....
Note the clever shift of estimates into data? By what reason does guess work put onto paper constitute data?
OK let me go back and try to be somewhat objective about this subject..
With 50 states a small size survey should be conducted in a median size state. Not Texas or California or New York where I'm sure the numbers may be disproportionally high. I would suspect that there are more illegals in border states than in Northern states.. Since transportation is an issue..
door knockers would have to conduct surveys when most workers could be expected at home and some method of assurance would need to be given to get their full cooperation..
The very best we can do in our own multi billion dollar census is critically flawed with some citizens undercounted and some over counted..
Frenchy,
As another poster said, if you reject census data, what do you base a discussion such as this on? In the past, you made the same kind of agruments against unemployment data. These barometers are not exact but they are instructive.
If you don't like these barometers and prefer more anecdotal evidence, here's my personal perspective. Thirty years ago, in Greenville, NC, I hired a legal, political refugee from Chile. He didn't speak English and we spoke largely in Spanish. He relied on me as a translator. I took Spanish in college and did fairly well. I'm not fluent but I can communicate well in Spanish. When we spoke in public, many people did not have any idea what language it was. He was a rarity and people sometimes asked if he was an Indian.
Today in North Carolina, Spanish is heard everywhere. I now live in in Durham, NC. Every time you go on a construction site, Spanish is spoken. Every time you go to the store, you hear Spanish. My immediate neighborhood is loaded with Hispanics. Over 50 per cent of the babies born in UNC hospital last year were Hispanic. Since I speak Spanish, I often ask Hispanics where they're from. A very tiny percentage are from the US.
OK I'll accept your story and I could add a similar story about how hispanics have become part of the building trades here as well..
I like broad numbers.. big brush stroke ideas..
the latest census which while flawed is at least indicative of what the populations are.. somewhere around 303 million people.
Estimates put the illegals at around 12 million.. Once we get past the idea that all illegals are hispanic we have to accept some other illegals.. Chinese would be a significant portion of the illegal population. I know Russians are because we have whole crews of Russian builders (I've sold equipment to the bosses who are here legally But a surprising number of them simply step off Russian fishing trawlers when they pull into unguarded American ports and melt into the population.. plus we've got Canadains
Legal hispanic population is somewhere around 54 1/2 million. (18%) remove the Chinese, Russian etc. population from the 12 million illegals and we're at maybe 6 or 8 million hispanics?
So roughly out of every 10 or so hispanics you see one is likely to be illegal..
In any given area that number could vary.. but it should give some idea of the size of the issue..
I think your number are off. Check this article out:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illegal_immigration_to_the_United_States
Estimates put the illegals at around 12 million.
Some put the total at 20 million. Of the illegals, experts estimate that 81 % are from Mexico (57 %) and Latin America (24%)
Once we get past the idea that all illegals are hispanic we have to accept some other illegals.. Chinese would be a significant portion of the illegal population.
Asians make up 9 %
I know Russians are because we have whole crews of Russian builders (I've sold equipment to the bosses who are here legally But a surprising number of them simply step off Russian fishing trawlers when they pull into unguarded American ports and melt into the population.. plus we've got Canadains
Europeans and Canadians make up 6%
Legal hispanic population is somewhere around 54 1/2 million. (18%) remove the Chinese, Russian etc. population from the 12 million illegals and we're at maybe 6 or 8 million hispanics?
Actually, the total Hispanic or Latino population, including illegals, is 44.3 million. The total Hispanic population that is illegal is probably close to 10 million (81% of 12 million = 9.72 million). This means that about 1 in 5 Hispanics is illegal.
But it's important to stop and ask what is meant by "Hispanic". It's not a race; nor is it a single ethnicity. One would think that the single unifying feature would be language but it isn't. A lot of middle class "Hispanics" don't speak Spanish. My wife's children don't speak Spanish and they know nothing of the tejano ranch culture from whence she came. One of them, her daughter is enamored of the idea of being a "latina" so she calls herself one. Her son is not willing to pretend that he is anything other than a white, middle-class American. According to the "self-identifying" rule of the Census, she is Hispanic; he isn't.
Of the 44.3 million Hispanics in the US, how many are sentimental Hispanics? How many of these people that look and sound like middle class Americans are assumed to be be illegal? I'd say not many.
Edited 1/26/2009 2:22 pm ET by Mudslinger
Edited 1/26/2009 2:25 pm ET by Mudslinger
Yeh people felt the same way about the Irish.. Irish and dogs keep off the grass.. I mean waving those Irish flags around speaking in that Irish brogue eating corned beef and cabbage.. They weren't real Americans
I supose the Indians looked out at Plymouth rock and saw those sad pilgrams coming ashore and thought,, there goes the neighborhood..
Yeh people felt the same way about the Irish.. Irish and dogs keep off the grass.. I mean waving those Irish flags around speaking in that Irish brogue eating corned beef and cabbage.. They weren't real Americans
Of course, this kind of childish comment was inevitable. In fact, I have no feelings of malice towards the illegal immigrants. Most of the ones that I've met have been polite and hard-working. I certainly don't harbor any bigotry towards them; as noted before my wife is Hispanic (and she actually speaks Spanish!). Being a Catholic of Irish descent, I feel a connection to Hispanics, who are often devoutly Catholic.
But this doesn't mean that I like the anarchy that passes for immigration policy. Just about every country in the world has an immigration policy. We need to have rules and the rules need to mean something.
True, we do need a coherent immigration policy. That was one of the good things that W set out to do, but he quickly ran afoul of his own party.
The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness. -John Kenneth Galbraith
I really don't like the idea of giving amnesty to those who came here illegally, you're rewarding their lawlessness while those who did it the right way are still stuck in their own country. But I would be open to it a bit, if I knew for once that they would close the borders to illegal immigrants completely, set up a better more streamlined system for legal immigration and NEVER allow blanket amnesty again. But it seems like every twenty years the number of illegals grows so much that they do a blanket amnesty and say they'll close the border and that never happens. Also this "amnesty city/town" policy must be outlawed. The SF papers have reported on the SF sanctuary policy where they have put convicted illegal alien drug dealers into halfway houses in other parts of the state only to see them disappear. Talk about dumping your problems on someone else.You've also probably seen the police beat sections in you local paper and seen the number of people arrested for DUI who don't have a license, insurance, etc. and has hispanic name. Now I'm not saying other groups of illegals don't do this, buts its harder to notice the illegal irish, english, asian, etc. I do not want anyone who has been arrested for a DUI or anything more severe given amnesty.Call me crazy but I don't hold out high hope that they'll add much to society when at a time when they should be on their best behavior to avoid detection, they're committing serious crimes.
well we agree that those who commit serious crimes here while illegal don't deserve any ammnesty. I agree that DUI is a serious crime here..
OK I certainly agree with that statement.. we need some rules and enforcement.. (rules without enforcement are meaningless)
However It's wrong to target the weak. Further it won't achieve anything.
Throw a few who employ illegals into jail and watch the issue dry up completely.. Just because they are bigshots or wealthy shouldn't put them above the law.
PS I'm sorry if you took the comments wrong.. I was simply trying to point out the difficulty any large group of immigrents has in being accepted..
Throw a few who employ illegals into jail and watch the issue dry up completely.. Just because they are bigshots or wealthy shouldn't put them above the law.
Frenchy, Amazingly, I agree with you completely. Employers who have prospered using illegal immigrants are like athletes who have excelled using steroids. They've had an unfair advantage.
No offense taken in your earlier post.
You hsve to understamd that frenchy does not believe statistics or surveys. You never know how accurate the raw data is or how it might have been manipulated.Instead he just makes up his own number out of clear air.It is a lot easier..
William the Geezer, the sequel to Billy the Kid - Shoe
10% illegal? On my job, I'd say that 90% are.I don't hate them either, they are just trying to survive, like me. I hate the companies who hire them.
Edited 1/26/2009 7:24 pm ET by arcflash
90%-95% on my job site also!
Even in the tough times of now!
Send them all back, or let them live with Frenchy , obsever & the others that think this is just what this country needs.
I for one have had my fill of them. I give them the same respect that they give back to this country!
I am uncomfortable with such numbers.. If you have 90-95% on your job site that means a whole lot of job sites have none..
Look at the portion of Hispanics in this country legally.. somewhere around 18% (in order to pass Blacks as the #1 minority group which they did a few years ago), 17% of Americans are Black so I'm guessing when I say 18% are hispanic but my numbers can't be that far off..
In addition of the estimated 12 million illegals a portion are Chinese some are Russian and a percentage are European/Canadian..
Now to be fair I've heard that as many as 22 million people are here illegally but that number isn't very well accepted.. OK someplace between 12 million and 22 million.. subtract the percentage of Chinese, Rusian, European, and Canadian and we have around 8 to say 15 million illegal hispanics..
It's somewhat reasonable to assume that approximately 1/2 of all illegals are women.. I realize you may not see them on Job sites but they are in the sweat shops and laundries working as housekeepers and maids.
so somewhere between 4 million and 7 1/2 million male hispanics are available to work. Take out those who work in the meat packing industry and related, take out the migrent workers picking fruit, and farm workers. The population in the building trades is getting smaller.
There are 303 million people in America. That's somewhere around 54 1/2 million legal hispanics.
I don't have a percentage of Americans in the building trades but roughly 18% are legal hispanics.. of that 18% somewhere around 10-11% could possibly be illegal. If as you say 95% of the workers in the construction trade are illegal that's a whole lot of job sites with legal Hispanic workers..
Might I remind you that long before Texas, California, and other southwestern states were admitted into the union they were part of Mexico. So some of those hispanics have ben Americans longer than your family has..
Frenchy, Where do you keep your supply of walnut? Cold storage or a heated area?
Used to keep it outside in the cold but last year I finally got it down to under 10,000 bd.ft so I moved it and all of my wood indoors.. That way I don't have to get dressed up to go pull a piece or 2
i don't care about the legal aliens, they have a right to work just as everyone else. The illegals are stealing jobs, plain and simple. Bust 'em and bus 'em.
Not trying to get political but...That stimulus bill that just passed the house, its all pork for pet projects that won't help any of us, but besides that, there is a tax rebate that is included that will be sent to everyone, working people, non working, legal residents, illegal aliens, everyone. The senate version has not passed yet, it will, and that has the same language so far. I don't think that rebate is going to do anything, the one last spring did nothing but for gosh sake, how the heck can you give money to people that don't work (i.e. pay taxes) or illegal aliens?
Sorry, but you got political. The stimulus bill will spend money -- that's the idea.Money that doesn't come into your district or go to your pet projects is defined as "pork". That's political reality.The tax rebate is there to throw a bone to Republicans.
The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness. -John Kenneth Galbraith
"Sorry, but you got political. The stimulus bill will spend money -- that's the idea."Gov't spending does not simulate economic growth, if anything it slows it by crowding out private capital and with this bill, they don't have the money so they will print more.If gov't spending stimulated growth, why didn't growth explode from 2000 to 2008? The federal budget in 2001 was 2 trillion, the budget in 2009 will be over $3 trillion and that amount does not include the $750 billion for the banks and auto companies, nor does it include this "stimulus" bill of close to $900 billion (it's all going to be financed by selling bonds, so when you include the interest the gov't will have to pay, the total will be a little over $1.3 trillion.See this for some analysis. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/01/28/AR2009012802938.html The tax rebates were done last spring and did absolutely nothing. One time payments are very ineffective, people just pocket the money in bad times, they don't spend it.See this too. http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aJAoR5GECKWo Much of the money will not be spent until 2, 3 or 4 years from now, how does that stimulate? And I think about $160 billion are payments to states to "deal" with their financial problems. That just always states like mine to get away with their terribly irresponsible spending, and to not make the cuts to the budget that need to be made. The economy is not going to get better this year so what will the states do next year, come back with their hands out? Btw, my states toll collectors (equivalent to a cashier at a supermarket) make an average of $65k per year. That's not a typo, some get up to $100k with over time.California's deficit next year alone will be over $25 billion (probably more since their estimate are overly optimistic). Should your tax dollars go to bail them out when they have grown their budget at ridiculous rates?Look at what they are spending the money on, $350 million for std causes, how does that help the economy? Line by line these are pet projects, not stimulus. They are doing a bait and switch. If these projects, and that's all they are, are so great do them in the normal budget process not disguised as "stimulus". This is a spending bill, not an economic growth bill.
""Gov't spending does not simulate economic growth...."" That would explain why WW11 is given credit for ending the depression. All that private money being spent to fight the war.
They can't get your Goat if you don't tell them where it is hidden.
> If gov't spending stimulated growth, why didn't growth explode from 2000 to 2008?Well, Doris, for one thing much of that spending was on military items, which have very little stimulus effect, and none when the money is spent overseas.What do YOU propose? (I'm guessing the ever-popular tax cuts.)
The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness. -John Kenneth Galbraith
Those pork projects are things already approved and ready to go simply waiting for money.. they go to republican states as well as democratic states..
You haven't had a major freeway bridge fall down because it's maintinace and inspections were done on the cheap.. I hope you or your family never have that experiance but the simple fact is that we're ignoring the things which a government should do to pay for things that the powerful want done..
We've already given a similar amount to banks and as a result the banks who were given those loans spent 19.1 billion of it in bonuses for the big shots who got them into the trouble in the first place.
"Those pork projects are things already approved and ready to go simply waiting for money.. they go to republican states as well as democratic states.. You haven't had a major freeway bridge fall down because it's maintinace and inspections were done on the cheap.. I hope you or your family never have that experiance but the simple fact is that we're ignoring the things which a government should do to pay for things that the powerful want done.. We've already given a similar amount to banks and as a result the banks who were given those loans spent 19.1 billion of it in bonuses for the big shots who got them into the trouble in the first place."They aren't "ready to go" much of the spending is not specified, the language is very vague and allows it to be spent as departments see fit. But as you say, this is a spending bill, not a stimulus bill.I understand about that bridge collapse in your state of MN. But the problem is not more spending but spending money on things needed, not the wasteful pet projects. They have had plenty of money to fix bridges like that one but instead they used it for junk that was not necessary. I remember seeing something a few years ago about a couple hundred million dollar bridge being built in the central midwest in a rural area where their was minimal traffic and two other large fairly new bridges crossed the same river and they were within miles of it.We should not have given money to the financial companies, I was against that from the start. They look at it as free money and will spend it as such. It's not their money, they won't be responsible with it and spend it wisely, they'll just look at it like a 22 yr old who won $500 on the lottery.But hey they want another $600 billion now. http://business.theatlantic.com/2009/01/economists_after_tarp_and_stimulus_600b_more_in_play.php And of that $700 billion from the fall, they only spent $350 billion with the other just activated last week. So from this point on they say they need just under $1 trillion. Think they'll give up the corporate jets or bonus'? Nope, you'll just be financing it, well you, me and all the children born and unborn.Everything they are doing is completely wrong. They are making a bad situation MUCH worse.
> I understand about that bridge collapse in your state of MN. But the problem is not more spending but spending money on things needed, not the wasteful pet projects. They have had plenty of money to fix bridges like that one but instead they used it for junk that was not necessary.You mean they spend it on tax cuts? That's been the mantra of our Republican (and "Independent") governors for the past dozen years. That's where the money went.
The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness. -John Kenneth Galbraith
How do you "spend it on tax cuts"? Cutting taxes mean you don't take in the money, it never gets spent. Just having some fun with you.The individual rates are acceptable right now. I would do two things, first lower the capital gains tax for the next few years, that gives an incentive to get capital into the market place. Second and the most important is to lower the business tax rate. We have one of the highest business tax rates for developed countries. We have a higher tax rate than countries in europe and they essentially socialist, whether they claim it or not. The policy right now is terrible. We are doing a good thing in eliminating trade barriers and opening markets around the world but at the same time, we keep the business tax rate at a higher rate than our competition. Make the US more attractive for foreign companies to come here. There are quite a few european companies that manufacturer in Canada and sell in the US. Canada is a small market, they are producing there to sell in the US. We need to make the US attractive so they set up here.We're not going to compete with China for manufacturing but how can we not compete with Germany, Canada, Austria, etc.Doing absolutely nothing is better than this spending bill if you've read up today, even democrats in the senate are critical of the house bill. Nelson (D) from nebraska said it's not if it will get republican support, its if it will get democrat support. And yes, nelson wants tax cuts.
> We have a higher tax rate than countries in europe and they essentially socialist, whether they claim it or not.BS.
The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness. -John Kenneth Galbraith
Honest. This was the best on topic, it's a non partisan group (could be slightly right) been around since 1937.Back around 2000, Stanley tools and Ingersol Rand moved their corporate headquarters oversea's, I think it was Bermuda. They were keeping their offices in the US but on paper they would be a non US company. They did this for a reason. Halliburton last year announced that they were moving their headquarters to Dubai. http://www.taxfoundation.org/news/show/23561.html
They're not including VAT tax. VAT tax is a business income tax.
The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness. -John Kenneth Galbraith
Ugh. I wrote a nice reply and accidentily hit the back button and lost it. That stinks.Oh well. The VAT tax is the burden of the purchaser of the good. In the case of business to business transactions, they can recover the tax when the good goes to the end consumer. It is not applied on exports.Europe has made significant changes over the last 20 years while we have stayed pat. The world economy and free trade/more trade has forced europe to change and be more competitive. We have not follow that path, we have been lazy. Our business are the most innovative in the world. What we do is followed by the world business wise. Our government is stuck in the past.Check out this piece for the right wing AP. Some of their writers do little more than take dictation from democrats for their pieces. This one is quite fair. There is so much garbage in this bill I forget the favorites. One of the best "stimulus" is the $650 million for DTV converter boxes. It's right there with the ATV trail money and hundreds of other.http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5i1My6TPNaWoH2OBg5nek-mHA7SxAD961QNSO1
It's a business income tax. Plain and simple. Paid on VALUE ADDED, which is, for all intents and purposes, income -- price of goods sold minus cost of manufacturing.Yes, it's rebated on exports, but that rebate goes to the exporter.
The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness. -John Kenneth Galbraith
"Those pork projects are things already approved and ready to go simply waiting for money.. they go to republican states as well as democratic states.. You haven't had a major freeway bridge fall down because it's maintenance and inspections were done on the cheap.. I hope you or your family never have that experience but the simple fact is that we're ignoring the things which a government should do to pay for things that the powerful want done."Yet another lie that frenchy continues. Hey frenchy, the NTSB investigated this and it wasn't the bridge falling down because the "maintenance and inspections were done on the cheap." It was a design flaw from the original construction. Notice the cnn piece, everything else was ruled out.http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/transportation/4245065.htmlhttp://www.cnn.com/2008/US/11/14/bridge.collapse/index.htmlAny other lies you want to spread? You're track record for accuracy is sterling.
That is not the conclusions reached!
Those plates were substandard and should have been detected in an inspection..
Our republican governor cut all spending in an attempt to balance the budget without raising taxes.. Then fired the person in charge of transportation because she complaigned about reductions in her department..
"An NTSB report released Friday said the board's investigation found that 24 "under-designed" gusset plates were not discovered in reviews during the bridge's design and construction. The bridge opened in 1967."http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/11/14/bridge.collapse/index.htmlEven a broken clock is right twice a day, you... Keep trying.Also, work on your spelling huh. If I cut and paste some of your drivel, I need to keep fixing your spelling. You went to public schools right?
Edited 3/4/2009 1:17 pm ET by DDay
The bad gussets were not found during design and construction, but they WERE found in subsequent inspections.
The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness. -John Kenneth Galbraith
"The bad gussets were not found during design and construction, but they WERE found in subsequent inspections."I assume you mean they were found but nothing was done about them. If so we move to this.From the french one in post 181"That is not the conclusions reached! Those plates were substandard and should have been detected in an inspection.. "So we both agree frenchy is full of it and just throwing out lie after lie and even when confronted, he just buries his head and throws out an excuse or another lie.Frenchy needs to get other of there, the lies are piling up quickly. The last thing he needs is less oxygen going to his brain, he's already having enough problems.
So which is it? The damage should have shown up on an official report (they had pictures of it), but didn't. Clear evidence that someone leaned on the inspectors to not report it.So who's full of it in saying money wasn't a factor?
The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness. -John Kenneth Galbraith
Yeah, the inspector were paid off. Maybe the martians from Roswell did it or maybe it was the second gunman that killed kennedy in dallas. Geez, you watch too many tv shows.They inspect the bridge for corrosion, wear, etc. They don't seek to redesign it. The "lack of inspections" as our confused little friend frenchy clings to did not cause it. It was a design flaw and that may not have even caused it if not for the increased weight from the construction.
I didn't say the inspectors were paid off. But they had pictures of the warped gussets. Explain to me why they'd have taken pictures of warped gussets and then not noted it in their reports.
The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness. -John Kenneth Galbraith
My guess is they have volumes of pictures of that bridge and all others so they can use them in comparisons over time. A picture does speak a thousand words.
Yeah, and the pictures of that gusset say "This bridge is failing".
The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness. -John Kenneth Galbraith
You know what sort of things are acceptable at work and if you fail to remember your boss is right there to remind you who signs your paycheck..
As Dan H pointed out pictures were taken but no text was present.. if that doesn't suggest a coverup I don't know what proof you require..
Are you punch drunk yet? You're getting toasted.Just say mercy brother. Seriously, you're fragile, unsure of pretty much everything, it's ok to just wave the white flag. You can actually get informed so next time around you don't get so embarrassed.Here, get this. http://www.amazon.com/How-Win-Every-Argument-Abuse/dp/0826498949/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1236192695&sr=1-1I'll start you off with my first rule, have the fact on your side and understand what you are talking about.
Here's "stimulus" bridge just for people like you. You hear that roar? That's the economy coming back. LOL. http://www.columbiamissourian.com/stories/2009/02/17/missouri-bridge-project-touted-first-under-stimulus/"Only a couple hundred people live in Tuscumbia, the county seat of sparsely populated Miller County. It's so remote that Missouri transportation officials brought a special satellite truck to allow highway commissioners to meet and award the bridge construction contract."
Interesting . A quick look at a googlemap shows that the hwy. bridge at the location named serves quite a region. Far bigger and I am certain more populated than the headlines seem to indicate. Guess one has to look to see whether the "facts" are correct or not.
They can't get your Goat if you don't tell them where it is hidden.
You're right it a major area, they just wrote about everything but that. It's great stimulus though, if they hirer the 30 people and not just the 25 it will cost the taxpayers $266k per job. I'm glad they are so thrifty with other peoples money.
Better check your math.
And of course there are no material costs involved .......
Nor wages for the workers of companies supplying the materials...
Nor any of that horrid "Profit" for the private contractor....
Or material suppliers....
Or the City, Country, State and Feds in taxes on the money those workers spend out of that incorrect figure of yours
The 30 employees get to split that sum of 8.5 m among themselves right? Dang maybe one or two of them will invest some of it into the stock market , or buy a Chevy or Ford or Chrysler.
They can't get your Goat if you don't tell them where it is hidden.
It's the cost to the government per job. How much down stream economic growth is going to happen on a tiny bridge like that. And remember, the government runs a deficit every year, this year the democratic congress and obama seem hell bent on running a one year deficit of $1.75 trillion dollars. We get to pay interest on all this spending. So the bridge will probably cost a little over $10m after the interest on the bonds issue to china and our other financial overlords.You're pretty slow huh? Where's frenchy? Are you the fill in? Frenchy needs a refund, you're not up to the task. You are trying so I guess we should give you a polite golf clap for that but the attempt is still pathetic.
""It's the cost to the government per job."" Only if you are so slow in understanding money flows that you don't recognize the downstream flow of the funds in making other jobs. I seriously hope you don't bid your jobs using that math. ""The 1,000-foot long bridge is part of a state highway route that crosses the Osage River — a tributary of the Missouri River — about 30 miles southwest of the state capital in Jefferson City. The project is expected to cost $8.5 million."
8.5 m / 30 = $283333.33 BTW Now that 30 is local jobs. How many "local" bridge engineers ya gonna find in a town of 100?
Or Paving contractors?
Or Cement plants? Concrete batch plants? Finishers?
Or Steel fabrication plants?
Or Surveyors?
Or Certified welders ? Etc.. Etc
How many dollars will the local economy pick up from passers through if they have a bridge capable of handling truck traffic? How about from general spending due the the better road? How about cost saving to business that can now use that hwy? Had a friend tell me once "Microscopes work great if you don't want to look at the bigger things"
Edited 3/4/2009 11:12 pm by dovetail97128
I caught a clip on the work involved going to keep an additional 25 men working on bringing sand and dirt alone.I would guess that a 8.5 million dollar bridge ought to keep close to a 100 guys total busy for most of a year.
Then there is the local establishments corner store, gas station,tool rental,etc.
This is the kind of stimulis I want to see.
ANDYSZ2WHY DO I HAVE TO EXPLAIN TO FRIENDS AND FAMILY THAT BEING A SOLE PROPRIETOR IS A REAL JOB?
REMODELER/PUNCHOUT SPECIALIST
You're funny."How many dollars will the local economy pick up from passers through if they have a bridge capable of handling truck traffic? How about from general spending due the the better road? How about cost saving to business that can now use that hwy?"From the AP piece.
"But it's not exactly on a well-worn path. Only a couple hundred people live in Tuscumbia, the county seat of sparsely populated Miller County. It's so remote that Missouri transportation officials brought a special satellite truck to allow highway commissioners to meet and award the bridge construction contract.Do you understand what sparse means? This bridge is out in nowhere usa. Maybe a nice place to live but there is nothing going on there economically. You like google maps, zoom out and see what the heck you are talking about. The main thoroughfares are I44, I70 and route 54. This is off the beaten path of a place that is off the beaten path. If the bridge was so vital and inhibited growth so much or could create new growth, they would have rebuilt it over the last few years. See that they did not until they had free money handed to them, you get the picture. CA is in the toilet, if the golden gate or one of the other bay area bridges could not handle truck traffic, CA would fix them.This is the bridge to nowhere 2.0 plan and simple.http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123440436240475615.htmlhttp://online.wsj.com/article/SB123310466514522309.html
The number of people that live in the nearby town has nothing to do with the traffic on the road. Major interstates pass towns that are no more than a stop sign and a defunct gas station.
The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness. -John Kenneth Galbraith
Day,
Can't help but notice you completely ignored the rest of the list of questions I posed. I wonder if the AP writer is from Mo.? ""If the bridge was so vital and inhibited growth so much or could create new growth, they would have rebuilt it over the last few years. See that they did not until they had free money handed to them, you get the picture."' Maybe they tried but the state economy couldn't handle the cost because too many screamed " Don't raise my taxes" I scanned your links and didn't see any reference to this bridge, perhaps you could quote the reference and post it for me.
They can't get your Goat if you don't tell them where it is hidden.
This is a bridge. Possibly this is a worthy project but it is not "stimulus". Things like this don't create jobs, this is probably a one year project, after that is finished, the workers do what? Jobs are not created, people are merely temporarily employed the they'll return to unemployment. The policy of spending money like this is classic keynesian and it just doesn't work. Ask yourself this, if government spending created jobs and growth why wouldn't the government spend trillions every year. Because it doesn't create growth. The infrastructure part of the stimulus bill, I think was only $50 billion. The great depression didn't just happen, it was created by the actions of Hoover and FDR. Their failed policies created it. When an employer hires someone for a 4 month temp position, that's not a job. When a company is expanding and adds 3 new full time permanent people, that is a job.FDR's treasury secretary. This was Ronald Reagan's favorite magazine.http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=30331The state of missouri can foot the bill for an $8 million bridge without tax increases. The bridge has been closed to trucks since '07, the economic problems were not present but they did not fix it. Do you want to renovate your kitchen? What if someone said I'll give you a new kitchen for zero cost to you. Think that changes your mind? It was free, that's why they are doing it.
""Things like this don't create jobs, this is probably a one year project, after that is finished, the workers do what? Jobs are not created, people are merely temporarily employed the they'll return to unemployment."" Do you view your contracts the same way?
They can't get your Goat if you don't tell them where it is hidden.
contracts and jobs are apples and oranges.If you hire someone for two weeks, did you create a job? No, you filled a short term need but then things revert. If you hire a permanent employee, you created a job.
By that definition no contractor never creates jobs nor does contracting.
They can't get your Goat if you don't tell them where it is hidden.
"By that definition no contractor never creates jobs nor does contracting."Well said. LOL.Do you like advice from abe lincoln?http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/a/abrahamlin109276.html
Edited 3/5/2009 4:56 pm ET by DDay
""It is better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to open one's mouth and remove all doubt.""Abraham Lincoln Why am I not surprised that quote is one you remember hearing... repetition perhaps? Care to count how many construction jobs have been lost in the last year?
There is this thing called the business of contracting, it does this strange thing called employing people, you know, creating jobs. Jobs that pay wages, feed families, pay taxes.
Might drop by the business folder here at BT and ask people if they create jobs or not. Seriously you are using semantics to avoid the issue that in fact that bridge you claimed would pay $266,000.00 in wages to 30 local workers will in fact do far more than that for far more people than the local 30.
They can't get your Goat if you don't tell them where it is hidden.
Remember that abe quote but than you remember what I've said. Btw, this is the business folder genius."claimed would pay $266,000.00 in wages to 30 local workers"I said no such thing. I simply stated that they are saying this "stimulus" bill is a job's creator and this project at $8.5 m will create temporary jobs at an average cost of $266k.Slow down and think longer. Most can read and process information quickly, it just must come slower to you. So take your time, comprehend, develop a thoughtful reply then type. You are stumbling over things so much you are embarrassing yourself.A bridge is something driven or walked on, it's not a jobs engine.
Business - Lumber Demand Forecast notify me whenever anyone posts in this discussionSubscribe
From: DDay Mar-4 6:27 pm
To: dovetail97128 (193 of 227)
115535.193 in reply to 115535.190
You're right it a major area, they just wrote about everything but that. It's great stimulus though, if they hirer the 30 people and not just the 25 it will cost the taxpayers $266k per job. I'm glad they are so thrifty with other peoples money.
Options Reply
Hmmmm.
Edited 3/5/2009 7:54 pm by dovetail97128
Ok you have me so turned around about what is and isn't a job I clean forgot what folder this is. ""A bridge is something driven or walked on, it's not a jobs engine.""Just what is a "Job Engine"
Can you define it ?
They can't get your Goat if you don't tell them where it is hidden.
A jobs producer is private companies using private capital. Government does not create growth, if it did, why not have government tax at 100% and spend all the money. The policies being enacted right now are similar to those of carter and FDR. They are increasing government spending and control and I'm sure you have little regard for the governments ability to things well. What does government do well? Whenever gov't competes against private business, they are embarrassed. UPS, FED EX, DHL, etc are far better run companies than the US post office. One reason why stamp prices keep rising is they use the monopoly on first class mail to subsidize their package delivery which cannot compete on a level field with the private companies.How do we create jobs in this environment? Lower capital gains taxes on a short term basis, lower the business taxes to fall inline with other countries (ours are higher than other industrialized countries) and stream line and eliminate regulations. We cannot build refineries in this country because of the excessive regulations and lawsuits. Heck, there is cape wind, a wind farm that will supply clean renewable energy and environmental groups and Sen Kennedy have had that tied up for over 5 years now. My states gov wants to raise the gas tax $.19/gallon to make it the highest in the country. And this state, like places like CT, NY, CA and NJ tax everything short of air. We have become a fairly unfriendly business environment and its getting worse. The only ones who win are lawyers.
""...I'm sure you have little regard for the governments ability to things well."" Well not entirely, I think they do many things well that private industry either won't or can't.As for the post office. the bulk mailings for retail etc. are the losers for the post office. Ever get one of those from a private carrier? First class rates are raised to make up for that loss. Why not? because the private carriers recognize the fact they couldn't do the job and make money at the rate the PO delivers. retailers etc. know this and lobby to keep their privileged position with the Po. Eliminate the privileged position and the loss of jobs would be added to the roles.
Once again business and profit drive the equation. We disagree on much of the rest of your post.
They can't get your Goat if you don't tell them where it is hidden.
Can we leave the insults aside. I am and have been puzzled by the statements about "Jobs" being or not being created. You aren't the only one who has said that and I have never understood it. Strikes me as semantics. I have no idea of your background, nor your work experience but in mine I have started a construction company, built it up, added employees that I expected ( and they expected) to remain with the company for many years. Life happened and after 14 years it didn't turn out that way.Did I create a job? Or did I temporarily hire help? If the time line is the crucial factor then just what is the time line ?
A week?
A month ?
A Year?
A Decade?
A Lifetime? What is it you do that you feel so secure in that you know and have a guarantee that the position will still be there for you in ten years.
If you are "self employed" I can guarantee you will be job hunting from now until you either earn enough to retire or die.
Do you have to employ someone from their early 20's until retirement before it qualifies as "Creating a Job"?
If that is the case not many have created jobs. I am not attempting humor or insult here at all. This is a matter of outlook I think. That bridge will "employ" hundreds if not thousands, from the people designing cad programs used in the bridge design to the painters putting the final white stripe down the middle that will have been manufactured, designed, produced, shipped, hauled, sold, resold and inspected. Each step requires a position to be filled.
Take the simple act of pouring a small footing to place a bearing marker on for each end of the bridge. Now disect the job descriptions for each small part of that whole. How many individuals are involved? Lets start with the wood form work.
Surveyors, Loggers, Log truck drivers, Scalers, Mill workers, Rail Road workers, Truck Drivers, Lumberyard Employees and finally the contractor and then the employee who puts the lumber in the place it needs to be, and I am certain I left a couple dozen out of that list. I haven't included the support chain, bookkeepers, buyers, sellers, accountants, lawyers, business supply stores to supply the needed paper, ink , software Postal workers, etc. etc. You said :
"It's great stimulus though, if they hirer the 30 people and not just the 25 it will cost the taxpayers $266k per job."" I disagree.
All I ask is that you prove what you stated. I see the taxpayers paying for a chain with an infinite number of links, you see them paying for one with only 30 links. I don't care about Ca. , nor about the the deficit , nor about anything but that statement of yours for the moment because I see contained within it a microcosm of the debate of the stimulus bill.
They can't get your Goat if you don't tell them where it is hidden.
I agree with you a job is a job.
But when the government says it creates ...so many jobs how deep does it go into the trickle down effect.
Do we count the concrete manufacturing even though they would probably be working without the construction of the bridge? And all other peripherial jobs.
Second the stimulus package only set aside 50billion for infra structure, does the rest of the package do as a good a job at providing jobs, or was it just an avenue to get in special interes wants that had failed to repeatedly be passed during regular funding?
I am for several of the democrats ideas and against many others and the whole time struggling to understand why the greed of our most conservative part of society has failed us so badly(banking and financial) and why is it when I get a loan do I have to jump through hoops that apperantly many didn't?
ANDYSZ2
WHY DO I HAVE TO EXPLAIN TO FRIENDS AND FAMILY THAT BEING A SOLE PROPRIETOR IS A REAL JOB?
REMODELER/PUNCHOUT SPECIALIST
I honestly do not know the answers to your questions.
I am asking only about the statement made, and the spin off I see from that one project. I have my doubts as to the effectiveness of the entire package myself. But have adopted a "wait and see" .
They can't get your Goat if you don't tell them where it is hidden.
What andy is alluding to is near the point I'm trying to make. That bridge has a start and finish date. A concrete company or forms company, etc are not going to hire new people for just one bridge. If they do, it will be for a few months then they'll get laid off again. The only way they hire someone and keep them is if their is work after the bridge.An example of what I mean. This bridge is in a very rural area and isn't going to do anything to create jobs. Say this same bridge was over a river to a previously inaccessible area in Nevada where there is known quantities of copper. Then that is a job producing project since that site can now be accessed so following the bridge you'll open up new mining activity and those companies will hire new miners, and with those new people you'll have the trickle down business's like coffee shops, restaurants, auto repair places, food markets, etc.Another which many of the dem's in congress and obama oppose is opening up off shore drilling for nat gas and oil. That would stop us from funding many countries that are not friends of the USA and create tens of thousands of jobs from steel workers to rig workers to all the communities where they'll spend that money. This is a partisan site but the map is accurate. Look where we (US government) restrict our own energy production. Cuba has the chinese drilling off their coast (90 miles from US mainland) but we don't allow it 150 miles from our coast.http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_L6pDyjqqsvY/SFpR_oRcegI/AAAAAAAAOeE/FRId43DLxWI/s320/no%2Bzones.jpgthey always claim it will damage the environment but look at all the hurricanes that run through the drilling areas on the Gulf. Katrine wrecked New Orleans but other than being shut down for sometime, the drilling rigs did not leak oil.
"Say this same bridge was over a river to a previously inaccessible area in Nevada where there is known quantities of copper. Then that is a job producing project since that site can now be accessed so following the bridge you'll open up new mining activity and those companies will hire new miners, and with those new people you'll have the trickle down business's like coffee shops, restaurants, auto repair places, food markets, etc."
What is the time requirement for a "contract" to become a "job"? For instance, won't the copper mine eventually become depleted of the resources that are being mined?If a 1 year bridge project is a contract, but a 30 year mine is a job, where is the break point?
Jon Blakemore RappahannockINC.com Fredericksburg, VA
What offensive? It's subjective. Same with your question. For a contract, I would say 18 month or more.
"What offensive? It's subjective. Same with your question. For a contract, I would say 18 month or more."
I have no idea what you're talking about. "Offensive"?
So if the bridge project would last 18 months, it would in fact be job creation? Is that what you're saying?
Jon Blakemore RappahannockINC.com Fredericksburg, VA
forgot the (s)I meant to say, what is offensive? It's different to each person. As with the jobs question. What it is to me, might not be to others.
Are you imbibing?I don't recall saying anything that even closely related to your "offensive" comment. Can you explain?I also don't understand your explanation about the jobs "question". You have been talking for a while that the bridge (and the stimulus package) will not create jobs, because they have a limited life span. I'm just trying to figure out the minimum life span for something to be considered a job.
Jon Blakemore RappahannockINC.com Fredericksburg, VA
Remember the supreme court case about pornography? The question, what is pornography? I know it when I see it.That is what I meant. What is offensive to you? What is offensive to me? It's somewhat subjective.
Here is my first post to you.
"Say this same bridge was over a river to a previously inaccessible area in Nevada where there is known quantities of copper. Then that is a job producing project since that site can now be accessed so following the bridge you'll open up new mining activity and those companies will hire new miners, and with those new people you'll have the trickle down business's like coffee shops, restaurants, auto repair places, food markets, etc."
What is the time requirement for a "contract" to become a "job"? For instance, won't the copper mine eventually become depleted of the resources that are being mined?
If a 1 year bridge project is a contract, but a 30 year mine is a job, where is the break point?"
I still have no idea why you are talking about what is offensive and what is subjective.
Jon Blakemore RappahannockINC.com Fredericksburg, VA
What is the time requirement for a "contract" to become a "job"? For instance, won't the copper mine eventually become depleted of the resources that are being mined?The time requirement, that is subjective. People will have differing opinions.I've explained it enough.
Cuba has the chinese drilling off their coast (90 miles from US mainland) but we don't allow it 150 miles from our coast.
That's not true. It was a lie to begin with, and debunked months ago. By Mel Martinez (R-FL), hardly an Administration ally. From June 2008:
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/251/story/40776.html
Katrine wrecked New Orleans but other than being shut down for sometime, the drilling rigs did not leak oil.
Also untrue. The oil rigs leaked approximately 17,700 barrels (~ 743,000 gal) of oil and oil products, and pipelines in the Gulf leaked another 7300 bbl (~306,000 gal). See page 27 here:
http://www.mms.gov/tarprojects/581/44814183_MMS_Katrina_Rita_PL_Final%20Report%20Rev1.pdf
Inland it was far worse, with at least 8 million gallons spilled:
http://www.geotimes.org/feb06/feature_oilspill.html
You didn't make up either of those lies, but you sure swallowed them whole.
The platforms in the gulf did not leak, the facilities in NO which were flooded and ill prepared did.Martinez is against drilling offshore so who cares what party he is from. Yeah, I know, your sources, thinkprogress, media matters, etc. say differently. http://money.cnn.com/2006/05/09/news/economy/oil_cuba/index.htm
The platforms in the gulf did not leak,
Now who's not reading the links? The MMS report I linked to specifically states:
It's right there, in black (er, red) and white. Continuing to insist otherwise would require proof that I doubt you can produce. It would also show dishonesty. Or are you gonna sit there and tell me that the paper from the government agency tasked with reporting on this stuff doesn't say what it says? Or better yet - that it's wrong?
the facilities in NO which were flooded and ill prepared did.
The facilities inland which spilled oil largely were not in New Orleans.
The two biggest spills were;1. Cox Bay, LA (51 mi SE of NOLA) where ~3.78 million gal were spilled, ;2. At a Chevron facility in Buras, LA (60mi SE of NOLA) where ~1.4M gal were spilled.
Additionally, those two spills were apparently caused by the storm itself, not flooding. Storage tanks were ripped apart and/or ruptured by the force of the winds. And you can damned well bet those boys were as prepared as it was possible to get.
Martinez is against drilling offshore so who cares what party he is from.
Why does that matter? He's either correct that the Chinese aren't drilling off Cuba or he isn't.
Yeah, I know, your sources, thinkprogress, media matters, etc. say differently.
http://money.cnn.com/2006/05/09/news/economy/oil_cuba/index.htm
That article is about "plans," which have yet to materialize into, you know, oil rigs. The fact remains that China isn't drilling offshore in Cuba, period. It's not like this sort of stuff is a matter of opinion- they're factual things that can be easily checked. The lie that the Chinese were drilling was used as a bludgeon to beat liberals and environmentalists over the head during the election. Because, you know, we all hate America and want everybody to freeze in the dark.
The best part of that article was that two US companies were invited to bid on the same project, but couldn't because of the embargo w/ Cuba, largely propped up by the Cuban exile community in Florida (a reliably Republican voting bloc)
Incidentally, LOTS of people in Florida oppose offshore drilling for a variety of reasons, from environmental stuff to aesthetics.
Andy,
I just happened to read this quote and thought it appropriate.
I am aware that I am straying from my insistence on staying on the one "bridge" project and will be ready to take my lumps for doing that, but the analogy jumped out at me.
Note that I don't give a rat's patootie for what party the proponent belongs to , it is understanding the concept I am interested in. ""Rep. Phil Gingrey, R-Ga., for example, argued recently for buying nearly 200 more of the F-22 Raptor jets, calling them critical to defend against China and Russia. "Moreover," he said, "over 100,000 jobs in our nation are directly or indirectly tied to this program." Now here is a rough cost per unit breakdown: ""By the time all 183 fighters have been purchased, $34 billion will have been spent on actual procurement, resulting in a total program cost of $62 billion or about $339 million per aircraft. The incremental cost for one additional F-22 is around $138 million;[4] decreasing with larger volumes. If the Air Force were to buy 100 more F-22s today, the cost of each one would be less and would continue to drop with additional aircraft purchases.[11]"" cost breakdown is from Wiki Apparently I am not the only one who thinks govt. spending and jobs are tied together. This money Gingrey is arguing for is part of the latest budget stuff going through congress.
They can't get your Goat if you don't tell them where it is hidden.
Gingrey is from GA and the F22 is made (or much of it) there. I've seen some shows on tv about the F22 and it is quite impressive, a stealth fighter that is far ahead of anything else in the world. But it is expensive and they have not been used in combat at all and really don't need to be since our dominance with old tech jets is still far ahead of china, russia and anyone else.There is a lot of defense pork. These are pet programs for pol's from both parties. I am more forgiving on defense pork (not the $700 toilet seats) if it's still a good product. But those projects are always very expensive since they are so high tech, so the costs add up very quickly.For the F22, we already have 180 of them and there is another plane that is in testing that is as good or better. I think that's the F35 or something. I think taking a few years off on production would make sense.
Confused again... Are you justifying the jets as a job creating situation but disallowing the bridge?
They can't get your Goat if you don't tell them where it is hidden.
Defense spending is more long term. When they start producing a certain system as they use them they need more and defense is necessary.Gingrey and LOTS of others are protecting that program for the jobs and money going into their districts more than they are supporting the jets. I think the 180 jets we have now, which have never been in combat, are plenty.All unnecessary or poor spending is bad. I am a very firm believer that gov't at all levels rarely needs to raise taxes. They never shrink or stay the same, they just keep growing and growing. How much more gov't can the private sector support?
DDay,
Interesting question, how much more can a government raise taxes?
Well unless it raises taxes enough to cover current expenses your children and their children will be paying those taxes plus interest before it can spend a dime doing anything for the country (like defence etc)..
So if you feel you aren't getting your money's worth now blame the previous generation. However before you get too big into the blame game they are entittled to blame thier previous generation etc..
That's why the surplus that President Clinton raised is such a big deal.. Why a uneeded tax cut was so unfair to your children.
Let's start fresh..
pretend you are named King of America
How would you balance the budget?
How would you stimulate the economy?
What spending needs cutting?
What spending needs increasing?
Ignore everything else except the budget.
Welcome back."Interesting question, how much more can a government raise taxes? Well unless it raises taxes enough to cover current expenses your children and their children will be paying those taxes plus interest before it can spend a dime doing anything for the country (like defence etc).."Or.....you can cut spending.With the current situation, a balanced budget this year or next is not feasible. In a few years, you can make significant progress by eliminating do nothing department in the gov't like the department of education and department of energy. Education is done at the state level, the DOE is as necessary as t!ts on a bull. There are a few areas of each that are necessary, those can be adsorbed by other departments. A major revenue generator both through lease/taxes would be to open up our offshore areas for nat gas and oil drilling and opening up the rocky mountains for shale oil. There are very responsible methods that do not harm the environment. Also, ANWR is another untapped resource.The number one problem with the budget is entitlements medicare and SS. The programs with poorly designed from the beginning and the problem should have been fixed decades ago. SS began when people did not live far into retirement so the benefits paid were low. With medical improvement, better safety (cars, workplace, etc.) people live quite a bit longer and it is bankrupting the program. Same with medicare. People will eventually get sick and die but decades ago people were dying from different forms of cancer, flu's, heart disease, etc.. Now they live through those, sometimes a number of those but each is costly. Preventative measures really do not help much since at some point they'll get Alzheimer's, cancer, etc. and that will be very costly. Some, including the current president favor raising and lifting the caps. Lifting the caps is grossly unfair since the benefits are capped, it amounts to a putative tax. It would also be a significant tax that would hurt reinvestment into the economy. Raising taxes on all would also not solve the problem, it would just patch the problem and require a real fix in the future. It's a cowards way out. I think the only thing that is feasible is to peg the retirement ago to the average lifespan. Then the promise of benefits remain the same over time and solve a lot of the funding issues.Let's be honest. "That's why the surplus that President Clinton raised is such a big deal.. Why a uneeded tax cut was so unfair to your children."Bill Clinton was a big gov't guy until he lost the congress in '94. It was the combination of Clinton and a republican congress that cut the deficit and both benefited from the tech explosion in the mid to late 90's. Both benefited from the internet and tech build out around the world. And both worked together to contain spending.Clinton also lowered the capital gains taxes which increases the flow of money into the economy.Lower taxes does not mean less tax money going to the gov't. If that tax cut increases economic activity, tax revenue goes up. The gov't took in more tax revenue after the "bush tax cuts" than before. The clinton tax cuts did the same thing, reagan in the early 80's, and I believe kenney's as well. The worst thing you can do is raise taxes like Hoover in the late twenties. Also nixon's policies were terrible and ditto carter. There is a reason why europe's growth significantly lags the US. They have high taxes and the gov't spends a far higher percentage of their money. That is a huge disincentive to work hard and innovate. Bill gates, michael dell, Amir Bose, Buffett, and on and on were driven by the financial rewards for their work. The more they earned, the more they invested into their company and other ventures and the more they spent. If the gov't takes more in business taxes, higher capital gains taxes, etc. as obama has proposed the more the gov't has to spend which they do much more inefficiently then a private individual or company. People like gates are huge forces in the economy with just their private money. Gates has an enormous house on lake washington outside seattle. He employed hundreds of workers to build that house (state and fed income taxes) and purchased huge amounts of material that were certainly expensive (sales taxes). If the gov't took more from him in taxes then than he would have built less of a house and thus fewer workers and less taxes and materials. He's also funded many tech start ups with his wealth and those types of companies are future microsofts which will employ thousands and create huge tax revenues and great innovations for society. Now in retirement gates is donating nearly his entire fortune to charities around the world. If you were given $1 billion to direct to charities, you could certainly do a wonderful job and get the money to people who can use it well.
The gov't would squander it in infinite ways. LBJ declared a war on poverty. How many trillions have been spent since then and how many are still in poverty? A buearucrat has a disincentive to get someone off SSI or section 8 housing, etc. Like a psychiatrist, if they fix the issue, they lose a patient. I trust bill gates directing that money to investments throughout his career and to charities now in his retirement, more than I could ever trust the gov't.
So why did we run large deficits for eight years under Bush II?How much of the budget do you think the two DOEs absorb? Especially after you subtract out the nuclear regulatory stuff that falls under Energy?Conservatives have been harping on "waste" for decades, and had a free hand for most of the past eight years to eliminate that "waste". So why have there been deficits?
The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness. -John Kenneth Galbraith
"So why did we run large deficits for eight years under Bush II?" Too much spending, plain and simple. The revenues increased but they spent even more. Pathetic."How much of the budget do you think the two DOEs absorb? Especially after you subtract out the nuclear regulatory stuff that falls under Energy?" Not enough to balance the budget, but those agency's are just legacies that never die. Commerce is another, other than the census, how much do they really do that is necessary? The cuts don't get to a balanced budget but they do streamline things and save money in that respect and in shedding 100,000 salaries or more. Any balanced budget will only come with REAL control on spending like under clinton and the repub congress (gridlock is very underrated at times) and economic growth. We need growth. Without growth, you cannot cut enough to get the budget balanced."Conservatives have been harping on "waste" for decades, and had a free hand for most of the past eight years to eliminate that "waste". So why have there been deficits?"Really the best people on either side of the aisle are the ones who are there for 10 or 12 years then do something else. The terrible pol's on both sides of the aisle are the ones who have been there forever. R's like Rep Don Young, Ted Stevens, Jerry Lewis. Stevens and Young were there for over 25 years I believe and lewis is a big porker. On the D side, guy's like tax cheat charles rangel (there over 35 years), John Murtha (there since 1974 and an unindicted co conspirator in the ABscam scandal), Ted kennedy there since 1962, Robert Byrd (one time klansman, has have the state highways, parks, bridges, etc. named after him since he brought in the money)http://www.cagw.org/site/PageServer?pagename=news_byrddroppingsThe longer any of them are there, their souls take on the washington culture. The R's that ran the house under clinton were reformers against washington. They did not like the culture and went there to clean it up. Most of them however served for 3 or 4 terms then went on with their lifes. Career pol's are not very good for anyone, regardless of the party."Conservatives have been harping on "waste" for decades, and had a free hand for most of the past eight years to eliminate that "waste". So why have there been deficits?"I really don't believe the Iraq war had nearly as much to do with the election loses for the R's in '06. Heck 75% of the D's voted for it. I think it was mainly because the people who mainly support R's, many were so disgusted with their hypocrisy that they did not show up to vote. They ran on lower taxes, less spending and ethical behavior. 1 out of 3 didn't get it done and people did not show up.
So in other words, while you claim that Republicans and conservatives are the best stewards of the economy, you agree that they've historically been lousy stewards of the economy. So why do you think they'd do any better now??
The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness. -John Kenneth Galbraith
The economy is not completely tied to spending. They were terrible on spending. But the economy did very well from '94 to late '08. The spending called for by obama in his new budget is to the left of the progressive caucus' budget proposal of last year. Obama's budget takes doubles and triples the deficits. The numbers are not just bad with the recession right now but from now through 2019.The bush deficits were bad but making them 3x larger is MUCH worse.Historically terrible with the economy? There are limited times to compare where each party had full control but how was the economy under full R control from 03 to -06 (D's controlled the senate bush's first 2 years and both the house and senate the last two). How was the economy under full D control when carter was president? People thought so little of the full D control in Clinton first two years that R's took control over the house and senate. They changed the most seats in house elections in the history of the country and had control for the first time since the 1950's.What do you think about the spending proposal's of obama? Do you think it is good to drive the debt up to over $15 trillion dollars? He has a "fiscal responsibility" conference at the WH then the next day introduces a budget that has a deficit of at least $700 billion for 2019 alone. He talks one game and governs another. Just like the 95% of american's getting tax cuts. When you raise energy taxes on all power production that isn't wind or solar, everyone will pay much higher energy costs. The energy companies are taxed but they've already said (and they must) they will pass on the tax in higher prices. So its an indirect tax on 100% of the population, well you won't get it if you don't use any energy or buy any good or service. He's also planning on raising taxes and fees in many other areas which are also indirect taxes to the end user.
> But the economy did very well from '94 to late '08.When you subtract off the 4% artificial boost being given by (private) lending, the economy was stagnant for the past eight years, recessionary for part of that time. The banking industry began to implode in early '07, and the market peaked later that year. Remember, we've officially been in recession for over a year now.
The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness. -John Kenneth Galbraith
Reply to the question I asked.What do you think about the spending proposal's of obama? Do you think it is good to drive the debt up to over $15 trillion dollars? He has a "fiscal responsibility" conference at the WH then the next day introduces a budget that has a deficit of at least $700 billion for 2019 alone. He talks one game and governs another. Just like the 95% of american's getting tax cuts. When you raise energy taxes on all power production that isn't wind or solar, everyone will pay much higher energy costs. The energy companies are taxed but they've already said (and they must) they will pass on the tax in higher prices. So its an indirect tax on 100% of the population, well you won't get it if you don't use any energy or buy any good or service. He's also planning on raising taxes and fees in many other areas which are also indirect taxes to the end user.
Correct your erroneous post first.
The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness. -John Kenneth Galbraith
Reply to the question I asked.What do you think about the spending proposal's of obama? Do you think it is good to drive the debt up to over $15 trillion dollars? He has a "fiscal responsibility" conference at the WH then the next day introduces a budget that has a deficit of at least $700 billion for 2019 alone. He talks one game and governs another. Just like the 95% of american's getting tax cuts. When you raise energy taxes on all power production that isn't wind or solar, everyone will pay much higher energy costs. The energy companies are taxed but they've already said (and they must) they will pass on the tax in higher prices. So its an indirect tax on 100% of the population, well you won't get it if you don't use any energy or buy any good or service. He's also planning on raising taxes and fees in many other areas which are also indirect taxes to the end user.What are you afraid of? What do you think?
I don't know what the debt will reach -- haven't tried to crunch the numbers. And based on your erroneous post I wouldn't trust your numbers.What I'm afraid of is that Republicans will filibuster and prevent the action we need to pull the country through this mess. It seems they'd rather see the country go down the toilet than give up on their misbegotten "principles" of cut taxes at all costs and eliminate all worthwhile government programs.
The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness. -John Kenneth Galbraith
They are already talking about another "stimulus" bill.Don't trust my numbers? Fine, read this and post your thoughts on the numbers. You can disagree on many issues but the deficit numbers are the WH's own numbers, not outside analysts or republican's and everyone outside the WH think the near term (next three years) economic growth numbers are far too optimistic. Next years number from the WH is 2.8% growth, the consensus in the economics world is 1.8%. 1% lower means an additional $100 to $200 billion more in deficit.http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123564748462081261.html
Conventional wisdom is that, even in a minor recession, the government should continue to spend at a "full employment" rate, running up a (larger than normal) deficit. In a severe recession such as we have now the government needs to spend even more.What the right amount is I don't know -- I'm far from an expert in the matter. But if we can manage to hold the total deficit to under $5T or so, totaled over the next 3 years, I'd say that's doing pretty well. Much smaller is probably not enough to do the job.While W did nearly double the national debt during his reign, it's still not high enough to be especially worrisome (especially since Clinton had managed to reduce it a tad in the prior administration). A far bigger problem is the private debt, which is at historic highs and which is the root of the bubble problem that's dragging down the economy.
The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness. -John Kenneth Galbraith
"Conventional wisdom is that, even in a minor recession, the government should continue to spend at a "full employment" rate, running up a (larger than normal) deficit. In a severe recession such as we have now the government needs to spend even more."
Oh really. First, conventional wisdom is almost always WRONG. It usually becomes a MOB;
Second, whose says it IS conventional wisdom? I manage money during the week, and it is certainly NOT my position. Nor is it yours! When you have less income at home, and your bills stay at their current levels, do you spend more? Why should the government spend more? They are not productive, by definition, they have to steal money from you and me to give it to someone else. How is it wise that we should spend MORE when we have less? Oh, and when has that ever worked? Dont bring up FDR because his unemployment rate was just as high or higher after 8 years...some success, heh?
3rd, What is a "normal" deficit?, and what makes this a "severe recession"? You throw terms around, but I'm not sure you know what they mean.
I am making a living in this environment, and while it is not pleasant, it can be done if you the pretenses are correct. Just as what happened with the banks, when you have built your business on the wrong pretense, it comes unglued quickly with these sort of markets....
At its most basic level, capitalism offers people the freedom to choose where they work and what they do … the dignity that comes with profiting from their talent and hard work. … The free-market system also provides the incentives that lead to prosperity -- the incentive to work, to innovate, to save and invest wisely, and to create jobs for others.†-President George W. Bush
In other words, free-market capitalism is the best path to prosperity.
I think he's reading krugman. Krugman will twist any stat or just flat out lie to get economics to jive with his political positions.
Krugman doesn't twist anything....he just doesnt get it. He really believes what he says because it fits into his agenda. If HE managed money he would have starved years ago. Because he writes about it he ends up with a prize. Go figure.
At its most basic level, capitalism offers people the freedom to choose where they work and what they do � the dignity that comes with profiting from their talent and hard work. � The free-market system also provides the incentives that lead to prosperity -- the incentive to work, to innovate, to save and invest wisely, and to create jobs for others.� -President George W. Bush
In other words, free-market capitalism is the best path to prosperity.
"Because he writes about it he ends up with a prize. Go figure." Funny how that works.
If gov't spending stimulated the economy, why don't you love Bush's 8 years? Gov't spending reduces economic growth, because they are less efficient and make poor choices in comparison with the private sector."What the right amount is I don't know -- I'm far from an expert in the matter. But if we can manage to hold the total deficit to under $5T or so, totaled over the next 3 years, I'd say that's doing pretty well. Much smaller is probably not enough to do the job."Haven't you noticed how nervous some of the D's in the senate are getting on the incredible increase in spending? I've posted the quote from Henry Morgenthau FDR's Treasury secretary, here you go again.About 3/4 of the way down.Morgenthau, testifying before the House Ways and Means Committee in May 1939: "We are spending more money than we have ever spent before and it does not work. I want to see this country prosperous. I want to see people get a job. We have never made good on our promises. I say after eight years of this administration we have just as much unemployment as when we started and an enormous debt to boot."http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122576077569495545.htmlBush was stupid with the Tarp, flushing money down the toilet in giving it to GM and Chrysler. He is the hoover of this, starting off by making bad decisions and obama is FDR, continuing them and making the situation even worse.Do you think over $15 trillion by 2019 is worrisome? The interest payments alone will be towards $1 trillion per year.And if you are fine with $5 trillion over the next 3 years because we need to spend to get out of the bush mess. How can you be fine with a $700 billion deficit for 2019? You complain about bush's deficit spending which never as high as $700 billion. It seems you are very inconsistent on your positions. I am against deficit spending no matter who is in charge, I wrote several angry emails to the WH over the last 8 years on the budget that so intern read. Don't look through rose colored glasses in viewing these things. Obama doesn't walk on water, isn't anything special, he's just another politician like the rest of them.So justify the $700+ billion in 2019 and all the other hundreds of billions per year over the other years.
> Do you think over $15 trillion by 2019 is worrisome?Not if the economy is reasonably healthy.> You complain about bush's deficit spending which never as high as $700 billion. Bush's budgets always hid a significant part of the real costs of the war and the rest of the military. And military spending in Iraq provides far less stimulus to the economy than does infrastructure spending in the US.
The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness. -John Kenneth Galbraith
If you're married, I hope you wife handles the money. wow.As of march '08 the iraq war cost was a little over $500 billion, obama plans on being at least that much in deficit every single year some years two or three times that.$15 trillion is borderline unpayable. Also, if the budget is enacted, alone with growth killers cap gains tax increases, business tax increase, cap and trade tax increases on everyone. universal healthcare, and card check. The US will assume a paltry european growth rate and the US would not be able to pay that amount off.I really would encourage you to read the wall street journal, Investors business daily and other sources that get in depth into the impact of radical proposals like that budget and the other measures. You just really don't have a good grasp on economic policy or the financial markets. Your thoughts are borderline naive and simplistic, and demonstrate minimal knowledge of the subjects.You seem like a decent guy but you really need to be critical of policies, don't take them at their word. Good luck.
> As of march '08 the iraq war cost was a little over $500 billionBullfeathers! The cost of the Iraq war has exceeded $1T. No one knows exactly how much it cost, of course, because so much of the cost is hidden.
The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness. -John Kenneth Galbraith
The actual cost is $500 b, all other costs are unknown (i.e. longterm care for injured, repair/replacement of equipment, etc.
> $15 trillion is borderline unpayable.Why is $10T not a problem, but suddenly $15T is "unpayable"?
The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness. -John Kenneth Galbraith
DO YOU LISTEN TO ANYTHING?I've done nothing but criticize the deficits. Seriously, you really don't comprehend much do you?You know, its tough to educate when you seem to be day dreaming constantly and not understanding the most simple of things.http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2009/03/president_double_talk.htmlhttp://online.wsj.com/article/SB123655590609066021.html
Here's a liberal view of the budget debate we had. Notice even obama's numbers with his inflated/unrealistic growth rates show the budget deficits 10 years out is still higher than anything over the last two decades. The CBO numbers are more accurate and it is frightening.Do you think that spending is "financially responsible" like obama professes.http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/graphic/2009/03/21/GR2009032100104.html
Yep.
The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness. -John Kenneth Galbraith
You said you didn't trust my numbers. There are the numbers and you would agree that the wash post is a liberal paper, right? It's not the wash times, ny post, etc.So you see the numbers, what are your thoughts? Do you think the rhetoric from the campaign trail of fiscal responsibility and not spending what we don't have was honest when you see the budget that was submitted.Let's discuss.
You are comparing three sets of numbers that measure three different things.
The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness. -John Kenneth Galbraith
three different numbers comparing three different things?The WH and CBO put out their estimates for the yearly deficits. Two numbers, talking about the same thing.You didn't trust my numbers, do you trust the WH and CBO numbers via Wash post?I know you probably are realizing that what is going on in washington isn't like the clinton years of moderate, a little left of center. Go ahead and comment.
Do W's numbers include all the off-budget dollars for the Iraq war? Do the Obama and CBO numbers treat the Social Security trust fund the same way?
The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness. -John Kenneth Galbraith
The second part yes. The first part yes also. Those numbers were the actual deficits. The big numbers for 2008 are not for the wars but the off the budget (stupid) bailouts of the financial industry, auto, etc. Thats why the number for 2008 is something like $1.7 trillion. Bush started those bailouts, obama is continuing them and its a huge sum of money that will do very little. They should have done controlled bankruptcy's. Instead they are using the taxpayers to revive dead banks.I think I understand why the wars, katrina and some things like that were kept off the regular budget process. I believe it was not intended to be deceitful, since the end numbers at the end of the year were all that mattered. If you have a balanced budget but do off budget things, it's still a deficit for that year and everyone recognizes that.I think the wars were done out of the budget process because they are non permanent spending. Those expenses move up and down from year to year depending on troop levels and other costs and the Iraq and Afghan wars are short term costs. The defense budget, interior department, etc. are all long term spending that will be forever. So they set up what they call baselines were funding will increase 3% for next year over this year, etc. The wars will not be something that is permanently part of the budget. If they put it as part of the defense budget in the regular process then it would be hard to eliminate that when the wars end.This explains it some. The WH has claimed they have identified $2 trillion in "savings" in the budget. But those savings are really a shame since you need to believe that the spending on Iraq and Afghanistan would be the same in 5,6,7,.... years as it is this year, then obama says they are eliminating the funding, so its a savings. The agreement made with the iraq govt last year called for troops to be out in 2 years with some trainers, etc staying. No one in the world thinks we'll have more than 50k troops there after 2012, so those savings are for spending that never would exist. Kinda like saying you buy a $1000 tv this year, then telling your wife that you'll save the family $1000 for each of the next 10 years by not buying a tv. http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0209/19385.html
Edited 3/28/2009 5:26 pm ET by DDay
> If you have a balanced budget but do off budget things, it's still a deficit for that year and everyone recognizes that.Oh yea??> The wars will not be something that is permanently part of the budget.The stimulus is not something that's permanently part of the budget either.If the chart was a true apples-to-apples thing it would at least show the CBO numbers for the Bush-era deficit, rather than using the Bush White House numbers.
The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness. -John Kenneth Galbraith
It's not showing the bush numbers but the actual numbers. What matters, bush's numbers, the CBO or the actual for past years? Focus on obama's numbers. The obama numbers show very large deficits, larger than the terrible bush deficits. And from their own numbers, obama's numbers get worse year after year. Regardless of who is in the WH, the really really bad stuff happen's after 2020 when the pressure from baby boomers demand on SS and medicare really start to increase rapidly. That area is a very difficult time and this budget is digging a giant hole before we get to the even deeper hole. We need to run surplus' running up to that to be able to deal with it.We are in agreement that bush was terrible with deficit spending (the medicare expansion he passed was horrible and is something that will cost tens of billions year after year as a permanent part of the budget). As bad as bush's policy was, this WH's is even worse. Quite a bit worse. Bush doubled the national debt in 8 years, obama's own numbers have him increasing it more than bush in only 4. Doubling down on bad policy is not very smart.Did you see what Geitners plan is for buying bad mortgage assets from the banks? Talk about a wall street bailout, its heads they win, tails they walk away and don't lose.
And I keep telling you that "actual numbers" is meaningless, unless you know the criteria involved.
The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness. -John Kenneth Galbraith
Did you see this? Check the 7th paragraph. Notice the "assistance" which is welfare. Maybe some food stamps, section 8 housing. http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5hAuRnefeehLy7i8HyzT98iON4QOQD975U2TG0nice huh?
Seventh paragraph: During his news conference, Blair also said the Obama administration is still wrestling with what to do with the remaining 240 detainees at the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base, which the president has ordered closed.Not sure what you were trying to imply.
The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness. -John Kenneth Galbraith
During his news conference, Blair also said the Obama administration is still wrestling with what to do with the remaining 240 detainees at the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base, which the president has ordered closed.Some of the detainees, deemed non-threatening, may be released into the United States as free men, Blair confirmed.That would happen when they can't be returned to their home countries, because the governments either won't take them or the U.S. fears they will be abused or tortured. That is the case with 17 Uighers (WEE'-gurz), Chinese Muslim separatists who were cleared for release from the jail long ago. The U.S. can't find a country willing to take them, and it will not turn them over to China.Blair said the former prisoners would have get some sort of assistance to start their new lives in the United States."We can't put them out on the street," he said.
And what, pray tell, does that have to do with the deficit? Or (gasp!) lumber demand?
The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness. -John Kenneth Galbraith
On Geithners plan (Besides flaws of the design, the cost of $1 trillion most of which has not been approved by congress means it could never work even if designed well. There is no way in heck either dem's or repub's will give the treasury more bailout money. Congress as a whole is against any more.http://apnews.myway.com/article/20090322/D973AFAO0.htmlThe very liberal krugman from the nytimes kills it. Geithner's NY fed reserve constructed the AIG bailout, and was part of the group with bush's treasury sec henry paulson in setting this course. Paulson's plan was terrible and this is a continuation of that terrible plan. Paulson will probably be considered one of the worst treasury sec ever.http://www.businessinsider.com/henry-blodget-krugman-trashes-
geithners-bank-plan-2009-3http://www.businessinsider.com/henry-blodget-geithners-three-big-misconceptions-2009-3http://www.businessinsider.com/henry-blodget-how-tim-geithner-is-robbing-you-blind-2009-3 (Jeff Sach's is a very liberal prof and strong obama supporter during the campaign. Henry Blogett is an obama supporter too.)https://self-evident.org/?p=502
I recall seeing similar budget forecasts by your boy Bush to justify his tax cut and well, we all see how that's worked out can't we?
What is it with republicans? According to your math they work.. just so long as the majority goes to those earning more than $500,000 a year? But tax cuts for the average person won't work?
Huh?Stay on topic frenchy. These lighter red is the white houses own numbers. Their own numbers have the deficit no lower than over $500 billion and that's in '13, then it climbs to over $700b in '19. My boy bush, huh? LOL. Bush had a terrible spending policy. Explain this, stay on the now, not '01, not WWII.The CBO is non partisan, the WH OMB chief orzag ran it until he was selected by the WH.btw, the "middle class tax cut for 95% of americans" is $400 per year, $800 for couples. The dem's in congress decided earlier this week to sunset it in '11, so that touted tax cut is for two years, then its gone.
well since you were attacking my boy I thought turn about was fair!
By the way the accepted solution to the depression your boy put us into is government spending.
easy to say balance the budget but please remember, when your up to your #### in alligators your real job is to drain the swamp!
so we need a $700b deficit in '19?Depression? check the numbers, the situations is similar in some respects to the recession of 81-82 although inflation, interest rates, etc were much higher then.So posting the budget numbers from the liberal wash post is "attacking"? Just defend the numbers.
Huh! You fall for the oldest gambit in the book.. long term forecasts.. (also known as pie in the sky numbers)
The Soviets never once made even a year into their 5 year forecasts without being wrong..
Obama is just trying to match Bush's record, double the national debt in only 8 years.. Or maybe he'll go for that really great republican's example Reagan.. who went from Carters 31% debt to GDP ration to 78% debt to GDP ratio..
Even Bush sr.'s massive tax increase (remember read my lips no new taxes?) couldn't decrease it! It took Clinton to drop it down to 54% from the 78% of the Reagan Bush era.
"You fall for the oldest gambit in the book.. long term forecasts.. (also known as pie in the sky numbers)"The WH's own numbers are horrible, never mind the CBO or think tanks. You think they juiced their numbers and they're still that bad?Don't follow blindly, open your eyes.
One additional thing everyone should understand too is next year for the state and federal budge will be worse than this year if this continues. The president traveled to columbus, oh to claim that the stimulus spending bill saved 25 police recruits jobs. That may be true, I'll take his word that part will be used for that purpose. But who pays for those jobs next year? Even if the economy rebounds later this year, tax revenues in to the levels of gov't will be level or below what it is this year. So unless the fed's are going to send out another few hundred billion next year, those recruits are getting laid off, some other cuts in columbus' budget must happen or columbus raises taxes.And the MAJOR problem for states and local governments, especially in the big state worker union states are the funding of the pension plans. Those pensions are largely invested in the stock market and they are defined benefit plans, so the retirement amounts are to be paid regardless the performance of the pension investments. If the market does not rebound and has a prolonged poor performance like the '30's and 70's, they will go to the taxpayers to pay the shortfall.History just has not proven that gov't spending stimulates growth. And if, sadly as I and most economists believe, it doesn't do it again. Then we are is the same place, we've wasted all that time and there is a mountain of debt. The proposed budget will create more than 3 times the debt that bush did and he was terrible. As bad as bush was on the budget, his highest I believe was $533. The proposed budget has not yearly deficit lower than $500 billion over the next 10 years and in 2019 the WH says the deficit that year alone will be over $700 billion. Bush was terrible but how is adding another $8+ trillion of debt to the existing going to help? We'll be paying more in interest per year in 2020 than for anything else. CA had all the other states bail them out this year, who can bail out the US in 2020?Frenchy, your from MN. I saw something, I believe it was something to the effect of MN is 1/6 the size of CA but MN's budget is 1/20th the size. There is a reason why CA is on the verge of bankruptcy and MN is not. Responsible spending.
They put in the $50 to give some cover for the christmas tree of liberal projects they wanted to fund. Some of it is flat out unethical. Chair of the house approapiations committee (the one that wrote most of the bill) is David Obey, long term rep from WI. His son Craig is a lobbyist for a federal department that received $2 billion from that spending bill.Also, I'll take issue with one statement. Wall street and the financial area really is not conservative at all. Most financial activities are operated out of NYC, Chicago, SF, Boston, all very liberal and the financial people have quite similar views. Check out the donor list for obama and mccain, wall street loved obama. Some of the numbers are a little biased. NYC and NY, NJ, CT are all very democratic areas and each has all dem's as senators and almost all the congressional reps are dem's, so local contributions are going to be in that direction and push the numbers that way a bit.Also, besides these guys, two of the richest investors in the world, George soros and warren buffett are both democrats, buffett is pretty liberal, soros is to the left of Lenin.http://www.opensecrets.org/pres08/contrib.php?cycle=2008&cid=N00009638http://www.opensecrets.org/pres08/contrib.php?id=N00006424&cycle2=2008&goButt2.x=13&goButt2.y=8&goButt2=SubmitThe crook that ran lehman brothers. http://www.newsmeat.com/ceo_political_donations/Richard_Fuld.phpThe two crooks Herb and marion sandler that ran one of the most notorious subprime lenders (the "billionaires for bush" was a anti bush group) http://www.opensecrets.org/527s/527indivsdetail.php?id=U0000002700&cycle=2004The longtime ceo of jp morgan, jaime dimon http://www.newsmeat.com/ceo_political_donations/James_Dimon.phpGoldman sachs ceo http://www.newsmeat.com/ceo_political_donations/Lloyd_Blankfein.phpblack rock founder and ceo http://www.newsmeat.com/ceo_political_donations/Laurence_Fink.phpThere are a few that tilt republican but in whole, especially at the upper level below ceo/chairman and the middle level empolyees, they are probably 70/30 liberal democrat. Henry Paulson, who is will be considered one of the worst treasury sec of all time (geither is giving him some competition though) is married to a very liberal democrat. Lawyers are another one of their big donors.
By conservative I mean fiscally conservative.
Bankers buying and selling on leverage is just the opposite to me.
ANDYSZ2WHY DO I HAVE TO EXPLAIN TO FRIENDS AND FAMILY THAT BEING A SOLE PROPRIETOR IS A REAL JOB?
REMODELER/PUNCHOUT SPECIALIST
Agreed. The leverage allowances were not appropriate. Lehman brothers was one of the very worst from what I've heard. I think the problem was really exacerbated because so many loans were bad loans. So even at normal leverage levels, there still would have been some issue as the spiral of defaults increased. Leverage was a problem in the end but it starts with the risky mortgages.I just hope some of the reg's to come out of this are done in a few years. They need to get it right, not get it done quickly. They also need to work with wall street rather than impose things onto them. Otherwise they'll just push things offshore or wall street will come up with new products to skirt the new reg's. Wall street is FAR smarter than congress. I'm also terrified that my former congressman Barney Frank will have a part in the new reg's. He was a major cause of the lack of control in mortgage reg's for fannie mae. Notice the "roll the dice more" quote. He was proclaiming the soundness of Fannie Mae only months before the government took them over at a cost of at least $200 billion to the taxpayers.http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122290574391296381.htmlhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cMnSp4qEXNM&NR=1
Edited 3/6/2009 12:18 pm ET by DDay
I gave up the Tavern to avoid getting sucked into these endless, worthless discussions that are usually devoid of the facts that matter with respect to the Financial world.I would ask you to consider the following:in 2004 or 5, FNMA and FreddieMac were fined for doctoring the books so that their greedy CEOs, Johnson and Raines could qualify for their respective bonuses. For the previous 3 years, Barney's Frank and Chris Dodd lied and lied repeatedly about the condition of these organizations.When these loans were sent to Lehman, Goldman, DeutschBank, etc to securitize them for further dilution, did you think they suddenly revereted back to legitimate books? This is one of the great lies told by media, or avoided by the anchors who really don't understand. Those books were transmitted to all who needed to have access so they could create the subsequent CDOs, CMOs, etc. And then they went to AIG to hedge those securities. Does anyone realize that these books were handed down to the "greedy" investment bankers? Why do you think they are being bailed out at such an extent as they are, (AIG)? Lehman going under was an anomaly which could be attributed to political discrepancies. Otherwise, it was business as usual, but the bankers were using cooked books passed on to them by the legal crooks running our Senate and House Banking committees. I worked for an investment banker from 1998 through 2000. I left because I saw things I couldn't live with. I went to a pure investment management firm. But no one took the time to clear up the books that were handed to these bankers. The real crimes took place in the Democrat controlled committees, and I am putting that on the record.Now I will swear off of this again. This thread SHOULD be in the tavern. BTW, I think we need a "Breaktime Forum" 12-step program. Anyone game out there????
At its most basic level, capitalism offers people the freedom to choose where they work and what they do � the dignity that comes with profiting from their talent and hard work. � The free-market system also provides the incentives that lead to prosperity -- the incentive to work, to innovate, to save and invest wisely, and to create jobs for others.� -President George W. Bush
In other words, free-market capitalism is the best path to prosperity.
""Now I will swear off of this again. This thread SHOULD be in the tavern. "" I admit my part in turning this thread and folder into something it shouldn't be. I will drop it now and quit responding.
They can't get your Goat if you don't tell them where it is hidden.
Unlike the tavern, we had a good back and forth.to untreated, yes it started with fannie mae and it grew. Jim johnson was there in the mid 90's and started some of it but it was rather minor. It was in the late 90's when franklin raines became ceo of fannie mae that it exploded. Jim johnson was a hill in your backyard, franklin raines grew it to the Himalayas. enjoyed the chat. keep involved in the issues. On the financial stuff the wall street journal has some great coverage, online access is free for most articles.take care.
I have WSJ online...have to keep up with my clients. The only thing I find interesting are the columns on the Op-Ed page. Thanks for the feedback.
At its most basic level, capitalism offers people the freedom to choose where they work and what they do � the dignity that comes with profiting from their talent and hard work. � The free-market system also provides the incentives that lead to prosperity -- the incentive to work, to innovate, to save and invest wisely, and to create jobs for others.� -President George W. Bush
In other words, free-market capitalism is the best path to prosperity.
I am and have been puzzled by the statements about "Jobs" being or not being created.
You don't seem to get the difference between a job created in the private sector and a job created in the public sector. In the twenties and thirties, one dictator after another came up with massive "public works" programs. These were touted as a win-win proposition; they put people to work and the public got the benefit of a new bridge, dam or railroad.
The problem was that the money to fund them had to come from somewhere. Raising taxes on the rich and, inevitably, the middle class worked briefly. But it soon sucked the life out of the private sector. What was seen as a convenient milk cow became enemic and rebellious. It stopped providing a steady flow of cash. This has happened numerous times in Argentina--a country rich in natural resources but chronically on the brink of bankruptcy. Today close to half the economy is off the books. People grow tired of supporting an expensive, intrusive and annoying bureacracy.
""You don't seem to get the difference between a job created in the private sector and a job created in the public sector."" You are correct. I don't. Now the point you make about how they are funded is a different item IMO. I see it I can pay more in taxes that go to the pool of money these jobs are "created" out of, or I can pay more to private industry as I purchase what I need to get through life so they have the pool of money. My perception may well be wrong , I am quite willing to acknowledge that and admit I was wrong, but before I do so I need to understand the difference and as of now I don't see one.
They can't get your Goat if you don't tell them where it is hidden.
I simply stated that they are saying this "stimulus" bill is a job's creator and this project at $8.5 m will create temporary jobs at an average cost of $266k.
Has this project even been approved to receive stimulus funding? Or is it just one on the wish lists that states have proposed?
Let's say that only these 30 hypothetical jobs were in fact created by that particular project. Would it be preferable in your view that those 30 guys be unemployed? A year's unemployment or underemployment can wreck a family's finances.
This criticism that "they're only temporary jobs" misses (I suspect deliberately) the fact that by the time all these projects have been completed, the economy will presumably be getting better, and the companies will presumably be able to find other work that's not paid for out by these programs.
They're not intended to be permanent jobs.
Tax cuts in uncertain times may give conservatives warm fuzzies, since the hoped-for result is that people would spend the extra cash. But in times like these, people tend to want to hang on to their cash, since they don't know what's around the corner. They save it, or pay down debt. That's not a bad thing as such, but it's not what the economy needs right now.
> They're not intended to be permanent jobs. It's kind of ironic, isn't it? On the one hand the Republicans are complaining that the stimulus package is "expanding government" and creates too many new programs that (they say) will be permanent, and on the other hand they argue that the jobs being created aren't permanent. Kinda sounds like they're griping for griping's sake, doesn't it?
The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness. -John Kenneth Galbraith
Do you read? "Missouri bridge project touted as first under stimulus package"http://www.columbiamissourian.com/stories/2009/02/17/missouri-bridge-project-touted-first-under-stimulus/"the economy will presumably be getting better, and the companies will presumably be able to find other work that's not paid for out by these programs." The stock market is an indicator of where things are going. Also obama supporter warren buffett sees trouble next year too. It's not getting better unless washington pursues different policies.Yeah, gov't spending is more efficient and driving growth more than private spending. Tax cuts drive growth, Kennedy, Reagan and Clinton prove so.
The "stimulus" was worse than doing nothing. The CBO is run by the democratic congress.http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/feb/04/cbo-obama-stimulus-harmful-over-long-haul/Government spending is not stimulus, its merely a transfer from private to public. You're moving deck chairs on a ship, you're not growing the economic pie. And all this spending is done on a government credit card. The fiscal responsibility that the president talked about in the campaign and last week? His projections double the national debt from $8 trillion new to over $15 trillion in 2019. He talks about "cutting the deficit in half" in a few years. He does this by skyrocketing the deficit this year to over $1.7 trillion and running $1 trillion deficits for the next few years then cutting that number in half. It's like a company saying everything is on sale for 50% off only they raised the normal prices 300% before they cut them 50%.1. The Administration’s projected budget deficit of $1.75 trillion is higher than the last five years of deficits combined, and under this plan, we will see three consecutive trillion dollar deficits between now and FY 2012.2. While it was purported to cut the budget deficit in half – from $1.75 trillion in 2009 to $533 billion by 2013 – this budget projects higher deficits in 2014 ($570 billion), 2015 ($583 billion), and 2016 ($637 billion). In 2019, the final year in the budget, the deficit is projected to be $712 billion.3. Including the recently-enacted trillion-dollar “stimulus†spending bill, discretionary spending will soar by 24 percent this year under this budget.4. The budget projects that the national debt will increase from $8.4 trillion in 2009 to $15.4 trillion in 2019.And those budget numbers are based off the fantasy growth numbers that the WH is projecting. They project growth of 2.8% next year, no one else, republican, democrat or private economist believe that. They are way under that number. And the following years are projected at absurd levels of 4% and 4.5%. So the deficit numbers are significantly understated, they will be much higher. CA is a nearly bankrupt state because of their spending (77% increase over the last 10 years) The federal budget will grow just like that and the country will be nearing bankruptcy. Our children and grandchildren will be given a debt they can never pay off. Bush's budgets were terrible but these are triple those.Do you use gasoline, electricity, coal, heating oil, propane, natural gas or any other energy other than solar or wind? If you buy anything, that too will be higher since anyone who uses energy will be hit. Ship somthing ups? How much of an increase will they need to pass on with much higher fuel prices. The study shows gas prices skyrocket. You think $4 was high? You would wish for that.He doesn't want to decrease the cost of solar, wind, etc through new tecnology, he plans on increasing the cost of everything else to a very high level. How is that for economic growth?http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2009/03/022971.phphttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5xOxwW4Toiohttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hdi4onAQBWQ
So let's try to get back to the bridge....... You raised it as the classic example of everything wrong with the stimulus bill and I am trying to stay on it as that example.
They can't get your Goat if you don't tell them where it is hidden.
> The Administration’s projected budget deficit of $1.75 trillion is higher than the last five years of deficits combinedOnly because Bush was keeping the cost of the Iraq war (and several other things) off-budget, while Obama has included it in his budget. The national debt near the end of 2008 was over $10T, while the debt five years earlier was about $6.8T. That indicates a total deficit over those five years of $3.2T (over $1T of that in the last year alone). The total increase in the debt during Bush's eight years was about $4.2T.Obama made a courageous decision to present an honest budget, something that certainly hasn't been done in the past eight years, and likely not for several decades. This opens him to more criticism by wanna-be "deficit hawks", but a necessary step to controlling the budget is to know what it is in the first place.
The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness. -John Kenneth Galbraith
Iraq was off the books and the spending over the last 8 years (with the exception of post sept 11 and katrina) was terrible. There is a large debt and bush did not control spending at all. This budget is obscene. It takes bad spending and puts it on over drive. CA is a zombie state, its just about bankrupt and this is doing it on a nationwide scale. How can you call increasing the deficit trillions of dollars responsible.There is a current omnibus spending bill in congress. This is a bill that bush refused to sign last year so the dem's who control congress pushed to this year since bush was a lame duck and leaving office. The current spending bill would only fund the gov't for the rest of the fiscal year (fiscal 08) which ends in sept. The omnibus increases spending over 2007 levels by 8% and has over 8500 earmarks. Bush was an idiot for the $750 m Tarp bill, the money for Chrysler and GM. Bush's budgets were terrible on spending but the HORRIBLE stuff started in Sept with Tarp and the bailouts. This is just a continuation of those. What happened to the campaign promises of "fiscal responsibility". Bush is to blame for the past 8 years of spending. He didn't sign the single largest spending bill in history the "stimulus bill". The stock market is forward looking, it is valued on earnings in the years out. It is tanking, not on the past eight years but where they see us going forward. The late 70's under jimmy carter were terrible, worse than today (higher unemployment, huge inflation and interest rates, and higher contraction in the economy) but the market traded level. Reagan worked with the democrats that controlled the congress and pass a real growth program. Kennedy had a pro growth package.
So why has there been essentially zero growth under Bush (after you subtract out the roughly 4% of GDP per year due to borrowing)?
The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness. -John Kenneth Galbraith
"Obama made a courageous decision to present an honest budget, something that certainly hasn't been done in the past eight years, and likely not for several decades. This opens him to more criticism by wanna-be "deficit hawks", but a necessary step to controlling the budget is to know what it is in the first place."Yeah, he includes the war funding (which I agree with) but he also has the sames amounts going out to 2019 then says we're not going to spend it after 2012 so those are "savings". I think he claims they save over $2 trillion, which is the non spending on iraq and letting the tax cuts expire. How is letting tax cuts expire a "savings", it's not and its not honest. Also decreased funding of iraq is going to be somewhat offset by increased funding of operations in afghanistan. NO ONE, repeat NO ONE thinks funding for iraq would stay at 2008 levels through 2019Also, how is it honest by claiming "95% of americans will get a tax cut"? First, about 32% of workers do not pay any federal taxes, so they don't get a tax cut, they get a check in the mail from the government. They don't pay less taxes, they actually get paid by the government. And the cap and trade policy is an indirect tax on everyone. PA gets over 50% of their electricity from coal power plants. Those people are going to be destroyed by increases in costs that will not be offset by anything.The only thing honest about that budget is the inclusion of war funding, other than that it has all kinds of hidden taxes and fees. You understand that studies estimate that this budget would increase the number of government workers by 100,000 to 250,000 by 2015.Do you think out doing Bush's deficits is being "financially responsible"? You cannot say but bush left a mess. This budget takes a mess and makes another depression. Obama's budget projects a budget deficit of over $700 billion in 2019 (hire than any of bush's). Is Bush responsible for something 12 years removed from his last year? Bush is the past, he did good, bad and eh. This is now and what is being done cannot be defended.
From a democrat senator. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123612545277023901.htmlAnd this.http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/03/04/politics/politico/main4842269.shtml?source=RSSattr=Politics_4842269You do realize that the progressive caucus' budget last year was more conservative than then the obama one. Yep, the budget from nancy pelosi, barbara lee, barney frank et al. was more conservative than this budget.How's your 401k since election day?
> How's your 401k since election day?Hasn't taken nearly as much of a beating as it did before election day.
The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness. -John Kenneth Galbraith
Notice when it started to tank? Right when obama took the lead in the polls. Funny how as he rose the market kept tanking. The market it forward looking, they don't care about what happened with the last administration. Every time the new people speak, the market tanks more. It's ok the party is still on every wednesday. Kobe beef was on the menu last week.http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2009/03/obama-hosts-bip.html
Funny thing: Same thing happened with W, eight years earlier. If you argue significance of one you have to argue significance of the other.
The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness. -John Kenneth Galbraith
That was an internet bubble were the tech stocks were valued on nothingness, they sold off, the broader market did not. Check the charts, this is a complete market sell off. Everything is going lower, its not just once segment like tech stocks.
So that was an internet bubble, which happened on Clinton's watch. This is a housing bubble, which happened on Bush's watch. (And keep in mind that this recession started over a year ago.)
The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness. -John Kenneth Galbraith
Wow. So, the current president is responsible for the market tanking?
Hm. I figured it was the endless drumbeat of layoffs, poor housing numbers, bank collapses, major corporations going bankrupt, etc. Most of which stemmed from factors that had zero to do with the President - any president, unless you're looking at the failure to enforce SEC and other federal regulations, combined with total cluelessness on the part of guys like Alan Greenspan.
Incidentally, the Depression's length or severity had precious little to do with FDR's policies. Don't bother bringing up 1937 - the retrenchment of the downturn there had more to do w/ the attempt to balance the budget that was forced on FDR by the rocket scientists in Congress. And don't bother with the unemployment canard either - the reason unemployment didn't decline even in the face of the New Deal job programs is that those who held those jobs weren't counted as "employed."
The market tanking? Yes. Bloomberg is reliably left of center. It's down 20% under his watch. The market is forward looking and every time they talk about hiking taxes, energy costs, capital taxes, increasing gov't by massive amounts, it goes down even more. The market was more positive to jimmy carter, enough said. http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=washingtonstory&sid=aGJ_.gr_awkYhttp://www.foxnews.com/politics/first100days/2009/03/06/study-dow-decline-marks-fastest-new-president-nearly-century/The recession started in Dec '07 but the current bear market is obama's.His own supporters even say it. http://www.mainstreet.com/article/moneyinvesting/news/cramer-my-response-white-house?page=1http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2009/03/jim_cramer_unhappy_with_radica.htmland this.http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123629969453946717.html
Edited 3/7/2009 9:49 am ET by DDay
FDR's own treasury secretary. Yeah, it was his bad policies that followed the bad policies of Hoover. Don't drink the kool aid.In New Deal or Raw Deal?, Burton Folsom quotes Morgenthau, testifying before the House Ways and Means Committee in May 1939: "We are spending more money than we have ever spent before and it does not work. I want to see this country prosperous. I want to see people get a job. We have never made good on our promises. I say after eight years of this administration we have just as much unemployment as when we started and an enormous debt to boot."
The turn has already started.http://www.nypost.com/seven/03052009/postopinion/opedcolumnists/brain_trust_bust_158067.htm?&page=1You've seen this guy. He was a big supporter of obama during the campaign, he's long time liberal.http://www.mainstreet.com/article/moneyinvesting/news/cramer-my-response-white-house?page=1We are already at clinton's first term in the stock market value, some experts think the bottom might be 4000, 2600 more than we are now. By August Obama is going to be despised. He policies are killing peoples retirement accounts and the pension funds of public employees. If they had a good economic plan the market would trade level at worst.btw, did you catch obama's stock advice? I guess he didn't sit for that course during his community organizing days. Does the President Know What 'P/E Ratio' Stands For?Obama, today: "On the other hand, what you're now seeing is profit and earning ratios are starting to get to the point where buying stocks is a potentially good deal if you've got a long-term perspective on it."Did he mean price-to-earnings ratio? The traditional definition of P/E ratio?http://www.whitehouse.gov/the_press_office/Remarks-by-President-Obama-and-Prime-Minister-Brown-after-Meeting/
some budget analysis from "the economist". http://www.economist.com/opinion/displaystory.cfm?story_id=13237211They endorsed obama in the general.http://www.economist.com/world/unitedstates/displayStory.cfm?story_id=12516666&source=features_box_main
Edited 3/5/2009 4:52 pm ET by DDay
I find that hard to believe!
Believe it. Look at the DOW numbers. From it's peak on Oct 9, 2007 the DOW lost 4544 points to election day, 3031 since.
The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness. -John Kenneth Galbraith
"Believe it. Look at the DOW numbers. From it's peak on Oct 9, 2007 the DOW lost 4544 points to election day, 3031 since."
To be fair, you're comparing 13 months prior to the election to the 4 months after the election.
On 07/03/08, the Dow closed at 11,289.
On 11/04/08, the Dow closed at 9,625. A drop of 1,664 from 4 months prior.
On 03/04/09, the Dow closed at 6,726. A drop of 2,899 from 4 months prior.
Jon Blakemore RappahannockINC.com Fredericksburg, VA
Yeah, and if I take two months before election day to two months after it swings the opposite direction. You can select a range to "prove" anything you want.The fact is the economy was stagnant the entire time Bush was in office, and started downhill a year before election day. The housing/credit bubble ballooned under Bush (and there is no evidence that the CRA contributed to this), and started collapsing in the first half of 2007. We're still seeing the fallout of that housing/credit collapse.
The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness. -John Kenneth Galbraith
"Yeah, and if I take two months before election day to two months after it swings the opposite direction. You can select a range to "prove" anything you want."
That is true. I was only responding to the fact that you chose a range that was not statistically significant, IMHO.
Jon Blakemore RappahannockINC.com Fredericksburg, VA
I was replying to a specific assertion made.
The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness. -John Kenneth Galbraith
Even the left of center bloomberg is calling this the "obama bear market"http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=washingtonstory&sid=aGJ_.gr_awkYPeople who were for him are running for cover. He is in way over his head and they regret their support now.http://www.nypost.com/seven/03052009/postopinion/opedcolumnists/brain_trust_bust_158067.htmI want the best for this country but his policies are not what made america. He's not bill clinton, he's not JFK, he envisions the one-ness of socialized europe. But over there the one-ness of mediocrity is for the public while the powerful and connected live a different life. These policies don't bring the poor or middle class up to the top through their hardwork, rather is seeks to pull down the wealthy and successful. It's a disincentive to work hard and succeed.
Edited 3/6/2009 11:45 am ET by DDay
It was a design flaw that produced damage that was observed but officially ignored. One can only speculate as to how much of the motivation to ignore the damage was lack of funds to fix it (and a culture in the DOT to cut costs) -- I suspect a lot.
The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness. -John Kenneth Galbraith
"I've wondered how someone finds out about legality in a survey.. I mean wander through construction sites and ask? "You're wasting your breath with this one, frenchy is clueless. You're never going to be able to explain statistical analysis to some like him, it's far above his capabilities. Pew does a pretty good job in general. There can be sampling errors, and with a subject group that would seek to be underground and thus harder to find, the error would likely be a little higher. But I'm sure they made adjustments to account for that. One thing most people don't realize is that hispanic is not what they think. In my area, we really don't have as many hispanics as other parts of the country, for whatever reason we have a high number of Brazilian's. And they are not hispanic although most would of the public would believe they are.
Minnesota has our share of Canadians who come here for the better jobs. They are illegal but darn hard to catch..
But what I hate is those who read reports where estimates are turned into data simply by the act of being published..
I'm not sure what that one guy's angle was on the illegal workers, though. Did they contribute to the housing boom? Well sure, I did too.
"Contribute" is too weak of a word. The Pew study, written in 2007, said that the construction industry was "dependent" on Hispanic workers, especially recent arrivals. They used the words "vital" and "essential" to describe the role that these workers played in the building industry. They estimated that at least two-thirds of these workers were not here legally. Citing statistics from the US Bureau of labor, they stated that Hispanic workers represented 20 per cent of the construction labor force. At the time, the message was: "These immigrants might not be legal but we need them. Without them, our industry might collapse."
My "angle" was not too complicated. While I don't think the building industry would have collapsed, the building frenzy could not have occurred to the extent that it did without this labor force. As I said earlier, houses don't just spring out of the ground. Now with the excess inventory of houses, maybe this ready supply of energetic workers was not such a good thing.
Another factor is that few hands-on construction workers got the full benefit of the boom. Had this immigrant labor force not been available, prices for self-employed tradesmen would have gone up dramatically. These extremely overheated periods only come around so many times in a lifetime. This is when we're rewarded for years of cultivating skills and investing in tools. Here's when we make enough money to pay off our house or buy a rental property. It didn't happen. Instead, every time there was a huge demand for labor, it was filled by immigrants. We got hosed.
History doesn't repeat itself, but it does rhyme. --Mark Twain
The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness. -John Kenneth Galbraith
I have seriously considered doing exactly that.. So I looked into it..
Little potential profit here in America where so many have the same access to wood that I have. I would just become another middle man competeing in a shrinking market.
However In Europe the potential is much greater so I did some research into that.. It seems as Europe tanked about the same time we did and when I called they were loaded with inventory they couldn't sell and weren't interested in acquiring any more.
The currant glut in wood is driving a lot of small and medium sized mills to shut down. Even pallet mills have a surplus of wood for their needs..
We have local mills that sell as low as half the big box prices. I'm not a pro so I don't keep a finger on the pulse of the market.
Here is a tangent to the discussion:Lumber is different than many commodities, because the owners of the trees in the forest can sit on it, so to speak, until the prices rebound. In the mean time, God waters the trees and the sun shines and the "lumber in storage" grows, gaining volume and value.Can't really do that with corn or pork bellies. Of course, people have to eat, so that keeps most food commodities from completely tanking. More stable consumption.I still have shop work going, so I am enjoying the lower lumber prices. The mill that I buy from is delivering to my shop on Monday (Birch, White & Red Oak) for 1/3 less than last summer (about $2.00/b.f. down from $3).Another supplier is still charging last summers prices, because their inventory was purchased at higher prices and they are still trying to get more $. Pays to shop around.One valid notion related to Frenchy's rambling, is that prices drop first at wholesalers (like mills), the retailers may have old, higher priced stock, and resist discounting it. So at the wholesale level, you get both wholesale pricing and get in on price drops earlier (if you have access).
Edited 1/25/2009 10:49 am ET by basswood
In 1984, we almost had a recession. One quarter of GDP was negative, the next, barely positive. It coupled with a wipeout in the oil markets when oil also fell. Texas went to heck.
But most significantly, that mini-recession inspired a great demand for refinancing as interest rates fell below double digits for the first time since '79. Via variable rate mortgages. Prior to this, the Great Recession of '80-'81 practically took out the auto industry and people, like now, couldn't get a loan that made sense no matter how good they were.
But that breakthru in the lending process by those rates began the big runup of assets thru 2000.
In retrospect, I figger the deflationary effect that the inflation at that time had on any outstanding debt, coupled with the raising income that inflation provided, created better balance sheets in which to lever.
But now, we either pay it off, or inflate ourselves out of this mess. With the jobs evaporating, sooner or later the inflation boogyman will appear - and with him, higher interest rates.
Everyone, get yourselves refinanced before this happens.
Edited 1/24/2009 10:46 am by peteshlagor
Well, we are in agreement. I anticipate inflation, possibly severe inflation..
It will be troubling at first because job pressure will hold down wage demands untill companies do the math and compare the cost of exporting jobs with higher and higher assoiated costs. (transportation costs can only increase) Wages paid in China and elsewhere are increasing at a rapid rate and will within about a decade approach what American deflated wages will be. (annual income; China $2000 America 24,000 currently)
At some point the economics of job exportation will reverse and then we will see the benefits of inflation..
The only ones really hurt will be those who retain cash or have it in modest return savings accounts.. . Investments in companies that are equity rich will inflate with inflation..
It is my wish that we experiance quick and steep inflation rather than slow painful dragged out inflation..
I'd love it to have triple didget inflation for about 5 years.. My mortgage would be wiped out and I would have a solid 5 years of high earnings to base my social security on.
That's if you have an earnings to base on the last 5 years.
Inflation tends to happen faster then wage increases so the people with the least will be hurt the most.
For all of your posturing about how unfair the tax system is, the poorest don't pay taxes but they sure are going to take it on the chin a lot worse from inflation while the property owners ARE GOING TO PROSPER.
I wonder if you see the hypocracy of what you wish for?
ANDYSZ2WHY DO I HAVE TO EXPLAIN TO FRIENDS AND FAMILY THAT BEING A SOLE PROPRIETOR IS A REAL JOB?
REMODELER/PUNCHOUT SPECIALIST
yes I do and you have a valid point.. However I see no other way to get the economy moving..
Please tell me I'm wrong.. that all we need to do is.............. and I'll gladly jump on the bandwagon if it's valid.
Top down tax breaks won't work. Too many jobs have left and the average citizen is in debt up to his chin or deeper.. so there won't be any strong customer buyout like in the past..
Roughly 40% don't paytaxes so bottom up tax breaks will have a nominal benefit.
We tried stimulas checks and there wasn't much action as a result since we are already deeply in debt.. much of the stimulas checks were spent reducing debt levels..
The government can't provide enough jobs by itself to make a massive differance. Our short term focus on profits will continue to cause layoffs as compaies attempt to downsize their way to profitablity..
Those with cash reserves have no motivation to spend them because at the currant rate of deflation things will be cheaper in the future than now..
Inflation changes all that..
Buy now to avoid greater expense is a natural fit with the fact that fear of loss is always a greater motivator than anticipation of gain..
Plus it will motivate those who have foriegn investments to come back because no matter how great the rate of return elsewhere the inflationary dollars will reduce that gain to either extremely poor rate of returns for the potential risks involved.. Or American investment oppertunities will greatly outshine foriegn investments.
I agree with both of you and it's what frenchy is missing. No money down creates all kinds of problems and a significant one was people speculating on housing. Look where the housing is in the worst shape, CA, AZ, FL, etc. I remember reading about people in southern florida buying condo's, never moving in since it was just an "investment", never renting it or doing any improvements and selling it 3 months later for $50k more. It's just like the internet bubble, people did not care what the real value was, just that they believed the market would continue and they could make free money.If people were required to put money down, they have their own money at risk and it would also raise the bar of entry so it would limit the speculation which is fine as long as its limited, to professionals who know what they are doing and not everyday pinheads.It definitely creates opportunity for younger buyers and the market will correct the system in time. The problem this time is the huge numbers, so with that inventory its just going take longer to soak it up. Thats why what I keep telling frenchy is so simple. With no money down loans, as the market declines the normal amount of foreclosures gets a multiplier as the value drop. The volume of foreclosures snowball since people get underwater on their loans VERY quickly.
"His statement at the time.... "I want to have 5 million new minority home owners by the end of the decade." "As in most of the things that you post you are wrong.It was 5.5 million.He also said this at the sametime."Every home buyer has responsibilities and rights that need to be understood clearly. And yet, when you look at some of the contracts, there's a lot of small print. And you can imagine somebody newly arrived from Peru looking at all that print, and saying, I'm not sure I can possibly understand that. Why do I want to buy a home? There's an educational process that needs to go on, not only to explain the contract, explain obligation, but also to explain financing options, to help people understand the complexities of a homeownership market, and also at the same time to protect people from unscrupulous lenders, people who would take advantage of a good-hearted soul who is trying to realize their dream."So he wants them to be EDUCATED on there RESPONSIBLITIES and also PROTECTED FROM UNSCRUPULOUS LENDERS..
William the Geezer, the sequel to Billy the Kid - Shoe
"IN Oct. of 2002 Bush signed a republican bill into law which deregulated banking practices further and allowing no doc. loans.. His statement at the time.... "I want to have 5 million new minority home owners by the end of the decade." "EXACTLY what was the name of that bill?No Doc loans have been around for a long before that.And the statement about increase minority home ownership was made atPresident Hosts Conference on Minority Homeownership
George Washington University
Washington, D.C.Office of the Press Secretary
October 15, 2002.
William the Geezer, the sequel to Billy the Kid - Shoe
That about sums it up for me. It was a feeding frenzy and when all the food dries up there is nothing left.
That level of consumption has plateaus. Either restrained by natural resources or economic resources. You think we'd learn, We've been down this road before. Only this time is worse following the huge prior run up. You know the saying, "the higher you fly the farther you fall". You'd think we could somehow regulate ourselves in terms of consumption so we don't have to go through these rollercoaster rides every few years.
http://money.cnn.com/2009/01/22/news/economy/housing_starts/index.htm
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Housing permits and starts both tumbled to record lows in December, according to a government report released Thursday.
The Commerce Department said housing permits fell 10.7% from the prior month to an annual rate of 549,000 in December, while starts were down 15.5% from November to an annual rate of 550,000.
Both measures were at the lowest levels since the government started tracking the data in 1959.
The reports also came in much worse than expected. The Commerce Department was expected to report that building permits ticked down to an annual rate of 615,000, unchanged from a revised reading for the month prior, according to a consensus estimate of economist estimates compiled by Briefing.com.
Meanwhile, the Commerce Department was expected to report that housing starts fell to 610,000 in December from a revised 651,000 in November.
Housing permits in December were 50.6% below the year-earlier rate of 1,111,000, and housing starts were down 45% from 1,000,000.
Doesn't surprise me.
Surprising is that it is happening in Canada also. We've done many home shows and getting sponsors in exchange for advertising etc has never been an issue until today.
I have hit up every lumber distributor and retailer of note in the Toronto area-- nobody even wants to talk about it.
The sky has fallen all over their captive market. They all made huge profit for many years and even when the market was down they all did ok.
They are so sheltered and simple minded that they cannot vary from their mindset. They are all curled up in balls waiting for a big box to buy them out, drive them out of business or a new partner to bail them out.
They are all too busy having their pity party that they can't see what is obvious.
With prudent and decisive not to mention thoughtful action they could make massive gains in the lumber market in the Toronto area.
I just may have to look at getting into the lumber business in the Toronto area.
L
GardenStructure.com~Build for the Art of it! Decks Blog
I can hear the Sierra Club now, "The forests are dying due to over growth".
You just cant please those people.:>)
Family.....They're always there when they need you.
Not just saw logs, but pulpwood prices have gone into the toilet too I am told. A couple of the pulp mills in Wisconsin are no longer accepting wood, as their yards are full, and they are down on product orders.
Talked to a couple loggers last weekend who wouldn't be surprised by a 40% failure rate for loggers in the next year. One was looking forward to it because he plans on picking up some good used equipment, and nearly all of his is paid off right now. A few of the mills that are not accepting wood are still taking his because they need large operations like his to still be in business when the market turns.
They have gotten extensions on many of their current cutting contracts also. Meaning they don't have to complete the harvest in the time frame they said they would.
Bowz
Here in MN, with a colder than average winter, many loggers are staying busy cutting firewood.If we had a mild winter, they would be idle. The mill I buy from is out of slabs and edgings they sell for firewood. They usually have more than they can sell. On the flip side, they are not sawing much, so the supply of green slabs, cut this year, is low, and they won't have much to sell next year.
I wonder why the price of a simple plastic wrapped package of pine shims which for years carried a price tag of $.99 has now suddenly gone up to $1.24 at a bigbox this pass month?
94969.19 In the beginning there was Breaktime...
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Well, ya know that plastic wrapping is getting expensive!!!!
Bowz