Leamer lays the blame squarely on the Federal Reserve for leaving interest rates too low for too long. Now, he says, were not only heading for trouble in the housing sector, but in the auto industry another market that got drunk on historically low rates.
He's right except the auto industry is in far worse shape than housing... FAR worse.
this analysis is so basic and seemingly incontrovertable that it boggles my mind that more people can't see the writing on the wall... but for the fact that "hope springs eternal." i agree, the auto industry may actually be in deeper shit than the housing industry - are they making any money with this "employee discount" b.s.? maybe they can make it up in volume... (that's a joke)
I recently bought a Toyota Sienna mini-van that was manufactured in Indiana. Toyota seems to be doing just fine. It might be a Japanese company but one of my mutual funds owns a lot of Toyota so it's pretty multinational. The can't make them fast enough.
I chose it over a Chrysler T&C minivan. Chrysler is now a German-owned company that manufactures its minivans in Canada.
I also chose my Toyota over a Ford Windstar. They are also assembled in Canada with engines made in Mexico.
GM might be sucking wind but that's due to a whole lot of reasons in addition to interest rates.
In any event, I think this is very good advice, especially the last paragraph.
"WALL STREET shuddered yesterday after Alan Greenspan, the United States central banker, warned American homebuyers that they risk a crash if they continue to drive property prices higher."
Wait til those homebuyers find out they've also mispriced their neighbors' mortgages and issued too many bonds. Why, that could give Wall Street a full-blown case of the fan-tods.
Kent there are MILLIONs of people associated with the auto-industry who don't work for GM. Automotive is bigger than IT, aerospace, housing or medical... the auto industry & related supply chain (steel, plastics, components, electronics & the financial sector supporting it) are a major part of the US industrial base.
Toyota does a lot of assembly here but historically no where near the level of 'added value' that the domestic suppliers did. Typically the transplants import components & systems and then do final assemby here... 70% of the 'value' of a car are the components, little of it is 'final assembly'.
Plus all the really high paid 'intellectual property' and corporate jobs are offshore for the transplants as well. Think R&D, design, engineering, accounting, etc. Good jobs.
Now it is clear that GM & Ford are 'global' too - moving component work & design offshore now some as well... And Toyota appears to be moving more component work here... so in the long term who knows what the effect will be. But for now Toyota is still very mucha 'Japanese Company' and GM & Ford are very much 'American Companies'...
If we 'lose' this industry... it will be just as big a blow as if we lost aerospace or IT or medical technology. It is a major wealth generator and the assembly jobs everyone associates with 'automotive' are the bottom of the barrel in terms of importance... the frosting everyone notices when they see the cake... there is a lot more there than that.
This is likely if rates continue to move higher, but the mere fact of that will mean rates will soon stop dead in their tracks if not reverse, in my opinion.
Hey, Kent, how old are you? You stated a few days ago that houses are only commodities. Well, part of what made America a great country was that people bought into communities and valued that highly.
Hey, Kent, you in a hot air and paper pushing job spot? Not producing and exporting? We don't need or want you all much any more after hemorrhaging the country!
You're morons if you think there has been "free trade" etc. by other countries. Japan, S. Korea, now China have not been letting our products in for years. Now, due to univs, air heads, and paper pushers as well as too many attorneys, as well as other economic traitors hemorrhaging the country...
Didn't you say your wife was becoming a Dr.? Americans pay far too much on so-called "medical" aka disease care! (Personally, totally disgusted and think only good for tests and cutting out if needed.)
We want Vat taxes here, import taxes on, and want proof of buying American made to have insurances (or Medicare use).
I find Leamer's prediction interesting. He is saying it will take more than a year after the peak for the bubble bust to translate into job loss. I wonder if this is typical of the "8 previous economic downturns" that were triggered by the housing sector. That would imply to me that new home sales will stay relatively strong for a year but price will moderate. Because to me, if new home sales and existing home sales both dropped sharply, I would expect weakness in unemployment to show up within two quarters.
Not sure if any of you saw NOW on PBS. They had a feature about the real estate bubble and interviewed Thornberg who basically explained the bubble in terms of pyramid scheme and finding a chair when the music stops.
If what you want is to go back to the old good time in the 60s when having a manufacturing job would allow one income earner to feed a family of 4, buy a home, get health insurance, and expect a pension at retirement while enjoying an increasingly better lifestyle, I'm afraid that is not gonna happen, even if you create a VAT and tax the hell out of the imports.
The main reason is that what we can build for a certain price depends on how much it cost to get the raw material. And unlike the 60s, this time we have to compete with 2 billions asians who are getting increasingly better education and skillset.
I think the answer is not as simple as protectionism. Obviously a comprehensive industrial policy wouldn't hurt.
One last point. You seem to say that there has been no free trade by other countries other than the US. Let me tell you, there has been no free trade from the US either (although it's being sold to the general public under this term). The current trade barriers have simply not been designed to help the manufactuting sector. The effort is mostly going towards protecting intellectual properties. Microsoft, Intel, drug companies, the healthcare sector have benefited from this.
Yes, to thinking that those who are given more brains and talents must have tested mettle for leadership, and also have a responsibility to their country and their community.
Although I strongly think that it would help U.S. to go retro doing without the plastic junk and foreign made junk for kids, and more.
Am totally disgusted with greedy boomers and their offspring as well as so many other types univs. pumped out of their outdated,jackass univs. They really screwed over this country big time! Moronic.
Now, more of cycle of obscene profits, but little genuine investment or development of products.
We're getting our butts kicked by mercantilist and nationalistic-based practices and the restricting of our products by Japan, S. Korea, and now China.
The end game is down, down, down while Americans are playing and gorging.
So, everything from professional fees to govt. employee retirements and benefits must be sliced and sliced away.
Geez Alexis, why all the hostility? Someone kick your dog today?
Dryfly, you're behind the times regarding the domestic design and content of many "Japanese" cars. With respect to the car I mentioned, the Toyota Sienna, I found this off familycar.com
The new Sienna is about as American as you can get while still retaining a Japanese nameplate. A major share of the engineering that went into the Sienna was done at the Toyota Technical Center in Ann Arbor Michigan while much of the styling was done in California. 90 percent of the components are from North American suppliers. The engines and transmissions are manufactured in West Virginia and the vehicle is assembled in Indiana.
Toyota trucks are manufactured in a similar manner and according to Edmunds, Honda's generally have 85% US content.
Like I said, if GM and Ford are in trouble it has to do with a lot more long-term factors than interest rates. Like perhaps squandering their pension funds? And of course they bet the farm on large SUVs and now with gas prices going back up they don't have any appealing vehicles. Meanwhile Toyota plans to roll out seven different hybrid models in 2006 including hybrid trucks and minivans. In a way, the cheap gas "bubble" that was driving the SUV market was as much of a bubble as the current housing market in some areas. It was inevitably going to burst.
Kent - I sell parts to those guys... I don't have to look that crap up on the internet... I'm on the phone with them almost every day... sheesh...
Toyota is the exception that proves the rule. The Japanese transplants I work with can't get ANY design support in North America - it all goes through Japan. I have parts now I'm waitning for action on and are in 'design limbo' in Japan.
Even most of those "American Components" for Honda are supplied by Japanese transplants like Denso with most of the design in Japan...
Toyota IS doing more work here as is Honda... but the strings are all still pulled in Japan... The best jobs are all in Japan. The head design guy they mention in that article you posted... Japanese... as are most of their management here... brought in on visa. BTW that is my experience too - grunt workers & low level technical all US... well paid decision makers all Japanese. Not so at GM & Ford.
Secondly I have family in Ann Arbor - Toyota's presence there is tiny compared to Ford. GM is even larger (but not in the AA area - elsewhere).
You lose Ford & GM and Toyota isn't going to pick up the slack. Those jobs & wealth are GONE from this continent... and it will be on a scale in dollars similar to losing Intel or Boeing. Very serious.
You mentioned all those Toyota hybrids? Where are their hybrids made now? Japan. Where has all the development been done on them? Japan.
Is Toyota a better company than the US firms - yes, it clearly is... Is that Totota's fault - no... Does that make the thousands of US workers who will lose jobs when GM & Ford fail feel better about losing their jobs, their futures... not one damned bit. Will they move and get new good jobs? Hardly, where do they go & what do they do? Not everyone has a wife who is a doctor.
And I don't blame you for buying their products - Toyota has the best mfg systems in the world & I am mad as hell our business leaders are so stupid as to not see that it is important... but it still makes me sick when another huge domestic plant closes and thousands of families suffer... they often never get back on track.
I had to make the same decision myself when I bought Jetta diesels from VW... there was no US alternative and I needed the fuel efficiency... But I wasn't happy about it and I know decisions like this are going to cost this country... cost my own kids.
I agree interest rates aren't 'the cause' of the automotive malaise... but it will be the spark that will ignite the fuse... and it will not be good. Don't expect Toyota to save us, to make up the difference... the chances of that are about as good as GM saving the Chinese.
I'm obviously not in a position to argue with you about the auto industry.
However don't get me wrong. I'm just as horrified as anyone else about the decline of the American manufacturing base. The country our parents built through their sweat during the WW-II era is being torn apart, sold off, and left to rust.
We can talk for days about where Detroit went wrong. But I think it's a symptom of a much larger problem in Corporate America--the loss of patriotism in American corporations.
I think there once was a time when many of the major corporations at least gave some consideration to what was good for the country and good for their communities when they made business decisions. There was a sense that good solid profits and growth was good enough. Companies looked out for their employees and their communities. Those days (if they ever existed) seem long gone. How many corporations have fled to the Bahamas to evade US taxes and then showed back up the next day with their hands out looking for government contracts funded by the taxes they refuse to pay? Look at the war profiteering that's going on in Iraq. You think Truman would have tolerated that during WW-II? Look at the manufacturers who can't move to China fast enough and the service companies who can't move to India fast enough. Who do they think their customers are going to be in 20 years?
That's why it pains me to watch the utter stupidity and short-sightedness of companies like GM that who bet the entire company on SUVs and light trucks right when we were at the end of a long era of artifically low gas prices. Every day when I drop my kids off at school I'm dodging Hummers and Escalades that will soon require a 2nd mortgage to keep in fuel.
I know Toyota and Honda are spending billions planning for the day when gas is $5/gallon. And they'll be ready with products folks will want to buy. What will GM have then? Some sort of retro-fitted creaky SUVs with 2nd hand technology licenced from the Japanese? I shudder to even think.
BTW - I am a HUGE fan of Toyota & their mfg system... that is pretty much what I studied in my MS program. There is NO EXCUSE for GM & Ford to not be up to the same bar as Toyota... but they aren't.
It could cost our country & our kids their future.
Kent, resent the phrase used to me about the dog! Never, never would hurt! Maybe due to some "projecting" on your part because I think American medical cattle system and doctors training & approach is lousy. (not unlike you think Ford and GM). Japanese live longer and pay far less for their medical system.
BESIDES, YOUR GENERAL SOCIETAL STATEMENTS AND THESE CORPORATIONS & THEIR EXECS. SHOW AGREEMENT WITH MY VIEWS!
Kent,
Ah, and, maybe stating my views of jackass univs and effects of pumpting out mostly hot air and paper pushers as well as too many attorney-Darth Vaders hemorrgahing this country; and greedy boomers and their offpsring and effects of.
As for your upstream questions. I'm 41 and have done a lot of things with my life so far. I spent much of my youth working on the Bering Sea on commercial fishing vessels producing crab, pollock, cod, and salmon for export. Had a couple vessels sink out from underneath me and one burn up. Does that qualify as a hot-air paper pusher? Worked on a lot of boats run by old Norwegian "square-heads" and learned that on a fishing boat there's the right way, the wrong way, and the "Nor-way" and that the "Nor-way" usually involves a whole lot of "Norwegian steam" (sweat).
After finally realizing that the life at sea in Alaska is really one of borrowed time and seeing too many guys get chewed up or killed I went back to grad school in fisheries management and got a job working on commercial fisheries management for NMFS. Until moving down to Texas I was most recently working with the fishing industry to put together harvesting cooperatives to eliminate a lot of the wasteful and dangerous competition that was dragging down the industry. Too many boats chasing too few fish ends up wasting a lot of resources, killing a lot of fishermen, and not making anyone very much money. Now I'm in the private sector working as a consultant for the fishing industry and NMFS. Working with industry to navigate the regulatory maze and working with NMFS to design cleaner and simpler regulations.
As for the US medical education system? You've got no argument with me. I've seen what it does to my wife to work endless brutal shifts. She just got off call this evening (Sunday) and she's been working straight since leaving the house at 5:30 a.m. Saturday. She works in a public clinic and the stories she tells about all the attempted medicaid and disability fraud are eye-opening. Last week she was nearly assaulted by the furious nephew of a medicaid patient for whom she denied a claim for an electric wheelchair. The guy was a complete little hood and no doubt that wheelchair would have ended up on ebay 10 minutes later to either fund his drug habit or muscle car. And of course the number of people walking in with fake injuries trying to scam disability claims is breathtaking.
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Thanks,
It won't be pretty. I agree with Dr. Leamer.
Leamer lays the blame squarely on the Federal Reserve for leaving interest rates too low for too long. Now, he says, were not only heading for trouble in the housing sector, but in the auto industry another market that got drunk on historically low rates.
He's right except the auto industry is in far worse shape than housing... FAR worse.
this analysis is so basic and seemingly incontrovertable that it boggles my mind that more people can't see the writing on the wall... but for the fact that "hope springs eternal." i agree, the auto industry may actually be in deeper shit than the housing industry - are they making any money with this "employee discount" b.s.? maybe they can make it up in volume... (that's a joke)
What auto industry are you talking about?
I recently bought a Toyota Sienna mini-van that was manufactured in Indiana. Toyota seems to be doing just fine. It might be a Japanese company but one of my mutual funds owns a lot of Toyota so it's pretty multinational. The can't make them fast enough.
I chose it over a Chrysler T&C minivan. Chrysler is now a German-owned company that manufactures its minivans in Canada.
I also chose my Toyota over a Ford Windstar. They are also assembled in Canada with engines made in Mexico.
GM might be sucking wind but that's due to a whole lot of reasons in addition to interest rates.
In any event, I think this is very good advice, especially the last paragraph.
Just in time for the crash, AG says he finally sees the writing on the wall.
US heading for house price crash, Greenspan tells buyers - Times Online
Why havent the bond rating agencies seen the writing on the wall? I hope those brown nosed lapdogs get sued.
touche, I read Greenspan's speech and I think that headline is little over the top:
US heading for house price crash, Greenspan tells buyers
Of course I took Greenspan's comments as meaning he thought anyone buying a house today is probably going to lose money. So its not far off.
Best Regards!
The headline? How about the first paragraph?
"WALL STREET shuddered yesterday after Alan Greenspan, the United States central banker, warned American homebuyers that they risk a crash if they continue to drive property prices higher."
Wait til those homebuyers find out they've also mispriced their neighbors' mortgages and issued too many bonds. Why, that could give Wall Street a full-blown case of the fan-tods.
The article also said that the idiot called the stock crash 3 years too early and the when the bubble finally popped he slashed rates to 1 percent.
So I say same sh!! different DAY.
JMHO
YODA
Kent there are MILLIONs of people associated with the auto-industry who don't work for GM. Automotive is bigger than IT, aerospace, housing or medical... the auto industry & related supply chain (steel, plastics, components, electronics & the financial sector supporting it) are a major part of the US industrial base.
Toyota does a lot of assembly here but historically no where near the level of 'added value' that the domestic suppliers did. Typically the transplants import components & systems and then do final assemby here... 70% of the 'value' of a car are the components, little of it is 'final assembly'.
Plus all the really high paid 'intellectual property' and corporate jobs are offshore for the transplants as well. Think R&D, design, engineering, accounting, etc. Good jobs.
Now it is clear that GM & Ford are 'global' too - moving component work & design offshore now some as well... And Toyota appears to be moving more component work here... so in the long term who knows what the effect will be. But for now Toyota is still very mucha 'Japanese Company' and GM & Ford are very much 'American Companies'...
If we 'lose' this industry... it will be just as big a blow as if we lost aerospace or IT or medical technology. It is a major wealth generator and the assembly jobs everyone associates with 'automotive' are the bottom of the barrel in terms of importance... the frosting everyone notices when they see the cake... there is a lot more there than that.
This is likely if rates continue to move higher, but the mere fact of that will mean rates will soon stop dead in their tracks if not reverse, in my opinion.
Agreed, DF!
Hey, Kent, how old are you? You stated a few days ago that houses are only commodities. Well, part of what made America a great country was that people bought into communities and valued that highly.
Hey, Kent, you in a hot air and paper pushing job spot? Not producing and exporting? We don't need or want you all much any more after hemorrhaging the country!
You're morons if you think there has been "free trade" etc. by other countries. Japan, S. Korea, now China have not been letting our products in for years. Now, due to univs, air heads, and paper pushers as well as too many attorneys, as well as other economic traitors hemorrhaging the country...
Didn't you say your wife was becoming a Dr.? Americans pay far too much on so-called "medical" aka disease care! (Personally, totally disgusted and think only good for tests and cutting out if needed.)
We want Vat taxes here, import taxes on, and want proof of buying American made to have insurances (or Medicare use).
I find Leamer's prediction interesting. He is saying it will take more than a year after the peak for the bubble bust to translate into job loss. I wonder if this is typical of the "8 previous economic downturns" that were triggered by the housing sector. That would imply to me that new home sales will stay relatively strong for a year but price will moderate. Because to me, if new home sales and existing home sales both dropped sharply, I would expect weakness in unemployment to show up within two quarters.
Not sure if any of you saw NOW on PBS. They had a feature about the real estate bubble and interviewed Thornberg who basically explained the bubble in terms of pyramid scheme and finding a chair when the music stops.
I expect the 2006 Anderson Forecast to be bleak.
Alexis,
If what you want is to go back to the old good time in the 60s when having a manufacturing job would allow one income earner to feed a family of 4, buy a home, get health insurance, and expect a pension at retirement while enjoying an increasingly better lifestyle, I'm afraid that is not gonna happen, even if you create a VAT and tax the hell out of the imports.
The main reason is that what we can build for a certain price depends on how much it cost to get the raw material. And unlike the 60s, this time we have to compete with 2 billions asians who are getting increasingly better education and skillset.
I think the answer is not as simple as protectionism. Obviously a comprehensive industrial policy wouldn't hurt.
One last point. You seem to say that there has been no free trade by other countries other than the US. Let me tell you, there has been no free trade from the US either (although it's being sold to the general public under this term). The current trade barriers have simply not been designed to help the manufactuting sector. The effort is mostly going towards protecting intellectual properties. Microsoft, Intel, drug companies, the healthcare sector have benefited from this.
jl, not really gist what I stated.
Yes, to thinking that those who are given more brains and talents must have tested mettle for leadership, and also have a responsibility to their country and their community.
Although I strongly think that it would help U.S. to go retro doing without the plastic junk and foreign made junk for kids, and more.
Am totally disgusted with greedy boomers and their offspring as well as so many other types univs. pumped out of their outdated,jackass univs. They really screwed over this country big time! Moronic.
Now, more of cycle of obscene profits, but little genuine investment or development of products.
We're getting our butts kicked by mercantilist and nationalistic-based practices and the restricting of our products by Japan, S. Korea, and now China.
The end game is down, down, down while Americans are playing and gorging.
So, everything from professional fees to govt. employee retirements and benefits must be sliced and sliced away.
Geez Alexis, why all the hostility? Someone kick your dog today?
Dryfly, you're behind the times regarding the domestic design and content of many "Japanese" cars. With respect to the car I mentioned, the Toyota Sienna, I found this off familycar.com
The new Sienna is about as American as you can get while still retaining a Japanese nameplate. A major share of the engineering that went into the Sienna was done at the Toyota Technical Center in Ann Arbor Michigan while much of the styling was done in California. 90 percent of the components are from North American suppliers. The engines and transmissions are manufactured in West Virginia and the vehicle is assembled in Indiana.
Toyota trucks are manufactured in a similar manner and according to Edmunds, Honda's generally have 85% US content.
Like I said, if GM and Ford are in trouble it has to do with a lot more long-term factors than interest rates. Like perhaps squandering their pension funds? And of course they bet the farm on large SUVs and now with gas prices going back up they don't have any appealing vehicles. Meanwhile Toyota plans to roll out seven different hybrid models in 2006 including hybrid trucks and minivans. In a way, the cheap gas "bubble" that was driving the SUV market was as much of a bubble as the current housing market in some areas. It was inevitably going to burst.
Kent - I sell parts to those guys... I don't have to look that crap up on the internet... I'm on the phone with them almost every day... sheesh...
Toyota is the exception that proves the rule. The Japanese transplants I work with can't get ANY design support in North America - it all goes through Japan. I have parts now I'm waitning for action on and are in 'design limbo' in Japan.
Even most of those "American Components" for Honda are supplied by Japanese transplants like Denso with most of the design in Japan...
Toyota IS doing more work here as is Honda... but the strings are all still pulled in Japan... The best jobs are all in Japan. The head design guy they mention in that article you posted... Japanese... as are most of their management here... brought in on visa. BTW that is my experience too - grunt workers & low level technical all US... well paid decision makers all Japanese. Not so at GM & Ford.
Secondly I have family in Ann Arbor - Toyota's presence there is tiny compared to Ford. GM is even larger (but not in the AA area - elsewhere).
You lose Ford & GM and Toyota isn't going to pick up the slack. Those jobs & wealth are GONE from this continent... and it will be on a scale in dollars similar to losing Intel or Boeing. Very serious.
You mentioned all those Toyota hybrids? Where are their hybrids made now? Japan. Where has all the development been done on them? Japan.
Is Toyota a better company than the US firms - yes, it clearly is... Is that Totota's fault - no... Does that make the thousands of US workers who will lose jobs when GM & Ford fail feel better about losing their jobs, their futures... not one damned bit. Will they move and get new good jobs? Hardly, where do they go & what do they do? Not everyone has a wife who is a doctor.
And I don't blame you for buying their products - Toyota has the best mfg systems in the world & I am mad as hell our business leaders are so stupid as to not see that it is important... but it still makes me sick when another huge domestic plant closes and thousands of families suffer... they often never get back on track.
I had to make the same decision myself when I bought Jetta diesels from VW... there was no US alternative and I needed the fuel efficiency... But I wasn't happy about it and I know decisions like this are going to cost this country... cost my own kids.
I agree interest rates aren't 'the cause' of the automotive malaise... but it will be the spark that will ignite the fuse... and it will not be good. Don't expect Toyota to save us, to make up the difference... the chances of that are about as good as GM saving the Chinese.
Dryfly:
I'm obviously not in a position to argue with you about the auto industry.
However don't get me wrong. I'm just as horrified as anyone else about the decline of the American manufacturing base. The country our parents built through their sweat during the WW-II era is being torn apart, sold off, and left to rust.
We can talk for days about where Detroit went wrong. But I think it's a symptom of a much larger problem in Corporate America--the loss of patriotism in American corporations.
I think there once was a time when many of the major corporations at least gave some consideration to what was good for the country and good for their communities when they made business decisions. There was a sense that good solid profits and growth was good enough. Companies looked out for their employees and their communities. Those days (if they ever existed) seem long gone. How many corporations have fled to the Bahamas to evade US taxes and then showed back up the next day with their hands out looking for government contracts funded by the taxes they refuse to pay? Look at the war profiteering that's going on in Iraq. You think Truman would have tolerated that during WW-II? Look at the manufacturers who can't move to China fast enough and the service companies who can't move to India fast enough. Who do they think their customers are going to be in 20 years?
That's why it pains me to watch the utter stupidity and short-sightedness of companies like GM that who bet the entire company on SUVs and light trucks right when we were at the end of a long era of artifically low gas prices. Every day when I drop my kids off at school I'm dodging Hummers and Escalades that will soon require a 2nd mortgage to keep in fuel.
I know Toyota and Honda are spending billions planning for the day when gas is $5/gallon. And they'll be ready with products folks will want to buy. What will GM have then? Some sort of retro-fitted creaky SUVs with 2nd hand technology licenced from the Japanese? I shudder to even think.
We mostly agree Kent - lotsa convergence there.
BTW - I am a HUGE fan of Toyota & their mfg system... that is pretty much what I studied in my MS program. There is NO EXCUSE for GM & Ford to not be up to the same bar as Toyota... but they aren't.
It could cost our country & our kids their future.
Pax.
Kent, resent the phrase used to me about the dog! Never, never would hurt! Maybe due to some "projecting" on your part because I think American medical cattle system and doctors training & approach is lousy. (not unlike you think Ford and GM). Japanese live longer and pay far less for their medical system.
BESIDES, YOUR GENERAL SOCIETAL STATEMENTS AND THESE CORPORATIONS & THEIR EXECS. SHOW AGREEMENT WITH MY VIEWS!
Kent,
Ah, and, maybe stating my views of jackass univs and effects of pumpting out mostly hot air and paper pushers as well as too many attorney-Darth Vaders hemorrgahing this country; and greedy boomers and their offpsring and effects of.
Alexis: Peace OK?
As for your upstream questions. I'm 41 and have done a lot of things with my life so far. I spent much of my youth working on the Bering Sea on commercial fishing vessels producing crab, pollock, cod, and salmon for export. Had a couple vessels sink out from underneath me and one burn up. Does that qualify as a hot-air paper pusher? Worked on a lot of boats run by old Norwegian "square-heads" and learned that on a fishing boat there's the right way, the wrong way, and the "Nor-way" and that the "Nor-way" usually involves a whole lot of "Norwegian steam" (sweat).
After finally realizing that the life at sea in Alaska is really one of borrowed time and seeing too many guys get chewed up or killed I went back to grad school in fisheries management and got a job working on commercial fisheries management for NMFS. Until moving down to Texas I was most recently working with the fishing industry to put together harvesting cooperatives to eliminate a lot of the wasteful and dangerous competition that was dragging down the industry. Too many boats chasing too few fish ends up wasting a lot of resources, killing a lot of fishermen, and not making anyone very much money. Now I'm in the private sector working as a consultant for the fishing industry and NMFS. Working with industry to navigate the regulatory maze and working with NMFS to design cleaner and simpler regulations.
As for the US medical education system? You've got no argument with me. I've seen what it does to my wife to work endless brutal shifts. She just got off call this evening (Sunday) and she's been working straight since leaving the house at 5:30 a.m. Saturday. She works in a public clinic and the stories she tells about all the attempted medicaid and disability fraud are eye-opening. Last week she was nearly assaulted by the furious nephew of a medicaid patient for whom she denied a claim for an electric wheelchair. The guy was a complete little hood and no doubt that wheelchair would have ended up on ebay 10 minutes later to either fund his drug habit or muscle car. And of course the number of people walking in with fake injuries trying to scam disability claims is breathtaking.
Cheers - K
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Thanks,
Do