School construction?!? That's not what ails public education, and it isn't the federal government's role. Are we really going to be planning cafeteria and bathroom layouts from Washington, DC?
Construction jobs are fine but they only cover a small segment of the economy, even with the knock on effects and suppliers.
In the late 19th century the military would only buy domestically produced items as a way to foster critical industries. We should think of applying similar policies to any stimulus package. Perhaps it could be done as a percentage set aside like the minority business incentives.
Oh yeah, "use it or lose it." That's AFTER the 6-year environmental impact review, right?
cassandra | Homepage | 12.06.08 - 5:23 pm | #
Depends on what they are funding - a rechannelization of the Mississippi - then yes, it will take years of study. Grants for new windows & a furnace for some run down inner city or rural schools? Or a new computer network? Can probably start putting them in in February.
"We need to upgrade our federal buildings by replacing old heating systems and installing efficient light bulbs. That wont just save you, the American taxpayer, billions of dollars each year. It will put people back to work."
Sue (Capital S)(Unrated) writes:
Sewer systems!!!
Sue (Capital S) | 12.06.08 - 5:12 pm | #
I'm sure there will be grants for some of those too - at least I hope so. We are all downstream or down wind from somebody. Living on the big river and seeing crap float by you learn that early in life.
It is a testament to Obama's constitutional scholarship . . .
I'll take his scholarship over a President who ignored fundamental aspects of that Constitution, did his best to repeal the Bill of Rights and tried to make himself the King of the U.S.A.
EEngineer, I think I disagree. It's been the enduring assumption of this site that construction jobs underpin a HUGE segment of the economy. Building giant houses failed. Building infrastructure - not just roads - could be a better way to go. After all, the economy has collapsed. We are at liberty to think BIG. In fact, we must think big. People are going to die because of Bush's economy. That of course was always the case in human history - but not recently. If we are reverting to the norm - economic problems mean the US population will die - I'd like to hear more about it.
Not this "infrastructure" BS again. Oy vey. I had unreasonably higher hopes for an intelligent new el Presidente, and alas I have not been disappointed. Whats that line "meet new boss, same as old boss".
Just goes to show that stupid comes in the current package, as well as the new one.
Anyone who reads this blog has heard me say over and over that this IS NOT THE 1930'S. "Infrastructure" as defined will take two-three years to START. Economic impact in five. I truly think we will call the shantytowns Husseinervilles, as this man will be (apparently appropriately) relegated to Herbert Hoover part deux.
Christ, how about a little creativity from Washington for once?? A pledge to recycle shouldn't apply to ideas.
What a bunch of disconnected stooges we elect cycle after cycle.
Jan 20 is a long time away, and nothing is gonna happen on Jan 20 except parties.
Obama is making it up as he goes and saying what he has to say to keep people from panicking and to try to hold the stock market together week by week.
What will really be done in March-May or whatever will be much more focused on what really ails the U.S., like horribly expensive and inefficient health care and TOO MUCH DEBT that's dragging everybody under.
Well, almost everybody.
Obama has to enhance the value of assets and reduce the value of debts.
Last time I was in a store looking at compact fluorescent bulbs they were all...and I mean ALL (GE, Sylvania, Philips, no-name etc) made in...you guessed it...China.
Even if a lot of projects don't get done right away, this program will give businesses reasons to keep investing in relevant plant and equipment, or simply give them a reason to try to stay in business for the next several months.
we've been focused on institutional work in our A&D and C shops for a couple of years now and are positioned well to catch this gravy train. Specialized green school builders we are!
Dear God,
Just keep the 5 year yields low til march and then hook me up on this gravy train from the feds, and I promise I'll vote for you in the future.
Krugman has convinced me that stimulus, right now, and a lot of it, is the way to go. I know a lot of people disagree, but the only other option seems to be let things melt down. Have another great depression. I can't choose that option.
Jan 20 is a long time away, and nothing is gonna happen on Jan 20 except parties.
rich, Congress is already working on the legislation and hopes to present it to him in late Jan. There's a lot of pent-up demand on the Democrat side of the aisle.
Personally, I was hoping for some high speed rail.
"Second, we will create millions of jobs by making the single largestnew investment in our national infrastructure since the creation of thefederal highway system in the 1950s. Weâll invest your precious taxdollars in new and smarter ways, and weâll set a simple rule â use itor lose it. If a state doesnât act quickly to invest in roads andbridges in their communities, theyâll lose the money."
Do we have a large enough supply of illegal day laborers to do this?
Obama has to enhance the value of assets and reduce the value of debts.
rich | 12.06.08 - 5:31 pm | #
No rich - by March it will be jobs, jobs, jobs... only a handful will worry about 'assets' - those eight people who still have them. Everyone else & their brother will be worrying about jobs - if they aren't already.
Anyone care to comment on the unintended consequences of the "investments" in the interstate highway system? Such as Urban Sprawl and its coincedent ills, Omnibus Transportation bills that violate basic tenets of federalism and are filled with pork. Not saying highways are bad, just that there are always unintended consequences.
Harsh Realty(Unrated) writes:
p.s. I have a great idea. Let's pave all the rivers!
Harsh Realty | 12.06.08 - 5:31 pm | #
Farm state senators have been lobbying for this for decades - aggressive channelization of the Mississippi to increase the channel depth for larger heavier loaded barges.
Just what the flood prone cities along her banks need - bigger pipes.
we've been focused on institutional work in our A&D and C shops for a couple of years now and are positioned well to catch this gravy train. Specialized green school builders we are!
I am with you 100%, as I am in the biz as well. I will keep ringing the register happily, but the effect on the nation will be minimal at best, while tying up massive portions of budget dollars but not really spending them for years.
An engineer or architect will be covered up with work (.005% of the labor required to build anything), but the ones who need it, the plumbers and drywallers, well, maybe they can just wait a couple years in a tent for the job to start.
Just give everybody 200 a week and forget the bridge, net effect is the same short term.
maybe in ten years we can match Singapores current infrastructure and education standards. they'll still be ten years ahead of us by then...
And maybe they will win a Nobel Prize by then.
They have a special parking lot at UC Berkeley for the prize winners.
Singapore is a police state, where nothing of importance is generated, except greed and intolerance.
I have many friends who lived there.
Personally, I was hoping for some high speed rail.
Currently Accounting | 12.06.08 - 5:34 pm | # [kill][hide comment]
Nooooo... Hugely expensive with little payoff. What we need to do is double up every mainline track so that trains don't spend half their time on sidings waiting for another train to pass. That's what kills passenger service.
I hope Obama isn't thinking of making all these new jobs government jobs. Government workers don't change light bulbs. In fact most government workers don't do anything at all. That's why there are so many contractors. And Obama doesn't like contractors.
OT: Does anyone besides me think that maybe Fleck is closing out his hedge fund now so he can be near home with a bag packed and a flight plan to Paraguay pre-loaded on the G-V?
Sue, I actually think we're on the same page. I just think that the "same old, same old" projects are the wrong way to go. We need rails not highways. We need a long haul transmission grid or all the solar and wind power in the world is of little practical use.
"Krugman has convinced me that stimulus, right now, and a lot of it, is the way to go. I know a lot of people disagree, but the only other option seems to be let things melt down. Have another great depression. I can't choose that option."
Yes! What else would we like to do, sit down in the ashes and cover our heads with burlap? How many people who think we ought to let the banks fail, let industry fail are responsible for the national welfare? Standing on the side lines and heckling, bitching and moaning wastes everybody's time, including that of the hecklers. I wish I could read more constructive criticisms here, not only dirges and objections.
In a Trappist monastery (where there is silence most of the time) the abbot gives a novice his first yearly interview.
The novice says to the abbot: "Food bad." End of interview.
A year later the novice says only: "Bed hard." As usual, the abbot says nothing.
The third year the novice wastes no time: "I quit."
The abbot looks up and says: "I'm not surprised. You've done nothing but complain since you got here."
we'll still have tent cities and a depression, regardless.
there will likely be shortages as the shipping and LOC trade constriction remains and inventories decline. there will be a lag even after that corrects in some unknown time frame.
debt destruction will continue.
our sovereign debt rating may adjust after the bond collapse, the dollar will lose value and we will have to negotiate our debt with our creditors as we did with france, or default.
still, countries that invest in infrastructure tend to come out better than those that don't. it's a wonderful opportunity if we don't mess it up, too much.
Pavel Chichikov(Excellent) writes: \t"We need rails not highways. We need a long haul transmission grid or all the solar and wind power in the world is of little practical use."
I think they know that, EE. But you can't just let the highways go to hell and potholes Pavel Chichikov | 12.06.08 - 5:50 pm | #
Actually, we probably need to get busy deciding now on which highways we do let go to hell. We haven't the resources now, much less in the debt-squeezed future, to keep up what we have. Deferred road maintenance takes years to manifest itself...it is going to start rearing it's head as a big problem soon enough.
"It is a testament to Obama's constitutional scholarship that he knows of the Federal responsibility to do this, where I have never found that clause."
They will find it in the eternal source of all government fiscal power - the Commerce Clause.
Has Obama (Summers, Krugman) noticed that half of the workforce is female, and that jobs are being lost in service industries, not in manufacturing? How many of the 12,000 AT&T staff laid off this week will be suited for labor fixing bridges?
Senorito On-Topico writes:
Not this "infrastructure" BS again. Oy vey. Anyone who reads this blog has heard me say over and over that this IS NOT THE 1930'S.
Just because you say it "over and over", that does NOT make you right. It merely means you keep repeating yourself to the point of elminating any capacity for critical thought.
Anonymous(Unrated) writes:
I hope Obama isn't thinking of making all these new jobs government jobs. Government workers don't change light bulbs. In fact most government workers don't do anything at all. That's why there are so many contractors. And Obama doesn't like contractors.
Anonymous | 12.06.08 - 5:46 pm | #
They'll be grants - mark my word. Chicago will hire 'city (gov't) employees' 'cause that's what Chicago does. Wichita probably not - probably contract out to 'private business'. Feds will just cut the check for the state & locals to cash and demand proof it was 'spent'.
I don't know which is more likely to be corrupt - hiring city workers (patronage as to who gets hired) or contracting (patronage as to who gets the contract).
But money will get spent & if that's the goal it will be 'Mission Accomplished'. Your stimulus at work.
"Pavel, the unseen future costs of intervention are larger that the visible costs of allowing failure today."
Allowing failure can't and won't be done. How would you announce to the country that you've decided to let everything collapse? Aside from its being a rotten idea.
Holy Buckets, I haven't heard/read the term "information superhighway,' for at least four years (non-ironically I mean.)
Broadband access for all is a great idea. Now if we can just make 802.11n standard laptops available for everybody for free. Because as everybody on this blog knows, your productivity at work, coffee shops, McDonald's, and at home really jumps when you've got high speed information superhighway access.
And since pr0n is the most prevalent and common subject everybody is accessing, I'd recommend you go long San Fernando Valley bonds, teh Google, and Vivid's upcoming IPO.
The last stimulus check was around a $1000 per family and it cost $100 billion. Why not spend $700 billion this time and give every family $7,000? We would pay some bills and buy a few more chinese TV's but at least feel better about our lot in life. The new proposal from Obama will put a few people to work and leave the rest of us without a flat screen TV. Revolutions have started over less than that!
Subcommander Doom, yep, they are an awful police state, like italy under fascism, trains run on time, etc.
but they do have awesome infrastructure and education. wish they were democratic and not so scary, would love to visit if that were the case. if they weren't so repressive and allowed creativity and freedom, they'd likely get those Nobels, eventually.
EEngineer, I agree. I'd like to think outside the box, but I don't really know all that much. For example, I would think Florida would be a great candidate for a rail system. An older population, plus many immigrants, legal and illegal, who don't have cars. What's the situation in Miami? Orlando? Jacksonville?
But, really, my thing is sewers. If this initiative gets every sewer system in the US up to state of the art standards, I will be very happy!
Anybody seen an infrastructure job lately? Palatial new city halls. Eight lane freeways that replace four lane freeways that will, themselves, eventually be replaced by 16 lane freeways (all thanks to local zoning). Bridges to nowhere.
Inventory your local WalMart. You will find a cornucopia of things Chinese. Advance capital to those who will produce products of equal or greater quality here in the US.
It ain't the 1930's. In the 1930's we had industry, we were just too poor to use it. Now we have no industry. Reindustrialization.
Anybody remember Upton Sinclair & End Poverty in California?
I think they know that, EE. But you can't just let the highways go to hell and potholes.
Pavel Chichikov | 12.06.08 - 5:50 pm | #
Besides it doesn't take ten years and a battery of studies to put people to work fixing potholes. Again - cut the check on Monday, put them to work on Tuesday.
::::
Actually, we probably need to get busy deciding now on which highways we do let go to hell. We haven't the resources now, much less in the debt-squeezed future, to keep up what we have. Deferred road maintenance takes years to manifest itself...it is going to start rearing it's head as a big problem soon enough.
cd
Circling the Drain | 12.06.08 - 5:54 pm | #
I agree - especially in rural areas - you wouldn't believe the quality of a lot of roads and bridges to nowhere. Better than any city anywhere - huge cost to maintain to that level. Money can be better spent elsewhere & still be plenty 'stimulative'.
Which small towns would you like to assign to oblivion? \t Pavel Chichikov | \t\t\t\t12.06.08 - 5:56 pm | # Who said it'd all be small towns, necessarily? Much of our subdivision sprawl is served by low-speed roadway and close enough to larger roads that a couple miles of dirt road from the front door to the main road isn't "Oblivion."
That said, many smaller towns will have to be re-evaluated for cost-effectiveness. A small farming town that needs roads to move product to market may keep at least its main roads. A purposeless tourist trap like, say, Durango Colorado, may not.
Lots of places in the world are still served by dirt roads.
This is among the easier prioritization drills government will have to undertake in the dark times ahead. Way easier than questions like "who gets fuel, or who gets fed this week."
states can't print money, just tax, sell bonds and write IOU's. they will be seeing ever growing budget gaps. safety nets, meet falling knives. here's a current report -
The report comes at a time when states are lobbying Congress and President-elect Barack Obama for billions of dollars in federal aid to help states cover rising enrollment in Medicaid, unemployment benefits and the food stamp program.
A review of budget cuts around the country show that many health-care and education programs, which make up more than 60 percent of state spending, are already on the chopping block.
With our poblems, we really need to shake things up!
Save 30+ on a single payer health insurance plan. Those that are nervous, should be allowed to purchase umbrella insurance to cover what they fear most about...
I suspect things are/will get to the point that Americans will pick produce from the fields...Screw GWB and sec. of commerce Gutierrez, IIRC, president for a Soda co who was born and raised among the elite of Mexico (?).
Pull home our troops from all foreign bases throughout the world...The h8ll with the world.
When times get tough, the tough get goinging...
Whatever we do, we need to deal with the causes and come up with solutions that keep people employed...
Which small towns would you like to assign to oblivion?
Pavel Chichikov | 12.06.08 - 5:56 pm | #
As shocking as this sounds - more than a few of us in oblivion can handle a lot rougher roads than they can in the cities
CD is right in that respect.
What we need are good 'farm to market' roads. Even if they aren't perfect - as long as the bridges are okay & the curves safe - we can handle gravel & such.
Just need to get the equipment in and the grain out. They don't have to cost that much to do that.
A lot of the really nice rural roads are paved to get city folks to vacation out here - they don't all that much - rather go to Cancun or Orlando. Turn the rural roads back to F2M and be done w/ it.
We need an industrial policy over the next 30 years... The Govt should scale it so people have an opportunity to upgrade their skills, plan their life...
This bouncing around from one market/opportunity that is true for only 10 years is causing people to freeze in place. Who wants to lose work time, educational expense to enter a new field that is contracting...
"BTW Pavel - outstanding rant @ Pavel Chichikov | 12.06.08 - 5:49 pm | #. Keep it up.
Thanks, dryfly. I don't mind getting some things wrong. You and CD are probably right about the roads, except that there may be an underestimation of national resources and will in it. It's the long faces of the undertakers that I find not helpful.
Yeah, the bearishness on everything was useful as a wake up call. Time for that is over. Time to contemplate fixing problems. I met the hub at a Goldwater meeting--was too young to vote. What would Goldwater do? I don't think he'd hold a gun to his head for philosophical reasons. Somebody said that the constitution is not a suicide pact. Well, I don't think political economy is either.
These things swing back and forth. Right now we need the vital juices to be reinspired. Sometime later we will need the inevitable corruption to be solved. Despair is close at hand, and I agree with the religious types on this one, it is the ultimate sin. O is gonna do some stuff that is wrong, so what. We all do. Of course Bush with his govt dismantling--he did nothing wrong, hummph?
Excessive government spending on highways contributed to the decline of railroads. Since trucks did not have to pay for the cost of roads they could underbid the railroads which still have to pay for their tracks. Trucks also use more fuel than trains leading to increased import of oil and trade deficits. Increased spending on roads is not good and many roads could be abandonded. Instead of increasing road spending the gasoline tax should be increased to pay for all current road spending and not just the current one third of the cost. Increasing the gasoline tax should lead to more freight on the rails and less by truck which will reduce that wear and tear on the roads.
"We need an industrial policy over the next 30 years... The Govt should scale it so people have an opportunity to upgrade their skills, plan their life...
This bouncing around from one market/opportunity that is true for only 10 years is causing people to freeze in place. Who wants to lose work time, educational expense to enter a new field that is contracting..."
Yep, and this ripples out into every aspect of life, including family life.
.
lawyerliz writes: Ok, I watched Taleb. He thinks that other then CAUSING the problem, he's doing a good job at solving it.
Taleb was talking about Paulson at that point.
I still love the THUD coming from Charlie Rose's direction - and the stunned look on Rose's face - when Taleb said that things would be worse than Roubini thinks they will be.
AnnS wrote:
Just because you say it "over and over", that does NOT make you right. It merely means you keep repeating yourself to the point of elminating any capacity for critical thought.
AnnS | 12.06.08 - 5:56 pm | #
Oh oh. Looks like CR got recommended over Kos or DUh again. I recognize the standard pseudo-intelligencia buzzphrase's that crowd is so fond of.
Listen Ma'am, while not at all interested in outing who I am or what I do (and if you stick around a while, you will pick up that most here don't work at PetsMart),
I can tell you by being in front of City Engineers and P&Z commissions, Development Services departments and Public Utility commissions in the 6th largest city in the country, with the largest urban footprint second to LA, that I in fact actually DO know what I am talking about.
Do YOU know where the future transient and indigent housing centers are to be??? For my region, I do. Do you know what "depression level unemployment contingency operations plans" or (and I kid you not)or DUCkOP for short are in place for your locality?? I know about mine. These will affect over one million people if U-6 pumps to 30%, the best recent guess for my area.
Odds are one in twenty based on urban concentration and number of urban centers that you live where I live.
"A review of budget cuts around the country show that many health-care and education programs, which make up more than 60 percent of state spending, are already on the chopping block."
Heaven forbid they should cut back government employee staff and ridiculous pension plans (strictly a Cali perspective).
rich writes:
I don't think any of this will come to pass.
Had to chime in; strongly disagree. This plan is all they know how to do - throw money away on worthless projects. Our problem is we have too much infrastructure in the form of RRE & CRE! If we want manufacturing sectors to grow, then lets change our trade/tax laws. Let's replace the Pentagon military Keynesianism with an official MITI. Hell, it's 3rd world countries that need better infrastructure. Let's pay them back now with this money so they can build more roads and bridges.
i would love to see a 21st century solution for the huge numbers of soon to be unemployed IT, financial tech, etc. workers that will manifest. many will be stuck in place that can't sell their homes, if not foreclosed. putting them to work as labor is goofy.
simple and well crafted national infrastructure work projects that can be done from any CRT. a .gov webform skillz database collecting, assigning/selecting system is not tricky.
EE @ 5:49pm et al, I'd really like to see double & triple tracking & elimination of grade crossings so both freight & passenger rail can run at speeds of 100+mph over well-maintained track.
Acela's already giving the airlines a run for their money w/probably a smaller per passenger subsidy. With with a good public/private partnership (since the host RRs own almost all of the track) and investment in new rolling stock, the US could see almost every "short" trip(500 miles or less) between major & medium cities go by rail.
Pavel C., almost always I agree with your posts & find them useful but this time--regarding which small towns are sentenced to oblivion--that already happened to many many small towns, when the US decided to subsidize air travel big time (& over-regulate rail), subsidize the construction of an extremely costly interstate highway system.
There's a reason why so many cities & towns in the midwest are pushing very hard for Amtrak to increase the number of routes. They see it as a way of getting more people to visit & live in their towns/cities.
FL is also looking into more rail, as is TX (of all places, mostly northern & eastern TX), MT, and some southern states are pushing hard for the Sunset Ltd. train to run again between New Orleans & FL (route's been closed since Katrina, even though the track is fixed). Plenty of medium & small towns see passenger rail as a way of the town's doing better.
Single payer national health care program would be great. Almost impossible for me to believe that Congress et al could stand up to the health insurance industry & their lobbyists long enough to draft & pass legislation that did not subsidize that industry & big Pharma. Sure would be nice though, would make such a huge difference in how people felt (in terms of feeling somewhat secure) & how competitive the US was.
But what's improved global competitiveness worth when measured against continued huge CEO compensation, etc., in a given industry?
If we want manufacturing sectors to grow, then lets change our trade/tax laws. Let's replace the Pentagon military Keynesianism with an official MITI
The problem is not the tax laws. The problem is manufacturing costs are too high. Costs are too high because there's too much debt and too many promises made.
Here's the real fix - everybody on this board gets a 25% pay cut on salaries and pensions, house prices and stock prices fall another 30%.
But we're never going to hear discussions on what would actually work as long as the chimera of "infrastructure" lets everyone believe they can keep their existing paper stuff.
Representative Louie Gohmert (R-Texas) has proposed a tax-cut alternative to the bailout plan.
For the $350 billion second bailout installment Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson is going to request, every American taxpayer could have
a two-month tax holiday from both income tax and the Social Security-Medicare (FICA) tax.
. . .which--for most Americans--amounts to about 33 percent of your gross income. Furthermore, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has
proposed an additional $700 billion as a stimulus package.
That would pay for an additional four months of a tax holiday.
Thus, if you combined the Pelosi and Paulson proposals, you could create a tax holiday through June.
The idea being that the money and therefore the power could be put directly into the hands of Americans, and not into the hands of big gov't.
liz,
Probably an overreaction on my part, but I take everybody here at face value, and wish others would do the same sometimes. I get better info here than anywhere else, and sharing is caring.
You don't like my opinion or dispute my factual representation of my experience, fine. Just don't resort to linguistic masturbation disguised as intelligence. She could have said "You're retarded" instead of that over educated under experienced recent Masters from UCSD or wherever condescension.
I've watched Verizon's efforts to extend its fiber-optic system for some
time now. They employ 'contractors' and the contractors employ people of dubious legal status to dig ditches to accomodate the fibers.
With natural gas now below $6, oil below $40 seems to me the prudent thing to do is not further contract demand via 'energy efficiency' but to extend tax credits and tariffs on imported energy to boost the price of energy to ensure our domestic sources don't atrophy. If we don't the next price shock is just around the corner.
Finally, the private sector can best allocate resources. As ridiculous as it may seem using Ben's helicopters to pump up demand by pouring money into the economy is a much better way to go about this than increasing the public debt via fiscal stimulus.
Forgive my inability to suspend disbelief - but how is Obama's package fundamentally different from every other whack of spending I've lived through over the past 40 years?
No liz, not at all. Just felt compelled to clarify. FYI, your Google-fu is pretty good. But then when I posted AZ municipal bond rates last week, I think I gave up the ghost.
A duck walks into a bar and says to the bar tender "I'll have a beer".
The bartender says "Hey! where did you come from?"
The duck says "I'm working the construction site across the street".
And the bartender says, "Well why are you working construction when you could be making millions in the circus?"
And the duck said "What would the circus want with a brick laying duck?"
What are the things that need to be considered
1. Jobs that can be started quickly.
2. Jobs that can use available labor skills.
3. Jobs which will use some of the remaining US manufacturing.
And 4. hopefully jobs that will benefit US in the future.
So upgrading schools can use the laid-off homebuilders and maybe roadbuilding some commercial builders.
Info highway uses some US manufacturing
Med records a variety of skills especially I.T.
So smart mouths got a better list?
Eleanor Roosevelt "Chose to light a candle rather then curse the darkness"
Adlai Stevenso
O/T Question :
Hi, I just read about the attempts to bring Caroline Kennedy into play for Hillary's senate seat and have the following question : Does Caroline have any political career so far which may qualify her to such a position ( I couldn't find any ) or is it just her famous name ?
Figures. All the comments here, in the face of tangible ideas on how to get our economy back on track, are displaced into innane jokes--or revert to market fundamentalisms.
Doesn't bode well. Looks like this baby will devolve into full blown collapse for some time.
When most of your were still trying to talk the housing market up three years ago, I was saying to everyone that this is not sustainable and insane.
I see a point in the future where my knowledge at growing food ethically and ecologically will be in more demand than your expensive MBAs.
Lawyerliz - you mentioned the "spaghetti trees" on a previous thread. That was from a 1957 BBC "Panorama" show April Fools special. Fooled thousands of unsuspecting Britons, wanting to know where they could get their very own spaghetti trees.
I don't recall,...Do the current Federal buildings have "normal" incandescent fixtures? It wouldn't be a simple thing to convert any other light source.
So, Comrade V and Comrade Clueless Dufus, when you hear something that conflicts your world view, it's called trolling? Moi? How passive-aggressive of you both! Try to address what I said, if you wish, unless you're unable to do so, and resort to calling people trolls. No wonder Calculated Risk now has as many as 172 Visitors Online! Sorry, I didn't know this blog was just a place for Krugman (pbuh) worship, as opposed to genuine discussion.
And remember, keep it dull and pretentious, whatever you do.
We just came back from dinner and doing the almost last bit of Christmas shopping. This is not going to be bad retail numbers; these are going to be Armegeddon numbers. There are grown men and women who are seeing the numbers for their companies and crying themselves to sleep.
Obama may have plans now but they are not going to survive contact with the reality that is coming. I am in awe at the slowdown. There are some huge changes going on in consumer world.
Liz, you might not like my emotional response in the face of what I see as many stupid comments in reaction to Obama's tepid first steps, but I certainly don't enjoy being called a 'troll'.
Troll is a designation that comes, many times, from a type of politically correct group-think.
Growing species of fruit and veggies sucessfully entails understanding the legacy of the particular specie, as well as how this specie fits into the ecological niche of the place you are growing.
There are dozens of ecosystems, and distinct soil types, Florida alone.
Currently I am exploring the Chinampa system developed by the indigenous of Mexico. This entails growing food in wet areas, using vegetation to develop growing mats right at the edge of a canal or pond. This method allows one to grow food without destructive, energy hogging, modern methods of irrigation.
This speech was the most financially and economically vacuous presidential speech ever given!
New doctor offices and IT systems for all doctors and new sewer systems and bridges to no where plus a great new information highway!! What the hell kind of head in the clouds crap is he dreaming about??
Nova, for my part, I can only be heartened with the collapse of US consumerism.
Really, I mean that. This really couldn't have happened to a more deserving culture. My only hope is that the savages don't let disabled and elderly folk die.
Look, I am a mere farmer (worse, actually, I am a 'swamp farmer'). Most of you would see me at a store dressed in my dirty cloths--you wouldn't guess that I pay my workers middle class wages. And if you did you wouldn't respect it.
My first instinct is to question the wisdom of greed and the 'market logic'. I give yuppie market logic the bird--and I see most of the managerial classes as diseased monkeys.
I really think that there is a huge change happening under everyones nose. We just don't have the data, yet.
Most of these layoff announcements have not hit the job loss and unemployment numbers yet - these layoffs will be implemented in Jan-Feb next year. I seriously fear double digit U3 unemployment.
"the reality that is coming. I am in awe at the slowdown."
Agreed, and equally uneasy. On the Upper West Side, every retail store has huge sale signs, this before the holidays. Increasing numbers of empty storefronts, and very little foottraffic along Broadway, usually thronged this time of year.
It's the job losses, I think. Friend just survived the cull at Time Warner, ad agencies and magazines cutting, high-end fashion retail a disaster.
Steve upthread is right...infrastructure building will not do much for Manhattan's displaced...where do editors, writers, retail workers, many of them women, get a job running a back hoe?
I see a point in the future where my knowledge at growing food ethically and ecologically will be in more demand than your expensive MBAs.
Jim Rogers has been saying the same thing: Wall Street bankers need to trade in their Maseratis and buy tractors. Won't be enough farmers when the current ones pass.
Ask the world to relieve us of global reserve currency status.
I think we're on the road to making the change by ourselves. Did I say making? Causing. (Not that I'm opposed, but I prefer the transition to be gradual.)
infrastructure building will not do much for Manhattan's displaced...where do editors, writers, retail workers, many of them women, get a job running a back hoe?
fried | 12.06.08 - 8:19 pm
Well, during the depression they paid people to paint murals. I am not trying to flip. If I became unemployed tommorow I would probably have a 50% drop in pay. If I could find a job at all as I am on the wrong side of 50
"It's one of those photos that make you do a double-take. Dr. Jeffry Life stands in jeans, his shirt off. His face is that of a distinguished-looking grandpa; his head is balding, and what hair there is is white. But his 69-year-old body looks like it belongs to a muscle-bound 30-year-old.
The photo regularly runs in ads for the Cenegenics Medical Institute, a Las Vegas-based clinic that specializes in "age management," a growing field in a society obsessed with staying young."
""He's the man!" patient Ed Detwiler says teasingly, pointing to the photo of the doctor who, in many ways, has become his role model. Detwiler, 47, has been Life's patient for more than three years. In that time, he has adopted the regimen that his doctor also follows drastically changing his exercise and eating habits and injecting himself each day with human growth hormone. He also receives weekly testosterone injections. He does it because it makes him feel better, more energetic, clear-minded."
Bailout funds for steroids:) They clearly worked for Barry Bonds:)
"As the baby boomers march toward retirement, Botox, wrinkle fillers and hormones of various kinds have become big business. Medco's latest drug trend report shows, for instance, that human growth hormone use grew almost 6 percent in 2007. The list for age-defying tactics is endless. Want six-pack abs? There's a surgical procedure to create fake ones. How about drastically cutting your calorie intake to slow the aging process? There's a group of die-hards that swears by it."
"it is illegal for these kinds of hormones to be dispensed for anti-aging purposes"...ah..there's the catch.
After Layoffs, Workers Stay At a Factory In Protest
By MONICA DAVEY
Published: December 6, 2008
CHICAGO Scores of workers laid off from a factory here that makes windows and doors have refused to leave, deciding to stage a peaceful occupation of the plant around the clock this weekend as they demand pay they say is owed them.
Workers at Republic Windows and Doors, which laid off about 250 people, said they were notified Tuesday that the plant, more than four decades old, would close Friday. They said they were given insufficient notice and were never paid for vacation days or severance.
..
Workers blamed Bank of America, which they said had served as an important lender to Republic Windows, for cutting off credit to the company and preventing workers from being paid. Some workers carried signs and stickers criticizing the bank: You got bailed out, we got sold out.
A spokeswoman for Bank of America, Julie Westermann, said in a written statement that because of our client confidentiality obligations, we cannot comment on any individual clients situations. But Ms. Westermann noted, Neither Bank of America nor any other third party lender to the company has the right to control whether the company complies with applicable laws or honors its commitments to its employees.
Obama is right out of the Mouse that Roared. He ran for the presidency as the antiwar candidate from the left and never thought in his wildest dreams he would get elected.
Now he has... under the most dire circumstances that have nothing to do with his original 'issue'.
I give him credit, he is trying to govern from the center but the center is where Bush governed from. The center doesn't understand what is happening. Maybe no one does but if that is where your policy advice is coming from... look out.
Jim Rogers has been saying the same thing: Wall Street bankers need to trade in their Maseratis and buy tractors. Won't be enough farmers when the current ones pass.
Farming is the profession of the future---
(for the survivors)
"Over the past 20 years Congress has encouraged the U.S. military to supply intelligence, equipment, and training to civilian police. That encouragement has spawned a culture of paramilitarism in American law enforcement. The 1980s and 1990s have seen marked changes in the number of state and local paramilitary units, in their mission and deployment, and in their tactical armament." --Cato Institute (more below)
"We cannot continue to rely on our military in order to achieve the national security objectives that we've set. We've got to have a civilian national security force that's just as powerful, just as strong, just as well-funded." --Barack Obama, "Obama's Civilian National Security Force"
On Monday, December 1, a SWAT team with semi-automatic rifles entered the private home of the Stowers family in LaGrange, Ohio, herded the family onto the couches in the living room, and kept guns trained on parents, children, infants and toddlers, from approximately 11 AM to 8 PM.
"When most of your were still trying to talk the housing market up three years ago, I was saying to everyone that this is not sustainable and insane. "
You are misinformed...this blog has had the view that the bubble was unsustainable...as have most of the commenters.
You've taken the omniscient position that you know what "most" of the commenters here think and believe..it's arrogance on your part and off-putting.
Well fried and steve, regarding the 'concern' (heehee) about the poor huddling masses of paperpushers, finance, marketing manhattan-style unemployed, i guess the answer would be "root, hog or die there buddy"
If the only jobs available to save them from starvation are govt sponsored infrastructure projects, then I bet they pick up a damn shovel and learn how to live through and ignore the damn blisters.
I do not know if it will come to that, but would not be surprised if it did.
Why worry so much about these types of uemployed workers being able to make do with such physical work, when no on really cares if the blue-collar unemployed wind up in a position of picking up that same damn shovel? Face it, the physical crap involved in the big projects can be a bit more intense than factory line work ( I have worked in a factory)
Oh, and Im a chick too, starving? Unemployed? Children needing me to suck it up and provide? You betcha Id grab that damn ol' shovel too.
Farming is one of the riskiest business propositions around. Not only is it capital intensive and subject to price fluctuation from the day the crop goes into the ground until the day the crop hit's the buyer's docks; you are at risk from fire, flood, pests, disease, plagues of locusts, drought, hailstorms, hurricanes, frost...
There are good reasons why in countries around the globe people leave rural areas for the cities at the first opportunity.
V,
it's stunning to see how many storefronts along Broadway in the 70s and 80s are empty. Many for more than a year...a year or two ago banks were moving in, but now, they just sit.
I don't go to Tribeca or the East Side often enough to have info...but townhouses for sale all along the side streets here, just sitting as well.
I'd like to know how the restaurants are doing...it's a huge part of the business/social scene here, and where a lot of discretionary dollars go. High-end catering is getting slammed with all the corp. parties that are canceled/not scheduled unlike previous years.
Unit472 - happened to me, but from a utilities company. Thought I'd moved to fully online automated payments and no physical delivery of mail but something scerwd up and they got shtty about non-payment. I'm like, I am willing able and intend to pay every bill on time, once I receive it... but I hadn't received one, and still didn't. Response, too bad fkr your credit score is going down. 18 months later the company decides that my house has been unoccupied and shuts off service without warning, and illegally pulled the fuse from my house board while trespassing.
The only upside was that there was some competition who set up a new account in 3 hours.
rsj, during the Depression men ( ok people) queued up to get jobs to build the Golden Gate Bridge and Hoover Dam. Thing is not all of them could do it.
A lot of people just can't work at height ( and it doesn't have to be 700 feet, 30 or 40 will do). Construction work isn't just physical it is dangerous. I was out a residential building project where a man died falling from a ladder.
You put a bunch of office workers out into that milieu and not all of them are going to make it.
Railroads not roads. More fuel efficient transportation, more energy efficient construction, installation of insulation and energy efficient improvements to buildings, auto plants to produce more fuel efficient cars etc.. We need to be smart about this. In the 1930s there still was not electricity or paved roads in rural areas. Many farms used horses. If we build roads and bridges but have not enough fuel to use cars and trucks on the roads then this is another blackhole taking the limited resources.
Bourgeois, white collar, tite assed white yuppie bitches. It's now your turn to suffer and struggle in your daily lives. Prepare yourselves, reality is a bitch
Obama is heading the right direction. The country needs job creation, stopping the rise of unemployment more than anything else. Well, except maybe universal health care. I'm disheartened to see how many people still don't get it.
just responding to your and steve's comments regarding the lack of ability of the females and Manhattan-style unemployed to do the shovel work, or adapt to employment that is far less sedentary.
Not that no one cares, but when it has been talked about here tonite it was only in regards towards those, not necessarily to the lower rung workers, like me i guess.
I sense at times, and not necessarily always, that it is assumed that the lower rungs do not matter in that regard, they came from shoveling, back to the shoveling they go hie-ho hie-ho but boohoo for the formerly comfy.
No disrespect was intended or nastiness. Just an answer to "what about the ones who have never done that sort of work"--i bet they either learn or starve if it does come down to infrastructure-n-shovels for all makework jobs.
"...it's stunning to see how many storefronts along Broadway in the 70s and 80s are empty."
Interesting post. The 70s are in the heart of West Side (used to own @ CPW & 94th back in the day when it was past the edge of gentrification). Never saw it as bad as you describe.
Visited Bay Area twice in last two weeks. No signs of slowdown in Palo Alto or Marina in SF. Took me half an hour just to get out of PA after dinner Thursday night due to restaurant traffic. NYC must be ahead on the downward curve.
Sorry to others for this anecdotal stuff, but sounds like SF and DC are the last urban bastions of prosperity
Fried, you are correct--the comment was arrogent, not true, and pretty stupid.
I do have a tenacious anti-managerial class bias, I admit. However, many, like Tanta, are damned decent folk.
However, it is amazing how people dared not question the positive feedback loop logic of those heady days. Truely amazing.
The guy that bought my duplex, right at the top of the insane bubble, he wanted to sell me my half for 180k. The place needs 20k to replace aging components. I explained to him that none of the families in my lower middle class neighborhood had seen anything close to a doubling in pay in the past six years. The guy looked at me like I was a freak.
Incredibly, I could have gotten financing to buy this place. Would have been a cinch. But today, I would offer no more than 65k for the place--and it would be impossible for me to get any financing.
This is insane.
I think one major works project that the Obama administration could and should engage is to develope low income, green housing in urban areas.
This could be done, but the ruling class would squeal like the little piggies they are. I could see corporate media doing hit-pieces on these projects, showing workers smoking crack on breaks, etc. You folks know how this game is played.
Since we trained a bunch of people to be bankers and financiers, where are all the engineers to design all this infrastructure. And if the project is not already designed then that will take time as well as getting any neccesary government approvals. There are projects in the hopper, but how do you suddenly speed all those up without putting more resources into the processes to get them designed, approved and built. We have a lot of MBAs that can deal in CDSs, MBSs, you name the paper money, but the building of things, we have shorted ourselves of the neccesary trained people to do it.
"No rich - by March it will be jobs, jobs, jobs... only a handful will worry about 'assets'".
If this is a 100 year or more credit-collapse, it's also too late to save jobs: demand is vanishing, companies are laying off and closing down so as to preserve both assets and the possibility of re-opening after the dénouement, and the credit-business contraction will take time. Solving the joblessness problem by 'creating jobs' is only stating the problem.
HP and his corrupt ilk may have temporarily preserved the financial bullwork, but his bazooka will go limp as earnings and investment yields drop to zero in the next few months.
OB may at some point soon face the more severe crises of uncontrolled layoffs, poverty, food and supply shortages and loss of medical coverage.
Y2K was a failed effort at stimulating a faltering tech-spending/credit structure, and greenbuilding conversion and hi-speed internet in this historic credit collapse will be a political and economic catastrophe.
But think of all the fun us white-collar-yuppies will have!
"Hey Phillip, watch me wack this under-educated ditch digger with my shovel inducing a 20 hp torque moment causing him to fall from that 40 ft trussel. If my TI-calculator is correct he will hit the ground at 30 ft/second at a force of 1500 Newtons!"
"Visited Bay Area twice in last two weeks. No signs of slowdown in Palo Alto or Marina in SF. Took me half an hour just to get out of PA after dinner Thursday night due to restaurant traffic. NYC must be ahead on the downward curve.
Sorry to others for this anecdotal stuff, but sounds like SF and DC are the last urban bastions of prosperity"
Hmm, Marina I can understand. But we live in BA and eat in and hang around PA a lot. I'm seeing a big slowdown in restaurants. Went to Stanford Shopping Center Saturday after Thanksgiving and it was very busy but no-one buying anything, just walking around.
Dropped by the Porsche dealership in Redwood City and it was dead, as in funeral parlor dead. Spent 10 minutes looking at cars and no-one even came out to speak to us.
Same thing Porsche/BMW/Mercedes dealerships at Automall, Fremont. 15 different dealers there, saw at most a single person at each dealer and most had nothing.
Layoffs are starting up big time here. Trust me it's gonna get bad here.
Dec. 6 (Bloomberg) -- President-elect Barack Obama will name former Army Chief of Staff Eric Shinseki to head the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.
General Shinseki is exactly the right person who is going to be able to make sure that we honor our troops when they comes home, Obama said during an interview with NBCs Meet the Press, parts of which aired tonight ahead of tomorrows broadcast.
Shortly before the 2003 U.S. invasion to oust Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, Shinseki told Congress it would take several hundred thousand troops to stabilize postwar Iraq, more than then-Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld had estimated.
Rumsfeld roundly rejected Shinsekis assessment, insisting the effort could be accomplished with a U.S. commitment of no more than 150,000 troops. He also cut short Shinsekis tenure as chief of staff, which critics of the Bush administration said was punishment for Shinsekis testimony.
If it's true that SWAT teams are raiding family coop farms, and protecting the interests of large, commercial farms, shouldn't this be alarming to us, everyone seems to be blogging right over this, but it would seem the govt is trying to gain control over our food supply?
Yeah I can imagine that some work would be impossible or difficult to do.
I dont like heights myself, and I wound up a bit desperate for money at one low point, so took a job as a roofer's helper. That was a scary and new world but i lasted long enough to make the paychecks I needed to feed my son and move on past that job.
The sense I took from the posts was that the formerly clerical, finance, marketing, more sedentary career people would be unable to even contemplate doing something like that, or trash picking, or holding the slow/stop signs for road crews because oh noes the poor dears just couldnt go from master of the universe, comfy deskjobs into physical work.
I bet they can do more than they ever thought they could if actually starving in the hooverville is the alternative.
Will it get that bad? It may. If a big giant works project is needed to keep families from starving how many would starve rather than pick crops, do roadwork, sort trash at recycling sites etc? Not many I say.
Being hungry makes many formerly unthinkable things possible. Hungry sucks.
All these people excited about massive public works projects...do they understand that the government is simply taking money from the people - money that would have been spent or saved in a million different ways, according to the judgment of the people who earned that money - and decreeing from on high that it shall be spent to build a whole bunch of stuff that those people may likely not have valued as highly? It's not free money, people. It comes out of our pockets. Personally I'd rather decided myself where to spend my money than have Obama sucking it out of my pocket and spending it so a bunch of contractors or a whole new generation of government employees can have it.
The fact that there is just no concern at all any more about budget deficits is, to my mind, conclusive proof that the end of this is going to be hyperinflation that destroys the currency and then destroys the government as we know it. Hundreds of billions, trillions, doesn't make any difference any more. The liberals are rubbing their hands with glee at the prospect of opening the government spending taps wide open.
Start salting away money in the form of gold, silver, commodities, and the tools and supplies of your trade, because it is a certainty that somewhere down the line any other form of savings is going to be confiscated through inflation or more openly through confiscation of retirement accounts, as has happened in Argentina.
Indeed PeAkcredit, this is structural not a repeat of some past recession.
You can ( or maybe could) have gotten
a job working as a coal miner, drilling rig worker or any number of decent paying jobs just a few months ago.
No one wanted them. I can't find people... YET... who want to work as customer service technicians for a gas and water utility. The work is not always pleasant. It is outside. It is low status. Doesn't pay bad though and its recession proof. We shall see what develops in my microcosm of the economy in the coming weeks and months.
"Jeff writes:
Excessive government spending on highways contributed to the decline of railroads. "
To an extent, this true, but the true culprit was union greed. Railroads don't run to the grocery store or to your house (not that you'd necessarily want them to, and as such, you still need a truck to ferry the goods to their final destination. The handling, largely provided by teamsters, is what made railroads impractical in the later hald of the 20th century.
YLSP writes:
But think of all the fun us white-collar-yuppies will have!
"Hey Phillip, watch me wack this under-educated ditch digger with my shovel inducing a 20 hp torque moment causing him to fall from that 40 ft trussel. If my TI-calculator is correct he will hit the ground at 30 ft/second at a force of 1500 Newtons!"
"Hmm, Marina I can understand. But we live in BA and eat in and hang around PA a lot."
POC, thanks for report, helps balance my quick impressions. When I asked friends in PA about housing, they chuckled and said that property now stays on the market for "a few weeks". Maybe they're in denial, dunno.
"Cynical Dude writes:
Forgive my inability to suspend disbelief - but how is Obama's package fundamentally different from every other whack of spending I've lived through over the past 40 years?"
YLSP writes:
But think of all the fun us white-collar-yuppies will have!
Yeah baby, bring it on! A white collar yuppie on a construction crew, hated by all, cornered in a dark, cold basement with no one around. I'm getting a fucking hard on already.
Yes. We went out shopping for a car today, following up on some e-mail. We got an e-quote that was nearly at the price we wanted, but too far away. Went to the dealership, spent a lot of time looking at the car. He offered at a price that was way off, higher than the quote we had... and then he proceeded to offer us a used quote at a "price we could afford". Of course I expected this so I walked out.
I told my wife that next week they will hit our price point on the used car, and in two weeks they will hit our price for the new one.
So, my income (through taxation) will be spent on:
Digitization of medical records
(Good, if it creates national standards and a national database, a waste otherwise.)
More roads and bridges
(What for? We don't need more travel = more energy consumption)
More money for school buildings.
Nice, but a near-total waste. I went to school in very cheap and simple buildings, and I can compete successfully, 40 years later, on the results.
Computers and fast internet for schoolkids.
Again, nice, but a near-total waste. There is no evidence that the development of critical thinking skills is enhanced by access to computers or the internet. (Don't get me wrong, I love my computers and internet. I just don't think there's good unbiased evidence that it is necessary for a good education.)
I wish Obama well, and hope the unemployment assistance delivered in the form of 2-4 will help people. But unless it's managed very well, I don't think it's a lot better than paying people to dig and fill holes.
"Anonymous writes:
a briton in swizerland inventet the internet.. just saying albama )"
The internet was invented in the US, and was formerly called DARPAnet. The WWW was invented in Switzerland at CERN, and this may be the source of your misconception.
We're already reading critiques here of the Obama Administration, when he hasn't taken office yet.
Even if it were perfectly clear what the next steps should be, no politician in this country has the power to declare policy by fiat.
Not only isn't it clear what the next steps should be, it isn't even clear what is politically possible. Nor do we know what the situation will be by late January. He's obviously trying even at this early stage to get the country to brace up. I find that encouraging.
Are there any feasible suggestions that might actually be put into effect, not delirious dreams like: 'Declare Socialism.' 'Let it all collapse.' 'Retreat to a cabin in the woods.
if it creates national standards and a national database
While I understand that a national health database will provide some efficiencies, I shudder to think of the possible privacy ramifications, especially if there is no way to opt out. Do you really want any physician or medical professional anywhere to be able to access that file?
Bubble thinking is alive and well in BA even with evidence to the contrary. The koolaid is still particularly strong in PA, Mill Valley, Piedmont, all the "fortress areas".
Prices are definitely softening in PA, Los Gatos, Los Altos.
It's just gonna take a bit longer to drop significantly. With VC funding drying up, no IPOs coming down the pipe, financial services dead, major layoffs coming I suspect even the fortress areas will be somewhat hit.
The koolaid drinkers here need a 2x4 to the head to see reality.
Basel Too writes:
if it creates national standards and a national database
While I understand that a national health database will provide some efficiencies, I shudder to think of the possible privacy ramifications, especially if there is no way to opt out. Do you really want any physician or medical professional anywhere to be able to access that file?
Basel Too | 12.06.08 - 9:15 pm | #
HIPPA regs already allow it in principle and in fact allow government officials to access your medical records under questionable circumstances. Too late to close that barn door, you just don't know it.
I predict los gatos et al will be down 50% from the peak within 18-24 months. I've been tracking the data for some time and i think we have reached the tipping point. There is just too much supply and almost no demand above $1.5mn......
peAkcredit writes:
...Y2K was a failed effort at stimulating a faltering tech-spending/credit structure...
Nah, I can assure you that Y2K was a real risk.
Lots of old (assembler- !)code around deep deep embeded in large software packages and with probably a few bits too short to capture any date beyond 1999. And nobody knew that old code anymore. Remember Alan Greenspan wrote software (probably in the 60'S) that was still around Jan. 2000 ! Nobody who wrote code in the 60's could imagine in his wildest dreams that his code would still be around 40 years later, so nobody cared to make the fields for dates large enough to capture years 2000/2000+ . Was a real technical risk!
YLSP writes:
9:06
Yeah, the tell is we speak english... or is Obama going to go through with the amnesty program saying "Americans won't rebuild our country"?
Amnesty was the idea from the Republican pigs to further reduce labor costs. Obama has stated many times, those here illegally will go to the end of line after applying. E-verify will be applied to fill these jobs, bank on it
Obama, Dude wise up!! get rid of your economics team and let the banks fail, ALL of them. Send those pr*cks to jail....ALL of THEM....Read FDR's diaries in the early 1930's and when he mentions how the money men will DESTROY EVERYTING...THEY'LL TELL the GOVERNMENT THAT THE WORLD WILL END UNLESS WE BAIL OUT TRHE BANKS....and then they'll keep their mouth's shut for a few years.. finally....THEY'LL come out when the danger has passed and ARGUE that the PROBLEm the WHOLE TIME WAS government intervention....LET THEM ROT, DUDE...."
Basel Two- what do you think your insurance company has?
Uh, comprehensive records. I would trust the government not to screw me before I trust the likes of Aetna and some of the really crappy providers.
UHC for instance.
But hey, they will get that anyway since all the docs take medicare and the state healthcare for the indigent.
Well Pavel I guess a feasible suggestion I have is to think small.
Do very best to position self to be able to take care of family and first obligations, then as ability permits to widen the circle. To friends and family, local community.
Make a strong web in a small place. If enough small webs are made then the community looks a bit wider, to help and assist and so on.
Instead of individuals moaning about obama, or hoping he (or any other larger organization) can "lead" out of this sinkhole, or suffering about a 'lack of leadership' becoming your own little leader instead of relying on a capitol L leader.
I think that is what will help the most, focusing on the little things directly around each of us and making it strong enough to last for one more day, then one more day more, while making it a bitbetter each day as well.
Had an unrelated to this post thought. The bluer-collars v. the deskbound and wondering if OMG they can actually DO work, kind of the reverse attitude I recieve from them. My writing sucks, my lack of college, my total lack of a resume (long list of junk jobs) makes office people think I am incapable of functioning in their world. hmmm. neat, something to natter over.
There's a developing exhaustion on this board with negative observations. About time the dynamic changed! (BTW, this is a good sign. When a group of perspicacious people distinguished by their certainty of a major economic downturn coming get tired of focusing on the negative, I think we are looking at the first glimmer of light....)
So, I'll balance the criticism I made of the road and school spending plans of the new Admin. with things I think really would help.
We need a lot of future economic growth to help pay for the baby boomers' future retirement. To generate the required productivity growth will require young people today to become better (a) educated and (b) more entrepreneurial.
How do you improve education? Not buildings or computers. Better teachers is the key. And for that we need a system that accords teachers power and respect, in the classroom and in society, and constantly and ruthlessly pushes out the weakest teachers every year.
How do you help people become more entrepreneurial? I don't know, but if Obama were to announce a program to apprentice the most promising kids, of all backgrounds, to volunteer entrepreneurs, I think he would get a good response. People know we need to do more to help our society to improve, and not just through tax dollars.
The housing mania was in full swing in 2005 when analysts at Moodys Investors Service, the nations oldest and most prestigious credit-rating agency, were pressured to go back to the drawing board.
Moodys, which judges the quality of debt that corporations and banks issue to raise money, had just graded a pool of securities underwritten by Countrywide Financial, the nations largest mortgage lender. But Countrywide complained that the assessment was too tough.
The next day, Moodys changed its rating, even though no new and significant information had come to light, according to two people briefed on the change who requested anonymity to preserve their professional relationships.
Given the scale of the rest of the economic and financial disaster we are going through and about to encounter, in so many countries, this just looks to me like the sound of confusion, a la excellent thread music:
"Well Pavel I guess a feasible suggestion I have is to think small.
Do very best to position self to be able to take care of family and first obligations, then as ability permits to widen the circle. To friends and family, local community."
Nothing wrong with that. It's obviously right. The chief executive of the most powerful country in history has to come up with something a bit more universal. : )
My concern is what happens if the patient decides to opt out of the system, i.e. pay for a procedure personally without insurance or government?
Will any new medical records system allow that, or will there be restraints on the physician? (i.e. you accept Medicare so you have to be electronic)
Basel Too | 12.06.08 - 9:26 pm | #
The current system allows duly appointed government representatives to demand ALL the medical records of any physician who accepts Medicare whether those records are of Medicare recipients or cash only patients. You can not opt out if your doctor takes government money, period.
"Will any new medical records system allow that, or will there be restraints on the physician? (i.e. you accept Medicare so you have to be electronic)"
All you need to do is request a paper copy of your records. I've done this myself, and it was very easy.
It isn't as easy at that. First of all, today you have to do a background check. Service techs go into people's
homes. Can't hire convicted felons or even people with misdemeanor theft type offenses.
Then you have to train them. Lot of young people have unrealistic ideas about what they are expected to do. Chatting on a cell phone or surfing the internet is not part of their job description. Then you get to the technical part of what they need to know. Its dull but important.
Then they have to deal with the 'public' and remain polite. That is probably the most difficult thing.
No, its not easy finding good workers
today and they should be paid more for the crap they have to do and put up with.
"While I understand that a national health database will provide some efficiencies, I shudder to think of the possible privacy ramifications, especially if there is no way to opt out. Do you really want any physician or medical professional anywhere to be able to access that file?
Basel Too | 12.06.08 - 9:15 pm | # "
I don't want anyone accessing my medical records, Basel 2, without my explicit permission. Limited exceptions if I am in a coma.
Today, we report our incomes to the SS admin, and to the IRS. We expect privacy and, for the mot part, get it. So I think it's possible, and I'd prefer the broad benefits for health care in general over the limited problems associated with privacy slip-ups.
Basel, you suffer from the egotism that you are important enough that anyone would care that you caught the clap from the roadhouse restroom toilet seat.
Nobody care whatsoever. The ultimate fantasy is that somebody is going to use this information.
We can't even begin to make sense of the information we freely have. Why do we spend so much money on folks who are 89 years old, suffering CHF, getting multiple stents, hospitalization, rehospitalization, multiple tests, etc, when the humane treatment would be hospice and palliative care?
Spare me the big brother, we can't even target at-risk youth adequately or provide school lunches efficiently.
"Werner writes:
O/T Question :
Hi, I just read about the attempts to bring Caroline Kennedy into play for Hillary's senate seat and have the following question : Does Caroline have any political career so far which may qualify her to such a position ( I couldn't find any ) or is it just her famous name ?"
The only specific requirements are to be 35, and either be elected by your state or selected by your Governor.
"How do you help people become more entrepreneurial? I don't know, but if Obama were to announce a program to apprentice the most promising kids, of all backgrounds, to volunteer entrepreneurs, I think he would get a good response. People know we need to do more to help our society to improve, and not just through tax dollars."
I think it's something that might happen, and has probably occurred to other people. I think it may often happen informally.
I can't imagine, though, what it must be like to face the job of administering the largest economy in history, an economy which happens to be in trouble.
Not everything will be done at once, and false starts will be made. The magic wand will require tuning.
Good question re: how relegating to oblivion occurs. I would guess that some of it will depend on county & state budgets (how much either/both to pay for road maintenance). John R. Stilgoe, in "Train Time, Railroads & the Imminent Reshaping of the United States Landscape" (2007) has, in chapter 8, an interesting discussion of the interaction between development of/increasing use of unit trains, huge grain/loading facilities (as opposed to local grain elevators), & loss of local spur lines, has led to a great increase of costly rural road maintenance requirements (more big trucks)--one estimate he quotes is that abandoning 4 short line RRs would cost $57.8 million in increased road maintenance or "In Kansas, grain-hauling trucks owned by farmers, contract truckers, and grain elevator co-ops do about $7.15/truck per mile damage to the roads they travel. Every mile of short-line railroad abandoned tomorrow would cost $34,000 annually today, and much more in the years ahead." (p. 183).
Some journal articles are cited at the end of the chapter, but no date given, so I don't know when the costs (fuel, asphalt, labor) per truck mile were calculated & if they'd be more or less today.
If counties can no longer afford road maintenance, then some towns might flourish as short spurs & local elevators are rehabbed, while others fade because maintaining the road for truck traffic purposes isn't affordable any longer. Others might find other ways to survive.
Dryfly might know a great deal about the role of freight rail, unit trains, etc., in his industry & his part of the country. I'd think there'd be differences from state to state, depending partly on size but also how a given state has dealt with its RR infrastructure, the freight RRs that operate w/in the state & abandoned RR rights of way.
And some survival will depend upon ability to obtain pork barrel (see Ted Stevens & Alaska)
Citizen AllenM writes:
Basel, you suffer from the egotism that you are important enough that anyone would care that you caught the clap from the roadhouse restroom toilet seat.
Flat out bunk- most folks are not cut out to be entrepreneurial. You know why?
Loss hurts too much.
They have so little relatively that they don't want to risk what they have.
Why are they so loss averse?
Um, could it be all of the scammers on and off wallstreet that promise so much and deliver so little?"
Citizen AllenM, I am sorry you've suffered at the hands of others. But you don't have to forgive them to realize that raising a new generation to be devoid of energy or hope or appetite is not good.
I think we should do what we can to make a better life for younger folks, for their sake and ours.
Unit 472-
You should be looking at the kids who are 18 and liked auto shop but totally sucked at academics. You should run intense 6 week training to bring them up to speed.
For simple jobs you make employees. There are plenty without records sleeping on couches. I suggest you target kids who can't pay for community college and are dropping out.
Unless you are paying less than McDonalds- are you?
If so, you need some serious help- if you pay less than the cable TV installers-same fricking problem - btw you should be able to poach some of them.
Hahaha yes I agree Pavel, President Obama will have to be more universal.
Until he takes the reins though all he can do is jawbone. I thought you meant something positive that each of us can do, that is why i was talking about small.
I guess what I was reacting to is the fact that so many have placed such hope in this one man, this one leader, to say, do and choose exactly the right thing to make all the bad things go away and the land of milk and honey to return.
No one leader can do that, and putting the hopes outside ourselves (oh if only someone would DO SOMETHING) is not only the road to dashed hopes, but puts off the fixing. I am starting to really believe that no matter what leadership tries, it is going to come down to each individual.
Are they going to individually rebuild a sense of responisiblity and community and connection? Or wail and wait until someone else 'fixes' it?
I have done that myself. Now that I am getting older, I realize how lazy it was, and made it possible for me to be smug and self-righteous at the same time I contributed nothing to changing it, or keeping it from going off track.
"We can't even begin to make sense of the information we freely have. Why do we spend so much money on folks who are 89 years old, suffering CHF, getting multiple stents, hospitalization, rehospitalization, multiple tests, etc, when the humane treatment would be hospice and palliative care?"
My mother in law, a very sweet person who was well loved, probably lived an extra year of life because of the care she got, and it was a precious year. We don't have to abandon the old on medical ice bergs and let them drift out to sea. What would we think of ourselves? What sort of people would we be? We're not that desperate.
Jeez, I go out on a nice Saturday to adsorb kultur and I come back and find the whole friggin' blog needs to be retrained.
Gotta hand it to Obama, he's already made the first hurdle. He's even got even the smart people here only talking about what to do rather than the real questions of "should we?" and "who should?" Then he's even got the conversations circling his preferred very public choices.
Yeaah, just what we need; centralized planning, stronger federalism, more debt, higher taxes, intrusion further into the economy, crowding of capital, choosing winners, pitting municipalities and states against each other, all to build things that have a proven track record of dragging down the economy like municipal edifices and public rail transit.
For but one example; Public rail transit has a negative ROI. not fractional, negative. Operational subsidies alone are several times the economic benefits. That's after the billions in sunk capital costs and the economic disruption in addition to the capital crowding out mentioned above. If the idea is to burden future generations I can think of nothing more effective than "investing" in public transit.
"No one leader can do that, and putting the hopes outside ourselves (oh if only someone would DO SOMETHING) is not only the road to dashed hopes, but puts off the fixing. I am starting to really believe that no matter what leadership tries, it is going to come down to each individual.
"Are they going to individually rebuild a sense of responisiblity and community and connection? Or wail and wait until someone else 'fixes' it?"
Yes, each individual, but not each individual alone. That would be anarchy.
patient, I didn't suffer- but do you know how many I have seen suffer?
My grandmother got her money out of American Continental just in time- do you realize they upsold those bonds across the counter at Lincoln Savings?
I ate lunch with folks who lost most of their lifesavings.
Am I bitter, a little, but the suffering from the failures of regulation is real, and now the morons who have allowed it will once again sit there and spew the pablum about the freemarkets as they lose their precious scamming ability.
"No one leader can do that, and putting the hopes outside ourselves (oh if only someone would DO SOMETHING) is not only the road to dashed hopes, but puts off the fixing."
Citizen AllenM, no we pay about 3 times McDonald's to start but we have one more caveat.
As a regulated utility we come under DOT regs and that means drug tests. No dope smoking or anything else.
You see the problem now?
No criminal history, no drugs, show up on time ( you are essential personel and that means same as police or fire) and not have the same
respect ( or pay) that police or fire get. In fact, we lose personel to those agencies because, inter alia, we don't offer as generous a retirement package though 60% after 30 is better than most have these days.
"Yeaah, just what we need; centralized planning, stronger federalism, more debt, higher taxes, intrusion further into the economy, crowding of capital, choosing winners, pitting municipalities and states against each other, all to build things that have a proven track record of dragging down the economy like municipal edifices and public rail transit."
So what do you suggest? I'm beginning to suspect that when you ask people for practical policy suggestions it all gets a little vague.
But maybe I'm wrong here.
I remember having a conversation in a Moscow kitchen in 1991. The guy said: 'What this country needs is for everyone just to mind their own business, and not mind everyone else's business, and it will all be all right.'
This was just before the anarchy, the wholesale impoverishment and the crime wave started. People stuck their heads in their kitchen ovens and turned on the gas. Nobody stopped them. Glorious freedom.
I'm not against some infrastructure work but we had better be getting busy working on the energy issue and water problems. It it were me I'd be looking at infrastructure that moved vast amounts of water from places that have excess to farmland that is quickly drying out.
Pavel, there are folks who are going to improve, and there is reality that docs fail to face. I am personally aware of somebody who should most likely be heading into hospice care in that exact situation, and because the doc and family are holding out such hope he is essentially being tortured for almost no hope- he had a massive MI a week and half ago. Instead they go on about if he was ten years younger we would do a bypass, etc, so we stent instead. Well, the outcome is darned near guaranteed.
That is sad, folks should try as much as is reasonable- but in my mind they are way too treatment happy- quality of remaining life is a definite question.
I do not advocate the iceberg, but in reality, medical care should be designed passed age 70 to fix what is possible and allow the natural process to happen when it is not, and we should get rid of lawsuits when the very elderly die. You should read some of this blog: Dethmama Chronicles
Read a bit of her archives to show the medical establishment in overdrive.
That's it? CFL bulbs for schools? Road repair? Bridges? Energy efficient federal buildings? WTF?!!?!!!! Same old bullshit.
That is going to effect my personal economy by 0.00000%. Here's some news, Obama. There is a hell of a lot of service sector jobs in this economy that you're going to let wither on the vine while we continue the misappropriation of capital building f'ing roads. Guess what, genius? We shouldn't be continuing to subsidize car usage. For god's sake, have some balls and do something a little less brain dead like improve the rail system in the country and the powergrid. Instead we're going to patch potholes which is not a smart investment in the future.
How's that voting for change thing working out? lol
ahhh. No, not indvidually, but yes. hahaha. let me start over. One for one would be a horrible place to reach. When i say focus on individual small reach, I mean to strengthen the ties.
Take care of myself to meet my obligations to son.
When that is happening, re-connect with my family and friends, and neighbors. Meet my obligations to this small web.
As those bonds strengthen and my ability to contribute to a wider sphere happens increase the bonds and the web further.
Enough strong communities, towns, states lead to strengthened ties to the commitment to steering the usa.
Not waiting for some president, or government agency, or spending program to fix it.
Bottom-up fixing. Little leaders, all over the states.
"Am I bitter, a little, but the suffering from the failures of regulation is real, and now the morons who have allowed it will once again sit there and spew the pablum about the freemarkets as they lose their precious scamming ability."
Fair enough, Citizen AllenM. I see people every day who are selfish, who lie, who scam, etc. And some dear members of my own family suffered from the vagaries of our financial system. I am now taking massive losses myself, without having had the benefit of the gains most others had over the last 25 years.
But if we are to improve things, we need to make room for positive drive as well as probity, for appetite as well as asceticism, for entrepreneurs taking risk as well as prudent managers limiting risk.
If we don't tilt even more in favor of entrepreneurial activity, we will have low growth rates, and the baby boomers are going to have one very tough retirement. Not all entrepreneurial activity is bad. Without it our material living standards would stagnate at best.
So, give yourself room for your own anger, but I am just suggesting allowing room also for the younger folks to avoid damage from it. (I am older, and have no kids, in case you're wondering about my agenda.)
OK, we've already got an exurban experiment in light rail happening in North County, SD. Its called the "Sprinter", went live a few months ago, and runs from Escondido to Oceanside which for the folks listening at home is roughly an East West axis of about 25 miles. Basically, if you understand traffic patterns here, this route is roughly a 90 degree cross cut against where 80% of the population typically commutes and there is very little mass transit at either end, so if you don't live/work within walking distance of the stations, its useless.
No one who lives here can figure out why they built it. No faster than vehicular traffic, and it will not pay for itself - at least in my lifetime. But heck its fun, a little like a disneyland ride to the beach.
My take is that in 30 years, after future CRE adapts to this right of way, and employment assumes its existence everyone will agree it was a great idea. But living in the present, its a joke. Really.
Moral: When it comes to big "infrastructure", nothing we do now will affect our existing plight. But for those worried about the kiddies, it may help them.
citizen energyecon writes:
Was wondering why RD hadn't responded to his particular red flag...culture in SoCal - where do you get yogurt there?
Latin American Pre-Colombian Art at the Natural History Museum in L.A. where I am a member. And yes, traffic sucked because of the over budget, behind schedule scaled back light rail line under construction.
"Not waiting for some president, or government agency, or spending program to fix it.
Bottom-up fixing. Little leaders, all over the states."
That would be great. The Church calls it 'subsidiarity.' Nothing should be done by central authority that can be done locally. It's an ideal. But if it's not coordinated it can become chaotic, nor can it draw on the general resources of the country. Would your little leaders have the power to tax and administer the law? How would they relate to other little leaders? Who would govern locally?
You might find yourself under barons instead of Congress and the executive branch.
Regarding the whole infrastructure/interstate thingie....one has to remember the context and reason for building the system...to move troops/equipment across a VERY large country, if need be...recall, the system started being built in the late 50's.
A Muslim walks into a bar...bartender says, "Hey, Abdul,...why the long fez?"
Pavel, you asked for suggestions, well I made a BIG one earlier on in this thread.
If 'stimulus' is what is needed, and I don't agree that consumer or infrastructure driven stimulus is the right approach, then, fund it through FED monetary policy. That is, just print it and send the checks out to business or consumers.
Using fiscal policy the Treasury has to 'officially' borrow a trillion dollars and that debt is forever.
The problem is Obama needs to be seen as paying off his constituent groups and to do that he has to 'appropriate' the money. Can't just pour Fed dollars into the general
economy. He needs to send them to "HIS" interest groups. Therefore the need for 'fiscal' rather than monetary policy.
Thanks for responding to a gentle poke - that sounds like quite a cool exhibit - was it centered on Mesoamerica (Olmec/Toltec), further South (Incas and what came before can't recall this second) or...?
There is some roadwork here in Houston I can't wait to see finished, they may actually get some Highway 10 expansion work completed that is sufficient to the traffic load at the time of completion... now that will be a wonder!
patientrenter,
One of the problems I see is the current Cato meme of too much regulation- what I see is too little effective regulation.
We have all lost a lot of money due to ineffective regulation. Most of the losses from the last couple of months are from deleveraging hedge funds. Who provided the gearing heroin? Why our friends on Wall Street through that 40 to one leveraging allowed early in this decade by our current administration.
Gee, act surprised. I have literally hundreds of examples, but hey, I work in regulatory economics.
Look at the criminal acts involved in the real estate bubble- top to bottom.
A good metric is that you need effective regulation to deter or punish 5% or less of the regulated community- when you have more than that it is a patent failure of regulation due to corruption. That corruption is either legal (i.e. failure of the legislative body to provide regulation) or executive due to ignoring the existing law.
"I do not advocate the iceberg, but in reality, medical care should be designed passed age 70 to fix what is possible and allow the natural process to happen when it is not, and we should get rid of lawsuits when the very elderly die."
I'll be 70 next month. If I'm still posting here when I deteriorate I'll let you know how it goes.
We used to visit Soldier's Home in DC, and one of the guys there told us: "After a certain age [he was in his mid-70s] it's all replacement parts.
"The problem is Obama needs to be seen as paying off his constituent groups and to do that he has to 'appropriate' the money. Can't just pour Fed dollars into the general
economy. He needs to send them to "HIS" interest groups. Therefore the need for 'fiscal' rather than monetary policy."
You see him as a cynical opportunist? There are no legitimate policy reasons for what he proposes to do? There are no problems with 'printing?"
So here is an "investment proposal" for the board to tear up. I don't know how many people have looked at any of the "Internet 2" research projects, but one of the more mundane ones has recently been commercialized by Cisco. (although Cisco claims it is proprietary, it's all well-known technology.) Here is an abbreviated demo: YouTube - Cisco TelePresence
The only thing that makes this difficult today is the abysmal lack of deployed bandwidth outside of some universities, institutions, and a few very large businesses. So the infrastructure investment would be lay lots and lots of fiber, and buy a bunch of high-speed routers. Oh, and an investment in manufacturing to get the terminal equipment down to the price of a Tivo.
Practical telepresence systems and infrastructure could greatly reduce fossil fuel consumption, for starters. Far fewer automobile and airline trips would be required. And a lot less of people's time would be wasted traveling. The recovered time could add to productivity or leisure time.
Go ahead, tear it up. I'm interested in seeing the responses.
Nobody care whatsoever. The ultimate fantasy is that somebody is going to use this information."
I think you're wrong. This information is vital in identifying people with chronic conditions and refusing them coverage...including such simple things as a prescription for anti-depressants.
And if employers can access your credit reports, why not your medical records as well...health care costs employers a bundle...why would they want someone with a disabled or sick child?
Thanks pavel for the conversation. I have recently been having a bit of an internal crisis i admit i was one of the let it all burn crowd. So bear with me please because I am still working through this in my own head, so it may sound inchoerent still.
I see what you are saying about small kingdoms, barons etc.
And re-reading what I am saying tonite, I agree that is what it sounds like it may happen.
But when I was originally typing little leader I meant to step up, each person instead of waiting for A LEADER to fix it all. If each person stepped up, took a positive and strenghtening positon, bit by bit instead of fobbing it off on something outside themselves.
Joined a city council, write and lobby the mayor, make sure that neighbors had opportunity to know each other, to garden etc.
Nothing illegal, nothing kingdom making.
Small steps, to strengthen community, then state, etc. all withing the legal framework. Each person taking a stand to make a positive contribution without looking to someone else to fix it.
I am still working through the let it crash-ness vs being connected.
I guess I am assuming that as bonds strengthen, as people start taking action that helps no matter how small they will learn to expect internal leadership rather than looking outside for answers, they will contribute to the answer rather than sucking the life out of their leaders.
There is some roadwork here in Houston I can't wait to see finished, they may actually get some Highway 10 expansion work completed that is sufficient to the traffic load at the time of completion... now that will be a wonder!
citizen energyecon
That requirement; that there be existing demand for new capacity gives rise to a modern myth. The myth is that if you build more roads they will only fill up. Again, only because we build in places with so much unmet demand it gets overwhelmed before completion.
Reading the doomsaying negativists here is depressing, until I read RSJ and am persuaded that the country has many, many more optimistic can-do folks of her ilk who will-do. It's time to close my short positions and begin buying again...maybe a shovel factory.
You want to prosecute 5% of those engaged in criminal actions during the credit bubble!
Do you understand what the would really mean? No, not just bankers, real estate broker and appraisers. I could live and even approve of that but the real problem is down at retail
level.
6 million foreclosures let us say and half of them based on fraudulent loan
applications. You going to need a whole lot more prison guards down in Arizona.
Senorito On-Topico: Whats that line "meet new boss, same as old boss".
You mean... The dictator is dead! Long live the dictator!
Look at the bright side... After all the king's women and men fail to put the kingdom back together again, maybe we can live as free men and women. They pretty much have an all-star team of think tankers and other charlatan intellectuals. Their failure should cure the populace of their misplaced faith in the Almighty Government, which exists in the ecology of man as a terminal parasite on liberty.
Have seen some sh!t kicking high end setups at the oil major where I work - definitely not the 'home office' version, but the fossil fuel industry itself is already investing in the technology. It isn't desk top, TIVO priced yet but in a very capital intensive industry the business case can be made under the current cost structure.
sm_landlord writes:
Practical telepresence systems and infrastructure could greatly reduce fossil fuel consumption, for starters. Far fewer automobile and airline trips would be required. And a lot less of people's time would be wasted traveling. The recovered time could add to productivity or leisure time.
sm_landlord | Homepage | 12.06.08 - 10:07 pm
Amen! An investment in 21st century technology instead of early 20th century technology. When is it going to dawn on people that we have to invest in technologies that allow orders of magnitude savings in the resources we utilize? Better roads, bridges, and higher MPG vehicles is NOT where we should be focusing.
IMO, a really good way of encouraging entrepreneurship is to provide a safety net so people can afford to take chances. In particular, health care can't be tied to jobs if you want people to work for themselves. Because that eliminates everyone with a pre-existing condition. I couldn't work for myself if DH didn't get benefits through his job.
Our automobile based transportation system wouldn't exist without nearly a century of government interference. To argue against public transportation on these grounds deserves wide ridicule. Children learn that roads are funded by gov't in grade school - at least I did. Maybe some notable commenter here never attended. Fast, cheap, convenient public transit exists all over the developed world, and some of the developing. The public never demanded our present urban form; those with private power also ran gov't and centrally planned the rules and subsidies for an automobile dominated sprawling wasteland.
Unit472: fund it through FED monetary policy. That is, just print it and send the checks out to business or consumers.
Both business and consumers will spend only a fraction of it and will save the rest to pay off the debt or for a rainy day. One needs to force economic activity to keep the economy going.
For the first time in my life, I became politically active during this presidential campaign. I gave the limit to Obama and even canvased for him.
However, I am really concerned about the approach he is taking. We need to spend money on things that matter in the 21st century. That said, there is something else I am concerned about . . . I think we (meaning the US) are going to get one shot at getting this right. If this $1 trillion stimulus doesn't work, I don't think we will have the credibility to go back to the teller window at the Central Bank of China. I am concerned that the thinking that Obama is getting from Summers, Krugman, etc. is very conventional and perhaps inapplicable to the situation we face today.
I'm really confused. As far as I can tell, the net result of FDR's spending binge was another recession running into the end of the 1930s. With unemployment climbing, dramatically, not dropping. It appears things didn't get "permanently" better until the war boom (which started well before Pearl Harbor).
So unless there's a war that wipes out all our competition, it is less than completely clear to me how Obama's plan (such as it is) is going to matter given the underlying problems.
Sorry RD, guess again. TXDOT was in the habit of working each road mile sequentially rather than all at once, at the same time traffic was exploding along the 10 corridor (Houston avoided bubble price runups by sprawling and not having zoning). So they were always working on the highway and. What has changed is they got a clue and worked the entire expansion at once...
"medical care should be designed passed age 70 to fix what is possible and allow the natural process to happen when it is not, and we should get rid of lawsuits when the very elderly die."
70 is hardly the "very elderly". As always, who defines what is "possible"?
Fortunes are spent on preemie infants and those with serious disabilities...should care for them be deemed "not possible" or non-economically useful?
Is age your only criterion?
I used the phrase Holy Buckets all the time when I was younger.
On a more serious note. This Obama thing was just a message for the sheeple. It was (I hope) mainly not for us.
The light bulb idea. Funny. His team needs to improve quickly.
Me, I'd love to see the government fund hundreds of X prizes. We need to utilize private capital and our entrepreneurial drive to improve this country and create wealth and jobs.
Citizen AllenM wrote: "patientrenter,
One of the problems I see is the current Cato meme of too much regulation- what I see is too little effective regulation."
I wish that regulators had pricked the various bubbles we've had in the last 10 years - internet, housing, assets in general. But I am realistic. The temptations were stronger than us. The willingness of the Chinese govt and oil-exporting countries' govts to fund our trade deficit, if we would just buy more than we produced, was too tempting for nearly EVERYONE.
Can you imagine what would have happened if someone like a Paul Volcker had stood up an said he was going to send asset prices plummeting because he saw that their continued elevation sustained imbalances that would undermine our long-term economic health? There would have been an outcry, and two critical little trips he would have had to make: one to visit with George Bush, and one with Barney Frank. And that would have been the end of that.
So I hope we get better regulators, I hope we get better presidents, I hope we get better Congressmen, I hope we get citizens who don't expect to liquidate their investments in the future at a real value greater than the real value of the non-investment income they set aside to make those investments...
But the world will go on, people will laugh, drink, make love, make money, make goods, create, test, take risks ... We have to accommodate all that future activity as best we can, because our future wellbeing depends on it.
If we have reached the point that we have to 'force' economic activity ( and isn't saving economic activity) then we are doomed.
Second, one could make receiving a government handout conditional. For example, I have suggested the government 'buy' any car more than 5 years old getting less than 25 mpg on an environmental, national security and energy consumption basis.
The Fed could offer 0 percent car loans over 72 months if they bought a domestically manufactured car that got more than 25 mpg? Isn't that forcing 'economic activity' and isn't that just what Detroit needs. Not a loan but sales?
Thanks swampfella, it is kind of interesting being called optimistic heehee. Been following this bubble since 2005 just out of pure curiosity, I have no assets to try to protect. The people around me thought i was a doom and downer person as i tried to tel them of what I was learning, and what I really thought was coming down the pike.
40 years to figure out to just keep trying. Get up and keep going.
I am at the lower end of the wage and work scale, but still it is miles above where i was just 8 years ago.
I have been homeless and hungry and damn i dont want to do that again, I dont want my son to feel that. But I do know that it wont be the end of the world if it does happen, just a new crappier version of the world and I can keep getting up, and keep going and make it better if it does happen.
I am glad I am a small person. I can focus small. I wouldnt be president for all the gold in the world (even if qualified hahaha)
I am not saying it will be easy, or quick, or actually really work. Just that I have figured out that not trying, not stepping up is worse than laying down and being converted to worm-poop while still breathing.
I dont think anything right now is going to turn the storm over us now. It is going to hit, and hit hard. So if policy from above isnt going to help what to do?
Strengthen below, be small, rely on yourself, and rely on others, and let them rely on you and rebuild community into towns, into functioning wider areas, into states, hold yourself and those with you to better standards. Then poke your head out like a prairie dog and check how it is going out there--then link in and transform national politics from the bottom too.
I dont know anymore. From a crashnburn cheerleader to a darn kumbaya huggy freak. sigh. Damn I miss Tanta.
"Practical telepresence systems and infrastructure could greatly reduce fossil fuel consumption, for starters. Far fewer automobile and airline trips would be required. And a lot less of people's time would be wasted traveling. The recovered time could add to productivity or leisure time."
Enjoyed the demo (although a bit dated), but reminds me of the same converstaion we were having 10 years ago when based applications wer being developed (Webinars, etc.). Not a new concept, but another significant step. But here are two faults:
1) The whole WEB 2.0 and related ecosystems all assume "always on" broadband (which you partially acknowledge in the infrastructure investment) which is a nice goal but falacious in reality. Large urban environments, probably. Satellite offices where you are trying to encourage telecomuters, not as dependable.
2) More importantly, you will have to re-engineer the DNA of entire professions (think sales and marketing) who are gentically programmed to insiting on face to face to communications. There is something about the physical chemistry of inter personal communications that is is filtered out of electronic media, and sales "professionals" can not operate effectively without it.
But for engineering and similar collaborative projects, its not only a good idea, but inevitable.
CR ~ "As I noted last week, there aren't anywhere near enough "shovel ready" projects to offset the decline in private non-residential structure investment that I expect in 2009."
Get ready for GDII ...
These projects, while needed, will not give the needed injection of stimulus in time to halt the deflationary downward spiral we are now in.
But for engineering and similar collaborative projects, its not only a good idea, but inevitable.
Disagree. Good engineering needs face-time too. Some of it is because lab/bench/debug work is (a) inherently hands-on (ie, requires physical presence) and (b) goes much better when more than one (capable) person is involved.
But also because there is a static electricity like component to rubbing up against people directly: the quality of ideas generated by people in proximate contact with each other is generally higher than the quality of idea generated by people in isolation chambers.
There's no getting around it - we are a social, gregarious species, and achieve best when the work environment supports that.
Slave revolt,
I just caught your comment. Thank you.
What you do sounds fascinating, and vital.
Please post more often, the on-the-ground reports are great. I will do the same as things unravel here on the West Side.
Someone upthread mentioned water supplies...I follow this having grown up in upstate NY. The states and provinces around the Great Lakes have passed legislation that forbids piping water from the Lakes to other water-starved areas...I think it may not be peak oil, but peak water that is the coming crisis.
I heard Obama's speech, too, and have to go along with those who are more than a little disappointed. While I certainly don't expect him to have a comprehensive program all set to go, 30 days after the election, and before he's even taken office, the crap I heard was SO pitiful/lame, as to defy desciption. I understand he's trying to "rally the troops", but geez louise!!!!
proper, beats spa retreats for AIG...
Sewer systems!!!
how about investing it on children? because it's today's children who are going to be paying this back.
School construction?!? That's not what ails public education, and it isn't the federal government's role. Are we really going to be planning cafeteria and bathroom layouts from Washington, DC?
"We will make sure that every doctors office in this country is using cutting edge technology"
It is a testament to Obama's constitutional scholarship that he knows of the Federal responsibility to do this, where I have never found that clause.
"Are we really going to be planning cafeteria and bathroom layouts from Washington, DC?"
The end is here. From now on every single decision that everyone makes will require direction from Obama and rubber stamping from the Congress.
If you did not vote for Goldwater you are in no position to complain.
Oh yeah, "use it or lose it." That's AFTER the 6-year environmental impact review, right?
Construction jobs are fine but they only cover a small segment of the economy, even with the knock on effects and suppliers.
In the late 19th century the military would only buy domestically produced items as a way to foster critical industries. We should think of applying similar policies to any stimulus package. Perhaps it could be done as a percentage set aside like the minority business incentives.
Oh yeah, "use it or lose it." That's AFTER the 6-year environmental impact review, right?
cassandra | Homepage | 12.06.08 - 5:23 pm | #
Depends on what they are funding - a rechannelization of the Mississippi - then yes, it will take years of study. Grants for new windows & a furnace for some run down inner city or rural schools? Or a new computer network? Can probably start putting them in in February.
maybe in ten years we can match Singapores current infrastructure and education standards. they'll still be ten years ahead of us by then...
IDA Singapore - Infrastructure - Overview
only buy domestically produced items as a way to foster critical industries.
This is protectionism and it is dangerous thinking. (And it is inefficient) Plus, these are Chinese dollars we're spending. They'll demand their cut.
"We need to upgrade our federal buildings by replacing old heating systems and installing efficient light bulbs. That wont just save you, the American taxpayer, billions of dollars each year. It will put people back to work."
Look Ma I got a job changing lightbulbs!!!!!
More roads and bridges! Yeah, that will solve everything! Woo hoo!
Sue (Capital S)(Unrated) writes:
Sewer systems!!!
Sue (Capital S) | 12.06.08 - 5:12 pm | #
I'm sure there will be grants for some of those too - at least I hope so. We are all downstream or down wind from somebody. Living on the big river and seeing crap float by you learn that early in life.
It is a testament to Obama's constitutional scholarship . . .
I'll take his scholarship over a President who ignored fundamental aspects of that Constitution, did his best to repeal the Bill of Rights and tried to make himself the King of the U.S.A.
BTW, Goldwater is dead or haven't you heard?
EEngineer, I think I disagree. It's been the enduring assumption of this site that construction jobs underpin a HUGE segment of the economy. Building giant houses failed. Building infrastructure - not just roads - could be a better way to go. After all, the economy has collapsed. We are at liberty to think BIG. In fact, we must think big. People are going to die because of Bush's economy. That of course was always the case in human history - but not recently. If we are reverting to the norm - economic problems mean the US population will die - I'd like to hear more about it.
Not this "infrastructure" BS again. Oy vey. I had unreasonably higher hopes for an intelligent new el Presidente, and alas I have not been disappointed. Whats that line "meet new boss, same as old boss".
Just goes to show that stupid comes in the current package, as well as the new one.
Anyone who reads this blog has heard me say over and over that this IS NOT THE 1930'S. "Infrastructure" as defined will take two-three years to START. Economic impact in five. I truly think we will call the shantytowns Husseinervilles, as this man will be (apparently appropriately) relegated to Herbert Hoover part deux.
Christ, how about a little creativity from Washington for once?? A pledge to recycle shouldn't apply to ideas.
What a bunch of disconnected stooges we elect cycle after cycle.
I don't think any of this will come to pass.
Jan 20 is a long time away, and nothing is gonna happen on Jan 20 except parties.
Obama is making it up as he goes and saying what he has to say to keep people from panicking and to try to hold the stock market together week by week.
What will really be done in March-May or whatever will be much more focused on what really ails the U.S., like horribly expensive and inefficient health care and TOO MUCH DEBT that's dragging everybody under.
Well, almost everybody.
Obama has to enhance the value of assets and reduce the value of debts.
p.s. I have a great idea. Let's pave all the rivers!
Last time I was in a store looking at compact fluorescent bulbs they were all...and I mean ALL (GE, Sylvania, Philips, no-name etc) made in...you guessed it...China.
cd
Good news.
Even if a lot of projects don't get done right away, this program will give businesses reasons to keep investing in relevant plant and equipment, or simply give them a reason to try to stay in business for the next several months.
GOD PLEASE OH GOD PLEASE!
we've been focused on institutional work in our A&D and C shops for a couple of years now and are positioned well to catch this gravy train. Specialized green school builders we are!
Dear God,
Just keep the 5 year yields low til march and then hook me up on this gravy train from the feds, and I promise I'll vote for you in the future.
Krugman has convinced me that stimulus, right now, and a lot of it, is the way to go. I know a lot of people disagree, but the only other option seems to be let things melt down. Have another great depression. I can't choose that option.
Jan 20 is a long time away, and nothing is gonna happen on Jan 20 except parties.
rich, Congress is already working on the legislation and hopes to present it to him in late Jan. There's a lot of pent-up demand on the Democrat side of the aisle.
Personally, I was hoping for some high speed rail.
"Second, we will create millions of jobs by making the single largestnew investment in our national infrastructure since the creation of thefederal highway system in the 1950s. Weâll invest your precious taxdollars in new and smarter ways, and weâll set a simple rule â use itor lose it. If a state doesnât act quickly to invest in roads andbridges in their communities, theyâll lose the money."
Do we have a large enough supply of illegal day laborers to do this?
cd
Obama has to enhance the value of assets and reduce the value of debts.
rich | 12.06.08 - 5:31 pm | #
No rich - by March it will be jobs, jobs, jobs... only a handful will worry about 'assets' - those eight people who still have them. Everyone else & their brother will be worrying about jobs - if they aren't already.
We'll spend and still have a great depression.
Anyone care to comment on the unintended consequences of the "investments" in the interstate highway system? Such as Urban Sprawl and its coincedent ills, Omnibus Transportation bills that violate basic tenets of federalism and are filled with pork. Not saying highways are bad, just that there are always unintended consequences.
We'll spend and cause a great depression.
As long as china keeps taking postdated checks we can muddle along...
Harsh Realty(Unrated) writes:
p.s. I have a great idea. Let's pave all the rivers!
Harsh Realty | 12.06.08 - 5:31 pm | #
Farm state senators have been lobbying for this for decades - aggressive channelization of the Mississippi to increase the channel depth for larger heavier loaded barges.
Just what the flood prone cities along her banks need - bigger pipes.
dc1000 writes:
GOD PLEASE OH GOD PLEASE!
we've been focused on institutional work in our A&D and C shops for a couple of years now and are positioned well to catch this gravy train. Specialized green school builders we are!
I am with you 100%, as I am in the biz as well. I will keep ringing the register happily, but the effect on the nation will be minimal at best, while tying up massive portions of budget dollars but not really spending them for years.
An engineer or architect will be covered up with work (.005% of the labor required to build anything), but the ones who need it, the plumbers and drywallers, well, maybe they can just wait a couple years in a tent for the job to start.
Just give everybody 200 a week and forget the bridge, net effect is the same short term.
the internet at the library! oh boy!
maybe in ten years we can match Singapores current infrastructure and education standards. they'll still be ten years ahead of us by then...
And maybe they will win a Nobel Prize by then.
They have a special parking lot at UC Berkeley for the prize winners.
Singapore is a police state, where nothing of importance is generated, except greed and intolerance.
I have many friends who lived there.
Need to upgrade the students too, which means we need to upgrade the parents.
Personally, I was hoping for some high speed rail.
Currently Accounting | 12.06.08 - 5:34 pm | # [kill][hide comment]
Nooooo... Hugely expensive with little payoff. What we need to do is double up every mainline track so that trains don't spend half their time on sidings waiting for another train to pass. That's what kills passenger service.
We definitely can employ people to take care of the mercury from the compact fluorescent bulbs. Yipee!!!
CFL Bulbs Have One Hitch: Toxic Mercury : NPR
Those bulbs are horrible not only for the environment, but also for your skin.
I hope Obama isn't thinking of making all these new jobs government jobs. Government workers don't change light bulbs. In fact most government workers don't do anything at all. That's why there are so many contractors. And Obama doesn't like contractors.
OT: Does anyone besides me think that maybe Fleck is closing out his hedge fund now so he can be near home with a bag packed and a flight plan to Paraguay pre-loaded on the G-V?
Jus' thinkin' out loud...
cd
Sue, I actually think we're on the same page. I just think that the "same old, same old" projects are the wrong way to go. We need rails not highways. We need a long haul transmission grid or all the solar and wind power in the world is of little practical use.
"Krugman has convinced me that stimulus, right now, and a lot of it, is the way to go. I know a lot of people disagree, but the only other option seems to be let things melt down. Have another great depression. I can't choose that option."
Yes! What else would we like to do, sit down in the ashes and cover our heads with burlap? How many people who think we ought to let the banks fail, let industry fail are responsible for the national welfare? Standing on the side lines and heckling, bitching and moaning wastes everybody's time, including that of the hecklers. I wish I could read more constructive criticisms here, not only dirges and objections.
In a Trappist monastery (where there is silence most of the time) the abbot gives a novice his first yearly interview.
The novice says to the abbot: "Food bad." End of interview.
A year later the novice says only: "Bed hard." As usual, the abbot says nothing.
The third year the novice wastes no time: "I quit."
The abbot looks up and says: "I'm not surprised. You've done nothing but complain since you got here."
"We need rails not highways. We need a long haul transmission grid or all the solar and wind power in the world is of little practical use."
I think they know that, EE. But you can't just let the highways go to hell and potholes.
we'll still have tent cities and a depression, regardless.
there will likely be shortages as the shipping and LOC trade constriction remains and inventories decline. there will be a lag even after that corrects in some unknown time frame.
debt destruction will continue.
our sovereign debt rating may adjust after the bond collapse, the dollar will lose value and we will have to negotiate our debt with our creditors as we did with france, or default.
still, countries that invest in infrastructure tend to come out better than those that don't. it's a wonderful opportunity if we don't mess it up, too much.
Pavel Chichikov(Excellent) writes:
\t"We need rails not highways. We need a long haul transmission grid or all the solar and wind power in the world is of little practical use."
I think they know that, EE. But you can't just let the highways go to hell and potholes
Pavel Chichikov | 12.06.08 - 5:50 pm | #
Actually, we probably need to get busy deciding now on which highways we do let go to hell. We haven't the resources now, much less in the debt-squeezed future, to keep up what we have. Deferred road maintenance takes years to manifest itself...it is going to start rearing it's head as a big problem soon enough.
cd
Plantagenet writes:
"It is a testament to Obama's constitutional scholarship that he knows of the Federal responsibility to do this, where I have never found that clause."
They will find it in the eternal source of all government fiscal power - the Commerce Clause.
How many people who think we ought to let the banks fail, let industry fail are responsible for the national welfare?
Pavel, the unseen future costs of intervention are larger that the visible costs of allowing failure today.
Indeed, much of the current crisis is the result of your logic being applied to past crises.
Has Obama (Summers, Krugman) noticed that half of the workforce is female, and that jobs are being lost in service industries, not in manufacturing? How many of the 12,000 AT&T staff laid off this week will be suited for labor fixing bridges?
"Actually, we probably need to get busy deciding now on which highways we do let go to hell. "
Which small towns would you like to assign to oblivion?
Senorito On-Topico writes:
Not this "infrastructure" BS again. Oy vey. Anyone who reads this blog has heard me say over and over that this IS NOT THE 1930'S.
Just because you say it "over and over", that does NOT make you right. It merely means you keep repeating yourself to the point of elminating any capacity for critical thought.
Anonymous(Unrated) writes:
I hope Obama isn't thinking of making all these new jobs government jobs. Government workers don't change light bulbs. In fact most government workers don't do anything at all. That's why there are so many contractors. And Obama doesn't like contractors.
Anonymous | 12.06.08 - 5:46 pm | #
They'll be grants - mark my word. Chicago will hire 'city (gov't) employees' 'cause that's what Chicago does. Wichita probably not - probably contract out to 'private business'. Feds will just cut the check for the state & locals to cash and demand proof it was 'spent'.
I don't know which is more likely to be corrupt - hiring city workers (patronage as to who gets hired) or contracting (patronage as to who gets the contract).
But money will get spent & if that's the goal it will be 'Mission Accomplished'. Your stimulus at work.
12,000 AT&T staff laid off
they could be debt collectors
"Pavel, the unseen future costs of intervention are larger that the visible costs of allowing failure today."
Allowing failure can't and won't be done. How would you announce to the country that you've decided to let everything collapse? Aside from its being a rotten idea.
Holy Buckets, I haven't heard/read the term "information superhighway,' for at least four years (non-ironically I mean.)
Broadband access for all is a great idea. Now if we can just make 802.11n standard laptops available for everybody for free. Because as everybody on this blog knows, your productivity at work, coffee shops, McDonald's, and at home really jumps when you've got high speed information superhighway access.
And since pr0n is the most prevalent and common subject everybody is accessing, I'd recommend you go long San Fernando Valley bonds, teh Google, and Vivid's upcoming IPO.
That's two puns if you are keeping score.
The last stimulus check was around a $1000 per family and it cost $100 billion. Why not spend $700 billion this time and give every family $7,000? We would pay some bills and buy a few more chinese TV's but at least feel better about our lot in life. The new proposal from Obama will put a few people to work and leave the rest of us without a flat screen TV. Revolutions have started over less than that!
Subcommander Doom, yep, they are an awful police state, like italy under fascism, trains run on time, etc.
but they do have awesome infrastructure and education. wish they were democratic and not so scary, would love to visit if that were the case. if they weren't so repressive and allowed creativity and freedom, they'd likely get those Nobels, eventually.
Ok, I watched Taleb. He thinks that other then CAUSING the problem, he's doing a good job at solving it.
Hmmmmm.
"they could be debt collectors"
There you go. And there's lots of data entry to be done too.
Maybe some things will be screwed up. That's life on Planet Earth.
EEngineer, I agree. I'd like to think outside the box, but I don't really know all that much. For example, I would think Florida would be a great candidate for a rail system. An older population, plus many immigrants, legal and illegal, who don't have cars. What's the situation in Miami? Orlando? Jacksonville?
But, really, my thing is sewers. If this initiative gets every sewer system in the US up to state of the art standards, I will be very happy!
Anybody seen an infrastructure job lately? Palatial new city halls. Eight lane freeways that replace four lane freeways that will, themselves, eventually be replaced by 16 lane freeways (all thanks to local zoning). Bridges to nowhere.
Inventory your local WalMart. You will find a cornucopia of things Chinese. Advance capital to those who will produce products of equal or greater quality here in the US.
It ain't the 1930's. In the 1930's we had industry, we were just too poor to use it. Now we have no industry. Reindustrialization.
Anybody remember Upton Sinclair & End Poverty in California?
Taleb sez the hell with assets, they aren't worth much and we should do our work as dentists and barbers and such.
"Ok, I watched Taleb. He thinks that other then CAUSING the problem, he's doing a good job at solving it."
Maybe Taleb isn't as powerful as he thinks he is. But who knows what he really thinks?
I understand that there are plenty of projects on hold that could get underway more quickly than you'd think.
Pretty damn good. The guy isn't President yet but he's working on solutions. And public works is a good idea.
Nice start, prez.
I think they know that, EE. But you can't just let the highways go to hell and potholes.
Pavel Chichikov | 12.06.08 - 5:50 pm | #
Besides it doesn't take ten years and a battery of studies to put people to work fixing potholes. Again - cut the check on Monday, put them to work on Tuesday.
::::
Actually, we probably need to get busy deciding now on which highways we do let go to hell. We haven't the resources now, much less in the debt-squeezed future, to keep up what we have. Deferred road maintenance takes years to manifest itself...it is going to start rearing it's head as a big problem soon enough.
cd
Circling the Drain | 12.06.08 - 5:54 pm | #
I agree - especially in rural areas - you wouldn't believe the quality of a lot of roads and bridges to nowhere. Better than any city anywhere - huge cost to maintain to that level. Money can be better spent elsewhere & still be plenty 'stimulative'.
Which small towns would you like to assign to oblivion?
\t Pavel Chichikov | \t\t\t\t12.06.08 - 5:56 pm | #
Who said it'd all be small towns, necessarily? Much of our subdivision sprawl is served by low-speed roadway and close enough to larger roads that a couple miles of dirt road from the front door to the main road isn't "Oblivion."
That said, many smaller towns will have to be re-evaluated for cost-effectiveness. A small farming town that needs roads to move product to market may keep at least its main roads. A purposeless tourist trap like, say, Durango Colorado, may not.
Lots of places in the world are still served by dirt roads.
This is among the easier prioritization drills government will have to undertake in the dark times ahead. Way easier than questions like "who gets fuel, or who gets fed this week."
cd
"Reindustrialization."
I think there is going to be quite a bit of improvisation and learning. But first you have to put people to work so they can live.
The people in charge of this process had better be able to work too.
BTW Pavel - outstanding rant @ Pavel Chichikov | 12.06.08 - 5:49 pm | #. Keep it up.
states can't print money, just tax, sell bonds and write IOU's. they will be seeing ever growing budget gaps. safety nets, meet falling knives. here's a current report -
State budget gaps balloon to $97 billion
State budget gaps balloon to $97 billion
The report comes at a time when states are lobbying Congress and President-elect Barack Obama for billions of dollars in federal aid to help states cover rising enrollment in Medicaid, unemployment benefits and the food stamp program.
A review of budget cuts around the country show that many health-care and education programs, which make up more than 60 percent of state spending, are already on the chopping block.
With our poblems, we really need to shake things up!
Save 30+ on a single payer health insurance plan. Those that are nervous, should be allowed to purchase umbrella insurance to cover what they fear most about...
I suspect things are/will get to the point that Americans will pick produce from the fields...Screw GWB and sec. of commerce Gutierrez, IIRC, president for a Soda co who was born and raised among the elite of Mexico (?).
Pull home our troops from all foreign bases throughout the world...The h8ll with the world.
When times get tough, the tough get goinging...
Whatever we do, we need to deal with the causes and come up with solutions that keep people employed...
JMO
I'm sorry, I meant Paulson is doing a good job at solving, not Taleb.
Or, so Taleb sez.
Which small towns would you like to assign to oblivion?
Pavel Chichikov | 12.06.08 - 5:56 pm | #
As shocking as this sounds - more than a few of us in oblivion can handle a lot rougher roads than they can in the cities
CD is right in that respect.
What we need are good 'farm to market' roads. Even if they aren't perfect - as long as the bridges are okay & the curves safe - we can handle gravel & such.
Just need to get the equipment in and the grain out. They don't have to cost that much to do that.
A lot of the really nice rural roads are paved to get city folks to vacation out here - they don't all that much - rather go to Cancun or Orlando. Turn the rural roads back to F2M and be done w/ it.
State budget gaps balloon to $97 billion
They aren't deficits - they are opportunities to 'stimulate' and who doesn't like stimulation?
This sounds like a game of: If I Were Dictator.
I'd rather be King. Their clothes are way more cool. Big robes, crowns huge throwns - it would be good to be King.
We need an industrial policy over the next 30 years... The Govt should scale it so people have an opportunity to upgrade their skills, plan their life...
This bouncing around from one market/opportunity that is true for only 10 years is causing people to freeze in place. Who wants to lose work time, educational expense to enter a new field that is contracting...
"BTW Pavel - outstanding rant @ Pavel Chichikov | 12.06.08 - 5:49 pm | #. Keep it up.
Thanks, dryfly. I don't mind getting some things wrong. You and CD are probably right about the roads, except that there may be an underestimation of national resources and will in it. It's the long faces of the undertakers that I find not helpful.
All I want is a slurpy.
They aren't deficits - they are opportunities to 'stimulate' and who doesn't like stimulation?
dryfly | 12.06.08 - 6:14 pm | #
hee hee, yes!
of course, the porn and related device industry is one you'll never see testifying before congress for a bailout.
A horse walks into a bar. Bartender looks up and says: "Hey buddy, why the long face?"
Yeah, the bearishness on everything was useful as a wake up call. Time for that is over. Time to contemplate fixing problems. I met the hub at a Goldwater meeting--was too young to vote. What would Goldwater do? I don't think he'd hold a gun to his head for philosophical reasons. Somebody said that the constitution is not a suicide pact. Well, I don't think political economy is either.
These things swing back and forth. Right now we need the vital juices to be reinspired. Sometime later we will need the inevitable corruption to be solved. Despair is close at hand, and I agree with the religious types on this one, it is the ultimate sin. O is gonna do some stuff that is wrong, so what. We all do. Of course Bush with his govt dismantling--he did nothing wrong, hummph?
What we don't need is paralysis.
It's the long faces of the undertakers that I find not helpful.
Everybody talks their book - I mostly try to ignore them.
YouTube -
Excessive government spending on highways contributed to the decline of railroads. Since trucks did not have to pay for the cost of roads they could underbid the railroads which still have to pay for their tracks. Trucks also use more fuel than trains leading to increased import of oil and trade deficits. Increased spending on roads is not good and many roads could be abandonded. Instead of increasing road spending the gasoline tax should be increased to pay for all current road spending and not just the current one third of the cost. Increasing the gasoline tax should lead to more freight on the rails and less by truck which will reduce that wear and tear on the roads.
"We need an industrial policy over the next 30 years... The Govt should scale it so people have an opportunity to upgrade their skills, plan their life...
This bouncing around from one market/opportunity that is true for only 10 years is causing people to freeze in place. Who wants to lose work time, educational expense to enter a new field that is contracting..."
Yep, and this ripples out into every aspect of life, including family life.
.
lawyerliz writes:
Ok, I watched Taleb. He thinks that other then CAUSING the problem, he's doing a good job at solving it.
Taleb was talking about Paulson at that point.
I still love the THUD coming from Charlie Rose's direction - and the stunned look on Rose's face - when Taleb said that things would be worse than Roubini thinks they will be.
AnnS wrote:
Just because you say it "over and over", that does NOT make you right. It merely means you keep repeating yourself to the point of elminating any capacity for critical thought.
AnnS | 12.06.08 - 5:56 pm | #
Oh oh. Looks like CR got recommended over Kos or DUh again. I recognize the standard pseudo-intelligencia buzzphrase's that crowd is so fond of.
Listen Ma'am, while not at all interested in outing who I am or what I do (and if you stick around a while, you will pick up that most here don't work at PetsMart),
I can tell you by being in front of City Engineers and P&Z commissions, Development Services departments and Public Utility commissions in the 6th largest city in the country, with the largest urban footprint second to LA, that I in fact actually DO know what I am talking about.
Do YOU know where the future transient and indigent housing centers are to be??? For my region, I do. Do you know what "depression level unemployment contingency operations plans" or (and I kid you not)or DUCkOP for short are in place for your locality?? I know about mine. These will affect over one million people if U-6 pumps to 30%, the best recent guess for my area.
Odds are one in twenty based on urban concentration and number of urban centers that you live where I live.
Be nice.
serf Alan Greenspend writes:
"A review of budget cuts around the country show that many health-care and education programs, which make up more than 60 percent of state spending, are already on the chopping block."
Heaven forbid they should cut back government employee staff and ridiculous pension plans (strictly a Cali perspective).
rich writes:
I don't think any of this will come to pass.
Had to chime in; strongly disagree. This plan is all they know how to do - throw money away on worthless projects. Our problem is we have too much infrastructure in the form of RRE & CRE! If we want manufacturing sectors to grow, then lets change our trade/tax laws. Let's replace the Pentagon military Keynesianism with an official MITI. Hell, it's 3rd world countries that need better infrastructure. Let's pay them back now with this money so they can build more roads and bridges.
Oh, my Senorito, depression level contingency plans. I mean I'm glad it's getting done. . .
But, oooooh, my. 6th largest. Hmm, must google.
awyerliz(Unrated) writes:
Oh, my Senorito, depression level contingency plans. I mean I'm glad it's getting done. . .
But, oooooh, my. 6th largest. Hmm, must google.
lawyerliz | 12.06.08 - 6:27 pm | #
Well I sure know it ain't anywhere near where I live unless they are also counting hogs and dairy cows.
i would love to see a 21st century solution for the huge numbers of soon to be unemployed IT, financial tech, etc. workers that will manifest. many will be stuck in place that can't sell their homes, if not foreclosed. putting them to work as labor is goofy.
simple and well crafted national infrastructure work projects that can be done from any CRT. a .gov webform skillz database collecting, assigning/selecting system is not tricky.
oh well. "if i were king of the forest..."
Phoenix, sez Google.
Oh, I see. Miami is way down on the list, but the County is huge.
EE @ 5:49pm et al, I'd really like to see double & triple tracking & elimination of grade crossings so both freight & passenger rail can run at speeds of 100+mph over well-maintained track.
Acela's already giving the airlines a run for their money w/probably a smaller per passenger subsidy. With with a good public/private partnership (since the host RRs own almost all of the track) and investment in new rolling stock, the US could see almost every "short" trip(500 miles or less) between major & medium cities go by rail.
Pavel C., almost always I agree with your posts & find them useful but this time--regarding which small towns are sentenced to oblivion--that already happened to many many small towns, when the US decided to subsidize air travel big time (& over-regulate rail), subsidize the construction of an extremely costly interstate highway system.
There's a reason why so many cities & towns in the midwest are pushing very hard for Amtrak to increase the number of routes. They see it as a way of getting more people to visit & live in their towns/cities.
FL is also looking into more rail, as is TX (of all places, mostly northern & eastern TX), MT, and some southern states are pushing hard for the Sunset Ltd. train to run again between New Orleans & FL (route's been closed since Katrina, even though the track is fixed). Plenty of medium & small towns see passenger rail as a way of the town's doing better.
Single payer national health care program would be great. Almost impossible for me to believe that Congress et al could stand up to the health insurance industry & their lobbyists long enough to draft & pass legislation that did not subsidize that industry & big Pharma. Sure would be nice though, would make such a huge difference in how people felt (in terms of feeling somewhat secure) & how competitive the US was.
But what's improved global competitiveness worth when measured against continued huge CEO compensation, etc., in a given industry?
And Taleb didn't say anything much different than what he said in his book. Except risk allocation advise.
Affordable healthcare or call it universal healthcare (just to get some folks mad ) should be priority #1 .
"We need to upgrade our federal buildings by replacing old heating systems and installing efficient light bulbs.
Uh oh. You mean, "How many federal workers does it take to change a light bulb?" isn't going to be a joke anymore?
If we want manufacturing sectors to grow, then lets change our trade/tax laws. Let's replace the Pentagon military Keynesianism with an official MITI
The problem is not the tax laws. The problem is manufacturing costs are too high. Costs are too high because there's too much debt and too many promises made.
Here's the real fix - everybody on this board gets a 25% pay cut on salaries and pensions, house prices and stock prices fall another 30%.
But we're never going to hear discussions on what would actually work as long as the chimera of "infrastructure" lets everyone believe they can keep their existing paper stuff.
Representative Louie Gohmert (R-Texas) has proposed a tax-cut alternative to the bailout plan.
For the $350 billion second bailout installment Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson is going to request, every American taxpayer could have
a two-month tax holiday from both income tax and the Social Security-Medicare (FICA) tax.
. . .which--for most Americans--amounts to about 33 percent of your gross income. Furthermore, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has
proposed an additional $700 billion as a stimulus package.
That would pay for an additional four months of a tax holiday.
Thus, if you combined the Pelosi and Paulson proposals, you could create a tax holiday through June.
The idea being that the money and therefore the power could be put directly into the hands of Americans, and not into the hands of big gov't.
More here: Blogger: Blog not found
I know that the posters here will be able to point out any holes in the idea, and I'm looking forward to your opinions
disclaimer: I'm not political and I'm not pushing any agenda. Just interested.
liz,
Probably an overreaction on my part, but I take everybody here at face value, and wish others would do the same sometimes. I get better info here than anywhere else, and sharing is caring.
You don't like my opinion or dispute my factual representation of my experience, fine. Just don't resort to linguistic masturbation disguised as intelligence. She could have said "You're retarded" instead of that over educated under experienced recent Masters from UCSD or wherever condescension.
The pay cuts are going to happen all by themselves.
And some of us are self employed.
And at some point I will jump back in the stock mkt--but not yet.
I've watched Verizon's efforts to extend its fiber-optic system for some
time now. They employ 'contractors' and the contractors employ people of dubious legal status to dig ditches to accomodate the fibers.
With natural gas now below $6, oil below $40 seems to me the prudent thing to do is not further contract demand via 'energy efficiency' but to extend tax credits and tariffs on imported energy to boost the price of energy to ensure our domestic sources don't atrophy. If we don't the next price shock is just around the corner.
Finally, the private sector can best allocate resources. As ridiculous as it may seem using Ben's helicopters to pump up demand by pouring money into the economy is a much better way to go about this than increasing the public debt via fiscal stimulus.
Uh oh. You mean, "How many federal workers does it take to change a light bulb?" isn't going to be a joke anymore?
Outsider | 12.06.08 - 6:33 pm | #
We already know that answer. Only takes one - one person to no-bid contract it out to the currently in-power party boss's nephew.
I wasn't being critical of you, Senorito, did it come across that way?
Forgive my inability to suspend disbelief - but how is Obama's package fundamentally different from every other whack of spending I've lived through over the past 40 years?
A ham sandwich walks into a bar. The bartender glares at him, and says "we don't serve food here."
How many MIT (Harvard, Yale whatever) grad students does it take to change a lightbulb?
One. They hold the lightbulb up in their hands and the universe rotates around it.
No liz, not at all. Just felt compelled to clarify. FYI, your Google-fu is pretty good. But then when I posted AZ municipal bond rates last week, I think I gave up the ghost.
A duck walks into a bar and says to the bar tender "I'll have a beer".
The bartender says "Hey! where did you come from?"
The duck says "I'm working the construction site across the street".
And the bartender says, "Well why are you working construction when you could be making millions in the circus?"
And the duck said "What would the circus want with a brick laying duck?"
I missed that post of bond rates. Have to have something of a life. Must go eat dinner, which has been roasting. Are they high and going higher?
Jeff | 12.06.08 - 6:21 pm |
Mr rockefeller et al are coming to knock on your door
And then there was the mushroom in the bar who the most funguy.
Badda boom.
How many psychologists to change a lightbulb??
One, but the lightbulb really has to want to change.
liz,
Funny spreads.
Wow what a downbeat set of comments.
What are the things that need to be considered
1. Jobs that can be started quickly.
2. Jobs that can use available labor skills.
3. Jobs which will use some of the remaining US manufacturing.
And 4. hopefully jobs that will benefit US in the future.
So upgrading schools can use the laid-off homebuilders and maybe roadbuilding some commercial builders.
Info highway uses some US manufacturing
Med records a variety of skills especially I.T.
So smart mouths got a better list?
Eleanor Roosevelt "Chose to light a candle rather then curse the darkness"
Adlai Stevenso
Good! Now the scam artists have an advance notice on how to gear up to game uncle Suga.
And game they will...
O ran on Change
well, some were hoodwinked, because change is built into the system, like every four year's.
a briton in swizerland inventet the internet.. just saying albama
)
Q: How many Chicago School economists does it take to change a light bulb?
A: None. If the light bulb needed changing the market would have already done it.
Q: How many mainstream economists does it take to change a light bulb?
A: Two. One to assume the existence of ladder and one to change the bulb.
Q: How many neo-classical economists does it take to change a light bulb?
A: It depends on the wage rate.
Q: How many conservative economists does it take to change a light bulb?
A: None. The darkness will cause the light bulb to change by itself.
Q: How many B-school doctoral students does it take to change a light bulb?
A: I'm writing my dissertation on that topic; I should have an answer for you in about five years.
Q: How many investors does it take to change a light bulb?
A: None - the market has already discounted the change.
Q: How many Keynesian economists does it takes to change a light bulb?
A: All. Because then you will generate employment, more consumption, dislocating the aggregate demand to the right.
Q: How many marxists does it take to screw in a lightbulb?
A: None - the bulb contains within it the seeds of its own revolution.
Q: How many economists does it take to change a light bulb?
A: Seven plus or minus ten.
Q: How many economists does it take to change a light bulb?
A: Irrelevant - the light bulb's preferences are to be taken as given.
O/T Question :
Hi, I just read about the attempts to bring Caroline Kennedy into play for Hillary's senate seat and have the following question : Does Caroline have any political career so far which may qualify her to such a position ( I couldn't find any ) or is it just her famous name ?
Nah, the ministry of entertainment.
Figures. All the comments here, in the face of tangible ideas on how to get our economy back on track, are displaced into innane jokes--or revert to market fundamentalisms.
Doesn't bode well. Looks like this baby will devolve into full blown collapse for some time.
When most of your were still trying to talk the housing market up three years ago, I was saying to everyone that this is not sustainable and insane.
I see a point in the future where my knowledge at growing food ethically and ecologically will be in more demand than your expensive MBAs.
I will feed trolls if it enables me to talk about myself!!!
Hehehehe.
Lawyerliz - you mentioned the "spaghetti trees" on a previous thread. That was from a 1957 BBC "Panorama" show April Fools special. Fooled thousands of unsuspecting Britons, wanting to know where they could get their very own spaghetti trees.
Swiss Spaghetti Harvest
Circling the Drain | 12.06.08 - 7:02 pm |
Good points, but it's so much easier to say "Single Payer" over and over...
Yeah, slave, what do you grow?
The damn pithy tangerine tree does produce good juice but you have to squeeze a zillion to get enough.
NOTHING like freshly picked squeezed tangerine juice.
Gee, I thought it was Johnny Carson in the 70s. Maybe he stole it from the brits.
Will check in later to see if lightbulb jokes posted.
I don't recall,...Do the current Federal buildings have "normal" incandescent fixtures? It wouldn't be a simple thing to convert any other light source.
So, Comrade V and Comrade Clueless Dufus, when you hear something that conflicts your world view, it's called trolling? Moi? How passive-aggressive of you both! Try to address what I said, if you wish, unless you're unable to do so, and resort to calling people trolls. No wonder Calculated Risk now has as many as 172 Visitors Online! Sorry, I didn't know this blog was just a place for Krugman (pbuh) worship, as opposed to genuine discussion.
And remember, keep it dull and pretentious, whatever you do.
We just came back from dinner and doing the almost last bit of Christmas shopping. This is not going to be bad retail numbers; these are going to be Armegeddon numbers. There are grown men and women who are seeing the numbers for their companies and crying themselves to sleep.
Obama may have plans now but they are not going to survive contact with the reality that is coming. I am in awe at the slowdown. There are some huge changes going on in consumer world.
El Cliffo - If you're looking for a fight, go to a bar
Liz, you might not like my emotional response in the face of what I see as many stupid comments in reaction to Obama's tepid first steps, but I certainly don't enjoy being called a 'troll'.
Troll is a designation that comes, many times, from a type of politically correct group-think.
Growing species of fruit and veggies sucessfully entails understanding the legacy of the particular specie, as well as how this specie fits into the ecological niche of the place you are growing.
There are dozens of ecosystems, and distinct soil types, Florida alone.
Currently I am exploring the Chinampa system developed by the indigenous of Mexico. This entails growing food in wet areas, using vegetation to develop growing mats right at the edge of a canal or pond. This method allows one to grow food without destructive, energy hogging, modern methods of irrigation.
El Cliffo:
I was referring to a prior post at 7:48. Chill.
The only real demand I see in this country is for money to pay down obligations.
Or, to escape from them altogether.
OK, V, done deal. Emily Litella says, "Never mind."
This speech was the most financially and economically vacuous presidential speech ever given!
New doctor offices and IT systems for all doctors and new sewer systems and bridges to no where plus a great new information highway!! What the hell kind of head in the clouds crap is he dreaming about??
We are headed for very dark economic times!!
I think upthread someone said it is all about jobs! It is going to all about that and more. The unemployment rate is going to get ugly fast.
I really think that there is a huge change happening under everyones nose. We just don't have the data, yet.
This speech was the most financially and economically vacuous presidential speech ever given!
Wow, you haven't listened to many Presidential speeches, have you?
Nova, for my part, I can only be heartened with the collapse of US consumerism.
Really, I mean that. This really couldn't have happened to a more deserving culture. My only hope is that the savages don't let disabled and elderly folk die.
Look, I am a mere farmer (worse, actually, I am a 'swamp farmer'). Most of you would see me at a store dressed in my dirty cloths--you wouldn't guess that I pay my workers middle class wages. And if you did you wouldn't respect it.
My first instinct is to question the wisdom of greed and the 'market logic'. I give yuppie market logic the bird--and I see most of the managerial classes as diseased monkeys.
Werner, Have you figured out where those new German aircraft carriers are going to be homeported yet?
I really think that there is a huge change happening under everyones nose. We just don't have the data, yet.
Most of these layoff announcements have not hit the job loss and unemployment numbers yet - these layoffs will be implemented in Jan-Feb next year. I seriously fear double digit U3 unemployment.
"the reality that is coming. I am in awe at the slowdown."
Agreed, and equally uneasy. On the Upper West Side, every retail store has huge sale signs, this before the holidays. Increasing numbers of empty storefronts, and very little foottraffic along Broadway, usually thronged this time of year.
It's the job losses, I think. Friend just survived the cull at Time Warner, ad agencies and magazines cutting, high-end fashion retail a disaster.
Steve upthread is right...infrastructure building will not do much for Manhattan's displaced...where do editors, writers, retail workers, many of them women, get a job running a back hoe?
Slave Revolt | 12.06.08 - 8:17 pm |
I hope you grow and prosper.
At least let the man take office first
ova writes:
...Have you figured out where those new German aircraft carriers are going to be homeported yet?
Along these critical shipping lanes ?
I see a point in the future where my knowledge at growing food ethically and ecologically will be in more demand than your expensive MBAs.
Jim Rogers has been saying the same thing: Wall Street bankers need to trade in their Maseratis and buy tractors. Won't be enough farmers when the current ones pass.
Ask the world to relieve us of global reserve currency status.
I think we're on the road to making the change by ourselves. Did I say making? Causing. (Not that I'm opposed, but I prefer the transition to be gradual.)
infrastructure building will not do much for Manhattan's displaced...where do editors, writers, retail workers, many of them women, get a job running a back hoe?
fried | 12.06.08 - 8:19 pm
Well, during the depression they paid people to paint murals. I am not trying to flip. If I became unemployed tommorow I would probably have a 50% drop in pay. If I could find a job at all as I am on the wrong side of 50
My father rode a camel. I drive a car. My son flies a jet-plane. His son will ride a camel.
Saudi saying
Youthfulness an American obsession at what cost?
"It's one of those photos that make you do a double-take. Dr. Jeffry Life stands in jeans, his shirt off. His face is that of a distinguished-looking grandpa; his head is balding, and what hair there is is white. But his 69-year-old body looks like it belongs to a muscle-bound 30-year-old.
The photo regularly runs in ads for the Cenegenics Medical Institute, a Las Vegas-based clinic that specializes in "age management," a growing field in a society obsessed with staying young."
""He's the man!" patient Ed Detwiler says teasingly, pointing to the photo of the doctor who, in many ways, has become his role model. Detwiler, 47, has been Life's patient for more than three years. In that time, he has adopted the regimen that his doctor also follows drastically changing his exercise and eating habits and injecting himself each day with human growth hormone. He also receives weekly testosterone injections. He does it because it makes him feel better, more energetic, clear-minded."
Bailout funds for steroids:) They clearly worked for Barry Bonds:)
"As the baby boomers march toward retirement, Botox, wrinkle fillers and hormones of various kinds have become big business. Medco's latest drug trend report shows, for instance, that human growth hormone use grew almost 6 percent in 2007. The list for age-defying tactics is endless. Want six-pack abs? There's a surgical procedure to create fake ones. How about drastically cutting your calorie intake to slow the aging process? There's a group of die-hards that swears by it."
"it is illegal for these kinds of hormones to be dispensed for anti-aging purposes"...ah..there's the catch.
After Layoffs, Workers Stay At a Factory In Protest
By MONICA DAVEY
Published: December 6, 2008
CHICAGO Scores of workers laid off from a factory here that makes windows and doors have refused to leave, deciding to stage a peaceful occupation of the plant around the clock this weekend as they demand pay they say is owed them.
Workers at Republic Windows and Doors, which laid off about 250 people, said they were notified Tuesday that the plant, more than four decades old, would close Friday. They said they were given insufficient notice and were never paid for vacation days or severance.
..
Workers blamed Bank of America, which they said had served as an important lender to Republic Windows, for cutting off credit to the company and preventing workers from being paid. Some workers carried signs and stickers criticizing the bank: You got bailed out, we got sold out.
A spokeswoman for Bank of America, Julie Westermann, said in a written statement that because of our client confidentiality obligations, we cannot comment on any individual clients situations. But Ms. Westermann noted, Neither Bank of America nor any other third party lender to the company has the right to control whether the company complies with applicable laws or honors its commitments to its employees.
And so it begins.
Obama is right out of the Mouse that Roared. He ran for the presidency as the antiwar candidate from the left and never thought in his wildest dreams he would get elected.
Now he has... under the most dire circumstances that have nothing to do with his original 'issue'.
I give him credit, he is trying to govern from the center but the center is where Bush governed from. The center doesn't understand what is happening. Maybe no one does but if that is where your policy advice is coming from... look out.
Jim Rogers has been saying the same thing: Wall Street bankers need to trade in their Maseratis and buy tractors. Won't be enough farmers when the current ones pass.
Farming is the profession of the future---
(for the survivors)
Obama is right out of the Mouse that Roared.
Good idea. Let's surrender to the Grand Duchy of Fenwick. Let them deal with the problems.
fried writes:
"[quoting] the reality that is coming. I am in awe at the slowdown.
Agreed, and equally uneasy. On the Upper West Side ... "
How far south? What's happening on East Side and Tribeca. Hard to believe until you see empty storefronts on 5th. [former upper West Sider]
Sports Guy Lafleur-
+1 for content
extra credit: +2 for using the phrase "holy buckets"
i have only known one person in my life to use that phrase - are you from wisconsin?
Swat Team conducts food raid in rural Ohio
-
Swat Team conducts food raid in rural Ohio
December 4, 2008
"Over the past 20 years Congress has encouraged the U.S. military to supply intelligence, equipment, and training to civilian police. That encouragement has spawned a culture of paramilitarism in American law enforcement. The 1980s and 1990s have seen marked changes in the number of state and local paramilitary units, in their mission and deployment, and in their tactical armament." --Cato Institute (more below)
"We cannot continue to rely on our military in order to achieve the national security objectives that we've set. We've got to have a civilian national security force that's just as powerful, just as strong, just as well-funded." --Barack Obama, "Obama's Civilian National Security Force"
On Monday, December 1, a SWAT team with semi-automatic rifles entered the private home of the Stowers family in LaGrange, Ohio, herded the family onto the couches in the living room, and kept guns trained on parents, children, infants and toddlers, from approximately 11 AM to 8 PM.
"When most of your were still trying to talk the housing market up three years ago, I was saying to everyone that this is not sustainable and insane. "
You are misinformed...this blog has had the view that the bubble was unsustainable...as have most of the commenters.
You've taken the omniscient position that you know what "most" of the commenters here think and believe..it's arrogance on your part and off-putting.
Wow, amazing miriam. How you can tar Obama for an event that's taken place before he takes office...
Well fried and steve, regarding the 'concern' (heehee) about the poor huddling masses of paperpushers, finance, marketing manhattan-style unemployed, i guess the answer would be "root, hog or die there buddy"
If the only jobs available to save them from starvation are govt sponsored infrastructure projects, then I bet they pick up a damn shovel and learn how to live through and ignore the damn blisters.
I do not know if it will come to that, but would not be surprised if it did.
Why worry so much about these types of uemployed workers being able to make do with such physical work, when no on really cares if the blue-collar unemployed wind up in a position of picking up that same damn shovel? Face it, the physical crap involved in the big projects can be a bit more intense than factory line work ( I have worked in a factory)
Oh, and Im a chick too, starving? Unemployed? Children needing me to suck it up and provide? You betcha Id grab that damn ol' shovel too.
MrM | 12.06.08 - 6:58 pm | #
Quite right, but what seems to be different about Taleb is that he doesn't forecast...
Farming is one of the riskiest business propositions around. Not only is it capital intensive and subject to price fluctuation from the day the crop goes into the ground until the day the crop hit's the buyer's docks; you are at risk from fire, flood, pests, disease, plagues of locusts, drought, hailstorms, hurricanes, frost...
There are good reasons why in countries around the globe people leave rural areas for the cities at the first opportunity.
Well Obama did sue Citigroup over it not providing loans to low income people didn't he?
V,
it's stunning to see how many storefronts along Broadway in the 70s and 80s are empty. Many for more than a year...a year or two ago banks were moving in, but now, they just sit.
I don't go to Tribeca or the East Side often enough to have info...but townhouses for sale all along the side streets here, just sitting as well.
I'd like to know how the restaurants are doing...it's a huge part of the business/social scene here, and where a lot of discretionary dollars go. High-end catering is getting slammed with all the corp. parties that are canceled/not scheduled unlike previous years.
Unit472 - happened to me, but from a utilities company. Thought I'd moved to fully online automated payments and no physical delivery of mail but something scerwd up and they got shtty about non-payment. I'm like, I am willing able and intend to pay every bill on time, once I receive it... but I hadn't received one, and still didn't. Response, too bad fkr your credit score is going down. 18 months later the company decides that my house has been unoccupied and shuts off service without warning, and illegally pulled the fuse from my house board while trespassing.
The only upside was that there was some competition who set up a new account in 3 hours.
Un be fk lievable.
C
" when no on really cares if the blue-collar unemployed wind up in a position of picking up that same damn shovel?"
Exactly why do you assume that?
rsj, during the Depression men ( ok people) queued up to get jobs to build the Golden Gate Bridge and Hoover Dam. Thing is not all of them could do it.
A lot of people just can't work at height ( and it doesn't have to be 700 feet, 30 or 40 will do). Construction work isn't just physical it is dangerous. I was out a residential building project where a man died falling from a ladder.
You put a bunch of office workers out into that milieu and not all of them are going to make it.
How many MIT (Harvard, Yale whatever) grad students does it take to change a lightbulb?
One. They hold the lightbulb up in their hands and the universe rotates around it.
Am I too late to add this:
How many men does it take to change a toilet paper roll?
OK - I'll quit now.
Don't know. It's never been done.
Railroads not roads. More fuel efficient transportation, more energy efficient construction, installation of insulation and energy efficient improvements to buildings, auto plants to produce more fuel efficient cars etc.. We need to be smart about this. In the 1930s there still was not electricity or paved roads in rural areas. Many farms used horses. If we build roads and bridges but have not enough fuel to use cars and trucks on the roads then this is another blackhole taking the limited resources.
Bourgeois, white collar, tite assed white yuppie bitches. It's now your turn to suffer and struggle in your daily lives. Prepare yourselves, reality is a bitch
Obama is heading the right direction. The country needs job creation, stopping the rise of unemployment more than anything else. Well, except maybe universal health care. I'm disheartened to see how many people still don't get it.
Fried--
just responding to your and steve's comments regarding the lack of ability of the females and Manhattan-style unemployed to do the shovel work, or adapt to employment that is far less sedentary.
Not that no one cares, but when it has been talked about here tonite it was only in regards towards those, not necessarily to the lower rung workers, like me i guess.
I sense at times, and not necessarily always, that it is assumed that the lower rungs do not matter in that regard, they came from shoveling, back to the shoveling they go hie-ho hie-ho but boohoo for the formerly comfy.
No disrespect was intended or nastiness. Just an answer to "what about the ones who have never done that sort of work"--i bet they either learn or starve if it does come down to infrastructure-n-shovels for all makework jobs.
fried writes:
"...it's stunning to see how many storefronts along Broadway in the 70s and 80s are empty."
Interesting post. The 70s are in the heart of West Side (used to own @ CPW & 94th back in the day when it was past the edge of gentrification). Never saw it as bad as you describe.
Visited Bay Area twice in last two weeks. No signs of slowdown in Palo Alto or Marina in SF. Took me half an hour just to get out of PA after dinner Thursday night due to restaurant traffic. NYC must be ahead on the downward curve.
Sorry to others for this anecdotal stuff, but sounds like SF and DC are the last urban bastions of prosperity
Not sure about spaghetti trees but this has "ham bushes". It also seems to explain a lot of our politics
Fried, you are correct--the comment was arrogent, not true, and pretty stupid.
I do have a tenacious anti-managerial class bias, I admit. However, many, like Tanta, are damned decent folk.
However, it is amazing how people dared not question the positive feedback loop logic of those heady days. Truely amazing.
The guy that bought my duplex, right at the top of the insane bubble, he wanted to sell me my half for 180k. The place needs 20k to replace aging components. I explained to him that none of the families in my lower middle class neighborhood had seen anything close to a doubling in pay in the past six years. The guy looked at me like I was a freak.
Incredibly, I could have gotten financing to buy this place. Would have been a cinch. But today, I would offer no more than 65k for the place--and it would be impossible for me to get any financing.
This is insane.
I think one major works project that the Obama administration could and should engage is to develope low income, green housing in urban areas.
This could be done, but the ruling class would squeal like the little piggies they are. I could see corporate media doing hit-pieces on these projects, showing workers smoking crack on breaks, etc. You folks know how this game is played.
Since we trained a bunch of people to be bankers and financiers, where are all the engineers to design all this infrastructure. And if the project is not already designed then that will take time as well as getting any neccesary government approvals. There are projects in the hopper, but how do you suddenly speed all those up without putting more resources into the processes to get them designed, approved and built. We have a lot of MBAs that can deal in CDSs, MBSs, you name the paper money, but the building of things, we have shorted ourselves of the neccesary trained people to do it.
"No rich - by March it will be jobs, jobs, jobs... only a handful will worry about 'assets'".
If this is a 100 year or more credit-collapse, it's also too late to save jobs: demand is vanishing, companies are laying off and closing down so as to preserve both assets and the possibility of re-opening after the dénouement, and the credit-business contraction will take time. Solving the joblessness problem by 'creating jobs' is only stating the problem.
HP and his corrupt ilk may have temporarily preserved the financial bullwork, but his bazooka will go limp as earnings and investment yields drop to zero in the next few months.
OB may at some point soon face the more severe crises of uncontrolled layoffs, poverty, food and supply shortages and loss of medical coverage.
Y2K was a failed effort at stimulating a faltering tech-spending/credit structure, and greenbuilding conversion and hi-speed internet in this historic credit collapse will be a political and economic catastrophe.
But think of all the fun us white-collar-yuppies will have!
"Hey Phillip, watch me wack this under-educated ditch digger with my shovel inducing a 20 hp torque moment causing him to fall from that 40 ft trussel. If my TI-calculator is correct he will hit the ground at 30 ft/second at a force of 1500 Newtons!"
Don't blame our derivatives!
FIRST as always
"Visited Bay Area twice in last two weeks. No signs of slowdown in Palo Alto or Marina in SF. Took me half an hour just to get out of PA after dinner Thursday night due to restaurant traffic. NYC must be ahead on the downward curve.
Sorry to others for this anecdotal stuff, but sounds like SF and DC are the last urban bastions of prosperity"
Hmm, Marina I can understand. But we live in BA and eat in and hang around PA a lot. I'm seeing a big slowdown in restaurants. Went to Stanford Shopping Center Saturday after Thanksgiving and it was very busy but no-one buying anything, just walking around.
Dropped by the Porsche dealership in Redwood City and it was dead, as in funeral parlor dead. Spent 10 minutes looking at cars and no-one even came out to speak to us.
Same thing Porsche/BMW/Mercedes dealerships at Automall, Fremont. 15 different dealers there, saw at most a single person at each dealer and most had nothing.
Layoffs are starting up big time here. Trust me it's gonna get bad here.
Dec. 6 (Bloomberg) -- President-elect Barack Obama will name former Army Chief of Staff Eric Shinseki to head the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.
General Shinseki is exactly the right person who is going to be able to make sure that we honor our troops when they comes home, Obama said during an interview with NBCs Meet the Press, parts of which aired tonight ahead of tomorrows broadcast.
Shortly before the 2003 U.S. invasion to oust Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, Shinseki told Congress it would take several hundred thousand troops to stabilize postwar Iraq, more than then-Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld had estimated.
Rumsfeld roundly rejected Shinsekis assessment, insisting the effort could be accomplished with a U.S. commitment of no more than 150,000 troops. He also cut short Shinsekis tenure as chief of staff, which critics of the Bush administration said was punishment for Shinsekis testimony.
If it's true that SWAT teams are raiding family coop farms, and protecting the interests of large, commercial farms, shouldn't this be alarming to us, everyone seems to be blogging right over this, but it would seem the govt is trying to gain control over our food supply?
Hi unit
Yeah I can imagine that some work would be impossible or difficult to do.
I dont like heights myself, and I wound up a bit desperate for money at one low point, so took a job as a roofer's helper. That was a scary and new world but i lasted long enough to make the paychecks I needed to feed my son and move on past that job.
The sense I took from the posts was that the formerly clerical, finance, marketing, more sedentary career people would be unable to even contemplate doing something like that, or trash picking, or holding the slow/stop signs for road crews because oh noes the poor dears just couldnt go from master of the universe, comfy deskjobs into physical work.
I bet they can do more than they ever thought they could if actually starving in the hooverville is the alternative.
Will it get that bad? It may. If a big giant works project is needed to keep families from starving how many would starve rather than pick crops, do roadwork, sort trash at recycling sites etc? Not many I say.
Being hungry makes many formerly unthinkable things possible. Hungry sucks.
All these people excited about massive public works projects...do they understand that the government is simply taking money from the people - money that would have been spent or saved in a million different ways, according to the judgment of the people who earned that money - and decreeing from on high that it shall be spent to build a whole bunch of stuff that those people may likely not have valued as highly? It's not free money, people. It comes out of our pockets. Personally I'd rather decided myself where to spend my money than have Obama sucking it out of my pocket and spending it so a bunch of contractors or a whole new generation of government employees can have it.
The fact that there is just no concern at all any more about budget deficits is, to my mind, conclusive proof that the end of this is going to be hyperinflation that destroys the currency and then destroys the government as we know it. Hundreds of billions, trillions, doesn't make any difference any more. The liberals are rubbing their hands with glee at the prospect of opening the government spending taps wide open.
Start salting away money in the form of gold, silver, commodities, and the tools and supplies of your trade, because it is a certainty that somewhere down the line any other form of savings is going to be confiscated through inflation or more openly through confiscation of retirement accounts, as has happened in Argentina.
Wells Fargo Pony on Craigslist!!!
craigslist | Page Not Found
Overpriced at $25, just like Wells!!!
Just start with doubling disability.
The money needs to come from the bottom fast folks.
Someday this war's gonna end...
Indeed PeAkcredit, this is structural not a repeat of some past recession.
You can ( or maybe could) have gotten
a job working as a coal miner, drilling rig worker or any number of decent paying jobs just a few months ago.
No one wanted them. I can't find people... YET... who want to work as customer service technicians for a gas and water utility. The work is not always pleasant. It is outside. It is low status. Doesn't pay bad though and its recession proof. We shall see what develops in my microcosm of the economy in the coming weeks and months.
"Jeff writes:
Excessive government spending on highways contributed to the decline of railroads. "
To an extent, this true, but the true culprit was union greed. Railroads don't run to the grocery store or to your house (not that you'd necessarily want them to, and as such, you still need a truck to ferry the goods to their final destination. The handling, largely provided by teamsters, is what made railroads impractical in the later hald of the 20th century.
YLSP writes:
But think of all the fun us white-collar-yuppies will have!
"Hey Phillip, watch me wack this under-educated ditch digger with my shovel inducing a 20 hp torque moment causing him to fall from that 40 ft trussel. If my TI-calculator is correct he will hit the ground at 30 ft/second at a force of 1500 Newtons!"
Don't blame our derivatives!
YLSP | 12.06.08 - 8:58 pm | #
Reminder to self, never get on a high beam with an over educated yuppie with a TI calculator.
Pissed Off In California writes:
"Hmm, Marina I can understand. But we live in BA and eat in and hang around PA a lot."
POC, thanks for report, helps balance my quick impressions. When I asked friends in PA about housing, they chuckled and said that property now stays on the market for "a few weeks". Maybe they're in denial, dunno.
And one more thing. You say "massive government infrastructure program"... I say "massive government eminent domain scam".
"Cynical Dude writes:
Forgive my inability to suspend disbelief - but how is Obama's package fundamentally different from every other whack of spending I've lived through over the past 40 years?"
It's so much cooler when he does it-
We all know how well planned economies have worked up till now...what could go wrong? We are much smarter than any danged old economy.
YLSP writes:
But think of all the fun us white-collar-yuppies will have!
Yeah baby, bring it on! A white collar yuppie on a construction crew, hated by all, cornered in a dark, cold basement with no one around. I'm getting a fucking hard on already.
Shopping today was interesting. Foot traffic was up and traffic was difficult, but no where near last season.
Stores did not appear to have additional staff to deal with the people, or in some cases were sending them home early.
Yes. We went out shopping for a car today, following up on some e-mail. We got an e-quote that was nearly at the price we wanted, but too far away. Went to the dealership, spent a lot of time looking at the car. He offered at a price that was way off, higher than the quote we had... and then he proceeded to offer us a used quote at a "price we could afford". Of course I expected this so I walked out.
I told my wife that next week they will hit our price point on the used car, and in two weeks they will hit our price for the new one.
So, my income (through taxation) will be spent on:
(Good, if it creates national standards and a national database, a waste otherwise.)
(What for? We don't need more travel = more energy consumption)
Nice, but a near-total waste. I went to school in very cheap and simple buildings, and I can compete successfully, 40 years later, on the results.
Again, nice, but a near-total waste. There is no evidence that the development of critical thinking skills is enhanced by access to computers or the internet. (Don't get me wrong, I love my computers and internet. I just don't think there's good unbiased evidence that it is necessary for a good education.)
I wish Obama well, and hope the unemployment assistance delivered in the form of 2-4 will help people. But unless it's managed very well, I don't think it's a lot better than paying people to dig and fill holes.
"Anonymous writes:
)"
a briton in swizerland inventet the internet.. just saying albama
The internet was invented in the US, and was formerly called DARPAnet. The WWW was invented in Switzerland at CERN, and this may be the source of your misconception.
@Mark
Public works or Max max... I know what I find more appealing.
9:06
Yeah, the tell is we speak english... or is Obama going to go through with the amnesty program saying "Americans won't rebuild our country"?
Yes, and every white collar worker a stupid, evil, loaf who came from the FIRE industry? No...
We're already reading critiques here of the Obama Administration, when he hasn't taken office yet.
Even if it were perfectly clear what the next steps should be, no politician in this country has the power to declare policy by fiat.
Not only isn't it clear what the next steps should be, it isn't even clear what is politically possible. Nor do we know what the situation will be by late January. He's obviously trying even at this early stage to get the country to brace up. I find that encouraging.
Are there any feasible suggestions that might actually be put into effect, not delirious dreams like: 'Declare Socialism.' 'Let it all collapse.' 'Retreat to a cabin in the woods.
if it creates national standards and a national database
While I understand that a national health database will provide some efficiencies, I shudder to think of the possible privacy ramifications, especially if there is no way to opt out. Do you really want any physician or medical professional anywhere to be able to access that file?
Unit 472- where are you?
The moon?
When I was a younger man, there was always a ton of folks who needed a job and were sleeping on the 'rents' couch.
You just are not running the right ad.
Someday this war's gonna end...
Comrade V,
Bubble thinking is alive and well in BA even with evidence to the contrary. The koolaid is still particularly strong in PA, Mill Valley, Piedmont, all the "fortress areas".
Prices are definitely softening in PA, Los Gatos, Los Altos.
It's just gonna take a bit longer to drop significantly. With VC funding drying up, no IPOs coming down the pipe, financial services dead, major layoffs coming I suspect even the fortress areas will be somewhat hit.
The koolaid drinkers here need a 2x4 to the head to see reality.
Basel Too writes:
if it creates national standards and a national database
While I understand that a national health database will provide some efficiencies, I shudder to think of the possible privacy ramifications, especially if there is no way to opt out. Do you really want any physician or medical professional anywhere to be able to access that file?
Basel Too | 12.06.08 - 9:15 pm | #
HIPPA regs already allow it in principle and in fact allow government officials to access your medical records under questionable circumstances. Too late to close that barn door, you just don't know it.
I predict los gatos et al will be down 50% from the peak within 18-24 months. I've been tracking the data for some time and i think we have reached the tipping point. There is just too much supply and almost no demand above $1.5mn......
peAkcredit writes:
...Y2K was a failed effort at stimulating a faltering tech-spending/credit structure...
Nah, I can assure you that Y2K was a real risk.
Lots of old (assembler- !)code around deep deep embeded in large software packages and with probably a few bits too short to capture any date beyond 1999. And nobody knew that old code anymore. Remember Alan Greenspan wrote software (probably in the 60'S) that was still around Jan. 2000 ! Nobody who wrote code in the 60's could imagine in his wildest dreams that his code would still be around 40 years later, so nobody cared to make the fields for dates large enough to capture years 2000/2000+ . Was a real technical risk!
YLSP writes:
9:06
Yeah, the tell is we speak english... or is Obama going to go through with the amnesty program saying "Americans won't rebuild our country"?
Amnesty was the idea from the Republican pigs to further reduce labor costs. Obama has stated many times, those here illegally will go to the end of line after applying. E-verify will be applied to fill these jobs, bank on it
"bklyn_rntr writes:
Rant alert!!!
Obama, Dude wise up!! get rid of your economics team and let the banks fail, ALL of them. Send those pr*cks to jail....ALL of THEM....Read FDR's diaries in the early 1930's and when he mentions how the money men will DESTROY EVERYTING...THEY'LL TELL the GOVERNMENT THAT THE WORLD WILL END UNLESS WE BAIL OUT TRHE BANKS....and then they'll keep their mouth's shut for a few years.. finally....THEY'LL come out when the danger has passed and ARGUE that the PROBLEm the WHOLE TIME WAS government intervention....LET THEM ROT, DUDE...."
I that you,; Karl Denniger?
Basel Two- what do you think your insurance company has?
Uh, comprehensive records. I would trust the government not to screw me before I trust the likes of Aetna and some of the really crappy providers.
UHC for instance.
But hey, they will get that anyway since all the docs take medicare and the state healthcare for the indigent.
Find something else to really worry about.
Someday this war's gonna end...
Thank you, Werner.
Well Pavel I guess a feasible suggestion I have is to think small.
Do very best to position self to be able to take care of family and first obligations, then as ability permits to widen the circle. To friends and family, local community.
Make a strong web in a small place. If enough small webs are made then the community looks a bit wider, to help and assist and so on.
Instead of individuals moaning about obama, or hoping he (or any other larger organization) can "lead" out of this sinkhole, or suffering about a 'lack of leadership' becoming your own little leader instead of relying on a capitol L leader.
I think that is what will help the most, focusing on the little things directly around each of us and making it strong enough to last for one more day, then one more day more, while making it a bitbetter each day as well.
Had an unrelated to this post thought. The bluer-collars v. the deskbound and wondering if OMG they can actually DO work, kind of the reverse attitude I recieve from them. My writing sucks, my lack of college, my total lack of a resume (long list of junk jobs) makes office people think I am incapable of functioning in their world. hmmm. neat, something to natter over.
Printer acting up, and ink low as well. Just got a new one at circuit city for 39.99. Not exactly being "green", but they make it hard to not do this.
There is a character in a 19th century Russian novel by Dostoevsky like some contributors here. They called them 'nihilists.
There's a developing exhaustion on this board with negative observations. About time the dynamic changed! (BTW, this is a good sign. When a group of perspicacious people distinguished by their certainty of a major economic downturn coming get tired of focusing on the negative, I think we are looking at the first glimmer of light....)
So, I'll balance the criticism I made of the road and school spending plans of the new Admin. with things I think really would help.
We need a lot of future economic growth to help pay for the baby boomers' future retirement. To generate the required productivity growth will require young people today to become better (a) educated and (b) more entrepreneurial.
How do you improve education? Not buildings or computers. Better teachers is the key. And for that we need a system that accords teachers power and respect, in the classroom and in society, and constantly and ruthlessly pushes out the weakest teachers every year.
How do you help people become more entrepreneurial? I don't know, but if Obama were to announce a program to apprentice the most promising kids, of all backgrounds, to volunteer entrepreneurs, I think he would get a good response. People know we need to do more to help our society to improve, and not just through tax dollars.
Basel Two- what do you think your insurance company has?
Yes, I understand that insurance companies have comprehensive records that they don't even have to disclose to you.
My concern is what happens if the patient decides to opt out of the system, i.e. pay for a procedure personally without insurance or government?
Will any new medical records system allow that, or will there be restraints on the physician? (i.e. you accept Medicare so you have to be electronic)
The koolaid drinkers here need a 2x4 to the head to see reality.
Pissed Off In California | 12.06.08 - 9:17 pm | #
Actually, it is the repeated blows that seem to do the trick...
The housing mania was in full swing in 2005 when analysts at Moodys Investors Service, the nations oldest and most prestigious credit-rating agency, were pressured to go back to the drawing board.
Moodys, which judges the quality of debt that corporations and banks issue to raise money, had just graded a pool of securities underwritten by Countrywide Financial, the nations largest mortgage lender. But Countrywide complained that the assessment was too tough.
The next day, Moodys changed its rating, even though no new and significant information had come to light, according to two people briefed on the change who requested anonymity to preserve their professional relationships.
" lawyerliz writes:
Lightbulb jokes? Must go downstairs and keep the hub company or he will divorce me.
I can appease him with lightbulb jokes.
lawyerliz | 12.06.08 - 7:40 pm | # "
Why! There's already a football game on TV!
I see Basel's on the job, hi Basel!
Given the scale of the rest of the economic and financial disaster we are going through and about to encounter, in so many countries, this just looks to me like the sound of confusion, a la excellent thread music:
YouTube -
C
"Well Pavel I guess a feasible suggestion I have is to think small.
Do very best to position self to be able to take care of family and first obligations, then as ability permits to widen the circle. To friends and family, local community."
Nothing wrong with that. It's obviously right. The chief executive of the most powerful country in history has to come up with something a bit more universal. : )
"kidbuck writes:
Our citizens need faster access to porn and facebook."
If mine were any faster, I'd go blind
patientrenter,
Bunk.
Flat out bunk- most folks are not cut out to be entrepreneurial. You know why?
Loss hurts too much.
They have so little relatively that they don't want to risk what they have.
Why are they so loss averse?
Um, could it be all of the scammers on and off wallstreet that promise so much and deliver so little?
Gee, watch a couple of hours of late night television and look at the freaking scams.
Look at the crooks on wallstreet do the same to the middle class, and after a while, the cynicism is due.
Someday this war's gonna end...
My concern is what happens if the patient decides to opt out of the system, i.e. pay for a procedure personally without insurance or government?
Will any new medical records system allow that, or will there be restraints on the physician? (i.e. you accept Medicare so you have to be electronic)
Basel Too | 12.06.08 - 9:26 pm | #
The current system allows duly appointed government representatives to demand ALL the medical records of any physician who accepts Medicare whether those records are of Medicare recipients or cash only patients. You can not opt out if your doctor takes government money, period.
"Will any new medical records system allow that, or will there be restraints on the physician? (i.e. you accept Medicare so you have to be electronic)"
All you need to do is request a paper copy of your records. I've done this myself, and it was very easy.
Citizen Allen M,
It isn't as easy at that. First of all, today you have to do a background check. Service techs go into people's
homes. Can't hire convicted felons or even people with misdemeanor theft type offenses.
Then you have to train them. Lot of young people have unrealistic ideas about what they are expected to do. Chatting on a cell phone or surfing the internet is not part of their job description. Then you get to the technical part of what they need to know. Its dull but important.
Then they have to deal with the 'public' and remain polite. That is probably the most difficult thing.
No, its not easy finding good workers
today and they should be paid more for the crap they have to do and put up with.
"While I understand that a national health database will provide some efficiencies, I shudder to think of the possible privacy ramifications, especially if there is no way to opt out. Do you really want any physician or medical professional anywhere to be able to access that file?
Basel Too | 12.06.08 - 9:15 pm | # "
I don't want anyone accessing my medical records, Basel 2, without my explicit permission. Limited exceptions if I am in a coma.
Today, we report our incomes to the SS admin, and to the IRS. We expect privacy and, for the mot part, get it. So I think it's possible, and I'd prefer the broad benefits for health care in general over the limited problems associated with privacy slip-ups.
Pavel Chichikov writes:
Thank you, Werner.
Ahhmm, for what ?
Basel, you suffer from the egotism that you are important enough that anyone would care that you caught the clap from the roadhouse restroom toilet seat.
Nobody care whatsoever. The ultimate fantasy is that somebody is going to use this information.
We can't even begin to make sense of the information we freely have. Why do we spend so much money on folks who are 89 years old, suffering CHF, getting multiple stents, hospitalization, rehospitalization, multiple tests, etc, when the humane treatment would be hospice and palliative care?
Spare me the big brother, we can't even target at-risk youth adequately or provide school lunches efficiently.
Someday this war's gonna end...
"Werner writes:
O/T Question :
Hi, I just read about the attempts to bring Caroline Kennedy into play for Hillary's senate seat and have the following question : Does Caroline have any political career so far which may qualify her to such a position ( I couldn't find any ) or is it just her famous name ?"
The only specific requirements are to be 35, and either be elected by your state or selected by your Governor.
"How do you help people become more entrepreneurial? I don't know, but if Obama were to announce a program to apprentice the most promising kids, of all backgrounds, to volunteer entrepreneurs, I think he would get a good response. People know we need to do more to help our society to improve, and not just through tax dollars."
I think it's something that might happen, and has probably occurred to other people. I think it may often happen informally.
I can't imagine, though, what it must be like to face the job of administering the largest economy in history, an economy which happens to be in trouble.
Not everything will be done at once, and false starts will be made. The magic wand will require tuning.
Pavel @6:59pm,
Good question re: how relegating to oblivion occurs. I would guess that some of it will depend on county & state budgets (how much either/both to pay for road maintenance). John R. Stilgoe, in "Train Time, Railroads & the Imminent Reshaping of the United States Landscape" (2007) has, in chapter 8, an interesting discussion of the interaction between development of/increasing use of unit trains, huge grain/loading facilities (as opposed to local grain elevators), & loss of local spur lines, has led to a great increase of costly rural road maintenance requirements (more big trucks)--one estimate he quotes is that abandoning 4 short line RRs would cost $57.8 million in increased road maintenance or "In Kansas, grain-hauling trucks owned by farmers, contract truckers, and grain elevator co-ops do about $7.15/truck per mile damage to the roads they travel. Every mile of short-line railroad abandoned tomorrow would cost $34,000 annually today, and much more in the years ahead." (p. 183).
Some journal articles are cited at the end of the chapter, but no date given, so I don't know when the costs (fuel, asphalt, labor) per truck mile were calculated & if they'd be more or less today.
If counties can no longer afford road maintenance, then some towns might flourish as short spurs & local elevators are rehabbed, while others fade because maintaining the road for truck traffic purposes isn't affordable any longer. Others might find other ways to survive.
Dryfly might know a great deal about the role of freight rail, unit trains, etc., in his industry & his part of the country. I'd think there'd be differences from state to state, depending partly on size but also how a given state has dealt with its RR infrastructure, the freight RRs that operate w/in the state & abandoned RR rights of way.
And some survival will depend upon ability to obtain pork barrel (see Ted Stevens & Alaska)
Citizen AllenM writes:
Basel, you suffer from the egotism that you are important enough that anyone would care that you caught the clap from the roadhouse restroom toilet seat.
You can't catch the clap from a toilet seat
"Citizen AllenM writes:
patientrenter,
Bunk.
Flat out bunk- most folks are not cut out to be entrepreneurial. You know why?
Loss hurts too much.
They have so little relatively that they don't want to risk what they have.
Why are they so loss averse?
Um, could it be all of the scammers on and off wallstreet that promise so much and deliver so little?"
Citizen AllenM, I am sorry you've suffered at the hands of others. But you don't have to forgive them to realize that raising a new generation to be devoid of energy or hope or appetite is not good.
I think we should do what we can to make a better life for younger folks, for their sake and ours.
Unit 472-
You should be looking at the kids who are 18 and liked auto shop but totally sucked at academics. You should run intense 6 week training to bring them up to speed.
For simple jobs you make employees. There are plenty without records sleeping on couches. I suggest you target kids who can't pay for community college and are dropping out.
Unless you are paying less than McDonalds- are you?
If so, you need some serious help- if you pay less than the cable TV installers-same fricking problem - btw you should be able to poach some of them.
Someday this war's gonna end...
Hahaha yes I agree Pavel, President Obama will have to be more universal.
Until he takes the reins though all he can do is jawbone. I thought you meant something positive that each of us can do, that is why i was talking about small.
I guess what I was reacting to is the fact that so many have placed such hope in this one man, this one leader, to say, do and choose exactly the right thing to make all the bad things go away and the land of milk and honey to return.
No one leader can do that, and putting the hopes outside ourselves (oh if only someone would DO SOMETHING) is not only the road to dashed hopes, but puts off the fixing. I am starting to really believe that no matter what leadership tries, it is going to come down to each individual.
Are they going to individually rebuild a sense of responisiblity and community and connection? Or wail and wait until someone else 'fixes' it?
I have done that myself. Now that I am getting older, I realize how lazy it was, and made it possible for me to be smug and self-righteous at the same time I contributed nothing to changing it, or keeping it from going off track.
"We can't even begin to make sense of the information we freely have. Why do we spend so much money on folks who are 89 years old, suffering CHF, getting multiple stents, hospitalization, rehospitalization, multiple tests, etc, when the humane treatment would be hospice and palliative care?"
My mother in law, a very sweet person who was well loved, probably lived an extra year of life because of the care she got, and it was a precious year. We don't have to abandon the old on medical ice bergs and let them drift out to sea. What would we think of ourselves? What sort of people would we be? We're not that desperate.
Disallow outsourcing.
At the very least, prohibit companies who received a taxpayer bailout from outsourcing.
Jeez, I go out on a nice Saturday to adsorb kultur and I come back and find the whole friggin' blog needs to be retrained.
Gotta hand it to Obama, he's already made the first hurdle. He's even got even the smart people here only talking about what to do rather than the real questions of "should we?" and "who should?" Then he's even got the conversations circling his preferred very public choices.
Yeaah, just what we need; centralized planning, stronger federalism, more debt, higher taxes, intrusion further into the economy, crowding of capital, choosing winners, pitting municipalities and states against each other, all to build things that have a proven track record of dragging down the economy like municipal edifices and public rail transit.
For but one example; Public rail transit has a negative ROI. not fractional, negative. Operational subsidies alone are several times the economic benefits. That's after the billions in sunk capital costs and the economic disruption in addition to the capital crowding out mentioned above. If the idea is to burden future generations I can think of nothing more effective than "investing" in public transit.
xxxxx writes:
The only specific requirements are to be 35, and either be elected by your state or selected by your Governor.
I see. Thanks for the answer.
"No one leader can do that, and putting the hopes outside ourselves (oh if only someone would DO SOMETHING) is not only the road to dashed hopes, but puts off the fixing. I am starting to really believe that no matter what leadership tries, it is going to come down to each individual.
"Are they going to individually rebuild a sense of responisiblity and community and connection? Or wail and wait until someone else 'fixes' it?"
Yes, each individual, but not each individual alone. That would be anarchy.
patient, I didn't suffer- but do you know how many I have seen suffer?
My grandmother got her money out of American Continental just in time- do you realize they upsold those bonds across the counter at Lincoln Savings?
I ate lunch with folks who lost most of their lifesavings.
Am I bitter, a little, but the suffering from the failures of regulation is real, and now the morons who have allowed it will once again sit there and spew the pablum about the freemarkets as they lose their precious scamming ability.
The lies fricking piss me off!!!
Someday this war's gonna end...
"No one leader can do that, and putting the hopes outside ourselves (oh if only someone would DO SOMETHING) is not only the road to dashed hopes, but puts off the fixing."
Agreed.
Was wondering why RD hadn't responded to his particular red flag...culture in SoCal - where do you get yogurt there?
Citizen AllenM, no we pay about 3 times McDonald's to start but we have one more caveat.
As a regulated utility we come under DOT regs and that means drug tests. No dope smoking or anything else.
You see the problem now?
No criminal history, no drugs, show up on time ( you are essential personel and that means same as police or fire) and not have the same
respect ( or pay) that police or fire get. In fact, we lose personel to those agencies because, inter alia, we don't offer as generous a retirement package though 60% after 30 is better than most have these days.
"Yeaah, just what we need; centralized planning, stronger federalism, more debt, higher taxes, intrusion further into the economy, crowding of capital, choosing winners, pitting municipalities and states against each other, all to build things that have a proven track record of dragging down the economy like municipal edifices and public rail transit."
So what do you suggest? I'm beginning to suspect that when you ask people for practical policy suggestions it all gets a little vague.
But maybe I'm wrong here.
I remember having a conversation in a Moscow kitchen in 1991. The guy said: 'What this country needs is for everyone just to mind their own business, and not mind everyone else's business, and it will all be all right.'
This was just before the anarchy, the wholesale impoverishment and the crime wave started. People stuck their heads in their kitchen ovens and turned on the gas. Nobody stopped them. Glorious freedom.
Late the the thread party.
I'm not against some infrastructure work but we had better be getting busy working on the energy issue and water problems. It it were me I'd be looking at infrastructure that moved vast amounts of water from places that have excess to farmland that is quickly drying out.
Pavel, there are folks who are going to improve, and there is reality that docs fail to face. I am personally aware of somebody who should most likely be heading into hospice care in that exact situation, and because the doc and family are holding out such hope he is essentially being tortured for almost no hope- he had a massive MI a week and half ago. Instead they go on about if he was ten years younger we would do a bypass, etc, so we stent instead. Well, the outcome is darned near guaranteed.
That is sad, folks should try as much as is reasonable- but in my mind they are way too treatment happy- quality of remaining life is a definite question.
I do not advocate the iceberg, but in reality, medical care should be designed passed age 70 to fix what is possible and allow the natural process to happen when it is not, and we should get rid of lawsuits when the very elderly die. You should read some of this blog: Dethmama Chronicles
Read a bit of her archives to show the medical establishment in overdrive.
That is what cranks me.
Someday this war's gonna end...
That's it? CFL bulbs for schools? Road repair? Bridges? Energy efficient federal buildings? WTF?!!?!!!! Same old bullshit.
That is going to effect my personal economy by 0.00000%. Here's some news, Obama. There is a hell of a lot of service sector jobs in this economy that you're going to let wither on the vine while we continue the misappropriation of capital building f'ing roads. Guess what, genius? We shouldn't be continuing to subsidize car usage. For god's sake, have some balls and do something a little less brain dead like improve the rail system in the country and the powergrid. Instead we're going to patch potholes which is not a smart investment in the future.
How's that voting for change thing working out? lol
counterpointer,
Nice thread music. Thought I saw snow flurries today. Got to get back to my studies; exam season starting with a vengeance.
next month, I'll be working on a very interesting Senate oversight committee. probably means no more day-trading.
ahhh. No, not indvidually, but yes. hahaha. let me start over. One for one would be a horrible place to reach. When i say focus on individual small reach, I mean to strengthen the ties.
Take care of myself to meet my obligations to son.
When that is happening, re-connect with my family and friends, and neighbors. Meet my obligations to this small web.
As those bonds strengthen and my ability to contribute to a wider sphere happens increase the bonds and the web further.
Enough strong communities, towns, states lead to strengthened ties to the commitment to steering the usa.
Not waiting for some president, or government agency, or spending program to fix it.
Bottom-up fixing. Little leaders, all over the states.
Wall St is preparing the leveraged lightbulb installation employment program: 1 person to hold the bulb and 25 to turn the building.
At the very least, prohibit companies who received a taxpayer bailout from outsourcing.
Frank | 12.06.08 - 9:39 pm | #
Yeah, because companies could never find a way around that.
"Am I bitter, a little, but the suffering from the failures of regulation is real, and now the morons who have allowed it will once again sit there and spew the pablum about the freemarkets as they lose their precious scamming ability."
Fair enough, Citizen AllenM. I see people every day who are selfish, who lie, who scam, etc. And some dear members of my own family suffered from the vagaries of our financial system. I am now taking massive losses myself, without having had the benefit of the gains most others had over the last 25 years.
But if we are to improve things, we need to make room for positive drive as well as probity, for appetite as well as asceticism, for entrepreneurs taking risk as well as prudent managers limiting risk.
If we don't tilt even more in favor of entrepreneurial activity, we will have low growth rates, and the baby boomers are going to have one very tough retirement. Not all entrepreneurial activity is bad. Without it our material living standards would stagnate at best.
So, give yourself room for your own anger, but I am just suggesting allowing room also for the younger folks to avoid damage from it. (I am older, and have no kids, in case you're wondering about my agenda.)
Rob Dawg:
Wondered where you've been.
OK, we've already got an exurban experiment in light rail happening in North County, SD. Its called the "Sprinter", went live a few months ago, and runs from Escondido to Oceanside which for the folks listening at home is roughly an East West axis of about 25 miles. Basically, if you understand traffic patterns here, this route is roughly a 90 degree cross cut against where 80% of the population typically commutes and there is very little mass transit at either end, so if you don't live/work within walking distance of the stations, its useless.
No one who lives here can figure out why they built it. No faster than vehicular traffic, and it will not pay for itself - at least in my lifetime. But heck its fun, a little like a disneyland ride to the beach.
My take is that in 30 years, after future CRE adapts to this right of way, and employment assumes its existence everyone will agree it was a great idea. But living in the present, its a joke. Really.
Moral: When it comes to big "infrastructure", nothing we do now will affect our existing plight. But for those worried about the kiddies, it may help them.
citizen energyecon writes:
Was wondering why RD hadn't responded to his particular red flag...culture in SoCal - where do you get yogurt there?
Latin American Pre-Colombian Art at the Natural History Museum in L.A. where I am a member. And yes, traffic sucked because of the over budget, behind schedule scaled back light rail line under construction.
A fricking regulated utility, Unit 472?
You need to fire your HR department.
We pay starting corrections officers here in Arizona $14 an hour and we have a waiting list!!!
Your HR department sucks, quite frankly.
Like I said, you just have to recruit right.
Someday this war's gonna end...
"Not waiting for some president, or government agency, or spending program to fix it.
Bottom-up fixing. Little leaders, all over the states."
That would be great. The Church calls it 'subsidiarity.' Nothing should be done by central authority that can be done locally. It's an ideal. But if it's not coordinated it can become chaotic, nor can it draw on the general resources of the country. Would your little leaders have the power to tax and administer the law? How would they relate to other little leaders? Who would govern locally?
You might find yourself under barons instead of Congress and the executive branch.
Regarding the whole infrastructure/interstate thingie....one has to remember the context and reason for building the system...to move troops/equipment across a VERY large country, if need be...recall, the system started being built in the late 50's.
A Muslim walks into a bar...bartender says, "Hey, Abdul,...why the long fez?"
ok unit 472, ill bite, what state?
Pavel, you asked for suggestions, well I made a BIG one earlier on in this thread.
If 'stimulus' is what is needed, and I don't agree that consumer or infrastructure driven stimulus is the right approach, then, fund it through FED monetary policy. That is, just print it and send the checks out to business or consumers.
Using fiscal policy the Treasury has to 'officially' borrow a trillion dollars and that debt is forever.
The problem is Obama needs to be seen as paying off his constituent groups and to do that he has to 'appropriate' the money. Can't just pour Fed dollars into the general
economy. He needs to send them to "HIS" interest groups. Therefore the need for 'fiscal' rather than monetary policy.
Dawg,
Thanks for responding to a gentle poke - that sounds like quite a cool exhibit - was it centered on Mesoamerica (Olmec/Toltec), further South (Incas and what came before can't recall this second) or...?
There is some roadwork here in Houston I can't wait to see finished, they may actually get some Highway 10 expansion work completed that is sufficient to the traffic load at the time of completion... now that will be a wonder!
patientrenter,
One of the problems I see is the current Cato meme of too much regulation- what I see is too little effective regulation.
We have all lost a lot of money due to ineffective regulation. Most of the losses from the last couple of months are from deleveraging hedge funds. Who provided the gearing heroin? Why our friends on Wall Street through that 40 to one leveraging allowed early in this decade by our current administration.
Gee, act surprised. I have literally hundreds of examples, but hey, I work in regulatory economics.
Look at the criminal acts involved in the real estate bubble- top to bottom.
A good metric is that you need effective regulation to deter or punish 5% or less of the regulated community- when you have more than that it is a patent failure of regulation due to corruption. That corruption is either legal (i.e. failure of the legislative body to provide regulation) or executive due to ignoring the existing law.
Someday this war's gonna end...
"I do not advocate the iceberg, but in reality, medical care should be designed passed age 70 to fix what is possible and allow the natural process to happen when it is not, and we should get rid of lawsuits when the very elderly die."
I'll be 70 next month. If I'm still posting here when I deteriorate I'll let you know how it goes.
We used to visit Soldier's Home in DC, and one of the guys there told us: "After a certain age [he was in his mid-70s] it's all replacement parts.
unit472,
The market will provide sub-optimal quantities of goods capable of non-rival consumption - always - free rider problem.
"The problem is Obama needs to be seen as paying off his constituent groups and to do that he has to 'appropriate' the money. Can't just pour Fed dollars into the general
economy. He needs to send them to "HIS" interest groups. Therefore the need for 'fiscal' rather than monetary policy."
You see him as a cynical opportunist? There are no legitimate policy reasons for what he proposes to do? There are no problems with 'printing?"
So here is an "investment proposal" for the board to tear up. I don't know how many people have looked at any of the "Internet 2" research projects, but one of the more mundane ones has recently been commercialized by Cisco. (although Cisco claims it is proprietary, it's all well-known technology.) Here is an abbreviated demo:
YouTube - Cisco TelePresence
The only thing that makes this difficult today is the abysmal lack of deployed bandwidth outside of some universities, institutions, and a few very large businesses. So the infrastructure investment would be lay lots and lots of fiber, and buy a bunch of high-speed routers. Oh, and an investment in manufacturing to get the terminal equipment down to the price of a Tivo.
Practical telepresence systems and infrastructure could greatly reduce fossil fuel consumption, for starters. Far fewer automobile and airline trips would be required. And a lot less of people's time would be wasted traveling. The recovered time could add to productivity or leisure time.
Go ahead, tear it up. I'm interested in seeing the responses.
"That is, just print it and send the checks out to business or consumers."
And then what happens?
Nobody care whatsoever. The ultimate fantasy is that somebody is going to use this information."
I think you're wrong. This information is vital in identifying people with chronic conditions and refusing them coverage...including such simple things as a prescription for anti-depressants.
And if employers can access your credit reports, why not your medical records as well...health care costs employers a bundle...why would they want someone with a disabled or sick child?
Thanks pavel for the conversation. I have recently been having a bit of an internal crisis i admit i was one of the let it all burn crowd. So bear with me please because I am still working through this in my own head, so it may sound inchoerent still.
I see what you are saying about small kingdoms, barons etc.
And re-reading what I am saying tonite, I agree that is what it sounds like it may happen.
But when I was originally typing little leader I meant to step up, each person instead of waiting for A LEADER to fix it all. If each person stepped up, took a positive and strenghtening positon, bit by bit instead of fobbing it off on something outside themselves.
Joined a city council, write and lobby the mayor, make sure that neighbors had opportunity to know each other, to garden etc.
Nothing illegal, nothing kingdom making.
Small steps, to strengthen community, then state, etc. all withing the legal framework. Each person taking a stand to make a positive contribution without looking to someone else to fix it.
I am still working through the let it crash-ness vs being connected.
I guess I am assuming that as bonds strengthen, as people start taking action that helps no matter how small they will learn to expect internal leadership rather than looking outside for answers, they will contribute to the answer rather than sucking the life out of their leaders.
Pavel Chichikov writes:
"I'll be 70 next month. If I'm still posting here when I deteriorate I'll let you know how it goes. :)"
Its a moving bar ...
Someone once told me that anyone over the age of 50 who isn't in pain is already dead.
There is some roadwork here in Houston I can't wait to see finished, they may actually get some Highway 10 expansion work completed that is sufficient to the traffic load at the time of completion... now that will be a wonder!
citizen energyecon
That requirement; that there be existing demand for new capacity gives rise to a modern myth. The myth is that if you build more roads they will only fill up. Again, only because we build in places with so much unmet demand it gets overwhelmed before completion.
How many of those light-bulb changing jobs do you think will be created?
We will save billions on lights and heat? Give me a break.
Reading the doomsaying negativists here is depressing, until I read RSJ and am persuaded that the country has many, many more optimistic can-do folks of her ilk who will-do. It's time to close my short positions and begin buying again...maybe a shovel factory.
Good on ya RSJ.
Citizen AllenM
You want to prosecute 5% of those engaged in criminal actions during the credit bubble!
Do you understand what the would really mean? No, not just bankers, real estate broker and appraisers. I could live and even approve of that but the real problem is down at retail
level.
6 million foreclosures let us say and half of them based on fraudulent loan
applications. You going to need a whole lot more prison guards down in Arizona.
Senorito On-Topico: Whats that line "meet new boss, same as old boss".
You mean... The dictator is dead! Long live the dictator!
Look at the bright side... After all the king's women and men fail to put the kingdom back together again, maybe we can live as free men and women. They pretty much have an all-star team of think tankers and other charlatan intellectuals. Their failure should cure the populace of their misplaced faith in the Almighty Government, which exists in the ecology of man as a terminal parasite on liberty.
sm_landlord,
Have seen some sh!t kicking high end setups at the oil major where I work - definitely not the 'home office' version, but the fossil fuel industry itself is already investing in the technology. It isn't desk top, TIVO priced yet but in a very capital intensive industry the business case can be made under the current cost structure.
sm_landlord writes:
Practical telepresence systems and infrastructure could greatly reduce fossil fuel consumption, for starters. Far fewer automobile and airline trips would be required. And a lot less of people's time would be wasted traveling. The recovered time could add to productivity or leisure time.
sm_landlord | Homepage | 12.06.08 - 10:07 pm
Amen! An investment in 21st century technology instead of early 20th century technology. When is it going to dawn on people that we have to invest in technologies that allow orders of magnitude savings in the resources we utilize? Better roads, bridges, and higher MPG vehicles is NOT where we should be focusing.
IMO, a really good way of encouraging entrepreneurship is to provide a safety net so people can afford to take chances. In particular, health care can't be tied to jobs if you want people to work for themselves. Because that eliminates everyone with a pre-existing condition. I couldn't work for myself if DH didn't get benefits through his job.
Our automobile based transportation system wouldn't exist without nearly a century of government interference. To argue against public transportation on these grounds deserves wide ridicule. Children learn that roads are funded by gov't in grade school - at least I did. Maybe some notable commenter here never attended. Fast, cheap, convenient public transit exists all over the developed world, and some of the developing. The public never demanded our present urban form; those with private power also ran gov't and centrally planned the rules and subsidies for an automobile dominated sprawling wasteland.
Unit472: fund it through FED monetary policy. That is, just print it and send the checks out to business or consumers.
Both business and consumers will spend only a fraction of it and will save the rest to pay off the debt or for a rainy day. One needs to force economic activity to keep the economy going.
For the first time in my life, I became politically active during this presidential campaign. I gave the limit to Obama and even canvased for him.
However, I am really concerned about the approach he is taking. We need to spend money on things that matter in the 21st century. That said, there is something else I am concerned about . . . I think we (meaning the US) are going to get one shot at getting this right. If this $1 trillion stimulus doesn't work, I don't think we will have the credibility to go back to the teller window at the Central Bank of China. I am concerned that the thinking that Obama is getting from Summers, Krugman, etc. is very conventional and perhaps inapplicable to the situation we face today.
MrM - I agree. Sending out checks can only encourage a little more consumer activity at best. We are way beyond that.
I'm really confused. As far as I can tell, the net result of FDR's spending binge was another recession running into the end of the 1930s. With unemployment climbing, dramatically, not dropping. It appears things didn't get "permanently" better until the war boom (which started well before Pearl Harbor).
So unless there's a war that wipes out all our competition, it is less than completely clear to me how Obama's plan (such as it is) is going to matter given the underlying problems.
Rob Dawg | Homepage | 12.06.08 - 10:09 pm | #
Sorry RD, guess again. TXDOT was in the habit of working each road mile sequentially rather than all at once, at the same time traffic was exploding along the 10 corridor (Houston avoided bubble price runups by sprawling and not having zoning). So they were always working on the highway and. What has changed is they got a clue and worked the entire expansion at once...
"medical care should be designed passed age 70 to fix what is possible and allow the natural process to happen when it is not, and we should get rid of lawsuits when the very elderly die."
70 is hardly the "very elderly". As always, who defines what is "possible"?
Fortunes are spent on preemie infants and those with serious disabilities...should care for them be deemed "not possible" or non-economically useful?
Is age your only criterion?
As always, who defines what is "possible"?
The person signing the check.
As always.
Thank YOU Obama!!!
Nice Fire Side Chat!!! You're the Man!
ullpointer, I think Sports Guy is in MN.
I used the phrase Holy Buckets all the time when I was younger.
On a more serious note. This Obama thing was just a message for the sheeple. It was (I hope) mainly not for us.
The light bulb idea. Funny. His team needs to improve quickly.
Me, I'd love to see the government fund hundreds of X prizes. We need to utilize private capital and our entrepreneurial drive to improve this country and create wealth and jobs.
How about an X prize for micro wind turbine technology?
greatfallstribune.com | Great Falls | Great Falls Tribune
Citizen AllenM wrote: "patientrenter,
One of the problems I see is the current Cato meme of too much regulation- what I see is too little effective regulation."
I wish that regulators had pricked the various bubbles we've had in the last 10 years - internet, housing, assets in general. But I am realistic. The temptations were stronger than us. The willingness of the Chinese govt and oil-exporting countries' govts to fund our trade deficit, if we would just buy more than we produced, was too tempting for nearly EVERYONE.
Can you imagine what would have happened if someone like a Paul Volcker had stood up an said he was going to send asset prices plummeting because he saw that their continued elevation sustained imbalances that would undermine our long-term economic health? There would have been an outcry, and two critical little trips he would have had to make: one to visit with George Bush, and one with Barney Frank. And that would have been the end of that.
So I hope we get better regulators, I hope we get better presidents, I hope we get better Congressmen, I hope we get citizens who don't expect to liquidate their investments in the future at a real value greater than the real value of the non-investment income they set aside to make those investments...
But the world will go on, people will laugh, drink, make love, make money, make goods, create, test, take risks ... We have to accommodate all that future activity as best we can, because our future wellbeing depends on it.
MrM you raise a valid point but two rejoinders.
If we have reached the point that we have to 'force' economic activity ( and isn't saving economic activity) then we are doomed.
Second, one could make receiving a government handout conditional. For example, I have suggested the government 'buy' any car more than 5 years old getting less than 25 mpg on an environmental, national security and energy consumption basis.
The Fed could offer 0 percent car loans over 72 months if they bought a domestically manufactured car that got more than 25 mpg? Isn't that forcing 'economic activity' and isn't that just what Detroit needs. Not a loan but sales?
Thanks swampfella, it is kind of interesting being called optimistic heehee. Been following this bubble since 2005 just out of pure curiosity, I have no assets to try to protect. The people around me thought i was a doom and downer person as i tried to tel them of what I was learning, and what I really thought was coming down the pike.
40 years to figure out to just keep trying. Get up and keep going.
I am at the lower end of the wage and work scale, but still it is miles above where i was just 8 years ago.
I have been homeless and hungry and damn i dont want to do that again, I dont want my son to feel that. But I do know that it wont be the end of the world if it does happen, just a new crappier version of the world and I can keep getting up, and keep going and make it better if it does happen.
I am glad I am a small person. I can focus small. I wouldnt be president for all the gold in the world (even if qualified hahaha)
I am not saying it will be easy, or quick, or actually really work. Just that I have figured out that not trying, not stepping up is worse than laying down and being converted to worm-poop while still breathing.
I dont think anything right now is going to turn the storm over us now. It is going to hit, and hit hard. So if policy from above isnt going to help what to do?
Strengthen below, be small, rely on yourself, and rely on others, and let them rely on you and rebuild community into towns, into functioning wider areas, into states, hold yourself and those with you to better standards. Then poke your head out like a prairie dog and check how it is going out there--then link in and transform national politics from the bottom too.
I dont know anymore. From a crashnburn cheerleader to a darn kumbaya huggy freak. sigh. Damn I miss Tanta.
sm_landlord writes:
"Practical telepresence systems and infrastructure could greatly reduce fossil fuel consumption, for starters. Far fewer automobile and airline trips would be required. And a lot less of people's time would be wasted traveling. The recovered time could add to productivity or leisure time."
Enjoyed the demo (although a bit dated), but reminds me of the same converstaion we were having 10 years ago when based applications wer being developed (Webinars, etc.). Not a new concept, but another significant step. But here are two faults:
1) The whole WEB 2.0 and related ecosystems all assume "always on" broadband (which you partially acknowledge in the infrastructure investment) which is a nice goal but falacious in reality. Large urban environments, probably. Satellite offices where you are trying to encourage telecomuters, not as dependable.
2) More importantly, you will have to re-engineer the DNA of entire professions (think sales and marketing) who are gentically programmed to insiting on face to face to communications. There is something about the physical chemistry of inter personal communications that is is filtered out of electronic media, and sales "professionals" can not operate effectively without it.
But for engineering and similar collaborative projects, its not only a good idea, but inevitable.
Screw infrastructure - I want a new MacBook - this old G3 won't play uTube, so I'm denied my right to follow every link on CR.
CR ~ "As I noted last week, there aren't anywhere near enough "shovel ready" projects to offset the decline in private non-residential structure investment that I expect in 2009."
Get ready for GDII ...
These projects, while needed, will not give the needed injection of stimulus in time to halt the deflationary downward spiral we are now in.
But for engineering and similar collaborative projects, its not only a good idea, but inevitable.
Disagree. Good engineering needs face-time too. Some of it is because lab/bench/debug work is (a) inherently hands-on (ie, requires physical presence) and (b) goes much better when more than one (capable) person is involved.
But also because there is a static electricity like component to rubbing up against people directly: the quality of ideas generated by people in proximate contact with each other is generally higher than the quality of idea generated by people in isolation chambers.
There's no getting around it - we are a social, gregarious species, and achieve best when the work environment supports that.
Slave revolt,
I just caught your comment. Thank you.
What you do sounds fascinating, and vital.
Please post more often, the on-the-ground reports are great. I will do the same as things unravel here on the West Side.
Someone upthread mentioned water supplies...I follow this having grown up in upstate NY. The states and provinces around the Great Lakes have passed legislation that forbids piping water from the Lakes to other water-starved areas...I think it may not be peak oil, but peak water that is the coming crisis.
Blow up that Treasury market Obama I'm counting on you bro.
I heard Obama's speech, too, and have to go along with those who are more than a little disappointed. While I certainly don't expect him to have a comprehensive program all set to go, 30 days after the election, and before he's even taken office, the crap I heard was SO pitiful/lame, as to defy desciption. I understand he's trying to "rally the troops", but geez louise!!!!