Too many damn malls anyways.

Honi soit qui mall y pense?

I read an article 6 months ago about the massive amount of new commercial space coming online in Seattle. I guess they will be joining the party.

Sorry, but having a hard time processing why a 0.5% in vacancy is really that big of a deal. A 5% increase I can understand...but half a point?

4 shzl: Since childhood I always thought mall was a weird word. Thanks for putting the malevolent slant on it.

But after a long stay overseas, returning to the states was always a gas because you could always find stuff w/in blocks of wherever you rented a car, and parking lots filled with the privledged shoppers' vehicles. Retail sq ft per head was opulent most everwhere, but esp in CA.

Never could figure out how that worked.

So why is SRS not down big on this ?

Of course the relationship between malls and residential developments is chicken and egg. I restate the obvious. One local subdivision built here in the '60s was simultaneously developed solely to provide shoppers for the mall the developer was building. Goes back a long way. Like cattle farming. Or Soylent Green... "it's made of people!"

Maybe I should visit my mall for the first time in 2 years and see if any stores are left.

The guilt is killing me.

The Whole Foods moved out of a spot in the local strip mall but the manager was right on top of things and brought in Talbot's. The upfit was supposed to be ready by January 09 (they were moving from another location so I guess they wanted to stay there through Christmas). Now the "coming soon" signs have all been ripped down and and work has ceased. My guess is Talbot's is not moving in - and probably still vacating the old location.

We're seeing a mass retreat from investment in complexity, on all levels: financial system, consumer, etc. The only thing not keeping up with the trend is U.S. investment in complex military adventures.

Tainter's definition of collapse. All this complexity has stopped actually solving any problems (which is why complex societies come to be) so there is now a mass flight from its demands. There is no longer any confidence in complex institutions to solve people's problems. Today's institutions demand a lot of buy-in but produce only "tweaks" to existing solutions.

Case in point, yesterday's Macworld keynote, which went over poorly and offered very little innovation for increased expectation of buy-in (a new 17 inch Macbook with a non removable battery - obviously planned obsolescence).

The fanboys weren't biting this time.

If the malls go bust, where will I get my Orange Juliuses?

We're seeing a mass retreat from investment in complexity

I've always termed the complexity "peak stupidity"...

except maybe some of the newest too need to be destroyed in housing.

"In addition to these concessions, some landlords are offering the furniture left behind by failed financial services companies that have vacated their spaces. In at least one case, a 90,000-square-foot lease by document imaging firm Kofax at 15211 Laguna Canyon Rd. in Discovery Business Center, as part of the deal the tenant will get free office furniture that once belonged to a financial services company. "
crispy&cole | Homepage | 01.07.09 - 9:53 am | #

When the FDIC took over my employer in May, they ended up donating the (somewhat expensive) computer hardware to a local church for pennies on the dollar, when they had a bid in hand (from me).    Your tax dollars at work!

FloJo, I live in Panama City, we've been in bad shape for two years now. Pier Park will have tumbleweeds before this is over. The only thing I can see saving the area is gambling, they can turn all those unoccupied condos that nobody wants into casinos...

When the FDIC took over my employer in May, they ended up donating the (somewhat expensive) computer hardware to a local church for pennies on the dollar, when they had a bid in hand (from me). Your tax dollars at work!
Eric | 01.07.09 - 10:01 am | #

Faith based initiative.

i kinda liked the macbook wheel...

The source is Joseph Tainter's classic book, "The Collapse of Complex Civilizations," published in 1988. Never out of print.

Predictions of Mad Max anarchy are a little "out there" - what happens when complex societies collapse is that many different local solutions are found to replace the collapsed entity. In fact, quality of life often improves somewhat for the peasantry. The people who "disappear" are the society's elites (although new elites come to power).

Tainter's definition of collapse. All this complexity has stopped actually solving any problems (which is why complex societies come to be) so there is now a mass flight from its demands. There is no longer any confidence in complex institutions to solve people's problems. Today's institutions demand a lot of buy-in but produce only "tweaks" to existing solutions.

I've started reading Tainter's book.

I agree with the observations about complexity now - I believe the increasing complexity in finance now is being used obscure reality and extract wealth from participants in the financial market, rather than for enhancing economic productivity.

To put it more simply - new technology is being used to extract wealth from society rather than create it.

thanks for the ref, mall, er... mal.

lj, Goody's went out of business here more than a year ago, this isn't surprising. I think the real shock waves will be felt when one of the bigggies goes down, like Sears or Pennys...

say, 30% more money devoted to R&D will only net you 20% more value in the innovations it produces

clarification- by "value" Tainter means "problem-solving value."

most of the high-value innovations have been discovered already and the rest is just tweakage

Part of that is they way the courts interpreted the patent laws over the past 6 decades. Why release a "flash of genius" when mere tweaking qualifies for a 20 year monopoly? In 2007, the Supreme Court said bloody hell to the existing obviousness standard. Hopefully, the gears of innovation will start to loosen.

Well, most people scream bloody murder at Tainter's contention that R&D is increasingly about diminishing returns, and that most of the high-value innovations have been discovered already and the rest is just tweakage

Haven't read the book, so mine is an ignorant comment. However, is this really what he says? That technology in 100 years will look pretty much like technology today?

I think diminishing R&D returns do occur, but primarily in rent-seeking situations. For instance: Pharma. The money goes to finding barely different but patentable versions of Prilosec rather than dramatic new drugs. Same thing has occurred in financial services, where innovations were designed to prop up the same elite and same structures. The returns on R&D are constrained by a narrow focus on what is researched and what is developed.

Funny, Jas!

So, Fair Economist, what do you say about socialized universal health care in the context of this:

St. Louis Fed | Page Not Found 

And of course all the other rabid bailout & spending programs to include municipalities bailouts in '09.

Nobody seems to have really noticed that the vast majority of technological "innovation" of the last 20 years or more has been basically tweakage. How can we cram more teleconnectivity into a phone? (and games, maps, Internet connections, text messaging, things that are thought to be highly useful but haven't actually proven themselves to be such?)

And incremental advances in agricultural productivity... at the potentially high cost of losing genetic diversity...

Exotic debt instruments that didn't actually increase wealth.

I caught on to this myself (before reading Tainter) several years ago when I realized that young hackers promoting their software were constantly talking about how "revolutionary" their stuff was but when you looked at the fine print, they'd basically just tweaked something previously existing - changed an interface slightly, or put in a minor option to something already written. "Open source" doesn't really lead anywhere exciting or new.

Societies collapse because as they progress they become less dynamic and adaptive.

Actually, Tainter shoots that down quite handily in his book. Or rather, makes the case that collapse is adaptive - think of it as a strategic retreat that solves problems.

Artistes that came up with the concpets have apparently fled the coop, and the hausfrau are silverless.

Yes, real estate buying and flipping took the place of Beanie Baby collecting and trading. With the same result... Beanie Babies and McMansions now clogging up garages and housing developments coast to coast. (In fact if you buy the foreclosed McMansions I bet you get a garagefull of free Beanies.)

"Buy Shelly the Tie Dye Turtle or be priced out FOREVER!"

Morocco Bama... no, but we are clearly not headed toward any egalitarian age soon.

Next complex society, maybe. Long after we're all dead. I'm sure mankind will give it another shot.

So, Fair Economist, what do you say about socialized universal health care in the context of this:

In terms of socialized universal health care, it just makes it more essential since that's much cheaper than private insurance, primarily due to the mind-boggling inefficiencies in private insurance. The Medicare gap is huge, but it's primarily due to the huge shift to healthcare going on. Medicare is a much better deal than private insurance.

In terms of budgeting, we're going to have to raise taxes to rates similar to other industrialized countries. They all have longer lifespans and lower crime rates, so I'm not stressed out about that.

"primarily due to the mind-boggling inefficiencies in private insurance."

What? Don't you believe that every insurance company should have an edifice headquarters building and a very highly paid cadre of corporate execs????

BTW, here's what you get in exchange for complex society collapse (in addition to bad things like thugs and strongmen):

--Health care that is more personalized, makes you feel better, or even might actually cure some things (although more old people will die).

--A redevelopment of localized culture - arts, storytelling, folk heroism - that actually does something for the local society. (Why are craft supply chains virtually the only retail doing well this season?)

--For the lucky with natural resources in their neighborhood (and the clout to defend them from strongmen), food with more genetic diversity (Monsanto not likely to pay able to pay off ALL the local cops).

--For better or worse, more reliance on family and neighborhood and less on centralized government.

L'chaim...

LOL@ Donovan's Reef...Redneck place, almost went to work there but thought better of it. I work across the bridge in town, it's a local lounge full of retirees...Nice and peaceful and full of people with guaranteed retirement checks from the military
Yes, our local crooks got rich on the deal, they've been voting in the same Chamber of Commerce morons for decades here, the same couple families still rule here and so long as they babble about guns, Jesus and queers, they'll keep winning.

OT: Obama just appointed Nancy Killefer as Chief Performance Officer...  Chief Performance Officer?  I didn't know the federal government had a post like that.  She's a McKinseyite to boot!

This just keeps getting richer and richer.

What two issues were those unblvbl? The public here voted against the airport and they did it anyway. The airport we have barely gets used but we need a new one? Pier Park is full of overpriced crap, ten dollar cheeseburgers and 12 dollar Margaritas...The locals can't afford it and the tourist season only lasts about seven months. The only thing that could save this area is gambling and that would be a whole knew set of problems. Like everywhere else in this country, the problem is this area produces nothing. No manufacturing other than a paper mill and chemical company.

Gottschalks, a California/western region department store chain, is going to go belly up by the end of the month if they don't get a cash infusion, and odds don't look good. They're one of two anchor stores in our local mall, and are pretty huge up and down the Central Valley (up to Sac, anyway, beyond which nothing is huge).

Gottschalk's special problem is that a lot of their old-time prime territory was subprime ubble exurb land.  Sac, Modesto, etc.