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Na, a famous (I beleive more than one) writer use commas like I or I'm simply stealing from him! If it aggravates you, great!
Anybody get the email from Key Financial?
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Na, a famous (I beleive more than one) writer use commas like I or I'm simply stealing from him! If it aggravates you, great!
- 2,152
How housing ills killed the bull - MSN Money
For the last twenty years it seems to me, people have been predicting doom and gloom. What is that old saying "Nothing New Under The Sun", people like predicting doom and gloom! Yet though, houses still going up and being sold, http://www.realtor.org/Research.nsf/files/HousingStarts.pdf/$FILE/HousingStarts.pdf
Geez, after years of record housing starts that a slow down would be consider if anything but, obvious? What do you think will happen when all these new units are sold?
For the last twenty years it seems to me, people have been predicting doom and gloom. What is that old saying "Nothing New Under The Sun", people like predicting doom and gloom! Yet though, houses still going up and being sold, http://www.realtor.org/Research.nsf/files/HousingStarts.pdf/$FILE/HousingStarts.pdf
Geez, after years of record housing starts that a slow down would be consider if anything but, obvious? What do you think will happen when all these new units are sold?
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- #63
My goodness, English can't be your first language.
I never suggested we were headed for another Great Depression. Just potentially a recession.
You think? I venture to guess all those that lose their homes will remember. I venture to guess all those whose house payments have jumped $500-$1,000 per month and can't refinance because of depressed values will remember.
Do you think anyone remembers there was a tech bubble?
And you keep missing it. We are not asking the government to control our economy. We are asking it to HELP ease a recession.
Also, you didn't answer my question from the previous post. Tell me how the Federal Reserve reducing rates increases the size of government. Nor did you tell us when it was we had 7% foreclosure rates. First you said it was 1977. Then you said you "noted the wrong year". So which year was it?
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- #64
Are you serious? Didn't you mean, "like ME"?
Also remember it's "i" before "e" except after "c" and sometimes "y". Pretty simple rule for spelling words like believe.
No, it really doesn't aggravate me. If you talk the way you write, the only word I can say is, WOW!!!
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- #65
You bring up two articles that show we're in a slowdown. And then you talk about people predicting doom and gloom. If pointing to the fact that we are headed for a recession if nothing is done (and some areas are already in a recession) is doom and gloom, then put me in that camp. Again, I don't believe stating the obvious is doom and gloom. Please tell me how presenting FACTUAL information is doom and gloom.
The obvious, as your articles point out, the housing market has slowed. Not just a little, but a lot. When you have the number of housing starts reduce by more than half in two years time, that's more than a pull back. In addition, housing starts are lower than they were dating back to 2000. As a matter of fact, they are at their lowest levels since about 1992 or 1993. There's only 4 other times dating back to the 60's where they've been this low (late 60's, mid 70's and twice in the early to mid 80's). Do you remember some of those times? What was the economy like?
James, do you think these builders have employees? And what do you think happens to these employees when the builders aren't building as much? They get laid off. And what happens to the places where these builders purchase their supplies? Their revenues go down as well. And what happens to the lenders and real estate agents? They aren't making money either. Therefore none of these people are spending money. And as discussed before, the consumer makes up two-thirds of our economy. When the consumer stops spending, we go into a recession. When the consumer stops spending, retailers have to fire people because their revenues are down. So now those people aren't spending either. It's not rocket science.
So, if the Federal Reserve reducing rates can keep that to a minimum, I'm all for it. If reduced rates can allow some people to refinance or give consumers more confidence (even if it's only psychological) let's prevent the majority of the country from suffering the full brunt of a recession.
I know, I know, you're independently wealthy and don't care if other people lose their jobs and homes or if the economy goes into a recession. But I still need to have consumers willing to continue investing, paying their health insurance premiums and purchasing life insurance so I can feed my family. And I personally hope that the Federal Reserve lowers rates again in March. The cuts in January should be working through the market in late Summer or early Fall and we'll see what kind of impact they have. Maybe it will be enough, maybe it won't. I believe that we'll start seeing some positive growth by the end of the year. Unless of course, James starts controlling the Federal Reserve.
Let's look first at who is to blame - the lenders who had access to easy lines of credit (just like in 1998, if you were around then, you know exactly what happened), who make money by selling and then reselling loans. When they couldn't get the credit (because they weren't banks) and also lost the ability to resell, whamo! Not everyone who entered into easy to get loans was being honest in their application, nor was everyone purchasing a primary residence (but stated as such). With the help of realtors as well as lenders there were lies all over the place. Is that the fault of the Fed? Absolutely not. Certainly one is able to finance a whole lotta more mortgage at lower rates than higher rates, which automatically artificially inflates the value of homes. Who should people be going after? The mortgage brokers (I can think of only one who has been brought up on fraud charges). The homeowners are getting their "just deserves" and the lenders for the most part are belly up.
As far as the Fed is concerned, it is the central banking system run completely amok. The strength of the housing market is a very small element in the overall economic position. As far as developers and their employees and who might get hurt, I don't know what to tell you. We have between 12 and 30 million illegal aliens living here, and most of them are in the labor market. Remember Hurricane Katrina? There was talk at the time of having to import extra illegals in to do the "work no American is willing to do" - what a load of crap.
As far as the overall economy, Greenspan targeted an unemployment rate of 5.5%. Anything under that (which we've experienced for multiple years under Bush) is considered by him as inflationary, and he would use interest rates and money supply to effect change. When he completely blew up the money supply in 1999-2000, he created the unbeleiveable market bubble, and again in 2001-2002. We have just been flooded with money. Look at the collapse of the dollar. Want to know why stock prices have held up? Because look how much easier it is to sell your crap overseas with cheap dollars, it sure does help your earnings out. If any dollar strenthening were to occur, you're going to see a whack to the market and so now what? Continue to flood money supply? Lower rates? The Fed is annihilating the economy and very few people understand what the heck is going on, least of all George Bush and Congress. Bush is far too much of a delegator and lets everyone do their job.
Congress, on the other hand, is worried about the effect of steriod usage by professional athletes. And why is that? Because they simply have nothing else to do?
The emperor has no clothes.
As far as the Fed is concerned, it is the central banking system run completely amok. The strength of the housing market is a very small element in the overall economic position. As far as developers and their employees and who might get hurt, I don't know what to tell you. We have between 12 and 30 million illegal aliens living here, and most of them are in the labor market. Remember Hurricane Katrina? There was talk at the time of having to import extra illegals in to do the "work no American is willing to do" - what a load of crap.
As far as the overall economy, Greenspan targeted an unemployment rate of 5.5%. Anything under that (which we've experienced for multiple years under Bush) is considered by him as inflationary, and he would use interest rates and money supply to effect change. When he completely blew up the money supply in 1999-2000, he created the unbeleiveable market bubble, and again in 2001-2002. We have just been flooded with money. Look at the collapse of the dollar. Want to know why stock prices have held up? Because look how much easier it is to sell your crap overseas with cheap dollars, it sure does help your earnings out. If any dollar strenthening were to occur, you're going to see a whack to the market and so now what? Continue to flood money supply? Lower rates? The Fed is annihilating the economy and very few people understand what the heck is going on, least of all George Bush and Congress. Bush is far too much of a delegator and lets everyone do their job.
Congress, on the other hand, is worried about the effect of steriod usage by professional athletes. And why is that? Because they simply have nothing else to do?
The emperor has no clothes.
Just for the record, the fed has historically targeted unemployment at around 5%, and as such, 5% is considered full employment. The reason for this, as people in Silicon Valley during the late 90's can attest to, is if you don't have some unemployment, it is hard to keep labor available to grow the economy, without high salary inflation. Also, there will always be a certain amount of transitory work (i.e., construction, where they don't necessarily work year round), which is factored into this as well.
At 5% unemployment, a person can find a job pretty easily if they want one. A company can hire someone if they need one. A person can switch jobs without to much problem if they don't like their current one, but will stay with thier current employer since the grass is not as 'green' somewhere else. Of course, this is a factor that is hugely different than it is in rural America.
You can predict the state of the economy by watching to things (this is not scientific), the unemployment rate and how busy UPS is. If UPS is shipping a lot of stuff, life is good, if not, the economy will soon slow down. It is actually a pretty good leading indicator. Some say to watch cardboard box makers if you want to get ahead of UPS.
Dan
At 5% unemployment, a person can find a job pretty easily if they want one. A company can hire someone if they need one. A person can switch jobs without to much problem if they don't like their current one, but will stay with thier current employer since the grass is not as 'green' somewhere else. Of course, this is a factor that is hugely different than it is in rural America.
You can predict the state of the economy by watching to things (this is not scientific), the unemployment rate and how busy UPS is. If UPS is shipping a lot of stuff, life is good, if not, the economy will soon slow down. It is actually a pretty good leading indicator. Some say to watch cardboard box makers if you want to get ahead of UPS.
Dan
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- #68
Look, I have no problem with those that were fraudulent and unscrupulous getting their just due. But I don't want to throw out the baby with the bath water. By "sticking" it to the lenders, realtors and unscrupulous borrowers, you end up potentially sticking it to everyone.
I have no problem with the unemployment rate being around 5%. I think that's healthy. What I think some aren't seeing is that if nothing is done, it will get worse. We haven't reached the bottom of this yet. That's evident by the larger write downs on this subprime mess and increasing unemployment rates.
As for this comment:
I think you're a little off there. I really don't know what Alan Greenspan's magic number was. But I do know that for years the Federal Reserve has had a goal of 6% unemployment. They felt that below that level we were at a non-accelerating inflation rate of unemployment. I think that has changed since we are so much more productive now. Partially due to advances in technology.
According to the US Department of Labor, unemployment reached it's lowest levels under Greenspan's watch (4.0% in 2000). Since Bush has been in office, the levels are as follows:
2001 - 4.7
2002 - 5.8
2003 - 6.0
2004 - 5.5
2005 - 5.1
2006 - 4.6
2007 - 4.7
And January of 2008 was 4.9%. Prior to Bush, we had 5 consecutive years of 5.5% or lower. And quite honestly, I don't think we could count his first year in office as having much impact on the employment rate. So we could say that 6 years in a row it was under 5.5% without anything to really do with Bush.
In 2006, we reached the lowest levels under Bush (4.6%). Since then, it has been trending upward. Do we turn a blind eye to an upward trend? Do we wait until we are at 6% before we get concerned?
It's kind of like pain management. If you've ever had a surgery, they always tell you to take the pain medication even if you aren't hurting. Because once you get to that point (hurting) it's much harder to get back to not hurting. Our economy is at the early stages of hurting. Let's get some light medication to keep it from getting worse.
I agree that it's not the cure all. But let's baby step our way back to normal unemployment, normal interest rates and a strong dollar.
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I concur, however, I'm stumped as to James' intended usage and meaning of "like I", e.g. did he mean "like me" or did he mean "as I do?"
As to the "i" before "e" rule, I looked that up for the fun of it and lo and behold, they found extensions to the exceptions to that rule. Very yummy, indeed. For those who care or are just curious for more, go here: AUE: Exceptions to the rule 'I before E except after C'
WOW! I am enjoying this immensely interesting thread, particularly the debate on the economy-related topics. Good show!
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- #70
I asked the same question about the "like I" statement.
As for the i before e rule, of course there are exceptions to every rule. However, the words James butchers aren't the exceptions to that rule.
And James just brushes it off like Pee Wee Herman with, "I meant to do that." There are certain things I expect out of the professionals I deal with on a regular basis. Proper grammar being one of those things. If I received a letter from an attorney, CPA or doctor with the errors in grammar that we see in James' postings, I would question the capability of that professional. But that's just me.
