The Rules Of The Game Have Changed
I posed a topic on housing policy, jobs, and the support of the people. “I’ve suggested in the past that the US govt was making a mistake by focusing on propping up housing prices (and Wall Street) instead of addressing the real problem; what to do for a living instead of selling each other houses. My topic suggestion; did Obama lose the people, in part, by supporting these policies? “A very large proportion of recent university graduates have soured on President Barack Obama, and many will vote GOP or stay at home in the 2012 election, according to two new surveys of younger voters.”
“‘These rock-solid Obama constituents are free-agents,’ said Kellyanne Conway, president of The Polling Company. She recently completed a large survey of college grads, and ‘they’re shopping around, considering their options, [and] a fair number will say at home and sit it out,’ she said.”
A reply, “That poll is an ‘informal survey of 500 post-graduates’ by some unknown guy with a month-old blog, who posted his results on Tucker Carlson’s GOP cheerleader website. Show me something that’s statistically relevant, please. And did all these unemployed kids forget that because of President Obama, they at least have health insurance until they are 26?”
“Please distinguish between what ‘Obama’ did, and what ‘Congress’ didn’t do. Remember that there was a block of 40 Republican Senators who blocked everything. EVERYTHING. Obama could have taken HBB policies and they would never have passed into law.”
Another said, “He seemed like a pretty good guy until he handed the TBTF mafia a blank check to permanently keep my family out of one of the many vacant homes we are surrounded by. I can’t beat BofA. I can’t. I’d love to, but I actually have limits and consequences in my daily life. This part of the whole scene is actually Obama’s fault.”
One posted, “It would have made no difference had McCain won. To say that I’m disappointed is an understatement. I wasn’t expecting him to wave his magic wand and fix everything, but so far everything has been a dud: health care reform, off-shoring, unemployment, the wars, housing, banks, etc. There was no ‘change.’”
One said this, “I would agree that those persons between 20-40 years of age who were smart enough to avoid ruining themselves financially in the bubble run-up are also smart enough to avoid getting whacked with propped up valuations on the downhill run. Those people must certainly be disaffected with both the pubs and the dems, but certainly won’t be voting for ‘opey changey on the second go round.”
“And all told the group mentioned above must be what, around 100-200 souls?”
Another, “I would imagine those living in overpriced homes which they plan to sell some day for a capital gain are downright appreciative of the effort to prop up home prices. And they are still a political majority, right?”
On TARP, “Wasn’t Bush in office when TARP happened? Wasn’t it Bush who went on TV and explained to America why we all needed TARP? Wasn’t it Hank Paulsen (Bush’s guy) who came up with TARP to begin with? Couldn’t the Republicans have used their 8 years with full control of the government to decrease offshoring and financial fraud, once it had become obvious to everyone what was going on?”
And another, “Let’s say Obama supported housing to keep the banks from all failing together. That’s got to be a greater good (gag, choke) than the welfare of an individual homeowner wannabe. So, on the current trajectory, how many years of this soft descent will be required to ensure the banking system survives?”
Finally, “Lower housing prices is one possible way that the economy could have created labor market mobility at a time of shrinking pay checks and high unemployment. But instead, we have high home prices coupled with meager job prospects — an excellent recipe for labor market permafrost instead of mobility.”
The Albuquerque Business Journal. “New Mexico’s economy has undergone a fundamental change, and until businesses and workers adjust to the new world, jobs for less skilled workers, especially men, will be harder to come by than in the years before 2009, when the recession really took hold in the state, said Lee Reynis, BBER director.”
“‘We are not able to produce enough jobs,’ Reynis said. BBER expects the construction sector to remain in a recession for some time to come and for government hiring to remain slow. Those two sectors have been significant drivers of New Mexico’s economy historically. Absent growth there, New Mexico needs different drivers, and it is not clear what those will be, Reynis said.”
“Credit is harder to obtain and foreclosure rates are increasing in New Mexico. The supply of housing exceeds demand. Housing stocks grew during the boom years because of easy financing, not because of economic reasons, Reynis said.”
“The construction sector has lost 15,000 jobs. ‘I don’t think those jobs are going to come back, and I certainly don’t think they’re going to come back soon,’ Reynis said. ‘The rules of the game have changed. It’s a really different market today.’”
From CNN Money. “The brutal job market brought on by the recession has been hard on everyone, but especially devastating on the youngest members of the labor force. About 60% of recent graduates have not been able to find a full-time job in their chosen profession, according to job placement firm Adecco. Meghan O’Halloran was one of those who had her career derailed by the timing of her graduation.”
“She left Cornell University with a degree in architecture and six summers of internships at top firms in New York, Milan and London. But after graduating in December 2008, just as job losses in the economy were reaching a high point, she was confronted with a very cold reception into the labor force. ‘I’ve applied for temporary work,’ she said. ‘The answer is always the same, ‘We wish we could hire you.’”
“O’Halloran’s experience is not unique. Last year, the unemployment rate for college graduates age 24 and younger rose to 9.4%, the highest since the Labor Department began keeping records in 1985.”
“According to one study performed by Till von Wachter, an economics professor at Columbia University, the drag on income lasts for 10 years, on average. The outlook could be even worse for the class of ‘09 or ‘10, von Wachter said, since the worse the recession, the longer it takes to get earnings and a career back on track. ‘In the bad recessions in the past, the graduates recovered in 10 to 15 years. But we’ve never had such a strong recession,’ he said.”
The MetroWest Daily News. “Attorney General Martha Coakley said she wants changes in the health care system and more aggressive prosecution of white-collar criminals during a wide-ranging talk yesterday. Foreclosures are also a huge problem, she said. While local legislators have tried to address the problem, she said there ‘hasn’t been much (help) at the federal level.’”
“Coakley said the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and other federal regulators joined everyone else on Wall Street and ‘looked the other way’ during the mortgage crisis. ‘Nobody in the industry was willing to stop the tailspin,’ she said.”
