The Economy Is Unlike Anything Previously Seen
Readers suggested a topic on adapting to the economic conditions. “It’s been about 4 years now since the “recession” has officially been over. We’ve had Stimulus, Harp, HAMP, QE1, QE2, TWIST, ROLL AND STUMBLE…… Endless bailouts and games played by the financial crooks on Wallstreet and K street. Housing has been a roller coaster along with the stock market, but in the end, no one is any better off, except Banksters and their cronies.”
“So, here’s my topic: How has the general public adapted to the shrinking income, with higher costs for food and fuel and NO HOPE of any gains in the near future.”
A reply, “It’s more like about 4 years since the propaganda machine achieved total power in the American media. The producers needed to gain total control of us, and we were too scared and so let them take control. Now everything they say is total bullsh*t, and it’s even obvious bullsh*t, but nobody dares to officially contradict them.”
One had this, “A friend is working on technology that will reduce the workforce of one of America’s largest private utilities by 30%. He is working 13 hour days essentially to make his company’s owners richer by firing workers. (This is a form of capitalism not the only form.) Multiply this by thousands in the USA.”
“The fundamental fact that no politician will admit is that technology, automation and outsourcing have reduced the number of needed workers in western economies. This is the STRUCTURAL change that few acknowledge. IMO, nowadays is not the time to fritter away time in college deciding what to do with one’s life. Study Anthropology for 3 years and then decide you want to be a nurse? What a waste of time and money. College is what, about 3-4 times more expensive now than the 80’s even inflation adjusted?”
An observation, “Business runs on fads and short term gain. Short term meaning 3 months to 6 months. Previously at least the business leaders could see some stability for 2 or 3 yrs, now they can’t even see a month ahead. ZIRP here, QE there, Euro there, these fookers have no idea how to navigate in this $hitstorm.”
And another, “Politicians also think short term. Kick the can down the road past my next term in office. Basically, the PTB (business and politics) do not have long term plans. Anyone see a problem here?”
One shared this “Really skilled workers will have demand. Despite the large pool of qualified engineers, accountants, lawyers from India the way the big businesses (with their clueless senior VPs, managers - see Peter Principle) are running the show, these professionals in Asian countries are not taught the right way. As a matter of fact, a majority of them cannot solve problems, through no fault of theirs. They will never replace a skilled worker in the USA.”
“This is a crucial time for American industry because most boomers will start their retirement. The gap in the skilled workers - those that can continue the work without affecting production business - needs to be filled somehow. Companies that compromise on this simple tenet will see a marked drop in quality of the product / services and as a consequence lose prominence. My sincere advice: be good at whatever you do. If you are extremely good then you really do not have competition; you will command a good wage with benefits.”
And finally, “I’m seeing the makings of LegDown Part Deux. A couple of my wife’s teacher friends are openly lamenting house purchases and are ‘dying’ to get into a rental. A colleague of mine just left with her husband to go to Arkansas (yup, he’s going to work for Mao), but she did not resign her position because she is coming back for the school year ‘until they sell their house.’”
“The rental market here has finally turned the corner. If I had to move right now, no sweat; bigger house, good schools, same rent, no problem.”
From CNBC. “There is a unique, structural imbalance in the U.S. economy, former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan said on CNBC. ‘It may be a recession, but I’m not seeing it at the moment, and it’s not relevant as far as I can see,’ he said in an interview on ‘The Kudlow Report.’”
“The economy, Greenspan said, is unlike anything previously seen. ‘The best way I would describe it is to think in terms of two separate economies,’ he said. ‘One is probably 90, 92 percent of the GDP and is doing actually reasonably well. The other 8 percent is largely structures or more exactly, long-lived assets. The attitude of business and households against committing to long-lived assets is extraordinarily suppressed.’”
“Host Larry Kudlow suggested it resembled a capital strike. ‘It’s a capital strike for long-lived buildings, you know, those with 20 years of potential life and longer,’ Greenspan said. ‘It’s both household and residential. The rest of the economy is not doing well but is doing reasonably well. But if you take 50 percent out of 8 percent of the economy, that’s the 4 percentage points which the unemployment rate has run up. And that’s where all of the problem is.’”
The Review Journal. “Nevada Attorney General Catherine Cortez Masto said she has no regrets about passing the robo-signing law that has virtually brought foreclosure filings to a standstill in the state, and that banks are simply using the law as a ’scapegoat,’ allowing people to live in their homes for free.”
“‘It’s a changing environment right now, and repealing (Assembly Bill) 284 is not going to change the environment,’ Masto said at a panel discussion sponsored by the National Association of Hispanic Real Estate Professionals at the Gold Coast. ‘I hear that because of AB 284, banks can’t foreclose. How is it that 284 is preventing a bank from foreclosing on someone not making their payment?’ she asked the audience of about 300 real estate industry professionals. ‘There’s a reason banks aren’t foreclosing. I just haven’t figured it out yet.’”
From USA Today. “Scott Andresen would love to sell his Seattle house. He just can’t afford to. The 41-year-old policeman and his wife, Rebecca, an environmental consultant, bought the house six years ago. Because of falling prices, they now owe at least $25,000 more on it than it’s worth. The couple would like to move to a better neighborhood with better schools for their children, ages 7 and 4. But they’d have to write a check to cover the difference. ‘We can’t get out, because it would be too expensive,’ Andresen says. ‘It’s very frustrating.’”
“Rather than a housing market defined by weak demand and falling prices, the market is now being hampered by a restricted supply of homes for sale. Negative equity, also known as being underwater, is a big part of the issue. Nationwide, almost three of 10 homeowners with mortgages have no equity in their homes or less than 5% equity, says market researcher CoreLogic. Those homeowners would have to write a check in a traditional sale, so many are not selling.”
“Eric Berto and his wife, Kelci, bought their home in Kent, Wash., almost four years ago. They thought they’d bought at the bottom of the market. ‘We were seriously wrong,’ says Berto, 31, who works in public relations. The couple estimate they could get $250,000 for the home they bought for $100,000 more.”
“Berto is pursuing a lower interest rate loan so they can turn the house into a cash-flow-positive rental and still buy another home. ‘Right now, we’re operating under the assumption that the house will never again be worth $350,000,’ Berto says.”
‘Greenspan went on to say that he did not think the economy was creating enough GDP to implement and fund entitlement programs. ‘Obviously, health care entitlements are the critical issue where the expansion is occurring,’ he said. ‘But when I look at the data, what I see, basically, is an extraordinary set of pressures which say to me that by, say, 2030, government will not be able to fulfill the promises now legally on the books in real terms.’
Amazing considering he was one of the architects of ’saving’ social security in the 80’s, by quadrupling the taxes. In other words they poured even more of workers and companies money into a system, that even then, numbers showed would eventually collapse under the demographics.
‘It’s a capital strike for long-lived buildings, you know, those with 20 years of potential life and longer,’ Greenspan said. ‘It’s both household and residential’
Yeah, big surprise. A ’shortage’ of houses for sale, while millions in default aren’t foreclosed. Empty houses everywhere. Stuck move-up market. And here come a million or more new FB’s shoehorned into loans by the FHA! Brilliant!
Who could have imagined that all this ‘fine tuning’ would make things worse?
Why anyone would even give Greenspan the time of day is beyond me. He has proven to be completely inept in everything he has touched. Remember Time Mag’s “maestro” cover. What a laugh. Anybody can flood the world with money and watch asset prices rise to astronomical levels and commend themselves on their “new paradigm”.
We are now living with the consequences of the “new paradigm”.
And before the critics get too far along, I mis-spoke.
It’s been just 3 years and one month of “recovery”. Officially, the recession was Dec 2007 to JUN 2009.
So, Obama, the great “stimulator”, got the country out of recession in just 6 months with a TRILLION dollars thrown around to his friends and supporters.
Congratulations, on that, Mr. Obama!! You are a financial wizard, similar to Stalin. You just need to direct each and every industry to do what you want and divert our tax dollars there and the country will be as prosperous as the Soviet Union.
Oh, yea, they had “socialized medicine”, too.
And now what?
More government employees need to be hired?
More people need to get on welfare? More foodstamps? It’s been a great “recovery”.
Well, I agree with your comments about Greenspan and some of your comments about the President.. Where the President erred was not letting the entire house of cards crash completely in the first year or so of his term.. He saved the patient, only the patient is in a comma..
This is actually a very interesting subject that Ben has raised.. I’m sure we’ve all thought about this quite a bit over the last 4-5 years as we have watched this train wreck play out.. I have come to the conclusion that, second only to greed and lying, high housing prices are the number 1 problem in this country and the number 1 problem with this economy.
High housing prices propped up by the Fed and Congress have done more damage to the middle class than anything in our lifetimes.. the funny thing is that vast majority of this country has been duped into believing that low housing prices is a bad thing.. what a joke.. now, there’s an Alan Greenspan legacy..
Why is it that high prices for almost everything else is a bad thing, but its a good thing for the most important and costly thing that the middle class needs to purchase ? Someone is going to have to explain that one to me.. The real reason high housing prices are sold as a good thing is because our economy is largely built on debt; both at the public level and at the private level.. more and more debt and housing was, by far, the most efficient means for helping create that debt and enrich those who owned the debt..
So, getting back to the President.. I’m a democrat in my of my views, but I side w/the GOP on getting the government the hell out of housing.. completely out, and let it stand on its own..
High housing prices are the primary cause of homelessness, the primary cause of bankruptcy, the primary cause for high education costs, the primary cause for ballooning student debt, the primary cause for fraud, the primary cause for family stress, the primary cause for a whole host of other financial and family problems in this country.. and for what ?
What we’re seeing is an economy that is being forced to shift away from a debt based economy to something entirely different.. I’m not sure what the new economy will look like, but I hope it includes more savings and more real output … the transition will not be pretty and it won’t be quick.. accordingly, the American public won’t be very patient..
“I’m a democrat in my of my views, but I side w/the GOP on getting the government the hell out of housing.. completely out, and let it stand on its own..”
Don’t kid yourself — the GOP will tell you what ever it takes to buy your vote, but things will end up the same with either party.
What makes you think the GOP wants to get the gov’t out of housing? I’ll believe that when they suggest getting rid of the mortgage interest deduction.
believe that when they suggest getting rid of the mortgage interest deduction ??
Its part of Simson/Boles although I don’t believe they suggest eliminating it but curtailing the amount of debt that qualifies, say, $250,000. vs. the 1-mil that it is today…
And, IMO, it would be wise for us to keep a keen eye on the Simson/Boles recommendations because after the elections, no matter who wins, I think we will see the majority of if not all those recommendations given very serios consideration…
agreed…
Well ,
Hell, where you all been?
High prices, money for the government, State, City and maybe the Fed. if there is a sale with a gain, (3.8% big O’s plan).
It is in the interest of every government entity to keep racking in the bucks. (Keep those prices high and inflated, we need the $$) Who cares about the citizens? Not them.
Bear in the house, maybe the outhouse under Big O’s plans
It’s coma, not comma.
National Association of Hispanic Real Estate Professionals at the Gold Coast. ???
Is this a sub -chapter of “LA Raza” ???
Racism. Pure and Simple, but it’s okay, it’s not the Whites.
Dio
You got that right about the “La Raza” R E Association.
And to be frank, they helped create a lot of the strawberry
pickers buying over their heads in the bubble. I know some
members, and a few have the “me degree” ,*Chino Studies from
UCLA. I’m with ya.
(*What a low demand worthless pos so called degree.)
Great writing Ben. Don’t let anyone tell you that you still don’t have it!
Yeah, tough to swallow summation but it’s more or less where we’re at? Michael Dell said awhile back when it comes to hiring quality engineers ( they’re forced to do it one.at.a.time ) BUT if they have an opening for a warehouse position there’s people lined up down the block and around the corner! ( para )
One point I and a handful of others tried to make was there’s undercurrents and nuances we’d failed to recognize and I think now that we have, perhaps we can move forward? One is the recent revelation on “Generation Jones”.
Considered those born between 1954 and 1965. While sharing a few similarities w/ their older siblings, this is an almost totally distinct demographic! Leading into The Boom, the Build it and they will come mentality led builders, lenders and speculators RIGHT off a cliff! Greg Swann our favorite example.
We really didn’t understand that Gen Jones had entirely different goals, values and ideals. NOW that we’ve finally got that figured out, we can move forward in a more efficient and productive manner. It’s one small example but hope you can see how it made for a terrible misallocation of assets, effort etc.
This is not new. A new name perhaps, Gen Jones, but I posted a lengthy summary some time back. I don’t have a source anymore, but some research was done on the “baby boom” generation and broke it down into 3 distinct groups: leading, middle and end.
The Lead group, what your are saying proceeded the middle group…Gen Jones, had a great life, with everything working to their advantage.
As they entered into adulthood, they got rapidly promoted, bought houses cheap, but created demand and increased housing prices for the following groups.
By the time Gen Jones got into the mix, the best jobs (promoted to management) were already taken. It was assumed that the next group would follow along when their time came. we just didn’t know it would be 20 years later. Or never.
We also got to struggle with “affirmative action”, so if you are white, like me, you got passed over to put latino, black, and women into jobs, regardless of qualifications and experience, to be “fair”.
The last group, has not done nearly as well overall financially as the leading group. You can follow the stock market, housing market and job creation of the various groups and “when you were born” makes a big difference.
Screw gen x and y.
They should just pay for it all.
And government has made this problem worse at every step of the way.
My older siblings, already in retirement,are having a great life. I will not be so lucky.
My younger brother will be even less fortunate.
I think those born in 1955 and later got screwed by the effects of the Arab oil embargo in 1973 - just as they were graduating high school - as much as they did by demographics and other cultural shifts. The embargo started the rampant inflation of the 70s. Those who graduated 4 years earlier and went to college experienced the same inflation driven effects on savings that colored their outlook on saving for the first part of their adult lives.
The end of really cheap oil coincides with the decline in inflation-adjusted wages.
DUDE! Where have you been? I hope all is well. Great to see you posting again.
Ditto, D. Missed your commentary.
“Nationwide, almost three of 10 homeowners with mortgages have no equity in their homes or less than 5% equity, says market researcher CoreLogic. Those homeowners would have to write a check in a traditional sale, so many are not selling.”
Somehow this has turned into a market with bidding wars over limited inventory, but the MSM rarely explains why there’s not much for sale. The above + lengthy foreclosures sums it up.
Most of what we hear about is pent up demand, great rates, not enough inventory, blah, blah.
The passage of AB 284 has made it more difficult to foreclose on properties in Nevada. This is why banks are not foreclosing. However there are an estimated 20-30k + homes in shadow inventory that the banks are dealing with. (Heard this on local radio this morning)
Thus the inventory numbers are misleadingly low. However I have seen an increase on FB’s attempting to sell homes that they are upside down on or believe they have an oppoutunity to sell. Some of the home in Henderson are atepting to get $100+ per square on average home. I say good luck!
Trying not to wear a tin foil hat, however there has to be a certain level of colusion assisiated with these wishful housing prices.
Same in Bend, OR and Prineville. $100/sq ft wishing prices are the norm. And Prineville is a bedroom community to Bend, which to most is already in the middle of nowhere!
$100/sq ft ??
1500 square foot house = $150,000….Thats the minimum what you would pay for the lot around here…In the better zip codes it would be $400,000…In the best zip codes it would be 1-mil and up…On the other hand, you can drive 60 miles and you can easily find $100. per foot housing…I guess this just confirms that real estate is local….
So lots have a very long way to fall around there.
Hey, oak. Nice to see you.
‘There’s a reason banks aren’t foreclosing. I just haven’t figured it out yet.’
It’s a mystery. Nobody will every know why.
They don’t need to. Can someone please tell me if this is wrong:
The government bailed them out, so the gaping holes in their balance sheets were plugged with cash. Shazam!
Now that they are whole, why care about the house?
the reason is really quite simple, it is not profitible for them to foreclose en mass or they would have.. that’s it.. mass foreclosures would drive the value of their inventory down …
I’m sure there is banker collusion involved in all of this as well..
So then it’s a Mexican standoff. As soon as one of them realizes shooting last is a losing position, they’ll pull the trigger. (I hope.)
‘mass foreclosures would drive the value’
For a good while, these asset managers have been selling into a falling market. For the most part, they still are. So a sale today makes more sense a sale later. And if one asset manager or lender holds off, others should step up and get rid of their inventory.
Now, dribbling this out would get more out of what they have, but that implies collusion. That much isn’t a secret, but why does it happen, or why is it allowed, is the most common question. Here’s the kicker; the FDIC isn’t supposed to let that occur for many reasons. So that’s banks. But most of the foreclosed properties are held by the GSE’s and HUD. Are there regulations and a regulator that forbid shelving inventory?
Then there are all the trusts out there, maybe thousands, represented by asset mangers. What role, if any, are they playing in the REO squeeze?
‘How is it that 284 is preventing a bank from foreclosing on someone not making their payment?’ ‘There’s a reason banks aren’t foreclosing. I just haven’t figured it out yet’
What is she implying? The collusion many suspect? Government arrangements with GSE/HUD we don’t know about?
Perhaps the bankers know the gig is up with high housing prices and are holding on and limiting inventory to keep the allusion going for as long as possible that housing is really is as valuable as they have manipulated it into being… a good chunk of their livelihood is based on this premise, is it not ?
The collusion many suspect? Government arrangements with GSE/HUD we don’t know about?
I suspect suspension of the accounting reg’s. is playing a big role in all of this manipulation of the REO housing inventory…
Bingo!
Banks holding NV mortgages WERE foreclosing, and the inventories were being absorbed by investors and other buyers. AB 284 instituted criminal penalties for mistakes in foreclosure documentation where there wasn’t before.
Now servicers are looking at the paperwork VERY carefully before signing. If you have ever signed a document under penalty of perjury, you pay more attention to that document than others.
If you look at the volume of foreclosures before and after AB 284, the difference is stark.
Per Foreclosure Radar, NODs were running at about 4-6k per month prior to AB 284, and fell to 1-1.5k after. Occam’s Razor would say that criminal penalties is causing servicers to be more cautious in light of the more severe penalties.
The question I have is if banks have stopped foreclosing for reasons independent of AB 284, why didn’t they stop (or slow) before? Are they using AB 284 as a scapegoat? Why did they even need a scapegoat? The suspension of MTM accounting allows banks to go as slowly (or as quickly) as they please, as we are seeing in other states.
The 41-year-old policeman and his wife, Rebecca, an environmental consultant, bought the house six years ago. Because of falling prices, they now owe at least $25,000 more on it than it’s worth. The couple would like to move to a better neighborhood
A policeman wants to move to a “better” neighborhood? I wonder if he neighbors are all cops too??
Got a gila River Indian Community police officer for a neighbor in my Phoenix apartment complex. Nice to see a Gila River Police SUV parked out in the lot.
They must have a lot of extra money if they can afford to let officers drive official police vehicles while off duty.
“They must have a lot of extra money if they can afford to let officers drive official police vehicles while off duty.”
That surprised me when I moved to Florida. In upstate NY, nobody had take-home vehicles. Down here, they’re everywhere.
I think a south thang. Or maybe a sand state thing?
Either way, it’s not a deterrent to crime, at least here.
It says supervisor on the vehicle.
They should at least make them keep municipality owned vehicles within the municipality.
“They should at least make them keep municipality owned vehicles within the municipality.”
Only a couple of miles away.
‘Now everything they say is total bullsh*t, and it’s even obvious bullsh*t, but nobody dares to officially contradict’
BINGO
We are in what I would term the “Slow Grind” phase. The the average person through out the Western World is having their standard of living slowly ground down and in the East the rate of improvement has started to slow down. Eventually enough will have been ground away and we will see explosive and unexpected events in the West and East (oh and the South and North too) as societies start to change.
Interesting that while at the same time goods and services are produced in record numbers the world is falling into economic chaos.
In antiquity it was scarcity (like famine) that brought chaos and disaster. In the modern world it’s plenty that brings disaster upon us. Workers produce record numbers of goods (say like flat panel TVs) but apparently not enough people around the world can afford them.
I wonder what the history texts from the future will have to say about out little conundrum?
Well I’d guess they’d say been there done that. The 1930’s depression occurred after a period of rapid technological advance and that wasn’t even the first time this had occurred.
No, not the 1930s Great Depression. That was the SECOND Great Depression. The first Great Depression was 1873–1896, also known as The Long Depression. It was worse than the 1930s Great Depression.
http://slipintosomethingvictorian.wordpress.com/2008/12/10/the-great-depression-part-1-of-2/
It seems that as mankind advances we over reach ourselves, convince ourselves that this time it’s different and only sunlit uplands stretch before us. Then reality bites and does she bite!
Price drops will follow. But you grumps don’t think that is a bad thing. Only want to see the negatives. Try prunes yet?
You mean like how car prices dropped after demand collapsed?
Gee I thought the good feelings about our new dynamic economy was because of the wildly successful “Cash for Clunkers” which has really made such an impact !!
“Cash for Clunkers?” - That’s old history.
Meanwhile, used cars continue to command premium prices. From what I’ve seen in the ads in cars.com and autotrader our 4 year old MINI Cooper would fetch 75% of what we paid for it (maybe more, as it only has 25K miles on it). Comps for our 7 year old Saturn are at 50% of what it cost. I remember when a domestic car lost 50% of its value in 2-3 years.
But if you wander into the new car lot, you might want to bring a defibrillator with you. I bought a new Mustang GT back in 1997 for 19K. A quick online looksie at the local dealer’s inventory shows that you should expect to pay 35K for one today.
I’ll probably take it in the teeth for admitting this, but I was stimulating the economy this past January, having bought a brand new truck. Sticker price means nothing. I paid $100 over invoice, which was $11,000 under the MSRP sticker. The dealer I bought from does high volume and makes money on dealer holdback and other incentives. I looked for used trucks, and wasn’t impressed with what I found.
Okay…Griz…north or south of $40K?
That new mustang is 4x awesome as the old one, though.
It still has a solid rear axle. When it was reviewed on Top Gear, the reviewers likened the solid rear axle to walking around with your shoes tied together by the laces. They were rather aghast that a modern car would still have a solid rear axle.
The only thing more awesome about it is the engine.
They tried the IRS thing for a while there and I think most Mustang owners ended preferring solid axle. Solid can handle quite well on smooth pavement and is really nice for drag racing. The market of likely Mustang owners who care that it’s slower on a bumpy road course is small.
I hear people say that owners want a solid axle. One thing I remember about my old GT, if I ran across a bump under hard acceleration, it felt like the rear end exploded. I didn’t like that one bit. It must be worse with an additional 100 HP.
Used cars that get bad gas mileage are relatively cheap. Even used hummers are cheap now.
I’ve noticed that pickups no longer hold their value they way they did when gas was under $2. It’s also why they have those mongo rebates.
“almost four years ago. They thought they’d bought at the bottom of the market. ‘We were seriously wrong,”
Sammy Schadenfreude went soft too soon. We’re just getting started. Where’s Neil? I need some popcorn.
Simple math…
Inflation adjusted wages remains flat for 10 + years..
Inflation adjusted health care, housing and transportation costs increase for the past 10+ years..
The net result of the above is lower savings and more debt..
It would appear that we’ve reached out debt limit…
people who reach their debt limits pull back and cut back on all expenses, which hurts the economy.. who can blame them ?
also, when those same people look at the national debt and realize that it will have to be reconciled sooner or later, they pull back on their spending as a matter of long-term survival.. again, who can blame them ?
So, what is the fix Mr. President or Mr. Romney ?
How about starting with lower housing prices …
Pretty simple…
One thing I never figured out was why do the titans of Detroit and Silicon Valley not go to war with housing and the housing mafia ?
Why tax credit for housing and not cars ?
Why allow for policies that serve to inflate housing prices but not prices for technology and autos ?
To me, this is national / industry-wide competition for the consumer’s discretionary dollar and all the cards or tilted towards housing .. time to balance the playing field..
I’ve always wondered why the auto manufacturers haven’t questioned the oil speculators.
There aren’t any titans left in Detroit these days. The only titans being made are those Nissan makes in Canton MIssissippi.
Because the silicon valley companies get their tax credits on the back end where no one notices.
Cash for Clunkers was a pretty big “tax credit” for autos. Also, that industry got bailed out.
The SV types don’t complain because they too might need help one day.
“This is a crucial time for American industry because most boomers will start their retirement. The gap in the skilled workers - those that can continue the work without affecting production business - needs to be filled somehow. Companies that compromise on this simple tenet will see a marked drop in quality of the product / services and as a consequence lose prominence. My sincere advice: be good at whatever you do. If you are extremely good then you really do not have competition; you will command a good wage with benefits.”
I would argue a lot of those workers are already in the system with many at least as capable as those they might replace, but will be underused because of increasing cronyism to the eventual detriment of those companies.
More of us may eventually end up being our own managers on a much smaller scale as large companies increasingly die under the weight of their ineffective management. My guess is that this would play out slowly over a decade or two but with periodic faster spurts of such activity.
In addition, there’s an obvious trend for Boomers to retire later, often much later, and for their open positions to go unfilled, even obliterated (totally deleted, or moved overseas, or outsourced). The Boomer Retirement Wave is going to be a lot less productive for the desperate Gen-X that follows. I know. I’ve tried to chase these jobs myself.
“Where the President erred was not letting the entire house of cards crash completely in the first year or so of his term.. He saved the patient, only the patient is in a comma.”
What would have been worse is what economic historians should be debating. But you are mostly correct. But the patient is not in a coma. He is permanently crippled, and now told he has to get a job and pay the hospital bill.
‘We can’t get out, because it would be too expensive,’ Andresen says. ‘It’s very frustrating.’
Entire urban neighborhoods were burned down under similar circumstances in the 1970s. There are insurance companies that will still not provide insurance in Brooklyn. They haven’t quite made the leap to the suburbs, exurbs and Sunbelt yet.