In Canada, Amnesia Is Setting In
A report from Business in Vancouver on Canada. “The foreign buyer in B.C. was largely an unknown entity for most of 2016. Not many people were clear on where he was from, where he was headed, what he was after or what his end game was. One thing was clear, however: he had a lot of money and was not afraid to spend it. Enter the politicians and the 15% tax on foreign buyers of Metro Vancouver residential real estate. In June, when the B.C. government was opposed to a tax on foreign homebuyers, it released a forecast of what could happen if only 3% of foreigners stopped buying. The pessimistic outlook turned out to be even worse than imagined once the tax was introduced.”
“October 31 – three months after the tax came in – Metro Vancouver housing sales through the Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver had plunged by 2,200 units compared with pre-tax July, a loss of more than $2 billion in total volume, or twice as high as the government had forecast. As of November, the typical home value in Metro Vancouver was down $181,700 compared with a year earlier. The benchmark price of a detached house – the favoured target of the foreign buyer – had dropped 23%, or $347,500, to $1.15 million.”
“‘I was so wrong,’ said Christine Duhaime of Duhaime Law in Vancouver, who is considered an expert on Asian real estate investment. Prior to the tax being implemented, Duhaime had said, ‘I do not believe it will have an impact on deterring foreign investment in the residential real estate sector’ of Metro Vancouver.”
From Canadian Business. “The cynics said this would happen. I’m talking about the prediction that politicians would absorb none of the lessons of the financial crisis. Here in Canada, amnesia is setting in. The initial sign came in the 2015 federal election campaign, when former prime minister Stephen Harper attempted to revive his popularity by promising to allow first-time homebuyers to use more of their tax-sheltered savings for down payments.”
“And now, British Columbia Premier Christy Clark has defied economic wisdom, announcing on December 15 that her government will offer first-time homebuyers concessional loans of as much as $37,500 to help them enter the country’s most expensive housing market. ‘There are people in my community today who could afford a condo or a townhouse who just don’t have the downpayment,’ Rich Coleman, the province’s housing minister, told Business News Network.”
“In some places, the inability to come up with a down payment means you can’t afford to buy a house, but never mind that. Coleman represents Fort Langley-Aldergrove, a constituency in the Greater Vancouver Area, where the average price of a home is around $1 million. ‘Owning the place where you live is part of what being a Canadian is all about,’ Clark said as she explained her new policy.”
“If all this sounds familiar, it may be because you read about how America lost its mind over real estate on the way to the Great Recession. Perversely, a shift to prudence could become the shock that bursts the bubble. In a speech on November 30 in Vancouver, Evan Siddall, the head of Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp., tutored his audience on ‘negative demand externalities.’ Siddall remarked on Canadians’ ‘notable history’ of making their mortgage payments. ‘However, this discipline of reducing spending to save a home can still harm our economy,’ he said. ‘Housing market bubbles fuelled by easy credit tend to burst first when people slow their consumption, which undermines economic growth.’”
The Langley Times. “The good news for Langley homebuyers is, price-wise, the local real estate market has stabilized over the past few months. The most recent stats released by the Fraser Valley Real Estate Board (FVREB) show that the benchmark price for a detached home in Langley was $871,600 in November. That’s down 1.4 per cent in price from three months previous. But it was still 30.9 per cent more expensive to buy a house in Langley compared to November 2015, and a whopping 72.7 per cent pricier than 10 years ago.”
Michael Thorne has worked as a real estate agent in Langley for the past 23 years and he noted that affordability pressure combined with the foreign buyer tax affecting Metro Vancouver real estate transactions has helped cool the market. Peaks and valleys in Langley’s real estate market are nothing new. ‘There was a period of time from (19)95 to ’99 when nothing happened. Prices didn’t go up, prices didn’t go down, and then the market ramps up for a short period of time and we see these jumps,’ Thorne said. ‘This last time lasted a little longer than normal.’”
From Macleans. “In recent months the Bank of Canada has ramped up its warnings about heavily indebted households and the unreasonable expectations driving the housing market, yet all indications are that Canadians have stuffed cotton in their ears. In Toronto, for instance, house prices are up nearly 15 per cent since the summer when Bank of Canada governor Stephen Poloz warned that price gains in the city were ‘difficult to match up with any definition of fundamentals that you could point to.’”
“In the more than 15 years that the Teranet-National Bank House Price Index has tracked property prices in the city, there’s never been a six-month period when prices rose that fast. Meanwhile, the latest figures released by Statistics Canada showed the household debt-to-income ratio broke yet another record in the third quarter.”
“Now Canada’s central bank is trying a different platform to get its message across: In a video posted Monday on YouTube, in conjunction with the release of the Bank’s semi-annual financial system review last Thursday, Bank of Canada senior policy adviser Joshua Slive sketches out how Canada’s dangerous brew of debt and inflated house prices could combine to devastate the economy.”
“Whatever the case, the Bank’s video should be another wake-up call for Canadians. Not that anyone’s listening. On the morning of Dec. 20, the video had little more that 600 views. (Update: A day after we published this post, the number of views had jumped to 6,700.) Here’s the video in full.”
From CBC News North. “Forget Vancouver, Toronto or Calgary. Yellowknife tenants pay the highest average rent in Canada, according to data from the Canada Mortgage and Housing Commission. ‘Living in the North is hard,’ said Timothy Gensey, an analyst with the CMHC. ‘It’s expensive. Everything has to be trucked up. To actually make money back and make apartment buildings viable, you have to charge higher rent.’”
“However, for the first time in years, prospective tenants in Yellowknife would have noticed a drop in rental prices in 2016. Prices fell by 2.2 per cent for a two-bedroom apartment this year, Gensey explained. That drop came from people leaving the territory and the recent downswing for the mining sector, he said. Adrian Bell, a Yellowknife real estate agent and city councillor, says the drop in rental prices is significant. He says he’s never seen a noticeable drop in more than 20 years in the city.”
“He attributes the drop to an increase in condo units being built and more people turning away from renting. For prospective tenants, this may mean now is a good time to find a place to rent. Gensey said long-term trends are unclear, depending on how well the diamond mines rebound and whether tourism takes off. ‘Last year, rents fell as people were leaving the territory,’ Gensey said.”
‘the market ramps up for a short period of time and we see these jumps,’ Thorne said. ‘This last time lasted a little longer than normal.’
Yeah, well the central banks and government stopped holding these things down didn’t they? The BIV article ends with some woman saying, “Oh the Chinese will be back, they couldn’t be stopped in Hong Kong or Australia.”
‘Last week, when the U.S. Federal Reserve raised interest rates, it was a sign for many investors that things were getting back to normal. For China, facing large-scale capital outflows and a declining currency, it was a sign of a serious problem.’
‘For the past decade, China has maintained a “soft peg” of the yuan, allowing it to rise and fall within a narrow band against the U.S. dollar. This has worked, for the most part, because the two countries have had relatively synchronous business cycles and broadly similar monetary policies. But now their economies are diverging in important ways.’
‘In China state news outlets now regularly talk about the “new normal” of slower growth. Private investment has grown by only 2.5 percent this year through September. Near-zero consumer inflation has risen lately only due to speculation.’
‘Worse, many years of excessively loose monetary policy have produced wildly inflated asset prices. Real estate in some Chinese cities ranks among the most expensive in the world. Virtually every commodity, from coal to garlic, has experienced a boom and bust in 2016, sometimes more than once. With few investment opportunities in a sluggish economy and bubble-level asset prices, investors are moving money overseas at an accelerating rate. Economists at Goldman Sachs Group Inc. estimate that $69.2 billion exited China in November. Other estimates suggest a total outflow of nearly $1 trillion for 2016.’
‘China is caught in what economists call the “impossible trinity.” No country can simultaneously sustain a pegged exchange rate, a sovereign monetary policy and free capital flows. At some point, policy makers must make a trade-off.’
‘Financial markets recognize the potential danger. China’s bond market has suffered its biggest rout in years, with yields on 10-year sovereigns rising from 2.6 percent in October to nearly 3.5 percent after the Fed hiked rates. Investors pondering the consequences of higher funding costs in an economy with rising defaults are rightly concerned.’
‘China is still managing its economy as if the massive foreign investment and trade surpluses that characterized its decades-long growth spree will return. Unfortunately, those days are gone for good.’
‘Evan Siddall, the head of Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp., tutored his audience on ‘negative demand externalities.’ Siddall remarked on Canadians’ ‘notable history’ of making their mortgage payments. ‘However, this discipline of reducing spending to save a home can still harm our economy,’ he said. ‘Housing market bubbles fuelled by easy credit tend to burst first when people slow their consumption, which undermines economic growth.’
High rents make you poorer too. When the sugar high of churn and speculation die down, there’s nothing to replace it and debt eats the economy. No way out but to liquidate and reset.
Ignoring this reality only makes the impact more severe.
…tutored his audience on ‘negative demand externalities.’
Sounds something like, “not a buyer in sight.”
Who needs regulations? People dont cheat.
WASHINGTON, Dec 21 (Reuters) - Goldman Sachs Group Inc will pay a $120 million penalty to resolve civil charges that it attempted to manipulate a global benchmark for interest rate products known on Wall Street as “ISDAFIX,” U.S. derivatives regulators said Wednesday.
Notice nobody went to jail - again.
Only jail scares them
Regs ,bahhhhhhh
too bad, just fined. They don’t mind paying, risk/reward. Profits before people.
Fines are better than nothing.
Fines are better than nothing.
No, they’re not; fining the companies involved sends a NEGATIVE message to the employees: “you will not be held accountable for your actions.”
The government only cares about their cut of the profits from the scam.
+1
I am sure our current AG Loretta Lynch is plotting to put some GS chiefs in jail as we speak…
Just as AG Eric Holder put Jon Corzine in jail.
—
Return to private practice
In July 2015, Holder rejoined Covington & Burling, the law firm at which he worked before becoming Attorney General. The law firm’s clients have included many of the large banks Holder declined to prosecute for their alleged role in the financial crisis. Matt Taibbi of Rolling Stone opined about the move, “I think this is probably the single biggest example of the revolving door that we’ve ever had.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eric_Holder
When you can’t drain the swamp it’s time for a revolution.
crushing_housing_losses
Comedy gold.
‘KRUGMAN: The ‘America we knew and loved is gone’
Some comments:
‘Well Krugman, feel free to leave the country. Economists like yourself have sat there and watched as the middle class evaporated, saying nothing about the devastating effects of rampant immigration from people that add nothing to our economy and simply offer ultra low cost labor and take millions of jobs from the descendants of the men and women that fought for this country, you said nothing as terrible trade agreements that helps nobody except the corporations and their stockholders. I put economists right there with media these days. You can’t be trusted. The people have taken the country back from politicians, the elite, the establishment. Now, we shall see. But certainly, your type was not helping anybody, were you?’
‘Well Paul Krugman, get your opinionated ass out of here. The last 40 years in America has sucked moose balls, but you NOW have no faith in the future? Another human who THINKS they know more than they actually do and somehow we all should genuflect on his comments and prophesies.’
‘Paul Krugman is beginning to sound like a man obsessed. I honestly believe from reading his tweets and posts and articles that he absolutely wants this administration to fail. Trump was not my candidate and I did not vote for him but i do not in any way, shape or form wish him to be a failure. If he fails, we fail with him. Grow up Paul. It was the fact that Hillary Clinton was a very flawed and unlikable candidate that put Trump over the top. She is fundamentally dishonest and unlikable and people began to see it by her past actions and the e-mail leaks that pointed to all manner of underhandedness and political intrigue in her campaign. Get some Xanax or Prozac Paul, what is done is done and you fanning the flames of fear at Trump’s every move is not helping us as a country. The panic and fear during the election created a greater division in this country than I have seen in more that 40 years as a registered voter. We will survive as a country if we learn to work together and instead of being Democrats and Republicans we learn to once again be united Americans.’
‘Krugman appears to be arguing that fighting to keep these jobs rather than pivoting toward the service sector is backward thinking. “Nothing policy can do will bring back those lost jobs. The service sector is the future of work; but nobody wants to hear it,” the economist wrote.’
This guy is truly an idiot. Notice the Carrier plant wasn’t a building full of robots. Oh, and Krugman, house prices are going to have to be one tenth of the price today if we all work at Starbucks.
You get the job you deserve. Don’t ask gov to get you your job.
Auto mechanics bill out at $90 an hr, so do plumbers in CA. Lots of jobs out there. Think outside the service industry box.
Isn’t it high time you actually get a job Lola?
Deserve? Who decides what you deserve?
Trump Appoints “Death By China” author Peter Navarro to head Trade Office. BAM!
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-12-21/trump-appoints-death-china-author-peter-navarro-head-trade-office-hints-beijing-trad
tj isn’t going to like this. It’s “protectionist”.
Well, protect away. We could use some protection from China. I’ll bet Kissinger is having fits right now, he-he.
The way this country was set up the federal government was funded by tariffs and excise taxes. No income taxes. It was a free economy internally and to heck with other countries. As it evolved, trade “treaties” (yes, they were sunset deals worked out by the Senate) were only done when it made sense for us. Now we have open trade with a country where they haven’t been able to breath for a week.
It worked for over 200 years.
Natty Ice Dude’s side lost because they are losers. They have nothing to offer except Starbucks and debt. Oh, and war, lots of war. Good riddance.
“It was a free economy internally”
Amen.
Death By China documentary, for anyone interested:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mMlmjXtnIXI
(Cue Mikey to complain about how I like youtube so much.)
“They have nothing to offer except Starbucks and debt. Oh, and war, lots of war. Good riddance.”
https://i.redd.it/wr30p66xcx4y.jpg
lol.
CA is survival of the fittest on the coast. Winners only need apply.
Phoenix is where our refugees head to get a job at Coscto (if a lucky ducky)
“Winners only”
Magical thinking has made CA the poorest state in the Union.
Only a $2.8 billion surplus.
Cali had a 26B deficit just a few years ago. It’s a bubble driven economy. When the bubbles pop the place shrivels up and dies.
It’s poor in flyover part, just like the rest of flyover. Not on the coast.
CA is the most indebted and impoverished state in the US. $443 Billion in debt and rising.
http://uscommonsense.org/research/unsustainable-california-the-top-10-issues-facing-the-golden-state-wall-of-debt/
“tj isn’t going to like this. It’s “protectionist”.”
yep, i don’t like it (protectionism). it’s price fixing.
but it’s still going to be much better than obama or elphaba’s economic program. if he cuts taxes and regs to the degree he promised, we should still prosper (in spite of protectionism).
it’s true that we had only tariffs at the beginning of the country. and if we could get rid of every other tax and rely on tariffs alone, at this stage, i’d go for it. but universal tariffs make every product more expensive.
the least destructive tax of all, the one liberals hate as ‘regressive’ would be a national sales tax. get rid of property taxes, income taxes and corporate taxes and go to a national sales tax.
the biggest problem is that a sales tax or more tariffs, would simply be added on to most of the taxes we already have.
“the least destructive tax of all, the one liberals hate as ‘regressive’ would be a national sales tax. get rid of property taxes, income taxes and corporate taxes and go to a national sales tax.”
I agree with this. You should have seen the drubbing I took for mentioning it here on the blog years ago.
“the biggest problem is that a sales tax or more tariffs, would simply be added on to most of the taxes we already have.”
You’d have to make elimination of the income tax a condition of a national sales tax. A national sales tax would reward production and earning and saving, and yes, it would penalize spending somewhat, but that’s not a bad idea. Make people think twice before spending on that new sofa.
Income tax is essentially a war tax. I believe Abraham Lincoln first instituted it to finance the Civil Whoa, and it was eliminated in 1872. Then it came back with vengeance, permanently, in 1913. Not too long after that, WW1 and we’ve been pretty much at war one way or another ever since. Oh, guess what else happened in 1913, boyz n’ gurlz? The Federal Reserve! What a coinkydink.
http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0005921.html
You’d have to make elimination of the income tax a condition of a national sales tax.
and eliminate property and corporate taxes as well. do ALL that and i’d agree to tariffs. however.. tariffs (and VATs) are still the most destructive forms of taxation.
of course tariffs won’t bring in enough money to satisfy the government, no matter how high you make them. you know why?
Bring peace in our time: Eliminate the income tax and end the Federal Reserve.
This is one of those lead, follow or get the hell out of the way situations. We’ve got to roll back 30 plus years of globalism and chart a new course, at the same time.
The regressive nature of a national sales tax is easily solved with a “prebate”. You get a check each month equal to the tax payable on a basic amount of goods/services. Therefore, you are only effectively taxed on the amount you spend above that basic level.
The other alternative, which may be the only way, since it would keep CPAs in business, and their lobbyists at bay, is a VAT of some sort, which could exempt certain things.
“you know why?”
I’m sure I don’t know your why, but in my view, it has to do with war, war, war.
Peace in our time: no income tax, no Federal Reserve.
“This is one of those lead, follow or get the hell out of the way situations. We’ve got to roll back 30 plus years of globalism and chart a new course, at the same time.”
I also remember venting about globalism here on the blog some years ago, and the answer I got was “That ship has sailed!”. Like it was irreversible.
I don’t recall who said that, but nyah, nyah, looks like that ship is coming back into port for an overhaul. And if we’re lucky, drydock.
You get a check each month equal to the tax payable on a basic amount of goods/services.
it’s a bad idea. you’d need constant adjustments and who’d decide? we’d all be more prosperous without it. it’s a can of worms that shouldn’t be opened.
Did you know that if you make $100k a yr (28% bracket)with zero deductions factored in your rate is really 21%?
I am no fan of taxes, but have you see that debt clock? Wars and walls are not free.
it has to do with war, war, war.
well, it makes a trade war more likely but that’s not what you’re talking about.
the reason is that US citizens are captive to the USA, but the rest of the world isn’t. they can go elsewhere if tariffs get too high. we’re the top or near the top importer, but we still import (latest data available) only a little less than 13% of the world’s goods.
a floating sales tax (i read about 9% or less in a free economy) would be the optimum way to max revenue. the country would thrive on it.
but of course hardly any of the politicos understand the first thing about economics. they think it’s a zero sum game.
“walls”
Cheapest wall ever; a “Not Hiring” sign.
A discussion of how to fine tune taxes to run the government is the same as the Global Warming discussion; how best to keep doing what we’re doing and more of it.
Just stop doing so much government. We’ll all be better off.
we still import (latest data available) only a little less than 13% of the world’s goods.
I recall seeing a chart showing that it was much higher than that. Perhaps it has come down as we have become more energy self sufficient. But even if 13% is correct, it doesn’t change this: everyone else wants (and needs) to be a net exporter. And the rest of the world can only do that if we buy their cr@p and run huge trade deficits (500B last year). If that stops happening their economies will fall apart, especially considering the excess capacity of sweatshops around the globe.
huge trade deficits (500B last year).
trade deficits don’t exist. they’re a myth.
every time i see an economist talk about them i lose a little respect for their knowledge of economics.
walter e. williams is one of the greatest economists alive today, and he also says there’s no such thing as trade deficits. so do a few other less well-known economists.
i’ve been through the explanations about the faux trade deficits on this blog before. it’s nothing but a waste of bandwidth to go over it again.
https://ww2.kqed.org/news/2016/12/20/silicon-valley-zip-codes-top-california-list-of-priciest-homes/
maybe this is why test engineers make 160K in Santa Carla
Plus RSU of course
Almost all of my IT friends make well over 6 figures. My carpenter friends bill $90 an hr.
Lola…. There isn’t a wood pecker in the US earning remotely close to that even with fringe included..
I know plenty of IT people who make well under 6 figures. And I’ve never met a carpenter who charges $90/hr. I’ve met plenty who charge $20-30.
You need to get out of Palo Alto once in a while.
One need only review the 2001 tech bubble crash to see the future of salaries and home prices in Silicon Valley once Yellen turns off the free money spigot.
Will all those H1-Bs be going home?
But…. it sure did recover fast. Dont hate the winners.
http://www.paragon-re.com/3_Recessions_2_Bubbles_and_a_Baby
Here is the longer-term historical view.
The post-dotcom housing correction was actually pretty mild.
Yeah, because the correction was interrupted by the first housing bubble (thanks, Fed!) before it could really correct.
Silly-con valley hasn’t had a real housing correction in 25 years, so nobody can remember that far back, so they think it will go up forever…or if there’s a slight pause (like in 2001 and 2010), it will reach new heights within 5 years!!!!! There will always be a new innovation bubble, because there always has been!!!!!!
Until it stops….after all, 60 years ago, Detroit was on top of the world.
I wouldn’t be surprised if CA’s economy starts to suck (app bubble and housing bubble pop) while the rest of the country does OK.
My great aunt bought her house in Old Palo Alto in 1946. It was (in her words) very expensive at the time. That said, she was shocked at the time of her death at the cost of housing on the Peninsula.
Prices are too high…for sure. But somewhere else will need to emerge as a new leader of tech innovation and investment for it to ever be “cheap”…and even at that time, it probably won’t be all that cheap given the climate.
It’s been a while since I’ve heard of any important “tech innovation”.
Grilled cheese trucks and drone deliveries?
Taxi’s and bed and breakfast. There was a time when these tech companies created wealth. Now they just try and shave it off somebody else, often illegally.
And unprofitably. Do any of these “tech” companies make money? Even one?
“UBER COULD LOSE ALMOST $3 BILLION THIS YEAR”
http://www.vanityfair.com/news/2016/12/uber-could-lose-almost-3-billion-this-year
do you follow alternative energy? batteries? Tesla?
lost of great innovations. you won’t hear about them on FOX. They are too sad (Saudi-owned).
You get paid what you are worth. easy
I don’t watch TV. Tesla, those overpriced cars you have to recharge 4 times a day? Last I heard about the big batteries it was no go. What else ya got?
And a $7500 tax credit
So good you are forcing others to pay for it
And unprofitably. Do any of these “tech” companies make money? Even one?
“UBER COULD LOSE ALMOST $3 BILLION THIS YEAR”
Real tech companies make money. Posers like Uber aren’t tech companies. HP, IBM, Oracle, etc., while considered “dinosaurs”,make billions in profit.
Tesla, those overpriced cars you have to recharge 4 times a day?
You can get a Nissan Leaf for about $10,000, after all the tax credits (AKA subsidies, about $13 K in state and federal subsidies). Stupid things have a 100 mile range. OK I guess for retired oldster’s trips to the local Walmart or Country Buffet, but useless for everyone else.
It’s been a while since I’ve heard of any important “tech innovation”.
There is innovation, most people just aren’t aware of it. Stuff like OS virtualization, solid state (flash based) disk storage, etc. come to mind. But that stuff isn’t “sexy”. But it makes our computers better and those companies actually make money, unlike Uber, Twitter, etc.
Consumer products tend to get reported on most frequently because people use them and their acceptance can spread like wildfire.
However, there is a lot that doesn’t get reported on that is very unsexy:
New combustion engines to increase efficiency, genomic sequencing of tumors to target treatment, efficient energy converstion using new materials, etc.
These are harder problems to solve, higher barriers to competition if successful, and when successful, almost completely invisible to the public. Because they end up getting purchased by companies big auto, big pharma, etc.
A great article was written about venture investing from a former partner at Founders Fund.
http://foundersfund.com/the-future/
The author (Bruce Gibney) has since retired and has a book coming out soon.
Bandwidth increasing like crazy . 10 gb/s back in 1999 is now 400 g/baud coherent.
rise of the cat videos
Automation, Photonics, Batteries
A geographical area will emerge to dominate automation and it certainly will not be Silicon Valley. Automation requires lots of materials engineers to use the newer alloys effectively. The weakest controller severely outpaces the robots of today.
Photonics have given us fibre optic cables with amazing abilities - ie long distance audio, visual, data transmission. Also seems to have solved cheap hydrogen production. Will eventually speed computers, defence, health, etc.
Batteries - once those electrons behave and follow one another in a straight line then batteries will be capable of lasting the life of your electric car - on one charge.
to what end? do we need a 10ghz processor in our smartphone with a 100 megapixel camera? will that make us more productive? will it allow more efficient use of time? or is it just cynical product development moving along at an incremental pace, knowing dumbass consumers will pay top dollar for “new and improved” when it’s neither?
There is a certainly a point of diminishing returns for bigger, faster, better, when what the tech is being used for is identical.
Snapping photos of your kids? More pixels isn’t necessarily better.
However, real-time stitching together of multiple video streams to generate a virtual 360 degree picture of live events? Faster is necessary.
Hell, this evening, I was working on a big spreadsheet, and I had to turn off auto recalculation because my computer would take 10 seconds every time I added to the spreadsheet. And I have a pretty fast desktop…
The real magic isn’t convincing someone to buy something faster/better, etc.
The real magic is pushing forward to boundaries of the software that may not have previously been possible because computers weren’t fast enough (artificial intelligence, etc.).
Look at gene sequencing.
What used to be very expensive and time consuming is now fast enough and cheap enough that companies like Foundation One to utilize such technology to target cancer therapies.
Bah, why do we need faster gene sequencing? Create faster and cheaper gene sequencing, and people will find interesting ways to use it.
I’ve been a tech geek forever, so I love newer/faster/better. The point is focusing resources to make the next big leap that will actually improve productivity, which is what your foundersfund article was lamenting. Money goes after the sure thing. NIH research funding is no different, with grants going to previously funded researchers who incrementally add to a question instead of researchers thinking outside the box towards an entirely new concept.
Targeted therapies based on genetic information of patient and tumor is quite exciting. However, caution is necessary. First, where does all that genetic information get stored? Who gets access? What happens when a firm gets hacked and suddenly 10k sequences are released? Should actuarials get that data to price life and health insurance appropriately? Should the government have access to run predictive models of behavior, etc? Second, how do we test those therapies? Currently we utilize large-scale RCTs for new regimens in cancer. Amazingly, most studies are flawed and cannot be confirmed by subsequent studies. How do we ensure better science than we’d currently been using to target individual therapies to 10s of patients instead of 1000s? I believe these questions should be asked/answered before we get too far down the path of such therapies.
While a few economic sectors and industries are pushing forward, most are treading water. I believe a great depression era correction would stimulate the focus, energy, and intestinal fortitude necessary to truly innovate and move the country forward on a sustainable path. Either way, looking forward to watching how it all turns out.
http://www.dentresearch.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/110414_ENM.jpg
The dot com bubble crash was artificially stopped/reinflated by Greenspan’s misguided “soft landing” rhetoric and policy. The 2008 financial crash is what should’ve happened in 2002. Now a real correction needs to make up for the partial correction in 2002 and the partial correction in 2008 (headed off by QEnfinity and ZIRP).
We can all pull any dataset and twist it to suit preconceived notions. Can’t wait to see how it really turns out.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/05/technology/05rich.html
Mr. Steger, 51, a self-described geek, has banked more than $2 million. The $1.3 million house he and his wife own on a bluff overlooking the Pacific Ocean is paid off. The couple’s net worth of roughly $3.5 million places them in the top 2 percent of families in the United States.
Yet each day Mr. Steger continues to toil in what a colleague calls “the Silicon Valley salt mines,” working as a marketing executive for a technology start-up company, still striving for his big strike. Most mornings, he can be found at his desk by 7. He typically works 12 hours a day and logs an extra 10 hours over the weekend.
“I know people looking in from the outside will ask why someone like me keeps working so hard,” Mr. Steger says. “But a few million doesn’t go as far as it used to. Maybe in the ’70s, a few million bucks meant ‘Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous,’ or Richie Rich living in a big house with a butler. But not anymore.”
That is especially the case when the interest you can earn on your savings is pretty much $0.
There’s always losing your ass and your cash on a rapidly depreciating house as housing prices crater.
Hey Donk
This article is from 2007. I wonder how many lost their shirts in the financial crisis. Especially those 70 hr/week start-ups. I bet they wish they had gone Oil City.
South Beach San Francisco Housing Prices Crater 6% YoY
http://www.zillow.com/south-beach-san-francisco-ca/home-values/
Donald Trump on Proposed Muslim Ban: ‘You Know My Plans’
invest accordingly… gonna get wild
DOW.FrICkN.20K
Even Harrison Ford made $15 million last yr. The Rock Leads With $64.5 million. Do you think these guys look for cheap labor or the best?
Be good at what you do.
wtf do u do JACK?
Surf, mtn bike, ski, fish, drink good wine, restore cars, hike…. the good life. Used to work for a large auto mfg in Torrance in design.
Actually, Hollywood does look for cheap, which is why so many films and TV shows are filmed outside the US, where crew wages are much lower.
I meant plenty of people will pay $90 an hr for a great carpenter. Just not in Buffalo, NY
get in with the right people.
Portland, OR Housing Prices Crater 9% YoY
http://www.zillow.com/portland-or-97201/home-values/
“The cynics said this would happen. I’m talking about the prediction that politicians would absorb none of the lessons of the financial crisis. Here in Canada, amnesia is setting in.”
The morons didn’t believe the cynics.