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Post by spudbuddy on Nov 20, 2009 21:03:27 GMT -6
Obama and the Democrats have been bought and belong to the globalists and banking class. Obama and the Democrats will do nothing that would help Americans at the expense of giving more and more taxpayer money to the banking class and the globalists. The Spring jobs program will be just another 'crisis' opportunity to divert fortunes to the banking class and globalists. The media propaganda continues unabated about how we "had" to bail out the banking class. They're still trying to gin up a credit crunch or shortage as the main problem. The reality is that American consumers' income and buying power continues to collapse as jobs are lost and spending habits are rethought, in anticipation of further job losses and wage declines. When banks aren't lending it is due to the likelihood of not getting paid back by a business that can't sell enough merchandise or service. It's not because credit is "tight." It's because the credit sought is unjustified by the cause it's being used for--due to anticipated lack of sales of products/services. No one is going to lend a small business money if they don't think the business will make enough in sales to pay them back. That's not a credit shortage. It's a credit-worthy borrower shortage. Well-spoken! Isn't this what happens when capital is drop-kicked off into speculative heaven...instead of re-invested into job-creating business ventures? (business - as in providing real goods and services) - you know.....the kind of schemes and dreams that "businessmen" used to have when they dared to be ambitious enough to yearn for wealth?
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Post by spudbuddy on Nov 20, 2009 20:36:51 GMT -6
it now appears that our problems with capital are so severe that far fewer people will be able to borrow money from banks to buy cars at the rate, and in the way, that the system has been organized to depend on.Our problem is one of employment - 16% unemployment tends to hammer consumer sales you know and one of income levels - since wages have been flat for decades, the American people have resorted to using their homes to pay for new cars and goods for the last decade or so. And now that's gone and we're seeing what real consumer spending looks like and its not anything like what we've previously seen. And as Greybeard pointed out buying a new car also means more $$$$ for insurance and when you include that, you're up to $400-500 a month car payment. That's a lot of money for most middle-class people to shell out every month. What I do to avoid this trap, I generally go to a auto salvage auction and pick up a drive away used car(3-4 years old and 50k miles) for under $5k. Or I can go to the local auto junk yard and buy a used car for $1k that with a little work makes a decent ride. Of course the state doesn't get much in the way of revenues when I and others go that route but that's their problem. I agree with everthing you've said here (as the equity ATM's dry up and blow away) and my car-buying habits are pretty much identical to yours. Beaters that last 5 years without complaints are a thing of beauty.... (even if they won't win Miss Auto USA)
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Post by spudbuddy on Nov 20, 2009 20:30:53 GMT -6
I think especially in financially-straitened times... the luxuriance of the new car will stale rather quickly. There have always been a lot of people out there whose esthetic sensibilities were sorely challenged by the idea of purchasing something used - be it a house, car, whatever. Many more will soon have to eschew such standards. Many of those will wake one financially-strapped morning and realize that a new car (depending on the model) just vomited many thousands of dollars of value as it was being backed from its parking space on the lot.
It is a rather cosmetic valuation, enhanced by nothing other than some vague notion of status. Which is all something easily descarded when it comes to watching the bottom line.
(and I can already hear some smart ass asking: "Well, if no-one buys one brand-new, then where will the used cars come from?" To which the answer should be (I wish!) let's all just wait until the dealers get so desperate we'll get them at used prices anyhow.) I know - entirely not fair to the dealers.
But here's what I really wish: That any value-added features designed to help a car go over 65 mph were immediately discarded, along with all the rest of the junk not needed...bring the cost of a new model down by 50%, lower speed limits, raise mpg, (and have someone somewhere sneakily raise the number of seconds in a minute to 61) I know.....raving delusions... but fun to think about.
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Post by spudbuddy on Nov 9, 2009 12:20:00 GMT -6
On the moral entanglements and hazards of walking.......... I'm just wondering - suppose one bought any particular expensive product (a diamond-studded ballroom gown, for instance) worth 100k...........and it was discovered a few years later that half of the diamonds were only zirconian, and the gown was really only 50k in value. Would one not be able to rightfully challenge this?
That the market fell off the table (in grand casino gambling tradition) is hardly the game many homeowners were playing when they bought. That their property would appreciate in value was something they took in stride...........that it could lose so much so fast as to put them underwater was something they would never have considered. I say - these are the people who need a break. I see no reason why that initial mortgage cannot be re-negotiated, reflecting the home's true value in today's reality. Otherwise - it just looks too much to me like walking away from a rigged gaming table.
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Post by spudbuddy on Nov 9, 2009 11:55:25 GMT -6
Hmmm. The way I see it is this: the 500k purchase price dropping 40%....=$300k. With a 20% down payment, even on a 10-year fixed mortgage (owners with decent incomes) this is still a losing proposition. I guess you could say it's like finding out a few years after you bought, that the real price of the house had escalated by 40%.
The media have done a lot of yapping about how "unprecedented" this housing value drop is - Well, perhaps the response to this mess should be in kind - an unprecedented disconnect from the entire value system that says one must honor one's debts, no matter what.
I suspect what makes this tricky - is having to extract all those entrapped by the debacle of the bust (the ones who did everything right, and by the book) from the rest: the freewheeling gamblers who treated housing more like port belly futures and rich-quicksand fantasies. Understandably, no-one wants to cut them any slack.
I dunno..........if I were paying good money just to fan the weak little flame of hope that some day....(5, 10, 15 years?) I might make it back to zero equity.............
The fact that we've been raised to believe home equity as one passes various life stages...educating one's kids, planning for retirement............is (or was) the one guaranteed thing that could produce any real wealth....this was obviously true for all middle-income earners. Disconnecting from that particular reality, I think - causes a disconnect from the entire raison d'etre for the whole thing. Why bother? Why buy that risk (risk+housing used to be a kind of oxymoron, n'est pas?)............but most important - why continue to throw good money away in such a fool's game (once the foolishness is uncovered and laid bare)?
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Post by spudbuddy on Jan 29, 2009 17:16:09 GMT -6
- couldn't agree more, xtra. It's pretty pathetic that the corporate profit banishes the common sense, respect and compassion that could have saved this vet's life. Any or all of those ingredients work wonders - while the greed that superimposes them....well, we know what that does. And for all the corporate suits out there, with their terminal wet dreams about the glories of wealth - isn't it ironic? That sometimes money isn't what it takes to solve things. A good friend or caring neighbor could have made a world of difference.............the old man's money didn't.
As to the opening story.................. What a shame, that children should have to suffer for the sins / omissions....of their parents.
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Post by spudbuddy on Jul 23, 2008 23:45:34 GMT -6
- a recent publication..."China Road" by Rob Gifford, might offer some rather interesting insights into some of these issues concerning what's been going on in China - beneath the mantle of soft media suppositions........ Mr. Gifford first went to China in 1987, (I believe, as a foreign correspondent), became fluent in Mandarin, and undertook a long journey on what has become known as China's "route 66"....a highway stretching from Shanghai to Kazakhstan - around 2500 miles in length. On the way, he interviewed a lot of people from all walks of life, including the peasantry. What intrigues me about the book - is that he's attempted to take the pulse of a very silent and huge majority - the 800+million or more who are, and have been, basically outside all the hullabaloo that's been going on in China - very little of the new wealth has done them any favors. I haven't read the book yet, but have it on order. My gut feeling about all this - is that although a new middle class has been emerging in China, that middle class will probably never rise to more than a small percentage of the total population - and one can only wonder what the rest of the nation will do when it becomes apparent as time goes by - that they're not invited to the party. What feels especially significant about this, of course - is China's history....must make some of that new breed of capitalist feel a little like they're sitting on a powder keg. (revolution, anyone?)
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Post by spudbuddy on Jul 8, 2008 0:49:10 GMT -6
A year or two ago, I read a rather intertaining book (can't remember the author) - think the title was "The Debt Bomb" - in which I learned a little bit about how so much so-called economic growth is actually created debt...but the phrase this author used to describe the activity of major money markets - was that in many cases, wealth isn't created at all - it's intercepted. This concept intrigued me to say the least. I pictured some kind of weird financial outfielder's mitt - you know, kind of a super Ken Griffey special - catching dollar signs flying by - over the shoulder, shoestring, feet off the ground and parallel to the turf (while Wall Street applauds) ....but the sad thing to me about this - is how much bloody wealth there is which is NOT being invested in actual wealth-creating production. The kind of stuff that actually puts people to work. I get this really weird picture - that to too many people up there in their ivory towers - "wages" are a kind of virus - some kind of deadly bongo in the congo exotic plague of profit-killing anti-shareholding ritz-rattling killjoy end of good times, good health, and very good exploitation in the grandest traditional sense.
I suppose an 80-million dollar yacht produces a certain amount of trickle-down........why not? But still and all - people who research and develop, design, build and manufacture things and sell them to each other always seemed like a healthy way to run a balanced economy. It's not like we never had the model figured out to run on - we certainly used to know how to do this.
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Post by spudbuddy on Jul 8, 2008 0:29:04 GMT -6
Well now, The right vehicle for the job is just horse sense to me. Lot's of briefcase totin' suits bop about on scooters in my town...that's just fine. They could be hedging in a million intercepted dollars for all I know.
To me, the real issue is that the top 20% of earners aren't going to be crying over pump prices anytime soon - and I do believe that this was part of the corporate plan all along. There never was enough to go around, never will be, and they've known that fits their family silverware just fine. Meanwhile the happy motoring just gets sadder as time goes by. Understandably, folks feel a little queasy about their setup - why shouldn't they? It might have been a good idea to try out a little bit of good old fashioned pedestrian checkup on how they live their lives (but god knows they're all too busy just trying to keep one step ahead of the racket - can't blame them.)
Nevertheless - a supersized society must readjust when the cost of size climbs sky-high. It's one thing to fill up a guzzler - it's another thing to brace up for the cost of heating and cooling the giant lawyer foyers that are good for nothing more than hanging 2000-watt chandeliers in. Nonsense. Hotter summers can sure make one sheepish stuck in a subdivision where the tallest tree in sight is a 6-foot shrub. My grandfather used to call his 80-foot oaks "God's air conditioning." He was a pretty smart guy. I remember, sitting in his main floor kitchen, shivering in a t-shirt......on the hottest day of the summer. Not one speck of afternoon sun ever touched his rooftop. Now...that's planning!
But hell - as far as GM goes - I just say it's pride goeth before the fall......
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Post by spudbuddy on Jul 7, 2008 22:50:39 GMT -6
My mode of transportation isn't the cheapest ..but it is the most convenient for my lifestyle. I own two pickup trucks................................ I don't get a subsidy (tho told could qualify)............................ Out here in rural Texas, for some of us, size does matter. Those little peep-squeak, high fuel mileage compacts with low ground clearance just wouldn't make it long. Besides rolling rocks beneath the undercarriage from front to rear of vehicle on the kind of roads and pastures I travel over, the 100s of pounds of stuff and feeds and supplements carried on daily basis, and for pulling a 18,000 pound horse/cow trailer to town/market -- those subcompacts just aren't as viable as my power-wagons. Considered by some to be rich (mainly b/c of my independence & lack of indebtedness), I care about high gas (and diesel) prices but too some who don't walk in my shoes, they undoubtedly believe I don't care. To each, his own. ;D *********************************** Now that's refreshing. If all the people who actually use this gear did your work - there wouldn't be a problem. Trouble is - too many dudes in business suits parking pickups in skyscraper undergrounds - and their undercarriages haven't seen cowshit since they rolled off the assembly line, and never will. (I believe Jim Hightower said that.) It always took fuel and real machinery to do work. That shouldn't be the problem. The problem is the waste of good fuel and good gear on "urban pretensions." "The early bird may get the worm, but it's the second mouse gets the cheese!" (Willie Nelson said that) jp
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Post by spudbuddy on Jul 7, 2008 10:13:56 GMT -6
Historically - I don't know a whole lot about the Wagner Act - but it seems to me a lot of momentum was set in motion after WW2 that created a very healthy domestic market for American-made goods. I was surprised to learn how at one time, foreign trade, compared to domestic, was not at all what drove the American economy overall, and it was doing well (in the '50's and '60's). What really resonates with me - is the outcome of debt-based economic "growth" over the past decade. Endless examples of the master-degreed white collar worker downsized from an 80k to a 50k job (if they're lucky!) and making up the 30k difference with debt - home equity or otherwise. I especially like the example given at the top - the whole idea of depressed global wages completely disappearing out of the mix - money forever removed from the purchasing power part of the equation. Actually - I like to think of it as the 80-million dollar yacht bought with the proceeds - wages removed from a few million or so workers.
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Post by spudbuddy on Jul 7, 2008 9:49:28 GMT -6
Interesting - I'd love to find some hard stats on exactly what costing factors tip the scales in terms of transporting durable goods - as in giant container ship mode. At what point does it become more cost effective to skip the Pacific crossing? How will China fare with a domestic market, as opposed to an international one? Also - regional markets - what is their future, considering transportation costs - will Globalization retract across perhaps...thousand-mile epicenters?
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Post by spudbuddy on Jul 5, 2008 0:08:48 GMT -6
That's a good point - the first gilded age provided a lot of jobs, in the process of creating wealth. I read a great quote awhile back - about how the model now is to not "create" wealth at all...but instead, to intercept it. (reach out and grab it as it's going by.)
Something to ponder - as we headed into the first Great Depression in the thirties - there was still lots of resources - factories - oil - cheap energy (the only thing lacking was investment capital) But now....we have a huge retraction in just about everything needed to turn it around.
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