I'll try to keep everyone on .

Raising the participation rate not only increases govt revenue but decreases transfer payments. Time to get selfish and encourage jobs for everyone.

Grey here on 9th Street in Laguna.

YouTube - Grey in L.A.

We spent how many trillions to get this weak growth ?

I'd argue if you included military spending then dollar spent for dollar of growth is now negative.

And likely we will face another recession soon then what ?

I guess print until the currency collapses.

I guess print until the currency collapses.

Paul Brodsky: Central Banks are Nearing the 'Inflate or Die' Stage | Peak Prosperity 

Rob Dawg wrote:

Lock in those 3.375% 30y mortgages now.

Going to be 6.0% this summer, right?

Eric wrote:

Going to be 6.0% this summer, right?

Time or trend. Pick one. I pick trend and say 30y fixed (deductible for now) will be better than free money eventually.

Eric wrote:

Going to be 6.0% this summer, right?

2.0% is more likely than 6.0%

we’ve been pretty sympathetic to structural explanations for the slow pace of the recovery. Nonetheless, we have yet to find much evidence that problems with skill-mismatch are more important postrecession than they were prerecession. We’ll keep looking, but—as our colleagues at the Chicago Fed conclude in their most recent Chicago Fed Letter—so far the facts just don’t support skill gaps as the major source of our current labor market woes.

They are the same people who wouldn't know a bar code from an RFID and why it matters. Or ERP vs MRP. Or manual picker vs AGVs in a warehouse. On and on.

You can see the cyclical vs structural in CRs post. The long term unemployed represent resistance to hire [structural]. The sluggish improvement and wide distribution evidenced in diffusion index the cyclical part.

You will not get a lot of those structurally unemployed back to work without attacking a lot of the structural resistance. Skills is just one of them. Inability or unwillingness to relocate. Age and fitness. Lots of issues.

We are not going back to the mid2000's unless we blow another bubble as big. It just isn't going to happen. No matter how much money Kruggles wants to dump into the banks. They have to do more than that. A lot more.

dryfly wrote:

fixing the structural

So how would you fix the structural unemployment? And please do not say student loans.

shill wrote:

Paul Brodsky: Central Banks are Nearing the 'Inflate or Die' Stage | Peak Prosperity

and infestor scum will be writing the same kind of book talking articles ten years from now. they will be just as wrong.

dryfly wrote:

we blow another bubble

Frankly, the idea that 'blowing another bubble' is a solution to unemployment is part of the problem. We need sustainable employment, even if it takes longer to get there.

shill wrote:

Paul Brodsky: Central Banks are Nearing the 'Inflate or Die' Stage | Peak Prosperity 

100:1 leverage or something like that.

Yep we are toast

However with that said it could take a decade or more for all this to play out. I'm not convinced inflation is around the corner.
The problem is in the end their is zero wage pressure. Printing fails when your money has no velocity.

The demand for treasuries is endless with zero interest rates and mispriced risk. Eventually yes this scenario will happen but I think its a long way away. For now at least I think the entire world is now following Japan.

I guess the intrinsic reason why we can't inflate our way out anytime soon is eventually with fiat inflation works by creating new debt.
With the real economy stuck in a depression this approach fails.

dryfly wrote:

. And fixing the structural

How?

shill wrote:

Oklahoma Seeks Nullification of ObamaCare, Power To Arrest Federal Agents

Non-starter. Will never pass.

yagij wrote:

is the student loan answer, but since that is where I am currently making bank, I'm going to go Upton S. and say Yes!

And down the road having a population with enormous student loan debt is gonna send house prices soaring right ?

Heck on reason I don't own a home is I went to grad school and racked up 60k of student loan debt. Took a long time to pay off.
And I'm well paid. I don't think debt vs income pencils out anymore for many degrees.

Of course people don't want to do that return on investment calculation

My own personal anecdote:

I was assigned to work on an IT solution to replace a manual process performed by dozens of people. The team to which I was assigned had clear deficits in terms of technical skill, and the project itself was a failure in that it would never actually replace the manual process completely. For the cost of one or two capable developers, the company could've saved millions, but instead it relied on workers lacking in the needed skills.

Where is the structural unemployment?

pavel.chichikov wrote:

Non-starter. Will never pass

LOL its Oklahoma dude it will pass then get struck down by some court

Re: Participation Rate, Duration of Unemployment and Diffusion Indexes

1. 3.1 Million Workers Join Disability Ranks Vs. 2.6 Million That Got Jobs In Obama Recovery - Investors.com
2. The New Arthurian Economics: Something old, something new

"Yes, growth depends on the use of credit. But we already have lots of credit in use. We call it "debt". And it does not help us grow. Only new uses of credit help us grow. Old, existing debt is the counterbalancing hindrance to growth. We have so much old debt now that the new uses of credit have to be very very big or they are not effective. Thus we see massive Federal deficits and little economic recovery."

dryfly wrote:

No student loans are NOT the answer. My sis in Big Ed even sees that - schools train basic skills often targeted to needs a decade ago. I would pay companies DIRECTLY to hire apprentices in areas they see need. That to address the skills deficit immediately.

Man you should run for president excellent ideas !

dryfly wrote:

allow aggressive depreciation

Tax breaks for investment simply encourages company to over-invest and under-price labor, which results in reduced aggregate demand.

If you have three idle car factory, giving a tax break to build another car factory just raises the tax burden on the existing workers resulting in less purchasing power available to buy cars. So you might end with FIVE idle car factories.

It's a variety of factors, one huge factor is the shift to an outsource model, where IT departments are treated as an autonomous cost center. When the recession hit, businesses focused on their bottom line, and that meant attacking costs first. IT was the first to get hammered, far more than the more culpable workers at my FIRE starter. It's just easier to drop contractors by attrition.

dryfly wrote:

Well show me where he has had a bigger bolder idea? Seriously.

Read his blog. It keeps coming up; Plan A would be massive fiscal stimulus. Barring that, Plan B is massive monetary stimulus (as in keeping nominal rates as low as possible) to induce moderate inflation.

And all along he's been for the Swedish solution, not shoveling money to the banks.

Agronox wrote:

nominal rates as low as possible

Is 0.12% low enough for you? What is plan C when plan A and plan B don't work?

Rajesh wrote:

Is 0.12% low enough for you?

NIRP! Then Super NIRP! Then OMGWTF NIRP--aka asset confiscation if you don't spend it!
.
Monetary stimulus is a non-starter in this situation? Wow...

Paul Krugman wants the WPA, Part Deux. The government can dictate living wages and training for needed skills, which will increase aggregate demand. I'm not convinced, but it's a much better idea than propping up the banking sector, and I'd rather focus on decent, but flawed, ideas instead of demanding perfect ideas.

Yes. This is the underlying reality behind the received wisdom of a "skills gap." The practical answer has been deflation - making do with less, making workers work longer hours. Facebook is a tech company, and yet its product is crap. A very large reason for this is that they simply do not employ enough people.

sdtfs wrote:

? I thought you bought in Oregon with acreage.
edit: 5/5/2012

Sad story the deal fell through supposedly another agent had and offer before me but could not make contact with my agent.
Yeah right. Anyway my offer was technically not closed because my divorce was not going to be final until Aug 1.
Suffice it to say it was complicated. Anyway no biggie now I can look at raw land before I was limited because I also needed a place to live.

To be honest I think I was gamed a bit but I'll reserve judgment. It was a beautiful property thats for sure but of the 60 acres only like ten was usable the rest was just very pretty.

I ended up renting a place on the same road same creek with 1 acre and a pool.
Plenty for sale in the area I'll hang for a bit then look again. I just said screw a house and bought a new Harley

Where is the structural unemployment?

I see it all the time. One company I work with runs three big horizontal machining centers in a cell. Rotating pallet chargers. Takes one operator to run all three. He can load up the last pallets and it runs half the night unattended. In the morning an operator comes in early and reloads.

It used to require three operators per shift five years ago with less robust automation. And six operators per shift using different machines ten years ago.

And the changes in the office are every bit as significant.

sports update"
looks like Murry didn't bring his 'A' game today against Federer.
...

Tax breaks for investment simply encourages company to over-invest and under-price labor, which results in reduced aggregate demand

Not always. Pay per employee in a society is proportional to tha capital behind them. Lester Thurow did a lot on this two decades ago. Predicted a lot of the problems we now face as a result of under investment in productive capacity and over 'investment' in real estate.

We are not going back to the mid2000's unless we blow another bubble as big. It just isn't going to happen. No matter how much money Kruggles wants to dump into the banks. They have to do more than that. A lot more.

I'd suggest that a case can be made that "structural unemployment" will fix itself as the boomers drop out of the work force -- death, voluntary retirement, involuntary retirement (A president with Alzheimers sort of works, a bookkeeper with Alzheimers, not so much)

However, attrition through aging will take a while, so the issue would be what to do in the meantime.

I doubt that recreating the 2004 boom is a good idea. But I don't have the slightest idea where or how to create a useful, minimally damaging bubble. Neither does Paul Krugman as far as I can see.

dryfly wrote:

And the changes in the office are every it as significant.

My college has 100+ faculty and 25+ staff. The IT support team consists of two people: desktop support for one and website/server administration for the other. If push went to shove, I think a single person could support all of it if it wasn't a Big Ed franchise. It may not impress/boggle the minds of the IT folks here, but when I think about it, it dawns on me that there are probably multiple colleges at a single university with similar setups just waiting to downsize if necessary.

Plan A would be massive fiscal stimulus.

Where. What. That is as important as 'how much'. What I have read of his blogs its pretty vague. And of he sort that 'it doesn't matter' - just spend. I don't buy that. I think it does matter where and what the stimulus does.

mp
I noticed a swipe at CAD on the over night.
interestingly enough I worked for two world class architects (founders of IAUS)
back in early 1980s. I predicted that CAD which was quite in its infancy would
radically change architectural design. they vehemently disagreed, said there
would always be a place for mechanicals.
about 12 years ago I ran into one of them again.
"I told you so..." I said. The now eminent architect agreed...
...
statement - without CAD there'd be no Museo Bilbao, for starters...
...

Rajesh wrote:

Is 0.12% low enough for you? What is plan C when plan A and plan B don't work?

How about we try them first?

yagij wrote:

similar setups

Don't forget to factor in the bogus nature of online education, where one teacher can service several hundred students that are basically being provided with low quality automated educations, where the teachers do nothing at all but suck down paychecks and pensions -- I don't think the day is too far off when teachers will not find employment. A lot of community colleges pay fairly good money for alcoholic teachers to sit back and run online classrooms ... that model is in the process of going tits up ...

• The vast majority of older teachers with tenure are totally clueless in regard to technology, and those suckers sit back like drunks waiting for their next paychecks ... education may well go into a tailspin ... its a disgusting con game!

sdtfs wrote:

Yes, with real estate agents it's hard to sort incompetence from criminal behavior. I've dealt with both and incompetence is more prevalent.

In this particular case I think it was the owners that played the games. I had to move for personal reasons so I did not push it.
My agent seemed like a good guy but the owners were a bit slimy.

sdtfs wrote:

They're working for peanuts.

But that's the whole point, and they need to do more for less ...

Look, what we have here is a failure to create jobs, because the rich think they can continue to do what worked during a demographic boom from 1980 until 2000. That thinking is dead, and it isn't coming back.

Real estate is a great example of something that has tremendous pressure exerted upon it by all the people in the baby boom. They all went to college (or not), got married, and had kids during the period roughly from 1970 to 2000. They all wanted suburbia, little pink houses (or McMansions), good schools, and decent jobs. The very size of their population pushed so much development, so much building, so much employment pulling that stuff along.

Now we watch them all try to do a josap, downsize their houses, their lifestyles, in short, everything at once.

Epic fail, America, epic fail.

Now they think they can get by on less taxes, less services, and less government, all when they need to transition to social security and medicare. Har.

Stuck, stuck, stuck, like the politics. Watched Stephen Moore of WSJ essentially make a fool of himself on Up this morning. Risible comments about taxes.

Someday this war's gonna end...

Did you ever refi, Dawg?

memmel wrote:

I just said screw a house and bought a new Harley

Very normal pattern, why do you think people are buying new cars?

Rajesh wrote:

The 3.5% of the workforce that has been unemployed more that 26 can be taken as a proxy for structural unemployment.

If hidden unemployment - yes there is such a category - hasn't varied linearly with the >26 weeks unemployment - then that should be accounted for when discussing structural unemployment.

I'd like to see a model that's planet-wide. Anecdotally, its seems "obvious" that loss of manufacturing jobs in the USA true but gain in those jobs in China also true, so net planet-wide net manufacturing jobs ?

Do that first IMO, then pull out the facts for this particular corner of the planet. it gives perspective and a closed system view that has the advantages of perhaps getting it right / accounting for EVERYTHING.

Unless there are some underground Gnomes somewhere who are doing a "heigh-ho - heigh-ho its off to work we go "

josap wrote:

Very normal pattern, why do you think people are buying new cars?

LOL right on the mark !

It should also be noted that there has been a steady improvement in car quality over the past 20 years or so. Mileage hasn't improved much, but that is because the efficiency gains went to size and performance. When you buy a recently made house, on the other hand, you have to worry about the dreaded Chinese drywall.

My son bought a Harley & got rid of it. Not happy with quality. Not happy with riding in florida rain & bugs in the teeth. Not happy with danger.

dryfly wrote:

Productivity produces structural unemployment. When productivity kills jobs faster than those displaced workers can be reemployed you have structural unemployment.

That's not my understanding of the term.

Wikipedia (bolding mine):

Structural unemployment is a form of unemployment resulting from a mismatch between demand in the labour market and the skills and locations of the workers seeking employment. Even though the number of vacancies may be equal to, or greater than, the number of the unemployed, the unemployed workers may lack the skills needed for the jobs, or they may not live in the part of the country or world where the jobs are available.

I don't see a skills mismatch (which is what MP was talking about) so much as a lack-of-jobs problem.

i.e. it's a demand side issue, not supply side

No, we won't riot. We will simply tax them to death, all while they stand still for it, because they think it is just part and parcel of their precious "investments".

Watching RobD squirm and pray hard for the demise of California is instructive. I can hardly wait for the repeal of Prop 13 for all nonresidential primary homeowner property.

Taxes on the rentiers are coming, and coming up because they are the only ones left standing who can pay.

And we will pay to continue the welfare state. I can't believe the Republican governors are buying into the national congressional strategy of not expanding medicare. Their medical establishment is going to kill them. The doctors are going to war against them, because that will kill the base running hospitals, raising the cost of private insurance in those states, etc.

The Obama administration well understands the medical delivery establishment wants more insurance, because that means more paying customers, and few ER patients that will never pay.

The Republican party has lost on socialized medicine, the only question is how far are they going to ride plane down in flames.

Strategy over tactics.

Someday this war's gonna end...

Duke of Con Dao wrote:

mp
I noticed a swipe at CAD on the over night.

Lest I be characterized as a Luddite, it's important to address this comment.

I don't have a problem with CAD. As I pointed out in a later comment, I actually used CAD to eliminate competitors. In fact, my firm was an early adopter of PC-based CAD and we used it throughout the manufacturing process.

My beef is not with CAD, but the CAD mentality. CAD is not the be-all and end-all.

In fact, I never view CAD as a "production cost saver." I viewed it as a "market share builder."

Actually not. He wanted a vehicle with a roof. And to transport the Siamesers

Back in 2008-09 he called for WPA 2.0.

What where? A lot of what was done in the CCC and WPA was horribly destructive. Like some of the dam projects. Even counter productive. And given how the handouts go to the politically connected is that how we want it?

I think that is the right general way to go but it might be better to keep the gov in regulatory mode and allow tax incentives and local micro projects to stimulate instead. Also might be more politically possible.

lawyerliz wrote:

And to transport the Siamesers

Yes, your needs change when you have a family, even if it is a furry family.

josap wrote:

The unemployed workers do not have the skills for the jobs in other areas.

Read the link MP posted above.

Doc Holiday wrote:

old people will change every model known to every super smart economist ....

you better hope so

People with skillz & higher pay were fired. Really it does not make sense to try hard at a corp. B of A no longer (if it ever did) has the talent to recover.

Federer service game for match

Going further, how much of the productivity gains were obtained through lower pay and longer hours? The average time spent working has exploded for Americans over the past 30 years. There's nothing structural about capital demanding more from labor in exchange for less.

At this point we are going to have a long dry slow slog at best to recovery. CR's employment graphics make that apparent. The greyboomer wave will cause further demand problems as people grow older and shut down demand. Their children will pick up some of the wave, but the biggest problem is GenX from 65-80 is thin in people, thin in riches, thin in children, and will not generate sufficient follow on demand until enough boomers retire.

Now, talking about structural unemployment is fine and dandy, but the real question is just how do we get a ton of people back up to their potential in employment, because most of you have missed the follow on point of underemployment.

Our employment problems need real solutions beyond the greed of the top of the rich republican party. Without those solutions, that party will be a dinosaur in five years, and near extinction in ten.

Someday this war's gonna end...

I disagree. Those people unemployed all these weeks have got to be working under the table, because they aren't starving to death.

Whiskey wrote:

Too many workers are toast and know it, just as I know I will be toast soon enough.

True for many in FIRE - self included. I have a 15 yo and 11 yo and can't see making it through til both of them get out of college. The challenge is do I ride the wave until it breaks on do I start over in another field of work?

I began a somewhat earnest search for another place of employment back in Feb. By the first week in March I had gotten my resume to the top of the pile through someone I know. That lead to interviews with 7 different people - the most recent in late June. I just heard last week that they opted to go with another candidate.

I was marveling at how long the process took and how much pressure it must put on someone who is out of work to have to endure such long periods of time between interviews and resolution - one way or the other.

Going further, how much of the productivity gains were obtained through lower pay and longer hours? The average time spent working has exploded for Americans over the past 30 years. There's nothing structural about capital demanding more from labor in exchange for less.

Except again - walk the floors and you SEE it. In offices and factories and warehouses. In fact I would wager if they cut another 20% out of most firms it would go unnoticed. There is that much latent productivity there left to harvest.

Agronox wrote:

Read the link MP posted above.

ok.
There are job losses in all areas, except probably medical.
There is a shortage of workers in some locations - drill rigs in ND.
There are large job losses in construction - many of them can't retrain.
Many more people are losing jobs (retail, services, etc) because so many other have lost jobs.

Looks like an uncontained spiral.

Touche, though the nomimal hours don't necessarily reflect the skipping of lunches and vacations.

dryfly wrote:

How do you take a real estate agent in Arizona and get her to machine casting in Peoria?

Not going to happen. At least not at 58 yrs old.

Citizen AllenM wrote:

Our employment problems need real solutions beyond the greed of the top of the rich republican party. Without those solutions, that party will be a dinosaur in five years, and near extinction in ten.

I'm going to hold you to that estimate, CAM. I don't see it happening, but it will be a good thing if it does happen.

Companies are willing to make investments in physical capital but not in human capital. They expect the Federal government (via subsidized student loans) to provide the human capital that they consume for private benefit.

lawyerliz wrote:

Those people unemployed all these weeks have got to be working under the table, because they aren't starving to death.

family and friends ponying up ? - selling the crap in their garages on Ebay ? stiffing this debt for that debt ?

OR even like us - dropping from a DINKY to a SINKY ? no starvation issues for us of course but unless that job my wife had went to someone else( by definition redundancy and company downsizing ought to mean not ) that's almost nxx K p.a. outta of the system.

Again we need planet wide accounting to really get to grips with this numerically IMO.

Doc Holiday wrote:

The vast majority of older teachers with tenure are totally clueless in regard to technology, and those suckers sit back like drunks waiting for their next paycheck

Not sure just who you're talking about. Friend's son, who graduated last year w/a double major, started at a PDX community college & even after he'd transferred to a 4 year, continued to take some of his courses at the community college, as he said that (1) tuition was less; (2) instructors were as good or better as at the 4 year and (3) the classes were smaller. His curriculum emphasized math & sciences, he took up to organic chem, physics, lots of math, I think one of his majors was math.

Maybe you could be more specific about which schools you feel have lots of deadwood? In any event, it's not like that's all that new: years ago, two friends went to Harvard for grad school, one in chemistry, one in geology. Chem grad said, not teaching for industrial jobs at all; geo grad said, ok department, students obnoxiously competitive, but faculty was old, department wouldn't be much good if they didn't get in some new faculty.

So what's changed except now tenured faculty can be required to teach ever larger classes, now via online courses? And that it is harder to get tenure, many schools have fewer tenured positions so many of the instructors at schools (like pilots at regional airlines) get paid shit wages & few to no benefits.

we have yet to find much evidence that problems with skill-mismatch are more important postrecession than they were prerecession.

This is the key line in that blog post. Pop pundits have been breathless about "structural" unemployment for a few years now......... but there is little to indicate skills deficits in excess of the ones that existed +5 years ago. Manufacturing and warehousing (dryfly) were a valuable but small part of the overall employment spectrum both then and now. (Yes, even smaller now. And the knock-on benefits of good "guy jobs" like those shouldn't be underestimated. But that is not a change from when "things were good").

Mike in Long Island wrote:

Less headcount = moar profits!

Tell that the Yahoo and AOL.

RockyR wrote:

OT: looks like our foreign policy with Russia is really working: Putin’s July 4th Message | Washington Free Beacon

I posted that yesterday. It's not the bombers, it's the cruise missiles they carry.

hahaha!

CAM still thinks and are different. how cute.

adornosghost wrote:

Grey here on 9th Street in Laguna.

YouTube - Grey in L.A.

78 and sunny with a light breeze in sebastopol.

sdtfs wrote:

Think he'd be willing to train somebody?

It's a smallish company working in remote locations. He will just keep jacking the hourly rate until he gets a qualified guy.

That's the problem we run into in rural areas. You are pretty much all alone as a tech. There is nobody to train you you. We have no problem filling jobs in larger cities,get off the beaten path though...

Chris

There's a difference between sinking ships like Blackberry throwing workers overboard and successful job creators like Goldman Sachs downsizing or moving operations to regions where they can cut salaries in half.

i agree, pavel. A WPA program to build HSR. Oh, wait. We just created one of those.

azurite wrote:

The new subprime?

I think so.

Mike in Long Island wrote:

Less headcount = moar profits!

Yes.. that's the paradigm to break at a societal level. Its just axiomatic and the system is set up to facilitate that - that optimising profits is the right way of organising production.

Alternative axioms or targets ? Let the debate begin. But have a debate damnit.

My 5 minutes on CR are over. Later.

I must go.

I have to read a friend's long poem.

pavel, pavel, pavel... the current US regime would not go nuclear. we wouldn't even retaliate. think sanctions from the UN followed up with more "flexibility".

hah! Putin has a golden moment on his hands. Scary stuff.

CalculatedRisk wrote:

It is reasonably cool here in SoCal. I hope everyone else does OK in the heat.

Perfect here at 6000 ft at Donner Lake. Currently 65 degrees and bright blue skys. Don' t tell anyone about how nice it is here or the whole mid west will come charging over the pass with the mattress strapped to the top and the jeloppy filled with kids. We will have to call out the CHP to turn them around at the border.
Just rowed the short boat down to the end of the lake and back. My job is done for the day.
Best to all HCN. Keep cool.

North Texas is nice today. Mid nineties. Temperate for July.

memmel wrote:

We spent how many trillions to get this weak growth ?

Well we are still hearing those explosions as they build that statue of bush in Baghdad. Dammed expensive statue but freedom isn't free.

Where I sit people would think it was a scam, that just sounds too good to be true, and maybe it is.

Around here mechanics are not starving as people keep driving older and older vehicles. The volvo xc70 has 115k on it, and I plan on going for 200k at this point.

Someday this war's gonna end...

Citizen AllenM wrote:

I see the opposite problem. I see much going undone that really needs to be done, and acceptance of the failure with a shrug.

I do too. Both w/local & state gov't and w/some corporations.

mentioned it 3 years ago right here, what was going to go down...credit score destruction led to tier rates being lowered to create demand for ABS paper...the average credit score dropped 50+ points across the board in 07-11...

it was the only way to increase SAAR...had to open up the subprime spigots...I could tell you some horror credit approval stories if you like...

You don't see the quiet desperation in the hard core foot soldier GOP folks I see. They are totally scared the teaparty folks are tearing the middle and moderate parts of the party out- leading to more radicalization. The heart of the party essentially attempted to rein in the crazies through the recall of the Senate Prez here, which did happen. Then they appointed him Vice Chairman of the State Party.

It really sort of terrifies the old guys who are long time Chamber of Commerce types. One really smart guy I know is in a hurry to push as much legislation that will give them some input when the R party goes out of power in Arizona. He is a really smart guy, and that is what he sees as destiny.

Someday this war's gonna end...

dryfly wrote:

No matter how much money Kruggles wants to dump into the banks.

Not sure that is what kruggles wants. From my reading of him his point of view is more about the zero bound and monetary policy (throwing money at banks) being ineffective. YMMV

liz, anecdotal from a foodservice delivery truck driver ... orlando area is very busy, nature coast (over here) not so much.

I would love to see a WPA type program again. So would a lot of other people.

Two problems Pavel

1. Except for our bridges and power grid, there doesn't seem to be all that much infrastructure work needed in the US. WPA hordes don't seem to me to be the way to fix either of those areas.
2. In the 1930s, a road crew was 1 supervisor, 50 guys with shovels and two trucks. in 2012, a road crew is 3 supervisors, 4 workers, a couple of folks (ether sex) with signs, 5 expensive machines, and two lawyers to handle the permits.. Considerably less employment bang for the WPA dollar.

creditcriminalslovetarp wrote:

I could tell you some horror credit approval stories if you like...

Always happy to listen to horror stories, suspect I've seen some myself, when I see new arrivals in the neighborhood move in w/beaters, and in the next 6 mos to a year, be driving around in a succession of vehicles, usually each seem to be in slightly better condition and then, they're gone (last was a "minister" & cortege). Noticed a used vehicle business disappeared from town after about 3 years.

They're part of UTC, which gave up secret military engine technology in exchange for a Chinese promise of a large commercial engine order.

Fuck. Them.

edit:

And. The. Fucking. Horse. They. Rode. In. On.

mp wrote:

Don't get me started on those sons of bitches.

Umm, as it happens, I'd be interested in reading whatever you'd like to say/type. In a post or by

You are being silly.

The Generals would have the plans up on the screen so fast, and it would go boom.

Someday this war's gonna end...

the govt. propped lenders (ally) etc were the first to lower the tiered rates across the board, thus the other banks were forced to drop rates on their programs...a snowball effect that led to subprime lenders re-appearing based off the large demand and good yields..

subprime was all but dead in 08-now it lives and breathes at every car lot in america....

when 522 ficas are getting 7% 60 mos loans on new cars, trouble will make its way into the passenger seat...the govt. has created a bubble by increasing used vehicle values so it makes sense to look at new...thus keeping the machine of productivity at OEM factories turning...

CAM - both teams are playing the same ball game to enrich themselves. the rest is .

was gutted decades ago when the evangelical loonies took over the cultural base of the party. same process is happening with with the green, environmental extremists. harder to see the fracture because their extremism is more politically correct and has better mainstream propagandist support.

and, CAM, neither team is serving their loonie culture bases... Just look at how disenfranchised the so-called left is with obummer.

mp wrote:

Who wants all the stress of holding 1/10,000 inch when you can work in air conditioning and watch the babes?

because the 1/10,000 inch job can be exported easier than the barista job can.

RayOnTheFarm wrote:

The previous landlord, who gave it to the bank as a partial settlement in a foreclosure, he lost his house. That was the same house that his wife grew up in. Big place, much nicer than what I have. Not a good situation there.

Oooops.

That was/is so freaking common here in Florida it's hardly mentioned any more.

There was a post on another site asking how many had paid for homes...it was amazing how many in flyover had no payments.

Then you had the one lone lunatic that said..."You have 100-200K in equity tied up in your home and you can't find a better return than 3.5% for that money? Do you want to be poor your whole life??"

Old memes die hard...

Chris

Let's play a hypothetical: Russia takes out a few US missile defense sites.

Why would they do that? The Russians know perfectly well that the US missile defense system is a Potemkin system that might -- on a good day -- and with very good luck -- disable one Russian warhead out of every 50 launched

What happens next? The US strikes back?

Of course they do ... if only to make a point. Probably they target the Russian ICBMs and vice versa. Nobody actually targets the SLBMs or cruise missiles on either side as no one is really sure where they are at any given time.

Cities? Why target cities? All that will do is piss people off.

Ray, you really didn't support your point there.

won't happen, codger. why would Putin hit a missile defense site? to show that he can.

creditcriminalslovetarp wrote:

when 522 ficas are getting 7% 60 mos loans on new cars

7%?! CU sent out flyer offering 1.75% for up to 48 months, 1.95% for 60 months. Part of their "summer sale." Ah, I read the fine print, 90% of MSRP and credit score of at least 650 to qualify--but only 1.25% added for credit score below 650.
Refinance or new.

Still alot less than 7%. Of course it is a sale, and "subject to end at any time, without notice." Wonder if that's code for they get to say it's over if your credit's too low.

Checking RV loans with a couple of my bankers. Top FICO score and the best they will quote is 5.5-6%.

dilbert dogbert wrote:

She said FB was so yesterday.

So what's cool to use now? Twitter?

mhdoc wrote:

Isn't Dryflies' point that soon it won't be a choice because the machines will do the work better in any case?

Everyone seems to be mis-reading what I'm saying/writing.

Yes, I'd be the first to agree that there's structural unemployment, but it's not all structural.

The question is: how much is structural?

Economists are divided on the answer. So far at least, the evidence points to "not much."

I have to go with the evidence because there's more to this economy than the factory floor.

when talent abdicates and walks off the job... talent isn't sitting in the executive suite or wearing an Armani in some over priced downtown (Manhattan) office. talent is on the shop floor, behind the computer terminal, on the rig turning a wrench, working the line, plowing the field... the list goes on and on.

if talent walks off the job, we are all seriously fucked.

later.

1.25% x 5...you might have 5 tiers of 1.25% to reach 522 fica score..

the issue is these 522 ficas used to be 18% loans and money makers...now the yield doesn't justify the credit quality...its an insane world when you have banks/lenders competing over low yield high risk loans to meet volume...

vtcodger wrote:

The Ethan Allen Express and Vermonter both lose money.

By doing well I meant that ridership has increased.

Amtrak owns only the track the Acela runs on and some track in MI. Amtrak CA tends to have the best OTP other than the Acela because CA has a separate deal w/UP, et al (whoever owns the track its trains run over) to pay for good OTP. Amtrak also pays the private track owners if an OTP goal (of Amtrak trains) is met. OTP rates for Capitol Corridor train have run over 90% (annually).

And yes, I agree that it's stupid for Amtrak to have lower priority then freight. But building more double track and pull off track (I've forgotten the correct term) can reduce those freight caused delays, i.e., useful infrastructure that could be constructed and that sometimes is being constructed via TIGER grants and some ARRA money.

So, Albany, does that mean the Lakeshore Ltd? I've taken that train but it's been really late into Penn station several times I've taken it. Nice scenery along the Hudson though.

Lobbyist Ben Dover wrote:

Checking RV loans with a couple of my bankers. Top FICO score and the best they will quote is 5.5-6%.

That's about what the 'rents paid in 08 for a r.v. I want to say 7% if I remember right.

You'll get a kick out of this...both my younger Brothers are mechanics. They were both here helping when we fired the Cobra up. After I took it for paint I drained the oil from the motor. There was only 4 quarts in the pan. It's an 8 quart pan.

I'm putting new rods and mains in for good measure before the engine gets put back in.

Yes,I'll never let them hear the end of this because they put the oil in...dumbasses...

BTW,the new paint looks good in the pictures I was sent. I can't wait to see it the end of this month when I run the engine up to the shop.

Chris

azurite wrote:

So what's cool to use now? Twitter?

Plastics !

Anybody who's studying FBs faults and looking to fix them won't get there - IMO. that's just a better FB.

I have no idea; try a 100 different things see which sticks IMO . Can FB create different FBs - niche FBs - that's what the world was before the rise of FBs - will it return to that ? but even that is not open thinking..

a constant video feeds FB ? a continuous video feed of your daily life ? I don't think so - but I see Skype left on 24 hrs/ day - and used like that. - and anyway I thought - who'd buy a cell-phone because its got a crappy camera in it ?

or worse I thought - who'd want to use TCP/IP - unreliable, slow, fragmented when we have this industry backed telecomms experts created OSI .

well, codger, CAM, insane or not I don't like the current brinksmanship. it scares me.

exactly, Bobby. exactly. our system is grinding into a position that punishes talent. it's bad business.

RockyR wrote:

exactly, Bobby. exactly. our system is grinding into a position that punishes talent. it's bad business.

I won't do business with any outfit infiltrated with treasonous whores.

I won't.

good for you, mp. I hope you are not a dying breed.

By doing well I meant that ridership has increased.

I don't think that it can increase all that much as the seqments in Southern New England where the Vermont trains are just another train are often sold out. And the principle contributor to train traffic would be Greyhound which no longer runs buses down the West side of Vermont. You pretty much can't get from Burlington to Rutland (60 miles) via public transportation nowadays.

why do you think he is challenging our air defenses on out western border?

Tradition? Both NATO and Russia have been flying along the edge of each other's airspace since the 1950s or earlier. Ever since they had planes that could carry enough fuel for the trip and have reasonable certainty of making it home. There's probably some point to the exercise, but I'll be damned if I can tell you what the point is. Both Russia and the US have had highly capable spy satellites in orbit for 40 years or more so I'd guess that the rationale is more getting enough hours for crew flight pay than useful military intelligence.

vtcodger wrote:

Tradition?

More likely generating overtime pay for the air pilots and keeping the generals busy. You think we have a big MIC problem; it's even worse for Putin.

Rajesh wrote:

More likely generating overtime pay for the air pilots and keeping the generals busy.

No.

On further thought, some of those planes flying along the edge of NATO/Russian airspace are presumably carrying nuclear weapons as well as sophisticated jamming equipment. But, really, they are no more of a threat than the ICBMs and Nuclear subs with SLBMs.

Well, $68 trillion high speed trains in California should generate a good 10,000 jobs.

YouTube - Has The CIA Gone Rogue

Yancey Ward wrote:

Well, $68 trillion high speed trains in California should generate a good 10,000 jobs.

And that's just in bureaucrats and lawyers.

Bad Dawg Bobby wrote:

Does the quiet make you nervious?

I go back to the mid-eighties in this subject. Interview with a colonel in the Rocket Forces.

The power is there.

Bad Dawg Bobby wrote:

Lets Not go there,

Red Flag ?

that's where I have to get careful - I want to be able to visit India without harassment - either get so big in the public world so one is untouchable ( HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA - who'd have thought untouchable was a desirable attribute ) - or stay under the radar.

No one is looking for trouble. It would be very big trouble.

sdtfs wrote:

Sounds like we should take one of his missile site out to show we can

There is No Question, We Can.

Is It worth the Pain? NOpe, not worth it

We need to get our troops Home.

The point is that once this power exists, it makes its presence known simply because it must remain operational in order to exist at all. It must be maintained, systems must be tested, including operational systems, and the potential other side[s] must know that it remains operationally capable, because such great power that is not capable is a temptation, especially in stressful situations. These weapon systems are worse than no good if they are not known to be operational and relatively invulnerable to a first strike.

But no one wants to see a launch on warning event either. No one wins, everyone loses - everything. So there is a balance between confidence in the sanity and control of the potential other side and confidence in the invulnerability and effectiveness of one's own systems.

It is and has been a very dangerous balance.

I'm surprised this poisoning story hasn't got an airing - not that one .. this one -

Tashkent Whodunit: An Enduring Tale | Saba Naqvi

The fatal poisoning of a prime minister, a cover-up at the highest levels, stoic silence.

This amuses me in a ghoulish way -

Both Shastri’s doctor and personal assistant were hit by moving vehicles as they were proceeding to inquiry committee hearings in 1977. R.N. Chugh dies, Ram Nath loses memory.

Err,, yeah I can easily see how one would

As regards the other alleged poisoning - its ironic that Ariel Sharon, accused of orchestrating that one, lies in a vegetative state for 6 long years -a stroke that happened soon after the alleged poisoning - who got the better of the bargain here I wonder ?

Whew!

Five hours of yard and garden work today.
I musta drank close to a gallon of water.

Exhausted.
Running on fumes.
Kaput.

pavel.chichikov wrote:

Neither you nor I know anything of the sort. This is not a game for dilettantes.

And yet here we are. And the professionals? They know what they're doing? If you believed that, you wouldn't be worried now, would you?

Personally I think the most obvious message is: Respect us. [edit: I see tj got there first.]

mp, quoting NYT, wrote:

we’ve been pretty sympathetic to structural explanations for the slow pace of the recovery. Nonetheless, we have yet to find much evidence that problems with skill-mismatch are more important postrecession than they were prerecession. We’ll keep looking, but—as our colleagues at the Chicago Fed conclude in their most recent Chicago Fed Letter—so far the facts just don’t support skill gaps as the major source of our current labor market woes.

Automation is not a 'skill mismatch'. Was in progress prior to recession and is ongoing. Chicago Fed is either dissembling or has developed institutional tunnel vision.

Hope they find their keys.

What people? Once it starts there will be no off-button to press.

If it will make you feel any more secure, all nuclear weapons under USAF control have Permissive Action Links. You can possibly, if you are very clever, manage to launch a missile. And you might even, if you are REALLY clever, be able to target it. But you can't arm the warhead without a code that you won't have unless/until you get a launch message from "them". Not sure about the navy's weapons. My understanding is that they resisted the idea of PALs.but eventually went along with it.

The Russians say their missiles have PALs as do the French. The Chinese asked for help in developing PALs in the 1990s, but the Clinton administration reportedly turned them down. The UK does not use PALs

FWIW, I was in a position to observe the nuclear safety certification of a now (thankfully) defunct nuclear weapons system in the 1980s. If what I saw was typical, there is essentially no chance of an accidental launch of a US missile or of a launch by a rouge US commander.

HomeGnome wrote:

Running on fumes.

It's the gluten.

Good morning!

Bad Dawg Bobby wrote:

Is It worth the Pain? NOpe, not worth it
We need to get our troops Home.

And the drones, Stryker vehicles, and whatnot are really going to be needed here in the US for 'homeland security' when the plebes take to the street after the

Antipodes wrote:

Good morning!

Morning, mate!

Antipodes wrote:

Good morning! Lets take a coffee break

top of the morning to ya !

here's something I just cooked up...
YouTube - Investing Adventures in Real Estate with Bill McBride #7

I've seen five year olds mash up better vids than that.

You're a talentless fuck, Duke.

I think what scares me most how wide the misreading of the situation here potentially is. I worry the Russians sense weakness, and they're testing it.

I hope I'm just an insane sun worshipper.

pavel, people think the cold war is over. this makes me uneasy.

HG, your snark aside, things change

RockyR<

Don't feed the

Let's add to the paranoia.
BBC News - President Assad accuses US of 'destabilising' Syria

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has said the US is trying to destabilise Syria by providing political protection for "gangs" operating in the country.

In an interview for German TV, Mr Assad also said Saudi Arabia and Qatar were arming "terrorists" in Syria.

He also accused Turkey of giving the "terrorists" logistical support.