posted
That graph is quite heartening, because I refused to buy something for the five years I lived in Dallas. It looks like while Dallas missed out on the boom, it is missing out on the bust as well. Good for Dallas.
Posts: 26077 | Registered: Mar 2000
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posted
Mucus: That's the change in housing prices, year on year, not the housing prices. Since the peaks are often longer or higher than the troughs, the actual home prices in general haven't fallen to quite where they were before they started climbing a lot.
Integrate if you want the home prices instead of just the change.
Posts: 15770 | Registered: Dec 2001
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quote: They are actually bending over backwards to try to convince the more pessimistic among us that it has not fallen to that level and they will do everything in their power to avert the possibility.
It feels to me like President Obama and Congress is telling us to bend over and take their massive borrowing plan or else everything will fail...only THEY can save us from certain doom!
Posts: 1918 | Registered: Mar 2005
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Looks like you're right, house prices in general are only back to around March 2004. (For the other poster, Dallas is only back to April 2005)
Thats pretty surprisingly to me in light of stuff like:
quote: The relentless slide in home prices has left nearly one in six U.S. homeowners owing more on a mortgage than the home is worth, raising the possibility of a rise in defaults — the very misfortune that touched off the credit crisis last year.
quote:Originally posted by Mucus: fugu13: Ah, you're right. I've have to find something else.
In other news you are in possession of a "have" that you could sell, it's in pretty good condition just out of place.
Posts: 14316 | Registered: Jul 2005
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posted
That's easily explainable: the rise in housing prices from 2004 to 2007 or so was quite large, and a lot of homeowners (even in existing homes) took out mortgages (including second mortgages) near the 'top' of the trend. Many of those mortgages were with low or no money down. That meant that even a slight drop in home value would put a mortgage-holder underwater on the mortgage.
Posts: 15770 | Registered: Dec 2001
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However, its still mind-blowing to me that 1 in 6 homeowners would either have bought a house during that time with so little equity or have borrowed that much money against their house.
After all, even with a small 20% down-payment and no principal paid back, there's a fairly narrow window close to the peak in order to be underwater already. So this large number of people must have had as you said, significantly less.
That just blows my mind, especially coming from Canada where people with less than 20% have to pay a hefty mandatory mortgage insurance premium to CHMC and mortgage interest isn't tax deductible.
Posts: 7593 | Registered: Sep 2006
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posted
We're not talking 20%, we're talking 0 to 5% down (either real or effectively, by taking out a second mortgage to cover the down on a first mortgage).
Posts: 15770 | Registered: Dec 2001
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quote:Originally posted by Mucus: Like I said, it somehow makes sense.
However, its still mind-blowing to me that 1 in 6 homeowners would either have bought a house during that time with so little equity or have borrowed that much money against their house.
After all, even with a small 20% down-payment and no principal paid back, there's a fairly narrow window close to the peak in order to be underwater already. So this large number of people must have had as you said, significantly less.
That just blows my mind, especially coming from Canada where people with less than 20% have to pay a hefty mandatory mortgage insurance premium to CHMC and mortgage interest isn't tax deductible.
I think you are making a number of invalid assumptions. First off, 20 percent down payment is pretty unusual in many parts of the country. When we bought our house in 1992, we were required to have 15% as the down payment and that was higher than most parts of the country. For decades its been possible to get an FHA loan with as little as 3% down and a VA loan with no down payment. Part of the current collapse is related to the fact that banks were offering uninsured mortgages with very little or no down payment. I would guess that very few first time home buyers are putting anything near 20% down.
I've been told by Real Estate Agents that the average American home sells once every 5 years. Assuming that is correct, I would expect roughly 50% of American homeowners purchased their home since Jan. 2004. It would not surprise me at all if 1/3 of the people who bought homes during the last 5 years now owe more on them the homes are currently worth and that would give you 1 in 6 homes.
Posts: 12591 | Registered: Jan 2000
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posted
I think both you and Fugu are misreading me.
I'm not saying that the statistics are wrong, I explicitly said that they somehow make sense.
Those "assumptions" that you're referring to aren't assumptions being used to dispute the statistics, after all, I already accept them.
Rather they're used to illustrate why I think the situation in the States is mind-blowing by giving you context on the perspective I'm coming from.
Edit to add: Maybe you're both interpreting "mind-blowing" in the sense of "that must be wrong" when I'm using it in the sense of "hot damn, thats really different"
Posts: 7593 | Registered: Sep 2006
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Slouching toward Mexico How to slip from a first world to a third world economy
Sad news, America has stopped working. Not that Americans get to rest, just that the Rags-to-riches Horatio Alger dream of America has been dead for years.
More than two years go, my lead debt investors offered me the use of US dollar-denominated securities, with total value at maturity in 2022 of over $100 Million US Dollars. These were offered as collateral for economic development or clean renewable energy facilities.
Today in America (18 banks) would not finance against US dollar-denominated collateral in a transaction in which there could be no loss because the collateral as security guaranteed repayment of the debt. Despite the clear invitation from the Federal Reserve Bank which posted their margin table on the internet in order to invite secure transactions the banks obstinately refused to conduit economic development in America. GLBA prevented our direct approach. The banks could have conduited the bonds at the Federal Reserve Discount Window and drawn-down cash so that no depositors funds would be involved in my proposed facility, and the banks could earn reasonable interest on the transactions. That however eliminates the chance for politics to enter the picture.
It is tempting to blame all our problems on the commercial banks. Or our legislators. Or our oversight committees. The simple fact is that we are in a capital crisis, which means we have insufficient capital for all the goods and services we can produce. No one but the Federal Reserve prints our money and no one but the FOMC injects that into circulation with the ring dealers (Interbank dealer network). The commercial banks’ refusal to access the REPO process of capital injection at a time when they are perfectly aware of the need, is the subject of this paper. The height and inventiveness of these arbitrary and capricious blockades to open access of capital in more than two years cannot dispel if our commercial banking system is broken as a result of greed, mismanagement, blindly following tradition, or cruel intelligent design. The bankers’ “Blame the consumer” and then restrict greater access to capital or the “belt tightening” approach is not the answer.
Have you ever produced some new product with your bare hands? For me, I made pizzas in college. Whatever product you made, can you recall if there was anyone there -maybe a fellow with a clipboard- to measure your production quota in order to release the proper amount of dollars for goods and services into circulation, so that you could be paid without creating a competitive hardship upon all other production? Does the black economy of tax evasion, drugs, prostitution and vice impact the amount of funds in circulation in the white economy? I’ve done many menial tasks in my life time and they were never monitored or measured by the government which nevertheless asserts control of the volume of M1 or M2 in circulation and does not have to “audit” the goods and services in order to match “growth” with capital infusion. Capitalism is very misunderstood today. Capitalism was supposed to mean the creation of capital (recognized debt securities traded to the fed for dollar bills ie federal reserve notes) which medium of exchange counted on being released by the commercial banks into general circulation upon the indications of over production of goods and services, so that products can compete in a level playing field with a reasonable cost of capital. When you artificially dry up supply it creates demand ….. for the currency. Thus only chronic shortages can keep demand at 24% credit card rates otherwise people beat a path to the door of better terms. Capitalism today means stockpiles of production of goods and services for which there is insufficient currency being released into the system, the commercial bank wants to retain the right to say “no” just as do many civil servants. Producers of goods and services striving for economic development by creating or adapting internal efficiency that call for upgrades, must compete for access to capital in order to continue providing greater productivity. If those consumers lack the supply of capital to buy from the producers who have good credit ratings but cannot access affordable capital with which to buy their raw materials then either condition destabilizes the free market. It is no longer free but subject to artificial constraints (the lack of productivity equals a lack of competitiveness resulting in a soft-default under bank/senior secured debt holder terms) how could the consumers create capital to purchase that increased productivity? This is where the system spirals out of control. The most obvious problem with the auto-bailout is that with no new money in circulation that was provided to consumers who could buy the cars (which is where the auto-makers sales generate their source of revenues) would we have to recognize that “united we stand, divided we fall” applies to economics? Americans work hard. Will tightening the belt make money appear, not hardly a strong dose of myth busting. Did Congress step in and make sure the tax-payers got nothing at all (no cash for title) in the bailout-the-top (sans shoring up the consumers). These same consumers whose wages gush up versus profits that barely trickle down to investors that saw their pensions violently contract?
So WHERE is the means of CAPITAL creation today?
How did this happen?
A good starting point is the old Gold Standard. Let’s say that ancient man began exchanging shoes for baked goods in olden times as manual production took off. As soon as we exited Noah’s Ark, commerce began. The medium of exchange that was first developed were rare metals so that everyone, no matter how dumb, could understand that this was the universal means of exchange for goods and services this medium would not lose value area to area and region to region. But this method had two major draw-backs 1) a medium of exchange needs to be as easily created in lock step with production of goods and services - you cannot have a bottleneck or you’ll have excess buildups of raw materials, labor, finished goods, singers without contracts, gumshoes without clients, no profits for new taxes, everything people want and need gathering dust on the shelves, and storekeepers tapping their feet 2) the medium of exchange instrument must not, in any way, be a rare commodity with less value than the goods and services that it represents. Gold, as we know, is not a strong-American product and so could not be counted on to be in such abundance as to balance out against the new and upcoming production capacity of the industrial revolution.
In the early 1900s our country realized that our currency itself was a bottle-neck. We could not whimsically increase the volumes of rare-earth metals in the vaults around the world that backed our US dollars in circulation since we needed that to match galloping production. GDP was rising baby boom inspired consumption was running rampant, we badly needed legal tender that said, “good for all debts public or private.” We also felt that it was time to stop over-collateralizing our commercial transactions- Why should a dollar represent the goods and services of Americans and a wee bit of gold? That is similar to creating a house mortgage (collateralized by the lot then the house) and backing that transaction with your car and a down payment. That is good for the banker but poor business.
So we wisely went off the Gold Standard, tying our dollars to all the goods and services of Americans and not merely one good, gold. But many people, strict concrete thinkers, squawked. They were unable to ascertain that goods are goods, whether or not there are equal amounts of rare minerals (silver, gold, platinum) on hand to balance. Then we have to factor in are more people being born that expiring so more production of more goods and services. Finally, is 1 dollar worth of hamburger exactly equal to 1 dollar’s worth of gold. The outcry was so fierce that those who regulate the monetary supply couldn’t help themselves. The bankers finally began to ponder, “I realize that Ma and Pa Farmer are the salt of the earth, and I wouldn’t want to hurt a fly, but can you tell me please, just how dumb are they?” The financiers could already see that there was a large deficit of reasonable logic (corn growers knew that they made new corn every year, and yet they inexplicably wanted to match that output to a finite supply of gold….can you blame them from wanting to exploit this?) and being good company men having a fiduciary responsibility to their shareholders, they were ready to exploit this opportunity but at whose peril. Thus, the financial sector understood macroeconomics sufficiently to create a system which encouraged acquisition by receivership, or the gentle tendency for your assets to become theirs, all by manipulation of the amount of currency in circulation in the local economy. Our injections of currency have been far too low for the known production output capacity for over 60 years. We don’t factor in unexpected demand in black economy growth (when is the last time you heard prostitution sales up 40%).
We’ve had roughly a fixed mindset of 9% population growth per year (population equals workers and consumers) and the government has factored in 3% inflation and 6% new currency or M1 + M2 growth. What becomes of those productive surges and black economy withdrawals? How do we factor in surplus inventory and unexpected growth in poverty levels?
How did it happen?
Year one:
You have 100 people in a community. The town fathers authorize the creation of 100 Dollars. The people each make 1 dollar of production per day, and they all require output of 1 dollar worth of products per day. For the whole year the system operates at equilibrium.
Year two:
9 new citizens come to town, and the town fathers have a meeting. They decide that town father (Institution X) would like to become a financier and make money on renting capital, so they authorize only 3 new dollars, knowing that the economy will tend dip into recession. The six percent of humanity then becomes the revenue stream (interest payments) because there is never sufficient currency for the system to balance, they begin to create the poorest class of standards, living on 80 cents per day, and less and less over time. Thus, a flue epidemic and a host of ailments sets in which means a sudden drop in productivity and a rise in the number of citizens consigned to the lower classes.
Repeat those cycles for 60 years.
The majority of the population are in debt up to their ears as there was too little currency to match the surges in productivity and growth and to make matters worse when nobody was ill the normal attrition rate to poverty didn’t happen. Eventually, all production ceases as currency availability grinds to a halt when all raw materials are converted to goods and services are waiting on consumers who have wants and needs but no $$$$. The town fathers, wishing to avoid their comeuppance, indicate that the community must bail out the banks (who by now have all the assets and little if any money) the miser of the town has all 98% of the capital in a sock in the closet because he doesn’t trust the banks. So in order to dump the last non-performing debts upon the community and walk away whole with the inventory of assets the banker forecloses and collects all of the raw materials and finished goods. The consumers are hungry and tired but not sick. How do you kick start this economy? Give tax breaks to the 2% hoarder so that he will employ 10% and leave 90% in poverty? Sell 100% of the goods and services to the same person? Hand the poor a fishing pole and tell them to go catch dinner?
So, how was it all made possible? A powerful myth was created. The myth itself is that “more currency in circulation creates inflation” (the price of a basket of goods that is supposed to react to supply and demand) the demand is there the consumers want to eat, and live in a house, and drive a car, which must be bad for us all. The reason that this a myth is that the Keynesian calculations did not account for expanding asset pools, growth in productivity and loss of currency that paid for ill gotten moral depravity. The only time in which extra currency could possibly produce inflation is when there are few goods and many consumers. When Americans churns out productivity like machines and we have researchers and artists who are aching to make more goods, who are truly starving, this point is no where in sight. The means to inject capital at the bottom in the hands of the consumers feeds the entire system, if that is not so, consider that the miser took his 98% of the capital and left town…. so what then?
In the meantime, we’ve fallen prey to the actual causes of inflation. Recall that inflation is a measurement of an arbitrary basket of goods that are similar to consumer products: in this normal basket you would find oil, sugar, corn, a gallon of gas or milk and a mcf of methane…..and so on. The prices of these “base goods” are measured every day and all other transactions include an inflation index marker or CPI adjustment factor. Prices can inflate because A) the products truly have run out (lower supply and equal or greater demand --but we have not run out of any of these goods) or B) because the speculators cornered the supplies and created the appearance of increased demand such as for our supplies of gasoline back in 2008, (market responding to artificial demand) or C) because of growth in the number of consumers and no growth in the number of workers (supply constant with increased demand) then 20% of the currency leaves town because the hoarder sends it overseas in an investment or for war. What do you expect will happen? When money is scarce these goods and services are paid for with IOUs, not cash (future sales), and when the producers need cash in order to purchase the raw materials that are needed to produce their finished products, goods or services they must go to the financiers (who are perfectly aware that there is insufficient currency in circulation) and beg the bank to provide them with any loan against their future sales contracts that they have from their buyers (this procedure is called “discounting their receivables” or “factoring” or dNPV) so that they can buy their much needed raw materials so that they can pay back the money plus the interest from future profits. Many have stand-by credit facilities or need a co-guarantor and credit enhancement but whatever instruments or deals that are used, interest is accrued and the price of the productivity is increased to account for the banker’s portion or “interest” = “price increases” = “inflation” to offset shortfalls not the supply and demand free market that would normally exist and this is an example of false inflation.
Note that in no way does having too much currency cause inflation when there is adequate means to maintain or improve production. The fact of the matter is that overproduction puts positive pressure on prices to drop (more supply than demand). In fact, having enough currency and having even a little extra production causes deflation, where prices begin to fall- through the pressure of increased efficiency. When the bank is no longer taking a piece of the action (the portion of the raised or artifically “inflated” price) then the price of the goods and services will reach market equilibrium and will stay constant or will begin to fall.
Bankers defend their 24% con game with this line, “If you inject more money, that will devalue the dollar!” even though they are well aware of the fact that if the dollar was balanced by production we are still at equilibrium or advantage to the consumer. The dollar against other currencies is a matter of stimulating imports or exports based on the theory of production price parity. Americans today are inventory rich- having produced themselves to the brink of self-destruction in an attempt to rescue their American dreams, while simultaneously being currency-bankrupt so that we could artificially support a chronic shortage and keep real interest rates at 24%. As far as foreign trade goes- “value of the dollar” means “in relation to other currency” which shouldn’t bother since that comes down to this we pay dollars that are becoming depreciated for goods that are more valuable (cheap labor and quality products). After all, we’re the ones who set to value of everyone else’s exchange rate. And if the value of the dollar fell, would you like to pay for tangible goods with seven fat cows, or seven starved cows? Answer- a strong dollar is wanted only in an export economy, a weak dollars is wanted to support in an import economy. We need to do what is needed, when it is needed.
Knowing all this, in my opinion the financiers hit an all-time low by suggesting that it was the consumers, specifically the poor and the middle class, that were responsible for the housing/banking credit crash. At no time in the last 8 years did the producers of America stop working en masse. Our production has been beyond reproach- with most parents taking on multiple jobs to create a dual income family lifestyle and we are very good consumers. Nobody wants to be poor. In no way is the average Joe responsible for the fact that Bush’s administration injected the already-insufficient annual currency allowances that were transferred over to the middle-east, rather than supplemented and fed into America’s economy as needed with the consumers. Ben Bernanke was right then and still is now- the best and fastest answer to our capital crisis is to drop cash into the ghettos by helicopter. People who live paycheck to paycheck consume away their entire paycheck at the local small business and big business. Cleaners, bakers, and candle stick makers. They pay rent and utilities. But then, the banks sunk lower let the gas hit $4.00 and failed to drop the credit card interest rates and then refuse to make loans. How else does the money appear at a 2 income earning family? Does the manager give the big bonus at the top or at the bottom? The banks saw that America realized that we had a “capital crisis” a liquidity shortage and the top 2% said market aberration not our doing and they invented the mechanisms whereby they could cause those Americans that would be persuaded that they must buy equity in their failing banks or lose all finance viability in America. “Tell the workers and taxpayers to bail us out but expect nothing in return. They bond finance us with tax dollars but we own the profits!” the banks said. The banks did this 1) without owning up to the fact that they had pooled the mortgage tranches and after they were seasoned forgot to inject the liquidity for the consumers because credit card rates was the only surplus money in town……….. how long can 24% money sustain the economy? Something has to give in order to cause them to appear equally performing 2) they did not acknowledge that the failure that caused the eventually contagious condition was in second “vacation” homes with ARMs (repricing interest rates that did not offer interest only options, these were not “risky home loans” to poor people they rent and live paycheck to paycheck, 3) worst of all- the banks were well aware of the fact that they had been rejecting opportunities to inject capital into circulation by refusing to take any collateral to the Fed Window for discount purposes and to effect a draw-down (interest demands exceed capital creation for goods and services minus black money attrition that is rarely factored into the overall equation but everyone knows that is the whole truth). It is always better for bank’s real interest rates not prime rates to reflect perception versus reality. Trying paying your bills with perception.
Ask, yourself, if a mortgage had been successful, what would all the participants have? The equity participant would have a home free and clear, and the bank would have made interest (profit) on their loans. Banks are supposed to be “engaged in lending” in order to earn interest. That means more than houses, boats, and cars. It means small business to big business but admit something will you? If you were a banker would you prefer to loan at 24% credit card money or 9% small business money? Perception versus reality. Does prime at 1 ¼ % equate to reality? However, somehow the pool-product geniuses on wall street forgot to embed an interest-only ARM into their mortgages (allowing the homeowner to pay only interest and extend the term of the note for our period of hardship, due to robust greed) and was that option better than wrecking the housing starts? Does failing to fund economic development start to come into focus when 90% of the liquidity is vented at 24% money and little if any at economic development? Would that be why infrastructure is in such a bad state of affairs that someone point out that feeding 1 segment of the economy does not drive the other segments to performance? Was the trickle down being squandered or diverted or hoarded? Rather than being forced to pay down principal without stimulating liquidity because the banks wanted to seize those asset- equity in cars and homes, what happens when that element dries up? Equity as little a hundred dollars is worth seizing and is all in a good day’s work. Which they did and continue to do with abandon. The primary reason that my facilities weren’t financed was because the banks realized that in a heavily recessed economy, the price of renting capital (loans or credit cards) was vastly increased- (credit cards went from 8% to 30%) with predatory practices (the political assassination of Eliot Spitzer). If there had been adequate sources of liquidity and if currency had been made readily available and circulating by the funding of projects such as ours, then how would the bank be able to seize the assets of Americans by defaulted loans? Receivership Acquisition is the name of that game.
If we were to have a responsible economic policy, where should the currency (which our production justifies) be injected? Reaganesquely at the top, or Obamanautically at the bottom?
Simple thought exercise two: see a room full of 100 rich businessmen, and a room full of 100 food stamp applicants. If you had the mechanism to track the dollars as they circulated, what would be our findings 1 year after a “ceiling drop” of 1 million dollars upon each room? My prediction is that the businessmen, having no need to circulate it at all, would likely put it in their pockets and leave it on their dressers for the year. However, the poor would instantly spend it, and the money would ping one hundred times up through and around all the classes of producers until it finally came to rest, where money does, at the wealthy.
The answer to the question of where should one inject new liquidity is, for the good for all producers, at the lowest level of consumers you can find. This was how Zion was ever dreamed- because in order to balance production there must be liquidity injection, therefore, even the poor will have wherewith to subsist.
Some will counter that the Federal Reserve, our national “central bank,” only distributes money upon an interest rate, however minor. This is true, but can the source of all the money say, “I will loan you 100 cents, and you must pay back 102 cents” without an assumption that the currency can only be returned with some additional in-kind valued assets (is it the Fed Bank that causes ring-fence banks to seek to seize assets?) Is it reasonable that this should be the case?
The question is, “Does America exist to enrich the privately-owned Federal Reserve?” or “Does the Federal Reserve, which has enjoyed a special privilege license to print and release currency into the economy and has demonstrably done so disastrously, deserve to be the only bank producing and injecting dollars or deserve to change Americans an interest rate when the dollars required are only re-balancing what production? May the Fed charge interest when the inflation index indicates that insufficient currency has been released and as such, how many of which solutions are appropriate:
A) Ignore any specific “program requirement” and simply inject liquidity at lowest consumer point in every county and state until inflation balances aka Helicopter Ben idea.
B) using of state banks, issuing recognized and equivalent (on par) currency, for transaction at low interest rates for prospective production or developmental projects.
America has held out the promise it never delivered- it has said, “Come work and you will be rewarded here” but it has never produced sufficient currency to see that the workers could be paid. Today, the promise of America is a lie waiting to be righted.
The conservatives today are assisting in our national suicide by fighting releasing of money as if it had to come from the tax-payers. In a pool of ever-expanding assets (including goods, services and people who immigrate or were born here) how are the comparatively smaller assets (a portion of which becomes taxes) of last year’s production supposed to address the currency needs of this year at higher production? Ridiculous. Further, why would anyone vote get money from the tax-payers (or worse, borrow money from overseas in order to release currency for our OWN production!) when we own the plates to print it and have every reason (quantifiable production starving for currency to match) to print and release in record amounts? But conservatives are dead-set against acknowledging the facts. Every known figurehead is crying foul and urging belt tightening including Mitt Romney, who we must suppose has the tightest pants in business. Instead, they should be demanding an asset-audit and rebalancing of currency and production.
In this last week a California man, overly distraught, killed his wife and five small children because he and his wife had lost their employment at a medical center. At the same time, women are lining up to give birth at home with midwives because they cannot afford to go to a hospital. We have in the same breath those who wish to provide a service and those who want to buy the service, but our government, knowing the calamity that could befall those children, refuses to release the capital into circulation. When our children begin to die because they cannot be born in safety, the culpable burden for this refusal will likely rise to wrongful death.
Our nation is likely to complete the phases of currency starvation:
1. Rampant inflation- caused by lack of capital and the resultant factoring of receivables by manufacturers (bank interest = inflation index)
2. Receivership Acquisition- banks executing cures on secured transactions- taking assets from equity and consolidating the wealthy against the poor. (America yesterday)
3. Production switches to only-foreign consumers as locals have no currency to purchase. (Mexico today w/ America, America tomorrow w/ China).
4. Eventually only the wealthy and the impoverished will exist, prelude to civil war, communist revolution, or other depending on the strength of the variables.
Our current trajectory has us headed toward stage three as the dollars are too scarce and only China and the middle east have a large supply. Tomorrow, when no currency is released and the women begin having babies at home, and the men begin building log cabins and the children stop dreaming of college because there is no money in the country to pay them if they educated themselves, we will need a new kind of Rio Grande to cross. China is much further away but if we all use the ropes from our cars and blow up our rafts, we might be able to string a life-line to China, allowing Americans to migrate the other fateful direction toward the last supply of currency and leave America to the Mexicans. And there a good life is possible: China responsibly injects liquidity upon the indication of production.
Posts: 14 | Registered: Sep 2008
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help if you'd like, mostly I'm stuck at home on a sick-bed and can't think straight, but it is slightly satisfying to attempt to correct what Card gets so grossly wrong.
wow, I've just looked over it (my pain med wearing off) and my grammar sucks but even then the ideas are correct.
posted
there are better things to do on a sickbed than uhh make card a personal vendetta or whatever
Posts: 15421 | Registered: Aug 2005
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posted
Well I was talking to a school loan officer the other day and again I was refused a loan. I casually mentioned that I had just lost my job and that I just needed to make it a month or two, and she just as casually said, "Oh I totally understand, my dad lost his job months ago and has been looking for another one ever since."
Obviously I could not do aught but thank her and scurry away.
quote:Originally posted by BlackBlade: Obviously I could do ought but thank her and scurry away.
I think you mean "aught."
And tough luck on the loan. Elder Holland gave a great conference talk back in 1999 where he shared an anecdote about the financial challenges he and his family faced when he left Utah for graduate school at Yale.
One of the things that pulled me through tough times early in my marriage was a story he told once at a BYU devotional, about the hopelessness he felt soon after he'd married. He and his wife had just spent the last of their money, and were walking on the southwest end of campus. He tells of breaking down, emotionally, and how his wife comforted him. 20 years later, as President of BYU, he said he would walk out to the front porch of the President's mansion and see the exact spot where that happened. Every time I walked that sidewalk between the President's mansion and the Maeser building I would remember his assurance that despite hardship "there is help and happiness ahead. You keep your chin up. It will be all right in the end. Trust God and believe in good things to come.”
Posts: 2926 | Registered: Sep 2005
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quote:Originally posted by BlackBlade: Obviously I could do ought but thank her and scurry away.
I think you mean "aught."
And tough luck on the loan. Elder Holland gave a great conference talk back in 1999 where he shared an anecdote about the financial challenges he and his family faced when he left Utah for graduate school at Yale.
One of the things that pulled me through tough times early in my marriage was a story he told once at a BYU devotional, about the hopelessness he felt soon after he'd married. He and his wife had just spent the last of their money, and were walking on the southwest end of campus. He tells of breaking down, emotionally, and how his wife comforted him. 20 years later, as President of BYU, he said he would walk out to the front porch of the President's mansion and see the exact spot where that happened. Every time I walked that sidewalk between the President's mansion and the Maeser building I would remember his assurance that despite hardship "there is help and happiness ahead. You keep your chin up. It will be all right in the end. Trust God and believe in good things to come.”
I've always loved that talk ever since I first read it on my mission. It's comforting to reread it once again. Thanks for the link.
Posts: 14316 | Registered: Jul 2005
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posted
Of course you're right. There was naught he could do, or (equivalently) there wasn't aught he could do.
But here's a question then: why was the decade from 1900-1909 known as the "aughts." My great-uncle was born in "Aught-Eight," for instance. Is there a colloquialism (or regionalism) in the US that "aught" means zero? *looks for Jon Boy*
<edit>Online resources, including www.dictionary.com and wordnet.princeton.edu list an archaic form that means "nothing; a cipher; zero."</edit>
Posts: 2926 | Registered: Sep 2005
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posted
Yeah, no one has named this decade yet. I've tried to call it "the digits" now and then, but it hasn't caught on.
We've been trying to figure out how we got approved for a second house. Something will have to change. We either have to sell the house in Maryland, rent the house in Maryland, or make more money.
Posts: 11017 | Registered: Apr 2003
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I've been referring to the 2000's as the "Naughts" since Jan. 1, 2000.
Despite myself, I fequently refer to the year as 'Oh-Nine' (instead of my preferred 'Naught-Nine') just because it's the construction I hear most often.
Posts: 2926 | Registered: Sep 2005
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quote:I've been referring to the 2000's as the "Naughts" since Jan. 1, 2000.
I'm pretty sure that "naught" refers to an empty set, rather than a place holder. "Ought" refers to a place holder as in "30 ought-6." I've seen it spelled "aught," but Walt Kelly spelled it "ought," and I'm sticking with it.
Posts: 3735 | Registered: Mar 2002
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quote: naught |nôt| noun the digit 0; zero. pronoun archaic nothing : he's naught but a worthless fool.
Dictionary aught 1 |ôt| (also ought) archaic pronoun anything at all : know you aught of this fellow, young sir? ORIGIN Old English āwiht (see aye 2 , wight ). aught 2 noun the digit 0; zero. ought 2 noun archaic term for aught 2 . ORIGIN mid 19th cent.: perhaps from an ought, by wrong division of a nought; compare with adder 1 .
So to sum up, Naught refers to the numeral zero, and so does aught, and in fact they may just be variations on the division of the indefinite article.
My word to date snobs: The correct way of referring to any specific time period is the way that becomes most common. In less than two years, we'll all stop saying "Two Thousand" and just say "twenty-eleven."
Posts: 9912 | Registered: Nov 2005
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My company has been up for sale for over a year, but likely that would have happened depression, recession, or no. Mismanagement and some personal vendettas between our owners and a just-barely-minority stockholder erupted into a long court battle and we lost. However, the price we were listed for was based on 5-year-old figures (before the print journalism industry started collapsing) and so finding buyers is not an easy task.
I have little savings, my job skills are almost ideally suited solely for the antiquated machines and software we use, and people in my field are being laid off by the tens of thousands. But I can't say that's because of the economic downturn; most big print publications went a little nuts in the last 10 years and overextended like crazy, and now that we're losing all of our ad money to the Internet (and not getting enough back there to make the difference) and most of us are still scrambling to make that work, it's more of a paradigm shift that we're on the losing end of.
Where the economic downturn does affect us is that anyone buying us would likely need a loan, which may not be forthcoming.
Posts: 7790 | Registered: Aug 2000
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quote:My word to date snobs: The correct way of referring to any specific time period is the way that becomes most common. In less than two years, we'll all stop saying "Two Thousand" and just say "twenty-eleven."
You mean we will stop referring to the years between 1999 and 2010? What will happen to the history books?
Posts: 3735 | Registered: Mar 2002
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quote:Originally posted by Kwea: Tell them that you are fully available, and that if necessary you'd drop a class if it was trouble.
What state do you live in?
Utah. After thinking about it, I think it would be dishonest for me to claim that I am willing to drop a class that I really think is more valuable than my unemployment benefits. I can still attend my class and work full time, I'm going to try to be upfront with the appeals judge, and see if that works out for me.
Posts: 14316 | Registered: Jul 2005
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quote:You mean we will stop referring to the years between 1999 and 2010? What will happen to the history books?
They'll just keep referring to "the early years of the twenty-first century".
It used to be "we're living in the eighties," and then "welcome to the nineties", but now all I hear is "welcome to the twenty-first century". We seem to just be skipping naming the decade entirely in favor of referring to the century.
Fine with me, whenever I hear "aught-nine" I think of The Music Man. "I'm an Indiana man, myself. Gary Conservatory, class of aught nine."
Posts: 1522 | Registered: Nov 2005
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quote:It used to be "we're living in the eighties," and then "welcome to the nineties", but now all I hear is "welcome to the twenty-first century".
Which is the same as what happened at the beginning of the 20th century. I don't know that there is enough social momentum to make "ought-x" the standard way of referring to a specific year, but as you point out, there isn't any form that has really been accepted. The "ought-x" version still has time to be retroactively accepted, especially since "retro" is cool these days anyway.
Posts: 3735 | Registered: Mar 2002
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The first time I saw that was in Stross's Halting State; I wondered if it was an obscure Scottish word or something.
Posts: 5700 | Registered: Feb 2002
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My wife and sister-in-law have both had their hours dramatically reduced (my wife now typically only works one 4-6 hour shift per week)
One of my best friends has moved in with my wife and I
At work, many of our clients are dramatically reducing their advertising budgets (So far, my ad agency is still growing in number of clients because we have a very competitive retainer rate. But the bad news is that we focus almost exclusively on gaming and hospitality clients who are being hit very hard right now.)
My wife and sister-in-law have both had their hours dramatically reduced (my wife now typically only works one 4-6 hour shift per week)
One of my best friends has moved in with my wife and I
At work, many of our clients are dramatically reducing their advertising budgets (So far, my ad agency is still growing in number of clients because we have a very competitive retainer rate. But the bad news is that we focus almost exclusively on gaming and hospitality clients who are being hit very hard right now.)
I'm sorry to hear that Godric.
In other news my best friend was able to subcontract out some data entry work he is doing to me, so I've got something to do from now until Monday! I'll be able to make some money while looking for jobs.
I also finished applying to the CIA and decided to pick something they were hiring for but for which they probably do not have tons of applicants. Polygraph administrator seemed to fit the bill.
Posts: 14316 | Registered: Jul 2005
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quote:Originally posted by BlackBlade: In other news my best friend was able to subcontract out some data entry work he is doing to me, so I've got something to do from now until Monday! I'll be able to make some money while looking for jobs.
I've just started seriously seeking freelance work to supplement our income. So far, plenty of responses, but no actual jobs.
Actually though, we're in a much better position right now than we were 1 or even 2 years ago. I just don't want to take anything for granted. And the small nest egg we have worked to build would evaporate pretty quickly (as in a month or two) were I to lose my job.
Posts: 382 | Registered: Jan 2008
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barclays (which called this whole mess) says that about right now you start to see the spiraling cycle of job loss intensify in a dramatic fashion.
Posts: 15421 | Registered: Aug 2005
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I was laid off in January. It was the company's 3rd or 4th round of layoffs in the last year and much larger cuts than the ones before the whole financial meltdown in October. Also the first round to seriously affect my department, though before it we were just not refilling positions open through normal attrition.
I'm still in touch with several people from work, and this last round was definitely deep enough that the people left remaining are feeling the pain of the missing labor.
posted
I was surprised today by a recording from my congressman. He wanted to know what way I thought he should vote on the stimulus bill. He used loaded words, which indicated he wanted people to say he should vote against it, but still, having him ask my opinion was kinda cool. He also wanted to know what I wanted him to vote on card check and a few other policy issues.
Posts: 2223 | Registered: Mar 2008
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quote:Originally posted by advice for robots: So...are there any industries that are layoff-proof?
Video gaming industries seem to be extremely recession resistant for the time being.
edit: I'm finding out today if my father will get to keep his job with Shinsei Bank. I really hope he does, my younger sister with her donated kidney really needs the insurance.
Posts: 14316 | Registered: Jul 2005
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