patrick.net

“Spending your way out” of a recession has been tried before with dismal results.

Consumption led recoveries have been quite common 1950-present. G = C + S + I - T. All the terms are related. There cannot be a recovery without C.

Randy H,

Well, agreed but you can't have a meaningful recovery with just C?

Well, agreed but you can’t have a meaningful recovery with just C?

A smaller T would help.

Since its so slow today, here's an interesting link to read:

The High Cost of Free Parking
http://www.thisplaceis.com/archives/26#respond

Peter P,

True! LOL!

The High Cost of Free Parking

Robert, this is your area.

Pergo is the stuff they sell at Costco right?

http://www.costco.com/Browse/Product.aspx?Prodid=11122539&whse=&topnav=&browse=&s=1

Being a person used to carpets (I love noise dampening) - how does one do hardwood floors normally?

C is fine, unless it cannibalizes S and I and decrease future C. The current American economy is consuming at the expense of saving and investing.

"Being a person used to carpets (I love noise dampening) - how does one do hardwood floors normally?"

Train your kids in qing gong so that they may move swiftly and silently. Also, so they can fly through air and/or walk on wire.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qinggong

eburbed Says:

Being a person used to carpets (I love noise dampening) - how does one do hardwood floors normally?

Your link looks like real hardwood (bamboo), just pre-treated by heat to give the color shown, rather than staining hardwood the old fashioned way. I'm not certain, but this implies it's color finish is as-is. Traditional hardwood needs to be stained, then finished with wax. On the other hand, when it looks worn, it can always be refinished. Pergo uses wood laminate, so there is less actual wood, but it therefore doesn't last as long. Sorta like the laminate fake wood look on most Ikea furniture.

Maybe mr. newsfreak can chime in?

This is a really stupid question, but... uh... let's say I enter a house that has carpetting.

What's under the carpet/carpet pad?

Would it be a hard wood floor that then needs to be stained and finished?

Why don't people like carpetting anymore?

This is OT but has been discussed much of late. Local CPA just got back from Vegas where they had the IRS Seminar and it IS as we suspected!

Outsourced collection agents will not be going after Tyco and GE! (duh)

They however will not be calling on you b/c you miscalculated your add'l child care tax credit either! So let's all take a chill pill here, o.k?

So what are these thugs going after? SCHEDULE C!

The obvious stuff. Guy claims 36K in income (after expenses) and his mortgage is 35K!? Oh, and 5 dependents? Toast.

Primarily it's folks that have already been hauled out on the carpet and are simply no longer responding to correspondence in any form. This could actually be fun.

Why don’t people like carpetting anymore?

Too difficult to clean and maintain. Hardwood can be used with a sound-absorbing layer to reduce noise.

I do like berber carpet for bedrooms. Carpet does feel warmer.

eburbed Says:

Why don’t people like carpetting anymore?

Not necessarily stupid...What lies beneath depends. You can usually lift up the corner of the carpet to see what's underneath. Some homes (often older ones) will have old hardwood underneath, while some will reveal that the owners cheaped out and just laid carpet over concrete or wood (stairs, for example). The hardwood underneath would then need to be stained and finished.

Carpeting wears out, is hard to clean, and with everyone's allergy concerns these days, it's just a vat for germs and allergens. May be some issue of fads of the times, too. I personally much prefer hardwood.

astrid,

That's my point. We're cannabalizing everything we can get our hands on. When a stockbroker blows up your account and you have no more money, you're broke, but that's it.

After realt-whores and mortgage brokers are done with the American consumer he's tapped out for life. And all these "industry professionals" are wondering where all the buyers went? Same with Lowe's and HD. Gosh, and things were going so well.

Robert Coté Says:

Don’t get me started.

Too late! Hit a raw nerve, did we?

Free parking is evil and must be stopped.

I am not against being charged for parking. However, I would prefer not having to wait in line to pay. How about an integrated electronic tracking system that monitors speeding, road usage, and parking?

Just like they have in London.

Robert,

I just love your anti-NURB/TODler rants, but it's a whole lot more readable when you use paragraph breaks (see reformatted rant above for example). Otherwise, keep up the good work and give those FOAMers hell!

DinOR,

I certainly do agree with you about the state of consumption today. I wrote that comment as a response to Randy H's equation.

I'm not opposed to paying for parking directly, but only if the fee collect was instanteous and continuous (eg cash card swipe at the parking meter that automatically deducts based on time spent). Most of my pay parking experiences were highly negative, you're always waiting to get in or out, or worried that your meter just ran out.

Eburbed:

On the carpeting vs. hardwood topic; we pulled carpets at my old house to reveal hardwood beneath. Newer places may have just a layer of padding over concrete.

Personally, I prefer hardwood with rugs as needed. It's easiest to clean, and you can always refinish it in the worst case. (Of course, this modern stuff that passes for hardwood is fairly wimpy. Bamboo flooring looks nice, but you wouldn't want anyone to wear heels on it.) Also, for those who entertain, hardwood makes a much better dance floor.

Based on my fairly narrow observation, you'd be very lucky to get concrete or hardwood base floor. Every McMansion in construction I've been to, up to multi-million dollar places, had OSB board floors nailed to some softwood beams.

If you change flooring in one of these places, take the time to drill in a couple pounds of screws to the boards. That would really help quiet floor squeaks. I know people whose floors started squeaking after only one or two years of habitation.

I think all homes should be built with steel-reinforced concrete.

Well, I like to over-engineer. You can ignore me now.

"Well, I like to over-engineer. You can ignore me now."

Maybe not. You may want to read Slate's current series on surviving catastrophes.

"Perhaps the most vulnerable place in the nation right now is New York City, which turns out to be the third-most seismically active region east of the Mississippi. Geologists estimate a 20 percent to 40 percent chance of a significant earthquake in the next 50 years in New York, and they make a special point to say that a major quake is also a real possibility."

http://www.slate.com/id/2148772/entry/0/

Maybe not. You may want to read Slate’s current series on surviving catastrophes.

I would rather have an off-grid capable solar power system and an auxillary natural-gas generator instead of a boat or an RV.

Huh? Sorry if I wasn't clear. I meant more "over-engineering" might be a good idea for much of the country. Earthquakes are rarer in the East, but could be even more devastating because they affect larger areas.

C is fine, unless it cannibalizes S and I and decrease future C. The current American economy is consuming at the expense of saving and investing.

Of course this is true. But keep in mind that only businesses, not people can I, and only people, not businesses can S. Both T.

The feedback is that:

People save S by putting it into banks
Banks use that to provide capital for businesses to invest I
But businesses produce goods and services that are consumed C
and the dreaded T is a drag on the entire system

in reality some T re-enters as Gs, the real equation is NI = C + S + I + (G - T)*w where w is the gov't waste rate.

But if there's too much S, you get deflation ala Japan. If there's negative S, then there is either inflation or not enough business I.

"But keep in mind that only businesses, not people can I, and only people, not businesses can S."

That's true in a strict sense.

Also, in cases of small businesses, partnerships, sole proprieterships, D corporations and even lots of C corporations, the owners (real people) are deciding between business investment, consumption for themselves, or saving via an outside vehicle. There's a lot of fluidity there.

Even for openly traded C corporations, they can decide between re-investing their earnings, retaining their earnings in cash and distributing the earnings to shareholders. If the businesses retain the earnings in cash, that allows them to defer the income for future I or future C or S for their shareholders. Similarly, shareholder or bondholders response will affect business I decisions.

But to me, this relationship is secondary to the worrisome nature of the American addiction on credit. Many people are borrowing so much to C now that it's almost certain to affect their ability to C and S later. Many businesses have depended on cheap credit to sell their stuff and will also be in trouble.

what's pergo? is it that 4 mm wood veneer on craft wood floating floorboard stuff, or plastic laminate designed to look like wood? beloved of concrete slab construction dwellers...

Rug burns.

especially nylon :(

So you're in fact concerned with conspicuous C. In fact, most C is not conspicuous, but sustinance at the established standard of living. I'm ignoring cultural equivalency arguments--it's not really relevant that other peoples are living with more or less relative standards in other nations, in this context.

What we likely agree upon is that the small portion of marginal conspicuous C is a disproportionate component of future growth. That is the bigger problem, in my opinion. Not that there is conspicuous C; such goes along with living in a free market capitalism.

Actual events, names changed to protect the guilty parties.

Sherry,

Sherry

Ummmmm…. Hello…. how come i wasnt invited?
Er, no offense, but who are you?

I don't care -- the important question is: how would you look in a bikini calendar??

So house prices are dropping what do you think the likelyhood will be that people decide to trash their houses rather than let people have them for half the price they paid for them? Or will they go meekly out the door no damage done?

Now all this housing talk is all fun and games, lets not go losing our heads over it.

tinyurl.com/gorow

What's discretionary/conspicuous consumption and what's sustainance can start looking awfully similar if a person just lost a hard to replace job and has a big mortgage, a asthmatic middle schooler, a dyslexic high schooler, and a college student to support. What appears permanent and inelastic expenditures can certainly change with a little time, if the times become hard enough. I'm worried that due to high credit card debt, expensive mortgages, high fuel prices and high inflation in "essentials" like healthcare, a longish recession will force a lot of people out of the middle class permanently.

(I'm also not a fan of consumption driven economies. I think it's in humanity's long term interest to reduce our numbers and our consumption of natural resources. I'm all for the continual creation of more entertainment, more useful gadgets and more cheap fuel efficient trips to Bhutan, but I don't want more consumption as it is usually defined in the US. Quantitatively more stuff doesn't make people happier or healthier in rich countries, and there's much to be done on the qualitative side like greater job security, universal healthcare, and shorter work commutes.)

Claire.

If the banks were smart, they'd start making examples of people who trash their homes by going after them into bankruptcy court and make them suffer and going easier on people who left their homes in a neat condition.

Speaking of housing fun and games, did anyone else catch this bizarre bubble-related story on KGO (Channel 7, BA)?

http://abclocal.go.com/kgo/story?section=state&id=4536326

A SD reporter gets attacked by a couple allegedly running a real estate

astrid,

I think you are arbitrarily segmenting "good consumption" from "bad consumption". Entertainment is as much consumption as plastic Walmart dohickies. I'd be interested to hear which societies of greater than 1M people are not "consumption based". Even centrally planned economies of yesteryear were consumption based, just the state decided what you got to consume.

As to the depth and severity of economic strife triggered by a falling housing market, I read today in the FT that on average Americans have 63% equity in their homes inclusively of all debts secured against housing assets. That number tells me that there won't be anything north of a few percent foreclosures, in the worst likely case.