patrick.net

chrisborden says

I can tell by the lack of comments on my posts that I am mostly invisible here (and I understand that since I live way outside the boundaries of what is called a normal middle class lifestyle today and being over 50 and uninterested in tech), so I am checking out since I’m leaving my native Bay Area soon anyway.

Valuable insight about what is ahead for people who are bubbling with energy and are far from reality , blinded by Sunny California.

Chris,

Not to call you out, but didn't some of that California unreality result in a cool 100K in your jeans from when you sold before the housing bust?

Salem, OR is beautiful. And hell, it isn't the Bermuda Triangle. You can always visit or move back one day.

jeffr says

Madison is a nice town and the people are friendly. I spend a three days there in the 90’s for business. To bad the women are not the same quality in the looks department as what I’m used to seeing here in California.

I thought Women in texas and in general in south were much hotter and good looking...

Austinhousingbubble says

By the way, if you’re moving here from, say, Cupertino…uh…the terrain is a little different, and you aren’t an hour from Carmel-by-the-Sea.

True that, but you would be just down the street from the statue of Stevie Ray Vaughn.

So the conclusion is people are not going to move AWAY from SFBA, they would stick around an d waiting so that things can better here.

chrisborden says

I can tell by the lack of comments on my posts that I am mostly invisible here (and I understand that since I live way outside the boundaries of what is called a normal middle class lifestyle today and being over 50 and uninterested in tech), so I am checking out since I’m leaving my native Bay Area soon anyway.

Hey now, I always enjoy your posts even if I don't always respond to them specifically...

For Californians in Austin and other places -

a beautiful California slideshow courtesy of pro photographer R.G. Ketchum:

http://www.robertglennketchum.com/#mi=2&pt=1&pi=10000&s=0&p=15&a=0&at=0

Photos are of the California coast north of San Luis Obispo to Monterey county. Enjoy!

~Misstrial

Weather aside, other states simply suck in terms of job prospect.

I am more than willing to be an equity locust to live it up anywhere along the west coast, but the job prospect is just so appalling, let alone Austin or Dallas, thanks but no thanks, I am not ready to take a pay cut and live with real boring people with lack of choice in all aspects of life. If you move to Seattle or Austin, there are about a handful employers that you can hop to. You will finish all your career choices in about 5 years, then what? VCs are shutting down all offices throughout the US except for two locations: Boston and Bay Area, that tells you where the jobs are. Boston ain't cheap either, for a good reason.

There are plenty of places with Trader Joe's and Wholefoods, but there are not so many places with such an abundance of ethnic foods and interesting people from all around the world. I am just not going to consider Chilis and Applebees eat-out experience.

A friend of mine moved to Texas and traded up from his 1500 sqft shack to a 5000-sqft mansion. But he regretted very much about the move and has been looking for every opportunity to come back, which he can't, because the area he desires in BA holds value much better than his location in TX. Yeah, you get a 5000 sqft mansion and that is pretty much where you are going to be spending ALL your time outside work, because you cannot possibly go out where the land is as flat as a pancake at 100+F throughout the summer. Let's not even get into his heating and air-conditioning bill, without which he cannot possibly survive.

Kevin, I also have a friend who moved up to Google's Seattle office, which according to him is a stupid career move because it is much harder to get promoted there given the size of the team. The choice of projects that he can work on is also seriously limited, let alone building relationship with some core people who are based in HQ. But he likes the city well enough to compensate for the career setback, and his wife is from the area.

I am just not going to consider Chilis and Applebees eat-out experience.

Nobody actually eats at these places. I have lived in both Seattle and Ausitn, and neither of these places were going concerns. Maybe Tacoma?

A friend of mine moved to Texas and traded up from his 1500 sqft shack to a 5000-sqft mansion. But he regretted very much about the move and has been looking for every opportunity to come back, which he can’t, because the area he desires in BA holds value much better than his location in TX

I don't understand people who move from California for the sake of upsizing in a different part of the country. Seems like such a person was pretty feint-hearted about California to begin with. Hell, move to Ohio and live like a King!

.

..real boring people with lack of choice in all aspects of life

There's boring people everywhere. As far as Seattle or Austin are concerned, I think both cities possess a vibrancy and a landscape that many other more manufactured cities seem to have gone out of their way to pave over, and both cities are full of people who really seem to *want* to be there - meaning, they're not just there because it's cheap or because it's sunny & funny all the time. It's easy to like and live in a city like that...maybe too easy.

That said, NOBODY in any city of any state is going to embrace you if you move there and try to recreate your own little atomized poor man's California. You will be reviled. California works great in California. Let's keep it in context.

...I am not ready to take a pay cut

Also, pay cuts are relative to region and situation.

...and by the way, is a place a shack because it's 1500 sq ft? Or was it a dump that also happened to be 1500 sq ft.

Who the f--- needs 5K sq ft?

OO says

Weather aside, other states simply suck in terms of job prospect.

Unless you're a software engineer, the job prospects in the bay area aren't exactly stellar. My wife can't find any job that pays well enough to cover the cost of child care here.

Some Guy says

"I’ll agree with that. I would love to move back to the Bay Area. I wish I had never left. I applied for a few jobs in a field that ought to pay decently. Got a call back from one firm to set up an interview. I asked what they were paying, and they said, “35 to 40 thousand a year”. I almost laughed. Where would you live, in a cardboard box? Maybe I could rent a room from that Russian guy who paid 500K for a house in the West Oakland ghetto."

imo, here in the BA, there is a war going on and its been going on since the '90's - between the real estate industry and business/employers.
imo, the tac strategy goes like this:

Employer to HR: "If we reduce the pay, eventually housing costs will come down, it's just a matter of when. If there's no one paying $1850/mo for a lousy studio built in 1962 in Mountain View on Middlefield, then *eventually* the property people will have to reduce their rental rate."

RE Industry and LL Associations: *Blinks to the above threat*.... and continues on with the rent/housing increases until a total crash occurs.

Here in the BA, the crash is occurring and rents are coming down, slowly, but they are being reduced.

Looked on CraigsList recently? 100's of pages of rentals for South Bay and the Peninsula.

I moved back not just because my assignment ended but I was glad to leave simply due to the fact that the RE Industry out-of-State is much much slower to catch on to the new realities in housing as opposed to here in Cali where one CANNOT AFFORD to carry on for more than a few months the same drill in the face of financial destruction.

In flyover country, my rent was going UP -even in 2007, 2008, and 2009, - as opposed to staying at least level. My LL (a total doofus and a real estate agent) raised my rent $100 per month for 3 years IN SPITE OF AN ECONOMIC COLLAPSE IN THIS COUNTRY THAT RIVALS THE GREAT DEPRESSION.

~Misstrial

Honestly, if you are doing a job that can be easily outsourced to people in Vietnam, India or China, you should not be living in California, or to be precise, you shouldn't be living in the US. But there are always the kind of core jobs that cannot be easily outsourced because people in the other parts of the world simply lack the skills.

But I admit, you really have to be a world class player in almost any field to live a decent life in California. But this is not just California, this is the world that we are living in, middle class is disappearing, the kind of middle class we had since the end of the WWII was just an exception in human history. We are returning to norm.

"We are returning to norm."

Please, tell us more drivel. Tell us what "norm" is. I never liked him anyways.

Also, what are these "core jobs" are, and why we can't outsource them?

Outsourcing is a joke. Do japanese outsource there jobs. Do german outsource there jobs. NO!! but they build better cars than US. US outsourced jobs for the car industry and see where it lead us. The outsourcers are the idiots. They are the money grubbers. They only care about money. They are the financials types. We need to outsource the banking system to austria. The only people who think outsourcing is good are the arrogant jerks of our society.

[Quote] I had a wonderful time trying Hollywood (you have no idea how hard it is to become a paid actor, and I threw tens of thousands of dollars at the best training money could buy) and now HAVE to leave because it’s too expensive to stay.[End Quote]

chrisborden:

Thanks for sharing your experience. You should really have a website for those considering acting in L.A. in order to share your experiences and insights. Could really save some folks a lot of money, imo.

Amazing how many come out here in order to enter entertainment or modeling and wind up doing porn in the San Fernando Valley instead.

~Misstrial

If you look at what's "normal", maybe we should go back to serfdom and slavery. Maybe no electric lights or hot water? We have what we have because we're the most productive people on the planet PERIOD. Someone comes up with a tractor or an assembly line robot its going to put a lot of people out of work, that's a given. There's no way to keep the jobs here, not when we make 70x their salary.

If Chindia wants our 40 yr old machinery let them take it, because we invented the f**king thing and we already know how to do it better, but why bother when they'll take our green-colored toilet paper and make it for us?

chrisborden says

Dear Misstrial, I’d love to share my experiences. I went in with the idea that I could buy a dream, but it seems I had a few things against me, namely my age, an unattractive smile (due to poor parents who couldn’t afford dentistry, even in the 60s) lack of drive and ambition (rejection got boring after the first year), even higher cost of living down there (not that I didn’t know that either), and the biggie: Eventually I told myself that I really had little talent (and some of my auditions showed it). Bottom line: It was a hoot. At least I landed an agent and DID earn some money at it ($900). And I got to be on screen in an episode of “The West Wing” (Hubberts Peak, 11/17/2004). People actually called me that they saw me, as I never told anyone I was going to be on! I would not recommend a run at Hollywood for anyone over 25, especially if you are white and blonde.

chrisborden says

Dear Misstrial, also bottom line: I’m boring, just a straitlaced (spelled correctly) semiconservative middle of the road middle aged burned out white guy who lives a nondescript, orderly, sober, frugal life (and I know CA from stem to stern, too).

chrisborden: No worries, just that I think you have a compelling story, and if you're a journalist, well, you may be able to articulate your valuable experiences better than most :)

Thunderlips11:

May want to take note that the H-1Bs are leaving the SV due to layoffs that are affecting them too. Other H-1s are leaving because they perceive that their fortunes would be better met in Asia as opposed to here.

Went down DeAnza Blvd in Cupertino to Saratoga a few weeks ago and an entire strip mall that used to be filled with Asian businesses is now vacant.

The Asian businesses in particular that catered to solely Chinese/Korean/Vietnamese clientele are being really hard hit by this Depression simply because they made the mistake of wanting only a particular ethnic/racial group as customers. And now, in order to make it, they need caucasian customers, however, they have established themselves as an "Asian-only" business to their downfall.

In order to change, they'd have to redo their outdoor signage, their language capabilities in rder to communicate with customers, and their product lines and to do that, they need capital which is hard for most independent businesses to get these days. So their racial preferencing has really come back to bite them....

~Misstrial

Well, if you are one of a dozen people in the world who knows how to do a very well defined piece of critical task you can ask for 70x of Chindian pay. The rest of us will just have to deal with our converging standard of living with those in Shanghai or Mumbai. But don't worry, their standard of living is rising, so we don't need to sink that far.

The polarization of wealth and power is really a doing of lazy Americans who have been quite brain dead for the last couple of decades. You and me, whoever have the right to vote, allowed this to happen, and our ancestors allowed serfdom and slavery to happen. Laziness is the norm of human nature, and when we are collectively lazy, we sink into a bi-polar society because the very few that can still think start to take advantage of most of us who choose to let someone else do the thinking.

Just looking back at our history, we were stuck in rich-poor divide most of the times, with sparkles of more equal distribution of wealth, usually as an immediate reaction to extreme rich-poor divide, but they never lasted.

OO says

Well, if you are one of a dozen people in the world who knows how to do a very well defined piece of critical task you can ask for 70x of Chindian pay. The rest of us will just have to deal with our converging standard of living with those in Shanghai or Mumbai. But don’t worry, their standard of living is rising, so we don’t need to sink that far.
The polarization of wealth and power is really a doing of lazy Americans who have been quite brain dead for the last couple of decades. You and me, whoever have the right to vote, allowed this to happen, and our ancestors allowed serfdom and slavery to happen. Laziness is the norm of human nature, and when we are collectively lazy, we sink into a bi-polar society because the very few that can still think start to take advantage of most of us who choose to let someone else do the thinking.
Just looking back at our history, we were stuck in rich-poor divide most of the times, with sparkles of more equal distribution of wealth, usually as an immediate reaction to extreme rich-poor divide, but they never lasted.

What are you talking about?

Haven't you heard of Steve Jobs? Steve Wozniak? Meg Whitman (eBay)? Bill Gates? Warren Buffet?
John McAfee? Pete Sampras? Magic Johnson? Kobe Bryant? Andy Roddick? Carly Fiorina? Donald Trump?
John Mayer? Tom Cruise? Julia Roberts? George Clooney?

Are you out of your mind???

I wouldn't go any where so far as to call all or even most Americans "lazy" or "braindead."

My guess is that you are an H1-B yourself or a trader who profits off of "emerging markets" due to happy uptalk regarding industries there.

Just so that you know, China is simply trailing the USA and will be facing a credit crisis/financial meltdown there within 2 years. 100,000 (one hundred thousand) factories have closed in China over the past year due to the collapse of the consumer economy here.

Your diatribe is the narrative of those who are globalists and who want to assuage their complicity in exporting American jobs to drive the whole country down to the level of China (forced abortion and dictatorship) and India where women are still burned at the stake if they fail to bear male children or if the mother-in-law doesn't like them. Same with Japan where the suicide rate of married women and brides who have to live with a hateful mother-in-law is common.

In India, unwanted newborns are thrown alive into the Ganges river to be eaten by crocodiles due to that country's philosophical views.

And you call Americans "lazy"? Oh honey, aren't you a piece of work.

~Misstrial

Lazy, Did you ever see a UPS guy working. It's not laziness that hurts america. It's rewarding the lazy minority via socialism. Most people want to work at a job. It's a minority of people in this country dragging us down. On the other end of the spectrum, some employers want you to work for 80,000 7 days a week. It's not about laziness, it's about the outsourcing and socialism. Then comes the fed and the money system. Talk about a bunch of fat cats. Please back up your allegation of laziness with case studies please.

Some Guy says

knewbetter says

We have what we have because we’re the most productive people on the planet PERIOD.

Not any more, my friend - not any more. Pushing numbers around on a computer screen is not productivity. And that’s why our economy is in the crapper.

Yes.

Bring back:

Logging in the Pacific Northwest (the Spotted Owl endangerment was a hoax)

Fishing in coastal waters off California (Point Loma in San Diego and San Pedro used to be fishing centers)

Mining in the California High Desert, Utah, Montana, New Mexico, and Nevada

Oil drilling off the California coast (now supported by 57 percent of Santa Barbarans but opposed by Democrat Assemblypersons from South Central L.A.

Farming in the western Central Valley (Federal Judge ordered shutting off of water to farmlands and southern California in order to save a NON-NATIVE minnow in the Sacramento Delta).

Tort reform which would put an end to predatory lawsuits

Return of "Shop" (woodworking, metal shop, auto repair shop, drafting - CAD, etc) classes in high schools - Blue collar labor should return to its valued and central place in American life.

End all tax credits for corporations who maintain offshore manufacturing and call center facilities

~Misstrial (Who is certain there's even more things that can be done. It's not complicated people!)

Misstrial,

you are talking about the LAST generation, and most of the people you mentioned come from a rather rich family. When Bill Gates was born, his parents had a $6M trust fund set up for him, that was not a typical rags to riches story. Where you can climb to in this country is very much determined by your birth, and of course our media sprinkles some get-rich stories here and there, but if you do not see the social fabric as clearly as I do, sorry, you just read too much of these "mainstream" "feel good" stories and I watch a lot of these rich guys up close and personal, knowing where exactly their fortune comes from. If you do not go to the right school, right company, get the right job, your chance of making it in this country is extremely slim.

You can believe whatever you want, and indulge yourself in your little imagination that people get rich because of hard work in this country. Tons of people work their butt off, few of them can even afford a house. You can probably secure a living by working hard, but to become rich, you need to be lucky, and being born into the right family seals the deal. To become filthy rich, you need all that, plus a sheer lack of morality.

Btw, I am an American citizen, and unlike most Americans who have not waken up to the fact of what this country really is, I am keeping my eyes wide open - for opportunities elsewhere.

Moneygrubber,

you cannot have it both ways. Most Americans cannot afford to shop at all without outsourcing. Americans don't want to pay a high price for anything, yet at the same time they don't want to lose their jobs to those who can make the same thing cheaper.

The laziness I refer to is mental laziness. Voters want everything but no tradeoff and this is what they get in the end. It's like the Californians want Mexican illegals out, then how much do they want to pay for their veggies and fruit? Oh, you mean the welfare Americans will get off their butt and start picking fruit? When is the last time you see a white guy doing anything remotely close to manual labor? Janitors, fruit pickers, construction workers, these are professions "reserved" for the Latinos.

At the same time, you want to stop outsourcing? Fine with me, but I am not sure how many of those on minimum wages can afford to have their monthly expense go up 2x, 3x. Oh wait, isn't that a form of socialism that you HAVE TO give jobs to someone despite their expensive labor rates? Aren't we becoming like Europe?

Most probably, I know Meg Whitman much more intimately than you, Misstrial, and it is a joke that you put her in the same category as Bill Gates and Steve Jobs. Either you do not know what you are talking about, or you are just reading too much mainstream media brainwashing stories.

OO - so you post that you are an American citizen? Since when did you arrive?

My family has been here for five generations and all I can say is that if you feel the way you do about Americans, then probably the best thing for you would be to return to your native country and re-establish yourself there.

Just so that you know, I can tell by your arrogant tone, punctuation and grammar that you are a newbie to this country. Do yourself and the rest of us a big favor by going back to wherever it is you came from. Thanks!

Sorry but I don't need to know Meg Whitman personally in order to include her with Gates et al. Ebay is a huge worldwide online store(s) and auction site. Interesting that since Meg left, eBay has over the past year, laid off about 2000 workers here in the SV.

btw, my family has achieved great wealth here starting from scratch unlike your lame assertion. If I told you the name of one of my relatives whose product is sold in every drugstore in the nation, you would recognize my family name immediately. Or, maybe not since you're new here. :/

Those who are interested in how wrong OO is, can simply watch "How Did You Get So Rich" with Joan Rivers on the TVLand channel.

~Misstrial

thunderlips11 says

It’s about low wages, pure and simple. And there is no shortage of IT guys or engineers, that’s just an excuse to bring in more H-1B visa holders at half the price of Americans.

There is a massive shortage of GOOD engineers. If you're having trouble finding work as an engineer, it's because you aren't any good.

zetabeos1 says

There isnt a shortage, we certainly didnt have one when we saw tech industries grow double digit year over year back in the 70s 80s and early 90s.

No, sorry, there's a massive shortage of competent people. Just because there are people with degrees and experience doesn't mean that there isn't a shortage.

Of the last 20 people that I've interviewed, only one of them was competent enough to even consider hiring.

Misstrial says

Misstrial
OO - so you post that you are an American citizen? Since when did you arrive?

My family has been here for five generations and all I can say is that if you feel the way you do about Americans, then probably the best thing for you would be to return to your native country and re-establish yourself there.

OO is an american citizen ..period.He has the right to think as he wishes. If you start arguing that you came to US 5 generations before him and that makes you more special then an american indian will ask you the same question.
Your comments about asking him to go back to where he came from were rude. you probably came 120 years earlier than OO ( just guessing) in the 20000 years of colonization period of US. To give you a perspective, If we compress the whole US colonization period to 1 year, its like coming on 28th december and making fun of guy who came on 31st of december .

You can believe whatever you want, and indulge yourself in your little imagination that people get rich because of hard work in this country. Tons of people work their butt off, few of them can even afford a house. You can probably secure a living by working hard, but to become rich, you need to be lucky, and being born into the right family seals the deal. To become filthy rich, you need all that, plus a sheer lack of morality.

You are correct on all points. However, I don't believe this is to be a patently American design.

By the way, I think being disillusioned by your country and countrymen is not seditious or unpatriotic - quite the opposite. It shows that you are attentive and that you care on some level, and that's exactly the type of citizen we need more of.

How long your family has been in the US is a completely meaningless fact. My paternal family has been in the US for much longer than 5 generations. Big fucking deal.

There is absolutely nothing that the US can do to "bring back" industrial jobs. Those jobs are gone and are disappearing even from China and India. One Chinese person is necessary to do what it took 10 Americans to do 100 years ago.

That doesn't mean that goods will continue to be produced in China though. As machines do more and more of the work, optimal factory placement will be based on the cost of transporting raw goods to the factory + the cost of transporting products to consumers.

Bringing back a bunch of low paying grunt work isn't going to mean a god damned thing. Logging? It's mostly machines. Fishing? Giant nets. Farming? You've got to be fucking kidding me.

You named a bunch of industries that are all increasingly automated. This is a good thing! Human beings should not be working 40+ hours a week. When we were a farming society, the 72-hour work week made sense. When we were an industrial society, the 40-hour work week made sense. Now we're an information society, and we just don't need 40-hour work weeks. Western Europe is already showing signs of dwindling work weeks, with France hitting something like 30 hours at this point.

This is all OK. Automation lowers costs. In 50 years the US (as well as much of the "wealthy" world) will probably be something like:

- Peak employment will be about 80% (currently it's generally considered around 95%)
- Employees will put in around 20-30 hours a week in most industries (3 x 8 would be my guess)
- A 4-year college degree will be as essential as a high school diploma is today, and a Ph.D will be considered a pre requisite for most professional jobs.
- About half of all employed people will be dealing with low-paying menial tasks that are just too difficult to automate, like cleaning and maintenance. Child care providers will also be very commonplace.
- Human hands will almost never touch the products that you buy in stores, except in raw materials extraction and shipping.

Because of this situation, the following will also be inevitable:

- Total taxation roughly doubled
- Very strong social safety nets; public medical systems, free university education, strong financial support for the unemployed and retired

For most people, life will be a lot better than it is today, but there will still be plenty of people bitching about taxes and government spending (or lack thereof) to make it seem familiar.

Wow. You've just distilled the very essence of the mechanized dystopia that I shudder to think might ever be realized. A sort of Koyanisquatsi meets Chris Langan meets The Terminator crossed with Blade Runner.

There's many compelling theses arguing against the age of automation, (especially Better Off by Eric Brende), as well as the beauty of toil and working with your hands (Shop Class as Soulcraft: An Inquiry Into the Value of Work), and they do a better job of it than myself, but suffice to say, what may seem like shitty menial grunt work to you is the type of work that a very broad demographic genuinely thrives at, and work that you and I directly benefit from. Work, in and of itself, is not a bad thing that needs to be automated out of existence. Toil alone has its benefits to the human spirit and is intrinsic to our very ecology. Many of life's themes we naturally discover in the setting of practical, hands-on work. On the other hand, if you have people doing work they hate, or for which they possess minimal or zero aptitude/faculty, then I guess the argument for a totally automated, sedentary society suddenly seems a no-brainer.

As for the death of industry in this country - this IS a bad thing. For one thing, we have little to no ace in the hole when our IOUs come due during a crisis like what we are presently experiencing. No real infrastructure to fall back on. As things presently stand, our GDP is based upon nonproductive consumables. Even if we can't build back from scratch what we once had, we could sure as hell do worse than embrace some of the sensibilities from our industrial hey day. Even some of the better tenets of Fordism look hugely attractive in light of today's industrial model, but especially in contrast to total automation. As for the One Chinese person doing what 10 Americans did 100 years ago - that's really not fair. Just for starters, you do not get the same end-product with the same level of quality control that you did when you had ten American's making it 100 years ago. This is, in fact, measurable, and not subjective. It's part of why it has become a boutique-ish privilege to enjoy anything made today to the same specs as what it was made to fifty or sixty years ago. Just look at the build quality on homes today. Look at your Ipod compared to an off-the-shelf stereo amplifier from forty years ago.

What I take away from your synopsis of things to come is bleakness, which is maybe why I'm a little bemused at your seeming enthusiasm for it. Not everyone is going to want to choose between being a Ph.D in a subject, or snaking out a septic tank. Not only does it seem to me that there will be a much diminished role for the human being - esp. the working and middle classes - but also a lackluster, soulless standard of living to look forward to, except for the filthy rich who can afford such elite, boutique thrills as manufactured goods.

It's not always going in reverse to take a few cues from history. I see our genesis as a society kind of like multiple takes in a movie where the last take wasn't always the best. I think we lost some really good material a few takes back in this country.

Well, this has been a very interesting read. This will be a bit lengthy, but... hey...

Born and raised here in BA over 40 years, parents immigrants from British Commonwealth countries who came here to succeed because my dad did not require a high school diploma to become moderately well off. He was of the school of "it matters how much of your income/assets you are able to keep net of tax", so we were not pampered by any means. That said, it was enough to elevate us kids into having more choices about life, and I ended up earning an MBA from a top 30 school, which has been good enough for me.

Fortunately. I had enough financial training to see what was going on in RE and my circumstances dictated that I stay out of the housing market run up, and when I finally was in a position here to buy, as I am now, I am happily choosing to rent. Unless the BA housing comes down to historical levels, IMO, no one should reward the RE stakeholders by buying. Why do agents get 6%? For putting up a sign and being there on the weekend? It's ridiculous.

From my point of view, many of the post 9/11 bubble in RE agents/mortgage brokers are really mainly converted pre 9/11 Internet bubble sales/service providers - they are the HS diploma/some college people who - yes they need jobs - but do not have skills other than sales to get them through life. Some could have reasons for not proceeding with more school that I will not judge, but the fact is that we now have this cohort who now believe that they need to find the next sales job bubble to ride... just who will accommodate?

So, if it's possible for them to jump on something new to ramp up, bubble and dump, wherever those types of jobs emerge is a sector that I will avoid - because it will be the next bubble.

Funny enough, I have the belief that I should not encourage these bubbles. I guess I could "make a killing" if I could figure out where they are going to be, perhaps green energy? But instead I find myself saddened that we have this sort of pattern emerging... they are almost like a group of bedouins, moving from saturated career area to saturated career area.

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ an aside perhaps _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

Why engineers may not be as competent as their pedigrees: this is one case study and anecdotal but the truth. I went to a small state college for a specialized kind of BA degree that was not particularly prestigious, but it was relevant to me. Had a roommate at one point who had moved from midwest to go to community college out here simply in order to transfer to UCB.

We also had a foreign-born roommate who thought that the UCB guy was brilliant (cough cough) because he'd got into UCB. UCB guy showed me the essay he'd written to get into UCB and it was like a 5th grader who did not know how to spell was trying to fool me into believing he was an adult... completely pathetic... I was so appalled I tried to say nothing as a response when he asked what I thought of it.

so, I take the GMAT to get into MBA school and get 93rd percentile which was good enough for Yale, etc. to try to recruit me. UCB guy, out of the blue, decides to take GMAT "just for fun" and he scores at the 35th percentile. Foreign roommate was shocked and he and I had a nice discussion about the fallacy of ranking UCB as the only place to get a degree. Foreign guy ended up happily going to another UC school because the pressure to "rank up" and go to UCB (as midwest guy was trying to get him to do) disappeared for him.

As for me: the fact that UCB even let in the midwest guy was ridiculous, so I am not surprised when I hear that only 1/20 are remotely qualified. But another thing that happened in this situation is that midwest guy somehow thought it would be fun or easy or rewarding on some level to turn the GMAT into an in-house competition with me - perhaps it's because I am first generation American, but I don't find this kind of competition amusing or necessary. Companies compete, athletes compete, and they should, but until Americans can figure out a way to be more cooperative with one another - and begin to understand that bringing competition into every situation is immature and gets us no where - we'll continue to have the kind of cut throat, outsourcing mentality.

Were my MBA cohorts competitive? Some, but I happily went to a school that encouraged cooperation and did not let in the many of the same kind of engineers that UCB appears to. I feel for managers who get these sorts of people as staffers as their egos get in the way of any real work happening.

and, after some years trying to convince myself that market forces should prevail, I am completely for a 30 hour work life balance lifestyle and I agree that we should have healthcare reform in a big way... even a public option... I have a portfolio and yes I like my dividends from HC companies, but it's time to give some of them up so that people are better cared for.

Austinhousingbubble says

There’s many compelling theses arguing against the age of automation, (especially Better Off by Eric Brende), as well as the beauty of toil and working with your hands (Shop Class as Soulcraft: An Inquiry Into the Value of Work), and they do a better job of it than myself, but suffice to say, what may seem like shitty menial grunt work to you is the type of work that a very broad demographic genuinely thrives at, and work that you and I directly benefit from. Work, in and of itself, is not a bad thing that needs to be automated out of existence. Toil alone has its benefits to the human spirit and is intrinsic to our very ecology. Many of life’s themes we naturally discover in the setting of practical, hands-on work. On the other hand, if you have people doing work they hate, or for which they possess minimal or zero aptitude/faculty, then I guess the argument for a totally automated, sedentary society suddenly seems a no-brainer.

The number of interesting positions that require manual labor is extremely small. This covers such professions as mechanics, wood workers, and other skilled crafts people -- none of which are capable of being automated anyway. The vast majority of positions that require significant manual labor are menial jobs that nobody would do if they had a better way to make money.

These positions did not exists before the industrial revolution, and they will be automated away as technology improves. Skilled professions that have existed for thousands of years will continue to be required, but there simply is not enough demand for those jobs to provide meaningful employment.

Austinhousingbubble says

As for the death of industry in this country - this IS a bad thing. For one thing, we have little to no ace in the hole when our IOUs come due during a crisis like what we are presently experiencing

No, it really isn't. Industrial society is a temporary blip in human history. It isn't just going away in the US -- it's going away everywhere. It was a necessary evil to get us over a hump where our needs grossly outweighed our technology, and we nearly ruined the planet to get through it.

Austinhousingbubble says

As things presently stand, our GDP is based upon nonproductive consumables.

No it isn't. It's about 70% "consumables" (that is, goods and services that have to be replaced periodically), which is significantly less than most other countries. The fact that we don't produce as many disposable trinkets domestically as we once did is meaningless. No wealthy country does. Your talk about "IOUs" is nonsense. The only potential issue that our lack of factories poses is that we would have a harder time mobilizing the country to a massive war effort if the need arose again, but that just isn't going to happen in a world of Nuclear weapons (not to mention the fact that we are the most natural resource-rich country on the planet, and most of the countries with industrial economies are resource poor and would be completely screwed if you cut off their supplies).

Austinhousingbubble says

This is, in fact, measurable, and not subjective. It’s part of why it has become a boutique-ish privilege to enjoy anything made today to the same specs as what it was made to fifty or sixty years ago. Just look at the build quality on homes today. Look at your Ipod compared to an off-the-shelf stereo amplifier from forty years ago.

Now you're just plain wrong. This is entirely subjective, and for the most part not even something you can compare. Houses in particular are an amusing claim. You think people go about bringing old homes "up to code" for the hell of it? Do you have any idea how quickly a fire will tear through a timber + plaster wall as compared to drywall?

We certainly do tend towards using less expensive MATERIALS today then we did in decades past, but that's got nothing to do with build quality and everything to do with cost. If you took the same techniques used in modern manufacturing and substituted higher quality materials, even the subjective arguments wouldn't hold up (compare a Lexus to a Toyota. Same building techniques, just substitute chrome and leather for plastic and fabric).

Austinhousingbubble says

What I take away from your synopsis of things to come is bleakness, which is maybe why I’m a little bemused at your seeming enthusiasm for it. Not everyone is going to want to choose between being a Ph.D in a subject, or snaking out a septic tank. Not only does it seem to me that there will be a much diminished role for the human being - esp. the working and middle classes - but also a lackluster, soulless standard of living to look forward to, except for the filthy rich who can afford such elite, boutique thrills as manufactured goods.

There will certainly be a diminished level of WORK required from human beings, but it's absurd to think of that as a "lackluster, soulless standard of living". Do you believe that the standard of living / quality of life was superior in the 1930s? The 1800s? The 1500s? Do you think the poor and middle classes were able to afford "elite, boutique thrills" back then? Do you think they can today? Ever priced custom furniture, custom homes, or even custom cabinets?

When we're all working 20 and 30 hours a week, we'll have plenty of time to spend wood working, fixing motorcycles, or whatever else it is that you like to do. Just because nobody is willing to pay you to make custom cabinets doesn't mean that you can't do it -- much in the same way that I enjoy cooking at home even though I know I could get better food at many restaurants, or that my wife enjoys sewing, knitting, and crochet even though it costs more for the materials that she uses then it would cost to buy the finished product at a store.

The number of interesting positions that require manual labor is extremely small.

Not to nitpick, but 'interesting positions' is subjective. I've known many farmers (come from farmers) and what they find most interest in is their work. Their implements to them are what a piano was to Duke Ellington. Perhaps the type of work you were originally referring to was subhuman manual labor, but even these jobs have a place & time as well - if only as a stopgap while someone is paying their way through school, so that they can have a shot at making a living in a field better suited them.

Industrial society is a temporary blip in human history. It isn’t just going away in the US — it’s going away everywhere. It was a necessary evil to get us over a hump where our needs grossly outweighed our technology, and we nearly ruined the planet to get through it.

Industrial society is morphing, but it will never really go away unless you take Moore's Law all the way to the point where micro and nanotechnologies become self-propagating/self-manufacturing/self-repairing.

No it isn’t. It’s about 70% “consumables” (that is, goods and services that have to be replaced periodically), which is significantly less than most other countries.

Right - two thirds of our GDP is consumer spending/consumer goods/service sector, rather than durable goods, which used to be our bread and butter, (along with farming.) That's my point.

The fact that we don’t produce as many disposable trinkets domestically as we once did is meaningless.

Again, I wasn't referring to cereal box treasure or playing cards, but to durable goods. Think anything from Snap-On tools to Levi's jeans to engine blocks to doorknobs. Not having an industrial sector is not meaningless! Maybe in two hundred years, when we're all wearing liquid clothing and listening to liquid music and we create our own hand tools at home with our 3D carbon printers...but you're jumping the gun!

No wealthy country does.

Really? Do I need to compile lists of durable good manufacturing and how it relates to exports/GDP from Germany, the UK, Denmark or Japan and compare them to our anemic output?

Your talk about “IOUs” is nonsense.

National Debt is nonsense in which context? We don't make anything, and I fail to see how this doesn't help exacerbate an already flagging economy, in part, by making our debt less attractive to other countries.

The only potential issue that our lack of factories poses is that we would have a harder time mobilizing the country to a massive war effort if the need arose again, but that just isn’t going to happen in a world of Nuclear weapons (not to mention the fact that we are the most natural resource-rich country on the planet, and most of the countries with industrial economies are resource poor and would be completely screwed if you cut off their supplies).

That plays into my point as well; America is in a unique position of natural resource wealth that not many other industrialized nations share. (Remember when Russia decided to try to grow cotton in it's deserts?) Given this, it seems a no-brainer that we should have more mills and plants here than we do. That we do not has less to do with the age of automation, and everything to do with our flawed Free Trade policies and how it concentrates profits at the top. Trickle down, indeed.

Now you’re just plain wrong. This is entirely subjective, and for the most part not even something you can compare.

On this point, I am intransigent. There is nothing subjective about measuring design/quality control standards, build specs, reliability/longevity and performance issues of a product. The major design principles behind the whizz-bang consumer products being offered today are convenience and built-in obsolescence. Fresh garbage. The example I gave with the Ipod vs the stereo amplifier from forty years ago is not even close to subjective unless you are deaf, but it's true of other durable goods, too, be it hand tools, cotton undershirts, shoelaces, leather belts, flatware, etc. The quality is not there, and it is measurable. Face it: you get less for your money...or rather, the option of more lessers for the same money.

Houses in particular are an amusing claim. You think people go about bringing old homes “up to code” for the hell of it? Do you have any idea how quickly a fire will tear through a timber + plaster wall as compared to drywall?

They bring them "up to code" to sell the bastards, as we all know American's are obsessed with newness.

I know a thing or two about old houses, as they're kind of a thing of mine. For starters, plaster is more fire-resistant than drywall: fact. It is also ten times more durable, acoustic and just plain ages/looks better. The timber and wood lath used in many old houses was generally comprised of native hardwoods, selected for their natural resistance to rot, termites and mold. If it does catch fire, there will probably be more of the place left to rebuild than with modern construction. What's more, plaster doesn't corrode all of the copper wire in your home and cause you chronic upper respiratory infections. Hardware was also superior, including sinks, tubs, fixtures and even many window designs - despite the popular notion otherwise. Don't take my word for it, do a little research. Today's homes are designed to be built more quickly and cheaply. It should be visibly evident even to the layman. It would cost you an arm and a leg and at least one vital organ to build a house to the same or similar specs today. In short, I'll take the bungalow built in the thirties, and you can have my share of the Garage Mahals.

There will certainly be a diminished level of WORK required from human beings, but it’s absurd to think of that as a “lackluster, soulless standard of living”.

But why is that so absurd? I'm not saying if all the jobs in chicken factories went away tomorrow, that civilization would suffer a loss, only that, in your given scenario, civilization will become even more dependent on machines, and thereby less communal, less experienced (READ handy) and more soft and sedentary. In the broader scope of your wisdom, we would become redundant, but perhaps for art. Too much of anything is too much, and leisure time is no exception. It all brings to mind visions of a great big Dubai, but with robots instead of chattel labor. Sounds awful.
D

o you think the poor and middle classes were able to afford “elite, boutique thrills” back then?

You're misconstruing my point with that, which was that off-the-shelf consumer or dry/durable goods were so often ten times better than what you can get today for the same price (adjusted). You have to go to upmarket grocers or boutique dealers to enjoy what was a mainstream concern seventy years ago.

Do you believe that the standard of living / quality of life was superior in the 1930s?

I'm too skeptical to believe in anything, but I do know that there were certain sensibilities (pride in craftsmanship, for one) that pervaded the mindset that were, in my opinion, wholly superior to the ideal of total automation. A world that embraces these sensibilities is a far superior world to me than the one you portend.

There were also certain dark spots absent on the mindset, like unbridled consumerism, obesity and disposable culture.

Apologies for the majorly off-topic subject!

What I don’t get is - nobody seems very interested in talking about the housing market anymore. There is a miscellaneous forum here that doesn’t get nearly as much traffic as the housing forum, yet as soon as a housing forum thread gets off track, you guys go nuts with the off-topic posts. Why does everyone hang out here if they want to talk about engineering or programming or whatever?

I guess because, like any subject, the subject of housing is finite.

Again, apologies to all for the long off-topic posts.

In short, I’ll take the bungalow built in the thirties, and you can have my share of the Garage Mahals.
I think we all can probably agree that Bubblenomics produced some homes of dubious quality (issues arising from quality of materials and 'underskilled' labor). FWIW, you're probably not going to live in a 30's bungalow without some significant upgrades. See Debunking the Myth of Old Homes and Good Bones for more details.

EBGuy says

In short, I’ll take the bungalow built in the thirties, and you can have my share of the Garage Mahals.
I think we all can probably agree that Bubblenomics produced some homes of dubious quality (issues arising from quality of materials and ‘underskilled’ labor). FWIW, you’re probably not going to live in a 30’s bungalow without some significant upgrades. See Debunking the Myth of Old Homes and Good Bones for more details.

Great little article. "So I suggest a new version of an old ditty: Good Bones, Good Heat, Good Pipes, That’s Sweet." I couldn't agree more. I had a late 1800's folk victorian / craftsman and the big work was plumbing and wiring. The foundation had been re-done in the 70's; all the houses in the n'hood had this done since they had been built with sandstone bricks that were literally turning to sand (this is back east).

I would add - the plumbing was EASY since the house was on a foundation and had ample crawl space (dirty, but ample). I had all new water service run in CPVC and it was something like $1500 for the whole house. The low pressure (sewer) was mostly fine - it was cast iron and will be there when humanoid cockroaches own the place. The sewer lateral was clay, however, and I learned about that the hard way ...

Wiring? Well, this place had a mix of added on wiring - some of the oldest copper was as thick as my little finger. I talked to a pretty knoweldgeable guy on the disastrous experiment with aluminum wiring in CA in the 50s or so. He said that has all either been replaced or the house is burned down. Seriously, it is replaced or burned down.

And I also agree with the author on this: the details and other 'craftsman' work on older houses is usually preferable - with notable exceptions of houses they might call 'custom' in more recent years - i.e. not cookie cutter aseembly-line jobs but houses built one by one individually. My parents had modest means and we lived in beautiful homes on MI built this way. I think the builder barely turned a profit, but it was a labor of love for him.