patrick.net

Owneroccupier,

Don't be so sure. I'm going to call my grandmothers and tell them to stock up on gold and platinum necklace chains :)

I think the Chinese are just extremely naive and undiversified. They're like the cleaning ladies and shoeshine boys of economic trends.

GentleCheetah,

Huh? When's the last time you've been in China? I cannot even imagine what can cause you to hold those beliefs!

Do you talk this way in the real world or do you save this stuff just for us?

@Linda, for example today in a meeting they were discussing how they were going to "retrain and recertify" the operators. I commented "oh you're going to cane them".

I typically insert a marginal profanity filter in some situation other than that I usually speak in person the same as online.

I see a lot of opportunities to be the shopkeeper to the herds of China speculators. Lots of one time deals and discretely profitable undertakings are available for anybody with a little foresight. The market aspect is actually kind of easy because the actors in them (other than the government--to some degree) are so predictable.

But in the BA, you really have to be wealthy to provide any kind of a decent education and future for your kids.

I just had the misforture of being in the BA for a few hours. Fuck that place, seriously. I think the real question regarding kids in the BA is "will they look good in my euro luxury car and do they go with my matching corgis" If not don't have them if you live in the BA. There must be river of crack running through the BA because those that expouse the magnificent attributes of the BA are either horribly myopic or from Buffalo NY.

I went back to visit China last year, under constant plodding of a lab director (in Beijing) who wanted to recruit me to his lab. Of course I visited my native city, Shanghai and then Beijing. On the one hand, I was quite impressed by the rapid growth in the city. On the other hand, I was very sad, because the old Shanghai that I grew up in was gone. Gone was the soul of the city I used to know.

Money talks in China. That's the new religion. Workers have absolutely zero rights. The state supports capitalism, as long as its rule unquestioned and its elites enriched along the way.

If you are rich and play the game right, especially if you look different, you'll be fine. When I was in Beijing, the hotel folks were very subservient to foreigners. It was less so in Shanghai.

On my way to the airport, the taxi driver (in Beijing) told me how he saw a taxi driver being beaten up by two Japanese customers -- possibly the driver scammed them -- and nobody, including the police, intervened.

Now, about how the Chinese treat each other. A couple of years ago, through mutual friends, I met a Chinese programmer who just went back to China for a year, thinking that he could take advantage of young college girls, but got kicked out and came back to US. (What has US come to??!!) I didn't know this guy. But at a supper gathering, when each of us had his/her own food, he suddenly asked me to share my soup with him, in a very rude and callous tone!!?? I am a lot stronger than he. But somehow he thought he deserved what others had. This is a graduate from a good Chinese engineering/science college but exhibits zero creativity and initiative. Why the US is getting this kind of low-born people baffles me. After a few incidents like this, I eventually gave him a public dressing-down serious enough that he'd remember for his entire life.

surfer-x,

The important thing is that the kids go with my Watanabe blades and stainless steel decor. I may have to chrome them...

GentileCheetah, I hear there are great noodles in Shanghai.

I've seen plenty of ugliness, because it's the ugliness of spoilt children, who were not given proper boundaries.

But what's this about hierarchy and stability. Hierarchy can conceal social tensions, but they don't eliminate them. I really don't think a rich person will be better off in China than in the US, now or anytime in the next 30 years.

Surfer-X
Please answer...
I have a surfer friend who talks like you. (only worse, if you can imagine)
He calls people Holmes and makes statements like
"I got me a yam a'brewin'"
that make people think they haven't heard correctly...
His statements are pointed, direct and generally right on point...but often his wording is quite suprising.
You are well loved here (maybe not by the trolls) and are our
local voice of caustic verbal outrage...much as Newsfreak is our neighborhood poet.
I imagine you , a PHD, a scientist, using words like cockgobblers in your daily life/job. So I wonder....do you save it up for us? Or does it eek out at inopportune moments? :)

Sorry...got sidetracked on the phone...you already answered!

Let's not forget,

it is homedebtors buying homes on interest only who have contributed to the size of this bubble...

The thing to remember about median incomes is that most people are not highly paid, highly educated professionals. When you work with such people, you develop tunnel vision.

The average worker is an insurance adjuster married to a dental hygenist who works three days per week.

The FedEx guy, your secretary, the worker at Barnes and Noble, the janitor, landscapers -- these people do not make $100k. Yet they all have to live somewhere.

Thank you Joe, you make the point much clearer than I did...

Actually, to hell with the janitor, dental hygeinist, fed ex guy and insurance adjuster, let them all live in rentals because they have to, along with their 2 kids and their aging mother-in-laws. Houses are meant, due to population density created by Schmoes living in rentals, only for the super elite as second homes and pads for meeting mistresses.

Kerouac would have dug that situation, he could have lived in a hammock in Berkeley, along with everyone else, yeah, that's coool, mannnn...

tsusiat
Be careful with using the word 'Schmoe' in vain...
We don't want to offend our buddy Joe.... ;)

I think one of many causes of all this madness is the human desire to emulate those that are above.

The middle class (in the traditional sense, the owner class) tried to emulate the upper class. Now the lower middle tries to emulate the middle class.

GC,

The solution is so obvious. Bring back sumptuary laws!

I think the lower classes have skipped the middle class and gone straight to upper classes. You think those receiptionists' manicure, hair weave, LV bag, etc., come cheap?

Does anyone know how the commodity bull markets have played out in their previous runs ? What's a typical cycle ?

I have only seen the dot com bubble and then the RE bubble. If these ever happen again in my lifetime I have my lessons learned, and know what to do. I don't know much about the commodities, except they are far more volatile and susceptible to non-fundamental driving events like politics.

Higher stock prices and higher house prices are loved by majority of the population. But higher prices for commodities do not seem like a good thing. Are people buying just because of inflation fears, US$ devaluation or the supply-demand equations are really changing to reflect a new reality ?

astrid, I was merely musing on the housing aspect. Women always spend inordinate amount of money and time on their appearances. It is actually the upper who tend not to care about the trappings that you mentioned. The same can be said of men. A lot of men like to spend inordinate amount of money and time on their (new) toys. But the uppers, in the traditional sense, liked to (at least used to) toy with wars, intrigues, and diplomacy.

Linda,

I only did so with the utmost respect for our Gentle Schmoe, who can identify with the plight of the everyman or woman, everywhere, or so a little bird told me... ;)

GC,

Give me your definition of the upper class. Yours seem much more restrictive than any ever accepted by Americans, or even the Chinese!

I don't care. I want housing in America to be like housing in Japan. Unless it's producing rent, it's just a capital eating durable good.

Those who conquerred, robbed, and subsequently ruled. This definition also applies to some who rose to the ranks of the ruling class via the path of money making through plundering but not through industriousness. People who have become rich through hardworking and ingeniousness do not qualify for rulership, for ruling implies violence.

In a tribal society, there are leaders but no ruling class. The so-called class hierarchy (and for that matter, any civilization) is invariably established and maintained through physical and spiritual brutality.

Back in Modesto, I could always tell when a neighborhood was going to seed when the various strip malls (ok, that's a sign in itself) would lose their local "quality"[0] stores and gain manicure parlors in their stead.

To BA: I think the inflation and devaluation. "It's different this time" is always a suspect explanation. Keep in mind that people like Soros and Buffet have been betting against the dollar for some time now. They've lost money doing so, but the current housing trends have been going for longer than many expected. The global economy is largely running on Chinese supply and American demand, demand largely financed via funny-money HELOCs. When the music stops, it's likely all economies will take a hit, but the dollar seems more vulnerable than others.

[0] Things like hobby & crafts suppliers, bookstores, etc.

sorry, ingenuity instead of ingeniousness.

To BA,

you question is hard to answer, because time has changed. Historically dating back to the 1400s when we still had records of pricing, there was already commodity bull cycles and bust cycles. But those cycles took much longer to complete than today, usually 5+ decades. The cause of that was usually population growth.

Similarly, this commodity bull cycle also has something to do with population, not population growth, but incorporation of countries previously not in the capitalist camp. China has always had 1+B population, India too, but they were somehow locked up in a different world not interacting with us, and they used to consume far less. Now with raised expectation of standard of living, these countries will rise to reap their fruit of hard work, and their fair share of raw materials on which we humans survive.

The last commodity bull cycle in the 1970-80s lasted around 18 years. However, you can't use that as a reasonable base because
1) We had far less population in this commodity stake-out game
2) We had far fewer tools for speculation, ETFs not around, far less paper money floating around either
3) Information flowed much slower

So these forces are pulling the commodity market in different directions, which force will win? Only time can tell.

Wolfie AKA Benjammin

Troll be gone!

Wolfie,

look in the mirror man,

is that ALL there is?

I mean,

shouldn't college graduates in the great US of A all make at least $200,000?

How can they respect themselves, slavin' for the man like that?

College graduates from top schools can make 100K after finishing a full year of work i.e.

No, no they fucking don't. I love these fucking asshats. Ok dipshit, what school is a "top" school and what fucking discipline makes that kind of cash 1 year out? Not a fucking one. Consider Cal and Stanford good schools? Know what a BS with honors and a MS from Stanford in Computer Science gets you at Oracle? 80 fucking K. Oh this is with multiple summer internships at Seibel. Go fuck yourself, get your mayo laden cucumber and go get freaky with HaHa. Asshole.

Anyone can make 100K a year, all it takes is a fucking gun and a note. So your prior fucking comment centered around people in their late 20's, now you make ill-informed comments I remember back in the 80’s, making 100K was a big deal. you were what, fucking 6? Seems you were still rubbing shit on yourself and getting a hard-on off Sat morning cartoons, seems it worked for you then, why not go back to it and quit wasting our fucking time with your fucking drivel.

GC,

Well, you can believe whatever you want to believe. History already demonstrated the ruling classes are more fluid than your construction and that the fates of the upper classes are tied to happenings of the lower classes.

Deny the mob classes housing,

dare I say, Marie Antoinette once suggested "cake" as a good substitute for, oh, some good basic qualities of life, like food and shelter....

In the US now, I see plenty of "food", I mean, SUPERSIZE ME, Baby!

However, gimme shelter!

Hey, all this shoutin' feels real good!

Deny the mob classes housing,

Tsu, but who is going to fold the burritos for the fucking fuck in the boxster then?

Wanna make some fucking money, bring out a new line of euro-fag glass frames for the BMW/Porsche/Mercedes crowd. make them expensive and make them moronic looking. Walla 1mil.

Marie Antoinette never said that, she got framed. She was very much disliked for her lavish lifestyle, but more sort of used as a scapegoat, particularly by the upper class who badly needed someone to take the blame for all the misery in the country.

America will soon need such a martyr to take all the blames, who will that be?

"America will soon need such a martyr to take all the blames, who will that be?"

Let's go find an Austrian!

ex-Austrian?

Hitler was Austrian.

Owneroccupier,

haha, sorry about that, not bothering to check any "facts" today, just spouting the "common knowledge" the wellspring of all truth that is really worth learning...

Sorry about that...

So is Schwarzy, I think that's who Astrid was referencing.

Owneroccupier is correct, both Schwarzy and Marie Antoniette were ex-Austrians.