patrick.net

I don't think the bubble implosion will be good for working class people. It is definitely good for people with valuable skills and those who are more employable than others.

It's just that too many Americans are becoming not that employable in the last decade. They either get into paper pushing, email cc:ing, powerpoint reshuffling or welfare. I am not sure if this country has that many skilled labor that can weather the recession so easily, particularly given that they are so in debt, so anything that makes debt more expensive is generally against their interest.

OO,

Good points, but I would argue that throwing some glorified paper-pushers out of work and encouraging them to acquire some *useful* skills itself is not necessarily a bad thing. IMO, it's high time this country got back to actually creating things of real value.

The downside of course, is that there's a whole lot of pain between point A and point B. However, I think the major pain will be more concentrated to the REIC & financial sectors than some here may think.

HARM,

Excellent and LONG... overdue thread! Be it the "Big 3" (stocks, bonds, real estate) or your best friends and favorite co-workers it's important not to let the "Careful what you wish for!" crowd get a free pass.

Challenge them. Why is this "my" problem? Explain in detail how this could (or should) affect me or people like me? How did things get to this point? Did "I" benefit from this fallout, whose pain we must now both share? Is it right that I should be affected?

"Be careful..." is among the weakest of defenses. In fact it's pathetic. What it basically says is... "I've been reckless and greedy enough for the BOTH of us!"

Harm,

Overall I would agree, except that I am very concerned about the Amero. That could be the financial equivilent to a doomsday device.

What in the world is going on behind our backs?

There is no way that the bubble implosion is good for working class people; indeed it will be those on the low end of resources that will suffer the worst.

Fear mongering point taken, certainly no rush to bail out should occur. However, we are way beyond worrying about bailouts now. Its too big a problem, you simply cannot bail out everyone.

IMHO, we are in completely uncharted waters and are way beyond socialization of losses really having any mitigating effect anyway. The financial system is in a serious crisis of confidence, and may collapse. It would seem to be just that bad.

"you simply cannot bail out everyone"

Nor should we try. It's a fools errand.

Whether the poor are disproportionately burdened (sad as that might be) isn't really the point. They aren't within earshot of hearing "Be careful..." anyway. Things probably WILL get worse. No doubt, but as HARM states, is this just cause to blindly attempt to mitigate pain for those that most deserve it?

It may depend upon what you mean by "working class people". Members of some labor unions have been taught to perform repetitive tasks by rote, e.g. auto assemblers. These guys are just as much at risk as the paper-pushers. Idependent auto mechanics, electricians, and the like are in an altogether different category. I submit that debugging a modern car's problems and then fixing it requires as much brainpower as most white-collar jobs, if not more.

If this country opts for the painful route, i.e. no massive bailouts, I recommend banning / confiscating guns first.

Or else, I will not stay here to live through the painful adjustment period. There's already bank robbery in Saratoga, I won't be surprised that there will be soon more armed robberies or even murders in the best neighborhoods of the Bay Area.

Time to load up some security surveillance stocks.

I'm going to have to side with northernvirginiarenter. I can't speak for Jim Cramer and the like as to what their motivation is for saying such things...

But really, an economic fallout is going to be good for very very few people. Even the people that produce real things. Sure, they might be better off RELATIVE to the paperpusher, but in reality, their quality of life will go down too, just not as much.

Not everyone concerned about doomsday wants a bailout, nor thinks it is a good idea.

The financial system is in a serious crisis of confidence, and may collapse. It would seem to be just that bad.

Like I said a few days ago in another thread, how is that *my* problem, or even a bad thing? I don't owe any bankster anything, nor do I *want* to owe them anything. Our current debt=wealth, grow-or-die, monetize-via-inflation financial system is rotten to the core. It's so badly rigged in favor of the top 2% and rewarding reckless speculation, it may already be beyond salvaging.

Time to hit the "reset" button?

Add Realtwhores to the scare-mongering crowd. They love to use some variation of this line: "You should not _really_ wish for real estate prices to crash, because EVERYONE will feel the pain".

In a complete inversion of cause-effect logic, I have even had one realtwhore tell me that "House prices will crash if people lose jobs. Ergo if prices are crashing, it means there have been huge layoffs. So you better not hope for prices to crash because it means you could lose your job."

According to one of the DOL's papers published that I read while doing stock research, the two categories of employment that consistently benefit from past recessions are:
1) auto mechanics
2) lower-end health care service providers (nurse or below skill level)

The first category booms because people cannot afford to buy new cars during recession. The second category does not really benefit, but the employment goes up because previously unfillable low-pay, labor intensive and frankly health hazardous "health care" positions cannot find enough applicants. During the downturn, people will do any job just to get by.

Just as a point of reference here's a list of individuals that have (and continue) to use "Be careful" as a FIRST line of defense:

NAR (membership alone entitles you to unlimited access to this hackneyed phrase!)

Lawrence "This is a WALL STREET problem!" Yun

Building suppliers/NAHB

Perma-bulls

Home Debtors/FB's (Another Pampered Borrower)

Anyone at the end-of-their-rope and experiencing Peak Debt

Wow! That's a really prestigious crowd! Can't wait to *not be associated with them! :)

Members of some labor unions have been taught to perform repetitive tasks by rote, e.g. auto assemblers. These guys are just as much at risk as the paper-pushers.

Point taken, and no, I don't think the working and middle classes --even people like us, who refused to participate in this massive Ponzi scheme-- are going to get through the next few years with zero pain. Unfortunately, in an economic crisis, the innocent suffer along with the guilty.

However, I try to take the long view, and see that, while we all must swallow some bitter economic medicine short-term, getting back on the path of sustainability, living within your means, and true affordability is much better for us all in the long run (at least for the bottom 98%). And that's good enough for me.

But really, an economic fallout is going to be good for very very few people. Even the people that produce real things. Sure, they might be better off RELATIVE to the paperpusher, but in reality, their quality of life will go down too, just not as much.

The other way of looking at this issue is, we as a nation have been living high on-the-hog off of funny money, MEW, over-leveraged HF's milking out bonuses from funny money deals. It's about time we all started living within our means for a change, instead of hocking the economic health of our future generations to enjoy one more cruise, one more Harley, or one more vacation home filled with granite crap.

SP,

Exactly. Had this been a matter of home prices plummeting due to a nagging recession or massive lay-offs, I'd be singing a different tune. In fact isn't this the 1st time median prices fell off WITHOUT there being a recession? How is this "our" problem?

skibum!

Good to hear from you! I hear we have a HF-a-day going under. (choking back tears) :(