San Diego Housing Bubble News and Analysis

'bout time!!!!

Never happen.

Assuming it did, all the anti-government weenies on piggingtons would lose their job at the taco stand anyway.

But, I'll admit that a 5-10% haircut across the board at all gov. entities would do us all a spot a good. Give us a chance to clean out the riff-raff.

Anyways, expect a gas tax to make up the shortfall.

I agree. getting rid of some of the fat would be smart. The problem goes deeper than that though. Some agencies are efficient and effective. Ones that actually operate things that people use. Others, just put studies on the shelves. I've worked for both public and privet sectors. I honestly think that some public sector environments are much more competitive than private. I am still not sold that private is all the efficient either. I know a lot of people in the private sector that just sit around and do nothing. This increases cost to the buyer or us. But we have to keep people working or we'll end up like Iraq. A bunch of broke men with no jobs, no income and no family = pissed off a without direction. Not good.

O.o

The government put a man on the moon for less than what Goldman-Sachs has lost over the last year.

I've worked in both and as far as productivity goes its a wash. It's certainly easier to get rid of poor performers in the private sector, though.

Edit: In my experience, there is much more corruption in the private sector. Probably because of the tighter control of money and stricter accounting in government.

In any year, most governments lose about 5% of their staff through retirement, injury, fired or they just quit. If every employee worked 33 years, none were ever hurt, quit or got fired, the yearly loss would be 3% on average. Another issue is most governmental employers have 3-5% of their positions vacant. What typically happens is that they just stop hiring and eliminate or freeze vacant positions. That gets them between a 6% and 10% reduction without handing out a single pink slip. Some of the local governments have seen this coming and have had hiring freezes in effect for months. There might be a few pink slips given out here and there, the unions and media will make a big fuss but it will look worse on paper than it really is, I don't think the local economy will feel the impact too much.

The City of Chula Vista is going to lay off 200 employees after the holiday.

The county is in a $75million pit hole

MTS is $6.0 upside down this year and another $17million next year (say good bye to all weekend service)

SANDAG has more money than they need and just had an amazing x-mas party.

City of San Diego -$40 million with tons of cuts..

Escondido how much?

No, cuts are coming. There is a first for everything. Govt is broken for the first time in modern american history.

"productivity" isn't just a matter of how much "stuff" you get done, it is how much useful stuff you get done.

In gov, you may do as much "stuff," for the same money but it isn't necessarily useful stuff. It's just stuff someone made up as something that needs to get done, with little value added.

In the private sector, the amout of useless stuff that can get funded is limited by the revenue of the business.

Don't we wish this was true: In the private sector, the amout of useless stuff that can get funded is limited by the revenue of the business.

I would say that Govt has the same limitations.

This is exactly what I was trying to understand. where did the notion that govt doesn't do anything and spends time on wasteful things come from? When did it all start?

Government can simply raise taxes without involving the people who must pay.

Businesses have to convince people to give them money. That's a big difference.

I think it all started when the city decided they had to tell everyone what kind of toilet to put in their house.

Personally, I consider my water/sewer service useful stuff.

Unlike the stuff that the free market has provided from Detroit and Wall Street, I'll add.

How sad,,,,

That will be hundreds or thousands more that will have no chance of buying a stucco box or refinancing to a lower interest rate.

They should have refi'd while they had a job.

Oh wait, no income? They can't afford a payment anyway...

More foreclosures I guess (yawn) .HLS

How was the private sector able to produce trillions in mortgage losses then?

Actually, I don't think the problem is necessarilly with either the public or the private sector. The main problem is that the federal government prints money and the private sector lends it out. It's the worst of both worlds.

I've also worked in both public and private sectors, and agree with kewp & lostcat. The public sector usually has higher "education and experience" requirements than an equivalent private sector job.

There is also much less room to goof-off, contrary to public opinion. In the public sector, there are very strict controls and ongoing evaluations built into the system.

As to the govt doing things that the market might not find valuable at the time (because it's not immediately profitable), this is true. However, it doesn't mean it's not needed, or that it won't be needed in the future, even if it's not profitable.

For instance, the FDA and USDA and other regulatory institutions really do protect us from unscrupulous people who would gladly jeopardize our health or well-being for an immediate profit (just like the financial institutions...yes, they DID know what was going to happen, but the profits were too hard to resist).

Is it better for water to come from an agency that is regulated by the government whose only job is to ensure the safety and reliability of our supply (without having to be overly concerned about profitability), or from a corporation that would try to lower quality standards as much as possible, in order to make a higher profit?

For healthcare, is nobody else a little suspicious of an industry that only profits if we are sick, with chronic illnesses being a cash cow?

Say what you will, but I much prefer having the government in charge of our basic needs, rather than private industry, but that's just me...

With the Federal Reserve banking system in place, you are a complete fool to think that is a free market.

Certainly, the basic needs are not the issue.

The issue is in early part of the 1900s, government spending was about 3% of our GNP. That's basic needs.

Now what is it? 30%?

So, the government may do the other 27% efficiently and call it "productivity" when it is not, in fact, needed activity. That's my point.

Within a public office, things may move along well, but the question of "what the hell are they doing with my 9% state income tax and 7.75% sales tax?" rings pretty loudly.

Sure - the public sector does the wrong things very well.

Ahh. The FDA. The guys who protect dying people from drugs with bad side effects. (With great efficiency.)

But is it priced properly ? When we have water shortages, the government mandates toilet ratings and has a department to deal with enforcing what toilet you have in your house. I call them the "toilet police." So, instead of simply raising the price (as the private sector would) to reduce water usage and encourage savings, they decide that managing all the toilets in the city would be a wise thing to do and hire a group of people to manage it. The cost of raising prices = free. The cost of hiring the toilet police = not free.

I'm sure they are very efficient at policing toilets, though.

They couldn't have done it without the Federal Reserve, Breeze, nor without government efforts to "increase homeownership." That was a team effort - very efficient processing of the wrong loans.

So we are all in the public sector then, including you?

You wouldn't happen to work for the toilet police, would you?

Very well said. The Internet actually grew out of something that the government created back in the 60's:

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

Government spending can actually prove to be very valuable. I would argue that the Internet could have never been done by the private sector as it was such a huge project.

Of course, when you have crony capitalists like Chimpy and sduuuude in charge of government, you get ridiculous corporate welfare programs that result in trillions in mortgage losses. Luckily for America, the philosophies of Chimpy and sduuuude have been totally discredited (through failed implementations), so we don't have to worry about those kinds of people being elected into government again for a long time.

Hey kewp your a weenie, a little itsy bitsy weenie.

Anyone feel that? Another arctic blast from TheBreeze spin machine...Always good for a laugh over coffee.

Schizophrenia thy name is TheBreeze....

It is clear from this you have no clue about my position on the matter.

First of all, "Capitalist" and "Corporate Welfare" are 100% at odds with each other, in my view.

Second, if I'm anti-government, why the hell would I want to be "in charge of the government."

The Soviet Union pre-1980 called. They want theBreeze back.

Moron.

Government productivity at work:

http://piggington.com/maybe_the_governme...

And *whom*, pray tell, were responsible for those mortgages in the first place? I don't know two many mortgage brokers or Realtors that work for the gummint.

Read a good summary of how this mess is entirely a product of the Federal Reserve and the excesses of the free market.

http://www.vanityfair.com/magazine/2009/...

Well, YOU'RE obviously not very well educated, so why should anyone listen to you?

http://www.wsu.edu/~brians/errors/your.html

Dude, how many times do I have to tell you - it isn't a free market if the Federal Reserve is one of the causes.

Yes, it is a free-market response to a manipulated system, but the manipulations of the Fed take precedence. If the manipulation of the Fed wasn't there, the free market would not have created this.

Maybe, given the fact that the Fed was handing out cheap cash, additional regulation was needed to keep the free market from burning through it so fast. Really, it just goes to show that when the gov (Fed in this case) starts manipulating things, shit happens that they didn't count on in the first place. Then they say "we should have regulated more." When in fact, they shouldn't have started manipulating in the first place.

You have fallen into the classic trap. The Govt implements a plan and calls it "unregulated." It isn't really unregulated because the government made it and controls it. But they call it "deregulated" because it sounds good.

Then it gets completely screwed up and they say "deregulation is bad" and guys like you nod and recite "regulation bad."

I guess that's what happens when you get your economic news from Vanity Fair.

Seriously, I hear what you are saying - given the Fed was giving out cheap cash, maybe they should have put in more rules to to keep the market in check. That makes sense, but only if you believe that the Fed should be manipulating rates in the first place, which I surely don't.

But, you can't call it a free market or a failure of the free market. That just isn't correct given the interest rate manipulation and government attempts to increase homeownership.