San Diego Housing Bubble News and Analysis

This one is good. No more government debt is his answer.

OMG. Funny video. Amazon banned him.

9 minute explanation worth listening/watching Monetary Reform

How the U.S. got out of the last one might provide a clue:

US Census Bureau stats show the official unemployment rate was still 17.2 percent despite seven years of "stimulus". Government was creating jobs but paying for it with taxing and borrowing, both of which comes from the very same economy it is trying to revive. The result was no net gain in overall employment. The nature of jobs simply changed from private to government.

Abandonment of Keynes inspired FDR policies "coincided" with the recovery of the 1940s.
The reduction of the federal budget from $98.4 billion in 1945 to $33 billion in 1948. Private sector production increased by almost one-third in 1946 alone, as private capital investment increased for the first time in 18 years. (from T. Di Lorenzo)

The bust is the way the economy adjust to the lower consumer demand, by liquidation of poor business positions and lowering of prices to market clearing levels. Government intervention only serves to delay the recovery.

What 2010 depression?

The 2009 RECESSION has ended/is coming to a close. It was a pretty bad one as far as recessions go, but did not qualify as a depression.

My knowledge history is a little sketchy, but I seem to remember that there was something else going on in the 1940s that may have influenced the economy.

The cost of World War 2 was more than $300 billion in the dollar of the 1940s. The government paid for it the same way it pays for most everything: taxing, borrowing and inflating. (or transferring, like the Social Security System)

Once the wartime controls expired, the economy began to recover. by Adam Young.

"The best way to destroy the capitalist system is to debauch the currency. By a continuing process of inflation, governments can confiscate, secretly and unobserved, an important part of wealth of their citizens". John Maynard Keynes.

After a few years, they'll all seem to run together and be one big event.

What? You did not hear? Obama announced yesterday that we were going into a depression next year and to get your money out of the markets and hedge a little gold incase of disaster.

Sounds ridiculous, doesn't it? Why, because they would never ever say that even if it were true.

During the depression they( the vast majority of economists) were talking recovery immediately after the oct 1929 crash up until the war. About 10 years. The market even retraced back up 70% for about 6-7 months after the crash.

Why do you think they all got it so wrong? Answer that question and you gain a little more insight on the nature of politics and economics.

Kool-aide is a favorite dish of the .gov/financial complex when things go bad. They have teams of PR people coming up with things to say. Some of them even believe themselves. Sure, it feels good at first. However, it's not so good for you in the long run.

I, personally, get the recovery brigade, I really get it. You can't quite say, "things are so fucked we have no idea what will happen". It does not go over so well with the public. Tends to affect their purchase decisions. haha Still, when you look at actions, you have to wonder if they have any clue at all or are just winging it as they go along to some half-baked monetary theory, devoid of any logic, that really has no way of ever empirically testing itself. Economics is far from a science,

Remember, these are the same folks that said we were not in a bubble and everything is fine. Maybe I'm just crazy, but that's enough right there to discredit them. I tend to be skeptical of anything being said right now.

haha... They said we are not in a bubble and please buy ARMs, then after it started to become glaringly obvious by popping they said, we didn't do it. Like a kid standing in front of a broken lamp.

But don't worry. NOW, everything is fixed and can go back to normal, which is blowing bubbles, if possible.

Frankly the best idea that I heard of to create jobs was to have never given out any bail-out funds to corporate giants, quasi-governmental entities, or banks. The federal government ONLY needed to give 1-2 million dollars to every individual age 60 + who had not retired yet. With the stipulation that they would retire immediately, invest a portion of their money, and immediately buy an American car or pay off their home. Wow, with over 30+ million American in this category now you have 30 million jobs opened. I know it's an over-simplified strategy, but it least it gets over the pretense of just giving a damn handout to those that deserve it more than the likes of Bank of America.

That's not a good idea. Here's why. First, the problem we're facing:

- The economy has shrunk, therefore, the massive layoffs.

What you are suggesting is:

- Artificially shrink the labor work force by giving the near-retirees incentives to retire early.

This proposed solution may reduce the unemployment rate. But as a nation, we are not producing more, not becoming more wealthy.

The correct solution is to find a way to grow our economy, creating more jobs.

Not to mention that the early retirees will start to utilize Social Security earlier making it worse.

Just trying to think outside the box and offer a solution that only puts the American people maybe a couple of hundred million to 1 billion in debt vs trillions.

"The federal government ONLY needed to give 1-2 million dollars to every individual age 60 + who had not retired yet"

The gov. has already chosen who to give a few million dollars each to and most of them work for Goldman Sachs : )

***MATH ALERT***

30 million peeps age 60+ and working (I am taking your word for this number), give them each 1 million dollars

3e7 * 1e6 = 3e13 = 30,000,000,000,000

That is 30 trillion, about twice our GDP, and ~37x the amount of the bank bailout. Not only is this not really in our federal budget, this would also would really piss of my retired parents with their fixed income. This would really piss off me too, I want a million dollars for cars and houses too.

Um, in 2939 there was a War, you know?

And in 45? we won that war.

So all that spending was going to end.

The Great Depression was moderated by the FDR policies. The CCC, WPA and other acts got people doing things.

We spent 4 years following Hoovers polcies, that didn't work. FDR's policies did.

FDR's policies also set up 40 years of prosperity.

Well, lets not rewrite history.

Harold Ickes, FDR's interior secretary, said in his diary covering the early part of the New Deal that it accomplished what the powers were trying to do in Germany and Italy, but did so in a "more orderly way." FDR represented the absolute corporate takeover of the US government. Domestic policy was turned over to GE's Reginald Jones, Averell Harriman of Brown Brothers and Root, Union Pacific and Union Bank (Hitler's banker), and Herbert Lehman of... Lehman Brothers

Medium sized business men who weren't part of the inner club, and some big ones whose interests did not include significant foreign holdings, hated FDR, even plotted against him, but that's the essence of divisions within the monied class between those who benefitted from the centralization and those who didn't. Google business plot for details

He knew the New Deal was a colossal bust and a populist uprising( of the more communist/socialist variety unlike todays tea-baggers) was just around the corner. The 30s were rife with populist uprisings amongst the commoners with the state opposing by force. He HAD to get the people behind him in the best way that we know how, WAR... He cut off the Japanese oil supply in the Philippines all but ensuring a Japanese response somewhere.

What brought us prosperity was the whole industrialized world being destroyed by the war while America being the only one left with any industrial capacity combined with sitting on a ocean of oil and abundant resources.

That brought us up the 70s where it has been downhill since for the middle class and wealth disparity grew to industrial revolution levels.

Now, Obama is in the same place as FDR was. Today, however, safety nets are in place as well as decades of anti-socialist/resistance propaganda to quell populist uprising.

Yes, people are no different today. When they are cut off from a means to survive they will turn to crime or organize and protest. History is quite clear on that.

Yeah I'm sure in 1933 there were a lot of people saying the worst was behind us. The world wide depression is what gave Adolph Hitler,Joseph Stalin, and Benito Mussolini the chance to become world leaders.
On a more local note CA's budget could be much improved by not paying for the public education of thousands of illegal aliens. I figure deporting 22,000 illegal students would save approximately 170 Million dollars yearly. Anybody care to check the math?

[quote=threadkiller]...I figure deporting 22,000 illegal students would save approximately 170 Million dollars yearly.../quote]

Sounds about right. But then we'd be obliged to create a sustainable 100% first world economy. Your hamburger might cost more, and you might be doing your own landscaping and housekeeping.

I already do! I figure NAFTA "might" have been a good idea when we were producing stuff, now I really don't see how it works for us. Most of my hamburger comes from costco in the form of 1/3 lb. sirloin burgers and you got me because I have no idea what it costs.

Hogwash! Just a couple of decades ago, American kids were doing these jobs. It's high time we give them the same chance we had to work in an entry-level job and gain some work experience.

What we "save" by using illegal labor, we spend on their education, prison, infrastructure, legal, housing, etc. costs. Labor performed by illegal labor is only "cheap" for their employers. The rest of us pick up the tab (and suffer the reduced quality of life) in order to sustain the employers' profits.

I think the problem here is the complicated processes one has to go through to work in this country. We need to make it much more simple. Show up, sign your name, pay your taxes.

I'm pretty sure the guys standing outside homedepot neither sign their names or pay taxes. I rarely see them get picked up, but they must or they would not be there.