San Diego Housing Bubble News and Analysis

Pity that the average Joe didn't see any of that growth though. The average middle class wage-earner now makes less after inflation today (and that's the ridiculously understated inflation measure they use now that excludes energy from inflation)than they did in 2000. And, of course, lets not forget the folks who had good jobs in tech or manufacturing who lost those jobs during the massive outsourcing earlier this decade, only to see Bush and company replace those jobs with "McJobs" like Wal-Mart greeter.

Of course, those tax cuts and economic growth have been great for the guys like Cheney and Bush who have seen their investment money explode (of course, it helps when you can give multi-billion dollar no-bid government contracts to your old cronies who you still have tons of stock interests in), as well as CEO's and other top executives who now take home almost 10% of the corporate pie (up from 5% of the corporate pie in the mid-90s). It's a gangbuster economy for them.

Did he also mention how well the govt handled Katrina with Bush's buddy Brownie ?

Did he mention that the growth without pause for 6 years could be followed by devstating pause of the next 10-15 years for the next admin to clean up.

Did he mention how much money has been printed since 2001 or how much oil/gas has increased ?
and how much his personal wealth has increased...

And thanks to the current admin. how safe we are because we cannot take toothpaste and more than 3 ounces of shampoo on an airplane and we must take our shoes off at "security"

And how many lives have been lost in Iraq,,,
And how many people have lost homes....

How millions spend money on credit on stuff that they cannot afford....

This is all envious stuff for sure!~!

Bush, you're doin' a helluva job, EXACTLY like the helluva job that Brownie did after Katrina.

He can't do a press conference without pre arranged questions.
It's a good thing that he has an MBA.
That's what must have saved us.

Bush has an MBA...but Cheney took 6 years to get a 4 year degree (and keep away from Vietnam).

Yes, and that's one of the reasons he's despised around the world ...brashness and ignorance. Bragging has negative connotations, and with the US in moral deficit, comments like that really don't help much, do they?. God help the man.

Advice a little late and a dollar (or euro) short, but Average Joe could have bought energy and defense stocks (DCA into Vanguard sector funds at low cost) instead of wasting their tiny savings on beer, lotto, sports. Tell em to watch Suzy Orman. Its how much you save.

Of course, if the Average Joe is living on a smaller and smaller (inflation adjusted) paycheck...that is, if their job wasn't outsourced and they wound up working for one of the McJobs the Bush administration is so proud they managed to create (after losing 3+ million good paying ones)... he wouldn't likely have much savings left to invest, now would he?

It's all fine and dandy if you're a member of the priveleged elite (upper middle class+, which is probably where most of us on Piggington are), but our country is built on the middle class - and Bush has been death on that class - worst President for the middle class in the past hundred years since the Depression from the numbers I've seen.

Sooner or later, that's going to catch up with us. There's only so many goods us well off folks can buy, and only so many services that we can pay our fellow Americans to provide. The death of the middle class as the largest class in the U.S. sooner or later spells the death of our economy. WE benefit when there are more people in that middle class making good wages so they can put that money back into the economy.

Offshoring all our manufacturing and other jobs which actually create things in the name of a multinational corporations "bottom line" in the end means a massive wealth transfer to all those other states that now create and manufacture all the things we used to do.

Well said, SDEngineer!

The tax cuts are a good thing. For those of us that pay soooo much into the system it's a good incentive to keep some of the rewards of our efforts.

We don't want to turn this into a socialist state. The problem today is that the average lazy American douchebag is living large on credit cards and home equity loans and then holding out his hand for a bailout which always winds up as a bill to the upper middle class.

HLS: You said it well, brother. I showed your post to my wife who said, "he sounds just like you".

I knew there was something about you that I liked.
:)

The tax cuts are a good thing. For those of us that pay soooo much into the system it's a good incentive to keep some of the rewards of our efforts.

Had they cut spending I would agree with you. But since they increased government spending while simultaneously cutting taxes, they have done more harm than good and left the damage for the next administration(s) to clean up. It's like they just switched to making the minimum payment on credit cards or opted to make the lowest payment on their "pick a pay" mortgage. Things look great for a while -- until they suddenly look really, really bad...

I won't argue that it's nice to keep some of the rewards of our efforts.

But, on the other hand, we are talking about a 3% across the board cut that amounts to roughly half the current budget deficit. I'd rather pay a little more in taxes and not have our aggregate budget deficit pushing $10T dollars - especially when the vast majority of that tax cut went to those earning FAR FAR more than the average American makes. That 3% tax cut for me (and I'm in the top 10% in income bracket) is an extra (small) vacation a year. The 3% tax cut for a CEO on the other hand is about the size of a luxury car. For one of those hedge fund managers, that 3% is the size of a home in RSF. I don't think that CEO's and hedge fund managers need that tax break quite as much as our economy needs balancing.

It's not like they're going to move anywhere else - we already have the lowest taxation of any first world nation.

The difference between me paying 25% and 28% is a minimal price to pay to have a more stable economy. Of course, by just reinstating the 38% tax bracket (for those making 200K/yr single, 350K/yr married), without touching any of the lower tax brackets, they could eliminate roughly half the current yearly budget deficit.

raising taxes

Of course, by just reinstating the 38% tax bracket (for those making 200K/yr single, 350K/yr married), without touching any of the lower tax brackets, they could eliminate roughly half the current yearly budget deficit.

It always amazes me when people propose giving more money to the people who are obviously nowhere near the ability capable to manage it well. I would have thought that the denizens of this site would know better...

It's a matter of being able to pay our bills.

Right now, as a country, we're like the guy who took out a option ARM loan for a house he couldn't afford and is paying the minimum neg-am payment every month digging himself in deeper and deeper.

Like it or not, there are two solutions - 1) raise taxes so we can pay our bills, or 2) cut all social and military spending to the bone to make ends meet. I doubt #2 is politically feasable, and in any case, the depths of the cuts needed are probably enough to cause more problems than they would solve (for example, it's not like doctors would stop treating people if medicare was completely cut out...but it's very likely that a lot of people who medicare used to cover would stop going for preventative care and only show up for ER treatment when a major emergency happened - and those are VERY expensive).

Yeah, our government is hideously inefficient when it comes to spending money - but it's our government, and with all it's flaws it's a better government than most have. It's a necessary evil. I doubt anarchy would work, and, frankly, we already tried laissez-faire capitalism (last century), and found out that leaving all the regulation up to the capitalists themselves, and all the social programs up to charity, didn't work out very well either.

It always amazes me when people propose giving more money to the people who are obviously nowhere near the ability capable to manage it well.

Dude, those people are the engine of our consumer-spending driven economy!

If you give rich people money, they are going to put it in a hedge fund somewhere or invest it overseas. From a domestic point of view it largely disappears (in the near time frame).

Give a poor person money and they are gonna blow it at a local bar or buy an Xbox.

The best thing we can do to help our economy is get more money into the hands of those that are going to spend it the fastest. This means raising the minimum wage and cutting taxes for the middle and lower classes. Make it up on the high end, they can afford it!

And hey, if we get out of Iraq, the government can spend that money domestically as well!

As U.S. Outsources Legal Work, India's Law Grads Prosper
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/con...

By Rama Lakshmi
Washington Post Foreign Service
Sunday, May 11, 2008; Page A01

GURGAON, India -- When Aashish Sharma graduated from law school two years ago, his father had visions of seeing him argue in an Indian court and eventually become an honorable judge.

Instead, Sharma, 25, now sits all day in front of a computer in a plush, air-conditioned suburban office doing litigation research and drafting legal contracts for U.S. companies and law firms. He is part of a booming, new outsourcing industry in India that employs thousands of English-speaking lawyers such as him to do legal work at a small fraction of the cost of hiring American lawyers.

The best thing we can do to help our economy is get more money into the hands of those that are going to spend it the fastest.
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Exactly. Money that goes to the government -- especially if it is used for payroll -- ends up back in the economy much more quickly than if a "rich" person is allowed to hoard it. Poor people spend money in ways that make other people better-off because they buy all the little things that are used in daily life and employ the majority of the population. This spending gets money to others **without any strings or further obligations (interest, etc.) attached.**

Investors use money to get more money (returns on investments), and the goal of every investor is to take money out of someone else's pocket and put it into their own. This myth (capital is more valuable than labor) was spread by the very people who brought us to where we are today -- the top of a credit bubble with a tremendous portion of population carrying debt that they can never hope to repay -- and no real assests of their own.

Banks (and the corporations/politicians that feed and enable them) want us to believe that we could not survive without them -- and especially that we could not survive without thier "kind and generous" offers of ever-increasing credit. It is a lie meant to enslave the working class by forcing them into ever-rising debt loads that make bankers, etc. very, very wealthy at the expense of the working classes.

Bankrupt, greedy gamblers, all. When capital is more highly valued than labor, IMHO, it is the sign of a collapsing society.
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In full disclosure, all of my personal income comes from investing, so what I'm saying is not in my own best interests. However, I can certainly tell the difference between right and wrong / constructive and destructive.

CA Renter....good post, and one I agree with wholeheartedly. A nation made up solely of investors wouldn't last very long I'm thinking. You're in good company though, as I understand that Warren Buffett shares pretty much the same viewpoint.

Capitalism is a wonderful force for motivating people to work hard and save money, but it has to be moderated to prevent the mass accumulation of capital in an "investor class" for just that reason, or you wind up with Feudalism by another name (with the capitalists of course as the nobility, and everyone else as their serfs).

Unfortunately, taxation and wealth redistribution on some scale are a necessity given capitalisms inherent tendencies towards this kind of concentration of wealth into an investor class. Sadly, most people are unable to look past their own pocketbook and see that this, in the end, is a benefit to all, and the only way to maintain the system. They just see the money disappearing into the government. But it is a balancing act - you have to maintain enough disparity that most people will work hard to achieve the dream, and CAN achieve the dream if they work hard enough, but not so much that people give up on it as being unattainable. Right now, I think we're getting close to the "giving up on it" part for a LOT of what used to pass for the middle class.

Good posts, SDEngineer. Agree 100%.

Yes, Equalizer, the average Joe should have bought stocks and investments, that was the way to go. Because if you take the average American's salary and remove all discretionary spending (they can spend their free time at the library for chrissakes)and take that money and put it into investiments, that would make up the income differences.

Did Suze Orman tell you that?