State of the Union

[spdrun]

Our standard of living is just fine as it is — growth is another word for tumor. No need to pave the world and sprawl to infinity.

And no, I have no problem with higher taxes for vacant property. A lot of cities already do that (DC, Boston, etc). It’s the right thing to do since vacancy drives rents and prices up for people who actually reside there.

[FlyerInHi]

[quote=spdrun]Our standard of living is just fine as it is — growth is another word for tumor. No need to pave the world and sprawl to infinity.
[/quote]

Don’t you want a main home in NYC and a vacation/part-time home somewhere else? Why shouldn’t everyone aspire to that? Why only you?

[spdrun]

Not particularly — a truly vacant home would just be a source of stress. Family’s beach house was known to flood. Friends with a house about 2 miles away had someone break in and set the place on fire in January (they tried to light the fireplace without opening the flue).

I’d sooner buy a small building and keep one of the apts vacant if I were interested. Or just take the income and rent an AirBnB or hotel.

Economics also don’t make sense. Say you want a beach house in NJ. Much cheaper to rent one for a month here and there than pay taxes, mortgage, and repair costs from storms.

As far as everyone else, couldn’t care less. Housing is for living in and for rental. If a vacant tax screws over some absentees and benefits myself and other like-minded people, I’d be all for it.

[FlyerInHi]

How about owning a second home in your favorite European city? If the circumstances made it possible, wouldn’t you want to go back and forth at your whim? Renting in it out would be highly inconvenient. Of course, innovations in the sharing economy make it easier to keep housing occupied.

Thinking about it more… how can you be against google cars that roam around picking up and dropping off people without ever parking? wouldn’t that be better use of resources?

[spdrun]

I’d have no interest in owning a second home anywhere as a vacation home. I could see owning a rental home with one apartment left vacant. But a truly empty building has too many things to go wrong with it. Basically all the disadvantages of a timeshare, but more expensive.

Scrooglemobiles? Practically, not a huge difference in energy use to manufacture them. Car lifespan is more limited by mileage driven than by years used. The cars would last fewer years while covering approximately the same mileage before replacement. If anything miles might be marginally increased, since during less busy times, they might need to drive a while seeking their next fare.

But I think that privacy is also important. Till there’s a law requiring full data deletion at the request of a customer, I can’t support “things as a service” replacing an in-house or cash economy. Penalty for failing to delete user data at request should mean 10 lashes with a rotan for each instance. Applied to the CEO’s bare arse. Televised.

[FlyerInHi]

See, if you owned an apartment building, especially in an area you enjoy, you’d like to keep an apartment. You can come take care of business and enjoy.

The point is that you always want to experience new things and improve your standard of living. Constant economic growth is necessary for that. It doesn’t necessarily mean industrial growth and environmental degradation. It could be more travel, entertainment and leisure and other services that improve our lives.

Standard of living in communist Eastern Europe wasn’t so bad. It was bad only in relation to all the consumer choices and growth we enjoyed in the West.

I have a Japanese friend who visits once a year. He loves America because we can afford so much for our income. He says in his funny accent “ahhh… I want to kill our politicians. Everything is so corrupt in Japan. So much protectionism and so many levels of distribution that cause everything to be so expensive.”

[no_such_reality]

[quote]Optimism about the economy by U.S. small-business owners slipped last month to a nearly two-year low as concerns about slowing growth led to projections for fewer sales, according to survey results released Tuesday
.
The monthly optimism index from the National Federation of Independent Business declined by 1.3 points to 93.9.

The figure is well below the index’s 42-year average of 98[/quote]

coming to an election near you

[spdrun]

^^^

Funny that they should mention a gun shop as their example. If a GOP President wins, fear of having guns taken away will evaporate. No more stimulus for the arms industry in the US.

Unless, of course, we start another war. But I’m pretty sure the army doesn’t buy guns from small gun shops…

[FlyerInHi]

Unless we grow at 3.5% or higher, there will always be pockets of sluggishness, where people feel a recession is imminent.

Incidentally, in light of the slowdown in China, the Fed probably made a mistake raising rates. The only reason they did is because they have been telegraphing it for so long.

The only way I see a recession in 2016 is if there’s a sudden crisis in emerging markets that drags us down. In that case, the Fed will reverse course very quickly.

But so far, low energy prices and a strong dollar should keep American consumers spending. Of course the strong Dollar affects our exports but the consequences of that will come later.

I’m pretty confident of my prediction… Let’s check back in early 2017

[no_such_reality]

[quote]Final Results for January 2016
Jan Dec Jan M-M Y-Y
2016 2015 2015 Change Change
Index of Consumer Sentiment 92.0 92.6 98.1 -0.6% -6.2%
Current Economic Conditions 106.4 108.1 109.3 -1.6% -2.7%
Index of Consumer Expectations 82.7 82.7 91.0 +0.0% -9.1%
[/quote]

Tune in next week to see if it gets better

[spdrun]

FIH – re: interest rates, you’re assuming the Fed’s job is actually to help the average American, as opposed to amplifying a boom-bust cycle that helps investors and banks accrue more.

[FlyerInHi]

[quote=spdrun]FIH – re: interest rates, you’re assuming the Fed’s job is actually to help the average American, as opposed to amplifying a boom-bust cycle that helps investors and banks accrue more.[/quote]

I believe that Fed tries to keep the economy humming and growth going.

When there is a crash, everyone loses money. Certainly, a crash does reshuffle the cards in the deck. But it would require a sustained conspiracy to pick in advance the winners who emerge from a crash. Too difficult to do. Plus Ben Bernanke or Janet Yellen seem too professorial to be that corrupt.

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