What Things Will Disappear During the (Potentially) Upcoming Crash?

[admin]

This is premature, because the jury is still WAY out on whether a recession/depression will happen (but I’ve placed my bet that it will). Per my read of the data, the silliness that we see today — ridiculous home prices, fancy cars everywhere — began in the early ’80s, when savings rates started going down and consumption rates started going up. If we go into a protracted economic slowdown, what things that we see today will disappear tomorrow?

To start things, I think we’ll see the following disappear:

Pet cemeteries and mobile pet grooming services
Widespread ownership of Hummer H2s (H1s are already gone)
Steep annual increases in college tuition

[sdcellar]

I’m hoping colored stamped concrete.

but I’m guessing you’re looking for things outside of the housing sector. Okay, how about all manner and form of Cadillac (spare maybe a few antique convertibles)?

[PerryChase]

What’s wrong with colored stamped concrete. Would you rather have the plain grey concrete?

People will learn how to cook again. They’ll stay home and have healthy meals and loose weight. That would be a positive result of the crash.

[sdcellar]

I actually like colored concrete, but there are a lot of bad stamp jobs out there (in my opinion).

On the cooking thing, then I guess you’re saying this would be the end of Rubios since they’ve been on the downward slide anyway (and *think* they’re now competing with sitdown Mexican restaurants to boot). So sad…

[PerryChase]

When I think of housing construction today, I’m always reminded of the Romans at the height of their Empire. Shoddy contruction covered with faux painting or marble fascia. The Hollywood Regency style so prevalent everywhere in California is like some nightmarish imitation of the Roman style.

No more weird mix of Spanish, Roman, French design.
I’m hoping for a return of the truly American modern architecture and style. Resolution: 4 Architecture

[PerryChase]

Death to the overstuffed chair.
[img_assist|nid=2192|title=result of real estate excess|desc=|link=node|align=left|width=466|height=350]

[lindismith]

Love those chairs! not.

Perry, we have the same tastes. Do you get Dwell magazine?

I’m hoping we have an end to Britney, Paris, and Lindsay. “They just need to go away.” (Ok I stole that from Chris Cantore on 91x this morning.)

[powayseller]

After the credit bubble bursts, and folks have to live off their paychecks, instead off the money created by the Fed printing presses and recycled from overseas, could we see a change in lifestyle?

Frivolous services will disappear
* nail salons
* half the coffee shops (can’t people pour a pot of water into a carafe – is that so difficult?)
* hiring gardeners or cleaning people because the man and woman of the house are too lazy; remember when it was the neighborhood teenager who mowed the lawn?
* car washes at every 1/2 mile (we used to always wash our own cars back in the days)

Work
* teenagers will work again, instead of indulging in activities, and enrichment and volunteer work just to look good on a resume
* maybe Americans will be sick and tired of the free trade which is causing our living standard to go down while “theirs” goes up; maybe “made in America” will be more important than getting something cheaper

The “big” things will be a turn-off. Think Suburbans, big houses, big ovens, big chairs like you pictured above, big grates on big Viking ranges (who really needs 6 burners?).

During the adjustment, look for more suicide, drug abuse, crime.

[(former)FormerSanDiegan]

Housing blogs will also be gone.

Two reasons:

1. The housing bubble will have already deflated, and the topic will be boring and stale.

2. A common belief will arise that once-in-a-lifetime changes in economic and demographic conditions will result in the conclusion that owning real estate is a bad idea once-and-for all.

[barnaby33]

Bud/Miller/Coors will sell alot more beer. Sad to say but its probably true.

People will NOT cook at home more, at least not any healthier.

Sales of BMW and Mercedes entry level cars will go way down, but the 7-series/S-class will only dip.

Teenagers will not work harder, they will give up more hope (most of them anyway.) Where that idea came from I have no clue. As a corollary though, sales of the PS3 will probably not save Sony.

Hummers & granite countertops will be sooooo pre-bubble pop.

Debt will be the new fat, so JG I recommend a startup for financial lap bands!

People will in general get on with their lives much poorer and look for the next big thing, say healthcare services!

Josh

[sdrealtor]

Joe’s Sewing Machine Repairs, Mortgage Loans and Real Estate operations in every strip mall around SD. They are already vanishing on a daily basis.

[poorgradstudent]

Some interesting ideas here, some I agree with, some I partially agree and would love to see, and others I would be surprised to see.

People will cut back on “luxuries” and continue buying “necessities”. Of course, my necessity may not be the same as yours.

A lot of people view their $4 cup of coffee as a necessity, to the point of rearranging other spending to keep getting it. A lot of women view nail services as essential, although there could be a swing towards do it yourself. The nail industry is already pretty cheap, which could help it (relatively cheap) or hurt it (doesn’t have much leeway to price adjust downward)

Teenagers not working in California is a cultural thing that I don’t see changing. For one thing, teenage employment is generally highest in good times, and lowest in weak job markets. Buisinesses would generally rather hire young adults over teenagers. In a weaker job market wages are lower, giving teens less incentive to work rather than study, play sports, or video games.

I totally agree with an increase in beer consumption, especially cheap beer. I should buy some BUD stock soon…

I think we’ll see a lot less “junk” purchased… fad items, novelties, expensive gifts that people may want but not really need. People will keep buying flat screen televisions as the price of the technology keeps falling.

People that get laid off will dine out a lot less. People that keep their jobs probably won’t change much.

[mixxalot]

Cooking is best for health and pocketbook.

Given that most restaurants employ a lot of legal/illegal mexicans to cook food in grease for overpriced low quality, and tha I actually enjoy fresh organic food and need to cut costs, I have been cooking meals 99% of the time.

Example:

A nice 4 egg breakfast omelet and bagel with latte can run between $8-15 in a breakfast place.

Cost to make a fresh omelet with good latte home made:

$2 so a savings of at least 6 bucks a day!

Not to mention it takes me a whole 3 minutes to cook the omelet and make the latte in my espresso machine. Less time than waiting half hour in line at local Starbucks!

I need to save for living til the next job comes along and also for future home when prices actually come down to earth here in sandy eggo.

[BikeRider]

I liked Dennis Miller’s comment regarding gas guzzling SUVs. He said that America won’t do anything about energy efficient cars until oil is gone, so he’s driving a gas guzzler to speed up the process.

Hard to say what might change…
1. You won’t see 52″ flat screen plasma TV’s being bought.
2. People won’t have the money to waste on cell phones.
3. Won’t be buying cable TV.
4. Won’t eat out so much.

The list could go on and on, depending on how bad it got. Think about it really, Americans buy so much crap that they could live without. Somebody thinks up something, a marketing department thinks up a way to may people feel they need it and there you go…. everyone is walking around with a cellphone that takes pictures. You could take the picture with a standard digital camera, then send it over for no extra charge than what you pay for internet, but no, we have to have everything right now. So, let’s pay extra to send some stupid picture to someone that would rather not be bothered using our cellphone. What did Jay Leno say about the cellphone, Ipod, picture phone thingy…. can you say car accident?

I was listening to Dave Ramsey last night driving home. He was remarking on itunes sales. Some woman had written into somewhere that she called off a wedding when she found out that her finance had 40K in credit card debt and that the debt was from downloading itunes,buying DVDs and CDs. There was 8K worth of itunes and this guy had a 45K a year salary. Can you say stupid?

[lindismith]

Yeah, the consumerism here is completely out of control. I have friends with credit card debt up to their eyeballs. Literally, they make close to six figures, and cannot go on a vacation, because they have no extra money. And they seem unable to stop spending. They have to have everything they see. I have one friend that has to buy something everyday. When I asked her if it was possible not to purchase something, she assured me it was, but honestly, I think she’s addicted to shopping. It’s her daily fix of feel-good. What a drug! What kind of life is that? It’s not really living in my book. Just the time spent finding the parking to do that much shopping puts me off. Never mind the complete waste of packaging, etc. I could on and on. It’s my pet peeve. As for the eating out… don’t get me started.

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