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zk
Participant“(Bush) is doing what needs to be done to make the terrorists think twice before hitting us again.”
Bin Laden must be laughing in his rat cave as he hears that people believe such stupidity.
Let’s review. We attacked Afghanistan. So far so good. But then, instead of focusing on Bin Laden and al quaeda, we attacked Iraq. We attacked a country that had nothing to do with 9/11. We attacked a country that had less to do with terrorism than Syria, Iraq or Saudi Arabia. We spent hundreds of billions of dollars (trillions, probably, before it’s all over), thousands of American lives, tens of thousands of innocent Iraqi lives, maimed 10,000 Americans, lost much of our standing in the world and depleted a large part of the reservoir of the American people’s will to fight. And for what? It’s not a rhetorical question. Please tell me, for what?
All we seems to have come of attacking Iraq is a chance for terrorists to kill Americans. They’ve killed thousands of Americans in Iraq in the past few years. They don’t seem to have thought twice about it at all. They’ve come from all around the world to fight “the great infidel” in Iraq. They’re killing more Americans every day. Why go to America to kill Americans when they’re sitting ducks right in your own part of the world?
If we’d been willing to spend all those lives, all that money, all that will to fight, and all that international political capital on fighting the terrorists we should be after, I’d bet we’d have found the rat cave Bin Laden is hiding in by now. But we’re not focused on him. We’re focused on Iraq. Dick Cheney keeps talking about Iraq’s “long-established ties to al quaeda.” But he has absolutely no evidence to back up this claim, and him saying it doesn’t make it true. On September 12, 2001, Bush insisted that a tie be found between Iraq and the previous day’s attacks. Do you think he did this because he somehow knew of a connection, or because he and his PNAC/neocon cronies had been dying to attack Iraq for more than a decade? (Well, they weren’t willing to die for it, but they were willing to send others to their deaths for it.)
“we should have taken Iraq’s oil to pay for the war.” We have been and we are using Iraq’s oil to pay for the war. And the “weaklings” (please explain how bleeding hearts are weaklings, but those who would blindly and weakly follow an obviously ignorant and foolish man towards the destruction of this great country are not) generally had nothing bad to say about it. The total economic impact of the war could be up to 40 times what the administration originally estimated it would cost. Not 40% more, 40 times, or 4,000% more. So the problem isn’t weaklings not wanting to use oil, the problem is that there is not enough oil to pay for the real cost of the war because an arrogant, ignorant, short-sighted administration thought things would go better than they did, despite evidence to the contrary, and didn’t see the probable outcome of the war despite the foresight of wiser men. The outcome was not unforeseeable.
George Bush Sr. on invading Iraq from “A World Transformed,” published well before his son became president:
“We would have been forced to occupy Baghdad and, in effect rule Iraq. The coalition would have instantly collapsed. … Going in and thus unilaterally exceeding the United Nations mandate would have destroyed the precedent of international response to aggression we hoped to establish.
“Had we gone the invasion route, the United States could conceivably still be an occupying power in a bitterly hostile land. It would have been a dramatically different — and perhaps barren — outcome.”
“Incalculable human and political costs” would have been the result.”
Incalculable is right on the money. Ahh, the good old days when a Bush with some sense ruled the land.
ParticipantLots of people are probably saying that they’ll jump in if prices drop 25%. But will they, really? It makes it sound like there’ll be a floor, or a support, for house prices at a certain level. And that is possible. But consider the following:
I’m not saying prices will drop 25%, but if they do, I think lots of people will say, “homeowners are getting hammered. Prices have dropped 25% in 3 years. Those bubble believers were right all along. If I buy a house now, I’ll lose money. I’ll wait until they stop dropping.” I think fewer people will say, “prices have dropped enough and I’m confident that they’ll stop going down and start going up.” Fear and greed seem to play a more important part in San Diego’s real estate cycles than anything else, and if prices drop 25% in 3 years or so, fear will approach panic, and there will be very, very few buyers.
ParticipantRamona is a good place for a lot of reasons, but it won’t work due to terrain issues. There’s not enough room between Ramona and the mountains for an approach.
There’s a lot of places that are good for a lot of reasons but most of them have one or more insurmountable obstacles. The military sites (Miramar and Pendelton and, to a lesser extent, North Island) are the only places where an airport would actually fit and not have some huge obstacle or another. Except, of course, the fact that the military won’t give them up. Which is why the airport commission is in such a tough position.
ParticipantActually, it will be a recomendation asking the full board to put forth a ballot measure asking the voters to ask the SD government to ask Congress and the military to make Miramar available.
The answers to those first three might or might not be yesses, but the last one will probably be a no.
Participant“San Diego County government officials (shall) make every effort to persuade Congress and the military to make available (Miramar.)”
And therein lies the rub. That’s the part that’s very unlikely to happen.
ParticipantIt must be easier to get credit. I remember when I was 23 (it was 1984). I was making 31k a year and had no debt. I’d never been late on rent, utilities, or anything else. But I also had no credit history. I wanted to buy a stereo, and I wanted to borrow, if I remember correctly, $350. The store (one of the major audio/visual chains) wouldn’t give me the credit because I had no history.
Anyway, to add one more “what today’s middle-aged people did in their 20’s” story:
I’ve had the same job for 23 years. A white-collar salary. I got married at 35, and didn’t have a nickel saved at that time, despite the decade-plus of having a good job. On the other hand, the only debts I’d had were for a VCR (they were expensive in the ’80s – and yes, someone eventually gave me credit), a used car, and a couple houses. The second house I bought was in 1989, which (when I sold it because I was moving) wiped out the profit I’d made on my first house. So the saving was minimal (ok, non-existent), but the borrowing was minimal also (I put down 20% on the first house and 30% on the second house, both fixed-rate 30-year loans), which seems to be a contrast to “kids these days.”
To tie this in further with the RE situation, I’ve got more in the bank now (from selling a house) than I possily could have saved over the past 23 years unless I’d been a complete fanatic about it, sacrificed many things over the years, and made good returns on all investments. And I wonder how many people over the past few years in San Diego have said to themselves, “I can sacrifice and save and hope my investments do well, or I can buy the biggest house I can afford (or can’t afford but can get a loan for) and make even more money and live in a nice house to boot. Prices will keep going up, so there’s no risk. There’s no downside!” How much of the demand and the willingness to pay any price came from that type of attitude? And how much will the reversal of that attitude affect the market? I think there’s a good chance that that attitude change will add up to more price declines than any fundamental economic situation.
Participant“if they build the airport near base, then S.R. won’t be a good place anymore.”
That may or may not be true, but as far as airplane noise goes, there would be very little, even in the southernmost parts. From the northern parts of Scripps Ranch, and probably from the middle parts, you wouldn’t hear them at all.
As far as the other effects, such as traffic and congestion, that may be a different story, but I don’t know. It doesn’t seem to me like traffic around Lindbergh is exacerbated too much by Lindbergh being there. And, from what I hear, there would be freeway expansion projects if they put an airport there. That right there would worry more than anything else. Freeway expansion takes a long time and is a real hassle.
All that said, again, chances are very slim of an airport being put there.
ParticipantI’m familiar with some of the (unpublicized) opinions of some members of the committee, and they seriously doubt that the Miramar plan will go through.
I don’t think the voters will be given a chance to decide on Miramar. Whether they’ll be given a chance to decide between some other options, I don’t know.
The area directly east of the current location of the airport at Miramar is an extension of Miramar MCAS; there are no homes there, and there won’t be for the forseeable future. There are homes north and south of the area directly east of Miramar. The closest ones to the flight path of arrivals would be the southernmost parts of Scripps Ranch. But the civilian runways would be south of the military runways, moving their arrival corridor even further south. So the civilian airliners would be further away in addition to being quieter airplanes.
The areas of UTC and La Jolla Shores, and, to a lesser extent, Clairemont Mesa, would be much more affected than the areas east of the airport. These areas listen to extremely loud F-18s on a regular basis. Also, those F-18s overfly those areas at 2,000 feet right now. If Miramar became a joint-use airport, flight paths would be changed, and both the military and civilian airplanes would climb to higher altitudes over these areas, reducing thier noise.
There’d still be more noise there than there is now, but not by as much as most people think.
ParticipantI’m in the aviation business, and I can tell you that the chances of Miramar being used as a joint-use airport are very slim.
Also, civilian airliners make much, much less noise than F-18s. Of course, with joint use you’d have both airliners and fighters. But for most areas, you’d barely notice the jetliners compared to the ruckus that F-18s make.
ParticipantThere’s been a lot of talk in this forum lately about economic fundamentals. They are, of course, important. But, in my opinion, for nominal prices to drop by more than, say, 15% will take more than just problems with economic fundamentals. If fear doesn’t set in, I wouldn’t be surprised to see nominal prices drop by no more than 3-4% per year for 4 or 5 years followed by stagnant prices for a few more years. I think that for a larger correction, there will have to be some fear.
I think that for there to be enough supply (scared homeowners wanting to get out in addition to the people who can’t afford their loan resets) and little enough demand (potential buyers who can afford a house but are afraid to buy a house because they think prices are going to continue downward) for a correction of 30% or more in nominal prices, fear will have to dominate the market.
As I said, I think there will be enough supply and little enough demand for a significant (15%) drop. But for a 30% drop, we’ll need some pretty outrageous supply and demand numbers. Numbers that, in my opinion, only dominant fear can provide.
ParticipantIf they don’t know prices are going down, they’re clueless?
PS, your certainty, while to some admirable, is merely your certainty. It is not a certainty in reality. As I said, plenty of unbiased economists don’t see a serious downturn.
To say that somebody is clueless because they don’t share your certainty is not fair.
ParticipantLostkitty,
You say, “Selling them at these prices is akin to selling a shirt at Nordstrom’s today that you know will be on-sale next week for half-off,” and then imply that it should therefore cause problems for their conscience.
It seems to me that the mistake being made here is the implication that the realtor (or anyone else for that matter) knows what’s going to happen to prices. Nobody knows. Plenty of serious, unbiased economists don’t foresee a serious drop in prices. If a person spends all day on websites devoted to a perceived looming correction, and hears opinions which mostly conform to that idea, then that person isn’t really getting the whole picture. You can find reasonable opinions for both a rise and a fall in the future price of any investment, from oil to gold to stocks to shirts at Nordstrom’s. Are sellers of these investments also lacking ethics?
To imply that every realtor should “know” that prices will go down significantly and that therefore they are morally lacking if they sell real estate is very unfair.
ParticipantI’m not sure mean house price data would be as useful as median. All it takes is a couple $20M estates in LJ to throw the whole thing out of whack.
I’m down with the median price per sq ft idea, though. That seems to make a lot of sense.
ParticipantI’m only guessing, but I think Rich is using per capita income while some others use household income. Of course, as long as each compares only apples to apples and doesn’t mix them, it probably doesn’t matter which one they use.
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