<p>So, we are back to this; exact source of this quote is kinda hard to verify,</p>
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</p>
<p>NJres,
Thank you for supporting quote. I meant the same when I said that "who is going to vote to refuse dough for doing nothing. Nobody. "</p>
<p>Maybe I can try to bridge the gap (lol) between dstark and Miamidap:
The factors of employability, job options out there, HOW wealth is acquired, HOW it is maintained and grown, HOW is it is taxed or not, the relative ease of INITIAL/EARLY STAGE wealth creation vs wealth ACCUMULATION, the riskiness of LT investment would appear to be significant psychological factors in influencing and motivating the behavior of the citizen of an economy.</p>
<p>The equation has numerous variables, coefficients, with varying degrees of impact, and the result is usually not a simple straight line of predicted behavior.
A given citizen’s spending, saving, investing, job-seeking, self-improvement behaviors in a given economy at a point in time are subject to an equation with variables like: taxation, unemployment support, health care costs, true personal cost of capital, perception of risk to various choices. “Does it make sense for me to do X or Y? what will happen at some point in time N for each of the choices, according to my perception of what will happen?” or “How can I survive?” or “What does a given level of effort or expense have the potential to benefit to me?” or “What ARE my options?”</p>
<p>I think we would all agree that this line seems loaded with leverage at the upper end of income, unless there is a highly progressive tax policy. The interesting question is what the curve looks like today, and how far up the income axis is where the leverage really begins?</p>
<p>performersmom,
Thanks for trying. But attempts at bridge between communism and capitalism have never been successful. They exist on opposing sides, they cannot co-exist. It is one way or another. Well, China might be an example. However, in economic sense, they let capitalism win, since they saw that communism did not work. Capitalism resulted immediately in huge gap in imcomes…however, this also caused the elevated standard of living for whole society. Remove this gap, and everybody will be very poor again (not that they are living well, but much better than they used to). it is guaranteed by History. Everything else is just an attractive talk, fantasy, utopia.</p>
<p>miami,
dstark is not a communist, not even a socialist! Did you know he is a trader? That he fled a communist country to come to the US?
I am not saying he sees everything through the individualistic, capitalistic, libertarian 100% free market lens- I have no idea!
My point is not to talk about him specifically, but to use him as an example- we all come in a variety of unique flavors.
Not many fit the exact version of one of these extremes. </p>
<p>I am hearing him as saying that the US system is not currently functioning as a free enough market for his liking, due to cronyism between high finance and the government- I hate to put words in anyone’s mouth, but I do not see that as pro- communism.</p>
<p>So much for my trying to bridge the gap!!!</p>
<p>"Hmmmm…so 6 people are worth the same as approximately 40 million people…
so…40 million people…maybe they buy 40 million cars…
6 people…ok …they are kind of wealthy…maybe they buy 600 cars… "</p>
<p>-Example</p>
<p>The US does not have a capitalistic economic system not even close. Mexico’s economic system is much closer to being a capitalistic system than the US. Is that where we want to go?</p>
<p>MiamiDAP, what do you think it was an example of?</p>
<p>
</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/story/2011-12-12/homeless-children-increase/51851146/1[/url]”>http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/story/2011-12-12/homeless-children-increase/51851146/1</a></p>
<p>based on this report:</p>
<p>[Report:</a> Americas Youngest Outcasts](<a href=“Report: Americas Youngest Outcasts | PDF | Psychological Trauma | Homelessness”>Report: Americas Youngest Outcasts | PDF | Psychological Trauma | Homelessness)</p>
<p>imo the report is worth reading/for those children the economy isn’t improving</p>
<hr>
<p>I looked at local real estate listings yesterday. In a nearby community two houses that have been on the market at least three years are now priced at $550. At one time they were listed at just over one million. In the early fall they were at $800,000/$850,000. It looks to me like maybe some well-off people are about to get a lot less well-off? However, I doubt they end up homeless. But who knows?</p>
<p>I worked at a Caf</p>
<p>State tax revenue continues to creep higher</p>
<p>NH unemployment dropped from 5.3% to 5.2% in November. MA unemployment dropped from 7.3% to 7.0% in November. The MA report also shows that employment is rising so this is not just people losing their benefits. I haven’t read the detailed NH report yet.</p>
<p>MA just cut their income tax slightly too.</p>
<p>My office is almost half-a-mile from a major mall and its associated strip malls but the traffic has increased to the point that it’s causing tie-ups at the highway interchange nearby. Fortunately drivers aren’t camping out in the middle of the intersection this year - they’re waiting at the light (even though it’s green) so that they don’t block cross traffic.</p>
<p>I haven’t checked our mail room in some time - that’s a good indicator of the shopping levels for our building. Our office has had many fundraising drives for a variety of causes and there have been a considerable number of donations (donations are in a public area).</p>
<p>New unemployment claims were down sharply the last two weeks - I’m not sure if it is people losing their benefits, people giving up in the job market or more people finding work. We’ll have to wait for the next monthly report for more details.</p>
<p>So my feeling is that the economy is very slowly improving and that things are very uneven and that there are huge, huge risks to the fragile recovery.</p>
<p>Another sign of an improving economy: an employee who’s been with us for four years (since he graduated from college) just quit. Why? He finally got a job in his preferred field.</p>
<p>The economy if looked at a whole is slowly improving but if you look at where it is improving and break it down, it is all over the place. Some places are seeing some real growth, others are still leaking. If you look among blacks and hispanics, the trend is still downward (in part because of the loss of public sector and government jobs, that tend to be a strong job engine for the black and hispanic middle class). On the one hand, high end spending here in NYC seems to still be strong (high end apartment sales, high end cars, all selling well) yet there are signs that some of the high end of the city, like investment bankers and traders, will be facing scrooge in the coming year, as firms cut back.</p>
<p>Stores had strong sales Thanskgiving weekend, and then it dropped off, though some things are doing better then others. </p>
<p>The private sector is seeing some job growth, which is a good sign, and layoffs have slowed down, which is also a good sign, but if the government keeps cutting back, as it looks like is going to happen one way or the other, that could be a drag since government workers are part of the economy, and the government itself buys things…plus the european mess is still with us, and that could further kill our economy, since some of the big US banks “Ta Da!” have huge positions in european debt, fuirther stopping them from lending that is killing a lot of businesses. To give you an idea the exposure, the basis price on debt of big banks like B of A on credit default swaps (the instruments that in effect guarantee debt) is a lot higher then on Societe Generale and other big European banks, who likewise have that debt in their portfolios (and from what I understand in the article that had this information, the higher CDS rate was the result of worries over their euro debt). </p>
<p>It all really depends what kind of job you have and where you live. Things are pretty stable were I live, house prices have stayed roughly the same, and you don’t see a lot of foreclosures and people seem to be working; if you are in certain fields and have specialized or well developed skills, like tech, there are more then a few jobs out there and it isn’t hard to change jobs, though on the other hand, if your job skills are ordinary, it can be a lot tougher (for example, a dba with experience in the financial services industry working on transaction/trading systems will generally have an easier time in my area then someone who did work in non financial companies and the like). </p>
<p>One thing I am pretty certain, it doesn’t matter who wins the election, who controls congress, this one is going to be like business cycles once were, where crashes were generally followed by a lot of years of shaky economic activity, and so far I haven’t seen anyone proposing anything that will change that; the tea party with their ‘cut cut cut’ will probably only make things worse in some ways and not improve things all that much, those pushing government spending through stimulous are dreaming, and unless someone can patch together the financial system so banks aren’t only giving glasses of water to those with a cupful of diamons as collateral, it is going to remain shaky. Really want to get scared? Paul Krugman in the NY Times had an article about China, and apparently the bubble economy that cratered the US and Europe could also be going on there, and that isn’t good.</p>
<p>Yes, Jim Chanos, a flashy short-seller, has been preaching of the China bubble for a while now- he has been wrong so far. And I hope he is wrong for all of our sakes!</p>
<p>Yes, while there is some new economic strength, there are many many pockets of weakness. </p>
<p>One of my bros just got fired, and he is going on unemployment insurance, a first for my family (up till now we have all chipped in to help each other, but our funds have dried up.)</p>
<p>H has been getting non-stop calls for money from all sorts of non-profits- all hours of the day, on all his phones. Today I picked up a call- a classmate of H’s (elite college) has been calling at all hours for the last few days. H has not seen this fellow since senior year (over 30 years ago!)- he was calling to ask for money.</p>
<p>Last night H went out with old HS friend (we live thousands of miles from his hometown, so this was a real blast from the past). This guy was telling him that he has lent out $100,000 to HS class mates in the last five years. He has stopped, as he is not getting any of it back.</p>
<p>Eerie, off balance sheet stuff.</p>
<p>Better and worse. Our ONLY transplant hospital is closing its doors for good, which is awful. They tried bankcruptcy before but never were able to regain financial solvency with the many medicaid patients they serve (lot of indigent elderly). Now, the nearest transplant place is in CA, a 5-6 hour plane ride away. They couldn’t find a buyer, despite several attempts and are finally just shutting down & laying off even more empoyees!</p>
<p>Our non-profit participates in United Way (hopefully getting donations). There are regular postings of more and more non-profits going out of business and giving away their furnishings and other items. There is a lot of lease space available in the United Way building as well.</p>
<p>According to our governor, things are getting better and there will be a SURPLUS this year, even though many public employees are on mandatory unpaid furloughs because of budget cutbacks. Our governor’s popularity is at an all-time low.</p>
<p>As far as retail is concerned , particularly with this year’s holiday shopping…I have never been so bombarded with emails from companies I do business with to take advantage of their sales, free shipping and whatever is the gimmick of the day ! It’s getting annoying because :
- I already placed a order and don’t need to be prodded to get more </p>
<p>2) I don’t care to get multiple emails a day</p>
<p>It’s too late…counting down the the day after sales influx on items I just bought</p>
<p>There is an article in today’s L. A. Times. The dollar stores are doing well. 99cents Only, Dollar Tree, Family Dollar, etc. Even people making 100K shop there for essentials. They are a place where people can buy at least something for their kids for Christmas. </p>
<p>I have a friend who works in the cosmetics industry. According to market research, purchases of nail polish are indicative of bad times. Nail polish sales have never been better. I think women buy nail polish as a little luxury when they cannot afford to buy clothes or jewelry.</p>
<p>Service industry employees seem to be doing well. My lawn cutter said he had more clients than ever. We have hired a handyman who told me business is up after being slow for a while. He said other building types started to compete but they are now back building. My wife and daughter say their hairdresser is busier than ever and my neighbors use a cleaning service that now has an overflow schedule.</p>
<p>Things are definitely picking up here in Minnesota. Our statewide unemployment rate just dropped to 5.9%. It’s even lower in neighboring North Dakota (3.7%) and South Dakota (4.3%) which have I believe the lowest and third-lowest unemployment rates, respectively, in the county. And the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis just issued a fairly upbeat economic forecast for the region, predicting a 2.8% economic growth rate for 2012. 58% of Minnesota businesses surveyed by the Fed said they were “optimistic” or “very optimistic” about the economy, a sharp improvement over last year. 78% of Twin Cities businesses reported productivity gains in the last year, and on average businesses said they planned to increase wages 2 to 3% in the coming year, which should get more money circulating in the local economy. There are also signs the housing market has bottomed out and is now beginning a comeback.</p>
<p>All in all, hardly a boom, and lots of people still hurting, but things are starting to move in a positive direction,</p>