From CNBC:
Home prices rise at a slower pace: S&P Case-Shiller
Home values increased 5.2 percent annually in November, slowing from 5.3 percent in October, according to the widely watched S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller National Home Price Index.
The 10-city composite annual increase also fell to 4.3 percent, down from 4.7 percent in the previous month. The 20-city composite saw a 4.7 percent annual gain, down from 5.0 percent in October.
Home price gains have been slowing since last spring, as higher mortgage interest rates cut sharply into affordability. The gains are slowing the most in large metropolitan markets, where home prices had overheated over the past three years.
…
“The pace of price increases are being dampened by declining sales of existing homes and weaker affordability,” said David M. Blitzer, managing director and chairman of the index committee at S&P Dow Jones Indices in a release.Sales peaked in November 2017 and then began falling as mortgage rates rose. After rising steadily, rates began to drop again in November 2018, following a change in policy at the Federal Reserve. But the rate on the popular 30-year fixed mortgage is still higher today than it was one year ago.
…
“Housing market conditions are mixed while analysts’ comments express concerns that housing is weakening and could affect the broader economy. Current low inventories of homes for sale – about a four-month supply – are supporting home prices. New home construction trends, like sales of existing homes, peaked in late 2017 and are flat to down since then,” added Blitzer.Rising wages and continued growth in employment are all favorable, he added, and with prices moderating and rates currently not rising, the spring market could see a slight boost.
“Slower price growth will help would-be buyers feel like their goal isn’t moving away faster than they can catch up. Against incomes rising at a roughly 3 percent pace, 4 percent home price growth is nearly at just the right pace,” said Danielle Hale, chief economist at Realtor.com.
Housing market balance is perfect. Bankers and consumers acting smarter this cycle. When 4% and 5% home price appreciation stats make headlines, you gotta know things are going right.
From the Star Ledger:
Murphy and top Dems gathered at a diner to champion N.J. minimum wage hike. Then the owner said some things they didn’t like
It was pure Jersey.
New Jersey’s most powerful elected state officials — Gov. Phil Murphy, state Senate President Stephen Sweeney, and state Assembly Speaker Craig Coughlin — slid into a corner booth at a Sayreville diner Tuesday morning to champion a compromise they made on a bill to gradually increase the state’s minimum wage to $15 an hour over the next five years.
One problem: The diner’s owner, Teddy Lutas, said he wasn’t crazy about the plan, that it could cause him to raise prices and even push him out of business. And that made the public event a pretty awkward affair.
So awkward, in fact, that Coughlin and his staff quickly met with Lutas in an attempt to remove the egg from the Democrats’ faces.
I wonder if he spit in their food.
The vast majority of American businesses haven’t boosted hiring or investment as a result of the Republican tax law, according to a survey by the National Association for Business Economics.
Eighty-four percent of businesses said they didn’t accelerate hiring because of the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, which President Donald Trump hailed as “a bill for the middle class and a bill for jobs.” Only 6 percent said they had more hires because of the law and 10 percent said they accelerated investments, according to the survey.
Trump and Republicans lawmakers argued the tax cuts would boost jobs and investment. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said in October 2017 that the tax overhaul would push GDP to a sustained level of 3 percent or higher, leading to “literally millions and millions of jobs.”
Democrats and some nonprofit organizations predicted the tax cuts would not lead to significant job gains and only benefit the wealthy.
The National Association for Business Economics survey appears to show job gains have not been widespread, but concentrated in specific sectors.
Half of the survey’s respondents from companies in the “goods-producing” sector — which includes mining, construction and manufacturing — said they accelerated investments because of the tax cuts. Twenty percent of companies in those industries said they redirected hiring and investment from foreign countries to the United States.
The 2017 law changed the federal tax code to give corporations an incentive to bring money they earned overseas back to the U.S. Previously, the tax penalty was so high that companies often chose to reinvest money overseas to avoid more taxes. It also cut the corporate tax from 35 to 21 percent, generating a corporate windfall that Republicans said companies would reinvest in their workers.
Instead companies put much of the money toward stock buybacks rather than investments. Buybacks hit a record $1 trillion in 2018, a nearly 50 percent increase from the year before.
Pumpkin regarding your last post last night about cancer.
The issue is where you read it, the NY Post. Best explanation is this little bit
https://youtu.be/y4E8rCEHuB0
My bad
https://youtu.be/D9FauQOXN90
The minimum wage increase is a ploy used by the democrats to placate the lesser-informed crowd into believing they’re being cared for by their government. The gesture costs nothing, results in votes for democrats and places the burden on the private sector. The left will throw your a life preserver but will leave the other end untied.
I hate to be so negative. I been through these cycles several times now, and I have also studied a lot. There is no “smarter”. There is only legal, regulatory and institutional restrictions on behavior. The persistent problem is that people never have an equity style stakeholder return on take risk. People are generally playing with effectively a call option only. The volatility play is always on the upside, with downside risk either non-existent, limited, or subsequently written off when borne. Add to the fact that they keep minting new people into these roles (either as professionals, first-time home buyers, or nascent investors) and there is little relevant intellectual capital retained from cycle to cycle.
Those who do not study history are doomed to repeat it.
Yo! says:
January 30, 2019 at 6:22 am
Housing market balance is perfect. Bankers and consumers acting smarter this cycle. When 4% and 5% home price appreciation stats make headlines, you gotta know things are going right.
This thing is fcuking great and Diamond is a g-d.
https://intranet.chicagobooth.edu/pub/coursesearch/CourseDetail?AcademicYear=2017&CourseNumber=35202&ProfessorIds=163784
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“The persistent problem is that people never have an equity style stakeholder return on take risk”
Could older, wiser poster translate this to plain English?
If you buy something for $100,000, then if it gains to $110,000, or drops to $90,000, you bear the risk of each outcome, and everything in between. This ownership stake is an equity style risk return profile.
If you buy a call option at the money, let’s says at $100,000. The option may cost you $1,000, and you benefit if the value increases to $110,000 (for a finite period of time), but if it drops below $100,000, you only lose the $1,000. In this situation, the obvious motivation is to risk far more money, because the entire downside (except $1,000) is completely eliminated.
People behave more responsibly when they OWN something. History has shown that when you offer the effective opportunity to buy call options (through financial opportunity, compensation etc.), people will max out risk as far as you let them. Results to the broader system be damned. The extreme example was 2004-2008.
This crap is happening right now in China and the proceeds are being dumped in Hudson County.
Remember, things aren’t black and white. This effect is an element among many other factors and actors in the market. However, the overall effect is distortion of prices.
Has anybody noticed how CNBC has been pumping the market lately? For a long time this morning they have been showing a big banner:
S&P 500 EXITS CORRECTION
Uhhh, yeah. Too bad the S&P 500 hasn’t “exited” the levels it traded at 13 months ago, December 2017.
I think you have to look at the idea that people have to live somewhere. They all can’t be renters. If everyone decided to rent, the single greatest wealth creator in our country, owning a home, would be destroyed. You would have out of control income inequality, and basically a return to a system based on serfs and lords. The entire economy would be altered for the worst. Don’t underestimate the role of home ownership in our economic system.
Don’t tell me that the legions of renters will invest in the stock market with the money saved from the down payment/mortgage. They will be dead broke in retirement. And even if they had fiscal control, they would drive up the equity market and then crash it, since they don’t have the nerves to play the long game in the market.
“The volatility play is always on the upside, with downside risk either non-existent, limited, or subsequently written off when borne. Add to the fact that they keep minting new people into these roles (either as professionals, first-time home buyers, or nascent investors) and there is little relevant intellectual capital retained from cycle to cycle.”
I am not denying there is real money being made. The key is attempting to understand why, and not just fixate on the outcome. If you understand why, then the money making is shrewd, if you fixate on the outcome, then it is just dumb luck. Dumb luck means you can just as easily be destroyed as gilded.
Jacko’s condo first 2019 Weehawken resale. 37% above 2010 price. Buyer not Chinese.
http://tax1.co.monmouth.nj.us/cgi-bin/m4.cgi?district=0911&l02=091100045__0100001__01C0123M
Speaking of markets that haven’t returned to previous conditions, has anyone noticed that Thomas’ English Muffins haven’t been “fork split” for a very long time? Fork pierced maybe, but definitely not fork split anymore.
The single greatest wealth creator in our country (ESPECIALLY THE USA) is our hard work and ingenuity. case closed
The Great Pumpkin says:
January 30, 2019 at 10:56 am
If everyone decided to rent, the single greatest wealth creator in our country, owning a home, would be destroyed.
Chi – @ 8.59 – are they teaching about regulatory capture?
chicagofinance says:
January 30, 2019 at 10:52 am
Remember, things aren’t black and white. This effect is an element among many other factors and actors in the market. However, the overall effect is distortion of prices.
Yo! says:
January 30, 2019 at 10:58 am
Jacko’s condo first 2019 Weehawken resale. 37% above 2010 price. Buyer not Chinese.
I took that class in 1997, but yes, that was a topic.
Juice Box says:
January 30, 2019 at 11:03 am
Chi – @ 8.59 – are they teaching about regulatory capture?
True, but let’s not discount the reason people worked so hard….their motivation. It was to be able to own your own land/home…..the American dream. As powerful of a motivator as there was in the 19th and 20th centuries. I’m afraid to see the impact of taking this dream away….what will motivate people to work so hard and save for if we look at homeownership as a negative. Are you really going to work hard as hard towards renting? It’s a vicious cycle that could hurt the longterm economics of our country if people no longer believe in homeownership or the American dream.
chicagofinance says:
January 30, 2019 at 11:01 am
The single greatest wealth creator in our country (ESPECIALLY THE USA) is our hard work and ingenuity. case closed
Chicago is getting so cold, so fast, that it’s easy to mistake it for the RE market.
Agreed. Uneducated people, in decades past, accidentally made money on their house. The RE market is not very friendly to uneducated people anymore. Sorry Pumps.
The single greatest wealth creator in our country (ESPECIALLY THE USA) is our hard work and ingenuity. case closed
11:25 spent several winters in the Windy City.
You really don’t know cold until you experience the winds off of Lake MI.
Sam Zell’s apartment company bought Jersey City apartment building for $74 million a few days ago. 131 units, $565,000 per unit. Educated real estate people still buying JC housing.
Demographics will catch the RE market this time around. Retirees downsizing, underemployed millennials without the means to buy these behemoths, and the lack of sheer numbers to support expansion.
11:34 that should tell you he’s bullish on renters.
Renters long….so to speak
Based on the passage below, and if homeownership is no longer a part of the American Dream, what will motivate the future generations to work hard? They can easily fall into a trap of instant gratification that leads to nowhere. Happy with just doing nothing but what the moment calls for…..very dangerous. I don’t think we should underestimate what housing has done for this country’s economy. We are so much wealthier as a nation because of the motivation and work ethic that comes with purchasing a home.
The Great Pumpkin says:
January 30, 2019 at 11:25 am
True, but let’s not discount the reason people worked so hard….their motivation. It was to be able to own your own land/home…..the American dream. As powerful of a motivator as there was in the 19th and 20th centuries. I’m afraid to see the impact of taking this dream away….what will motivate people to work so hard and save for if we look at homeownership as a negative. Are you really going to work hard as hard towards renting? It’s a vicious cycle that could hurt the longterm economics of our country if people no longer believe in homeownership or the American dream.
Saw that Warren has been reading our blog. The real motivation for the wealthy to flee the US isn’t income taxes, its estate taxes. So her proposal has a 40% exit tax on the value of an expatriate’s estate.
Wonder where she got that idea?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reich_Flight_Tax
Do you believe in motivation? Why is it good for the longterm health of our economy if people are able to develop aristocratic dynasties? How is this good? How can you be a capitalist, who claims competition is good, and then allow for families to eliminate their competition through the sheer magnitude of their wealth by buying them out every single time through govt or private business transactions?
Is there really a need to pass down massive fortunes to children? Is that really good for the economy or the individual children, robbing them of their motivation to do something productive with their life besides living off mommy and daddy’s money? A little help is cool, but no need to be giving your child 500 million. That’s disgusting.
Comrade Nom Deplume, Underground Railroad Conductor says:
January 30, 2019 at 11:40 am
Saw that Warren has been reading our blog. The real motivation for the wealthy to flee the US isn’t income taxes, its estate taxes. So her proposal has a 40% exit tax on the value of an expatriate’s estate.
I think what the eloquent fool is trying to say is that the non-fiscally trained homebuyer (probably 98% of them) ignores the downside in purchasing real estate though they always seem to be concerned about the downside risk in stocks.
For example, anyone who is buying a house now is plumb crazy, yet there are as many people buying houses now than back on the 2010-2012 period when the market was at it’s valley. Yet I know of no one who is backing up the truck to invest in the stock market at what it most likely the end of the longest bull run ever.
Or even more simpler. People don’t consider the market cycle of real estate when purchasing. I certainly didn’t in 2004. Will never make that mistake again. Thank the lord I didn’t stretch into it, which was the financial experts advice at the time. Get in now, before you are completely priced out!
Did I translate correctly oh lover of bad 90s pop music?
Millennials are also the most highly educated generation this country has ever witnessed. They are and will make money. They are also the biggest demographic group in our nation’s history.
ExEssex says:
January 30, 2019 at 11:36 am
Demographics will catch the RE market this time around. Retirees downsizing, underemployed millennials without the means to buy these behemoths, and the lack of sheer numbers to support expansion.
Damn it. Not only was I wrong, but I didn’t refresh. It’s noon already? ouch.
Expat, you are correct about the English muffin. What they do now is a total waste of time. It actually makes slicing them open smoothly even more difficult than had they not messed around with it. And you certainly can no longer open them up without a knife. Perhaps having a non smooth surface makes them toast better? Though I’m guessing the decision was more likely based on simplifying (and probably speeding) the manufacturing line.
11:40 perhaps the whole economic model needs a rethink.
Certainly not 20th-century thinking on inequality, which was ruled by a spurious economic law of motion. And that law’s accidental creator, Simon Kuznets, would be the first to debunk the political narrative that has been built on the back of it, used to justify trickle-down economics and austerity politics ever since.
In 1955, Kuznets gathered together patchy historical data on income distribution in the US, UK and Germany, and he thought he saw a pattern: that as economies grew, income inequality rose at first and then fell. Plotted on the page, it looked like an upside-down U.
The Kuznets Curve, which suggests that as countries get richer, inequality will rise before it eventually falls.
Kuznets was the first to acknowledge that this finding went against his intuition: given the dynamics of capital accumulation, he expected the rich to get richer, not the poor to catch up. So he proffered a tentative explanation based on the process of rural-to-urban migration – a hypothesis for which he later admitted he had “no evidence whatsoever”. He even openly acknowledged that his conclusion was based on “5 per cent empirical information and 95 per cent speculation, some of it possibly tainted by wishful thinking’, later adding that it should not be used for making “unwarranted dogmatic generalisations.”
So much for Kuznets’ caveats. The underlying message – that rising inequality is an inevitable stage on the journey towards economic success for all – was too good a story to doubt and the Kuznets Curve was taught to every student for at least the next 50 years. That matters because it wordlessly whispers a powerful message: if you want progress, inequality is inevitable. It’s got to get worse before it can get better and growth will (eventually) make it better.
So what new paradigm can replace this outdated myth and its accompanying intellectual graffiti? An old picture is best dislodged by a new one, so let’s start with a 21st-century image fit for tackling inequality: a network of flows.
Cont’d
To transform today’s divisive economies, we need to create economies that are distributive by design – ones that share value far more equitably amongst all those who help to generate it. And thanks to the emergence of network technologies – particularly in digital communications and renewable energy generation – we have a far greater chance of making this happen than any generation before us.
As we do so, we should also deepen the ambition of the redistribution agenda. In the 20th century, policies promoting redistribution were largely focused on redistributing income – by raising taxes, increasing transfers, and implementing minimum wages – along with investing in key public services such as health and education. All are essential, but they still don’t get to the root of economic inequalities because they focus on income, not the sources of wealth that generate it.
Instead of focusing foremost on income, 21st-century economists will seek to redistribute the sources of wealth too – especially the wealth that lies in controlling land and resources, in controlling money creation, and in owning enterprise, technology and knowledge. And instead of turning solely to the market and state for solutions, they will harness the power of the commons to make it happen. Here are some questions that 21st century economists have already taken on to help create an economy that is distributive by design:
Land and resources: how can the value of Earth’s natural commonwealth be more equitably distributed: through land reform, land-value taxes, or by reclaiming land as a commons? And how could understanding our planet’s atmosphere and oceans as global commons far better distribute the global returns to their sustainable use?
Money creation: why endow commercial banks with the right to create money as interest-based debt, and leave them to reap the rents that flow from it? Money could alternatively be created by the state, or indeed by communities as complementary currencies: it’s time to create a monetary ecosystem that can fulfill this distributive potential.
Enterprise: what business design models – such as cooperatives and employee-owed companies – can best ensure that committed workers, not fickle shareholders, reap a far greater share of the value that they help to generate?
Knowledge: how can the potential of the creative commons be unleashed internationally, through free open-source hardware and software, and the rise of creative commons licensing?
Technology: who will own the robots, and why should it be that way? Given that much basic research underlying automation and digitization has been publicly funded, should a share of the rewards not return to the public purse?
By taking on such questions of distributive design, we’ll give ourselves a far greater chance of tackling inequality and of thriving in the Doughnut’s safe and just space this century. And that is nothing less than our generational challenge.
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We need to outlaw private ownership of companies and nationalize everything.
Politicians know more anyway, we’d be more productive that way.
Naw, but the gilded age we’re living in is stupid and wasteful…
We need to outlaw private ownership of companies and nationalize everything.
It was attempted in “Atlas Shrugged.”
https://www.history.com/news/second-gilded-age-income-inequality
Saw that Warren has been reading our blog. The real motivation for the wealthy to flee the US isn’t income taxes, its estate taxes. So her proposal has a 40% exit tax on the value of an expatriate’s estate.
Wonder where she got that idea?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reich_Flight_Tax
Now yous can’t leave
Moneybags lord over politics
Perhaps more disturbing than all the conspicuous consumption—a term coined in the late Gilded Age by sociologist Thorstein Veblen—was the public’s growing awareness that with great wealth came the power to bend democracy to their will. Industrialists used their influence to lobby lawmakers to adopt policies favorable to big business and hostile to organized labor. One of the most famous political cartoons of the era, “The Bosses of the Senate,” lampooned the trend. Appearing in Puck magazine in 1889, it showed U.S. senators being lorded over and intimidated by giant industrial monopolists shaped like moneybags. They’ve entered the Senate gallery through the door labeled Entrance for Monopolists, while in the background a People’s Entrance is boarded shut. The message is clear: Big business had hijacked American democracy, shutting out and defying the will of the people. Stories abounded of big business controlling the political process at both the state and federal level. In Pennsylvania, for example, the Pennsylvania Railroad enjoyed so much power and influence in the 1870s and ’80s that it had its own office in the state Capitol building. Its chief lobbyist was known as “the 51st Senator.”
Forgot the link to the Chaz Palminteri quote
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PfOC-Z6wG8w
it’s working for Venezuela…..oh, nevermind
About 20 tons of gold from Venezuela’s central bank was ready to be hauled away Tuesday on a Russian airline’s Boeing 777 that landed in Caracas a day earlier, a Venezuelan lawmaker wrote on Twitter.
The destination of the $840 million in gold bars was unknown, but a source told Bloomberg News that it represented about 20 percent of the country’s holding of the metal. The gold was set aside for loading, the report said.
The news outlet, which first reported on the tweet, identified the lawmaker as Jose Guerra. The lawmaker did not provide evidence for his claim but is identified in the report as a former economist at the country’s central bank with close ties to workers still there.
Noticias Venezuela, a news outlet in the country, posted a photo of what it identified as a Nordwind Airlines plane from Moscow that made the trip with only a crew aboard.
I like how they keep claiming all the Nordic countries are social.ist while they reply back “no we aren’t”
Can someone define ‘educated’ to me? I see this term used over and over to argue red voter vs. blue, home buyer vs. renter, poor vs. wealthy and city demographics vs. rural Midwest/southern. If it is simply, hs degree vs. college degree then it has to be a failing argument point. The idiots are now the “educated'” taking on sick debt, getting less professor time in favor of cheaper online courses. After that, they move to expensive cities for higher pay where globalization and cheap H1 talent will cap career hopes/wages for 95% of them. Who is laughing? The hs degree holder with solid manufacturing shop skill in smaller town that saw too many people get ‘educated’ and move on. They are living better quality of life than 100k earner in NYC.
I would think that Venezuela is a perfect example of corruption. Any economic system can work, and each has its own pros and cons. I believe the level of corruption dictates how effective the economic system is. Meaning, the success of the economic system is based more on the level of corruption as opposed to the principles of the said economic system.
I can give an example of capitalism failing due to corruption, and I can give examples of social!sm failing due to corruption.
1:19 bingo
At the end of the day, I’m a capitalist. I believe in hard work and competition. It’s the foundation for long-term success.
1:18 i’m A state school educated fool who has personally beat out ivy leaguers for job spots in highly competitive markets. Feels good when my cheap-ass diploma pays off. The only reason i’m Stuck on the coasts is the spouse, she also regularly competes with blue chip degree holders too. It’s always interesting. FWIW the whole argument in terms of blue vs red is just another piece of the culture wars. If you can make a living in flyover country (big if for many) then stay and reap the rewards. Thing is if you grew up there chances are you are bored as hell there….
Yo! says:
January 30, 2019 at 11:34 am
Sam Zell’s apartment company bought Jersey City apartment building for $74 million a few days ago. 131 units, $565,000 per unit. Educated real estate people still buying JC housing.
from wiki
In January 2008, Zell bought a controlling share in the Tribune Company, owner of the Chicago Tribune, among other newspapers. His decision to put Randy Michaels in charge was one of several moves that were sharply criticized by the employees. Besides creating a hostile workplace[citation needed], Michaels laid off several employees while giving large bonuses to the executives. Less than a year after Zell bought the company, it tipped into bankruptcy, listing $7.6 billion in assets against a debt of $13 billion, making it the largest bankruptcy in the history of the American media industry. More than 4,200 people have lost jobs since the purchase, while resources for the Tribune newspapers and television stations have been slashed.”[24]
Libturd…look me up in Costa Rica says:
January 30, 2019 at 11:54 am
Did I translate correctly oh lover of bad 90s pop music?
https://youtu.be/p3yExMFtduE?t=30
All I wrote was that I studied a lot……. where this somehow devolves into “only mouth breathers buy real estate…” is everyone else’s insecurity……. I’m just trying to point out that my opinion is formed over time and considered. I don’t just wiki some sh!t and puke rhetoric.
$840m of gold leaving Venezuela for Russia? Sounds like the retirement plan for Maduro and friends. Given how much they have already cost Venezuela, a billion to buy them out and send them out of the country would be a great bargain. But they must have already swindled billions out of the country already.
I wonder if the country can recover from the ideas and systems introduced by Chavez though. I hear there are a lot of Venezuelans in exile that might return if the economy were freed up to function.
I need info on this… blue, hear anything?
“It doesn’t seem possible. But they say it’s true. A small team of Israeli scientists is telling the world they will have the first “complete cure” for cancer within a year, The Jerusalem Post reported on Monday. And not only that, but they claim it will be brief, cheap and effective and will have no or minimal side-effects.”
https://www.forbes.com/sites/robinseatonjefferson/2019/01/29/israeli-scientists-say-they-will-have-a-complete-cure-for-cancer-within-a-year/#2fe992a23621
Agreed.
This is the same danger capitalists that develop wealth to the tune of billions present in a capitalist system. They hi-jack the system and prevent any competition from taking their position. Amazon CEO pretty much did that by making every city compete over how much money the local taxpayers will hand over. If I start a business, do I receive the same treatment? How is this any different than what is happening in Venezuela? Yes, it’s on a smaller scale, but what is to prevent it from reaching that magnitude over time?
“Given how much they have already cost Venezuela, a billion to buy them out and send them out of the country would be a great bargain”
Think we’ll see the Vix ever go below 15 again?
No rate hike….
And buy apple when there is blood in the streets. Still a fabulous buy opportunity.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-01-30/apple-shares-rally-as-company-outlines-life-beyond-the-iphone?srnd=premium
Noticias Venezuela, a news outlet in the country, posted a photo of what it identified as a Nordwind Airlines plane from Moscow that made the trip with only a crew aboard.
What kind of idiot flight crew actually flies a plane full of a billion dollars in gold to where it’s supposed to go?
Was thinking the same thing. With that kind of a payload. You could easily pay for all kinds of scenarios to make the heist occur. Gold is real heavy though. A billion would weigh around 10 tons. You would have to come up with a pretty clever arrangement.
Terrible grammar from the comment on this article, but the guy gets it. Keep shipping jobs/automation= lower tax revenue and more people dependent on govt for assistance to survive. So keep hoping you can lower taxes while eliminating jobs to save on cost.
“Labor costs is a businesses largest expense so it that is usually the best place to cut. The only drawback is when they cut labor too much who will buy their products and services? I am not surprised our government hasn’t figured that our yet. Lower wages and fewer jobs will lower tax revenues and increase people getting some kind of government assistance. Then who will pay for that government assistance? Maybe our government will pass that off until later like they did with social security.”
“The midwestern counties hit hardest by previous waves of job-market turbulence will again bear the brunt of the next round of automation-fueled disruptions.
Why it matters: As middle- and low-wage jobs in the American heartland disintegrate further, the national anger and polarization fueled by an urban–rural divide will only deepen.”
https://www.axios.com/automation-heartland-rural-america-manufacturing-jobs-4b39b557-95ed-4ab8-b5a4-6d96f6db0829.html
“It’s like the Soviet state replacing all the capitalist bosses with “state” bosses.
We’ve changed who the boss is and who they report to, but not the dichotomy between people. It still ends in a concentration of “power” be it wealth or resources.”
Unreal…..sure we are due for a recession? No idea why everyone acted like the sky was falling last 4th quarter of 2018. I promise you that they will pull the same bs at the end of this year. Don’t fall for it, you have been warned. Seen this talk happen every 4th quarter over the last 6 years. Different excuses every time, like trump winning election will crash the market, but the truth is, they make these calls because of the length of the bull market. Such bs!
“Facebook Reports Record Quarterly Profit
Facebook posted record quarterly profit, showing the resilience of the social-media giant’s business even as it battled through a string of crises.”
“The persistent problem is that people never have an equity style stakeholder return on take risk. Could older, wiser poster translate this to plain English?”
Not sure about older and wiser but…
The structure of the current real estate market is heads I win/tails you lose in favor of the buyer.
If values go up on no/low downpayment purchases the buyer makes out like a bandit (especially on an ROE basis).
If the SHTF and home values tank there are no real financial repercussion to the buyer. He walks away generally unscathed, without even considering that he may be significantly up when factoring in living for free (period of foreclosure where no mortgage payments are made).
There is no vested interest for the buyer in the event the house purchase fails financially.
No Pumpkin, Venezuelan tyranny is nothing like Amazon. It’s pretty much the opposite. Market development by a company making life better via more variety at lower costs and convenience. Versus nationalizations, price controls, death squads, eradication of markets, shortages, hyperinflation, and widespread looting by the government.
Perspective, it’s a powerful thing. Made life better for some, while ruining the lives of others. Always pros and cons.
It’s like when the Europeans tried to push their way of life (Puritan based value system) on the Native American populations. They were happy with their simple life. They had no need for working hard for some market based economy. The Europeans couldn’t understand their way of life, yet at the same time, never realized that the native Americans felt the same way towards the European way of life. Perspective is a powerful thing.
“Market development by a company making life better via more variety at lower costs and convenience.”