Gloom, Doom, or Boom? Finance and Economics

[Colonel Sun]

[Caskhades]

1. Labor costs are not the only costs firms incur. How much can you trust business partners to deliver on time? How much can you trust co-investors not to defect and run away with your business plan? How easily are contracts enforced if and when breaches occur? What is the quality of relevant infrastructure? Where is the client base located and how vital is frequent and easy contact with them to the business? How about taxes and red tape? How about political stability and the likelihood of government seizing the business (like in Russia and Venezuela)?

2. Workers have strong preferences about where they live. Highly skilled workers like to live in clean, fun, safe and hip places, and especially like large homes to raise kids and park expensive cars. Many ventures are started by people in universities and recruit from universities. There's a reason why places like Cambridge, Pasadena, Palo Alto, Ann Arbor and others are prospering even when their home states are suffering.

3. My work has taken me to 4 continents, and as a general rule Americans are among the most reliable, well-trained and hard-working people on the planet. There is too much paperwork, yes, and too many powerpoints and pointless meetings, and too much touchy-feeling "work environment" crap (nothing quite like mandatory "fun-days").

4. The US govt is spending 1.5 trillion more money than it has, to prop up consumption that the public would not afford otherwise. This suggests a medium-term readjustment of about -10% in living standards. That would not be the end of the world. Have you seen how many middle class Americans, after 2 years of "horrible recession" have the newest cars, vacation homes and boats by this or that lake? There's ample room in the middle class for belt tightening. It's the lower class that's fucked, as always.

5. Spending >$100K on four-year degrees in Political Science, English Lit, Psych or even Arts is a luxury American parents like to purchase for their kids. Cohorts of unemployed older siblings will eventually convince young Timmy and Betty to think twice before taking those six classes in Drama instead of Calculus.

[AzariLoveIran]

[Colonel Sun]

[Colonel Sun]

[Alexis]

[YMix]

[Colonel Sun]

[AzariLoveIran]

[Colonel Sun]

Looks like the Aussies will, one day, experience the Mother of all Real Estate Blowouts.

[noddy]

aussies have been in real estate nightmare land for the last 10 years, ownership has slipped out of the reach of many careers now, you need to be in mining or government to pay for a suburban house without double fulltime incomes.

the sooner it crashes the better, and i say that as someone who is paying off a house and will end up "under water" when it does crash - my cynical nature and belief it was all a pyramid scheme made me buy a house in the cheapest nastiest "shallowest" water I could get, so im pre-prepared to watch the last 10 years work evaporate.

im the only one in my environment that thinks like this, im quite scared for the rest of em.

[AzariLoveIran]

[noddy]

australia isnt switzerland and the house prices are artificially manipulated by the well to do people that own lots of houses - we have a land shortage in country that is 99.99% empty. Land needs to be "released" by government and they release just a wee bit less than the market needs so they get richer.

the current proposed solution is to tax home ownership more heavily so those that buy houses cant afford to buy more than one.

twitch & drool.

personally, ive been tossing around the idea i can somehow sue the bstards reponsible via the conflict of interest laws, no other industry is allowed such blatant marker manipluation by the politicians, but alas, its not just them, its the baby boomers and their absurd religion of housing always going up in price.

[Colonel Sun]

[Colonel Sun]

[Colonel Sun]

[Mr. Perfect]

[Colonel Sun]

[Demon of Undoing]

[Azrael]

[monster_gardener]

[Endovelico]

[Endovelico]

[Azrael]

[noddy]