A pitch to the board....

[ScribePharisee]

I'm going to set aside the partisan bickering, bed-wetting, pissing matches that miss the bed and whatever you want to call the non-productive **** that goes on here and first, reference you to the "We are Not Alone" thread on the journalism topics only page. A truly excellent link in that thread refers to a Harper's Magazine article that prophesied this economic collapse back in the spring of last year.

I'll also give this link to a WSJ article from 2005:

http://www.opinionjournal.com/columnists/pnoonan/?id=110007460

I've long thought that we were being sold a bill of goods; from a wealthy lady who got that way through corrupt business dealings telling me the economy would never crash and marveling that she couldn't spend the interest on her retirement money fast enough to a friend who went from a trailer house to a $400,000 home by partnering in the sub prime mortgage business. What comes up comes down eventually.

These brilliant people who just recently discovered that we've been in a recession for nearly a year are no better than Cavuto's coffee klatch on FoxSaturday, chirping about new stocks to invest like they were playing Monopoly over a Starbucks. It's nuts how we've been had and as the latter link says, the people we depend on to lead have not.

We're in trouble, beyond any political ideology. Many of you have kids or young adult kids. Some of you are young adults trying to get your foot in the door of a promising career that right now lacks it. I'm scared for you. I'm scared for me. I'm scared for those who depend on our love and support.

I know I irritate the **** out of some of you and I can attest that I feel likewise. But as I sit here, facing a case of insomnia, I really want to reach out for some hands in being pro-active in support for what's good, what's right and fight for what is common, our sense of survival. To confess: I've felt an overwhelming sense since 9/11 that the world had turned a page from which it won't return in our lifetimes and now know in the depths of my soul that the page is not limited to the fingers of one George W. Bush. It's more than just politics; maybe if you can't see that in my rambling, read these links.

And if you can do anything here as I seek to do the same, let's try to be beacons. Our world needs it. How we get there at this point is up for grabs, but if many of those here are master communicators (and some of us who would like to be), then who better to begin to portray this in both word and action? I want to start seeing the sun between the dark clouds that hover over us, and I hope you'll take this seriously enough to want the same rather than kill the messenger.

 

[FileNotFound]

Scribe's a lot more right than wrong here.

 

[Magic In The Night]

Scribe,

This attitude started way before 9/11. I'll posit that it really started with the whole Reagan-era I got mine, greed is good thinking. It became all about what VCR, flat-screen TV, personal computer, new electronic gadget you could get before someone else you knew did. There wasn't much credit given for being honest, helping others, volunteering, etc. It was all about who has the biggest bank account. That's how people were measured. Maybe it was a reaction to all that free-wheeling, devil-may-care '60s-era stuff. I believe 9/11 could have changed things if our leadership had led us there or people had just decided on their own to be better. But one thing I'll say about the Obama era and dealing with financial hard times, is I see people changing to help their neighbors. I see it a lot here in Michigan, where we've basically been in a depression since 2000. One of my coworkers went to the inauguration last week and she said it was amazing the atmosphere of pure joy and love and everyone just talking and meeting each other. She said one guy was handing out those stickers that say Hi, My Name is and everyone was putting them on and introducing themselves. I think there's a lot of hope that America can become our best selves and care about each other more. I think we should at least resolve to try.

 

[cranberry]

I blame Alex Keaton.

 

[Baron Scicluna]

I'll admit, that I'm concerned that the U.S. has seen its peak years as a country (more or less from the end of WWII to 2001). Between the fear of terrorist attacks, to the country's finances going down the drain, to our jobs all being sent overseas because it's 'the global economy', I'm worried that my kids are going to be living in a country much worse off than the one that I've lived in.

 

[ScribePharisee]

I notice that in the overwhelming number of people who have posted on this thread are none of the usual pissers. Anything aimed at productivity and positive answers? That doesn't surprise me one bit.

 

[sportschick]

If you insist on acting like a twit most of the time, don't ***** about not being taken seriously when you act normal.

 

[ScribePharisee]

If being defined as a twit is disagreeing with your liberal buddies, then call me whatever you want. But don't be self-righteous. No one around here is better than anybody else.

 

[ScribePharisee]

I notice that in the overwhelming number of people who have posted on this thread are none of the usual pissers. Anything aimed at productivity and positive answers? That doesn't surprise me one bit.

That's productive too.

 

[MartinEnigmatica]

Scribe, I think some of why this didn't get many responses was because it's pretty nonspecific. Take a look at what you wrote:

But as I sit here, facing a case of insomnia, I really want to reach out for some hands in being pro-active in support for what's good, what's right and fight for what is common, our sense of survival.

I don't necessarily disagree with you. I know we're in trouble, I know the people who have talked about the financial mess over the last 1.5 years have been wrong, idiotic, shortsighted or dumb. It is quite clearly a scary time. But what is there particular to do for "what's good, what's right"? What does that mean, exactly? I mean, other than live within your means, be nice, think of others, and value strong personal relationships, because those are about as recession-proof as anything. Besides, my idea of what's good and what's right might be wholly different than anyone else's on this board.

And you say you want to fight for what is common, our sense of survival? I mean, how do you do that? What do you want to preserve? You can't go out there and sink a bayonet into a recession/depression/bad times. About all you can do is be sensible and badger the **** out of your elected officials when they're not being responsible or ineffective.

And if you can do anything here as I seek to do the same, let's try to be beacons. Our world needs it. How we get there at this point is up for grabs, but if many of those here are master communicators (and some of us who would like to be), then who better to begin to portray this in both word and action? I want to start seeing the sun between the dark clouds that hover over us, and I hope you'll take this seriously enough to want the same rather than kill the messenger.

Again, this is all vague. Beacons? I'm reminded of the movie Sneakers, when Robert Redford's character is caught in an office posing as a PI. He stumbles over what he's saying as says in an incredibly corny moment, "Be a beacon." I really don't know what you're getting at. A little concrete explanation would help.

 

[BYH]

I notice that in the overwhelming number of people who have posted on this thread are none of the usual pissers. Anything aimed at productivity and positive answers? That doesn't surprise me one bit.

Are you trying to be ironic by asking everyone to put aside differences...and then attacking those with whom you have differences when your thread doesn't elicit the response you wanted?

 

[Tom Petty]

If being defined as a twit is disagreeing with your liberal buddies, then call me whatever you want. But don't be self-righteous. No one around here is better than anybody else.

 

[DanOregon]

If you look back in history, what's happened in the last couple of years has happened before. Look back to the "gilded age" when wealth grew so outrageous that many rich people ended up having to leave the country because they became scorned by the masses.
We all saw the growing disparity between the wealthy and the poor, and that's not the mark of a healthy society. Particularly when the wealthy are getting richer BECAUSE the poor are getting poorer.
When you read about changes in accounting rules, legislation that favors a particular company or industry, and the Dow replacing weak companies in the index with stronger ones, it's not a surprise what we're facing now.
In a lot of ways, what's been going on in Wall Street the last 20 years isn't a whole lot different from what happened to baseball with steroids.
People knew what was going on wasn't healthy, or at least chose not to find out as long as the money was coming in.
The good news is that while pretty much all that was "built" in the last 15-20 years is gone, most of that "wealth" was fake anyway.

Those Biz shows are a joke. If I was running one, I'd give each regular analyst "$10,000" on their first appearance and along with their name and occupation, I'd list their "current portfolio" to give folks an idea about how smart they are.

 

[Fenian_Bastard]

What has been destroyed most vitally is the notion of a political commonwealth -- that there are some things -- in fact, many things -- that we hold in common for ourselves and our posterity, as the powdered-wg guys put it in Philadelphia. The most important of these is The Government -- which is all of us. It's basic purpose as a commonwealth is laid out quite plainly in the preamble to the Constitution.

"We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”

First three words are the most important. (Also why states rights loses most of the arguments, but that's neither here nor there.) No American can talk about The Government as though it were some distant, alien entity. Not without abandoning the fundamentals of what makes the country unique. Yet that has been a presiding dynamic of the political system for nearly 30 years. Self-government has atrophied -- through neglect and abuse. To talk about The Economy as wholly divorced from the political system is equally destructive. Economic oligarchy breeds political oligarchy, with which latter democratic structures cannot survive.
None of this is partisan. (Although I think history argues that modern "movement" conservatism used all of these destructive tendencies to selfish partisan advantage. Another thread for that, though.) It is past time to realize that this system doesn't run on automatic pilot.
Conclusion of the foregoing.

 

[93Devil]

The steroids in baseball is a good analogy.

For a few years Barry, Mark and Sammy were putting home run numbers on the board that were illogical. Of course we look back on it all now and cannot believe that Brady Anderson hit 50 home runs in a season.

As we look back on a couple who makes a combined $75,000 owning a $500,000 house, we have to know that this cannot continue. You cannot gamble your financial future on simply flipping your house in a few years if you have a subprime mortgage.

Starbucks is another perfect example. Their business model is based on people terribly overspending for something they can easily buy elsewhere for 300-400% less. The gross overexpansion of corporate America should have been a red flag as well and it's not just coffee.

For example, I was invited to go fishing with a bunch of buddies this past summer. I do not fish, so I needed to buy some gear. Here were my choices withen a three-mile drive from my house.
Target
Gander Mountain
Bass Pro Shops
A local outdoor place
Wal Mart (two)
Dicks

Plus, I had the internet if I needed it. Anyone can tell you that these are way too many places for me to buy a product. If I decide to drive 10 minutes, that list doubles.

 

[93Devil]

Way too many places to buy a product? What does that even mean?

Their supply is outweighing the demand in the area.

 

[EStreetJoe]

And if you can do anything here as I seek to do the same, let's try to be beacons. Our world needs it. How we get there at this point is up for grabs, but if many of those here are master communicators (and some of us who would like to be), then who better to begin to portray this in both word and action?

For the action part, let's all start making donations and convince others to make donations as well to homeless shelters, soup kitchens, food banks, etc. to give a helping hand to those who need it.

 

[EStreetJoe]

Way too many places to buy a product? What does that even mean?

Their supply is outweighing the demand in the area.

Doesn't it depend on the product?
Within a 3-5 mile radius of me there are half a dozen convenience stores, 5 or 6 supermarkets, a Target and a Walmart, I can go to if I need to buy soup, cereal, milk, toilet paper, etc.
So that's over 12 stores I can go to for those products. Would you say that supply of those products is outweighing demand?

 

[93Devil]

You need to eat everyday.

You do not need to fish or hunt everyday.

And yes, you might have too many grocery stores in your area.

 

[Lugnuts]

"To shop or not to shop" -- that's a major part of the problem.

Bush told us to go shopping after 9/11. That propped up the economy temporarily-- but what we were buying wasn't made in the USA. So American companies (like Wal Mart) might have taken a cut, but China also took a big cut.

That's the crux, folks.

Obama et al is asking us to "behave responsibly," and Americans are doing just that-- not spending.

I took my kid to the mall yesterday to play in the free kids area-- it was packed, but the rest of the mall was a ghost town. And it was that way over the holidays, too.

--------

I bought my kid a fleece jacket for Christmas. Got a great price on it.. $19 I think. I noticed it's been holding up pretty well, so I looked at the tag. Made in the USA. You've got to be ****tin' me. That is the first item of clothing that I've seen 'Made in the USA' in friggin' years. I wonder what the story behind that jacket is. Why so inexpensive? How did it end up in that store with mostly Made in China and Made in India stuff?

Why can't what made it possible for that jacket to exist be applied to other industries?

--------

I'll tell you what's going on in the Lugnut household right now.

We've been planning to do some work on our fixer-upper house for about 6 years. We finally got the approvals, permits, plans, etc. We sent the project out to bid-- and 6 contractors wanted the job-- which is a lot.

The winning bidder is basically doing the project at cost. He's a smaller operation, and without this job, he will go out of business. He simply wants to keep his guys working. He had recently been awarded a 1.5 million dollar job, but the brakes were put on it when the economy turned bad.

So we felt like we were doing something positive and contributing to the economy by doing this.

Amazingly, we have found 2 different banks that will loan us the money to do it. We initially tried to get it done through our mortgage company, which had given us the best rate on our current mortgage, but they simply couldn't do the deal. A friend suggested we try a bank. Huh? We keep hearing banks aren't loaning. Well, they are. Not as much as they would have a year ago, but enough.

Well, Mr. Lugs's job is as unsafe as anybody's. We have spent some sleepless nights the past few weeks trying to figure out if we should pull the trigger on this or wait.

We are people with a job and with a bank that will loan us money, and we are scared ****less to spend. And it's money that would be well spent, because it would keep local, legal workers in business-- and many of the materials used for the project would be regional as well. But we're scared to do it.

Multiply that feeling over an entire nation.