The Smiths...and They Live

And I'll believe people are having a hard time getting loans when I stop seeing web ads offering me mortgages with no money down.

You have to remember that 94% of the people still have jobs.

Awww, Cowboys. Well, sometimes the glass really is half-empty.

It is the Smiths but I was thinking of the end of "Rubber Ring".

Are you engaged to the male Dawn?

Things aren't bad yet, but they will be.

According to the economic pi cycle, we aren't due for rock bottom in economic confidence until 2011. Ain't seen nothin' yet.
http://www.contrahour.com/contrahour/2006/06/martin_armstron.html

I lived with a (redheaded) pessimist foe about 3 years. Her pessismism extended to the point of self fulfilling prophecy, that is, shit things started to happen seemingly because she was such a downer. The writing on the wall for me was when she fell over at the airport on the way to Cyprus because she was in a rush having wasted time posting her scissors back to herself which she had left in her hand luggage post 9/11. (Bear in mind she flew back from NYC on 9/9/01, and refused to fly again until late 02 due to her fear that Osama wanted her to die (again with the pessimism)).
However, I am so glad that like your fellow NY redhead, little orphan Annie(!), you believe the Sun will come out tomorrow. That's a winning attitude IMO.

(1) Hopkins was awesome.
(2) The Cowboys are toast without Parcells.
(3) Joe the Plumber for President.

what got us into this mess in the first place is people living beyond their means and i have doubt that these same people, especially new yorkers, will continue to do so even as we are on the verge of a depression.

"You have to remember that 94% of the people still have jobs."

And the other 6% are a motley crew of malcontents, crack-heads and social security hippies.

Especially New Yorkers ? pffff or ouch....

"verge of a Depression" is a bit harsh but judging by the media's take on things I'm not suprised sentiment is so poor and sliding.

K- Could it be your friend is just really popular and the place filled up because he was there ?

A guy on my team went to a packed hockey game last week, and came in to work the next day saying "so much for that failing economy idea." Naturally, everyone around us told him he was wrong.

Granted some of them were probably season ticket holders, but come on, if people can fill a mediocre hockey team's arena on a weeknight, it can't be that bad.

(I can hear her voice in my head, and I knew it was at the end of a song, but it would've taken me all day to remember that it was from the Smiths.)

I was at Bridge Cafe last night. Sunday night. Not a cheap place. Not an easy to find place. Packed solid. People waiting. There you go.

oops i meant 'i have no doubt'

It's just like 1992. Paraphrasing Voltaire, if a recession does not exist, a Democrat campaigning for president would find it necessary to invent one.

Six freaking percent unemployment, and Americans still have no idea that our "downturn" is better than France's or Germany's normal economic growth.

I'm not sure who Eideltalk is referring to when he is says, "Americans". I don't know any one who believes that we are in a national downturn, democrat or republican.

I don't know any one who believes that we are in a national downturn, democrat or republican.

You don't know anyone who thinks the economy is in a downturn? Or do you mean that "downturn" isn't enough?

Just open your ears on the street, man. Most everyone thinks this is Great Depression II, when it's not.

You want to continue insisting I'm "talk," then for once refute a single damn thing I put forth, instead of resorting to your ad hominems like your boyfriend Dan.

then for once refute a single damn thing I put forth

Most everyone thinks this is the Great Depression II

Most is a wholly unqualified quantifier in this context and 'The Great Depression II' is the farthest reaches of public opinion.

I've actually been reading up on Austrian Business Cycle Theory lately, since smarter and more reasonable people than you have brought it up. I do actually choose to be educated, just by people with the qualifications to do the teaching.

I just don't choose to pick one school of economics. Something to do with being influenced by Ken Arrow and Kurt Goedel. Macroeconomics is mostly malarkey [imho] anyways. It's mostly insubstantiable and, at it's very best, phenomenological.

resorting to your ad hominems like your boyfriend Dan

Funny in it's irony. Freudian, too, maybe.

Most is a wholly unqualified quantifier in this context

Polls show that 60%, 70%, 80% of people think the economy is in bad straits. What else could "most" mean?

I'm in fact one of the people who think the economy is in trouble, though through no fault of its own. Any problems have been government-induced, and if we do fall into recession/depression, that too will be government-induced.

I've actually been reading up on Austrian Business Cycle Theory lately, since smarter and more reasonable people than you have brought it up. I do actually choose to be educated, just by people with the qualifications to do the teaching.

Tell you what: learn from Sanford Ikeda, who taught me and IS indeed smarter than me.

I just don't choose to pick one school of economics. Something to do with being influenced by Ken Arrow and Kurt Goedel. Macroeconomics is mostly malarkey [imho] anyways. It's mostly insubstantiable and, at it's very best, phenomenological.

You clearly don't understand ABCT, then. It doesn't treat macro perspectives are mere aggregates, whereas Keynesians look at economic indicators as single entities. ABCT recognizes that any curve, any indicator, is the sum of countless and unknowable human actions.

Tell me something: "Mainstream economists argue that the theory requires bankers and investors to exhibit a kind of irrationality – that they be regularly fooled into making unprofitable investments by temporarily low interest rates. Carilli and Dempster have attempted to use a prisoner's dilemma framework to address this weakness in the theory."

How does this not explain the current crisis? Low interest rates, unprofitable investments, irrationality. How does this not apply?

Funny in it's irony. Freudian, too, maybe.

The word is "its," not "it's." Since both of you make the same errors, I wonder: which one of you is the sock puppet?

Freud was an idiot, in case you didn't know.

It doesn't treat macro perspectives are mere aggregates
-AND-
ABCT recognizes that any curve, any indicator, is the sum of countless and unknowable human actions

You can pick on my "it's" and I'll pick your "are". I will guess that you mean "as".

Either way, this is what drives our disagreement. These statements are nearly opposites of each other. The only difference is that the former is white-box and the latter is black-box. Black-box assessments are tantamount to phenomonology . [The latter, as a sidenote, also implies that market players have infinitesimal effect on the market outcomes; This is, in practice, an untenable assumption]

I have yet to see an ABCT characterization that explains with any precision when and how market failures will occur. I blow bubbles for my daughter, and she says, "Oooh, bubbles," but that doesn't mean she understands bubbles.

You can pick on my "it's" and I'll pick your "are". I will guess that you mean "as".

Fair enough. I guess I'm confusing you with the other D guy, hence my nitpick.

Either way, this is what drives our disagreement. These statements are nearly opposites of each other. The only difference is that the former is white-box and the latter is black-box. Black-box assessments are tantamount to phenomonology . [The latter, as a sidenote, also implies that market players have infinitesimal effect on the market outcomes; This is, in practice, an untenable assumption]

Actually, the second statement clarifies the first. I'm not sure how you view them as opposites.

Any curve is actually made up of countless small curves. Resultingly, ABCT believes that you cannot "optimize" an economy, because it's far too complex for any person or group to have sufficient knowledge/

I have yet to see an ABCT characterization that explains with any precision when and how market failures will occur.

Austrians have no more prognosticative powers than anyone else, but their accuracy is about the theory explaining what happened and what we should avoid in the future (government action which introduces errors into markets). As an analogy, Austrians are no more attempting to predict the future than biologists attempt to explain evolution. The theory is about explaining what happened and how, but not what will specifically happen in the future.

Austrians can note that something is unsustainable, but in the same way that macroeconomists predict that a current account deficit will start to correct itself: neither knows when it will happen, only that it will eventually happen. And even non-Austrians like that Peter Wallinson (is that who Karol mentioned elsewhere?) knew several years ago that Fannie and Freddie spelled trouble.

Christ in the New Testament made two references to the time of his return. No man knows the day or the hour, but do people not know when seasons are changing by watching signs in nature? These are not contradictory. You may not know exactly when, but you know when it's impending.