| Author | Message | ||
     Corporatemonkey |
And for Blake I have a single political rant: A lot of what is happening today was caused by former senator Phil Gramm. His deregulation tactics were instrumental in bringing us Enron, and now the whole mortage mess. Do a little research on Gramm and you might find something of interest. | ||
| Greenlantern |
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| Corporatemonkey |
Just tweaking some nipples  | ||
| Court |
Vick has agreed to waive her fees and answer any questions about hedge funds, swaps, derivatives, foreign markets and SEC regulation. If you get her on a roll ask her about the time she was sent in to clean up the mess in Illinois when a small city with a toy generator decided to try speculating on electricity options and the city electrician lost something like $70M one hot afternoon when his options got called. Too scary for me . . . . | ||
| Swordsman |
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| Greenlantern |
 YEAH BABY, YEAH! NOW I'M MAKING GRAVY WITHOUT THE LUMPS BABY!! | ||
| Danger_dave |
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| Spatten1 |
I'm not sure where construction is slow. My firm has a $7B backlog that goes out to 2028. Energy projects are certainly not slow now, and will not be for some time. Houston is booming too. You are in great shape! Commercial is still good for 2008, but backlogs are generally shrinking, business is looking at a flat or down 2009 in most cases. Site and utility contractors have to compete with the firms that were working in residential the past 5 years, so margins are shrinking and more people are bidding for every job. Road building is tanking because asphalt prices have tripled in less than two years and rebar has doubled. Plus, it's tough to float munis at the moment. Residential construction......DEAD for a while. | ||
| Mark61 |
I am still left wondering WTH wawu means. mark61 | ||
| Spatten1 |
Washington Mutual | ||
| Alchemy |
Seems we are in a recession resulting mostly from the residential housing fiasco. Where the results of this recession end up is yet to be known. Less money, less credit and fewer jobs begins to take a compounding toll on the larger consumer-based economy. Lots of moving parts and no recent experience with how our new flat world reacts. What does China do? No one knows but it may have broad effect. Enjoy the nice weather if you are on the east coast. | ||
| Spatten1 |
China's stock market is tanking hard this week. I think it all comes down to Fannie approving and buying these shit loans for people that should be renting, as well as over-leveraged investments by greedy guys in New York. It felt good for a while, not so much anymore. Owning a house is not a right. If you can't save 10% for a house, you aren't ready to buy one. | ||
| Blake |
"And for Blake I have a single political rant: A lot of what is happening today was caused by former senator Phil Gramm. His deregulation tactics were instrumental in bringing us Enron, and now the whole mortage mess. Do a little research on Gramm and you might find something of interest." You really need to avoid repeating the half-truths of the far-left. The legislation to which you refer passed the senate with full Democratic support, something like 93-7 and was signed into law by President Clinton. Try again. | ||
| Blake |
"Seems we are in a recession resulting mostly from the residential housing fiasco. Where the results of this recession end up is yet to be known." The economy is said to be in recession after it sees two consecutive quarters of decline, meaning negative growth. The economy grew by 2.8% last quarter. Where is this "recession" you are talking about? | ||
| Cityxslicker |
I havent had all my coffee yet, and well for a second it looked like "The Socialization of Weight Losses" I was thinking it was a Jenny Craig/Nutrisystem/Weight Watchers thread. | ||
| Greenlantern |
Go ahead and have your Coffee, this thread will probably be exiled by the the time you return from the look of things.  | ||
| Cyclonedon |
now I'm scared! just announced: "Bush Vows Action on Troubled Economy" sounds like another tax break coming for the upper class and large corporations! | ||
| Spatten1 |
I sure hope the large corporations get a tax cut. Then they will hire people rather than lay them off. They do not hide their money in a giant mattress, it goes to buying equipment and employing people. If we tax corporations they must either lay off employees, raise prices, and/or not invest in the future. Then we all pay. | ||
| Jlnance |
Residential construction......DEAD for a while. I bet it isn't in Houston.  | ||
| Rainman |
They do not hide their money in a giant mattress, it goes to buying equipment and employing people. .... Sometimes it goes to improve shareholder dividends | ||
| Cyclonedon |
"Sometimes it goes to improve shareholder dividends" or CEO's bonuses! | ||
| Cityxslicker |
Just had a very interesting talk with my plan admin for the 401k/ira/annuities, etc. Yes the sky is falling. Time to start making some shine, it has kept my family out of trouble everytime. | ||
| Spatten1 |
Sometimes it goes to improve shareholder dividends True, but dividends are, in general, not a large percentage of profits. And if a company wants to raise money by selling stock, they often promise dividends in return for the investment in thier company. Very reasonable thing to do. Not evil in any way. If you have a pension or 401k it relies on the value of those stocks, some of which is based on their dividends and some is based on potential income growth. You will find that dividends are generally much smaller than net income, and that OVER TIME companies with less net income grow less and hire less new people. It really can be boiled down that simply. I will exclude Lehman, etc, where they primarily make money gaming the system. CEO bonuses are out of control in the US, for sure, very hard to argue with that! | ||
| Xl1200r |
I sure hope the large corporations get a tax cut. Then they will hire people rather than lay them off. Yup. I'd rather keep my fat salary than get a one-time $600 check for being able to fog a mirror. | ||
| Court |
Recession? | ||
| Bigdaddy |
I work for myself and I've not had a day off in 2 months -- recession my butt. Something else I see up there somewhere that I'd like to comment on. Corporations do not pay taxes no matter how you frame it. However, they do pay money to the government, but they pass that cost right along to the customer. That's eco101 and it's so ignored. | ||
| Alchemy |
Yep recession. Definitions are fine but sometimes may not account for all possibilities of course particularly when they look backwards. What will be the eventual result of the Gov't bringing into existence hundreds of billions of dollars to bail out businesses that by every tenet of pure capitalism deserve to disappear? Is there a definition that accounts for that? It is not so easy to know. Might be brilliant or might not. We don't pull all the levers anymore. Maybe the Gov't should just conjure up a pot of gold for every citizen in the world to keep the party going <grin>. The "system" has been saved but the problem still exists and WILL have its way before this is all over. Let's see what they dream up over this weekend. Lots of brain cells at work it seems. Maybe they will decide it is time to repave all the roads to keep us out of a recession - that should only cost a few hundred billion more... | ||
| Corporatemonkey |
Try again. Blake this is not about republican's or democrats. They both are at fault, mostly because neither of them understand how the market works. Now it has never been officially shown whether Phil Gramm fully understood what his 262 page insert (Commodity Futures Modernization Act) was. It has been stated that former Enron officials had a hand in drafting a loophole that deregulated energy trades. Now whether Gramm was lead to create this, or thought of it himself is really immaterial. What does matter is that being a powerful senator he was able to push this through last minute. I agree no one should have allowed it, but we can both agree our political members are some of the laziest people. They think getting the "gist" of new legislation is enough to vote on it. What worries me is instead of being chastised for creating such a nightmare. Gramm has moved up in the world, to become one of McCain's chief policy shapers, and is in line to become the next treasury secretary. Now to play both sides, Obama has his problems too. Biden is an instrumental force behind halting any net neutrality legislation. I know that effect all of us, but it really effects the two of us. You are the owner of a successful web forum, and I run a software/web service company. It all comes down to who's advisors do you trust. Because the advisors end up steering the ship. The only canidate that had an understanding of the market was Mitt Romney. I was not a fan of some of his policies, but at least he understood them. | ||
| Blake |
I've still not seen made the connection of the legislation you reference to the current issues. I freely admit that I've not studied the case at all. If you can, please point out the connection. Enron was run by greedy liars and crooks. Who are now either dead or in prison. Are you saying that the legislation in question somehow allowed the Enron liars to get away with their greedy plot or that without it they wouldn't have been able to lie to the folks? Please explain, I'm ignorant. | ||
| Miamiuly |
in a sluggish economy inflation,recession hits the land of the free standing in unemployment lines blame the government for hard time we just get by however we can we all gotta duck when the shit hits the fan 10 kids in a cadillac stand in lines for welfare checks let's all leach off the state gee!the money's really great! soup lines free loaves of bread 5lb blocks of cheese bags of groceries social security has run out on you and me we do whatever we can gotta duck when the shit hits the fan |
