ubernoir wrote:
i trust Paul Krugman's opinion on this as someone who knows far more about it than me and I remember reading him talking about a housing bubble and saying it was dangerous rather a long time ago Jan 2006. It makes rather interesting reading now although I didn't take it too seriously at the time.

Out of curiosity I searched the MemeStreams archive. The earliest reference that I can find to something being wrong with housing is from DMV, who posted about it in April, 2004. The first actual reference to the word "bubble" is in a post from Noteworthy from May, 2005. Its an offhand reference - as if the idea that there is a bubble is already established and we're just waiting for it to pop. A week later these comments about certain kinds of mortgages being to blame. There were a number of posts about it during the summer of 2005. Apparently the idea was established widely enough that someone was (still is) selling t-shirts mocking it.

In my view 2006 was pretty late to the game. None of us understood that complex debt derivatives were behind this, but (AFAIK) none of us are bankers. All these policy makers and regulators who have been blindsided by this should have known before we did that something was amiss and they should have been able to figure out why and what the consequences were going to be and they should have been able to take preemptive action. They knew. They had to have known because WE KNEW. Why didn't they act?

Decius wrote:

ubernoir wrote:
i trust Paul Krugman's opinion on this as someone who knows far more about it than me and I remember reading him talking about a housing bubble and saying it was dangerous rather a long time ago Jan 2006. It makes rather interesting reading now although I didn't take it too seriously at the time.

Out of curiosity I searched the MemeStreams archive. The earliest reference that I can find to something being wrong with housing is from DMV, who posted about it in April, 2004. The first actual reference to the word "bubble" is in a post from Noteworthy from May, 2005. Its an offhand reference - as if the idea that there is a bubble is already established and we're just waiting for it to pop. A week later these comments about certain kinds of mortgages being to blame. There were a number of posts about it during the summer of 2005. Apparently the idea was established widely enough that someone was (still is) selling t-shirts mocking it.

In my view 2006 was pretty late to the game. None of us understood that complex debt derivatives were behind this, but (AFAIK) none of us are bankers. All these policy makers and regulators who have been blindsided by this should have known before we did that something was amiss and they should have been able to figure out why and what the consequences were going to be and they should have been able to take preemptive action. They knew. They had to have known because WE KNEW. Why didn't they act?

fair enough

Decius wrote:
They knew. They had to have known because WE KNEW. Why didn't they act?

The same question has been asked about:
The telecommunications industry consolidating
9/11
Where in Afghanistan Osama Bin Laden was
The Iraq War and the WMD's/UN Security Council motivation
The power outages in California and the south west
Katrina
Global Warming and climate change
The rapidly rising price of oil and lack of refinery capacity
And now the liquidity crisis

The sad answer to all of these questions is:
"someone is going to get rich."

Coming up:
Social Security system going bankrupt
Centers for Medicare Services going bankrupt
The core infrastructure of this nation being woefully under maintained and needing a multi-billion dollar overhaul
Health care costs being untenable for our entire economy
Our public education system needing a multi-billion dollar overhaul
Consumer credit needing a multi-billion dollar bailout
The food industry destroying health in exchange for profits
The rapidly rising price and scarcity of water

Don't forget - Now playing
Crop Crisis - failure to pollinate

The honeybees destroyed in the name of pest control. See Bayer for profits.

My husband works in housing. I always watched that stuff on memestreams and it was all over this board. I remember showing my husband an animation someone posted of a roller coaster ride showing the huge hill and what that meant for a pending drop off. It was a great animation.

And we'd sit around saying, about my husband's company, why do they keep opening new stores and expanding? They are spending to much to keep growing and they need to just settle down. Why are they trying to focus so much on roof trusses when there is such stability and constancy in i-joists? (Sp?)

We have survived because we've hunkered down with the intent to, but we've seen over 3/4 of that growing like crazy company now laid off. No other housing companies are hiring in the area either, so my husband says he always keeps a lookout for any one coming back that might have a gun, because people are very mad and desparate.

See, it wasn't just us, but all the employees were questioning the rapid expansion and business decisions.

My dad is old, and he owned 2 successful businesses in his life. He insists that the problem in this country is bad management and everyone feeling pressure to what he calls a 'big wheel.'

It maybe a simplistic view, and I don't agree with his politics at all, but I think there is truth to that.

My old dad's concept of good management was that you, as a manager, have to stay at the job, know the job, and care about the people and the work. He always said you can work a man 12 hours a day but the most you get out of any man is 8 hours of dedicated work and that is the only work that should matter.

Anyhow....that roller coaster animation...that was good. We should have forwarded that, I guess.

skullaria wrote:
My husband works in housing. I always watched that stuff on memestreams and it was all over this board. I remember showing my husband an animation someone posted of a roller coaster ride showing the huge hill and what that meant for a pending drop off. It was a great animation.

And we'd sit around saying, about my husband's company, why do they keep opening new stores and expanding? They are spending to much to keep growing and they need to just settle down. Why are they trying to focus so much on roof trusses when there is such stability and constancy in i-joists? (Sp?)

We have survived because we've hunkered down with the intent to, but we've seen over 3/4 of that growing like crazy company now laid off. No other housing companies are hiring in the area either, so my husband says he always keeps a lookout for any one coming back that might have a gun, because people are very mad and desparate.

See, it wasn't just us, but all the employees were questioning the rapid expansion and business decisions.

My dad is old, and he owned 2 successful businesses in his life. He insists that the problem in this country is bad management and everyone feeling pressure to what he calls a 'big wheel.'

It maybe a simplistic view, and I don't agree with his politics at all, but I think there is truth to that.

My old dad's concept of good management was that you, as a manager, have to stay at the job, know the job, and care about the people and the work. He always said you can work a man 12 hours a day but the most you get out of any man is 8 hours of dedicated work and that is the only work that should matter.

Anyhow....that roller coaster animation...that was good. We should have forwarded that, I guess.

your dad sounds cool