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Topic: Economy
| Author | Message |
| LotusBlossom | Posted – 4/22/2007 7:21:24 PM | show profile My Fellow Citizens Mailbag: I know! It scares me to death. |
| mailbag | Posted – 4/25/2007 1:31:29 PM | show profile | email poster Ugo Did you read this..? As long as people find a way to buy something they cannot afford - the prices keep going up. Capitalism at its finest. Those without banks of mom and dad have no chance whatsoever... ..."So Ragan, a certified financial planner, is working out a deal with his father, Gerry, who will become an investor in his yet-to-be-purchased home. The agreement, called a shared equity financing arrangement or a shared equity mortgage, is an increasingly popular way for family members, usually parents, to help their children meet today's home prices. The final terms still need to be worked out, but this is the framework: Dad will put $50,000 into the down payment, and the Ragans may add to it depending on the proceeds of the sale of their current home. Either way, the equity sharing will allow the couple to purchase the more expensive place without stretching their finances. Dad will get his investment back plus a share of the appreciation determined by his stake in the purchase price. If the Ragans buy a $200,000 home, then dad's $50,000 investment gets him 25% of the gain. "This allows my family to live in a better neighborhood that we could not have otherwise afforded," says Ragan. "It allows my father to participate in real estate appreciation without going out and purchasing something himself."..." http://finance.yahoo.com/loans/article/102894/Meet-the-Parents-Backed-Mortgage?mod=oneclick |
| questoo1 | Posted – 4/25/2007 8:59:07 PM | show profile Sure they do...go out and earn money! Everyone on this board sounds like the characters from that old tv show "what's happening" where no one seemed to have two coins to scratch together. Seriously, is it possible there are multiple realities? I see people prospering all around me and not just bogus paper gains, but real $$. |
| UGoGirl | Posted – 4/25/2007 9:48:08 PM | show profile Mailbag, and that from a certified financial planner. Ha! The insanity! Quest... you see people living well but what you don't see is whether they're saving, living beyond their means, far beyond their means, etc. |
| mailbag | Posted – 4/26/2007 6:15:13 AM | show profile | email poster questo quest "questoo1...I see people prospering all around me and not just bogus paper gains, but real $$." Questoo, examine personal debt ratios of those in the USA against those in another industrialized nation. What is the $ supported by? How many $s have been printed since April 2006? |
| caitlinkelly | Posted – 4/26/2007 9:40:37 AM | show profile attitude matters While mailbag tends to sound the doom-and-gloom bell almost incessantly, his point is well taken on some levels... The issue, seems to me, is not how insanely and obscenely rich some people are and have become (what are going to do about it, eat them?) but figuring out to consistently keep your own assets covered and growing, as best you can...Envy is deeply distracting! This includes protecting and nurturing your physical and emotional health (without which you can't earn a penny), your housing, your earning power (learning new skills, making new contacts) and your investments, should you have any. Mailbag, you're not the only person who's lost a well-paid job to have to live on a lot less, even temporarily -- and who can't call up their parents for cash. Many of us have. It stinks. This is a laissez-faire economy with a minuscule social safety net. You don't like it? Vote in something different...if you can. The ones who somehow survive, or thrive in this economy, are not just, I would bet, those with million-dollar condos (and a steady supply of big-bucks jobs in their industry, likely not this one), but also those with a monthly nut that is do-able, if necessary, even on unemployment insurance payments (supplemented by their savings, which they, of course, have). So, if you live somewhere really expensive like NYC, you might choose to live in an unfashionable nabe and (outer-borough) apartment, and maybe one smaller than you prefer. Maybe elsewhere you don't own a big house, or a house, or a car, or a new(er) one you'd prefer...but your peace of mind might be the single greatest possession you have. If you date or marry/partner, you choose someone with a strong work ethic like yours who shares your values about how to acquire and conserve money. You don't buy a home you really cannot afford, at whatever bizarre loan some predatory lender dangles before you. Knowing you're much less likely to become homeless and destitute is a baseline. You do whatever you must to survive and cut out everything necessary to achieve that -- that might include "necessities" like cellphone, cable and a gym membership -- which might pile $300+ each month onto your overhead. Then you spend up from there, only when you are able. I doubt many Americans want to live like this, scorning such loser-ish asceticism for the latest "it" handbag at $1500 and their shiny new tech toys at $300 to $500 to $1200 apiece. I see people with tons 'o stuff that is very shiny and pretty and they live in very large houses and drive very nice vehicles. I don't envy them because if they lose their job, or their health (and/or that of their spouse or partner and that essential income), they're toast. I'm fortunate to own my home in a building where apartments often sell within days at their full asking price -- and attend a church where almost everyone lives in a million-dollar home. In that company, it's very easy to feel like there's a big L on my forehead when it comes to material possessions. Whatever. If I had not had savings, landing in the hospital last month for three days -- and facing a slow (i.e. couldn't work much at all), three-week recovery from pneumonia -- I'd be toast, too. I was lucky to have health insurance; the bill was almost $14,000. |
| mailbag | Posted – 4/26/2007 8:13:37 PM | show profile | email poster I agree with you CK and glad you are recovered btw. I don't think I'm a doomer/gloomer, but perhaps message boards are so one sided that is the perception. I have no real problem with people taking those risks as discussed here by me and Ugo - hey that is their risk not mine. I do take issue though when folks start ranting about how wonderful everything appears in the USA. The "layoff" and I suspect a major health crisis can change one's view if not enable one to reflect upon what is going on around them. Massive consumerism and over the top capitalism is the cause of layoffs and what drives up costs so high for basic needs for everyone. I know I'm lucky simply for what the family has done to ensure all of us are taken care of. But I could not live with myself by ignoring that luck, observing how and why this nation is at this place, and realizing there are much deeper issues at work that keep people down in this country. Is 13 or 14 million a worrisome number? Not really, when there are 200 million poverty stricken residents of India. The difference is that in this country - we can and should be doing better for all of us... not only a few. |
| Metro Writer | Posted – 4/27/2007 11:03:52 AM | show profile Mailbag, you get health insurance for $400 per month? Private? Group? Individual? Family? Where do you live? Who is your insurer? As for the housing market, it has softened in many places, but it was overpriced for a few years because a) interest rates were low and b) the stock market was still in the tank. Additionally, after 9/11, people were really into nesting and they do follow trends. If the neighbors tear their homes down or put on expansinons, others on the street feel pressured into doing the same if they can afford it. I don't doubt that the economy will soften again. What I'm hoping will happen is anything, even something dreadful, to get jobs back into this country. This outsourcing may be good for short-term profits, but there's zero customer service and reductions in the contributions to FICA and Medicare. Many consultants don't earn great money and India hasn't offered to make up the difference in lost Social Security revenues. Finally, if well-paying jobs don't come back, how are we supposed to afford the luxury lifestyle nearly every newspaper and magazine wants to push in order to attract advertisers? |
| UGoGirl | Posted – 4/27/2007 11:31:56 AM | show profile There will be a luxury lifestyle only for the very few in this country. A headline on MarketWatch this morning: "Inflation rise is steepest in 16 years, but investors take heart from consumer resilience" Resilience? Consumers who are going deeper into debt, spending beyond their means, saving less than zero? That's called resilience? This is a sick country we live in... |
| mailbag | Posted – 4/27/2007 1:35:36 PM | show profile | email poster Ugo, totally agree with what you just posted. Resilience is in the form of going deeper into debt. "Metro Writer...Mailbag, you get health insurance for $400 per month? Private? Group? Individual? Family? Where do you live? Who is your insurer?" No, metro, mine (through work) is about $36 a month. That figure of $400 is what others have said they pay for insurance as non-employees (either contract or unemployed.) When I was unemployed, I had no insurance. Would not waste $100 a month on insurance let alone the $328 I was quoted through the cobra plan. ".... Finally, if well-paying jobs don't come back, how are we supposed to afford the luxury lifestyle nearly every newspaper and magazine wants to push in order to attract advertisers?" Isn't that the million dollar question? Sure as hell doesn't include this lot. Media growth cannot be counted upon as a stable, longterm career, imo. Playing the stock market and becoming a lawyer - those might be the professions that buy into luxury lifestyle for the future imo. |
| caitlinkelly | Posted – 4/27/2007 1:41:26 PM | show profile >When I was unemployed, I had no insurance. Would not waste $100 a month on insurance let alone the $328 I was quoted through the cobra plan. > The no-insurance gamble is like playing the craps table. I certaibly didn't plan to get so sick I landed in the hospital... the bill (and we have insurance) came to almost $14,000 for three days. I have no appetite to declare bankruptcy or write checks to some hospital for the rest of my life...which would be likely without insurance. Before I was able to go on someone else's plan, I let many other "luxuries" disappear from my life as a freelancer but never insurance, no matter what it cost. |
| mailbag | Posted – 4/27/2007 4:47:16 PM | show profile | email poster "caitlinkelly ... The no-insurance gamble is like playing the craps table. I certaibly didn't plan to get so sick I landed in the hospital... " I know. What are the options? You/I have talked about this before - unemployed, no prospects, no money coming in. $300 a month ($3,600 a year) is a ton of money when all the cash you have left is about $15k, which was my case when cobra ended (IBM paid it for 6 months.) That $3,600 meant almost another two months of living status quo while job searching. The city of NY is no help unless you are out of cash and face eviction. (I called to find that out being the planner I am.) My emergency plan was - in the event of such a health disaster - I had one trusting friend who was to drop everything, come here to get my check book and write in the balance to a signed blank check I'd made out to him and take my pet home. The will leaves all my $ to my pet. :D If I die because this country can't get its act together for people in true need - then I die. Not the first or last. It is an appalling commentary really in the world's richest nation. Shall I add up all the taxes I've paid since 1977? lol. Get zilch in return...and I expect no change while I'm alive. |
| UGoGirl | Posted – 4/28/2007 4:36:05 PM | show profile Oh that poor poor dollar How low can she go...? **** Trade-Weighted U.S. Dollar Index Falls to Record Low (Update2) By Daniel Kruger April 27 (Bloomberg) -- The Federal Reserve's trade-weighted dollar index fell to the lowest since its inception in 1971 amid expectations the currency will extend a slide against the euro. ..."We've only unveiled the tip of the iceberg" of dollar weakness, said Naomi Fink, senior currency strategist at BNP Paribas SA in New York. ...The Board of Trade's U.S. Dollar Index may be a better gauge of the dollar's weakness. The Fed's broad index includes 26 currencies. "The dollar index is what the market looks at." said Matthew Kassel, director of proprietary trading at ING Financial Markets LLC in New York. ..."The market has been decidedly bearish on the U.S. economy," Browne said. ..."We are around its cheapest level in decades,"' Sinche said. "The market is about as negative about the dollar as it can possibly get.'" Bloomberg |
| UGoGirl | Posted – 5/1/2007 9:57:15 PM | show profile Global Bubble Time *** Dick Cheney's Banker Grantham Sees World Bubble May 2 (Bloomberg) -- You'd expect someone whom the famously dour Dick Cheney entrusts with millions of his dollars might have a gloomy view of the world. Jeremy Grantham does indeed. "From Indian antiquities to modern Chinese art; from land in Panama to Mayfair; from forestry, infrastructure and the junkiest bonds to mundane blue chips -- it's bubble time," he writes in Grantham, Mayo, Van Otterloo & Co.'s latest quarterly letter titled "The First Truly Global Bubble." Grantham, 68, is chairman of the Boston-based company that, according to financial disclosure reports, in 2005 managed as much as $6.1 million for U.S. Vice President Cheney. And if his own recent actions are any guide, he's quite the multitasker. The money manager is a critic of the U.S. energy policies for which Cheney bears considerable responsibility. ... Perhaps these multitasking skills helped Grantham make one of the gutsiest market calls in recent memory: That pretty much every asset class, everywhere, is in the midst of a bubble. ... Bubbles Everywhere Bubbles generally require two dynamics: the perception of near-perfect economic conditions and an abundance of cheap credit. ...The amount of liquidity zooming around the globe has Grantham wondering if risk is really as negligible as many investors seem to think. This IS Different A similar dynamic may be playing out across the global economy. Everyone, as Nouriel Roubini, chairman of Roubini Global Economics in New York, has been warning, is reading about how great things are and throwing caution to the wind. It's more titillating to read about hedge fund managers making over $1 billion a year than about global imbalances. What makes today's global financial boom different is that it really is, well, different. Past bubbles came amid lofty claims of new eras. In the 1980s, the new era featured a Japanese business model many said couldn't go wrong. In the 1990s, the U.S. was awash with similar hubris. "This time, everyone, everywhere is reinforcing one another," Grantham argues. "Wherever you travel, you hear it confirmed that 'they don't make any more land,' and that 'with these growth rates and low interest rates, equity markets can keep rising, and 'private equity will continue to drive the markets.' To say the least, there has never been anything like the uniformity of this reinforcement." ... The trouble, Grantham says, is that the bursting of this bubble "will be across all countries and all assets, with the probable exception of high-grade bonds. Risk premiums in particular will widen. Since no similar global event has occurred before, the stresses to the system are likely to be unexpected." |
| UGoGirl | Posted – 5/3/2007 10:54:31 PM | show profile A BOOMing economy From the Ottawa Citizen *** Ignore the fact that equities are flourishing and stock markets have been hitting new highs. Pay no heed to the annual earnings front where companies are reporting gains in their earnings-per-share exceed 11 per cent. Don't look to consumers to continue their free-spending ways. It's not going to last. This is an economy in deep trouble. Productivity is on the skids and the odds of a recession are growing. It could, perhaps, require three interest rate cuts to stave it off. In Canada, you say? Not at all. We're talking about the United States, and the preceding views are those of one of Wall Street's leading economists, David Rosenberg of Merrill Lynch. Rosenberg is glum for the U.S. economic outlook and if he's correct in his assessment don't expect it to bypass Canada's economy and stock market. ...From Rosenberg's perspective, the U.S. economy is sickly. For those wondering how consumer spending can persist in face of a slowdown, Rosenberg says it's homeowners using cash withdrawn from equity in their homes who are the spenders. The decline in housing wealth, tightening in mortgage lending standards, rising gasoline prices, brutal debts and a looming soft labour market will put a stop to that in coming quarters, he says. "The bottom line is that we have just come off the fourth consecutive quarter of sub-three-per-cent sequential real GDP growth ... and over the past 60 years that's always heralded a recession. This multi-quarter trend of below potential growth is not sustainable -- something is going to break in one direction, of that much we are sure. All we have to say is that it had better be different this time." But will it be? He thinks not. Moreover, the full impact of the subprime mortgage meltdown rocking the U.S housing market has a ways to run. Beata Caranci, director of economic forecasting at TD Economics, agrees. U.S. investors will need "nerves of steel" to withstand the bad news streaming out of the subprime mortgage market, Caranci wrote in a report this week. "Borrower delinquency rates have risen with alarming speed, the worst is yet to come and subprime delinquency rates will likely deteriorate further over the next 18-24 months." This all suggests that the U.S. economic ship may be becalmed in the next 12 months and equities, too. ..."What the move in these companies really tells you about anything in the U.S. economy or global economy is actually very little." ...Of course, there is the possibility that Rosenberg's assessment of the U.S. economy is wrong. But if he isn't ... well, we've been warned. |
| mailbag | Posted – 5/4/2007 2:54:57 PM | show profile | email poster Dow at 15,000 Great profit taking, add 10,000 new billionaires to the list of Forbes' next year - and meanwhile there are no jobs except for day trading and hedge fun guessing, and Starbucks, Wal Mart. Great economy to look forward too if you ask me. |
| foodlit | Posted – 5/5/2007 9:30:19 AM | show profile I see things differently Over the years, I've surfed the wave of the economy up during they heydey of the internet boom, when companies were hiring like crazy, and then the true doom and gloom days after 9/11 when the dot com bubble burst. What I've seen that is a bit odd is that when the economy was good, and hiring was insane, the real estate market was tanking.....it seems to be the opposite of the job market, as the real estate market boomed over the past 5 or so years, the job market and economy hasn't been as robust. What's interesting from my perspective is that the economy seems to follow what we see in the job market. I'm a headhunter, and when the economy is soft, we don't have nearly as much business, and the business we do have is at a lower fee...all driven by the economy and supply and demand. Which brings me to my point and why I'm feeling optimistic right now. I'm insanely busy. I recruit nationally on all kinds of searches, marketing, copywriting, creative, and technical and across the board, companies are growing and adding to staff, and receiving funding and most importantly, they are voluntarily increasing their fees. Why does this matter? It's supply and demand, and there's more openings right now than there are qualified people who are interested. There is a LOT of hiring going on. Maybe not in the media world, so you're not seeing it, but across the country, financial services firms, software companies, and e-business is booming. Web 2.0 is going to be the next big wave for the internet....that is going to drive a ton of new business. :) Pam |
| mailbag | Posted – 5/5/2007 5:33:30 PM | show profile | email poster Pam Pam can you break down for us the age groups getting the jobs? (20s, 30s, 40s, 50s, 60s,) Are the new grads more or less likely to be tapped? What percentage of jobs are salary only based, or commission plus salary? Are you placing journalists, copyeditors, editors? |
| foodlit | Posted – 5/5/2007 6:00:44 PM | show profile I'm not placing journalists, or editors. The closest I come to that is copywriters for advertising agencies and senior level marketing jobs. I'm seeing college grads getting entry level jobs in the 30-40 range for marketing assistant type of things. I don't do a lot of that though. Most of the jobs I'm placing are mid to VP level and age range is 20-50+ depending on the level and the experience. Salaries are 40-85k for the copywriters. VP of Marketing is to 150k plus 25% bonus. I have a few project managers for an internet company in the 80-100k range, and a more senior level one up to 120k. I have an e-learning instructional writer in the 70-80k range and a manager up to 95k or so. So, it's all over the place, age and salary wise. It's interesting to me because we tend to see the pickup in the marketplace before it really hits the general read of the economy. For instance, we were crazy busy like this back in the late 90's before the general public really sensed the impact of the internet. I don't know if we'll ever reach the insanity of those days again, but I do think it's very encouraging that there is so much hiring going on and that companies seem to be growing and getting additional rounds of funding. :) Pam |
| foodlit | Posted – 5/5/2007 6:03:34 PM | show profile Sorry, forgot to address your question regarding type of compensation. All the jobs I'm referencing are salaried positions, and a good number of them have bonus potential. Financial companies tend to give the best bonuses. Start-ups and creative companies often don't give them at all. |
| questoo1 | Posted – 5/6/2007 5:08:14 PM | show profile Right there with you...companies are hiring like crazy right now and more often then not my candidates have multiple offers. When the tides shifted a few years ago I got out of traditional media and have never looked back. |
| UGoGirl | Posted – 6/4/2007 11:15:24 AM | show profile And another country tosses its peg from the increasingly doomed dollar. **** Syria will abandon its currency's peg to the U.S. dollar and link it instead to International Monetary Fund special drawing rights, according to the central bank. ...Syria is the second Middle Eastern country in two weeks to say it will dump its dollar peg as weakness in the U.S. currency pushes up the cost of imports from Europe and Asia, adding to inflation. Kuwait shifted to a currency basket on May 20 because of rising consumer prices, and inflation has accelerated in the United Arab Emirates and Qatar. "The weaker dollar is fueling inflation," said Dorothee Gasser, an analyst at ING Bank in London. "We see the U.A.E. as the next possible shifter." "Inflation is a risk for all these countries and allowing their currencies to appreciate versus the dollar is one way to address that," Jon Harrison, an analyst at Dresdner Kleinwort Group Ltd., said in London. Political Motivation? Syria, under fire from the U.S. for alleged support for terrorism, said in July last year it planned to dump the dollar peg by the end of 2006 to reflect closer trade ties with Europe. The Central Bank of Syria had converted half its currency reserves to euros, central bank Governor Adib Mayaleh said last July. The reserves, including gold, totaled $4.1 billion at end- 2005, according to the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency. Reuters earlier today cited Mayaleh as saying in Abu Dhabi that Syria would abandon the peg to the dollar in July. |
| foodlit | Posted – 6/4/2007 1:01:27 PM | show profile Sorry, I still don't buy into the doom and gloom some are trying to sell here. I'm seeing the economy as incredibly robust. Companies are hiring, profits are up and there is a shortage of good talent for companies that are looking. Everything is cyclical. What goes down comes up, and we're in a steady climb up from what I'm seeing. As I said earlier too, I tend to see upswings in the economy before it's obvious to the general public, based on what I do and the huge push for companies to add staff is a key indicator that business is booming. :) |
