Author Topic: Mainstream Economics Thread  (Read 22129 times)

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Offline michigancat

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Re: Mainstream Economics Thread
« Reply #25 on: February 27, 2014, 11:00:14 AM »
I can't afford to buy a house, but I'm worried there's going to be another national housing bubble in the next year or two.

Would be a great time to buy a house.

I still probably couldn't afford one.

Damned gentrification. 

All these decades, I've moved through San Francisco pursuing my straight white literary activist girl pursuits but with joy in the people pursuing theirs and in the range and variety of life. Those mornings in Golden Gate Park, when I lived on that side of town, when the drummers were doing their thing on Hippie Hill, the roller disco royalty gyrating on skates, the old Chinese people doing their martial arts (with big pink fans, once, a whole flock of old ladies like flamingos), the bullfighters practicing sans bulls in the Panhandle, the swing dancers on the little bridge by the De Young, the saxaphonists and digeri doo guys playing with tunnel reverb, the runners running, the weddings and tourists and museum goers and cyclists and houseless campers and the archers at the far west where the gay men used to cruise before online shopping for sex: it felt like a world with room for everyone. I keep coming back to the sign an old woman held up at Occupy Wall Street: "We are fighting for a world where everyone matters."

This is why I'll pay my respects to Esta Noche even though I was never a Latina drag queen and why it pains me to see it and so many other institutions helping the old San Francisco be a world in which many worlds fit, in which everyone mattered, evicted, erased, outpriced. Those worlds are going out like lights as it becomes the chiefs new world of newcomers--and we always welcomed newcomers, but this many with this much clout are extinguishing what came before and not arriving in San Francisco but replacing it with a strange surburbanized dudely young version of the good life that doesn't have room for Latina drag queen bars, apparently. Or bookstores. Or the Coltrane Church. Or ladies who are nearly 100 and here by grace of rent control who could tell you wonderful stories about the San Francisco of the 1930s and 1940s. Or the godfather of the Mission and the Galeria de la Raza.

Remember that Bernal Hill is where some Sandinistas trained once upon a time, before anyone dreamed the Google Bus would be stopping at its foot, remember that we were the great portal for Zen in the west with San Francisco Zen Center, remember that we have been a great generator of magazines--Rolling Stone, Artforum--that moved, of ideas that stuck, starting with the environmental movement at least since the Sierra Club was founded on Kearny Street in 1892 and Earth Island Institute 90 years or so later, of liberation for queer people at least since North Beach was full of lesbian and drag bars and Jose Sarria (may s/he rest in regal festivity) was running for Supe in 1961 and the drag queens were beating the cops with their purses and heels at the Compton Cafeteria Riot long before Stonewall, remember that the Mission mural scene was all about art that wasn't white or gentrifying, remember that the Alcatraz occupation came out of Native Americans here who inspired a whole continent of indigenous people, remember that Asian rights and identities were often defined from here around the I-Hotel and its cultural center and activists and the great Asian writers of this region, remember that Valencia Street was lesbian bars and appliance stores before the new fancy came in, remember that the support for so many movements, and sometimes the big ideas, came from here. Will they again? I'm worried.

Offline michigancat

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Re: Mainstream Economics Thread
« Reply #26 on: February 27, 2014, 11:02:22 AM »
I can't afford to buy a house, but I'm worried there's going to be another national housing bubble in the next year or two.

nope, at least there isn't one that has already started.

yeah, I believe another one has started and should have said that I am worried about another bubble bursting. I don't think anyone learned anything from the last one.

Offline sys

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Re: Mainstream Economics Thread
« Reply #27 on: February 27, 2014, 11:05:46 AM »
yeah, I believe another one has started and should have said that I am worried about another bubble bursting. I don't think anyone learned anything from the last one.

have you looked at the data?  there may be a few local bubbles that have started, but there is not a national bubble that has already started.  if anything, lending standards are still so tight that they are stifling the housing market. 
"a garden city man wondered in april if the theologians had not made a mistake in locating the garden of eden in asia rather than in the arkansas river valley."

Offline michigancat

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Re: Mainstream Economics Thread
« Reply #28 on: February 27, 2014, 11:07:50 AM »
have you looked at the data?  there may be a few local bubbles that have started, but there is not a national bubble that has already started.

how do you know?

Offline sys

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Re: Mainstream Economics Thread
« Reply #29 on: February 27, 2014, 11:08:44 AM »
i've looked at the data.
"a garden city man wondered in april if the theologians had not made a mistake in locating the garden of eden in asia rather than in the arkansas river valley."

Offline michigancat

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Offline michigancat

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Re: Mainstream Economics Thread
« Reply #31 on: February 27, 2014, 11:11:02 AM »
My point is how do you know you're in a bubble until after it's burst?

Offline ben ji

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Re: Mainstream Economics Thread
« Reply #32 on: February 27, 2014, 11:12:21 AM »
Lets keep this bubble rolling another 5-10 years  then pop it when ben ji has a family and needs to buy bigger house.

Offline michigancat

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Re: Mainstream Economics Thread
« Reply #33 on: February 27, 2014, 11:13:21 AM »
Lets keep this bubble rolling another 5-10 years  then pop it when ben ji has a family and needs to buy bigger house.

what if you can't sell the one you're in? (You probably won't need a bigger house, so you'll be fine, but it's something to think about).

Offline sys

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Re: Mainstream Economics Thread
« Reply #34 on: February 27, 2014, 11:15:19 AM »


rates are low; most single-family residential mortgages are fixed. 
"a garden city man wondered in april if the theologians had not made a mistake in locating the garden of eden in asia rather than in the arkansas river valley."

Offline ben ji

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Re: Mainstream Economics Thread
« Reply #35 on: February 27, 2014, 11:15:24 AM »
Lets keep this bubble rolling another 5-10 years  then pop it when ben ji has a family and needs to buy bigger house.

what if you can't sell the one you're in? (You probably won't need a bigger house, so you'll be fine, but it's something to think about).

Already planning on renting the current house if I were to need a larger house  :gocho:

Offline sys

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Re: Mainstream Economics Thread
« Reply #36 on: February 27, 2014, 11:17:21 AM »
My point is how do you know you're in a bubble until after it's burst?

oh, hey there eugene fama.
"a garden city man wondered in april if the theologians had not made a mistake in locating the garden of eden in asia rather than in the arkansas river valley."

Offline Emo EMAW

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Re: Mainstream Economics Thread
« Reply #37 on: February 27, 2014, 11:21:19 AM »
Back to the general economy...the stock market index prices are super high compare to earnings.  Unsustainably high.  Either earnings have to increase dramatically or the market is going to tank.  Obviously earnings are rear-looking and the price indexes are forward looking so there might not be a disconnect there, but the potential is as high as it's ever been.

Offline michigancat

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Re: Mainstream Economics Thread
« Reply #38 on: February 27, 2014, 11:25:11 AM »


rates are low; most single-family residential mortgages are fixed. 

pffft, realtors.

There seems to be some contradicting data unless income has really shot up.

Offline Emo EMAW

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Re: Mainstream Economics Thread
« Reply #39 on: February 27, 2014, 11:27:10 AM »


rates are low; most single-family residential mortgages are fixed. 

pffft, realtors.

There seems to be some contradicting data unless income has really shot up.

It's the personal debt that's gone down.  Loans, credit cards, etc.

Offline sys

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Re: Mainstream Economics Thread
« Reply #40 on: February 27, 2014, 11:27:29 AM »
Back to the general economy...the stock market index prices are super high compare to earnings.  Unsustainably high.  Either earnings have to increase dramatically or the market is going to tank.  Obviously earnings are rear-looking and the price indexes are forward looking so there might not be a disconnect there, but the potential is as high as it's ever been.

data, please.  i'd say earnings much more likely to be unsustainably high than valuations are (sp500, small caps seem like they are a little overvalued).  valuations certainly aren't cheap, but they aren't outlandishly high.  they're pretty normal.

"a garden city man wondered in april if the theologians had not made a mistake in locating the garden of eden in asia rather than in the arkansas river valley."

Offline sys

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Re: Mainstream Economics Thread
« Reply #41 on: February 27, 2014, 11:29:40 AM »
pffft, realtors.

There seems to be some contradicting data unless income has really shot up.

you could get the same graph off a different website, if you'd find it more convincing that way.


it's not contradictory data.  affordability is a combination of housing prices, incomes and interest rates.  interest rates are very low.
"a garden city man wondered in april if the theologians had not made a mistake in locating the garden of eden in asia rather than in the arkansas river valley."

Offline michigancat

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Re: Mainstream Economics Thread
« Reply #42 on: February 27, 2014, 11:34:38 AM »
pffft, realtors.

There seems to be some contradicting data unless income has really shot up.

you could get the same graph off a different website, if you'd find it more convincing that way.


it's not contradictory data.  affordability is a combination of housing prices, incomes and interest rates.  interest rates are very low.

your data just stopped at its peak in 2012. Taking the data all the way to the end of 2013 makes more sense.

http://www.realtor.org/sites/default/files/reports/2014/embargoes/hai-12-2013/hai-12-2013-housing-affordability-index-02-11-2014.pdf

Offline sys

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Re: Mainstream Economics Thread
« Reply #43 on: February 27, 2014, 11:41:42 AM »
how does that make more sense to your bubble thesis?  rates went up, housing price increases slowed.
"a garden city man wondered in april if the theologians had not made a mistake in locating the garden of eden in asia rather than in the arkansas river valley."

Offline OregonSmock

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Re: Mainstream Economics Thread
« Reply #44 on: February 27, 2014, 11:47:33 AM »
Raising the minimum wage increases unemployment when equilibrium wages are below the price floor.




 :cool:

Offline michigancat

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Re: Mainstream Economics Thread
« Reply #45 on: February 27, 2014, 11:51:55 AM »
how does that make more sense to your bubble thesis?  rates went up, housing price increases slowed.

It just made more sense compared to housing prices.

Offline p1k3

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Re: Mainstream Economics Thread
« Reply #46 on: February 27, 2014, 12:20:50 PM »
Not very "mainstream" but we should talk about the labor participation rate!

Offline Fake Sugar Dick (WARNING, NOT THE REAL SUGAR DICK!)

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Re: Mainstream Economics Thread
« Reply #47 on: February 27, 2014, 12:29:11 PM »
Our economy has outpaced the developed world (western European socialists) since WW2. Saying its kicking ass right now compared to them is the equivalent of a big brother bragging about being older than his little brother.

The current state of our economy is really bad relative to similar points in time since WW2, which is troubling.
goEMAW Karmic BBS Shepherd

Offline OregonSmock

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Re: Mainstream Economics Thread
« Reply #48 on: February 27, 2014, 12:38:39 PM »
Our economy has outpaced the developed world (western European socialists) since WW2. Saying its kicking ass right now compared to them is the equivalent of a big brother bragging about being older than his little brother.

The current state of our economy is really bad relative to similar points in time since WW2, which is troubling.





Do I need to explain why WWII was good for the US economy?

Offline sys

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Re: Mainstream Economics Thread
« Reply #49 on: February 27, 2014, 12:39:00 PM »
Not very "mainstream" but we should talk about the labor participation rate!

inflation!  let's talk about inflation.
"a garden city man wondered in april if the theologians had not made a mistake in locating the garden of eden in asia rather than in the arkansas river valley."