Originally Posted by Roadbldr '59

Originally Posted by JTaber 1972

Originally Posted by Justin '77

Originally Posted by JTaber 1972

Basically, Ford and (Daimler-)Chrysler have held the same shares of the market

Heh heh. If you worked for that one (or one of its affiliates), you'd know that it's more properly written Daimler(Chrysler). In German, the 'Chrysler' is silent.

I don't doubt that, even if my wife does drive a 2003 Dodge Stratus.

Which is made in Illinois (?) by Mitsubishi, whose planes once bombed Pearl Harbor.

Yes, that facility is outside Bloomington, Illinois, on the Mitsubishi Motorway. (It used to be called "Diamond Star Parkway" or somesuch.)

http://www.marketwatch.com/news/stor...eid=mktw&dist=

Originally Posted by Tom Mazanec

http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story.asp?guid=%7B24EED6D8%2DE169%2D476D%2D90BC%2D 36A4F4F75513%7D&siteid=mktw&dist=

Indeed.

A bird's eye view of just how dangerous the economy really is:

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/article...nested&order=0

Congress wants to allow Federal Workers to invest some of their retirement savings into a real estate fund (we already have the choice of Government bills, bonds, general stocks, high tech stocks, and international stocks).

At this time, I'll invest over my dead body! After the real estate bubble busts, however.......

From today's Government Executive. Standard disclaimers apply.

The Thrift Savings Plan might be gaining a real estate fund option, according to legislation that will be introduced Monday by two members of the House Government Reform Committee.


Rep. Jon Porter, R-Nev., chairman of the House Government Reform Subcommittee on the Federal Workforce and Agency Organization, and Rep. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., announced Friday that they will introduce a bill to add a real estate investment trust fund option to the Thrift Savings Plan. In January, the Federal Retirement Thrift Investment Board discussed that option and decided they were against the introduction of a real estate fund.

The TSP, a 401(k)-style plan for federal employees, currently has five available fund options. The Thrift Board is also developing a sixth - the life-cycle fund, an automatically diversified collection of existing funds.

During a January meeting, the Thrift Board was told that lobbyists from the National Association of Real Estate Investment Trusts were on Capitol Hill pushing for a real estate fund in the TSP. Several board members - including Chairman Andrew Saul - said they were against the idea. No one spoke in favor. TSP Executive Director Gary Amelio noted that the Thrift plan already would be the 13th largest real estate mutual fund in the country, based on holdings in the five existing funds. Thrift officials were not immediately available Friday afternoon to comment on the proposed bill.

Congressional staffers said they are aware of the Thrift Board's position and have discussed the issue with Amelio.

"We met with them, and we've had back-and-forth correspondence, and we still think it's a great option," said Porter spokesman Chad Bungard.

According to Bungard, Amelio said that a real estate fund would be a logical choice for a sixth fund, but the TSP chief is opposed to the addition of any funds at all.

"We have been talking with Gary Amelio," Bungard said. "He's trying to keep it simple."

House Government Reform Committee Chairman Tom Davis, R-Va., is scheduled to appear with Porter and Van Hollen on Monday to introduce the bill.

"There were other opinions that contradicted the Thrift Board," said a Democratic staffer who asked not to be identified. "It's just an option; it's elective. It's very similar to what is available in 401(k)s. Federal employees should have the same option."

Wouldn't this in the short term make the bubble problem worse, if there is a bubble problem?

Doesn't it fit in with the theory that ppl will do what makes the system more and more unstable until it finally cracks?

Originally Posted by mgibbons19 (71)

Wouldn't this in the short term make the bubble problem worse, if there is a bubble problem?

Doesn't it fit in with the theory that ppl will do what makes the system more and more unstable until it finally cracks?

Of course. It makes the hangover worse, but you feel you really earned it. It may be that the end of denial is the societal catharsis that begins the regeneracy.

OF course, that's more up your alley. :wink:

Here's one reasonable statement that this is no longer a "future" topic:
http://peakoil.com/fortopic6964.html

Worrisome oil prices dominate G7 meeting

IMF issues sharp warning on global economy, says abrupt correction possible

Dow drops 191 points to new low

:shock: :shock: :shock:

Heres a good article from Fortune entitled: "We're a Nation Helpless to Save Ourselves". It suggests a similar fate for America as one in a book entitled: "The Coming Generational Storm" (very good book).

http://www.fortune.com/fortune/value...045327,00.html

My favorite quotes from this article: "...the aging of the baby-boomers creates unique financial stresses. America's most pampered and self-obsessed generation hasn't prepared itself for retirement and, as usual, expects someone else to bail it out. Trouble is, succeeding generations aren't big enough or rich enough to handle the job.

Also, from Waren Buffet in "his annual letter to shareholders, arguing passionately that our stupendous trade deficit?our insistence on giving away claims on our future just so we can continue shopping the world?is turning us into a "sharecropper's society.""

Couple articles on popping of our current bubble:
http://www.bullnotbull.com/bull/Article39.html
http://www.safehaven.com/article-2907.htm

More evidence of housing bubble pop?
http://biz.yahoo.com/rb/050420/econo...ages.html?.v=2
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Global_.../GD20Dj01.html

Here is a sort of primer...a kind of
Housing Mania 101:
http://www.lewrockwell.com/north/north366.html

Gold, dollars and oil:
http://www.howestreet.com/mainartcl.php?ArticleId=1147

Politics and economics:
http://www.morganstanley.com/GEFdata...n.html#anchor0

The housing bubble nears its end:
http://www.howestreet.com/articles_a...1829050505.pdf

On the coming Kondratieff winter:
http://www.howestreet.com/mainartcl.php?ArticleId=1188

More on the Housing Bubble:
http://www.ameinfo.com/59970.html

Here's a really good article in the Washington Post about the different lifecycle experiences of G.I.'s, Boomers and Xers with respect to career and retirement, and their relationship with employers and government. The reporting is very conscious of generational patterns. Russakoff compares GWB's "Ownership Society" to FDR's "New Deal," suggesting that we're 4T. Excerpted below.

Retirement's Unraveling Safety Net
Social Security Is Least of Newer Generations' Worries

By Dale Russakoff
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, May 15, 2005; Page A01

MIDDLE RIVER, Md. -- If it's a clear morning, you can count on seeing 80-year-old Junior K. Paugh strolling streets that tell his life story: Propeller Drive, Fuselage Avenue, Cockpit Street, Compass Road. He's been here more than 60 years, ever since aviation pioneer Glenn L. Martin put him to work making seaplanes and bombers at the defense plant down the road. Franklin D. Roosevelt was president and Martin himself walked the factory floor, urging on workers as the nation went to war.

Out of that perilous time came Paugh's now predictable world. He never is short of money, thanks to Social Security and his company pension that will last as long as he does. Health care costs him next to nothing, thanks to Medicare and retiree health insurance. His Baltimore County home is long paid for, thanks in part to a below-market price of $4,400, a result of wartime subsidies for defense-related housing construction.

"I feel completely secure," says Paugh, no small triumph for the third of 13 children born to farmers in Depression-era Appalachia. The triumph is not only his but also the country's -- the fulfillment of a New Deal vision of cradle-to-grave security, underwritten by the federal government and large industrial employers.

That vision is being supplanted by one President Bush calls the Ownership Society, in which the burdens of economic security -- and, the president hopes, the rewards -- shift back to individuals. Social Security is only one aspect of the shift. The safety net big companies wove for Paugh's generation -- long-term employment, pension security, retiree health insurance -- has been giving way for so long that its unraveling is mere background accompaniment to Washington's noisy debate over Social Security. But in the lives of most middle-class families, it stays in the foreground, inseparable from the Social Security discussion.

This becomes clear in the company of Junior Paugh, his three children, all in their fifties, and five grandchildren, ages 18 to 35. Their three-generation journey has taken them from Appalachia to suburbia, from government relief to an assembly line to a management track at Sears. Yet, despite the apparent progress, their expectations are sinking: The grandchildren, all three generations agree, have it worse than their parents and grandparents -- most dramatically in their prospects for retirement, when all gains and losses come home to roost.

Originally Posted by Steve Barrera

Here's a really good article in the Washington Post about the different lifecycle experiences of G.I.'s, Boomers and Xers with respect to career and retirement, and their relationship with employers and government. The reporting is very conscious of generational patterns. Russakoff compares GWB's "Ownership Society" to FDR's "New Deal," suggesting that we're 4T...

Oddly, there is a split between the comfortable Democrats and the anxious and worried Republicans. To believe in an Ownership Society requires a certain level of faith, yet the pessimists are the ones in that camp. They are envious of the elders who succedded using the communitarian way, yet they reject what is obviously a workable solution.

I wish the author would have explored that dichotomy more. Its the most interesting part of the atricle.

Originally Posted by Marx & Lennon

Originally Posted by Steve Barrera

Here's a really good article in the Washington Post about the different lifecycle experiences of G.I.'s, Boomers and Xers with respect to career and retirement, and their relationship with employers and government. The reporting is very conscious of generational patterns. Russakoff compares GWB's "Ownership Society" to FDR's "New Deal," suggesting that we're 4T...

Oddly, there is a split between the comfortable Democrats and the anxious and worried Republicans. To believe in an Ownership Society requires a certain level of faith, yet the pessimists are the ones in that camp. They are envious of the elders who succedded using the communitarian way, yet they reject what is obviously a workable solution.

I wish the author would have explored that dichotomy more. Its the most interesting part of the atricle.

Presiden't Bush's talk about an Ownership Society reminds me of the Twilight Zone episode in which 10-foot-tall aliens announced that they had arrrived on earth To Serve Man. At the end of the show, it was revealed that their Book "To Serve Man" was in reality a cookbook.

What W. really means by an Ownership Society is one in which the rich corporations literally Own everything and everyone else.

Originally Posted by Roadbldr '59

Originally Posted by Marx & Lennon

Originally Posted by Steve Barrera

Here's a really good article in the Washington Post about the different lifecycle experiences of G.I.'s, Boomers and Xers with respect to career and retirement, and their relationship with employers and government. The reporting is very conscious of generational patterns. Russakoff compares GWB's "Ownership Society" to FDR's "New Deal," suggesting that we're 4T...

Oddly, there is a split between the comfortable Democrats and the anxious and worried Republicans. To believe in an Ownership Society requires a certain level of faith, yet the pessimists are the ones in that camp. They are envious of the elders who succedded using the communitarian way, yet they reject what is obviously a workable solution.

I wish the author would have explored that dichotomy more. Its the most interesting part of the atricle.

Presiden't Bush's talk about an Ownership Society reminds me of the Twilight Zone episode in which 10-foot-tall aliens announced that they had arrrived on earth To Serve Man. At the end of the show, it was revealed that their Book "To Serve Man" was in reality a cookbook.

What W. really means by an Ownership Society is one in which the rich corporations literally Own everything and everyone else.

The wierd part is, the Boomers and Xer/Millies in the article saw this, yet they still support it. Why? It's irrational to the point of being self-destructive. Worse, the one person that had actually done some serious investigation of the concept believes it won't work, yet she remains a supporter that expects failiure.

The only rational expalanation is, they don't see an alternative. If that's true, then the Democrats have been discounted as me-tooers, incompetent or merely irrelevant. That's the part that needed to be investigated: why the hopeless continue on a path they see as bad.

Originally Posted by Marx & Lennon

Originally Posted by Roadbldr '59

Originally Posted by Marx & Lennon

Originally Posted by Steve Barrera

Here's a really good article in the Washington Post about the different lifecycle experiences of G.I.'s, Boomers and Xers with respect to career and retirement, and their relationship with employers and government. The reporting is very conscious of generational patterns. Russakoff compares GWB's "Ownership Society" to FDR's "New Deal," suggesting that we're 4T...

Oddly, there is a split between the comfortable Democrats and the anxious and worried Republicans. To believe in an Ownership Society requires a certain level of faith, yet the pessimists are the ones in that camp. They are envious of the elders who succedded using the communitarian way, yet they reject what is obviously a workable solution.

I wish the author would have explored that dichotomy more. Its the most interesting part of the atricle.

Presiden't Bush's talk about an Ownership Society reminds me of the Twilight Zone episode in which 10-foot-tall aliens announced that they had arrrived on earth To Serve Man. At the end of the show, it was revealed that their Book "To Serve Man" was in reality a cookbook.

What W. really means by an Ownership Society is one in which the rich corporations literally Own everything and everyone else.

The wierd part is, the Boomers and Xer/Millies in the article saw this, yet they still support it. Why? It's irrational to the point of being self-destructive. Worse, the one person that had actually done some serious investigation of the concept believes it won't work, yet she remains a supporter that expects failiure.

The only rational expalanation is, they don't see an alternative. If that's true, then the Democrats have been discounted as me-tooers, incompetent or merely irrelevant. That's the part that needed to be investigated: why the hopeless continue on a path they see as bad.

The same thing struck me too about the article (which I read in its entireity last Sunday and meant to post here but never got around to).

Latest on the housing bubble:
http://www.economist.com/opinion/dis...ory_id=4079458

Some news from the front lines of the housing bubble (I live in Northern Virginia, where the market has been red-hot -- houses have more than doubled in value in the past five years.

I was chatting with an X-er whose wife is a realtor. She has noticed that the market has markedly slowed down in the past two months -- houses that used to go in three days are taking a month to sell.

Sellers may be asking for higher prices, but are they able to sell at those desired prices? Are buyers becoming jittery?

We'll see. I'm glad I'm not in this market right now. :shock: