Good economic news! + metalworking

Good question. The changing democraphics of So. Cal have something to do with it. People moving out of areas that are becoming hispanic centers farther out from the urban centers..taking their business with them and needing "local shopping". People have been moving out into the desert areas, Hemet, San Bernadeno and Riverside counties away from Los Angeles county.....but it hardly explains the many strip malls etc etc that were built and are now empty. Investment property and Property Managment companies were the mantra from what I can see. It appears that no one foresaw a time when there were too many of them, and finding tenants would become impossible. Im sure many are now hoping for the Big One (earthquake).

"Upon Roosevelt's death in 1945, H. L. Mencken predicted in his diary that Roosevelt would be remembered as a great president, "maybe even alongside Washington and Lincoln," opining that Roosevelt "had every quality that morons esteem in their heroes.""

Reply to
Gunner Asch
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I've just had the ETA of an order I placed with Grizzly Industrial bumped back to a total of 6 months. For about $50 of items that they normally keep in stock.

They have plenty of customers. What they don't have is credit.

There was an economist on a local radio talk show saying that what we are experiencing is a strike by the banking industry. Either we make them whole again after their screw-up with the mortgage business or no money moves. Although I don't thing we should go as far as he was recommending (nationalizing the banking industry), I do agree with his position that its time to stop offering the banking business a carrot and break out the stick.

The next time a bank goes under, the feds should just pick it up and run it themselves. Better yet, don't wait for a bank to fail, start opening local branches right now, in competition with the private banks. Essentially government backed credit unions. Take deposits, pay interest, make loans, issue credit cards, etc. If JP Morgan and their ilk don't like the competition, they can compete to keep the business.

Reply to
Paul Hovnanian P.E.

The examples of them doing just this with other business are large...

They took over a w**re house in Nevada for taxes..and managed to run it into the ground.

And you want government, which couldnt even run a w**re house...to run something as complex as a financial institution?

You have lots and lots of faith.........

The only whorehouse they have had any luck running...is Congress....

Gunner

"Upon Roosevelt's death in 1945, H. L. Mencken predicted in his diary that Roosevelt would be remembered as a great president, "maybe even alongside Washington and Lincoln," opining that Roosevelt "had every quality that morons esteem in their heroes.""

Reply to
Gunner Asch

------------------ While I think you are on the right track, there does not appear to be any need to open new banks, simply make additional capital available for the strong local and regional banks, credit unions, etc. that are already there, simply by making sizable CD purchases with 3 to 5 year terms.

==>In many cases, the stronger local and regional banks don't need more capital,

Reply to
F. George McDuffee

That's a tall order, George. John and I have discussed behavioral economics, which is the coming thing in the field, but I don't know what the actual curriculum is. I think it's still a minor subject in college economics programs, where it exists at all.

Ha-ha! Oh, that will go over big with the business community. I can visualize how they'll react to the government taking "mental health profiles" of executives involved in bankrupcies. d8-)

Well, I think economics actually is a lot better than that. It's just that there are many things that involve psychological factors in decision making that they can't cope with. Maybe someday.

-- Ed Huntress

Reply to
Ed Huntress

They actually did not want to run it, it is a well known story.

i

Reply to
Ignoramus10382

----------- Indeed, but just about every other occupation/profession where a person is involved in a major incident including ferry boat pilots, railway engineers, over the road truckers and air line pilots, must undergo an immediate drug and alcohol test, and many must undergo another "flight physical" before they are allowed back in the driver's seat, and their medical records are reviewed.

Given the structure and timespan/latency of the CEO positions a complete physical and mental examination/evaluation seems entirely reasonable, as does a in-depth background check for other problems hobbies such as large scale gambling, alcohol/drug abuse, mistresses, etc.

While I can understand the reluctance of the prosecutors to possibly establish a "diminished mental capacity" defense in these cases, including outright fraud such as Madoff, it would appear that society as a whole has a greater interest in prevention. For example, I suggest that Mr. Madoff be MRI scanned to determine if possibly a brain tumor exists.

Mr. Thain should be checked for possible bi-polar. No one in their right mind spends over a million dollars to redecorate their office as their company is going bankrupt.

Assuming there is no organic/systemic basis for such behaviors (which is the most clear cut to diagnose), then it is vital to test for mental problems such as megalomania and sociopathy.

In any event, the behaviors, traits, habits etc. of the individuals involved over the previous 3 to 5 years should be compiled, and examined for commonalities, with the object of creating a 5 to 20 item list of easily observed traits/habits that correlate with future business difficulties.

Such traits *MAY* ["may" because there is no hard, only anecdotal, data] include lurid marital problems, repeated personal tax/regulatory difficulties, repeated driving violations such as grossly excessive speeding, obsessive operational secrecy, preoccupation with social status and image, and flagrant conspicuous consumption.

If such a list can be developed, it should be as familiar to the average person as the 7 early warning signs of cancer. If we can't stop the train wrecks, at least we may be able to get off or get out of the way before these occur.

Unka' George [George McDuffee]

------------------------------------------- He that will not apply new remedies, must expect new evils: for Time is the greatest innovator: and if Time, of course, alter things to the worse, and wisdom and counsel shall not alter them to the better, what shall be the end?

Francis Bacon (1561-1626), English philosopher, essayist, statesman. Essays, "Of Innovations" (1597-1625).

Reply to
F. George McDuffee

"F. George McDuffee" wrote in message news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com...

God Unka' George we have had some of this already in place for a long time: security clearances. Had I done exactly what Bill Clinton did, I would have lost my security clearance in a heartbeat due to the compromising position available thru blackmail. I did not have a nuclear button in my hand either. It is judiciously applied and would similarly if applied to CEOs making millions. Half or more of our Congress have backgrounds that wouldn't allow a clearance to Confidential in the places I've worked. I certainly agree that we need some way to monitor or predict when a person is capable or not capable of handling the power he is about to be granted. We watched commander after commander at the Kwajalein Missile Range succomb to the amount of power in the position and do really dumb things: Had the fire plugs and all the backs of the stop signs all painted desert brown. Hazard signs removed. I can give you a long list of similar stupids. One wanted to put the radar down for an estimated 6 months that produced the majority of the deep space satellite data to Cheyenne Mountain so that it could be painted brown instead of its heat rejecting white. We witnessed first hand that power corrupts. Most of these guys were reasonable people before dropping into positions of relatively absolute power. We could have saved a bunch of money and frustrations if these guys could have been either filtered out or trained to handle the big increase in power.

Stu

Reply to
Stuart Fields

=========== Fantastic suggestion/observation. A flash of blinding light.

Everything is in place, so the marginal cost of a few thousand more individuals should not be too great.

Anyone know why legislation should not be enacted requiring the CEOs of the Fortune 500/1000 companies to obtain/maintain a "secret" or above security clearance?

Should be an easy sell under the "counter terrorism" banner, and I can see a contest developing between the CEOs -- you just got a "secret" clearance and a Porsche, but I got a "top secret" clearance [and the decoder ring] and a Maserati. Obviously any CEO that objects either has something to hide or is not a Patriot.

On the serious side, it is obvious that this group is positioned to do more damage than 99% of the people that currently have high security clearances, and during the course of business come across considerable sensitive information, so this would not be a totally amiss, even using traditional security rationales.

Unka' George [George McDuffee]

------------------------------------------- He that will not apply new remedies, must expect new evils: for Time is the greatest innovator: and if Time, of course, alter things to the worse, and wisdom and counsel shall not alter them to the better, what shall be the end?

Francis Bacon (1561-1626), English philosopher, essayist, statesman. Essays, "Of Innovations" (1597-1625).

Reply to
F. George McDuffee

LOL It ain't that easy George.

Money for one and government resources for another.

They would just work ona waiver. LOL That was what happened in many cases after 9-11.

A lot of todays top executives do carry clearances of one sort or another George. They have to.

JC

Reply to
John R. Carroll

----------- This is a common academic failing, i.e. thinking that unless it is taught in your department or at least your college it can't be any good. It is a common cause for course proliferation and leads to empire building with in departments.

The solution is march the students over to the psychology department and sign them up for some of the existing higher level soc/psych/anthropology courses. Some of the higher level history courses [beyond the intro/survey classes we all take] would be helpful also. When you don't know where you have been its very difficult to tell where you are going, and you will keep making the same mistakes. Of course it works the other way and many of the history majors should be taking some advanced econ classes for insight into their field.

Unka' George [George McDuffee]

------------------------------------------- He that will not apply new remedies, must expect new evils: for Time is the greatest innovator: and if Time, of course, alter things to the worse, and wisdom and counsel shall not alter them to the better, what shall be the end?

Francis Bacon (1561-1626), English philosopher, essayist, statesman. Essays, "Of Innovations" (1597-1625).

Reply to
F. George McDuffee

--------------

Very interesting .....

If this has been the case for some time [and the data was available] it should be a simple matter to see if there is a statistical correlation between a CEO's security clearance [existence and level], with the implied limits on their behavior/life style, and other criteria such as company profitability, P/E ratios, growth, bankruptcies, etc.

Any to determine which CEOs have what clearances? (FOIA request?) Most of the other information of interest is public record / annual report stuff.

Unka' George [George McDuffee]

------------------------------------------- He that will not apply new remedies, must expect new evils: for Time is the greatest innovator: and if Time, of course, alter things to the worse, and wisdom and counsel shall not alter them to the better, what shall be the end?

Francis Bacon (1561-1626), English philosopher, essayist, statesman. Essays, "Of Innovations" (1597-1625).

Reply to
F. George McDuffee

I doubt that such a FOIA request would be granted. Blanket requests of that nature are excluded, I'm sure. Studies/data are published once in a while. You'd be surprised, for example, of the percentage of active duty military that aren't able to be deployed outside the CONUS. Pay day lenders have taken their toll.It's a real burden on unit readiness.

JC

Reply to
John R. Carroll

On Mon, 16 Feb 2009 20:24:58 -0600, the infamous F. George McDuffee scrawled the following:

An interesting discourse, Unk, and its inception may lead to a better future for us. But greed has never been defined as mental illness, at least not to my recollection. Let's treat it for what it is...

But wouldn't King Louis XVI's (and Dr. Guillotin's) method of negative feedback work better? And who is guilty of making top floor windows immovable? It rules out all sorts of Darwinian cleansing action.

The honorable Japanese have their Seppuku, but our financial "leaders" are not honorable. I'll bet we could find volunteer helpers, tho.

Then there's always (my fave) this popular and fitting method.

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----------------------------------------------- Never attempt to traverse a chasm in two leaps. ===============================================

Reply to
Larry Jaques

On Mon, 16 Feb 2009 19:05:07 -0800, the infamous "Stuart Fields" scrawled the following:

That's for damned sure. I wonder why that was never brought up by the Press...

Given the base corruption of nearly all politicians (don't you have to be a filthy pig in order to want political power in the first place?) something as simple as the Peter Principle just multiplies it when they get into office.

GIGO, mon.

-- I'm still waiting for another sublime, transcendent flash of adequacy. --Winnie of RCM

Reply to
Larry Jaques

On Mon, 16 Feb 2009 16:41:02 -0600, the infamous Ignoramus10382 scrawled the following:

Are you going to let Gunner get away with saying that the CONgress is a functional entity which they're having luck running? Anyone?

-- I'm still waiting for another sublime, transcendent flash of adequacy. --Winnie of RCM

Reply to
Larry Jaques

---------- Was this officer named Queeg? [Caine Mutiny by Wouk] While a novel, "The Caine Mutiny" shows how one bad apple as a subordinate can undermine an entire staff and an experienced leader. Any of that in evidence?

This does however seem to indicate that not only power corrupts, but even the illusion of power.

It speaks volumes that even people educated and trained from the start of their careers in command and leadership, backstopped by a formal IG system, are susceptible to this.

It is clear that the top is not only a lonely place, but also an exceedingly toxic one.

About the only palliatives I see are strict term limits and frequent reviews for evidence of "losing it." Even this may not be adequate based on the anecdotal evidence above.

How long were the COs in place before they started losing it? On the other hand, perhaps they were sent to an out of the way place like Kwajalein (as well as the members of their staffs), precisely because they were losing it or had screwed up.

Unka' George [George McDuffee]

------------------------------------------- He that will not apply new remedies, must expect new evils: for Time is the greatest innovator: and if Time, of course, alter things to the worse, and wisdom and counsel shall not alter them to the better, what shall be the end?

Francis Bacon (1561-1626), English philosopher, essayist, statesman. Essays, "Of Innovations" (1597-1625).

Reply to
F. George McDuffee

Actually the fact that a particular person has a security clearance and at what level is normally held close as it points an arrow at that person and makes them more a target for focussed HUMINT gathering. That said where I worked had different color badges for Confidential and Secret. It also had an indication of higher clearance. It was quite often that you could see someone downtown with their badge still displayed. Oh well.

Stu

Reply to
Stuart Fields

Lots'a rules - some of them even mimick common sense.

I'd be curious to know what percentage of our leading finance guru's would agree to go on the box on command. LOL

Anyway, our top business schools are set up to recruit sociopaths. In this they are succesful. Expect reasonable behavior once they release their product isn't rational or sane. Educating sociopaths leads to well educated predators, not benign masters of the universe and blaming the sociopath is more than a little disingenuous.

JC

Reply to
John R. Carroll

I think we may have a glimmer of insight here. Good observation John. You may enjoy one of the TED film clips on this point.

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Unka' George [George McDuffee]

------------------------------------------- He that will not apply new remedies, must expect new evils: for Time is the greatest innovator: and if Time, of course, alter things to the worse, and wisdom and counsel shall not alter them to the better, what shall be the end?

Francis Bacon (1561-1626), English philosopher, essayist, statesman. Essays, "Of Innovations" (1597-1625).

Reply to
F. George McDuffee

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