WHAT'S THAT "THE GIANT SUCKING SOUND"?

MY GF got the notice recently.  The Bio-tech company was bought out, now they are right sizing and transferring her department to Austin, TX.  They offered her a bonus to stay on till the transfer is complete.  We have talked about it, and it is a large amount of money to stay, they think it will be done by june of 09.  I know Jack about bio-tech, but I do know logisitics, and it takes a while to train people in over 400 products.  The "bonus" is tied to staying until the end, not until June of 09.  My advise was to put feelers out now, and if you find something jump ship, as there are no promises of anything being open in June as opposed to now.  A bonus is only good if there is something around, if not it is nothing more than an extended unemployment benifit.

An NCKA commune. At least the fish will be free. And I have a feeling we will be more than well armed...

Having lived in Japan for five years (02-07) I can say that Japan is an excellent example of how crappy things could get.  When the bedrock of the economy is broken, there  is no easy answer.  I think it is kind of cute that the experts think recessions come in two flavors, 18 and 24 months.  So this will be a "bad" recession that will last 24 months.  The Japanese experience showed that thinking is total horse----.  Recessions CAN come in 10-year packages.  Imagine if you had a Caribbean country with one business: lobster diving.  Everyone does it, and that is all they do.  They sell the lobsters to Red Lobster so chubby Americans can eat them.  Then the lobsters dry up and they can't catch them anymore.  It is clear that this is not some "correction" that will take a few months to blow over.  The whole economy must be re-tooled.  I am not saying things are that bad here, but I did take my mother to church the other day, and I noticed the little flyer said "please patronize our advertisers."  Everyone on the advertiser page was in real estate: brokerage, financing, construction etc.  Guys, this whole economy has been real estate.  We are ALL in the real estate business, because until very recently, the piggy bank for ALL the consumption in our consumer-based economy was our homes, which we thought were worth more than they were.  That was the engine.  So, this is going to take some time, especially here in California, which is the poster child for the real estate meltdown.  Until we locate a new source of lobsters. 

I think there will be some uptick at the end of 2009, economists will cry victory, but we will be dealing with meager growth of 1% for a couple of years after that.  Having worked in institutional real estate for many years, I would say do not buy a house right now unless you have to, or unless you can say you really stole it.  The Economist says the economy will right itself when mortgage payments more closely resemble rents, not two times, like they have been. 

There are some glimmers of good news:

The US economy is very resourceful and resilient, and we always figure out a way to fix things. 

The new administration has a HUGE amount of goodwill in foreign countries who want to see us work this out, and will work with us on global stimulus packages etc to fix things. 

Our hobby puts food on the table!  (having said that, we may want to think about a "filet fund" for people who have lost their jobs and could use a meal; there have got to be some HUGE freezers full of fish around here). 


Pete

Pete,

Great Idea on the filet fund.  As for California and it's hyper overinflated real esetate market...I moved here in 2007.  I look at the market and said to myself they had this one coming.  I saw the bubble hit East Texas later than other places, so it didn't hit them as hard.  Ranch homes selling for over a million dollars out here , to me, was more than ridiculous.  But, if you have some one dumb enough to pay it, I would sell it too.  My GF's father bought his home back in the 70's for some where in the mid 30'K's.  Now homes in his neighborhood are going for 750,000 plus still.  The amount of people who will qualify for a morgage in that range is finite.  Until people get past their greed and understand that only a few people out there can afford these types of homes in that price range, we are still going to have problems.   

Of course alot of things here are hyper inflated.  I laugh everytime I go in the supermarket and look at what local vineyards think their wine is worth. 

Having had Uncle Sam place me in two of the best wine regions in Europe and knowing local wine in Europe sells cheaply.  I used to go to the local community Cantina (local wine bottler) I would buy table wine at 500 Lira a liter or roughly $.35 when I bought it in a 25 liter bottle.  Local Italian supermarket had good-to better local wines for no more than 2-5 dollars.  California wines on the other side of the country sell for less than what they do here, same for local fruits and vegtables.  Californians get fleeced everyday by the local markets.  It is in some ways comical to watch. 

I read an article this morning that sadly made this thread relevant again

I read an article this morning that sadly made this thread relevant again

Very sadly, the first thing that comes to mind here is "ain't seen nothin' yet."

Big storm still happening right now,  hang tight to the rails and pray for the people got caught in the economic storm.  I got laid off in 2008 but survived that storm.

One family member got the boot for being probationary status i.e. while being promoted for exemplary performance

At noaa

Tough time for kids going off to college

We were at a party w an old timer google exec and i asked if all my son's friends who are on the computer science track would be working and answer was a pretty flat no