Headquarters moved out of Seattle back in ’01.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing

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And as far as being delighted abt the economic collapse because you saved a bunch of dollars for the future. Will those dollars have any value in the future? It seems less and less likely.

I wonder if there is a Boeing strike if this will be impetus for the corporate HQ to consider just moving out of the area?

As far as Medicaid and Medicare go; a nationalized single-payer helth system would greatly reduce this cost. If all people were in one insurance pool, and the health insurance industry were nationalized, then we could talk abt cutting costs (and improving the quality of healthcare, by the way.)

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“infinite horizon discounted value” means
The amount of money the Medicare system would need today to cover all unfunded liabilities from now on.

Thankfully, we don’t try to fund any program forever into the future.
Good talking points for the right wingers (google the speech and see who is talking it up), just not based in any economic reality.

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You mean the guy who just said this:

“Inflation continues to be the U.S. economy’s largest challenge, and it’s unclear whether the recent retreat in energy prices will lower price pressures, a regional Federal Reserve official said.”

He doesn’t seem to agree with your “global depression” talk.

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Fed Governor Richard Fisher of the Dallas Fed recently stated:

“The good news is this Social Security shortfall might be manageable. While the issues regarding Social Security reform are complex, it is at least possible to imagine how Congress might find, within a $14 trillion economy, ways to wrestle with a $13 trillion unfunded liability. The bad news is that Social Security is the lesser of our entitlement worries. It is but the tip of the unfunded liability iceberg. The much bigger concern is Medicare, a program established in 1965. Please sit tight while I walk you through the math of Medicare. As you may know, the program comes in three parts: Medicare Part A, which covers hospital stays; Medicare B, which covers doctor visits; and Medicare D, the drug benefit that went into effect just 29 months ago. The infinite-horizon present discounted value of the unfunded liability for Medicare A is $34.4 trillion. The unfunded liability of Medicare B is an additional $34 trillion. The shortfall for Medicare D adds another $17.2 trillion. The total? If you wanted to cover the unfunded liability of all three programs today, you would be stuck with an $85.6 trillion bill. That is more than six times as large as the bill for Social Security. It is more than six times the annual output of the entire U.S. economy. Add together the unfunded liabilities from Medicare and Social Security, and it comes to $99.2 trillion over the infinite horizon. Traditional Medicare composes about 69 percent, the new drug benefit roughly 17 percent and Social Security the remaining 14 percentwant to remind you that I am only talking about the unfunded portions of Social Security and Medicare. It is what the current payment scheme of Social Security payroll taxes, Medicare payroll taxes, membership fees for Medicare B, copays, deductibles and all other revenue currently channeled to our entitlement system will not cover under current rules. These existing revenue streams must remain in place in perpetuity to handle the “funded” entitlement liabilities. Reduce or eliminate this income and the unfunded liability grows. Increase benefits and the liability grows as well.

Let’s say you and I and Bruce Ericson and every U.S. citizen who is alive today decided to fully address this unfunded liability through lump-sum payments from our own pocketbooks, so that all of us and all future generations could be secure in the knowledge that we and they would receive promised benefits in perpetuity. How much would we have to pay if we split the tab? Again, the math is painful. With a total population of 304 million, from infants to the elderly, the per-person payment to the federal treasury would come to $330,000. This comes to $1.3 million per family of four—over 25 times the average household’s income. Clearly, once-and-for-all contributions would be an unbearable burden. Alternatively, we could address the entitlement shortfall through policy changes that would affect ourselves and future generations. For example, a permanent 68 percent increase in federal income tax revenue—from individual and corporate taxpayers—would suffice to fully fund our entitlement programs. Or we could instead divert 68 percent of current income-tax revenues from their intended uses to the entitlement system, which would accomplish the same thing.

Suppose we decided to tackle the issue solely on the spending side. It turns out that total discretionary spending in the federal budget, if maintained at its current share of GDP in perpetuity, is 3 percent larger than the entitlement shortfall. So all we would have to do to fully fund our nation’s entitlement programs would be to cut discretionary spending by 97 percent. But hold on. That discretionary spending includes defense and national security, education, the environment and many other areas, not just those controversial earmarks that make the evening news. All of them would have to be cut—almost eliminated, really—to tackle this problem through discretionary spending. Discretionary spending would have to be reduced by 97 percent not only for our generation, but for our children and their children and every generation of children to come. And similarly on the taxation side, income tax revenue would have to rise 68 percent and remain that high forever. Remember, though, I said tax revenue, not tax rates. Who knows how much individual and corporate tax rates would have to change to increase revenue by 68 percent?

If these possible solutions to the unfunded-liability problems, throughout history, many nations, when confronted by sizable debts they were unable or unwilling to repay, have seized upon an apparently painless solution to this dilemma: monetization. Just have the monetary authority run cash off the printing presses until the debt is repaid, the story goes, then promise to be responsible from that point on and hope your sins will be forgiven by God and Milton Friedman and everyone else. We know from centuries of evidence in countless economies, from ancient Rome to today’s Zimbabwe, that running the printing press to pay off today’s bills leads to much worse problems later on. The inflation that results from the flood of money into the economy turns out to be far worse than the fiscal pain those countries hoped to avoid. If these measures seem draconian, it’s because they are draconian.”

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Sure; but homes will still have to be priced at those depressing levels if owners want to sell.

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While that house you’ve been watching may become lower priced, inflation may eat your downpayment and the economy your job. If that is what a recession means, it won’t be good for anyone – home owner or not.

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I whole-heartedly disagree with that statement. I’m stoked by all this bad news. Do you realize how much money I’m saving by having house prices fall? That’s exciting! Two thumbs up for the coming crash. If I had bought a house last year instead of saving a boatload of cash for a huge downpayment when the right time comes, then I would be depressed by all of this.

Being a bull and getting all of this bad news hurts the heart and thins the wallet; but being a bear and getting all of this bad news warms the heart and fattens the wallet. It just depends what side of the coin a person lands on. I could have easily bought a year ago. The main reason I held off was pure fear. My co-worker is in a similar boat and refers to his decision as “accidental genius.”

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As I drove through downtown Woodinville earlier this month, one of the businesses just south of 522 had the word RECESSION on their sign.

Wait, there is a downtown Woodinville?

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Apparently this guy didn’t live in Seattle between 2001 and 2005. The crash was quick, and the recovery was among the slowest in the nation.

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I can’t say I’ve seen anything like that around the DC area.

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even though there are a lot of builders here drinking Kool-aid.. that continued, what they supposed to do after purchasing all that land and spending the year getting state Government Authorization on Building.. Lot Of upfront costs..

Seattle has so much red tape with Building… the way I understand it, almost a Year is needed after Buying the Land before you can start Building.. where in Texas for example you are looking at about 4 months.. So much cost in Building is actually Red Tape or you can say Most the Cost is Actually Red Tape probably- its our State Governmental control that jacks a lot of the Cost of us living here.

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Im thinking by this time next year its going to get real interesting.. also a lot of housing are in the phases of being almost completed..

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Rents can be controlled by lots of people Doubling Tripling up in housing units- already probably is happening as we speak.. housing prices I bet would go much further down if say the Masses went on Strike and refused to pay any current prices.. set a Goal of 30% and talked to everyone they knew and converted them into Housing Bubble Heads..

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FAVORABLE? do you think we’re stupid? never ask your barber if you need a haircut. never ask your broker if it’s a good time to buy stocks. never ask your realtor if you should buy a house. these people are not biased.

while you are “timing the bottom” which we are told you can’t do, you are savings thousands of dollars because renting is cheaper, you are earning interest and you have the time to save money that you probably wouldn’t be able to do if you bought a home.

someone who is saving my by renting and saving anyway could easily save $10,000-$20,000 dollars.

don’t listen to used home salesman. homes will not bottom and rocket up 15% the next year, especially in Seattle.

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Barry covered this well over on The Big Picture today, and if you want the source data in PDF form it is here

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I feel that the truth lies somewhere in between.

Just my 2c

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Take a look at what GDP looks like when you don’t massage the numbers.

Tim, I normally like your analysis, but those shadow stats numbers are probably a little too pessimistic. Have we really had 10% yearly inflation since 2000? Well, if we did, that means prices are115% higher than at the turn of the century. With household income growing around 3% per year, this would make us about 40% poorer in real terms than in 2000. Sorry, but that doesn’t pass the smell test.

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White House press secretary Dana Perino said the numbers demonstrated the economy’s resilience in the face of many challenges. But she added: “No one is doing a victory dance.”

By now we all know this administration. If THEY are not “doing a victory dance” with that 3.3% GDP growth, you know we are screwed!!!

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http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/080828/economy.html

White House press secretary Dana Perino said the numbers demonstrated the economy’s resilience in the face of many challenges. But she added: “No one is doing a victory dance.”

If this administration is not doing a victory dance, you know things are not well.

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Housing Bubble Blog

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Real GDP means they have already adjusted for inflation. So it is 3.3% above what they say inflation is.

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The stock market is riding 1.7% higher [after plummetting 20% in about a year], gas is down about 10% [after going up about 100% in about a year and its up to $120/barrel again], Bernanke predicts low inflation for 2009 [even though we can barely afford to drive to a grocery store, let alone buy the $3/lb produce] and GDP is 3.3% [all because of the economic stimulus check timing?]….add the Iraq War now has a withdrawl plan…..you get the picture, right after McCain becomes President, everything goes to heck in a hen basket again?

I imageine if we paint a gloomy 6.5% unemployment and 10-15% underemployment economy, even the Dem route of uncontrolled growth seems out of place…..

LOL

I love Presidential election years, it brings out the trickster in all of us :-)

Looks like a

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Well, I saw a woman buy one single apple at Safeway yesterday and it cost her 81c. Wasnt even a really big apple. She was absolutely shocked at how much it cost. So yeah, the economic stimulus helped give us a short term boost, just so that it shouldn’t cost McCain the election. (Not gonna happen, there is no way the GOP is winning this year).
Now I am no economist but I would think if inflation is 3% and GDP growth (massaged or not) is 3% aren’t they roughly tied to each other? Now if GDP growth beats inflation by a serious amount (say 1%) I think that would be real “growth”. Feel free to correct me if I am wrong on this.

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Where’s my recession, dude?

Certainly not in the ultra-baked government “statistics,” that’s for sure.

I think it might be worth your time to read up on just how much the government manipulates the data to paint the picture they want people to believe.

Here’s a good place to start:

The Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is one of the broader measures of economic activity and is the most widely followed business indicator reported by the U.S. government. Upward growth biases built into GDP modeling since the early 1980s, however, have rendered this important series nearly worthless as an indicator of economic activity.

Take a look at what GDP looks like when you don’t massage the numbers.

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Just trying to keep it a little light, since as vboring says @ 2, it’s not exactly happy news. Glad somebody caught the reference :^)

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“Real gross domestic product — the output of goods and services produced by labor and property located in the United States — increased at an annual rate of 3.3 percent in the second quarter of 2008, (that is, from the first quarter to the second quarter), according to preliminary estimates released by the Bureau of Economic Analysis. In the first quarter, real GDP increased 0.9 percent.

The GDP estimates released today are based on more complete source data than were available for the advance estimates issued last month. In the advance estimates, the increase in real GDP was 1.9 percent (see “Revisions” on page 3).”

Where’s my recession, dude?

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Conway compares today’s climate to 2001’s and uses the term “rubber-band effect.” The faster you drop into recession, the faster you bounce out. This has been a slow slide. He said the Puget Sound region may touch bottom in the next few months and begin growing again.

Is Conway familiar with the 1930s or 1970s? Rapid economic collapse causes panic, it does not bolster confidence creating a rapid rebound. [sigh]

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Washington must be affected by what is happening elsewhere. It is inevitable. Perhaps why it is slower to react here may be on pure psychology. Perhaps the belief by the residents here that we are protected, gives us cushion that we are protected for a bit longer.

But the market has a way of correcting itself and so do regional economys. I think Washington is ready for a wakeup call.

Case in point: I own a small internet business. We basically ship things all over the world. We can locate anywhere as long as there is a Post Office and UPS store nearby – which covers most of the USA. It is a bad business move to pay high rent in a place like Seattle, when I could easily move to Tacoma, or say, Detroit – where property is dirt cheap. Low overhead – more profit. Now I have roots here that date almost 40 years – family and such, so I wont move. But I can understand why commercial business may want to move elsewhere. If the rent/ownership is cheap over there – why stay here?

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the economy sucks and everyone knows it!

high 5′s all around. */

the problem with being a bear is that being right is a bit depressing.

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“potential buyers try to time the bottom of the already favorable market.”

Yeah, stupid buyers who are not buying while prices are falling and more or less all indicators points to a continued fall. You should join the “save a realtors Lexus” by hurry, hurry to buy, or perhaps not.

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