Physiognomy of Economic Depression - Eric Janszen

[Finster]

Re: Physiognomy of Economic Depression - Eric Janszen

To make a long story short, this time the U.S. economy blew up in late 2008. It did not slow down. It did not fall into recession. The Fed did not create it on purpose to bring down inflation.

That is debatable. By July 13th, 2008 the Fed and other central bankers had already met to discuss the inflation issues with oil and all other commodities rocketing higher. Their announcement to back Freddie and Fannie, they must have known, would trigger a dollar bull market, a sharp move higher in bank stocks and a strong counter against the trade which every hedge fund and their dog had hopped on board - commodities long. Knock the legs out of this trade and you knock down a lot of leveraged bets which were pro inflation. To think that Paulson could not see this would be naive.

The Fed may have wanted to bring down inflation, but it was tap-tap-tapping on the brakes ever-so-lightly, as if walking on eggshells. What happened bore little resemblance to what it intended.

It clearly envisioned, through a process of gradual, well-telegraphed, baby-step rate hikes a correspondingly gradual, baby-step cooling of inflation without a depression, or even recession. That it didn't work out that way doesn't mean it wasn't intended. To imagine the Fed always gets just what it wants is to invest it with more power than any central planning agency has successfully wielded before.

No, the problem was the imbalances it had nursed into being over the previous two decades being like having raised King Kong, having created such an inherently unstable condition that the least disturbance was all it took to blow it up.

[mcgurme]

Re: Physiognomy of Economic Depression - Eric Janszen

Yes, I actually have contemplated just quitting the faculty job and doing freelance grant writing, since I have a very good track record. I figure that I'd work less hours and that it would be more honest to be a "grant mercenary" that to continue pretending that I can be an educator in this environment. Of course, quitting a job (even if it is a crazy 60hr/week one) right now makes me a bit nervous, given the unemployment stats and all...

I am sure you are right about the abnormality of it. In May, the NIH put out a call for grant proposals related to the stimulus package. They had 800 proposals to fund, and they received 20,894 applications! It has gotten crazy, folks.

As a fellow public sector "freeloader" working double the 35 hours that they pay me for, I must say...

A true observation about grants - not only for academia - but for government agencies as well. "Block and Formula" grants require a vast amount of paper - or at least .pdf - for funds that are earmarked for a specific jurisdiction.

Every municipal government with a population over 35k now nows this well, and the smaller ones will follows as states disburse stimulus funds.

This is what happens when the Federal share of the pie (by pie, I mean the amount of available funds for local work - think of your university or 501c(3)) grows against the Private, State, and Local.

We now have massive transparent data being generated everywhere - a constant rush to write more and more grants - and a need to report on them more often and in more detail.

This is another trend that I do not see slowing down.

There are 117 grant related jobs open in the Boston area on Monster.com right now - and while that piece of anecdotal evidence doesn't mean too much, it is illustrative in a time of growing unemployment. By the way, there are only 96 restaurant jobs posted in the same area.

I only wish I had back data, because I am certain that this is abnormal.

-- --

[metalman]

Re: Physiognomy of Economic Depression - Eric Janszen

Yes, I actually have contemplated just quitting the faculty job and doing freelance grant writing, since I have a very good track record. I figure that I'd work less hours and that it would be more honest to be a "grant mercenary" that to continue pretending that I can be an educator in this environment. Of course, quitting a job (even if it is a crazy 60hr/week one) right now makes me a bit nervous, given the unemployment stats and all...

I am sure you are right about the abnormality of it. In May, the NIH put out a call for grant proposals related to the stimulus package. They had 800 proposals to fund, and they received 20,894 applications! It has gotten crazy, folks.

don't know where you are teaching but wherever it is... i hope you keep doing it. we need more smart & sane folks teaching our kids.

[flintlock]

Re: Physiognomy of Economic Depression - Eric Janszen

flintlock, I surmise that you are a self-employed electrical contractor. If that is correct, you still very much work for someone (as opposed to the often heard concept of "I work for myself.") and if you worked for me and it was my sense that you were slowing down and there was anything I was paying you for that had to do with productivity, then I would fire your ass and look for someone else to work for me.

My wife doesn't sweat, and in very hot weather 10 days or so ago, our fan went out on our airconditioner. So happens a HVAC guy, who owns his own business, lives just down the street from me and I called him, and he immediately returned the call from another job he had going with his gang, and in 30 minutes was at my house, and in an hour went and got a new motor and in 1.5 hours had my a/c running. I didn't offer him any extra to work efficiently; I assume he may have charged me for that, but I have no comparison. I have recommended him twice since since then, and he already has had a call from one to whom I recommmeded him--again coming out immediately for what was an after hours call.

I have always thought that you cannot get a worker, including myself, to do some job better solely by paying them more. Given two people whom one has observed working, assuming the finished work was the same, I'd always re-employ the one who was most efficient.

How many people do you know who actually have killed themselves working hard? Maybe worrying hard will kill some, but seldom from hard work in my experience have I seen or heard of people dying. Maybe not working hard if it means putting food on the table has killed some people.

If you employ and pay two people both of whom can do the task you give them, but one does it with greater efficiency and then is ready for another task, while the other is still "working at his own pace because he thinks he isn't getting paid enough" and push comes to shove in your business which guy will you keep on? If you need both of them, which guy would you promote to greater responsibility?

Good luck with your work.

Jim, where the heck do you get this whole silly story out of the fact I CHOOSE of my own free will to cut back on my work load?? Did I say I quit doing good work? Or giving my customer's a great value? I am extremely efficient in what I do due to my 26 years of experience. I can easily beat the pants off two 20 something electricians, even at 46 years old. You of all people should understand the value of experience over "effort" in a technical field.

I didn't say I loafed on jobs. Where did you get that? My meaning was that I now work 4-5 day work weeks vs the 6 of old. My point was that diminishing returns have reduced my incentive to bust my ass when the pay is getting lower due to a variety of reasons . I also am not in good health and choose to spend some of my life actually getting to know my kids. What's your problem with that?

There's always another potential "customer" out there. I learned that long ago. I also learned that you can't please everyone and trying to do so will send you straight to the asylum. My point about customers "getting over it" was merely to point out that every time they call with a minor problem( I don't advertise myself as a emergency company btw) I can't drop everything and rush over there. There are VERY few real electrical emergencies on homes. Very few. The few I do get I usually work late to accommodate. What I'm talking about is the customer who calls and wants me to clear my schedule because they have a tennis match they don't want to miss, or made a spur of the moment decision to buy a Hot Tub and want it hooked up the same day so they can play in it. You tell me, which customer of mine should I screw over and cancel on so this prick can be accommodated? Cant' do both. So which one? There are companies who provide that level of same day service. Of course they charge accordingly. Be prepared to pay $300+ hour for that kind of service. No thats not a typo. Most folks would call them a rip-off and send them packing. But there is a market for it and I'm amazed but they do very well. I choose to offer my customers a good value and 95% are thrilled with the service they get(100% referral business). My problem is with the 5% who want that $300 hour level of service but don't want to pay for it. They can frankly kiss my ass.

Don't sit there and try to tell me you haven't had the same issue in your practice. Or do you hop out of bed every time someone calls your office with a toothache? Horsesh#%.

[Jim Nickerson]

Re: Physiognomy of Economic Depression - Eric Janszen

The time is coming when people working in the private sector are going to be considered the "suckers". Working longer hours for less pay while the freeloader class moves smoothly along working 35 hour weeks at a snail's pace. Those that still work. Meanwhile our retired citizens will continue to vote to collect benefits that total more than the average private sector worker makes.

I for one have decided not to play the rat race game anymore. I'm slowing down and working at the pace I want to work. If the customer can't handle that, then too bad. Most don't mind. I'd rather make do with less than kill myself working for that last dollar, half of which ends up paying for the freeloaders anyway.

Jim, where the heck do you get this whole silly story out of the fact I CHOOSE of my own free will to cut back on my work load?? Did I say I quit doing good work? Or giving my customer's a great value? I am extremely efficient in what I do due to my 26 years of experience. I can easily beat the pants off two 20 something electricians, even at 46 years old. You of all people should understand the value of experience over "effort" in a technical field.

I didn't say I loafed on jobs. Where did you get that? My meaning was that I now work 4-5 day work weeks vs the 6 of old. My point was that diminishing returns have reduced my incentive to bust my ass when the pay is getting lower due to a variety of reasons . I also am not in good health and choose to spend some of my life actually getting to know my kids. What's your problem with that?

There's always another potential "customer" out there. I learned that long ago. I also learned that you can't please everyone and trying to do so will send you straight to the asylum. My point about customers "getting over it" was merely to point out that every time they call with a minor problem( I don't advertise myself as a emergency company btw) I can't drop everything and rush over there. There are VERY few real electrical emergencies on homes. Very few. The few I do get I usually work late to accommodate. What I'm talking about is the customer who calls and wants me to clear my schedule because they have a tennis match they don't want to miss, or made a spur of the moment decision to buy a Hot Tub and want it hooked up the same day so they can play in it. You tell me, which customer of mine should I screw over and cancel on so this prick can be accommodated? Cant' do both. So which one? There are companies who provide that level of same day service. Of course they charge accordingly. Be prepared to pay $300+ hour for that kind of service. No thats not a typo. Most folks would call them a rip-off and send them packing. But there is a market for it and I'm amazed but they do very well. I choose to offer my customers a good value and 95% are thrilled with the service they get(100% referral business). My problem is with the 5% who want that $300 hour level of service but don't want to pay for it. They can frankly kiss my ass.

Don't sit there and try to tell me you haven't had the same issue in your practice. Or do you hop out of bed every time someone calls your office with a toothache? Horsesh#%.

Sorry, flintlock, I misinterpreted what you wrote and did not anticipate what you finally wrote.

I see nothing wrong with choosing to work fewer days in order to free time to do whatever one desires. For anyone so inclined to dillydally in doing a job, I do see a problem.

I only took out teeth for any reason for 9 of the 18 years I practiced commercially, but I was almost always on call somewhere for trauma and always for any problems of patients under my care unless I made arrangements for someone else to take the call--which I did not do under usual circumstances. It grew old, and even trauma was an area of work for which one did not always get paid, so was life. For 10 years I did not take a vacation and was in office working on something to do with care for 6 to 6.5 days a week. It was not the work, or the amount of pay I got or didn't get that made me quit. It was other frustrations.

I always thought and still do, even in the US, life is hard for most people, but not nearly as hard as for many on the planet.

Still, good luck with your work and lifestye, seriously.

[snakela]

Re: Physiognomy of Economic Depression - Eric Janszen

now the rent's low enough they can make money selling cookies. lower still, dance club. lower still strip club. lower still... etc. etc.

This sounds like green shoots to me

In all seriousness, maybe i missed it but does any of the unemployment data actually count # of people working vs. # of people in the population?

Everything is adjusted some way or another. eligble to work, looking for work etc etc. I'd like to see something that doesnt adjust for people who are truely disabled or permanently on the dole.

[bart]

Re: Physiognomy of Economic Depression - Eric Janszen

This sounds like green shoots to me

In all seriousness, maybe i missed it but does any of the unemployment data actually count # of people working vs. # of people in the population?

Everything is adjusted some way or another. eligble to work, looking for work etc etc. I'd like to see something that doesnt adjust for people who are truely disabled or permanently on the dole.

Percentage of full population working is as close as one can get without a custom chart.






You may be able to fiddle with it here and get closer
http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/CIVPART

[Jay]

Re: Physiognomy of Economic Depression - Eric Janszen

Percentage of full population working is as close as one can get without a custom chart.






You may be able to fiddle with it here and get closer
http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/CIVPART

Interesting that there is no uptick after 2001. More fuel for the possibility of the real crash starting then?

[bart]

Re: Physiognomy of Economic Depression - Eric Janszen

Interesting that there is no uptick after 2001. More fuel for the possibility of the real crash starting then?

As an ex Valley girl I used to date said a few times - "Fer shure". ;)

The year 2000 about was when my hard vs. paper asset cycle turned... and its not much like the crash starting in 1929 either. I look at it very generally as a hybrid between the '30s and the '70s, and with a few overtones of other periods like the 1870s.

[metalman]

Re: Physiognomy of Economic Depression - Eric Janszen

As an ex Valley girl I used to date said a few times - "Fer shure". ;)

The year 2000 about was when my hard vs. paper asset cycle turned... and its not much like the crash starting in 1929 either. I look at it very generally as a hybrid between the '30s and the '70s, and with a few overtones of other periods like the 1870s.

you might call it... argentina currency crisis and inflation with usa characteristics... plus a real great depression ;)

[jtabeb]

Re: Physiognomy of Economic Depression - Eric Janszen

you might call it... argentina currency crisis and inflation with usa characteristics... plus a real great depression ;)

Oh, is that all. Damn, I was worried there for a second.

@#$@#% Bankers! &*^*&^ Economists! *&%^*&%^ MSM Media! (*&(*# Politicians! (*&(*& umm, Bankers!:mad::mad::mad:

[bart]

Re: Physiognomy of Economic Depression - Eric Janszen

you might call it... argentina currency crisis and inflation with usa characteristics... plus a real great depression ;)

Then I'll take argentina currency crisis and inflation with usa characteristics... plus a real great depression for $2,000 Alex. ;)

[snakela]

Re: Physiognomy of Economic Depression - Eric Janszen

Percentage of full population working is as close as one can get without a custom chart.






You may be able to fiddle with it here and get closer
http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/CIVPART

Thank you, sir!

Sure looks like growth is dependent on the first derivative of that number.

[ASH]

Re: Physiognomy of Economic Depression - Eric Janszen

Thank you, sir!

Sure looks like growth is dependent on the first derivative of that number.

possibly backwards

or possibly the big trend in participation rate has to do with women moving into the work force over the span of several decades

[snakela]

Re: Physiognomy of Economic Depression - Eric Janszen

the big trend in participation rate has to do with women moving into the work force over the span of several decades

I didn't think about that, its has to be a big driver.