AP has published much hate all up in the grill of the "Double Dippers" lately. This isn't a germophobic piece about those who party hard, dip a chip in some flavored lard, take a bite, then go back for more lard-love. No sir. AP is talking about economists and analysts, like Paul Krugman, who believe that we're in for a double dip recession.
I wholeheartedly agree. I've posted repeatedly on the idea that we cannot exit a recession until the unemployment rate drops. Additionally, this recession has been caused by bad finance ju-ju, rather than a simple decrease in demand for a specific product or service in which the US has a core competency. The only way to decrease the unemployment rate, thusly reversing the effects of aforementioned bad finance ju-ju, is to bring manufacturing jobs back to the US. Until that happens, we're double dipping like a gay porn star.
The nastiest part of this article is that it insists "Double Dippers" are going to create a self-fulfilling prophecy. To some extent this could be true, if Double Dipper lore was more vasty published. More often I see references (and inferences) to "the way the world was before", as if that were the norm.
To me, that is what is dangerous.
And what if 2005 - 2008 prosperity wasn't normal? It's quite favorable, and delusional, to think that it was. Double digit rate increases in housing values, year over year, had never occurred before. Except in one place: late 1980s Japan.
One of which, is 10% unemployment.
What if we do accept these new norms? What do we gain from that?
For starters, we will, as Wayne Campbell so eloquenty put it, "LIVE IN THE NOW!"
Living in the now has a pile of advantages. Including, and not limited to:
- Increasing savings
- Decreasing spending on luxury items
- Teaching children the value of not being a materialistic boner
- Decreasing the amount of debt we carry
The common theme is that we, the people are in charge. The American way has been to accumulate debt and to be rewarded for it; either in ego or in a high credit score (the latter would of course allow us to accumulate even more debt). In America, we don't reward saving money. Though now, more than ever, the actual reward is apparent: safety from the debt collector.
My dad used to tell me, "hope in one hand and shit in the other; then see which one gets full first." Hoping that we will recover or return to the prosperous mid-aughts does us no good. As middle income paupers, we're best to lo ok out for number one, live in the now, and sock back the cash. The Double Dippers are doing us a huge favor.
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Amy A
big fat trauma queen
Sheldon The Wonderhorse
BikeLizard
WriteNOWMom
Del Stone
Salon.com
Comments
Today's times are the new normal. We cannot live for yesterday to return.
Good post, this.
The mid-oughts; wow! I like that word (term, phrase, etc)! Those days were fantasyland for grown-ups; a ridiculous succession of events that bore all the markings of make believe ... except many people DID believe them ... that there was a wizard AND he lived in OZ! So in that regard, you are right. It was an illusion.
But as to "Living in the Now," I also agree ... we need to; to live in and face reality ... as long as we don't accept the "now" as the "forever more." Because *this* now is not the norm either. It is the result of the mid-oughts; the hangover that is following the reguritation of the economic overdose we were on. Like all hangovers, we can get over it. We will get over it. But what we need in the process is to learn from it, and to not let it happen again!
And to the extent that the "drug dealers" remain out there to drag us down once more, we need to slap them with enough disincentive to never want to peddle that shit to us again ... Regs! The nasty of nasties to all those Pluarchists who would love to drug us once again. Regulations: They hate em. They want you an d I to hate em. They will tell us over and over that it is regs, not them, that cause all the pain. When gov't regualtes, all sorts of bad stuff happens. On the other hand, they, the Pluarists, can self regulate ... and the will, if we just give them on emore chance. But that is bullshit and they know that too.
There can be jobs, there can be production and there can be prosperity ... all those things once again ... but only if we ... The People ... do take charge ... and we quit buying into bullshit.
I laughed at "dippy dive". Such a phrase needs a cute animal to characterize it. Like Dave, the Dippy Dive Dolphin.
Thank you for reading!
The Boomer generation was lucky to have the boost that they did. My generation is fucked (except for those with uber-rich boomer parents).
Off the top of my head, I believe the rates are as follows:
Additional 3.75% for a 10 - 19% downpayment
Additional 1.75% (on top of the 3.75%) for a 0 - 9% downpayment
We don't have regulations like this here because it would thward "the American Dream". I say that in quotes because the American dream is a damned illusion created by easy access to money, which created this problem in the first place.
This isn't to say that Canada hasn't had its issues with decreasing housing prices. They have. But their unemployment rate is only 8.5%, a nicety compared to our lofty 10%.