Much better news for B.C. than for Eudora, for sure. Local banker gets us on the path. Now, how will we get down the road? It's a long road ahead. The alt-A's and option ARMs are just beginning to go into default and we'll soon see how many more homes glut the market. Also, a lot of the next wave of sour loans will be in the commercial market (think apartments, condos, strip malls) so there is much more fall-out heading our way. And Sebelius has already decided to go into debt just to make that December payment to the state's schools. Wait until the January (and subsequent) tax revenues shrink even further. Our state government will not be able to balance the budget and keep all that school allotment in place. Either major cuts are in store or major tax hikes. Either way, it doesn't bode well for big spending.
My beef is with everyone who voted for this bond issue at this particular time. A couple of years ago, that would have been the time to have this bond issue. Not now. Leading economists are now finally starting to admit that what our country is desperately trying to accomplish here is to head off another Depression. That word is capitalized for a reason.
We are not in a garden variety recession here. There are several phases that we can expect to go through. We are not even halfway through yet. Here is a picture of what we've had and what we can expect over the next 12 months at least:
Widespread banking instability (no matter the cause) Leads to default of loans, dried-up credit market Leads to huge losses on Wall Street Leads to hedge funds scrambling to meet margins Leads to investors pulling out of a too-turbulent market Leads to wild swings in the market and companies losing operating cash Leads to major job losses Leads to companies failing, more job losses Leads to consumers halting spending Leads to more losses on Wall Street, more companies failing, more jobs lost Leads to less and less and less tax revenues for states to fund their programs
It becomes a viscious circle, and nothing that has been done so far is enough to get us out of this repeating cycle. This 25% shortfall is just the first of many. This money will not be paid back next month. Instead, the shortfall will increase.
So, I say Torch is right that we are a bunch of suckers. We got sucked in and I do predict that I will not have to eat these words. It's not about anyone personally, it's about everyone having their heads in the sand. This is more serious than anything any of us have experienced in our lives, except those who were alive in the 1930s (most of whom were children, not adults, so even they wouldn't know how to handle such a crisis.)
Why are we hearing what Lawrence thinks about this? How about a local reporter getting some comment from the Baldwin school district? Or are they running for cover because they know we are all just waiting for the other shoe to drop. I.E.- what Torch said.
Let's see our local school district stay local and use ALL local contractors for ALL their upcoming construction projects. Oh, I forgot, one of the big “plusses” about the bond issue is the very fact that they PLAN to use contractors from outside our city (state? country?) who will supposedly spend money in B.C. Riiiiiiight!
Oh, the irony. Look at the players in this crowd. The very people who normally count on the City to bend over backwards to accommodate them. Well, it looks like a healthy dose of what-goes-around-comes-around.
A building under demolition is, by definition, an unsafe building. There is no gray area to be discussed. Liability nightmare. End of story. Hurry up and finish your construction, pass all your inspections, and then you can use your building.
Woofwoof, you got my curiosity up, so I looked up white tigers on Wiki. Apparently, the white fur and pale eyes are from lack of pigmentation, a result of a recessive gene. The recessive gene will take a back seat unless it is present in both parents, then the offspring will have a 50/50 chance of being “white.” There are thousands of naturally-born white tigers and their numbers are on the rise in the wild. This may indicate that the once recessive gene is beginning to show some evolution into the mainstream of tiger genetics.
How many real estate auction signs do you want to see in FireTree this year? People, get real. I mean, really get real. This is not a garden-variety recession. We haven't even hit bottom and none of the experts can even predict when we will. Those who are speculating that we're near the bottom mean that we're near the bottom on the stock market. We will still have many, many months of fall-out as companies try to recouperate. There will be more lay-offs and it's definitely going to get worse before it gets better.
It's unfortunate that B.C. didn't do this bond issue a year ago. But to march ahead with it because we feel “entitled” is just the kind of thinking that has this nation in the mess it is in.
Most unfortunate of all is the nagging fact that we had our chance 5 years ago when everyone was flush with cash and jobs and we had a bond issue for the BESIC. That would have been the time to have some forethought about growth in planning that facility. What we got for our efforts was a waste of the resources put into it. People want to talk about how it's cheaper to build now than in the future. Well, it would have been even more cost efficient to have built for the future in one building than to have to build two. This idea of having all these separate buildings, each housing just three grade levels, is an inefficient use of resources.
Well, we missed the opportunity. And now we wish we could fix it and we want to fix it by building another new school, but we've run out of opportunity. Now we have to wait. Sometimes consequences do catch up with you. This is one of those times.
Good try, Bandito. Now you see why people are reluctant to go before the City Council. All you get is an earful of what you've already heard, what's been printed in the paper already. Explanations do not provide solutions. All you get is a shrug of the shoulders. “Oh, well. There's nothing we can do. And, by the way, we're under pressure to RAISE the rates.” As I stated above, according to the KCC, what citizens can do when they are disgruntled with municipally-administered utilities is to be sure to elect City Council representatives who will take this on as a primary issue and work diligently to trim wasteful spending.
These guys who have been spend-spend-spend the past several years constantly grouse over how the previous administrations did “nothing” for “years.” They try to make B.C. citizens believe that, without their spend-thriftiness, we'd have nothing but crumbling stones in our town. Well, I believe that it would have been quite possible to provide maintenance and even measured improvement without just opening the floodgates and socking the citizens of B.C. with horrendous costs.
Now they've created a situation where people feeled “duped” into moving here. And people who, ten years ago, thought they'd like to live here for the long-term are now wishing they'd sold out when the market was good. As others have noted, the only thing barring a mass exodus on the basis of high utility costs right now is everyone's inability to even sell their homes and get away.
The time has come to stop saying, “There's nothing we can do.” Just as our Congress and our U.S. Executives are no longer getting away with giving us that excuse, we should no longer accept it at the local level, either.
19 December 2008
at 9:02 a.m.
Suggest removal
Permalink
NanCrisp (Anonymous) says…
Much better news for B.C. than for Eudora, for sure. Local banker gets us on the path. Now, how will we get down the road? It's a long road ahead. The alt-A's and option ARMs are just beginning to go into default and we'll soon see how many more homes glut the market. Also, a lot of the next wave of sour loans will be in the commercial market (think apartments, condos, strip malls) so there is much more fall-out heading our way. And Sebelius has already decided to go into debt just to make that December payment to the state's schools. Wait until the January (and subsequent) tax revenues shrink even further. Our state government will not be able to balance the budget and keep all that school allotment in place. Either major cuts are in store or major tax hikes. Either way, it doesn't bode well for big spending.
10 December 2008
at 4:06 p.m.
Suggest removal
Permalink
NanCrisp (Anonymous) says…
Toby:
Did I say anything, anything, about Amy?
My beef is with everyone who voted for this bond issue at this particular time. A couple of years ago, that would have been the time to have this bond issue. Not now. Leading economists are now finally starting to admit that what our country is desperately trying to accomplish here is to head off another Depression. That word is capitalized for a reason.
We are not in a garden variety recession here. There are several phases that we can expect to go through. We are not even halfway through yet. Here is a picture of what we've had and what we can expect over the next 12 months at least:
Widespread banking instability (no matter the cause)
Leads to default of loans, dried-up credit market
Leads to huge losses on Wall Street
Leads to hedge funds scrambling to meet margins
Leads to investors pulling out of a too-turbulent market
Leads to wild swings in the market and companies losing operating cash
Leads to major job losses
Leads to companies failing, more job losses
Leads to consumers halting spending
Leads to more losses on Wall Street, more companies failing, more jobs lost
Leads to less and less and less tax revenues for states to fund their programs
It becomes a viscious circle, and nothing that has been done so far is enough to get us out of this repeating cycle. This 25% shortfall is just the first of many. This money will not be paid back next month. Instead, the shortfall will increase.
So, I say Torch is right that we are a bunch of suckers. We got sucked in and I do predict that I will not have to eat these words. It's not about anyone personally, it's about everyone having their heads in the sand. This is more serious than anything any of us have experienced in our lives, except those who were alive in the 1930s (most of whom were children, not adults, so even they wouldn't know how to handle such a crisis.)
9 December 2008
at 12:21 p.m.
Suggest removal
Permalink
NanCrisp (Anonymous) says…
Why are we hearing what Lawrence thinks about this? How about a local reporter getting some comment from the Baldwin school district? Or are they running for cover because they know we are all just waiting for the other shoe to drop. I.E.- what Torch said.
8 December 2008
at 4:32 p.m.
Suggest removal
Permalink
NanCrisp (Anonymous) says…
Let's see our local school district stay local and use ALL local contractors for ALL their upcoming construction projects. Oh, I forgot, one of the big “plusses” about the bond issue is the very fact that they PLAN to use contractors from outside our city (state? country?) who will supposedly spend money in B.C. Riiiiiiight!
6 November 2008
at 11:37 a.m.
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Permalink
NanCrisp (Anonymous) says…
Congratulations, Tom.
Keep up the good work you've done in the House now that you're a Senator.
6 November 2008
at 11:36 a.m.
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Permalink
NanCrisp (Anonymous) says…
Congratulations, Tony.
And…you'll be hearing from us!
23 October 2008
at 3:17 p.m.
Suggest removal
Permalink
NanCrisp (Anonymous) says…
Oh, the irony. Look at the players in this crowd. The very people who normally count on the City to bend over backwards to accommodate them. Well, it looks like a healthy dose of what-goes-around-comes-around.
A building under demolition is, by definition, an unsafe building. There is no gray area to be discussed. Liability nightmare. End of story. Hurry up and finish your construction, pass all your inspections, and then you can use your building.
21 October 2008
at 9:47 a.m.
Suggest removal
Permalink
NanCrisp (Anonymous) says…
Woofwoof, you got my curiosity up, so I looked up white tigers on Wiki. Apparently, the white fur and pale eyes are from lack of pigmentation, a result of a recessive gene. The recessive gene will take a back seat unless it is present in both parents, then the offspring will have a 50/50 chance of being “white.” There are thousands of naturally-born white tigers and their numbers are on the rise in the wild. This may indicate that the once recessive gene is beginning to show some evolution into the mainstream of tiger genetics.
So what's the problem?
10 October 2008
at 1:42 p.m.
Suggest removal
Permalink
NanCrisp (Anonymous) says…
How many real estate auction signs do you want to see in FireTree this year? People, get real. I mean, really get real. This is not a garden-variety recession. We haven't even hit bottom and none of the experts can even predict when we will. Those who are speculating that we're near the bottom mean that we're near the bottom on the stock market. We will still have many, many months of fall-out as companies try to recouperate. There will be more lay-offs and it's definitely going to get worse before it gets better.
It's unfortunate that B.C. didn't do this bond issue a year ago. But to march ahead with it because we feel “entitled” is just the kind of thinking that has this nation in the mess it is in.
Most unfortunate of all is the nagging fact that we had our chance 5 years ago when everyone was flush with cash and jobs and we had a bond issue for the BESIC. That would have been the time to have some forethought about growth in planning that facility. What we got for our efforts was a waste of the resources put into it. People want to talk about how it's cheaper to build now than in the future. Well, it would have been even more cost efficient to have built for the future in one building than to have to build two. This idea of having all these separate buildings, each housing just three grade levels, is an inefficient use of resources.
Well, we missed the opportunity. And now we wish we could fix it and we want to fix it by building another new school, but we've run out of opportunity. Now we have to wait. Sometimes consequences do catch up with you. This is one of those times.
19 September 2008
at 11:14 a.m.
Suggest removal
Permalink
NanCrisp (Anonymous) says…
Good try, Bandito. Now you see why people are reluctant to go before the City Council. All you get is an earful of what you've already heard, what's been printed in the paper already. Explanations do not provide solutions. All you get is a shrug of the shoulders. “Oh, well. There's nothing we can do. And, by the way, we're under pressure to RAISE the rates.” As I stated above, according to the KCC, what citizens can do when they are disgruntled with municipally-administered utilities is to be sure to elect City Council representatives who will take this on as a primary issue and work diligently to trim wasteful spending.
These guys who have been spend-spend-spend the past several years constantly grouse over how the previous administrations did “nothing” for “years.” They try to make B.C. citizens believe that, without their spend-thriftiness, we'd have nothing but crumbling stones in our town. Well, I believe that it would have been quite possible to provide maintenance and even measured improvement without just opening the floodgates and socking the citizens of B.C. with horrendous costs.
Now they've created a situation where people feeled “duped” into moving here. And people who, ten years ago, thought they'd like to live here for the long-term are now wishing they'd sold out when the market was good. As others have noted, the only thing barring a mass exodus on the basis of high utility costs right now is everyone's inability to even sell their homes and get away.
The time has come to stop saying, “There's nothing we can do.” Just as our Congress and our U.S. Executives are no longer getting away with giving us that excuse, we should no longer accept it at the local level, either.