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Instapundit
BACK IN 2004, MOVEON MADE A POLITICAL SPOT about how Bush was saddling our kids with too much debt. The folks at RedState have updated it for 2009. Best political parody of the season.
Posted at 2:52 pm by Glenn Reynolds
You are browsing the archive for recession.
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More than 8.3 million U.S. mortgage holders owed more on their loans in the fourth quarter than their property was worth
The recession cut home values by $2.4 trillion last year, First American CoreLogic said.
An additional 2.2 million borrowers will be underwater if home prices decline another 5 percent, First American, a Santa Ana, California-based seller of mortgage and economic data, said in a report today. Households with negative equity or near it account for a quarter of all mortgage holders.
“We have way too much supply and not enough demand,” Sam Khater, senior economist for First American, said in an interview. “People aren’t going to purchase a home as long as prices keep falling, and someone who is worried about their job isn’t going to purchase a home either.”
Prices in 20 U.S. cities fell 18.5 percent in December from a year earlier, the fastest drop on record, according to the S&P/Case-Shiller index. Sales of previously owned homes, which account for about 90 percent of the market, fell in January to the lowest since 1997, and new-home purchases plunged to the lowest since records began in 1963, the National Association of Realtors and Commerce Department said.
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AskMen.com – Top 10: Silver Linings To The Recession
8:29 pm in Money, Politics by admin
No.10 – Better customer service
Gone are the days, it would seem, that companies don’t have to work for your patronage. Many businesses, particularly banks, have noted an increase in customer satisfaction scores in the previous few months. And why is that? Well, as firms struggle for survival and scramble to regain the trust of the public, executives have placed the emphasis back where it should be: on keeping the customer happy. If you haven’t already, you should soon notice an improvement in customer service and much more attentive staff in shops, which is a definite silver lining to the recession.
No.9 – Great travel deals
The tourism industry was one of the first to feel the devastating effects of the recession. Bucking the trend, however, are local and small-scale tourism outfits who offer great value for those looking to tighten their belts. If you can’t afford a trip to the Maldives this year, why not look at some of the B&B offers right in your own backyard? And by supporting your local economy, you’ll feel that you’re doing your part to inject a bit of your very own fiscal stimulus. And who knows — thanks to this silver lining to the recession, you might even find that everything you needed was right under your nose to begin with.
No.8 – Lower interest rates
National interest rates are now at an all-time low, which clearly has major benefits for many of us. You might not be able to get a mortgage as the credit crunch continues, but if you’ve already got one, then your monthly payments are bound to get smaller during this economic slump — provided that you’re not on a fixed-rate mortgage. Now that the banks are bowing to government pressure to pass on these savings, those of us with tracker and variable mortgages can appreciate up to hundreds of dollars of savings a month — a silver lining to the recession for us all.
No.7 – Surge in public creativity
When times are tough, people want to forget all the gloominess and often look to pop culture for a form of escape. What we get, then, is the arrival of fresh and new forms of entertainment during periods of economic crisis. The Great Depression of the ’30s saw the advent of the detective novel and comic books, and it was also around this time that Hollywood experienced its first real golden age. Perhaps this recession will trigger a new wave of creativity, a silver lining to the recession for sure, and very soon we’ll all have better movies to watch and books to read.
No.6 – Greater investment opportunities
As firms go bust and property values plummet, new business opportunities emerge for enterprising risk-takers. These gambles usually require a certain amount of gumption, and of course the necessary capital, but opportunities certainly arise. Take, for instance, the availability of cheap property due to more than two million foreclosures in the U.S. real estate market — it may sound like a cliché, but who can really deny that one man’s loss is another man’s sliver lining to the recession?
No.5 – Greater education opportunities
Unlike the previous two decades in which young people sprinted to the job market as soon as they could, university graduates are now deciding to hunker down in grad school to become more qualified for when the economy rebounds. Universities have noticed this trend, and are offering new programs and expanding departments in an effort to encourage more people to carry on with their studies.
No.4 – New infrastructure
When the economy turns around — which it inevitably will — we’ll be able to enjoy the return of a skilled labor force. Buildings won’t be rushed through to completion, and we’ll hopefully never have to see bridges collapsing due to the dangerous combination of greed and incompetence. We can also expect an increase in the number of people who choose to learn hands-on skills like plumbing and carpentry, which is something that has been sorely missing from our generation of white-collar obsessed workers.
No.3 – Cheaper booze
You might not see “drowning your sorrows” as a productive countermeasure to the economic hardships we’re enduring, but there’s no denying the benefits of lower prices of drinks in bars and clubs — after all, we still need to enjoy ourselves. British newspapers have even been talking about the return of the £1 pint, a pricing phenomenon that hasn’t occurred since the late ’80s.
No.2 – Return to a real economy
Now that the recession is officially underway, there is no shortage of accusations and finger-pointing. One good thing that is sure to come out of all this, however, is a shift toward a more authentic economy, based on real things built by people with real ideas. You can wave goodbye to the Wall Street asshole who, for all the trouble he’s caused, won’t have a place in this new economic order.
No.1 – New opportunities
If you’re one of the many unfortunate people who have lost your job, you may find it difficult to see anything remotely positive coming out of these times. However, for every person in despair at a job loss, there’s another who sees it as an opportunity to reexamine what he’s been doing and discover the silver lining to the recession. The option to pursue new projects and acquire new skills has never been so apparent, and now people can get down to what they would be doing if they weren’t constricted by their day-to-day obligations.
Western media often seems bent on striking fear into the hearts of people everywhere. And while it’s no fun to lose your job or see your property value tumble, there are a few genuine opportunities that arise during times of recession. It’s also good to recognize that this period of economic malaise will someday come to an end, and there are a number of important lessons that we can take from it.