Midst the holiday season, there's just good news to report and, as a matter of fact, that could well be called a contrary viewpoint these days.
If you look hard enough, though, you'll find it and you'll even see that a few of the clouds have silver linings. Take the cost of gasoline, for instance. Thanks to a 75% drop in the price of crude we're rapidly moving back towards the pre-W days. On Wednesday crude plunged 9% to a little over $35 per barrel and many Americans were paying a tad over $1.50 at the pump. For people who drive a lot, that's a big savings.
There are also some great shopping bargains right now and, according to the Associated Press, some stores are letting customers haggle down their already low prices just to keep the cash registers ringing.
Colleges and hospitals are also feeling the economic pinch and, as a result, their astronomical costs may soon be returning to earth.
Furthermore, according to the AP, the wealthy have experienced the sharpest decline in their net worth in nearly 50 years and, as a result, those that previously decided to cater primarily to the newly-blossomed upper class, like Las Vegas for instance, are now rapidly lowering their sights to attract ordinary people. Luxury sales declined 34.5% in the first week of December and surprising bargains are increasingly available at stores like Saks Fifth Avenue and Neiman Marcus.
Plunging interest rates in conjunction with soaring foreclosures are also providing bargains in real estate that have not been seen in years. In some parts of the Los Angeles Basin, for example, attractive ranch-style homes can be purchased for under $100,000 with the seller paying all the closing costs. As another indication of how topsy-turvy this world can get, the resulting total monthly housing cost, even with a no-down-payment loan, can be hundreds of dollars less than the property's rental value.
There's even good news for criminals. Due to the economic storm, 19 states have slashed court budgets and justice is being delayed from coast to coast. New Hampshire, described in the L.A. Times as the "poster child" for the problem, plans to halt all civil and criminal jury trials for at least one month to avoid paying the jurors' per diems.
And, despite the large number of layoffs currently being experienced, some job opportunities are springing up in unusual places. Manufacturers that provide relatively inexpensive, yet catchy products, such as the Lego Company of Denmark, are doing quite well. There is also an increasing demand for employees in the mental health field and for those that man the suicide hot lines. Payday lenders and pawn shops have been reported to be doing a brisk business with additional job opportunities opening up as well.
There's even good news for those that like Chinese Food. It was reported this week that the Chinese are finally drawing the line and deciding to stop serving cat. Nevertheless, if you happen to be in Guangdong and you don't want cat, you'd better order bacon and eggs.
The Good News Resourcefulness Award, however, definitely goes to Jerrigrace Lyons of Sebastopol, California. Jerrigrace has fashioned an unusual job opportunity out of the uncertainties of the economic crisis together with the certainty of death. Describing herself as a "death midwife," she helps her clients through the process of holding funerals and even burials at home.
Actually she's not the only one in the country, but she caught the attention of a Times reporter whose story revealed this to be a rapidly growing industry.
Jerrigrace and others in the field help families deal with the necessary paperwork and required permits involved. Jerrigrace, herself, even teaches workshops on how to care for a body while it is in the family home.
In summing up this unique job opportunity, she says "As a death midwife, I'm helping to usher a person out of this world and into the next. It is really the same threshold as birth. I think of it as the comings and goings of our spirit. We come in and we go out. But it is the same doorway."
Congratulations to you, Jerrigrace Lyons, on successfully helping to turn a double tragedy into a growth industry. You and others like you truly represent the indomitable spirit that has made this country what it is today.
Dave McGill, News Correspondent
Dave's column, "The Contrarian," generally published every Friday, to Gather Essential News will sometimes present a contrary view to various aspects of the news, or an alternate take on the conventional wisdom of the day, and will often appear on other days of the week
Dave has been a senior officer of an eastern insurance company, involved in economic projections and investment strategy, president of a Midwestern mortgage banking company, and a financial consultant in Southern California, serving clients in the field of commercial real estate development.
You can find all of Dave's "The Contrarian" columns at:http://gather.com/thecontrarian...... Keep up with Dave's other postings and Gather activity by joining his Gather network - just click here: http://atadaskew.gather.com
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Comments: 37
We can all use some good news occasionally!
Any number of things Demagogue David just listed as "good news" could just as easily be PERCEIVED as "bad news." Why our infamous purveyor of all things, anything but positive, has suddenly decided to be pollyanna rather than David of Doom and Gloom, one can only guess.
For instance, "good news for criminals?" *chuckle* Ordinarily the contrarian would be telling us which politician was to blame for the lack of money in the budget, and how such a shortfall is going to impact the citizens at large. Save money on per diem for the jury, while you spend more money on longer jail stays while the criminals stay in jail longer awaiting trial. "Good news" for the taxpayer too, apparently.
What's the flip side of seeing a silver lining in "great bargins?"
One of the worst retail seasons ever, possibly leading to further jobs erosion.
Is this the same guy that's been warning us about "stagflation" for months now? When he's casting dire warnings of doom and gloom, falling prices are proof of his powers of prognostication, now all of a sudden it's good news for the consumer.
The pawn shops can hire more people why???
Well, the other side of the coin is, lots of people are pawning off lots of feces these days, eh???
The guy that usually writes as if life were eternal night, now wants the world to know he can see the bright and shining light of a brand new sunny day?
Perception, all about perception isn't it?
Have you had your positivity today?
And under the column of "what the hell?" is the info on the cats and the Chinese???
WTF ??
Perhaps it is the spirit of Santa indwelling his soul, who knows. We'll see if he reverts to form, because you can be sure tomorrow is another day.
And of course, there really is some good news in there. And even more than you mentioned. But we will leave that for another time. Best for the holidays.
Falling prices is one such silver lining. What we know of as "recession" could just as accurately be called "market correction." The recession is caused by the banking systems artifical expansion of the supply of money and credit ("artificial" in that the increased credit is not backed by a corresponding increase in genuine savings, and the increased money is simply printed from out of thin air), which in turn pushes the interest rate below its natural equilibrium level (the interest rate is a vital market signal -- just as all market prices are vital market signals -- which reflects the interplay of supply of and demand for genuine savings available for capital loans). The artificially-manipulated interest rate causes investors and entrepreneurs to allocate scarce resources to new projects (or the expansion of existing projects) which are not sustainable considering the real-world consumption preferences and scales-of-valuation of the public -- in other words, the artificially-decreased interest rate causes systematic clusters of malinvestment.
In time, those clusters of entrepreneurial errors are revealed; jolts of economic reality are inevitable, and it becomes clear that businesses allocated scarce resources (manufacturing equipment, labor, capital) to a production schedule that cannot yield profits considering the existing price/wage structure and the present preferences of the consuming public. Businesses are forced to liquidate the product of the malinvested resources by lowering prices so as to the "clear the market."
Obviously, bankers are able to avoid this fate. They do not have to worry getting stuck with whatever the true market value of their existing assets really are -- they can just lobby the federal government to buy those assets at a politically-determined rate with money stolen from the public, so they don't have to suffer the losses that would otherwise have followed naturally as a consequence of their own mismanagement or fraud.
Government policies of subsidizing certain politically-favored, interested producers, as a means of saving them from the losses that would ordinarily follow from their having to lower prices to clear the market, have the effect of precluding the more efficient and productive firms from taking a larger share of the market -- a result that would be more beneficial to the public, including wage-earning labor in the particular industry, as well as the consumers of the product of the particular industry. It is, in effect, neutralizing and nullifying the voice of the people, as expressed through their decisions on the market, and substituting the voice of the people with the decrees and preferences of politicians and bureaucrats and central bankers.
I wish I could agree with Denise about this being the bottom and things getting back to "normal" soon. Unfortunately, I think 2009 is going to be a very tough year. No one, Obama included, is going to turn this ship on a dime, and we are in a very deep hole. But as has been said, there are some rays of sunshine peeking through the dark clouds, so we must all just keep on keeping on.
You people give Demagogue David far too much credit for clever and witty presentations.
One person says "oh I get it" and the next says, "oh yes, that's it, it MUST be tongue in cheek.
Coyly, Demagogue David steps forward and takes credit for sarcasm he is perceived to have produced.
Sad, so sad, it's a sad sad situation, and it's getting more and more absurd. *chuckle*
Oh well. Everything will be peachy keen for at lest the next two years come the inauguration.
As for falling home price, since I'm about to become an unwilling seller, I find little comfort in this - though when I bought my beautiful little 1930's bungalow in Lexington for 74K, my aunt in California informed me that you couldn't buy a dumpster in CA for 74K, so I guess the bigger the balloon, the louder the 'pop'!