RE: Bubblemania
I would say no. The current wave of anti-American terrorism seems to have its genesis in our presence on the Arabian peninsula as much, if not more than it does with support for Israel. Not that the latter isn't being used for a justification, though. -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] On Behalf Of Anton Sherwood Sent: Sunday, January 26, 2003 9:35 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: Bubblemania Alypius Skinner wrote: > . . . . It became > obvious to me fairly early in the '90's that resentment against US > foreign policy had made Americans overseas the preferred target of > terrorists. Not in the Seventies? -- Anton Sherwood, http://www.ogre.nu/
Re: Bubblemania
In a message dated 1/26/03 8:02:08 PM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: >(demographically, the boom began in 1943) The fertility rate (measured per 1000 women) in 1943 barely exceeded that of 1942 (2,718 v. 2,628), follwed by declines in 1944 (2,568) and 1945 (2,491), only a bit higher than the rates of 1941 (2,301) and 1940 (2,301). In 1946, however, the rate rose to 2,943 and thereafter remained above 3,000 through 1964 (3,208) and then again in 1965 (2,928), 1966 (2,736), 1967 (2,573), 1968 (2,477), and 1969 (2,465). I've generally heard demographers to include the years 1946-1964 in the Baby Boom, although one might arguably include 1965 or exclude 1946. The Baby Boom stands out even more starkly if one uses live birth rates per 1,000 women: the number doesn't exceed 100 until 1946, and then does so every year through 1964, after which it again falls below 100. (Source: Historical Statistics of the United States, Colonial Times to 1970, Part I, pp. 51-53.) DBL
Re: are real estate markets competitive?
In a message dated 1/25/03 9:20:45 AM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: >--- [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: >> Federal, state and local land regulations often discourage >> the conversion of currently-farmed land for other purposes, like >indstrial or high-density residential use. The number of people engaged >in >full-time farming has continued to decline, and virtually nobody not >already >> engaged in farming or from a farming family enters farming. There's >thus >little additional demand for farming land,< > >But don't the billions of dollars of farm subsidies benefit some farmers, >making their land more valuable? >When farmers are grandfathered into price supports, does this run with >the >land or with the farmer? > >Fred Foldvary It was my understanding that grain price supports were to be phased out by last year or the year before. Since I stopped following such matters for the most part around 2000, I'm not sure whether Congress allowed the phase out to complete. I do recall both Tom Harkin (Democratic US Senator from Iowa) and Jim Nussle (Republican US Represenative from the next district over in Iowa) rushing to Newt Gingrich a few years back to try to stave off the full phase out, but as I recall they did not succeed. I'm not familiar with any "grandfathering" to avoid the phase out; the subsidies before the phase out went with the crop, not the farmer or the land (although the PIK program paid the farmer not to plant a crop, and I think there the benefits probably went with the land). If the phase out does have some grandfather clause to prevent or slow the phase out, I suppose it might have gonen with either the land or the farmer. I seem to recall that the ag subsidies had a per person limit and that farmers often evaded the limits by putting parcels of land in the name of wives, daughters, sons, cousins, in-laws, outlaws, etc. I'm sure that if the subsidies go with a parcel of land that they tend to raise the value of the land, but maybe only if someone actually grows the crop on the land. DBL
Re: Bubblemania
Alypius Skinner wrote: . . . . It became obvious to me fairly early in the '90's that resentment against US foreign policy had made Americans overseas the preferred target of terrorists. Not in the Seventies? -- Anton Sherwood, http://www.ogre.nu/
Re: Bubblemania
> That's a good point about the post-9/11 recovery. But I still suspect > the indirect consequences of 9/11 played a role. From the graph, it > looks like the post 9/11 recovery coincided with the surprisingly easy > victory over the Taliban. No, I remember the market bottomed on 9-21, just 10 days later (and remember the market was shut down for 4 trading days right after the attack), and the market immediately began to surge vigorously back up. Traders with long memories began buying as soon as the market reopened, because similar shocks, because the markets have always rebounded quickly in the past from similar shocks, such as the Pearl Harbor attack or the assassination of President Kennedy. I well remember another distortion that happened right after 9-11: gasoline prices immediately shot up to ridiculous levels at many outlets--no danger posed to oil supplies on 9-12 of course, just lots of merchants (but not all) trying to exploit a general climate of fear. I don't know who to despise more--the greedy gasoline merchants, or the unthinking dupes who were stupid enough to actually buy at those elevated prices. The latter are probably the same people who believe there's a social security "trust fund," that every up and down wiggle in the GDP is caused by decisions of the US President, or, in the northeast, that everyone with a southern accent dresses in white sheets and pillow cases for their barbeques. And it's plausible that part of the > subsequent decline stems from the growing realization that further > military action would continue after the Taliban's defeat. More likely, part of the decline comes from because the markets are uncertain as to whether there will be further military action. After the 10% correction following Iraq's invasion of Kuwait in 1990, the market took off like a rocket as soon as the US began dropping its bombs on Iraq the following January. It is not so much war as uncertainty that rattles the markets. The markets were also weak during the weeks following the election of 2000, when no one knew for sure who the next US President would be. There were very vigorous rallies in July (which quickly gave all the gains back) and, I think, Ocotober of last year. The latter rally was driven heavily by hedge funds buying heavily into telecom and other tech-related stocks with a very dim outlook. As soon as these stocks show signs of weakness, they will dump them just as quickly (maybe they have already started--I'm not following this sector much these days). Insiders in these stocks have been overwhelmingly (over 90%) sellers even as the price was driven up by hedge fund speculation. Many small investors, who held steady during events that could have turned into market routs on a few occasions in the late '90's, are sitting on the sidelines nursing their cash. Until their confidence returns, none of these bear-market rallies will be sustainable--they're known in the trade as "suckers' rallies," although this shoe only fits if you don't know when to get out again, and I would guess that most small investors don't. Since 2000, this has been a trader's market--a market in secular decline punctuated by fierce but brief rallies which soon give back all their gains. About 20 years ago, Harry Dent wrote a book called _The Great Boom Ahead_. Based solely on demographic projections, he predicted the course of the market with surprising accuracy, including the recent weakness (although he wrongly anticipated this weakness would be accompanied by temporary inflationary pressures). He predicted the market would recove in 2003 and enjoy "smooth sailing" through 2008. After 2009, he thinks the US economy will fall off the cliff into a depression. He makes this assumption solely on demographic projections (which may have since been altered by heavy immigration, I don't know), although I think the retirement of the baby boomers (demographically, the boom began in 1943), reducing surplus social security revenue, drawing down their 401K's and IRA's, and switching many of their investments from stocks to bonds, will be enough by itself to precipitate an economic crisis at some point. Oh yes, I seem to recall a matter which I never got around to replying to in a previous thread (I'm bad about that) concerning someone's doubt that aging boomers would switch their investments from stocks to safer investments like bonds. It has long been the practice for financial advisors to tell their clients to put more of their money in bonds and less in stocks as they get older. One popular rule of thumb among such advisors is that the amount one invests in stocks should be 100% minus his age. If we enter a particularly bad market after 2008, I expect many boomers will shift 100% of their money into high grade bonds. By the way, I read somewhere (I think it was the PIMCO site) that bonds outperformed the broad market averages for the decade of the '90's. This sounds surprising, but
Re: fashion
On Sunday 26 January 2003 09:30 am, William Sjostrom wrote: > I had recently had a visitor, my wife's 19 year old nephew, who came from > the States to stay for a couple of weeks. Winter weather in the UK and > Ireland is always damp and cold, generally conducive to bad colds. His > dress was teenage fashion, at least where he comes from: a t-shirt and a > short sleeve shirt, unbuttoned. In a dry climate, this might be tolerable; > in a damp climate it is deadly. He adamantly refused to wear a sweater, > and came down with a chest infection. Has there ever been shown a correlation between clothing styles and infection rates? I suppose cold could be an added stress, which could lower a person's immunity, but my guess is that the exhaustion of transatlantic travel would have been the greter stress. Add that to the introduction of a swarm of novel (to him) infectious agents, and a cold seems inevitable. > My puzzle is this. I am familiar with only two rational choice explanation > for fashions: information cascades and signaling. Information cascades may > explain why doctors use the same medicine, but I do not see how they > explain odd clothing fashions, from bell bottoms to platform shoes. > Signaling may explain weird clothes among teenagers, but I do not see how > it can explain costly attachment to fashion where there is no one to > signal. Habit and (mental) comfort. That is, he *likes* those clothes. -- Susan Hogarth http://www.tribeagles.org/
fashion
I had recently had a visitor, my wife's 19 year old nephew, who came from the States to stay for a couple of weeks. Winter weather in the UK and Ireland is always damp and cold, generally conducive to bad colds. His dress was teenage fashion, at least where he comes from: a t-shirt and a short sleeve shirt, unbuttoned. In a dry climate, this might be tolerable; in a damp climate it is deadly. He adamantly refused to wear a sweater, and came down with a chest infection. My puzzle is this. I am familiar with only two rational choice explanation for fashions: information cascades and signaling. Information cascades may explain why doctors use the same medicine, but I do not see how they explain odd clothing fashions, from bell bottoms to platform shoes. Signaling may explain weird clothes among teenagers, but I do not see how it can explain costly attachment to fashion where there is no one to signal. Is there a better rational choice explanation of fashion? Bill Sjostrom + William Sjostrom Senior Lecturer Department of Economics National University of Ireland, Cork Cork, Ireland +353-21-490-2091 (work) +353-21-427-3920 (fax) +353-21-463-4056 (home) [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] www.ucc.ie/~sjostrom/
Re: are real estate markets competitive?
In a message dated 1/25/03 3:54:04 PM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: >--- [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: >"I'm also reminded that, like one friend of mine, >people who work in small towns often buy an old farm >house and live in it, while contracting out to some >neighbor or farming friend to do a little bit of >farming on the land the buyer doesn't use for >residential purposes." > >Is that what they call "gentleman farming"? Well my friend generally acted like a gentleman, but he also spends most of his time on the verge of bankruptcy, so he probably doesn't qualify as a gentleman farmer. Sam Donaldson, on the other hand, who often acts in an ungentlemanly manner, collects substantial federal mohair subsidies, and therefore might be considered a gentleman farmer. DBL
