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getting laid... off. :)


Ben_Larson

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Slightly off topic, but...

 

Looks like I'm probably getting laid off from the small software development company I work at, here at the end of February. While it does suck, I'm married, my wife works, and I don't really have any outstanding debt or mortgage, so I'm not too terribly concerned.

 

Anyway, since some of you are at least familiar with my Atari game, I thought I'd take this opportunity to plug myself if anyone is interested or has connections. :) So without further ado, here's a link to my resume... :)

 

http://seeker.dice.com/profman/servlet/Pro...37440f8d58b7261

 

Later,

Ben

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Slightly off topic, but...

 

Looks like I'm probably getting laid off from the small software development company I work at, here at the end of February. While it does suck, I'm married, my wife works, and I don't really have any outstanding debt or mortgage, so I'm not too terribly concerned.

 

Anyway, since some of you are at least familiar with my Atari game, I thought I'd take this opportunity to plug myself if anyone is interested or has connections. :) So without further ado, here's a link to my resume... :)

 

http://seeker.dice.com/profman/servlet/Pro...37440f8d58b7261

 

Later,

Ben

 

Best of luck! I hope you find something soon.

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Problem is twofold. Because one company lays off, another one does too.. Monkey see monkey do. And the companies will tell you that is so. They say it it to remain competitive, but, they only care about next year's bottom line, in many cases, next quarter.

 

The second part is this.. If you are out of work, then how can you afford to buy stuff? And if you can't afford to buy stuff, then other companies can't sell you a product. So they get concerned and start layoffs too!

 

The "problem" goes much more basic.. Too many parents raise their kids wrong. And society is oversexed (yes that is a fact) which causes all sorts of mental abberations and incorrect decision-making due to brain chemistry imbalances. And finally, we are an instant gratification society. I NEED IT NOW, whatever it may be.. Thanks to deceptive advertising, or simply too much advertising, which distorts your image (or perception) of real genuine reality. The working over you get from mass media (or got as a kid) is a disaster in the making. Too many idiots milling around endlessly.

 

TV, that is a whole'nother beast. TV shows you too much stuff, and time-compresses events. Take for example, the family of 4 getting into the car, then taking off in an airplane, then running around the beach. All in 30 seconds. That cannot possibly happen in real life that quickly, so it confuses your brain, and jerks around your reward system. Reinforcing the 'gotta-have-it-now' mentality of most folks these days. No?? Then why are you so restless from time to time? And the vacation promoted on tv sometimes becomes tedious. Rush, rush, rush.. Keep up with the Jones's. If you don't you fall behind and are generally considered 'bad' or 'lesser'.. No?? Well, ok, whatever you say.

 

Ohh and the recent high gas prices of $5.00 (still cheap by some world standards) plunged a lot of small business right down the toilet. "They" did that on purpose. Whomever 'they' are. To what end? I don't know. Though you can bet it isn't a good thing.

 

Simple as that. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise! Someone please challenge that line of reasoning.

Edited by Keatah
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  • 2 weeks later...
Simple as that. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise! Someone please challenge that line of reasoning.

 

A lot of possible chicken and egg reasoning flaws with some of your thinking. Here is another view:

 

Housing prices were way to high. The Reason? Too many people who should not have were able to get loans. The Reason? Banks and lenders found a way to package up these loans and put them up for investors which caused markets to rise abnormally. This created a market for buying these packages, and pushed property values to artificially high values.

 

Once housing prices are rising extremely fast people start building houses for the sole purpose of selling them (flipping them). This is normally a self correcting process (small pricing bubbles) however with the cycle of credit risky people able to get cheap loans there was a lot more "stupid" money to continue to push up house prices which pushed the packaged loan to investors even higher. Eventually people started borrowing money they could not pay with the idea of simply flipping the house and taking the extra money before a payment was due.

 

This also caused higher gas prices. People (overall) were flushed with money from buying, selling, and investing in mortgages. When gas prices started to rise the usual balancing with demand lowering when the price went up didn't happen because people (as a whole) could afford to absorb the cost. When prices hit $4.00 the balancing finally happened and prices stabilized.

 

Eventually this had to blow since at the end of the day someone has to actually pay for all these loans.

 

The Government also played a hand in this by requiring loans to credit risky people. There goal was admirable..They wanted 70% home ownership. I think they found that 70% of people are not ready for that responsibility.

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And perhaps that 70 percent would handle it nicely, had we not shipped most of our solid upper-middle class jobs overseas.

 

It's more complex than "people lived above their means".

 

Frankly, the expectation that a hard working father can provide for his family, own a home and maybe work harder and send a kid to school is the right one to set. People tried to meet that expectation, and failed for a lot of reasons.

 

If you look at what our buying power per hour worked is, it's not all that hard to see why both parents work, kids in day care, and such. That's a clear indicator that we've got a very poor alignment between what is reasonable to expect, and what is the reality where available jobs are concerned, and the wage they pay.

 

The other contributing factor here is the move to push risk onto people. That nailed me personally! Lost a home, and it happened during a time when risk was pushed my way, "to cut costs". Yeah. Love that.

 

A very high percentage of the bankruptcies are home owners living lean, but get nailed by health care, or some other risk factor that puts them under. The reason this occurs is people ARE living lean, for the most part. They are doing that because THEY HAVE TO DO THAT. Why? Buying power per hour worked is at an all time low, that's why.

 

These massive layoffs only exacerbate the situation too.

 

It's bad right now. It's been building for a while. Every single year I've been employed since High School, I've managed to invest in my own skills, add value, and see that in terms of higher income. The costs and risk we are seeing have risen quicker than those gains! That's been true now for about 8 years. (wonder why) Result is a nice wage if you look at just dollars and years. However, if you subtract the higher risk we bear now, and multiply those dollars by their actual buying power, my personal income is about 2000 level, if not a bit worse!

 

Back then my kids were young, and we were a starter family. Now it's a lot more money to get through the month, and that's what most people are seeing.

 

In response to that, I've scaled down REPEATEDLY. Still not enough. Lost a home and am living absolutely SMALL now. That's barely enough, and costs and risk still continue to rise.

 

That's why homes are failing.

Edited by potatohead
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Again, I think it is a chicken and the egg thing here..

 

At 65% ownership we were in pretty good shape.. It was that last 5% that did us in.

 

People are living beyond their means.. Millionaires are living beyond their means... Not just the middle class and the poor. My ex-wife never graduated high school and still managed to own ten homes that she bought over a four year period. She should never been able to get loans for them. My neighbor makes less than half that I do but somehow has a 21 foot boat and a new 50,000 car every six months. There are houses in my neighborhood that are 1,000 square feet smaller than mine that someone paid over 100,000 more for less than 18 months after I bought my home. What do you think caused those home prices to skyrocket so fast? There was no house shortage.. Just a *lot* of people that suddenly had access to money that they should not have. My girlfriend works with a guy making 12.00 an hour, has a new baby, a 2400 square foot house, and two new vehicles. His wife does not work. He won't sell one of the vehicles because "this is the standard of living I have chosen." He is living beyond his means and is mad at the world that he might lose his house. He is waiting it out to get a bailout (that would be from you and me).

 

I used to laugh at people like these because they were cooking their own goose. It never occurred to me that they would take the rest of us down with them. Once their actions deflated the markets and started the asset price landslide the innocent got caught up in it as well... and are now the true victims in all of this.

 

Watch CNBC and MSNBC during the weeknights, both of these networks have shows where they have experts interview people having difficulties and give them advise.. They show you their credit scores, credit, income, etc.. I can't believe these people every night with 50,000+ in credit card bills and barely able to feed themselves that decided to buy a 400,000 dollar house..

 

The entire country as a whole is living beyond its means. We need to adjust to that and not pass Trillion dollar borrowing sprees to hand to our children in hopes of propping up artificial asset prices. The best it will do is make another temporary bubble. Like I said I used to have a live and let live policy but I never understood just how much that stupid 5% was able to effect the rest of us and how willing lenders were to let it all happen. Criminals or idiots or both.

 

I understand it is scary. The company I work for has gone through 7 rounds of layoffs in the last few years... We compete directly against walmart and "compete" sometimes is charitable...

 

... I'm not making any friends today :)

Edited by ThumpNugget
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