Sorry but no metal content. I am curious however about the effect of
negative doom and gloom that is often front page news. It seems to me that
the more negative the news seems to be the tighter belts get tightened and
the more self fulfilling the prophesy of the doom sayers gets.

Has any one else perceived this or am I overly sensitive as I just got laid
off from my job?


--
Roger Shoaf
If you are not part of the solution, you are not dissolved in the solvent.

"Roger Shoaf" wrote in message
...
Sorry but no metal content. I am curious however about the effect of
negative doom and gloom that is often front page news. It seems to me
that
the more negative the news seems to be the tighter belts get tightened and
the more self fulfilling the prophesy of the doom sayers gets.

Has any one else perceived this or am I overly sensitive as I just got
laid
off from my job?


--
Roger Shoaf
If you are not part of the solution, you are not dissolved in the solvent.



Its just part of the impending depression. The new fico scoring methode
along
with the help of lenders like american express and chase, etc will only
expedite matters.


Best Regards
Tom.

"Roger Shoaf" wrote:

Sorry but no metal content. I am curious however about the effect of
negative doom and gloom that is often front page news. It seems to me that
the more negative the news seems to be the tighter belts get tightened and
the more self fulfilling the prophesy of the doom sayers gets.

Part of the boom times was optimism, it follows that when things turn bad, negativism will
drive it the other way.


Has any one else perceived this or am I overly sensitive as I just got laid
off from my job?

All politics are local as someone said quite aptly. Sorry about the job. I'm still
waiting to see how large the corporate wide pay cut is going to be. I think an email was
sent to the wrong distribution list recently.

I hope your layoff is temporary. My employer is doing permanent layoffs. Something I've
never seen it do before. Lays waste to the concept that our people are our most valuable
asset type of thought.

What segment of the economy do you work in?

Wes

"Roger Shoaf" wrote in message
...
Sorry but no metal content. I am curious however about the effect of
negative doom and gloom that is often front page news. It seems to me
that
the more negative the news seems to be the tighter belts get tightened and
the more self fulfilling the prophesy of the doom sayers gets.

Has any one else perceived this or am I overly sensitive as I just got
laid
off from my job?

That's a dilemma of economic reporting, Roger. There is an element of
self-fulfilling prophesy involved. One hopes it's counterbalanced by a sense
people get that *at least* they're not getting stuffed with happy talk. Most
of the powerful institutions with an interest -- the government, big
corporations, the banks and other financial institutions -- have a strong
incentive to feed us exactly that. The bit of confidence we get from seeing
that we have a press that's not succumbing to coercion to sugar-coat the
story has to count for something.

As for getting laid off, I'm sorry to hear it, and I hope it doesn't cause
you a lot of trouble or stress. I got a dose of it two years ago -- not
because of problems with the economy but because the FDA decided not to
approve the drug I was writing about. It's no fun but we get through it.
Now, seeing what others are going through, I feel somewhat armored against
the emotional side that's giving so many people real trouble.

Good luck to you.

--
Ed Huntress

"Ed Huntress" wrote in message
...
That's a dilemma of economic reporting, Roger. There is an element of
self-fulfilling prophesy involved. One hopes it's counterbalanced by a
sense
people get that *at least* they're not getting stuffed with happy talk.
Most
of the powerful institutions with an interest -- the government, big
corporations, the banks and other financial institutions -- have a strong
incentive to feed us exactly that. The bit of confidence we get from
seeing
that we have a press that's not succumbing to coercion to sugar-coat the
story has to count for something.

As for getting laid off, I'm sorry to hear it, and I hope it doesn't cause
you a lot of trouble or stress. I got a dose of it two years ago -- not
because of problems with the economy but because the FDA decided not to
approve the drug I was writing about. It's no fun but we get through it.
Now, seeing what others are going through, I feel somewhat armored against
the emotional side that's giving so many people real trouble.


Wes said:

I hope your layoff is temporary. My employer is doing permanent layoffs.
Something I've
never seen it do before. Lays waste to the concept that our people are
our most valuable
asset type of thought.

What segment of the economy do you work in?


First off I will answer Wes. I am a locksmith.

I am not particularly depressed, my circumstances are such that between my
unemployment insurance and my skills I doubt I will suffer much. My house
is paid for and I have no car payments, My current credit card balance is
zero.

I am of the opinion that the economy is not really in too bad of a shape in
real terms, and I am not a big supporter of the government printing presses
rolling to stick my (yet to be) grandkids with the tab.

The really bad economic news was when our industry was being "off shored"
and the "experts" were suggesting that we were in an information age/service
economy. Now we seem to really be in a position to make some real progress.
We have excellent technology, we have vast resources and we have an educated
workforce.

Seems to me all of the fundamental building blocks are there and we only
need to pick up the pieces and use them.

--

Roger Shoaf

About the time I had mastered getting the toothpaste back in the tube, then
they come up with this striped stuff.

On Thu, 5 Mar 2009 22:12:49 -0800, the infamous "Roger Shoaf"
scrawled the following:

Sorry but no metal content. I am curious however about the effect of
negative doom and gloom that is often front page news. It seems to me that
the more negative the news seems to be the tighter belts get tightened and
the more self fulfilling the prophesy of the doom sayers gets.

Has any one else perceived this or am I overly sensitive as I just got laid
off from my job?

You're right on the money, Roger. The more he repeats it, the worse
it gets.

Condolences on your loss. Saaaaay, why don't you ask your new
President for a job?

And to take your mind off things, look at the structural integrity of
these signposts. I'm amazed that this idiot--who evidently forgot to
drop his dump bed after emptying it--wasn't crushed by having a broken
sign come right down on his head.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3917677/...framenumber/4/

--
"Not always right, but never uncertain." --Heinlein
-=-=-

Roger Shoaf wrote:

The really bad economic news was when our industry was being "off shored"
and the "experts" were suggesting that we were in an information age/service
economy. Now we seem to really be in a position to make some real progress.
We have excellent technology, we have vast resources and we have an educated
workforce.

Seems to me all of the fundamental building blocks are there and we only
need to pick up the pieces and use them.


Unfortunately our technology advantage over the rest of the world is
long gone, we lag in many areas.

We do still have vast resources, but the earth first environmentalists
now in power will not let us use them as we might want. Witness the
Carbon cap and trade talk running around DC recently.

Educated work force? We are better off than Bangladesh, or Bolivia, but
I suggest you go talk to some kids in the 15 to 30 age bracket.
Education has been slipping for 40 years, we are not in great shape.

From my perspective, the USA had a huge advantage in the world in the
40s, 50s, and 60s. As the other industrialized nations recovered from
WWII we lost some of the advantage, we let our education system slip and
lost more, entitlement programs and mentality eroded work ethics and we
lost more, excessive environmental restrictions lost more. Meanwhile we
borrowed both personally and nationally to live a lifestyle beyond our
means. So now we are in a deep financial hole and a mediocre
competitive position. We need a long term national belt tightening for
DECADES.

CarlBoyd

Yes, you are correct but loss of confidence and effect of that is a
side effect, not a primary cause. Excess debt is the cause.

Sorry about the job loss. If you live in an industrial area, consider
starting to sell industrial stuff from factory liquidations, on
ebay. It works. Don lancaster has a few useful writeups about how to
do it, at tinaja.com.

--
Due to extreme spam originating from Google Groups, and their inattention
to spammers, I and many others block all articles originating
from Google Groups. If you want your postings to be seen by
more readers you will need to find a different means of
posting on Usenet.
http://improve-usenet.org/

"CarlBoyd" wrote in message
m...
Roger Shoaf wrote:

The really bad economic news was when our industry was being "off shored"
and the "experts" were suggesting that we were in an information
age/service
economy. Now we seem to really be in a position to make some real
progress.
We have excellent technology, we have vast resources and we have an
educated
workforce.

Seems to me all of the fundamental building blocks are there and we only
need to pick up the pieces and use them.


Unfortunately our technology advantage over the rest of the world is long
gone, we lag in many areas.

We do still have vast resources, but the earth first environmentalists now
in power will not let us use them as we might want. Witness the Carbon
cap and trade talk running around DC recently.

Educated work force? We are better off than Bangladesh, or Bolivia, but I
suggest you go talk to some kids in the 15 to 30 age bracket. Education
has been slipping for 40 years, we are not in great shape.

From my perspective, the USA had a huge advantage in the world in the 40s,
50s, and 60s. As the other industrialized nations recovered from WWII we
lost some of the advantage, we let our education system slip and lost
more, entitlement programs and mentality eroded work ethics and we lost
more, excessive environmental restrictions lost more. Meanwhile we
borrowed both personally and nationally to live a lifestyle beyond our
means. So now we are in a deep financial hole and a mediocre competitive
position. We need a long term national belt tightening for DECADES.

CarlBoyd

Well said! Too many people have had a sense of entitlement that doesn't
reflect the amount of work and wealth creation to achieve that artificial
level of expectation.

On Thu, 5 Mar 2009 22:12:49 -0800, "Roger Shoaf"
wrote:

Sorry but no metal content. I am curious however about the effect of
negative doom and gloom that is often front page news. It seems to me that
the more negative the news seems to be the tighter belts get tightened and
the more self fulfilling the prophesy of the doom sayers gets.

Has any one else perceived this or am I overly sensitive as I just got laid
off from my job?
==============
First, I am sorry to hear about your layoff. This frequently has
devastating effects, not only financially, but psychological. It
can be helpful to remember that a lay-off says far more about the
competency/foresight of your [former] company management and/or
the economic environment than it does about you as a person.

In many cases, the conditions that lead to the current economic
bust, such as "irrational exuberance" fueled by low/zero interest
credit and the stock/commodity bubbles, were the products of
shoddy/biased reporting, based on the rosy, self serving news
releases and speeches of the policy makers such as Greenspan, and
accurate data/information is now perceived as "negative."

A small part of the current "correction" does appear to be
self-fulfilling prophecy, however there is a huge amount of
"stuff" now being forced to the surface, such as Madoff and
Stanford, along with more serious frauds [as measured by both
size and the number of people impacted] such as the assumption of
11.25% ROI on assets by the GM defined benefit pension plans when
calculating adequate funding levels.

What is occurring in many cases is that as the flood waters of
artificial prosperity based on excessively cheap credit and
rampant speculation recede, the extent of the damage this caused
to the foundations of the real "value added" economy are becoming
known. For example the huge amounts of "deferred maintenance" on
the public infrastructure, as well as the failure of management
in the private manufacturing sectors to (re)invest in new
products and machines, instead using this capital to speculate
(which they lost).

In many other cases, the "contributions" of entire domestic
economic sectors are only now being exposed as a frauds and
hallucinations, specifically the financial services sector, which
in reality not only did not contribute to the economy, but is now
widely seen to have been actively engaged in value destruction,
e.g. "leveraged buyouts." Other sectors, which can be shown to
have made zero to negative net economic contributions over the
last generation, are civil aviation and domestic light vehicle
manufacture.

The refusal of the people dispersing the "rescue funds" to
provide adequate information as to the recipients and uses are
contributing greatly to the spread of rumors and feeling of being
"scammed." Just how did the names and amounts of the FRB
loans/repo agreements become "state secrets," and why won't the
Treasury disclose who the derivative counter-parties [estimated
450 billion dollar exposure] with AIG are? These obligated
amounts are now up in the trillions of taxpayer dollars, with no
accountability.


Unka' George [George McDuffee]
-------------------------------------------
He that will not apply new remedies,
must expect new evils:
for Time is the greatest innovator: and
if Time, of course, alter things to the worse,
and wisdom and counsel shall not alter them to the better,
what shall be the end?

Francis Bacon (1561-1626), English philosopher, essayist, statesman.
Essays, "Of Innovations" (1597-1625).

On Mar 6, 8:00*am, Ignoramus28258 ignoramus28...@NOSPAM.
28258.invalid wrote:

Sorry about the job loss. If you live in an industrial area, consider
starting to sell industrial stuff from factory liquidations, on
ebay. It works. Don lancaster has a few useful writeups about how to
do it, at tinaja.com.

I prowl the junk-filled warehouses of dealers who do that. How much
unsellable scrap have you accumulated?

I prefer picture #7 in that series, Sweet Tooth, and ponder.. is that a
bleached beaver, or a blonde otter on her head (or both)?

--
WB
..........
metalworking projects
www.kwagmire.com/metal_proj.html


"Larry Jaques" wrote in message
...
On Thu, 5 Mar 2009 22:12:49 -0800, the infamous "Roger Shoaf"
scrawled the following:

Sorry but no metal content. I am curious however about the effect of
negative doom and gloom that is often front page news. It seems to me
that
the more negative the news seems to be the tighter belts get tightened and
the more self fulfilling the prophesy of the doom sayers gets.

Has any one else perceived this or am I overly sensitive as I just got
laid
off from my job?

You're right on the money, Roger. The more he repeats it, the worse
it gets.

Condolences on your loss. Saaaaay, why don't you ask your new
President for a job?

And to take your mind off things, look at the structural integrity of
these signposts. I'm amazed that this idiot--who evidently forgot to
drop his dump bed after emptying it--wasn't crushed by having a broken
sign come right down on his head.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3917677/...framenumber/4/

--
"Not always right, but never uncertain." --Heinlein
-=-=-

On 2009-03-06, Jim Wilkins wrote:
On Mar 6, 8:00?am, Ignoramus28258 ignoramus28...@NOSPAM.
28258.invalid wrote:

Sorry about the job loss. If you live in an industrial area, consider
starting to sell industrial stuff from factory liquidations, on
ebay. It works. Don lancaster has a few useful writeups about how to
do it, at tinaja.com.

I prowl the junk-filled warehouses of dealers who do that. How much
unsellable scrap have you accumulated?

I have accumulated a lot of it, but that does not make it
unprofitable. Every year or so I have a cleanup effort.

--
Due to extreme spam originating from Google Groups, and their inattention
to spammers, I and many others block all articles originating
from Google Groups. If you want your postings to be seen by
more readers you will need to find a different means of
posting on Usenet.
http://improve-usenet.org/

"Larry Jaques" wrote in message
...
On Thu, 5 Mar 2009 22:12:49 -0800, the infamous "Roger Shoaf"
scrawled the following:

Sorry but no metal content. I am curious however about the effect of
negative doom and gloom that is often front page news. It seems to me
that
the more negative the news seems to be the tighter belts get tightened and
the more self fulfilling the prophesy of the doom sayers gets.

Has any one else perceived this or am I overly sensitive as I just got
laid
off from my job?

You're right on the money, Roger. The more he repeats it, the worse
it gets.

Condolences on your loss. Saaaaay, why don't you ask your new
President for a job?

And to take your mind off things, look at the structural integrity of
these signposts. I'm amazed that this idiot--who evidently forgot to
drop his dump bed after emptying it--wasn't crushed by having a broken
sign come right down on his head.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3917677/...framenumber/4/

--
"Not always right, but never uncertain." --Heinlein
-=-=-

I passed a dump truck on 101 in San Francisco, just as it's bed came up to
knock down a metal U shaped walkway that spanned US 101. 6 lanes of freeway
blocked. This was 5:30 am and the car behind the truck got of 101 at 11:30
am. Interesting working nights while going to university.
As to the layoff, my regards to you. Being a retired silicon valley
engineer that liked startups, I went through about 7 layoffs. Keep in touch
with and network with former workers and customers. Watch your expenses,
but go out for a nice meal with the wife once in a while. Keeps moral up,
both yours and wife. Put an advert in Craigslist as a handyman or
locksmith. Put an advert up in mobil home senior parks for the same thing,
and charge resonable rates and do not try to rip off the little old ladies
and you should have repeat business. Keep your insurance up! Look at
getting a plan outside of COBRA. May be cheaper and if you are laid off a
long time, you may be stuck with a HIPPA policy if there are some health
problems when COBRA expires. If your health plan is with a company that
offers personal plans, talk to them about switching. I had to start a
company to get a group plan. I affiliated with another group that only does
Calif, but every state probably has something. A group can be as small as
2, you and your wife, and you only need a business checking account. Do the
business in your own name and no fictitious business name statements have to
be filed. Ignore the business license stuff of your city. Does not seem to
matter here.

On Fri, 6 Mar 2009 11:37:11 -0500, the infamous "Wild_Bill"
scrawled the following:

I prefer picture #7 in that series, Sweet Tooth, and ponder.. is that a
bleached beaver, or a blonde otter on her head (or both)?

Der Mudderland (Russia) sure has some sweet looking women, doesn't
she? As to your question, who _cares_? I prefer unbearded clams.

--
"Not always right, but never uncertain." --Heinlein
-=-=-

No pelt is OK, too. If Sweet Tooth has panties to match the hat, she might
just get thru the brutal Russian winters without..

chapped lips.

--
WB
..........
metalworking projects
www.kwagmire.com/metal_proj.html


"Larry Jaques" wrote in message
...
On Fri, 6 Mar 2009 11:37:11 -0500, the infamous "Wild_Bill"
scrawled the following:

I prefer picture #7 in that series, Sweet Tooth, and ponder.. is that a
bleached beaver, or a blonde otter on her head (or both)?

Der Mudderland (Russia) sure has some sweet looking women, doesn't
she? As to your question, who _cares_? I prefer unbearded clams.

--
"Not always right, but never uncertain." --Heinlein
-=-=-

On Fri, 6 Mar 2009 21:30:31 -0500, the infamous "Wild_Bill"
scrawled the following:

No pelt is OK, too. If Sweet Tooth has panties to match the hat, she might
just get thru the brutal Russian winters without..

chapped lips.

I'd be more than happy to help her in keeping those sweet lips moist.
Vive la France!

--
"Not always right, but never uncertain." --Heinlein
-=-=-