Working for the Company Store

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At my shop the company economists regularly read the NY Times. We do this in order to understand what is coming down the pike and also so that Pat Gilbert won't have to.

General Electric just sold it's financial division to a company called BlackStone. Blackstone is notable for it's real estate holdings. They buy massive quantities of single family residences for rental purposes.

In other news, Amazon is moving into Angie's List territory. When you buy a faucet you also get a list of approved vendors to install that faucet.

In Seattle & Long Island foreign investors are snapping up the high dollar homes. Over 40% of all single family residences over $1million were sold to Chinese Nationals.

So what does this mean for us?

We saw how Houzz took over the kitchen design business. Imagine Houzz with a budget behind them. This suggests we should all learn to take good pictures.

Wall Street competing for the houses our customers remodel means we will soon have fewer customers that feel a need to remodel. While this is still small scale it will grow. The REIT investors make their decisions to buy based on price/earnings ratios. After they have hoovered up all the tier one properties they will lower their standards and go after the lower market niches.

The REITs will buy up these houses and split them into 7 bedroom rentals so those of us who are favored by Amazon can rent a room.

In my neighborhood you can't go a half block without seeing a big hole in the ground that will soon house 1000 workers. These workers all have to live somewhere.

A customer of mine remodeling a victorian house in San Francisco lamented that all these young workers were primarily foreigners who come from cultures that favor modern architecture. She said all these wonderful in-city treasures were being gutted and their historic moldings replaced with stark contemporary. My company focuses primarily on traditional architecture so I guess we will have to soon trot out the white bread work.

Pat Gilbert

Dear Nostrils

GE selling off the financial part of their business might be telling? It was Jeff Immelt that got the last crash going by telling Henry Paulson the sky is falling because GE got caught in a "liquidity crisis" doing risky things with their investments and more importantly would have cost Immelt his bonus if they were not bailed out by the taxpayer.

I suppose now that they cannot play games with their money, it is no longer profitable.

That is interesting about Amazon, off of this forum I have seen posters say that Yelp does not work for the cabinet shop, where as Houzz does. Which category would Amazon fall under?

The REIT thing is yesterday's news. Maybe a good candidate for shorting?

The foreign investors are trying to find a place to park their money. Remember when we through this with Japan?

The main thing driving the cabinet business is demographics. People do kitchen remodeling when they are 50 to 60. After 60 they don't buy much. That is a problem because the biggest clump of the boomers are now 58 and 59.

In addition of course is the off shoring reducing the cost of kitchens.

I think in our industry the QE money has manifested in high end to upper middle class residential and large commercial jobs. This because low interest rates create projects that are long term and very sensitive to interest rates and residential because those home owners have done well in the stock market and have refinanced.

Going forward the entitlements are going to be more and more onerous which does not bode well for any part of the economy. Once again because of demographics.

But in a sentence the problem simply is that the Fed did not allow the market to clear. Which has resulted in what you see today.

Nostradamus

The REIT thing may be yesterday's news but it will become a problem for us in the future.

The pile of money available for these kinds of purchases just continues to grow and grow as it has from the days of the pharaohs. Once the banks figured out they couldn't sell you a house with a stupid mortgage they settled for renting you the house. The first round of houses they buy will be those with the least hassle factor and best price to earnings ratio. After those evaporate they will go down market. Like a starfish scouring the ocean floor they will latch onto every possible source of revenue until there is no more. Then they'll go after the food. You gotta eat, and sleep somewhere and get haircuts. Eventually they will annex the barbers.

So this probably does have some impact on cabinet land but just not so obvious yet.

I would guess that Amazon will eventually have some kind of vetting system for their handyman team, kind of like Amazon Prime. If you're on the team you get a discount on materials you buy from Amazon. Stop buying your materials from Amazon and you're no longer on the team.

The influx of foreign office workers will have more influence than just aesthetic tastes for the cabinets we sell. They will bid up the rental market so high so low wage earners can't afford to live in the city. Starbucks won't be able to pay a barista enough to overcome their overhead so you will instead join the Starbucks team and get a discount for ordering your latte on an i-Pad app. You'll have to either pour your own coffee or get it out of a vending machine.

I do believe that Houzz offers some tremendous opportunities but you're going to need to know database in order to harvest them.

Pat Gilbert

The REITs will only be a problem if they get bailed out. The only reason this is happening is because of the Fed making cheap money available.

Amazon is going to have to make a profit at some point, Alibaba does. IOW guys comment on this site that they can compete with Home Depot quite nicely so unless Amazon is willing to subsidize their construction business it ain't gunna work as we know how hard this business is.

Regarding the influx of Foreign Office workers, what you talking about Willis?

You are chasing the big evil business boogeyman, what we have here is a failure to invest in business and the consequent dearth of jobs. Since the housing market is a synthetic economy a huge chunk of the economy is missing.

IOW it is more profitable to speculate than invest in business.

Nostradamus

According to exchange theory something only has value if you can exchange it for something else. The exchange theory economists conclude therefore that there is no such thing as need but only want. They can even prove this mathematically on a chalk board.

This is wonderful in theory but people do in fact have needs. They need a place to live. Just like the school teachers, policemen and firefighters need a place to live we need someone to pour coffee for us. This is the fall out from REIT investment.

If you take home ownership away from everybody but the gentry you end up with Somalia. You'll have to band together in caravans to go visit your relatives in the country because you'll turn the corner and find the road is blocked and suddenly notice that big truck in your rear view mirror that pulls out behind you from the alley.

Paddle faster...... I hear banjos.

Pat Gilbert

"The exchange theory economists conclude therefore that there is no such thing as need but only want"

That is a myth, disseminated by those who benefit by such specious (my most used word when talking to Lefties about economics) thinking.

Think of it this way, in the beginning you had a barter economy. Before you can trade something you have to produce something to trade. That fact does not go away because you have a monetary economy.

This is defined in Say's law.

The fallout from REITs is just a symptom of the Fed making too much money available and that money not going into investment but speculation.

Somalia continually improves under their Xeer Law, IOW based on property law with no statutory law, something we could use a lot more of as in tort reform.

One of these days you are going to have to let go of the big evil business boogeyman, it is just not the way it is. But that is the last thing you guys can see, IOW you cannot see crony capitalism for what it is.

Nostradamus

South Africa is a great place to raise children because you always know no matter where they are or what they are doing there are at least two rows of electric fence between them and the baristas.

Take a look what happened to Mexico in just two generations. The people that are 50 years old today didn't grow up decapitating school teachers because they were late on their monthly dues.

If you continue to reserve success for fewer and fewer people the number of people on the other side of that fence are going to grow. Ayn Rand ain't gonna fix that one.

Pat Gilbert

Nostrils, I don't think you are smelling me on this.

You do realize that Somalia is not in South Africa?

What has happened in Mexico is a product of the US drug laws. Remember 80% of the people that are incarcerated are there for drug charges. We have the most prisoners as a percentage of the population in the world.

Income inequality is simply caused by inflation as it greatly benefits those who invest ahead of the inflation curve as in real estate and stocks.

And the corollary is that the money is not invested so there is a dearth of jobs.

Mel

"One of these days you are going to have to let go of the big evil business boogeyman"

Pat :)

I think that in a way the big evil business boogeyman is way less scary than the blatant disorganization that the world is actually run by.

Conspiracy is comfort compared to stupidity :)

Pat Gilbert

I think that in a way the big evil business boogeyman is way less scary than the blatant disorganization that the world is actually run by.

Too esoteric, what you talkin about Willis

Ayn

Mel,

You gotta realize that when you're thinking about stupid the average person is half of them are even stupider.

Frank Zappa said hydrogen was not the building block of the universe.There's more dumb than hydrogen.

Mel

Hahah "Willis"...

You made me look up "esotheric". You owe me 5 minutes of my life :P

Seriously, when I was younger, I sure thought you had to be pretty smart and organized to a) run a business b) be in politics c) be rich. The older I get, the more I realise it is oh-so-much not the case.

As far as I've seen it, intellect and power are sure not tied.

And you have some misguided folks trying to make sense of the chaos, as if it were super planned and organized.

Usually that's where conspiracy comes out of. But I'm starting to think we are way sloppier then any organized story tells.

Mel

"Mel,

You gotta realize that when you're thinking about stupid the average person is half of them are even stupider.

Frank Zappa said hydrogen was not the building block of the universe.There's more dumb than hydrogen."

Hah! Made my evening :)

Pat Gilbert

It is self organizing. Remember the video on comparative advantage?

Not one person on the planet knows how to make a mouse, yet it gets made without having too many mice or too few mice. Yet there is no over seeing governing agency seeing to it that there is an adequate supply of the materials required, how can that be?

And when it is tried to be organized by a central party they fail miserably. To the point that Khrushchev was ashamed at how his system had failed his people, after visiting an American supermarket.

It is self organizing and it is not chaos. In fact I would say the purpose of man is to put order into the chaos. Otherwise we would all be listening to the tribal leader around the camp fire.

Mel

Sometimes I wonder if we are kinda listening to the tribal leader around the firecamp. Carry it around with big words and big ol thoughts, but still back-belted by the king of the bongo.

Mel

Poor Khrushchev btw... He really did want to.

Pat Gilbert

Me no entender, too esoteric...

Mel

Bah!! Dang you. Okay maybe you don't owe me 5 minutes for looking up "esotheric".

So most of us have our favorite cognitive paths. Like a mold. So we chuck whatever comes at us into those molds.

But we keep forgetting what is outside-can't see it when you are busy sorting out material into molds. And worse then that, we keep reading "smart" people that agree with us, nodding in agreement, "yes this fits".

But lets face it, every one of us is wrong all the time. Our society praises confidence, but absolute confidence gets in the way of deeper digging.

Mel

PS if anyone blames me for getting philosophical on a woodworking website-- I'd respond in advance that philosophical people are boring, if they don't woodwork.

Sea444

Some of you guys need to spend more time cutting wood and a little less on economic philosophy

Pat Gilbert

You have that backwards.

Mel

Some of us think about economic philosophy while cutting wood.

David Waldmann

Member Member

"So most of us have our favorite cognitive paths. Like a mold. So we chuck whatever comes at us into those molds."

A/K/A "When you've only got a hammer, everything looks like a nail".

Ayn

Actually Pat if you think about it nobody really cares about economic philosophy from 300 years ago. On the other hand we are all quite enamored of the pieces of furniture and architecture that remain from yesteryear.

Put that in your pipe and smoke it!

Pat Gilbert

Well Ayn, Nostrils, Tim

I'm glad you appreciate the profound edumacation...

Actually everything we ingrates have today was PRODUCED by the guys in the grave yard. But I'm quite sure the ideas of Toyoda, Deming, and Say will out last even the best furniture. .

Econ 101

Somewhere up-thread, Pat mentioned the number of people incarcerated.

I would remind everyone that back around 1960 there were a million+ people in civil mental health confinement in the US.

Over the next 20 years, we virtually EMPTIED those facilities, and shut them down -- civil rights and all, don't you know.

Lo and behold, yet another 20 years later, we have an extra million plus confined in prisons.

Is it shocking that a form of substitution by the government bureaucracy went on for decades? I don't think so.

Mentally ill people (in general) have to be confined -- when on the loose (and unmedicated, as they tend to become) they regularly (and perhaps unknowingly) commit crimes, some minor, some major, against the general public -- and so they will be confined, one way or another. Civil confinement is off the table, so what are you left with?

That's the hard, cold fact. It's not that we love to throw people in prison. They wind up there because the other options have been largely foreclosed.

Prison is a particularly bad environment for the mentally ill, but there we went for decades, and still go to this day, having little other choice. Thanks a lot "civil rights" guys.

Mel, you're a spunky devil but I'd encourage you to gain a little better understanding of what actually drives any economy. It's called investment.

Higher levels of investment = increased productivity = higher wages. Simple as that. It's worked for over 200 years here and longer elsewhere.

Anything else doesn't work. No matter what anyone thinks the "social benefits" of any particular program may or may not be.

Larry

About your investment thesis, by investing in say a CNC router, you can produce more parts in a day than 3 men using table saws and hand drills. So you now have caused more unemployment! You could increase employment by banning the table saw and requiring only hand saws to be used. Most likely you would then need several more people to be put to work. With less lumber needed per man day of work the forests would be saved. The result would be only those filthy rich folks would be able to have your cabinets, assuming you paid a living wage, (soon to be required by law.) The living wage determination would take several years of Congressional studies, consultants and piles of back room deals. That would add to the people employed. The economy would be at full employment!

Aynnie

Larry,

There is another possible approach.
We could put the unemployed to work guarding the fence perimeter. Somebody has to deal with the great unwashed when they breach the first line of defense. If you tell the guards that whatever food the prisoners eat comes out of their share then you can simultaneously lower the overall cost of groceries.

Pat Gilbert

Larry

The economy is about 500 times bigger than it was 100 years ago.

100 years ago over 30% of the American work force were farmers. Today about 2.5% of the American work force are farmers.

What happened to all the farmers? They went to work in other fields.

You are assuming that the economy is a zero sum game(that the pie does not grow). IOW if you put somebody out of work that he has no other options.

But it does grow as indicated by the size of todays economy compared to the size of the economy back in 1915.The problems occur when it is prevented from growing or establishing values.

This is a win win situation, even in our little corner of the economy. By creating robots using computer technology it allows the products to be produced cheaper and in a much more complex design.

What this does is allow the market to grow and people who would not have been able to afford custom cabinets now can. Does this put cabinetmakers out of business that do not adopt CNC? You bet, but it allows the market to benefit and the shops that embrace the technology to prosper. So are these other cabinet makers permanently out of work? No they adapt and see where they can fit into the economy. Or they get into something else.

Every time there is a recession the tide goes out and we find out who has been swimming naked. This is a natural part of the business cycle. The problem is when the government steps in and props up these people who should have gone out of business. As it diverts capital that should have gone to new upstart companies that create the economy anew in new directions that nobody predicted. E.G. Apple, Google, Amazon, 3d printers, bio engineering, coming soon nano engineering, oil fracking who would have thought that we would have seen below $50 per barrel oil in 2015?, etc etc etc.

The harm comes when we try to meddle with the very reason that the US has a 18 trillion dollar economy.

Mel

Member

Econ, you are good stuff. Plus I kinda like a "spunky devil" call out... ;)

So about the mentally ill--I've spent the last 10 years in the heart of Vancouver. They have virtually shut down the big mental institution in the name of "society will take care of it's people".

Of course they won't. Have any idea how much a mental illness repulses most people? Now we have a completely mad street scene on our hands. People try to think up solutions that invests big dollars for accommodation, when really, these poor folks need a psychiatrist and monitoring.

The drugs are a symptom, not the underlying issue.

Also, about investment... I am probably the most right wing hippy you will ever meet. But this is where hippy meets wealth--I see investment as more then a dollar.

Sometimes it actually is a dollar, but on other occasions, it is time, learning, even understanding--talking to the right person at the right time.

Every single expenditure in our house is weighed on money vs time vs skills, for every last thing that we want.

I seem surrounded with wealth for an outsider--till they look at my bank account. It doesn't matter, really. I'm much beyond dollars now that I know that there is always a sideways route to a goal.

Good example--living like two gypsies, working when we want to, I stopped working to get pregnant. Fixed up a rental house, good, to kill stagnant time. The whole world told me to stop--it's not your house.

One person, however, who is a secretly wealthy person, living cheap and renting with roommates, saw me go and decided to invest in a house for us. He's convinced I can turn a profit on it. He's for sure right.

Investment has many folds, I think. But then again, I'm 32.... a big portion of my head is probably still lodged up my arse :)

Aynnie

Mel,

Investment is a good thing for the nation but sometimes we have to invest in more than just our businesses. The exchange theory economists like to say the invisible hand of capitalism will somehow make everything reach it's highest & best use but they somehow ignore the role of a socialized system to support, defend and augment that "free market".

How would the shrewd investors in Walmart fare if they had to pick up the social costs of production that everybody else subsidizes? How would the brilliant people at Apple Computer survive if there were no public schools to train the teachers that taught their workers? Or to pay for the army that defends the oil fields that provides the petroleum for their workers to get to the microsoft campus (much less having to also pay for the off ramp from the freeway or the State Patrol officer that ensures the dual occupancy lanes stay available for car poolers.

This pull yourself up by your bootstraps bullshit (because by God my grandpa did) doesn't hold up when to even cursory examination. Try sometime to bump the inheritance tax and you will see who really believes in the self-reliant man.

The definition of a "fair" tax is, of course, is one that somebody else pays. I say let every industrious person keep every nickel they earn during their lifetime and give up when they and/or their spouse passes on. There is nothing fairer than making the dead pay the taxes.

Spread that wealth around to some people who didn't win the lucky sperm contest and I think you will not only learn who has been swimming naked but you'll figure out who can actually swim.

Aynnie

Come to think of it, where would those brave pioneers "E.G. Apple, Google, Amazon, 3d printers" be without the internet?

Wasn't the first working prototype of the internet the offspring of a government investment in something called ARPNET?

Must be the invisible hand of socialism, (so invisible we can't acknowledge it.)

Mel

"This pull yourself up by your bootstraps bullshit (because by God my grandpa did) doesn't hold up when to even cursory examination. Try sometime to bump the inheritance tax and you will see who really believes in the self-reliant man."

Btw Tim, Ayn is my favorite personality of yours :)

Let's take a look at this. Perhaps America is different then here, but I do have enough deep south train-hopper friends, who live very very freely, to know better.

Full disclosure--spent 1 1/2 years in the streets. No money, no direction, no help. Never blew anyone for money, never sold a drug. Never kissed up to anyone, and I'm a 5'6" skinny blond frenchy. Dog eat dog is only true if you make it so.

I can tell you for sure that there is a big old world out there, of bored people who just want to be a little happier, way beyond money and family and picture perfect good times.

The whole lot of you woodwebers--you really after money? I say bs. You wouldn't be making cabinets. But lots of times making cabinets tends to suck. What if the day-to-day got more fun?

Get a little friendlier with the world around you. It might just surprise you.

Mel

Larry--any chance your shop is in BC? I'd work for ya :)

Pat Gilbert

"they somehow ignore the role of a socialized system to support, defend and augment that "free market"."

The example that is typically used in this discussion is Sweden. But the actual fact is that sweden was very very free market up until 1950 when it's government spending increased from 20% of the GDP to 50% of the GDP which severely hurt their economy and in all reality any socialism is simply borrowing from tomorrow to consume today. The same could be said for this country except we have the reserve currency status that shields us from the inflation by simply exporting it. But the chickens will come home to roost when the entitlements come to full bloom.

"How would the shrewd investors in Walmart fare if they had to pick up the social costs of production that everybody else subsidizes?"

They do pay the highest corporate taxes in the world. They do raise the standard of living of their customers.

"How would the brilliant people at Apple Computer survive if there were no public schools to train the teachers that taught their workers?"

Does that include the ones in China?
What about the people who home school? Jobs himself dropped out. I don't know about your neck of the woods but Calif teachers are almost the highest paid in the US and have almost the lowest test scores in the US. Either way the consumer pays for any expenses as the store simply raises the prices to cover the increased cost. Or he pays taxes to cover the cost of the subsidies. But again you fail to recognize crony capitalism is different than capitalism.

"Or to pay for the army that defends the oil fields that provides the petroleum for their workers to get to the microsoft campus"

What this country does not recognize is that almost all of the wars have been provoked though lies. Wilson sent the Lusitania into U Boat infested waters despite Germany warning him not to. FDR put sanctions on Japan almost forcing them into war. LBJ made up the story about the Gulf of Tonkin. Bush made up the story about WMDs.

"This pull yourself up by your bootstraps bullshit (because by God my grandpa did) doesn't hold up when to even cursory examination."

Horatio Algiers is alive today just severely hamstrung by the regulations or what I call regime uncertainty. But none the less there are plenty of magnanimous souls who succeed any way. And you Tim are one of them.

"Try sometime to bump the inheritance tax and you will see who really believes in the self-reliant man."

So then the family farm has to be sold to pay the inheritance tax? Not to mention the tax on tax.

"The definition of a "fair" tax is, of course, is one that somebody else pays. I say let every industrious person keep every nickel they earn during their lifetime and give up when they and/or their spouse passes on. There is nothing fairer than making the dead pay the taxes."

Accept to their heirs who have to sell the family farm.

"Spread that wealth around to some people who didn't win the lucky sperm contest and I think you will not only learn who has been swimming naked but you'll figure out who can actually swim."

So we have 99 week unemployment and 10 million more Americans permanently disabled and collecting social security. You do know that over half of all Americans now collect some sort of public transfer?

Aynnie

The "family farm" is also a myth.

The farms we have in this country are either owned by mega corporations or some podunk family on a government tit. Take away the subsidy and there is no "family farm".

If you want a "pull yourself up by your bootstraps economy" then do exactly that. Stop insulating the progeny. If the kid can't make it on his own let him get a job in a cabinet shop.

Who do you think gets more subsidy? The guy on unemployment or the "free market" capitalist who owns the banks? When Blackstone or General Electric is deducting interest from the single family mortgages they hold while the property is going up in value is this not a subsidy?

The tuition at a private school only covers a portion of the cost. The budget shortfall is made up by (tax deductible) donations by the kid's parents. Who do you think subsidizes these private schools that train our next captains of commerce?

Sounds like socially acceptable socialism to me.

Pat Gilbert

"The "family farm" is also a myth."

Shows us the numbers.

"Who do you think gets more subsidy? The guy on unemployment or the "free market" capitalist who owns the banks? When Blackstone or General Electric is deducting interest from the single family mortgages they hold while the property is going up in value is this not a subsidy?"

What is the definition of crony capitalism?

Rick W

Pat asked a rhetorical question: "What is the definition of crony capitalism? "
I don't know, Pat. Would you please define this magnificent system for us?
Rick W

Pat Gilbert

Not rhetorical. Once a Lefty acknowledges cronyism, most of their conjecture crumbles. Which is why they will never acknowledge that cronyism exists.

LittleOrphanAynnie

Of course there is cronyism. That's the basis of tribe. All of the political and economic institutions we have are based on tribal cronyism. Not sure why this is significant to either side of spectrum.

One thing we do know is that those who rail against socialism should probably not be doing this online because it was the government boogeyman that created the internet of everything.

Pat Gilbert

Ergo this is where the market is stultified.

This is where the state interferes with the benchmark of value by introducing things like TARP, student loans, subidized water, ethanol that takes more energy to produce than it yields, cash for clunkers, etc etc etc

Mel

Member

I can't tell if you folks are locked in thought or if our countries actually are that different.

Over here, you can still live in the bush in the middle of nowhere. There's something to be said for that.

Don't think there's a solid answer on this one. At the end of the day the question is probably; where in the world is an average individual's day-to-day a little comfier?

Like Ghandi said-- you can judge a society by how they treat their weakest members. It;s not just feel-good, it's a back bone.

I do like balance.

Pat Gilbert

In theory socialism is comfier, but in reality the market is what brought you air conditioning, refrigeration, cars with blue tooth that last twice as long, houses that have indoor plumbing, a longer more comfy life span.

My guess is that Canada will be a better place to live when the SHTF. Their/ your banking system is 100 times more stable for reasons I won't bore you with.

Larry

My post #27 was misunderstood. I was repeating the fallacy argument put forth by some very socialist folks I know.
Mel, too cold in BC! The plains of Nebraska are quite bad enough but a little excitement is thrown in every year due to being in tornado alley.

Mel

Member

Larry, I still remember your post in the gender thread about the people you employ, and how you tackle it. You've tapped into something big, IMO. This is community at the belly.

Pat--totally. I had a gig for a BMW marketing tour a whiles back that involved stretches of massive work, with stretches of sitting around beersing at local bnbs around the country. Got to know the German liaison very well--had a fantastic 2 am talk about how what happened to Germany could happen anywhere.

In essence, he is correct (Stanley Milgram Obedience to Authority experiments is the key here). But one big detail about Canada, as you mention WSHTF--we got places to hide.

Conscription here would involve me taking my two favorite males to hide in the mountain. I even know where. No man of mine is going to war, ever.

But yes--you are right. Competition is fantastic. I'd rather be run by a man chasing a dollar in a free market then a biker/mafia exploiting lax laws.

It's a good thing the big ol world has a bit of everything. Get to see what theory does what.

Curiosity... ever heard of Anna Politkovskaya? Wrote about what actually happens in Eastern European armies (she recently got shot). I've seen my share of gruesome on this world but I could not stomach her book "Putin's Russia".

Being a mother in Eastern Europe revolves around knowing that one day, your beautiful boy will go get infections, addictions, beatings and rape for two years in obligatory army.

No wonder they drink a lot there. Extreme socialism is truly scary.

Mel

Member

My dear Ayn--I hope this does not come off as a reproach, cause I sure do get how you got there....

This has tickled the ol brain while a stretch of bondoing today:

"If the kid can't make it on his own let him get a job in a cabinet shop"

I gotta ask--is this really how you see your employees?

I've noticed something lately--the whole world respects cabinet making... except for cabinet makers. What is this idea that it is a shodd job?

I a) don't actually have to work b) have a corporate following big enough step back into it at anytime c)have access to very high paying contract work d) enough education to go close to anywhere with it.

Never been happier then woodworking. Can't tell you how happy I am to get paid to play with saws and fun math. Throwing chunks of dead trees into fast rotating blades actually does make my heart sing.

As a smart person once said--"education is important but woodworking is importanter." Cover me in sawdust for decades, I'm in.

Pat Gilbert

IIRC since the mid 1800s the US has had 18 banking crisis compared to Canada's ZERO, in the same time period.

This is because the US mixes politics with the banking industry, Canada does not.

Germany seems to have war in their DNA, as does the US. Contrary to popular belief the world is becoming less violent. The Free Market is a big part of this.

Larry

"Contrary to popular belief the world is becoming less violent." Tell that to people in the middle east. The entire area now even less stable than "normal."

Mel

It is funny that people think the world is less violent indeed.

Our recent mass murderer of the area got away killing hookers for over a decade, because who cares if hookers go missing, apparently.

Digging up evidence required a mass team--they even had to pluck archeology grads to help, as it needed so much man power. Body parts all over mass acreage in the dirt business--dirt shuffling, coming and going out all day long.

2 days ago in sleepy Hatzic bc at the trailer park, a man came into a woman's trailor, tied her up and beat her with a hammer in front of her kid, and set the trailer on fire. Similar thing happened 3 months ago in another trailer park, but that time the guy also killed the kids.

Being raised by a forensic cop gets you lots of really gross dinner table conversation, and dispels the myth that bad things happen to "other people far away".

I think a lot about what makes some humans so violent. Why I feel queasy when I see someone get humiliated in public, but someone else gets a thrill from it.

Adrenaline/cortisol is my current theory--always up for revision of course. Hormones do dull higher cognition. Makes you one with the inner animal (pesky reptilian brain).

Mel

"IIRC since the mid 1800s the US has had 18 banking crisis compared to Canada's ZERO, in the same time period.

This is because the US mixes politics with the banking industry, Canada does not."

I did not know that! Very cool :)

We have however committed outrageous political sin--we let the church run the state for a while. Result?

Eugenics, abuse of orphans, the mentally ill, the poor. Poor children would get sent to insane asylums and beat and drugged etc. Telling patients they were to get their tonsils removed, putting them down, and neutering them, in the name of a better society. Some only found out years later they could no longer procreate.

Quebec's newer generations are very, very angry with the catholic church. Curses in English revolve around excrement and body parts and sexuality, whereas in Quebec curses are all church words--tabernacles, virgins, chalices, that wafer thingy the priest gives you, etc.

Might take a few generations to calm down :)

Mel

Ah Pat, I misread you--you do think the world is less violent?

Not sure--we no longer go to war by hitting each other with things like maces in the face, but not sure we are done with human abuse.

Perhaps because North America doesn't wage war at home, always at somebody else place, it could seem so?

Hmmm could be a good debate me thinks :)

Blushing Aynnie

We had a happy little thread going about the implications of Amazon taking over the cabinet industry and now we're talking about mass murderers in your dining room???

Mel

LMAO :)

It appears so!

pat gilbert

Just the facts:

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pat gilbert

Eugenics went into wide use in the US and California.

It was the main principle or axiom of Hitler (BTW you can tell when all conversations have hit rock bottom when someone starts talking about Hitler). Which IMO was given to him by the money guys using the Psychiatric community to implement it. Hitler employed 10s of thousands of Psychiatrists and Psychologists.

Mel

Woo! Rock bottom party it is :)

So am I reading that right--no single deaths from war, or just one per 100 000 people in 2000? I'm a little puzzled as I know an air force fellow who can tell me quite differently.

Perhaps it's a change in their "war death" parameters? Locating targets from the air with infra red at night, and sending snipers is indeed not quite mace-to-the-face in the feild.

I am finding different numbers then you... I have the link for the full shebang at the bottom, after that (inexplicably huge) table.

"Rates of violence related deaths by region, 1990 (EME (−US) = established market economies excluding the United States; FSE = formerly socialist economies; LAC = Latin America and the Caribbean; MEC = Middle Eastern crescent; OAI = other Asia and islands; SSA = Sub-Saharan Africa).

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Epidemiology of violent deaths

4/20       #57: Working for the Company Store ...

Pat Gilbert