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two (three) fer

3/13/17       
cabmaker

Saturday's Wall Street Journal quoted a 2016 study reporting that nearly half of all prime-working age male labor-force dropouts, some seven million men, take pain medication daily. "In our mind's eye we can now picture many millions of un-working men in the prime of life, out of work and not looking for jobs, sitting in front of screens---stoned."

" The scale of the present wave of heroin and opioid use is unprecedented. Fifty-two thousand Americans died of overdoses in 2015 - about our times as many as died from gun homicides and half again as many died in car accidents".

Entry level cabinet making does not exactly have high barriers to entry, You don't have to have a specific education and you don't have to be certified. Yet somehow we all bemoan the lack of quality help that engages with their work day.

If half of the unemployed workers are stoned, how can we possibly recruit the kind of talent that we need?

Another article in the same edition of WSJ did an analysis of the cost-benefit ratio of the proposed wall between us and Mexico. The conclusion was that the wall was going to be more for the optics than for the efficacy. Drugs aren't being smuggled across the desert, they are arriving in cars & trucks.

The reason we have this migration is for jobs. The average mexican wage is about $4 a day. The same worker can easily earn that in a half hour here, even under the table.

Wouldn't it make more sense that we put the $30 billion dollars the wall is going to cost into drug rehabilitation or cabinet making schools?

If you want to stop the illegal migration you need to stop the jobs. The best way to do that would be at the source. Every time we find an American employerfhiring illegal immigrants we are going to deport them to Russia. We can give Russia a $100 for every deportee they accept (approximately 3 hours wages for a border patrol worker).

Since everyone gets one carry on bag we can also fill up one suitcase per deported employer with styrofoam. Russia needs dollars and has a demonstrated efficiency in running prisons. (To quote Pat, they have comparative advantage)

This is win-win for everybody (except for the purveyors of private prisons and concrete manufacturers) The drug addled get help, cabinet shops get trained workers and we actually eliminate the employers who are illegally hiring the immigrants.

3/13/17       #2: two (three) fer ...
Pat Gilbert

The heroin thing is about jobs that have gone to China, I think. These people are not/have not trained for something else.

Look at the unemployment rate, it is under 5 %.

The BLS predicts 2% fewer cabinet jobs in the next 8 years. Think automation. Compared to 15% more jobs for electricians.

The wall is not a good idea. Quit subsidizing is a real two fer+ idea, writ large.

I haven't read it yet but I'm going to read Hillbilly Elegy, which I think gets into this problem.

3/13/17       #3: two (three) fer ...
Leo G

Pain medication is aspirin an ibuprofen. I'm sure those are the majority of the men that are taking it.

3/13/17       #4: two (three) fer ...
cabmaker

All is not well in rural America.
These people seem to have some of those "urban" problems.

Farmers Overdosing

3/13/17       #5: two (three) fer ...
pat gilbert

I'm a few chapters into Hillbilly Elegy. So far it appears like the problem is one of culture and a changing economy.

3/13/17       #6: two (three) fer ...
cabmaker

The cultural thing is decades in the making.
I remember meeting a woman from Russia in my showroom maybe 25 years ago. This was before glasnost when meeting someone the baltic states was very uncommon.

I asked her what was the most impressive difference she noticed between the US & Russia. I thought her answer was going to have something to do with grocery stores.

What she said instead was that she couldn't understand how it was that in such a competitive a society we live in how little emphasis was placed on education.

It's amazing how many people want to trade for the rest of their lives on what they didn't learn in high school. How many woodworkers have you met that insist on building cutlists with pencil and paper because learning microsoft excel was too hard? These very same people can easily navigate email, sports cores, cruise adult web sites but some how can't run a computer. A lot of this malaise is just plain self-inflicted.

If you can't find a job building buggy whips then get up and move. It's no wonder these people don't want to compete with immigrants. The immigrants had to have some ambition just to get here. They had to have a lot tenacity to just stay here. How could a stoned high school non-educated person hope to compete with this kind of talent?

3/13/17       #7: two (three) fer ...
Dennis Member

Website: http://www.letendrewoodworks.com

My take on this is I feel that since computers were invented it has created a ton of jobs and has taken away our young work force candidates from the trades because you really do not have to be a college graduate to get certified in some form of computer type work besides programming. Young people would rather sit in front of a computer instead of learning cabinetmaking or some other trade. By us taking away the Vocational training in High Schools has not helped. I am amazed at how many immigrants are in the trades right now. I see it everyday. Just my take on all of the confusion!

3/13/17       #8: two (three) fer ...
rich c.

Pat Gilbert;
My nephews overdose and death had nothing to do with jobs going to China. He was a brilliant kid, a young man who could code and do anything he wanted to do with a computer. He never felt challenged in High School and just diddled around. If he wanted to get A's on his report card he could. If he didn't want to, he didn't. He was always very easily bored. He made the mistake of hanging around with some looser kids from wealthy families, they started doing heroin, and his world went to hell. The group robbed a gas station for kicks. The rich kids got off with probation, my nephew went to jail. He straightened out as much as you can in prison, and then was finally paroled. He was dead about 2 weeks after getting out. Some jackass dragged my dying nephew out of his apartment and set him in the apartment complex community room to die. A 30 second phone call would have saved his life, but with the emphasis on punishing drug criminals instead of saving them lead to the guy abandoning him to die. A waste that rocked our family. Not a damed thing to do with economy or jobs or any other BS you can invent. You ever lost a family member to a drug overdose? Then don't make up that crap unless you have anecdotal evidence.

3/13/17       #9: two (three) fer ...
cabmaker

Rich,

I agree with you. We should decriminalize drug use. All the war on drugs has ever accomplished is to prop up the profit margins for those who depend on drugs for a living.

Opium production is a primary source of revenue for ISIS. Cocaine & Marijuana finance the brutality of cartels in Mexico and Central America. Opioids line the pockets of the pharmaceutical industry (and the campaign coffers of congressmen indebted to them.)

There is a whole industry that depends on interdiction for their revenue. Private Prisons are a major contributor to the Republican party. If we can continue to lock people up the owners of these companies continue to receive soaring profits. They don't want drugs to be legalized.

The Border Control and Police Unions also don't want decriminalization. They too need this teat to suck on. Forks, Washington depends on a state prison. State prisons depend a drug users.

I feel bad for your family. This must be terrible to live with.

3/13/17       #10: two (three) fer ...
pat gilbert

Rich I'm certainly sorry to hear of your loss.

Would you say that his situation was typical of the North East situation?

I know how addicting it can be having dabbled in it myself a long time ago. I couldn't agree more about how the people you hang out with have an influence on you. I think you are on to something regarding what predisposes a person to drug addiction.

I agree drugs should be legalized.

I also agree with Tim that the real reason they are not is because of the 4th branch of government.

Interesting article about addiction

3/13/17       #11: two (three) fer ...
cabmaker

That is an interesting article Pat.

3/13/17       #12: two (three) fer ...
rich c.

Every couple of generations, the work force changes. 4 generations of my family were farmers. When my Great Grandfather came from Germany, 80 acres was enough for a man to provide for his family because a lot of what they grew, was for food, or food for their animals. Now it takes a thousand acres or more, and none of my family are farmers now. My little brother was a farmer, he died at the age of 48 from colon cancer. I still blame the chemicals he worked with, because he was the first to die from cancer in our family. Anyway, the rest of my generation went to work in factories or as mechanical engineers. Both of our children work on computers. One as a technical writer, the other a civil engineer. I suspect things will swing around for eternity, but no idea what the next generation will do. Maybe my Grandson will want my tools to be a cabinetmaker. He's only 1, I'm 64. Pretty sure there will not be enough time to share my skills!

3/14/17       #13: two (three) fer ...
Pat Gilbert

Who could have foreseen the jobs we have today 4 generations ago.

They say that human knowledge is doubling every 13 months.

The younger people appear to have the ability to digest knowledge much faster than I would have thought possible.

The important thing IMO is to let the new jobs be created and not be regulated and taxed and disincentivized.

Because nobody has any idea what jobs are going to be in the near future.

3/14/17       #14: two (three) fer ...
Alan F.

Dennis,
In the 90's the focus was on college education and a lot of the trade s were taken out of HS, the goal was for everyone to go to college, this was a flawed plan and this is why we don't see as many lower level and high schools with trades anymore although they are starting to come back

A

3/14/17       #15: two (three) fer ...
rich c.

I haven't been in a school for a long time, but I think they are still geared to produce obedient factory workers who don't have to think on their own. They are not encouraged to brain storm and be creative.

3/15/17       #16: two (three) fer ...
David Yurk  Member

Website: http://www.crockettscabinetry.com

I,too, have more work than we can handle, but was leery of looking for help on the open market, so I contacted the local high school vocational arts teacher. I asked him if there were any students in his program who would like to work with us part time. He had a perfect candidate, a highly motivated sophomore likely to go into the trades. I'm hired him, and we set up an apprenticeship program for him so he gets educational credit for his work here. When he graduates, there is a good chance he'll stay on full time. So while everyone else is pissing and moaning about the quality of young or potential employees, I get the cream of the incoming crop, get to train him in our work ethic before he gets corrupted by other influences, and when he graduates, have the option of offering him full-time work if I like him. All I have to do is invest some of my time and effort. Everyone else can have what's left.

3/15/17       #17: two (three) fer ...
cabmaker

David,

You are indeed fortunate to get this young fellow into your shop at such an early age.

Mark Twain wrote a book called "A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court". In this story a foreman from a munitions factory in New England gets hit on the head and wakes up in the year 1400. He becomes an advisor to the king, on par with the great wizard Merlin. Armed with nineteenth century knowledge he immediately establishes a patent office because "A country without a patent office is like a crab, it can only move sideways".

In the novel the protagonist creates a parallel society with things like electricity, telegraph communication and gunpowder. He has to do this on the sly because Merlin is very jealous of his powers.

The key to his parallel culture was that he had to recruit his team at birth. If they spent even one week in a feudal household they would be forever contaminated and would never manifest entrepreneurial behavior.

There is a moral to this story that is applicable to how kids are prepared for the workplace (and how we prepare new workers for our shops). I personally prefer to train from scratch. When you hire an experienced person you don't know what you need to get out of their head (primarily batch mentality) and more important you don't know if you CAN get this out of their head. With a someone new to the industry you only have to focus on the things you need to get into their head.

Mark Twain's work is, of course, fiction. The job of a fiction writer is to explain and interpret the world around us. Think of Sam Clemens as the Walter Cronkite of his day. John Steinbeck is another one that can explain well how America developed in the last century. I have read many of his books but never could get into "Travels with Charley" until I was the same age Steinbeck was when he wrote it.

Good luck with that hire David. You will both benefit from this.

3/15/17       #18: two (three) fer ...
Pat Gilbert

I prefer the Howard Roarke version of "what it is"

Fiction aside, I have never had luck with the high school guys. They haven't learned the work ethic. IOW you have to DO the work. I have had luck with guys going to college as they are motivated, but... This is where Latinos are awesome.

Going to school on banks, once a person has debt they make better employees. A pejorative and a truth.


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3/18/17       #19: two (three) fer ...
Larry

I had two kids go through school and then college. I have also been down that path. What was missing was teaching thinking. Some of the courses I took required thinking but were generally shunned by most students. Math, Science and even some of the architectural courses required thinking. The rest required some form of agreeing with the teacher. Some "education!"

3/18/17       #20: two (three) fer ...
cabmaker

If you think our problems are acute today wait another four years until driverless cars become the norm.

I live 3 miles from my shop. My subaru is on the road about 18 minutes each day. This car, or one like it, could easily service 15 or maybe 30 people in a single day. If that is the case we will only need 1/15th or 1/30th of the automobiles we have right now.

Think for a minute about the ramifications of driverless transportation. A lot of people didn't get a great education but they were able to still feed themselves driving a truck. It doesn't take a lot of skill to drive a truck.

Fewer vehicles mean fewer vehicle related jobs. Fewer auto mechanics, fewer steel manufacturers etc. This also creates more competition for the remaining jobs that don't require a lot of bandwidth (grocery store clerks, cabinet makers etc).

Toyota, the greatest of all manufacturers, will also find themselves competing for fewer customers. Instead of going toe to toe with a dinosaur like General Motors they will now have to stare down Google, Apple, Intel etc. The new automobile manufacturers will be unencumbered by union legacy. This will put downward pressure on all union-based wages.

There will, however, be opportunities for the enterprising. All the cars being used today for UBER will likely get welded together to form UBER hotels. An entry level home will be something like a VW Bug. As you move up the food chain you will command an SUV. Really prosperous proletariat will be able to own a 3 car amalgamation with stand-alone kitchens in econoline vans.

We just need to figure out how to design cabinets for these new spaces.

3/18/17       #21: two (three) fer ...
Pat Gilbert

I took a course in logic a while back, one of the most practical things I have studied.

IMO the missing element in school is application. Especially if it is not an obvious one like engineering. Even science appears to be separating from application and the scientific method.

3/18/17       #22: two (three) fer ...
Pat Gilbert

And now back to reality, robots are more likely to create jobs than not. If they were going to take away jobs that would be happening now, which it AIN'T

Automation has been happening since the invention of the wheel.

The US now employees 165 million people, with the lowest unemployment in history.

BTW if you don't like my "BS", bite me, that is the way I roll.


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3/18/17       #23: two (three) fer ...
Pat Gilbert

And I don't hide behind a pseudonym either.

3/19/17       #24: two (three) fer ...
Economics 101

4 years until driverless cars become the norm?

That's funny stuff. You sound like a modern-day Luddite.

In 4 years, they'll all be still dabbling and experimenting and getting sued left and right by everyone with so much as a stubbed toe. Tied in legal knots for years.

Wait for an at-fault death or two. Then the legal fun will really start.

You may use your car only 20 minutes a day, but most don't. Offhand, I'd guess that at least 50% of current car owners would NEVER give up their car in favor of any on-demand driverless alternative.

The car culture of the '40s-'50s-'60s may have diminished, but it's by no means gone. 50 years from now, when they're all dead? Who knows?

Meanwhile, as each year there are more driverless cars in the US (we're starting from essentially zero) in the rest of the world, Toyota and Ford and the rest of them will sell ever more cars to people who never had that freedom of movement before.

The (very) slow, underlying trend will drive down union-hack wages everywhere. That's a good thing.

And, BTW, it's a lot harder to make a car than you may think, Google and Intel and whoever are going to have to partner with Toyota and Ford and whoever to produce anything roadworthy in the US.

And Pat is right, anyone displaced will wind up doing something else, a few of them perhaps in the driverless car business, and the net effect will be more jobs, not less. As has always happened.

In any case, the whole deal is decades away. You won't need to make a cabinet for an Econoline anytime soon.

3/19/17       #25: two (three) fer ...
Sea444

Stand by, with every new state voting in recreational pot use, more and more of the work force will be showing up stoned.

3/19/17       #26: two (three) fer ...
Pat Gilbert

I doubt it will change. People who want to get stoned are already getting stoned.

3/19/17       #27: two (three) fer ...
cabmaker


You are all correct that technology has, historically, created more jobs than it has destroyed. Past performance, however, is not necessarily prologue to the future.

Evolving from candles to kerosene to electricity is quite a bit different from growing groceries under LED lights in vertical factories. The first changes in technology created opportunities for farmers and farmers children. The second crop will be harvested by Amazon.Com. Horatio Alger isn't going to be in on this one.


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3/19/17       #28: two (three) fer ...
Pat Gilbert

"Past performance, however, is not necessarily prologue to the future."

There is no guarantee that the sun will come up tomorrow either.

The more trade there is the more the world economy grows, it is all about comparative advantage.

3/19/17       #29: two (three) fer ...
cabmaker

I suppose, Pat, that we could adopt a laissez-faire approach to the impact of technological change in the job marketplace. We could just close our eyes and imagine we live in Ayn Rand novel and content ourselves that somehow technology will produce as many jobs as it destroys because it always has in the past.

That logic served us well in the years following World War Two. There was enough prosperity for everybody a chicken in the pot and two cars in every garage. The United States owned the world back then and everybody else was either bombed into submission or else still coming out of feudal days.

It used to be all you needed was a team of oxen and good weather. If you could make it over the pass before the snows settled in you could make it to Oregon and become a lumber baron. You could actually live the life that Family Man romanticizes on this forum. Today those forests are owned by family trusts. Each tree is barcoded and has GPS attached to it. The family trust administrators know the diameter of every tree and what it's worth on the global spot market today.

Mom & Pop grocery stores now have to compete with a grocery store chain that is owned by the same people that own them. When you go to buy a house in your community you have to compete with a Wall Street Real Estate Investment group to get that house in the suburbs with a back yard for the kids to play in. Main Street America is completely shuttered. JC Penneys is closing 140 store. Sears & Roebuck doesn't even own Craftsman Tools any more. They too are on the ropes because they can't compete with Amazon.

To say that this technological disruption is like any other is to say that Donald Trump is like any other President. Almost half of American voters thought HE would have the answers. How much confidence does this give you in the skill sets and critical thinking ability of that many voters?

The number of homeless students in Washington State schools climbed to nearly 40,000 in the 2015-2016 school year. This was an increase of 12% from the previous year. The unemployment rate, however, was only 5.5%, about what it was for the nation as a whole.

If the level of unemployment is this low, what accounts for the increase in homelessness? More importantly, what does this portend for the future? How rosy is an economy where the kids in your public schools are sleeping in their car or in a tent under the overpass?

About six months ago the Pope gave a speech to the kids in Mexico. It was the basic speech we were told when we were kids: "Don't take drugs......Stay in school".
The difference in this speech, howwever was that he said "Don't take drugs, stay in school and don't cut anybody's head off".

How long does it take for a group of otherwise upstanding citizens to breed feral children?

Do you really think the invisible hand of the marketplace will somehow give us the corrections that we need?

3/20/17       #30: two (three) fer ...
Pat Gilbert

Tim that is quite an elegy you write there. Having just finished Hillbilly Elegy it reminded me of the Black Elegy.

The reason for both of the latter was simply that government intervened and rewarded women for staying single and indulging in domestic strife. IOW if you reward single mothers you get more single mothers.

My brother lives in Snohomish, I have not heard him mention this homeless problem yet he has 2 children that live in Snohomish with 2 grandchildren, one who is married to a pastor at a local church. Still no mention of this homeless problem.

This is a curious story, that gets curiouser when I try to find what is the cause of this problem you speak of.

I came across this article:

By Seattle Times staff

"State education officials say the number of homeless students has gone up for the sixth year in a row in Washington state.

The Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction reports more than 30,000 students were counted as homeless during the previous school year (2012-2013). That’s an increase of about 3,000 students across the state from the previous year.

The state is required to count and report the number of homeless children to the federal government each year. Washington state gets about $950,000 a year from the federal government to help homeless students.

Every district is required to have a homeless liaison, to identify, enroll and setting up services for homeless students.

State education officials say the number of homeless students has gone up for the sixth year in a row in Washington state.

Authorities say it’s difficult to pinpoint why the number of homeless students is increasing statewide."

I don't have the time to look further but I will lay you odds that the problem is created by an official who has an incentive to call more and more students homeless.

I could not find exactly how they define the student as homeless but that is the key.

As to the retail thing you are preaching to choir. My customers used to be, Whole Foods, Trader Joes, Mothers Market, Mrs Gooches, Playco Toys, Contempo Casuals, Howards Appliances, Kaiser Permanente, Mephisto Shoes, Stussy, Oneil, Bisou Bisou, etc etc etc, that I can't remember right now.

The retail market changed. 88% of retail is in groceries, restaurants, and gas stations. Of the remaining 12% about 1/3 of it goes to Amazon. So the brick mortar stores are a shrinking share of the market.

So yeah I can relate but the market place is always changing. Remember Montgomery Wards beat out by Sears beat out by Walmart beat out by Amazon. And so it goes...

The bottom line is that 165 million people are employed with under 5% unemployment. Lose the elegy, it is specious.

The article link

3/20/17       #31: two (three) fer ...
cabmaker

Pat,

You wrote: "I don't have the time to look further but I will lay you odds that the problem is created by an official who has an incentive to call more and more students homeless."

Your interpretation of the homeless problem is colored by just more Ayn Rand dogma. My shop is located about 2 miles north of the Space Needle. You could call this downtown Seattle.

Depending on how recently the police have done a sweep, you can see as many as 20 tents and ad hoc housing structures within one block of my shop. They start out as a pod of one or two pup tents then grow to a collection of trash and shopping carts in about ten days. The density usually exists for about a month then the police come through and roust them.

If it is true that 40,000 kids in Washington State schools are homeless, how many do we have in the more rural states? How many more will we have after 24 million people lose access to health insurance? A lot of bankruptcies start with a medical crisis.

This problem isn't going go to go away. It's just going to compound. Ayn Rand cranky isn't going to create good policy.

3/20/17       #32: two (three) fer ...
Pat Gilbert

Spare me the anecdote. The reason there are more bums in Seattle and even more in Calif is because they get paid to be bums.

It is called public transfers. Coincidentally the states with the highest public transfers have the most bums. 1/3 of the welfare in the US goes to Calif with 1/8 of the population.

Just a fact... Ayn Rand is rarely mentioned amongst conservatives. The Lefties think objectivism is at the center of conservatism, it ain't.

3/20/17       #33: two (three) fer ...
cabmaker

Pat,

People don't choose to be homeless.

3/20/17       #34: two (three) fer ...
Pat Gilbert

BTW same deal in France

3/20/17       #35: two (three) fer ...
Pat Gilbert

That is exactly what they do.

3/20/17       #36: two (three) fer ...
Pat Gilbert

I consulted the brain trust on other possible reasons, this is their replies:

Men that have been robbed in divorce court

We keep sending healthy young men to war zones of our own creation at taxpayer expense and, in return, we're receiving broken, suffering veterans who can't cope and for whom homelessness is the only option.

Because government artificially inflates the price of housing

They make more panhandling

Drugs tests for employment and felony exclusion

Section 8 housing causing a shortage in housing because people use more space than they would if they had to pay for it. Which keeps the pricing higher. This is what happens with rent control.

Zoning laws, rent controls, and minimum house/apartment requirements. Which is essentially a total sales limit, a price ceiling, and a price floor.

Overall, high housing costs created by all the government intervention.

And this:

Cogent

3/20/17       #37: two (three) fer ...
Paul Downs

Is it possible that one is counted as homeless even if one isn't homeless for the entire year? That would make both of you right. Families could be dipping in and out of homelessness for any number of reasons without being visible on every street corner. Also, having a job is one thing. Making a living wage is another. Low unemployment does not necessarily equal widespread prosperity, although it's more likely to lead to real wage growth than any other path.

3/20/17       #38: two (three) fer ...
pat gilbert

Yes Paul, that is what I was implying, I just couldn't find their exact policy on this.

As to full employment leading to higher paying jobs. It is known and accepted that the JOLTS (job openings and labor turnover survey) data is a metric that indicates higher paying jobs.

This because as people feel more confident in their job prospects they move to higher paying jobs. The chart indicates the trend on this is higher with the low unemployment.


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3/21/17       #39: two (three) fer ...
pat gilbert

Also this is a very good example of how regulation drives up the cost of housing.

https://fee.org/articles/how-spontaneous-order-keeps-houston-affordabl
e/

Two main causes of homelessness:

1) regulations and restrictions

2) public transfers to homeless people.

Houston Halves homeless population

3/21/17       #40: two (three) fer ...
cabmaker

Pat,

When architects are at university they are taught to come up with two ideas. They reject one of them then put their head down and grind on the second one. This is how dogma gets started.

I read the Huffington Post article. Level one just made the statement that they had figured out how to cure homelessness. They didn't say how they did this, only that they did this.

This page linked me to more pages that said they did this but not necessarily how they did this.

After a half dozen powerpoint presentations they finally reported that they'd finally cured homelessness by providing housing.

What exactly is your point?

3/21/17       #41: two (three) fer ...
pat gilbert

As the article headline stated, they halved the homeless population in 4 years. That is better than anyone else.

The core problem, if you read the other article, is that restrictions and regulations are created by government agencies. Houston has used a hands off policy that has produced a lower cost of living and higher standard of living than any other city in the US.

"Almost like an Econ 101 practice problem, booming demand for labor at all skill levels has translated into wage growth in Houston comparable to affluent cities like San Jose, Boston, and New York. Adjusting average annual wages for the cost of living, including consumer prices and services, utilities, transportation costs, and—most importantly—housing, Houston tops the list of all major US metropolitan areas. This shouldn’t be written off as torturing the numbers, either. This means middle- and lower-class Houstonians enjoy a higher standard of living than even their higher paid counterparts in high-cost cities on the West Cost and in the Northeast."

The article that explains this.

3/21/17       #42: two (three) fer ...
cabmaker

It is encouraging that Houston has found a way to overcome obstacles for mitigating homelessness, What we need now to focus on is what causes homelessness in the first place. We can maybe work with some of these causes but for some there may be no viable solution.

Household revenue would seem to be the root cause for most problems that are not mental health related. The conundrum is that the cost of housing is highest where the jobs are more plentiful. The quantity of housing is not, however, as elastic as the employment is.

You are right that regulation increases the cost of housing but in the Seattle neighborhoods people want more regulation than less. They want to protect single family neighborhoods on tree lined streets.

The simple answer is to tell people to move to lower costs neighborhoods but they still have to get to where the jobs are and this requires massive government investment in transportation infrastructure.

The even simpler answer is to close our borders to trade with other countries because somehow that will magically brings jobs home to the lower cost rural areas.

3/21/17       #43: two (three) fer ...
pat gilbert

Most of the cause is what I have described. What is left are likely the genuine head cases.

Yet in the article they indicate that the Houston people have the highest standard of living in the US. Clearly less regulation = a higher standard of living. Same for Switzerland, Hong Kong, Taiwan, New Zealand and Australia.

The Seattle residents might think differently if they knew the cost. This has put to a vote in Houston as well and the residents overwhelming vote it down.

The lower cost neighborhoods are going to be in Texas. The ability of people to move from state to state is a big part of the reason the US has done well.

Closing down the borders is a stupid idea, I assume you are being sarcastic.

The avg house value in Texas is $163k in Calif it is 440k.

It is true that a state is as successful as the value of it's products. Behind that though, and a big part of the reason, for the difference in housing cost is regulations and restrictions.

Not to mention the fact that Houston was heavily dependant on the oil patch. The price of oil has dropped to half in recent years. Houston was able to adjust, I doubt any of the blue states could do that if put in a similar situation.

3/22/17       #44: two (three) fer ...
Pat Gilbert

The Fastest-Growing U.S. Cities: The Latest Numbers

No. 1: Houston-The Woodlands-Sugar Land, TX

Population Gain, July 2014-July 2015: 159,083
Total Population, July 2015: 6.66 million


View higher quality, full size image (900 X 510)

3/22/17       #45: two (three) fer ...
cabmaker

Reuters had an interesting article today about lead poisoning in the State of California. In some zip codes it is estimated that the levels of lead in children's blood is as much as 2 1/2 times the exposure that recently shut down Flint, Michigan's water supply.

"Once common in household paint, gasoline and plumbing, lead is a neurotoxin that causes irreversible health impacts, including cognitive impairment and attention disorders in children."

Problems like this are the source of all of those pesky "regulations" all of us freedom loving patriots love to hate. We don't see why there should be laws that require houses to be tented during demolition. It just raises the cost of building a new home and since we can't see or measure these impacts they obviously must not exist.

The gun lobby just brought back the ability to hunt with lead bullets again. It took a long time to make those lead bullets go away but they are back again. This could just be a G.Gordon Liddy thing but probably is really wrapped up with some other emotion.

The new head of the EPA wants to dismantle the agency. He rode into Washington on a horse to make just this point. Regulations are bad for commerce.

3/22/17       #46: two (three) fer ...
Pat Gilbert

You are arguing that one of the most heavily regulated states has elevated lead levels anyway?

Texas has lead regulations as well, yet have a higher standard of living.

Not all regulations are bad either. But in California that ship sailed a long time ago.

3/22/17       #47: two (three) fer ...
cabmaker

Another example of regulations that drive up the cost of housing are those that restrict the use of urea-formaldehyde in building products. This one particularly affects us woodworkers.

I can remember the early days of particle board. My shop always had a pungent smell after cutting up sheet goods. Eventually it reached a level of toxicity where if I simply came into a room with it's presence the hair on my arms would stand up.

The end users for our product did not suffer the intense exposure to formaldehyde that we did but just about all the food they ate was stored in a cabinet that was wrapped in the same glue. Do you remember the discussions about "off-gassing?" That's a topic that you never read about anymore, thanks to regulation.

There was a lot of resistance to changing the allowable levels of formaldehyde. The freedom loving patriots in our industry thought this was just another example of unnecessary regulation.

ALL of us on this forum have better and longer lives because of the EPA.

3/22/17       #48: two (three) fer ...
Pat Gilbert

Agreed, but does that justify a blank check to government over reach?

The EPAs function could just as well be handled by a private agency such as UL or Consumers Report for a fraction of the cost.

BTW the EPA or OSHA can mandate whatever they want but that does not mean that it occurs. What makes it occur is TECHNOLOGY.

3/22/17       #49: two (three) fer ...
cabmaker

There's a lot of importance assigned to the choice of words. Expressions like "over reach" and "blank check" arrive with a semantical connotation at the get-go that cannot be refuted. Who could ever disagree with OVER reach or BLANK check. The nuance comes in whether or not "over" or "blank" actually occurred.

It's hard to get past the sound bite. A lot of people hated Hillary Clinton because of "Benghazi". Never mind that many of them could not even tell you what continent Benghazi is on, much less what country. This is how we get a reality TV show hero to become Commander in Chief of our military.

......at a time when we actually need some gravitas in the White House.

3/22/17       #50: two (three) fer ...
Pat Gilbert

You have to get into the weeds on this stuff to understand what I'm saying. I think I understand what you are saying. Do you understand what I'm saying?

The basic premise that I'm operating off of is that the true value of things is determined by willing exchange. That is the simple touch stone of value.

Any transaction that takes places without that does not represent willing exchange.

Houston represents more willing exchange than California does.

The reason I did not vote for Hillary is because of her proclivity for doing things that were not free exchange, AKA war.

I'm not happy that Trump won, but I'm relieved that Hillary lost.

3/22/17       #51: two (three) fer ...
cabmaker

Is interesting to watch this fish squirm when it is out of water. WSJ made this observation today about the upcoming vote on TrumpCare.

"The task is much tougher now than when Republicans passed bills with the knowledge that a Democratic president would veto them.

Everybody understands that we’re dealing with live ammo now....”

In an WSJ editorial yesterday Wm McGurn opined: "

So far the focus has been on the intra-Republican conflict and pressures. In particular, the headlines, blog sites and TV reports are flogging the idea that Republican pols and Trump voters are each having buyer’s remorse over the promise to repeal and replace ObamaCare, the former because they now realize making good on their promise means angering voters by taking away their benefits, and the latter because they were too stupid to realize it would be their benefits that got cut."

3/22/17       #52: two (three) fer ...
cabmaker

People need to have health care. This is not something that should be perceived of as a privilege.

Our current system of delivering health care is simply too expensive. Everything is too expensive.

The best way to lower the cost of being an American is to introduce term limits. All the excesses of government can be attributed to the constant pandering for votes. The elections themselves have turned into an industry. We are even selling ourselves to the Russians.

3/22/17       #53: two (three) fer ...
Pat Gilbert

I agree the Rs are just as bad as the Ds when it comes to spending other people's money.

The Ryan plan still requires people be covered when they get insurance after the affliction and then calling it insurance...

Rand Paul's version is better but still not perfect.

Part of the problem is the inflation in the healthcare industry.

The definition of inflation is an increased money supply coupled with an increased demand. The healthcare industry has an increased money supply through medicare and medicaid (The majority of the ACA recipients who couldn't afford insurance are getting medicaid) and an increase in demand because of aging baby boomers.

This is another example where government has made matters worse not better.

BTW I have a health share plan that is not associated with the government at all. It costs me $200.00 a month. They covered my recent hospital stay for over 60k.

I don't disagree that we have the best government that money can buy.

But the real problem is the 4th branch of government.

We have had term limits in Calif for many years, nothing changed.


View higher quality, full size image (604 X 793)

Alternative to government medicine

3/22/17       #54: two (three) fer ...
Larry

I'm not much fond of the words "May" or "Might. " Or for that matter all the speculation about what the root cause of something worthy of the news happens to be.
I do have factual cases about why people end up where they are in a perpetual hole. That doesn't mean those reasons can be painted over a wide space.
I hired a young guy at our starting wage, which was more than he had made in the past. After several deserved wage increases, his wife showed up and read me the riot act. They no longer qualified for several assistance programs. Then she was unhappy about living near the "big city??" Lincoln, NE! They moved back to their little home town and he go a low paying job. They then "qualified."
I had a young guy hired as part time. He didn't want to work full time because it would have terminated his welfare.
The education system sucks. I get high school graduates that can't write so it can be read, can't add & subtract, don't know what a mm is and can't work in fractions. They aren't stupid but ignorant as hell.


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