Anecdotal economic field reports (Now Stickied)

[lapis]

I've gotten a couple of part-time jobs since dh is out of work again. One is with a major retailer, the other elderly care-giving with light duties.

At the store, one of the security guards is in his 50s-early 60s. He seemed a bit old and worldly for the job, and after becoming friends he told he he used to be the head of an international sales team making six figures until about five years ago.

One day he gets an email from corporate saying his contract won't be renewed for the following year. He tried to stay in the same field, but couldn't get another job despite looking for a year. The U.S. economy seems to be shaking people out who are middle-aged.

One of the elderly men I take care of is one of those salt-of-the-earth types who pulled himself up by his bootstraps from poverty in the last Depression to become a self-made man.

You'd never guess it from his home, car, or the way he dresses that he's a millionaire. He saves all his plastic baggies to re-use in trash cans and turns out the lights religiously when he leaves a room.

It really makes me angry, he has all this money he's saved up all his life, but doesn't know where to put it because there's basically no place that will give him a decent return.

He rails against the Fed and the fraud in the marketplace daily, but he's in the minority of my acquaintances. He, dh, and a couple of friends are pretty much the only ones who are on the same page when it comes to this topic.

[Answer2me]

Was in palm springs the other day. Since this place is crawling with high net worth retired people some might find my observations interesting. There is a lot of high net worth guys who have second homes, people who excape south for the winter. Driving through indian wells on a friday night you would not think there is any economic crisis looming. The restaruants where packed, people would buy #hit on a stick if it where served. Even the high end restaurants had a wait list (flemings). To my surprise PF changs had a one hour wait, and this for some glorified panda express! I did notice a lot of vacant comerical space. I overheard one of the conversations at dinner, the topic was real estate. The man and his wife where talking to a couple about being upside down on an investment, he could find leasees for a comercial building he owns.

Here is the interesting part. On the way home i sat next to a man who showed me pictures of his yacht and 4.2million$ house he was building. This is a man of means, i would estimate his net worth at about 50-100 million after talking with him, i only believe about 30% of what people say in general, but the man showed me pictures. We got to talking and he told me that he is retired and manages his portfolio full time. Part of managing that portfolio is building high end homes. He has been building about one every year or so. Beautiful place, the kind with a stream running through it. He sells them for a profit. He was very frank with me, told me how his money was invested. He said with his portfolio he has excess to very low interest rate loans. Recenetly, he told me, he took out a 3million$ loan at 2.72% interest. He then rolled it into a high yielding stock that paid him a 6% dividend. Smart i thought! There is one thing that i noticed, everything this man owened was in the form of paper, except his house speculation. He had little to know hard assests. Land ect..... He held bonds and securities. I expect this to be true for most of the extreamly wealthy class. This guy knew his economic cycles, he said he would invest with the times, if he couldnt find a play for his money he would pull it out and wait. I asked him what he thought of gold and silver, he said he owned some, i asked in what form. Of course paper. I told him that eventually all paper burns and that he should have a few 100oz bars laying around. He said, what if the hookers find them! lol! For him it is uncomfortable holding the real thing, it puts all the responsability into his hands. With a stock, bond, security, ownership is easyer, it takes a lot less effort to buy sell or trade. I think that is what it really comes down to, effort. BTW, on the day i met this guy he said his portfolio pulled in $60k, thats in one day. The rich are getting richer.

[Book]

Several more vacant houses in the neighborhood. It looks like a second round of foreclosures kicking in.
My next door neighbors must have 7 people living in the house to help them keep current with their mortgage.

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[sunshine05]

Okay, our Netflix is going up $3/month beginning in January! That is quite an increase from 16 to 19.

[Rebel Yarr]

I use netflix and received the e-mail too. They are also offering a streaming only service which is $7.99/mo. now though - so that works better for me. I think the price increase is only for new subs as well.

[k-os]

I met a guy at the "Beer Garden" in the RV Park I am in. He is 40 and used to pour concrete in Las Vegas for which he received $8000 a month in wages. He said one day, it all just stopped, without warning. He has been unemployed, and looking for work since January, and just found a job doing maintenance for the National Parks Service, making $18/hour.

He is living in his parents 1970's trailer, but he has a nice SUV, two new looking Sea Doo's and a boat (I didn't see it), which are surely items purchased during the boom years.

We talked for about three beers. He seemed like he could be a GIM2 kind of person. (Hey, you have to admit, a GIM2er is still way better than the average person.)

The story of his 2010 made me very grateful for what I have. . . employment.

[sunshine05]

I met a guy at the "Beer Garden" in the RV Park I am in. He is 40 and used to pour concrete in Las Vegas for which he received $8000 a month in wages. He said one day, it all just stopped, without warning. He has been unemployed, and looking for work since January, and just found a job doing maintenance for the National Parks Service, making $18/hour.

He is living in his parents 1970's trailer, but he has a nice SUV, two new looking Sea Doo's and a boat (I didn't see it), which are surely items purchased during the boom years.

We talked for about three beers. He seemed like he could be a GIM2 kind of person. (Hey, you have to admit, a GIM2er is still way better than the average person.)

The story of his 2010 made me very grateful for what I have. . . employment.

I'm surprised he was able to keep his concrete job for that long. Here all the concrete work is done by illegals. I'm sure they don't make 8K/month either.

[Rebel Yarr]

Yeah - highest paid concrete work would be union carpentry doing forms - not making 100k a year doing that.... $20-30 and hour sounds more realistic. sounds like he was trying to impress someone

[lapis]

The major retailer I work for posted record profits for Black Friday.

BUT!

Newly-hired temporary workers were interviewed about a month ago, but didn't start work until a week ago, with their training ending on Black Friday itself.

One of my co-workers said there were six less employees in her department compared to last year. Also, until this year seasonal help was hired and started working more than a month before BF in order to be experienced enough to handle the volume of customers and tasks.

I was all alone in my department for hours, and all I could do was pick crap up off the floor. There were multiple calls to give people in other departments a break, and to help out the cashiers. We were painfully short-handed all day long and for the rest of the weekend.

[k-os]

I spoke with a former co-worker today, and she is hiring a new assistant. I worked at a sports organization which has members (customers).

I said "Wow, I am sure you will get someone great, because there are so many people out of work right now, eager to find a job."

She told me that no, she only had 4 applicants to choose from, because instead of posting the job with a recruiting firm, their new policy is to only offer the job to certain unemployed members (customers) of the organization. I thought that was interesting, though not horrible. Companies are getting more specific about hiring from a base that also helps support their business.

In addition, she told me that they have a "Diversity Initiative" that they are all doing at work. Everyone had to complete a questionnaire with ideas on how to diversify the organization. This means, essentially, how to get more women and non-white people involved.

One of the applicants is black, and she was told, in hush tones, to think hard about the Diversity Initiative while considering who to hire for the job. She feels (like I do) that the person best qualified for the job should get the job, regardless of race, gender, etc.

Fortunately, she liked the black applicant the best anyway, but if she had not, she would have felt pressured to hire him. Unfortunately, he is getting his masters degree and will likely grow out of the assistant position before he's even completely learned the necessary skills for the job. But, I imagine she's not even able to think like that (meaning logically) or voice her concern because of the Diversity Initiative.