If things don't start to pick up in this economy. I'm not sure people have a full grasp of reality on how bad it is. I have worked in the construction industry for 20 years. I have never had a slow time. I build custon cabinets and furniture. I have turned away work for many years. I have several buddies who own cabinet shops around here and they are done for a while. Our local economy is driven on housing, and we better start to realize that it's over for quite a while. I've been fortunate enough to live within my means and can make for a while in this slow time. Fortunatly my wife works and we live a very conservative lifestyle.

It's gonna be a real slap in the face to so many americans who have lived beyond their means for so long. It's gonna sink so many households. The "easy money" is over and most people are gonn ahave to work hard to EARN their money now. Hopefully the world isn't too dumbed down to know how to do another type of work.

i listened to a friend talk the other day about her husband being out of work and not sure when he will go back. I asked her why she didn't get a job as a receptionist doing something to help bring in money to oay bills and feed kids. As she is very well trained in that field. She did a great job for a friend on mine ten years ago as his secretary.

I almost fell over when she replied.........

"I hated doing that reseptionist job"

I don't feel a bit sorry for those people who are looking for a gravy train. Good things come to those who work their ass off for them. especially in times like this.
nobody is too good to flip burgers.

Very well said Kevin...

We're seeing some seriously slow times in our industry too... It is what it is though.

I'm a believer though, things will turn around as soon as the media get's off the high horse freaking everyone out...

Keith

This entire nation has fallen into "living beyond it's means".

Huge credit card debt, Re-Fi the house with an eternal mortgage, everyone making 20 bucks an hour is driving Cadalac Escalades and watching plasma big screens that they bought with the credit card.
Feels like everyone's being flushed down the credit toilet.

I sold my big roomy two story home & now live in a smaller home in the country with no mortgage.

I'd love to spring for the big adventures and some new toys, but I'm in a pretty good place as it is, especially where we are at now.

Feel for guy's who's livlihood becomes dispensible as people cut their budgets.

Hang tough.

I would agree with you 100% if the title wasn't so dead wrong. Our Nation is on the brink and it will make a huge difference. As far as the work goes I agree. Lot's of folks are in for a real wake up call. I have no need to look at a man's skin. The color of his heart is what matters to me. Everybody will have to scramble to survive. The freeloaders will be crying the blues when the Government can't meet their needs. Plant your garden and tend it well. It just might be a cold and long winter. God Bless us all.

I'm not sure that any President can force people to live within their means so long as credit card companys are giving cards to people that can't pay them. What happens when there are no housing starts? contractors don't work.

It's a trickle down effect for everyone. It really is amplified by the poor fishery this fall on the coast. Guides are having a very tough time finding fish. I have only taken two trips this fall and am considering a complete cancelation.

The scary thing is that is is only getting started, the bad economy thing anyway.

The credit junkie boom is over. A good example is AMEX cancelling cards or drastically lowering spending limits this week simply based on who your mortgage is with, where you shop and what you buy. It didnt matter if you had never missed a payment, had a great job and an 800 FICO.

There are new risk formulas coming out very fast right now all across the mortgage and small lending/credit spectrum. They are not friendly to anyone other than the top 10% of ficos, incomes, assets etc...it makes sense though that we are now over-correcting to the conservative side and was one of the biggest issues IMO with the mortgage related issue which has morphed into a much bigger problem.

There was no risk based pricing. You could get a stated income, stated asset 30 yr fixed loan or a zero down interest only loan at the basically the same rate as someone who verified everything. Back in the day it use to be that if you wanted a loan outside the box you PAID THE PRICE for it ie 1-2 or even 3% higher rates. Underwriting and pricing matrices went to shiat, we drank the coolaid and now are finding it was laced with some pretty nasty stuff.

"Dem can walk in Rome, dem just don't do as da Romans do".

I work for a architectural millwork shop in Seattle, we make mouldings, doors, sash and custom cabinets, mostly tending to the high end. We have 25 guys in the manufacturing process. I layed off 6 guys 2 weeks ago and put everybody else on 4 8 hour days a week.

And you're gonna send the rest of those guys home in just a few months. Seattle area has a few more people in it, thus taking a little while longer to see the effect. I good buddy of mine is a painter here and he is tapped to the max on his credit line. Not because he lives beyond his means, but his contractors are 120 days behind on paying. The sad part is they have been stealing from Peter to Pay Paul for the last year. Now my buddy is gonna get hung out to dry. Kinda like all the subs who worked for Randy Sabastian @ Renesanase homes. He left 59 million on the books for his subs and filed chapter 13.

You can pretty well sum this whole mess up on one word, "GREED". Greed on the part of people, Wall Street, Banks, and you name it. It took everyone to come together to create this mess.

I do believe one thing though, the U.S. is a very resiliant country. Despite all of the negatives now, there are a lot of positives, and once panic and speculation has run it's course, common sense will again prevail. Unfortunately there is still a lot of pain to come before that happens.

We're hearing this a lot lateley. In fact GW said this about 10 different ways this morning in an attempt to boost confidence. What does it mean? Can someone please tell me how it's not just cliche? IMO this is like expalining the fear you experience when your drift boat is against a log jam as panic and speculation. Let's be honest...it may be panic but it is also reality. By the way, how much did it boost your confidence to have your president come out and read a prepared speech then have the audacity to walk away without showing the american people (or the world for that matter) any respect by his refusal to answer questions?

Bush.........................

Mr. Irrelevant......................

What Curious George doesn't instill hope in you and he refused to answer any questions. Dude he wasn't prepared to answer any questions because he didn't have a chance to study them prior to making his speech this morning. Did you expect him to just say the first thing that came into his head. That could have caused PANIC on wall street and you know we don't need that right now. Where are all his followers now? Where is Blue Jay and Lead Bouncer telling you how great he was and how inspired they are to be followers of Bushco.

A person has to be nuts to want to be president under this economic cloud.

I'm in the middle of building a house, and the first hand reports I'm getting from my contractors are grim. My concrete contractor has never missed a payment, but is having difficulty getting concrete delivered from the same vendor he's used for 5 years because the concrete company - a large one at that - is having cash flow issues. My plumber is doing everything he can to hang on to every job he's bid to keep himself scheduled in the coming months. Jobs like my house count because he knows he'll be putting in more time there in a couple months or so after the framing is finished. I had a union carpenter offer to work for $18/hr cash to help me finish some framing while he waits for more contract work to come in. Makes me feel pretty fortunate to have a steady paycheck.

In a way maybe it's good that my construction start was delayed so long. At least I'm helping keep some contractors busy during a time when things look pretty lean for them.

We work mostly in an extreme high end market and those people always seem to have money and we don't extend credit very much, we do progress billings on the big jobs---- million dollars in cabinets for one house.

Salmo G, I feel the same way... Glad to have the steady paycheck. I was having thoughts of making a change as sometimes the stress level gets turned way up at my job. Now is just not the time to be trying to start something that will be risky and not as secure.

I may not love my current job situation but like Kevin said, you just have to work through things sometimes to make it.

Good luck to us all.

I didn't hear Bush this morning and I wasn't refering to anything he said. This country has been through some terrible sh%t over it's history. Start with coming pretty close to losing the Revolutionary War, building our goverment, expanding to the West, figting off the Brittish again, Civil War, WWI, the Great Deprestion, WWII, all of the strife of the 60s etc, etc, etc. As bad as times seem now, they are not as bad as what we have been through before.

Anyone ever walk the fields in Gettysburg or walked through the graveyard where our sodliers and allies are buried after dying during the Bantam Death March? Ever walk through Arlington National Cemetary?

Give me a break, no one is dying in this crisis. There is no body count on the news. The only count is how far the Stock Market has dropped. If you want to see some tough economic times take a look at what is happening in Darfur and other regions of the world.

I don't want to diminish the loss of a job or a home. That is some tough stuff. I am looking at the big picture and I believe that as soon as Americans stop thinking soley about themselves and start working together, rather then trashing and blaming each other, the sooner the good times will return.

God, I can't wait until this election is over.

"God, I can't wait until this election is over."

You and me both.

Imagine a government who in "tough" times cuts war veteran/Armed Forces benefits/pay, takes away it's blue collar (core taxpaying sector), citizen's ability to recieve any type of financial assistance, cut SS and not guarantee retirement funds, or finally as a last resort the ability to file bankruptcy... All the while creating a massive war effort deficit, further promotes corporate welfare/bailouts and engages in partial takeover situations of the private financial sector as times get "tougher".

If things aint running effectively under current leadership, I aint voting for one of two dipsh*ts that will just be showering more candy sprinkles on top of old dog crap. (Save the "no vote, no voice" rhetoric !) We live in a system of such contradiction that it is now impossible to right, it can only be brokenly maintained... "Always the cure, never the prevention" should become our new anthem.

A photo in Bob's killer Skeena post jolted my memory, hard. The one where it's Grandma and family around the kitchen table that says, "they don't make tough like this anymore".
I miss my grandparents, aunts/uncles and all of our family friends that lived hard in America's past, they always smiled. I come from a long line of tough timer's that worked their asses off, lived into their 90's-100's and didn't take f*ckall from lazy asses. Conversley we as an American society today live softly into our 70's, take all kinds of f*ckall from lazy asses, and don't always smile...

Sorry to agree Kevin but you're right, it won't matter who is president.

Doomsayer ? Nah. I'm going on a bike ride with my daughter this morning, work my ass off this afternoon and fishing after that. Still livin' the daily deal in spite of a horrifying economic outlook... All smiles !

Crash, on the last splash. I think that is how the song goes. As does the stock market. And the economy, and everything else. I don't even feel confident about have a job for the government right now.

My computer's broken. I thought I clicked on the fishing forum...

You are absolutley right in principle. The part you don't acknowledge is that change is relative and it's going to get tougher before it gets better...I'm talking about the lives WE live

A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall

Oh, where have you been, my blue-eyed son?
Oh, where have you been, my darling young one?
I've stumbled on the side of twelve misty mountains,
I've walked and I've crawled on six crooked highways,
I've stepped in the middle of seven sad forests,
I've been out in front of a dozen dead oceans,
I've been ten thousand miles in the mouth of a graveyard,
And it's a hard, and it's a hard, it's a hard, and it's a hard,
And it's a hard rain's a-gonna fall.

Oh, what did you see, my blue-eyed son?
Oh, what did you see, my darling young one?
I saw a newborn baby with wild wolves all around it
I saw a highway of diamonds with nobody on it,
I saw a black branch with blood that kept drippin',
I saw a room full of men with their hammers a-bleedin',
I saw a white ladder all covered with water,
I saw ten thousand talkers whose tongues were all broken,
I saw guns and sharp swords in the hands of young children,
And it's a hard, and it's a hard, it's a hard, it's a hard,
And it's a hard rain's a-gonna fall.

And what did you hear, my blue-eyed son?
And what did you hear, my darling young one?
I heard the sound of a thunder, it roared out a warnin',
Heard the roar of a wave that could drown the whole world,
Heard one hundred drummers whose hands were a-blazin',
Heard ten thousand whisperin' and nobody listenin',
Heard one person starve, I heard many people laughin',
Heard the song of a poet who died in the gutter,
Heard the sound of a clown who cried in the alley,
And it's a hard, and it's a hard, it's a hard, it's a hard,
And it's a hard rain's a-gonna fall.

Oh, who did you meet, my blue-eyed son?
Who did you meet, my darling young one?
I met a young child beside a dead pony,
I met a white man who walked a black dog,
I met a young woman whose body was burning,
I met a young girl, she gave me a rainbow,
I met one man who was wounded in love,
I met another man who was wounded with hatred,
And it's a hard, it's a hard, it's a hard, it's a hard,
It's a hard rain's a-gonna fall.

Oh, what'll you do now, my blue-eyed son?
Oh, what'll you do now, my darling young one?
I'm a-goin' back out 'fore the rain starts a-fallin',
I'll walk to the depths of the deepest black forest,
Where the people are many and their hands are all empty,
Where the pellets of poison are flooding their waters,
Where the home in the valley meets the damp dirty prison,
Where the executioner's face is always well hidden,
Where hunger is ugly, where souls are forgotten,
Where black is the color, where none is the number,
And I'll tell it and think it and speak it and breathe it,
And reflect it from the mountain so all souls can see it,
Then I'll stand on the ocean until I start sinkin',
But I'll know my song well before I start singin',
And it's a hard, it's a hard, it's a hard, it's a hard,
It's a hard rain's a-gonna fall.

-Bob Dylan

The only thing that will turn it back around is to bring manufacturing back stateside and end outsourcing.

If you are waiting for that you better take a really deep breath.
When you accept that it's a global marketplace your definition of "outsourcing" will change. Stateside manufacturing is for the most part gone gone gone. We have to accept it and use our innovation to come up with the "next Model A"

Take a deep breath and get used to the idea of working for the same level of pay as the Chinese.

The next step for americans is the "Energy Revolution." It will create a ton of new jobs, but it better get moving fast. people are really gonna hve to startt working hard to make a living. Living the american dream aint gonna be so pretty.
It wasn't that long ago that we were living a conservative life.

My parents bought their first house in 1968 and paid $19,000 for it. They sold the house in 1989 for $92,000. They bought 35 acres in Gales Creek with a 2500 sqft house and paid $189,000. In 1989 that seemed like it was going to break the bank. Now you can hardly find a home for that kind of money. It's crazy. Their neighbor sold an 1800sqft house on 10 acres last year. He got $680,000. My folks have bigger, newer home on 35 acres and i'm afraid to know what it is worth.
But then you look at what a dollar will buy and it is all relative.

Stay positive!

Mf

I don't see how we are going to recover without finding a way to produce something. Not just something, but many things....competitively. Entrepreneurs are great, but they need customers to stay in business. Customers have to have a way to make money to buy products and if business's can't make a profit....you get the picture.

We can produce energy efficient houses and cars, but if no one can afford to buy them....then what?

I see the latest concept is pumping another 150 billion into the economy right after the election....oh boy. Money just grows on a tree somewhere, I guess.

How many of us can work for the government? It may be the only job in town that pays enough to raise a family or retire......how socialist is that?
I think I need to change my job into something that everyone must face....like dying....yeah, that's it, I'll be a funeral home owner.

We haven't quite reached the No Job/No Fish scenario, but damn we're getting close.

Eric there are quite a few products that are made stateside. Supposedly there are quite a few jobs that Americans won't do. Watch when the hunger settles in what jobs they will fight to get. I will be dead before I accept defeat. If you try real hard, produce a quality product, you can produce it here in the USA. It is challenging but what the heck I wasn't doin' anything special anyway. I am ready to buckle down and I can get skinnier if need be. The American individual is unique. I will not accept the position that my country will inevitably fall into third world status. We can rise to the occasion when the chips are down as has been done before. America is and shall remain # 1. USA USA USA USA!

Until very recently, the US was the world's biggest manufacturer.

Of what? TVs, Car's, toy's, lumber, steel....

Cult's probably.....

Mf

Not too worried about my job. Just as long as you all keep breaking your computers, I'll be just fine......

ENERGY REVOLUTION is what we need. If we can produce energy, and products that produce energy, and as a bonus make these products and the process in which they produce energy environmentally friendly. There will be a GLOBAL market and some of the money that is being spent on oil in the global economy will start coming our way. How fast do you think China would jump on a clean energy source that might alleviate some of their air pollution? We need to be the pionieers in making solar, wind, tidal, and any other clean energy sources affordable and reliable.

That's exactly right. Be a conscience consumer.

This country has lost what has made it a great nation. Manufacturing of high quality products was the trade mark of the USA. Now Corporate tax rates in this country are the highest in the world and have forced company's to move overseas and have kept foreign companies from coming here. Like it or not when you give large corporations tax breaks it enables them to employ hard working people that are some of the smartest in the world. When they are taxed to death they move manufacturing over seas where cheaper labor exists or move all together.

Boeing is going to be the next to move. There high pay workforce is costing them billions when they strike. They are already having parts built over seas. Little by little production will be moved. The affects on our area will be imense if that happens.

The amount of young entrepreneurs that are leaving this country for abroad is stagering. They have far more opportunities to make there fortunes there than here.

JoJo......

You hit the nail on the head.

And Obama wants to raise corporate taxes and raise the taxes for the people that run the small businesses.I could never understand why it makes sense to confiscate the money that will grow business and employ people.

It's going to be a real eye opener for a lot of people. Someone recently was complaining to me that "it's getting harder and harder just to get by." His whining stopped when I asked if he still had his 2007 3/4-ton diesel pickup, his camper, his motorcycle, his satellite radio, every tv channel known to man, his bigscreen tv, and the latest greatest cell phone. Just wait until people have to make REAL sacrifices.
The upcoming inflation is going to take what money people have left and turn it into confetti.

Jojo is right on. American workers have been priced or priced themselves right out of the market- however you want to look at it. It sucks but focusing on that will only make it worse. We need to focus on the next revolution which I believe is some form of clean energy generation.

Saw a Boeing Exec on the news this morning. He said they want to continue to build airplanes in Seatte. However, he added the all important, "but", then made reference to a reliable work force.

My brother -in -law is a contractor and he was building custom homes ,now he's doing handy man jobs for a lot less money. I work in the food business and deliver to chain stores, at least people have to eat so my job isn't in jeopardy yet. what bugs me is knowing people who max out their credit cards and have nothing to show for them and absolutely know they live a life style that they can't afford and now their paying through the nose in interests and some have filed for bankruptcy! The mortgage lenders saw a fat cat during the housing boom and they don't want to take a fall , Hey, it's like gambling you pay the piper if you lose. Politicians get money out of this mess,too! I'm writing in Bill Cosby as he's the only one that has any BRAINS!

if you want a so-called free-market ,laissez-faire approach to the economy you're going to get big boom-bust cycles...the USA suffered DEPRESSIONS every 30 years or so until the great depression when people decided that a regulated market and a little socialism may be a good thing...the only thing preventing a total collapse of the financial markets now are some remnants of the New Deal that everyone's been trying to dismantle...you can't have it both ways...if you ascribe to the greenspan..freidman..ron paul free market philosophy that's what you get....ever play monopoly? that's what will happen....and is ...
this blind devotion to 'free trade' instead of fair trade has caused americans' standard of living race to the bottom and destroyed any manufacturing base we'd had except for arms sales...boeing's making a lot of money on that...the disparity in wealth is as wide as it was in the Gilded Age...
the great depression created an opportunity for the working people to get a little more equality and concessions from the powerful....willl we do it now?
..on his death bed Eugene Debbs was asked if he had any regrets...he said..."I regret that the american people could have anything they want but they seem to want so little of anything..." ..will that be us?

It seems there is always the pendulum affect.....first too far one way and then too far the other.
Unions came about as a result of worker abuse by Corporate Heads, so to speak.
Now, we have reached the point where employers have to slow production so a worker can have a baby for instance, or has trouble getting rid of an unsatisfactory employee. It's things like these that hurt the golden goose called a pay check. (flame away if you like, but you know it's true). One of the self defeating things that come with unions is a "it's not my job" and "why should I do more?" attitude that employers are forced to swallow. And it's that swallowing that cuts profits. No profits, no employees. There also is a general attitude of "You owe me" and "How can I get something for nothing" life style that leeches from everyone and kills any desire to do an honest day's work for an honest day's pay.

OK, I done. Just my random two cents worth.

It surprises me that folks don't seem to understand what happened. As long ago as 1992 through 2008 Politicians rigged the system requiring banks to lend to complete deadbeats. They didn't have a snowballs chance in hell of paying the debt. It was slowly brought into play in the name of FAIRNESS with the threat of RACISM. How could you blame a bank for trying to shift that kind of debt? It's all there for the world to see and it should be uncovered by a special prosecutor, unless the ones that orchestrated it remain in power. I pray that enough people will realize the power of their voice and don't just waste it on a popular thought. Free trade is the American way and it keeps things healthy. If Sam sells sinkers for too high a price then Lenny's lead service will step up to the plate and the market will even out. RANT OVER. I sure love our country.

I pay union dues myself and couldn't agree more. I had this conversation with a sprinkler fitter this last summer right after they settled their strike. He felt that the hefty raise he got was justified and the cost would/ should be passed on to the end user. Guess what- he's lookin for work.

I couldn't agree more. Please read this and this.

Free trade is the American way, but unregulated free trade has caused every financial crisis the United States has experienced in its history.