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Here's another sign of the times...LandSource Communities Development, LLC, a large player in the CA real estate bubble, declared bankruptcy this morning.
Notably, CalPers, the California Public Employees Pension fund, is a big investor...so even the state pension fund has been drinking the Jim Jones Kool Aid. With a $20B deficit in a state with a Constitutional balanced budget requirement, and Prop 13 shielding all the old CA money from more property taxes, just where do they think they're going to make up that shortfall?
California Public Pension System Learns About Real Estate Speculation (broken link)
How long now until the refugee flow starts its way towards Colorado?
While the economic situation certainly appears to be rather glum, I wonder how often, in each one of our lives have we encountered an experience that later turned out to be totally different than our initial interpretation of it. We've probably all had experiences that initially felt like we were on the receiving end of a curse, or that we were on a streak of really bad karma, which later turned out to be a blessing in disguise. Vice versa, we've proabaly all had expereinces that initially brought us great joy that we later viewed as an albatross around our necks. So perhaps, the Zen like attitude of we'll see can serve us well in these times when so much of the news seems like bad news.
I'm reminded of a story from Tales of The Mystic East, which goes something like this.
The horse of a local farmer broke thru the fence and escaped the coral, and was nowhere to be found. Many of the farmers neighbors came to express their condolences for the farmers bad fortune. His response to all of them was, we'll see.
Then one day the horse returned, along with 2 wild horses. So now the farmer had 3 horses instead of just one. The neighbors came to acknowledge the farmers good fortune. Again the farmer responed to all of them by saying, we'll see.
The farmers son was working with the wild horses. One of the horses threw him to the ground, breaking his leg in the fall. The neighbors came by to offer their sympathy at the farmers bad luck. Once again the farmer responed to all of them by saying, we'll see.
A regional war broke out. The government agents rode into the village one day and conscripted all of the healthy young men. They we're all killed in the war, and the only remaining young man in the village was the farmers son with the broken leg.
It certianly appears that the sky is falling when you hear the latest news concerning the economy. Only an ostrich with its head in the sand would deny that we are faced with some serious financial challenges. But, we really have no way of knowing what truly is good fortune and what is not. We'll see!
Last edited by CosmicWizard; 06-09-2008 at 09:52 AM..
Only an ostrich with its head in the sand would deny that we are faced with some serious financial challenges. But, we really have no way of knowing what truly is good fortune and what is not. We'll see!
And here's the "rest" of the story.
...A regional war broke out. The government agents rode into the village one day and conscripted all of the healthy young men. They were all killed in the war, and the only remaining young man in the village was the farmers son with the broken leg.
The elders passed a new social security law that said all able-bodied men must pay sufficient taxes to supply all eligible elder villagers food and shelter in their old age. The young man, facing a 455% marginal tax rate, moved away and left the villagers to starve.
I know you mean well, but the logical conclusion of this "good may be bad and bad may be good" topsy-turvy philosophizing would be to sit around all day doing nothing because one really has no idea if he's really helping or hurting, progressing or regressing, succeeding or failing. So best to do nothing and everything will stay the same...ummmm...nope, that no worky neither.
"We'll see" is just another way of saying that no matter what you do "sometimes you da windshield, and sometimes you da bug." But, as a matter of probabilities, falling off your horse and breaking your leg is a bad thing, or people would be jumping off horses and fences and buildings everywhere trying to break their legs.
Some people can fall into a barrel of s*** and still come up smelling like a dozen carnations, but most people are gonna smell like s***. In fact most of the carnation types can't repeat the trick. And those that can repeat the trick probably either swapped the contents of the barrel beforehand or got someone else to jump into the barrel for them...
I know you mean well, but the logical conclusion of this "good may be bad and bad may be good" topsy-turvy philosophizing would be to sit around all day doing nothing because one really has no idea if he's really helping or hurting, progressing or regressing, succeeding or failing. So best to do nothing and everything will stay the same...ummmm...nope, that no worky neither.
"We'll see" is just another way of saying that no matter what you do "sometimes you da windshield, and sometimes you da bug." But, as a matter of probabilities, falling off your horse and breaking your leg is a bad thing, or people would be jumping off horses and fences and buildings everywhere trying to break their legs.
I draw a very different logical conclusion from the same parable. Rather than concluding: So best to do nothing and everything will stay the same..., I conclude that: things often look different down the road than they look initially. Things, circumstances, situations, etc, come to pass. They don't come as permanent conditions. In my story, falling off your horse and breaking your legdid result in a favorable consequence. At least it appeared to be favorable at the time, until you added the next chapter. We could keep adding chapters ad infinitum. Nothing is static. No one needs to sit on their @ss and do nothing, but sometimes, doing nothingis the best possible action. Even sitting on your @ss and doing nothing can result in favorable consequences.
There are several missing unknowns required to solve the equation: work ethic, responsibility, determination, sacrifice. IOW what is our national character? "It's not the size of the dog in the fight; it's the size of the fight in the dog"
Thanks for your responses. No, I don't think that a few lines concerning some opinions from a blogger on city-data would typically pass for response to a "final exam" question.
Even if you don't post your response here because you're afraid of "doing someone's homework for them", just seems it could be mildly entertaining (at the least) to connect the dots - not that it's all that cryptic. And it could be interesting for the rest of us to read.
The relevance to CO (in case anyone wondered): Denver metro air quality, state-wide water resources, climate change and Southwestern snow pack, agriculture, mining (natural gas and oil, for example), resource usage towards Front Range development, public support for education and the culture that both feeds (and draws from) that, home values, income, how these things tie into "the national character, how it's perceived abroad, and how that in turn relates to CO and it's endeavors"... I see a common thread or two running through all these. I wonder what your thoughts are.
Last edited by cilgats; 06-09-2008 at 07:21 PM..
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We'll see!
