[MadManofBethesda]

Originally Posted by LIS123

Of course, they have much better Healthcare plans...

And just where were all these great health care plans during all the years when the Republicans controlled Congress under the Bush Administration?

For that matter, where are all these great plans now? Up until two weeks ago, I read the Congressional Record every day. Not once did I ever come across a Republican bill regarding comprehensive healthcare reform.

But they sure know how to say "NO" to anything that is proposed don't they? And with the most idiotic of reasons, too. Sarah Palin and her death panels have to be the lowest point in this whole debate.

Although I don't know that you can call something a debate when only one side is saying anything substantive.

Oh, and BTW, I am not now nor have I ever been a registered Democrat.

[Willy702]

I just want to know why a statistic which reflects mostly private industry gets so damn politicized? Sometimes I don't know which is worse, our economy or our poisoned political environment.

[mresort]

Originally Posted by las vegas drunk

I am curious as to what foreign country you are referring to?

North Korea

[KevK]

Originally Posted by Joe3788

Neighbor just sold the same house for 95K.....In your opinion how long do you think it would take to get back to 308K? 1500sq ft house in sw. Rainbow and Warm springs. Not an expert here but off the top of my head i would say 12-15 years..........Anyone?

Depends on the overall inflation rate. I don't think real estate will move up faster in the future. People have to be able to afford the house. If wages are going up at 3% a year, houses cannot go up at 15% a year and people still afford them.

[KevK]

Originally Posted by DavieJ89

No, DONT GO THERE

I am a Democrat but Bush and the GOP did not cause this economic mess, at the very least not directly

They lowered taxes and interest rates to make money easier for people to access, this also in turn helped create jobs and stimulate an economy that was already in decline when Bush took office in 2001

The problem was the banks got greedy and loaned money to pretty much EVERYBODY! It all started in 2003 when that pesky little sub-prime loan was brought into the world

This then in turn led to the housing bubble. Cities like Las Vegas, Orlando, countless CA cities, Phoenix, Miami, etc all had runaway building and runaway prices

So naturally lightning was going to strike at some point because the economy regardless of who causes it, is cyclical. There are good times and bad times. We are in bad times, so I guarantee you there are good times ahead (maybe not as soon as we'd like but trust me they are coming

Dont blame Bush and the Republicans, they didn't cause this.

Oh and BTW it's spelled Harry R E I D!

It was Bush and the GOP that allowed all the recklessness on Wall St and the smoke and mirror loans which collapsed the real estate market. And yes, Bill Clinton might have had his hands in it too. The economy may be cyclical to a degree but it is not a roller coaster. Only government policies allow that. The housing market- where this all started- NEVER should have been allowed to issue smoke-and-mirror sub prime loans. They should have been OUTLAWED and not backed by Freddie, Fannie or the FHA. People should meet certain down payment and credit criteria before they are given mortgages. If they cannot meet it, they RENT until they can.

[LIS123]

Originally Posted by KevK

Depends on the overall inflation rate. I don't think real estate will move up faster in the future. People have to be able to afford the house. If wages are going up at 3% a year, houses cannot go up at 15% a year and people still afford them.

These days, wages may not even rise at the rate you suggested since Employers have the advantage. I think the ratio of unemployed:job openings is at (or near) an all-time high, somewhere around 5.5-6:1. Remember, the UE rate is only 9.7% b/c the Labor Dept. cooks the books and does not count millions of unemployed people as being in the labor pool. I think there were, literally, like 3 million or so unemployed people who were removed from the pool last year. The real UE rate, often called U6, is more like 17-20%. Some would say things are even worse than that.

I don't see home values rising much in the near future, especially after adjusting for a weaker currency. One of the reasons it isn't worse is that the Government has intervened with tax credits, foreclosure relief, etc. As usual, the Federal Government should have stayed out of the way as it was their low interest rates from the FOMC (technically private) that lit the fuse that started this mess.

[Willy702]

Housing is not a clean function of the economy, it is reflective of supply and demand. Population growth is projected at a relatively healthy rate and housing construction is at its lowest rate in a long time. Prices will go up more than seems sustainable until the economic signal is sent to the marketplace it needs more housing. Homebuilders may know its needed and feel the urge to build, but the supply won't come into place until the bankers and investors see clear signs of the signal. So you will have another run up in prices above economic growth until supply overwhelms demand and the whole thing starts again.

What would cause home prices and land prices to sustainably deflate is no growth or a decline in population but that appears 30-40 years away.

[Kaiminani]

Originally Posted by KevK

The economy may be cyclical to a degree but it is not a roller coaster. Only government policies allow that.

That's hardly a given. Government policies over the last century were implemented precisely because the economy was a roller coaster.

In my opinion such policies are futile - at best they can move around the areas above and below the curve, but they can not fundamentally change the size of the area. So you can trade long drawn out periods of minor growth and minor loss for short periods of rapid growth and rapid loss. But either way, the pain ends up being the same over the long run. Conservation of economic momentum, as it were - where government policies can try to reshape the momentum at the cost of losing some productivity to entropy.

PS - as for good republican health plans - McCain's one saving grace, as far as I was concerned, was his proposal to eliminate the tax benefits to employers for providing health insurance. Employer paid health 'benefits' are one of the biggest problems with the current system - they tie employees down, artificially restraining the free market for labor and they restrain the market for health insurance by making it extremely difficult to purchase health insurance as an individual. Most people who are lucky enough to have a job have only one health plan to choose from - its either that or get a different job if they don't like the coverage. At best you get two or rarely three choices which is hardly sufficient for a really competitive market.

Other than that one, mostly symbolic proposal, it sure seems that the republicans have utterly failed to address the problems of the current system. Despite everything that's wrong with obamacare the status quo is worse and republicans have never seriously tried to fix it, before or after the last presidential election.