Will There Be Apology Headlines? [Archive]

Foolmewunz

25th November 2007, 09:07 PM

Just as with gasoline, when the price creeps up $.10-.15 over a three week period and the headlines scream about it, and this civilization-destroying "spike" leads the nightly "news"casts every night for weeks, we are reading/hearing how retail sales are "sluggish" or so low that it does not bode well for our economy in the coming year.

Turns out, natch, that that's not QUITE true. As always, what's going on (so far) this Holiday season (and it just "officially" started 2 days ago) is that retailers are experiencing fewer sales than they hoped for, but nothing like the Depression-era sales that the media is telling us we should expect.

If only. And of course, the media only vaguely mention online sales....

So the question is this: will they, after the seaon closes and sales are either good, or hot, offer a mea culpa and admit that the US economy is roaring along?

I am laying 6:1 odds against. Who's in?

Edit: Reports in this a.m (Sunday) despite doom-and-gloom saying by the left-advocacy media hoping to make us believe the economy is in the doldrums--or worse--in the run up to electing Hillary, are that spending on Black Friday (the Friday after Thanksgiving, so named as retailers look to this day to put them "in the black"--meaning profitability) is up 8% over spending on the same day last year.

Tokie

Another area to post anti-liberal slanted issues, Tokie? Why not try the Sports Forum? (Do you go up and shake the hands of the owners of MLB teams for hiring AMERICANS? :spjimlad: )

Where'd you get your figures, please? I sincerely doubt that anyone had the actual figures for the 23rd by Sunday morning. I'd like to know the source (unless it was some flapgums just talking on the Sunday morning news shows).

Tokenconservative

26th November 2007, 05:20 AM

Another area to post anti-liberal slanted issues, Tokie? Why not try the Sports Forum? (Do you go up and shake the hands of the owners of MLB teams for hiring AMERICANS? :spjimlad: )

Where'd you get your figures, please? I sincerely doubt that anyone had the actual figures for the 23rd by Sunday morning. I'd like to know the source (unless it was some flapgums just talking on the Sunday morning news shows).

LOL.

Why not? Didn't the NFL run a game by candlelight recently to "save energy!"?

MLB: no...they hire people from all over the world.

Source: I rarely supply my sources because leftists like you won't accept them under the best of circumstances. Funny....you turn to the Sunday morning news shows when you need lefty confirmation, but when it's confirmation of something counter to what lefties want (in this case, a strong economy does not bode well for the Hildebeast, huh?) the Sunday morning shows are laughable?

Why is that, 'zactly?

By the way, they've been coming up with this number within a few days of Black Friday for, I dunno, a decade now, at least. It's part projection and part hard data--we use things today we call "computers" in much of the economy, including the retail sector...it's not Granpa Jim counting pennies and dimes outten the sock he keeps under the general store counter anymore, you know.

Tokie

Tokenconservative

26th November 2007, 05:25 AM

"Admit the economy is soaring along"? Sure, try to sell you house for what it was assessed last year.
Oh, I forgot. You are living in your Buick under the bridge. Next to the river, giving motivational seminars to the immigrants to convince them to return to Mehico or Paki-stan in order to save their vital bodily fluids.

Rarely, if ever is your house going to sell for it's assessed value.

Now, if you mean appraised value, that's a different thing, but I really don't think you do...First, I doubt you understand the difference; second, I think you believe the $$ at which the county assesses your property for tax purposes has something to do with its fair market value. They assess my 10 year old computer at something around $1,000. Will you buy it from me for that? Do you have Pay Pal? I'll ship tomorow!

Um...it dun't.

I don't want immigrants from Pak to go away. Most of them are engineers and scientists and with the woefull state of math and sci. education in our schools, we need all the help we can get.

Also you left out one critical word that lefties always leave out for some reason "illegal." See, I don't want LEGAL immigrants from Mehico to go home either. They are here LEGALLY, many of them are or are becoming Americans. Can you not spell that word, "illegal" or does it burn your fingertips to key it?

By the way, my house will sell for about $20k more this year than it did the last time I had it APPRIAISED. As for the assessed value, its hovering at about $10k under what these houses are selling for, so I am not unhappy with it this year.

You clearly know nothing about RE and RE markets. Edit for civility
Tokie

Tokenconservative

26th November 2007, 05:32 AM

I have no idea what you think you're babbling about. When people have been complaining about the economy, the focus seems to generally be on the way the value of the dollar has fallen. Is it back up again?

And who, exactly, do you think has been "wronged" that an apology is required?

You can think what you want. And clearly will, regardless of how ridiculous it might be.

I'm not sure whether you've purposely missed the point, or whether you are actually so blinded by your leftist need to see a bad economy that you really believe what you believe.

Yeah, the dollar is down against the Euro.

IT'S NEVER HAPPENED BEFORE!!!!!!!!

Are you really so ignorant of these things that you don't understand that currency is a fungible commodity that goes up and goes down in "price" alla time?

I was around in the 70s and 80s when the dollar was perennially down against the yen. Um... do you know of anyone who trades in Japanese yen these days? Let me know if you do, I'd like to sell them some beachfront property I have in Omaha (they are probably GWers, too...so that will work out for them).

As of Sunday morning, retail reports for sales volume on Black Friday (a big deal in the retail world) were up, considerably over last year and far above what those on the left were hopping for: that Wal-Mart et al., would be declaring BK this Monday morning.

That's just a fact. The fact also is that the left-advocacy media, ginning up the fear you relish, because they know a bad economy helps leftist candidates, has been attempting to scare Americans into staying home from Christmas shopping this year.

It hasn't, apparently, worked.

So, the question is: will the left-advocacy media apologize for being wrong about their "predictions" that retail sales this Christmas season would be in the rathole below the basement, or not?

Tokie

Tokenconservative

26th November 2007, 12:34 PM

And now (Monday) the online sales numbers are coming in...and they are swamping those of last year....

So....libs....will your media at least offer a mea culpa? They've been telling us since Halloween that "expectations are for miserable, lousy, near-1930s levels for retail sales this Holiday season!!!"

And then we get this....I guess, like the hurricane season (say...weren't they all supposed to get worser and worser after Katrina because of Global Warming? Yeah...uh, huh....purty sure that's what the left-advocacy media was sayin'....) it ain't over yet.

But of course while predictions of doom and gloom were front page, above the fold and the first 3 minutes of the newscast, reports about how well retail has done are buried deep in the business section today....

Funny, that.

Tokie

coalesce

26th November 2007, 12:52 PM

LOL.

Why not? Didn't the NFL run a game by candlelight recently to "save energy!"?

Which game? Where? When?

Link?

Michael

Tanstaafl

26th November 2007, 12:52 PM

Please point out exactly where these screaming doom and gloom headlines were.

I seem to have missed them.

Spindrift

26th November 2007, 01:32 PM

So....libs....will your media at least offer a mea culpa? They've been telling us since Halloween that "expectations are for miserable, lousy, near-1930s levels for retail sales this Holiday season!!!"

Who exactly is "they"? What so-called liberal media outlet did that quote come from?

Or did you just make it up?

Hokulele

26th November 2007, 03:03 PM

Which game? Where? When?

Link?

Michael

They didn't. An NBC Sunday night game used candles in the studio during the Halftime Report broadcast a few weeks ago, but that was the extent of it.

Tokenconservative

26th November 2007, 04:02 PM

They didn't. An NBC Sunday night game used candles in the studio during the Halftime Report broadcast a few weeks ago, but that was the extent of it.

...for atmosphere...during NBC's big SAVE THE PLANET!!!!! week.

It was very romantic.

Tokie

Tokenconservative

26th November 2007, 04:03 PM

Who exactly is "they"? What so-called liberal media outlet did that quote come from?

Or did you just make it up?

I was paraphrasing...the direct quote was "OMFingGaia!!!! The end is nigh!!!!!"

Tokie

NobbyNobbs

26th November 2007, 04:06 PM

Source: I rarely supply my sources because leftists like you won't accept them under the best of circumstances. Funny....you turn to the Sunday morning news shows when you need lefty confirmation, but when it's confirmation of something counter to what lefties want (in this case, a strong economy does not bode well for the Hildebeast, huh?) the Sunday morning shows are laughable?

Why is

Actually, I suspect you don't supply sources because you don't have any. You certainly haven't said anything to indicate otherwise.

As far as *my* sources go, the only talk I've heard recently about Black Friday sales and the economy was last Wednesday on CSPAN. A guy was testifying before a Congressional committee about exactly this topic, as he has done for the past 8 years. The gist of his talk was that despite high gas prices, consumers are likely to spend as much if not more than last year.

So, I've got one media report to your none. Riposte?

Tokenconservative

26th November 2007, 04:18 PM

Actually, I suspect you don't supply sources because you don't have any. You certainly haven't said anything to indicate otherwise.

As far as *my* sources go, the only talk I've heard recently about Black Friday sales and the economy was last Wednesday on CSPAN. A guy was testifying before a Congressional committee about exactly this topic, as he has done for the past 8 years. The gist of his talk was that despite high gas prices, consumers are likely to spend as much if not more than last year.

So, I've got one media report to your none. Riposte?

Rip..what? Rip one off?

Shore!

Every "news" network in the US (not sure where you are)--ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, MSNBC, as well as the NYTimes wire service, the AP and Scripps, reported in the lead up to Thanksgiving that sales were expected to be "off," or "lower (sometimes MUCH lower) than last year." At the same time, by the way, they also were reporting that travel this year during Thanksgiving, the busiest travel week/end of the year in the US, would be subtantially off (fewer miles traveled, fewer seats sold, less gas sold/used) than at anytime in recent history and that on top of that, because of GW Bush and his screwy, useless security measures at airports, to expect waits of (the NYTimes wire service report I read) 2-3 hours at most major airports just to get through security.

I believe the avg. for all the major US airports was something around 16 minutes. A BIT less than "2-3 hours," and um...no screaming headlines saying "MEDIA WRONG!!!"

So...you named what was it again, CSPAN? Did you need me to go back through my list?

Tokie

bruto

26th November 2007, 05:03 PM

Rip..what? Rip one off?

Shore!

Every "news" network in the US (not sure where you are)--ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, MSNBC, as well as the NYTimes wire service, the AP and Scripps, reported in the lead up to Thanksgiving that sales were expected to be "off," or "lower (sometimes MUCH lower) than last year." At the same time, by the way, they also were reporting that travel this year during Thanksgiving, the busiest travel week/end of the year in the US, would be subtantially off (fewer miles traveled, fewer seats sold, less gas sold/used) than at anytime in recent history and that on top of that, because of GW Bush and his screwy, useless security measures at airports, to expect waits of (the NYTimes wire service report I read) 2-3 hours at most major airports just to get through security.

I believe the avg. for all the major US airports was something around 16 minutes. A BIT less than "2-3 hours," and um...no screaming headlines saying "MEDIA WRONG!!!"

So...you named what was it again, CSPAN? Did you need me to go back through my list?

Tokie

You must listen to the wrong news sources, tokie. I was listening to NPR, as usual, and about all I recall hearing was that the prospect was for a fairly good turnout compared to last year. Not much hype either way.

Jeff Corey

26th November 2007, 05:31 PM

Rarely, if ever is your house going to sell for it's assessed value...Now, if you mean appraised value, that's a different thing, but I really don't think you do...First, I doubt you understand the difference; second, I think you believe the $$ at which the county assesses your property for tax purposes has something to do with its fair market value.
You clearly know nothing about RE and RE markets. Edit for civility

Tokie
I will ignore the " your ignorant piehole shut" remark Edit for civility

I wish my houses could sell for their assessed values. They were so inflated that we had to grieve them successfully four times to the towns (not county) on our own. I know that the market value of those houses have fallen recently.
So you know nothing about real estate markets here Edit for civility

Spindrift

26th November 2007, 05:56 PM

I was paraphrasing...the direct quote was "OMFingGaia!!!! The end is nigh!!!!!"

Tokie

So you can't point to anyone who actually said what you said "they" said? Basically you just made it up and lied.

Yoink

26th November 2007, 06:12 PM

From the Wall Street Journal on Saturday, 23 November:

Amid rising mortgage payments, high gasoline prices and a volatile stock market, the prognosis for holiday shopping is the worst in five years. A number of retailers this past week reported losses or declines in net income for their fiscal third quarters and slashed their holiday sales forecasts.

You're right, Tokie--it's communist-inspired left wing rags like the WSJ that are conspiring to install the Hildebeest in the White House!

Or....perhaps people who, like, know stuff about, you know, the economy have good reason to be, you know, worried?

Gregory

26th November 2007, 06:15 PM

You can think what you want. And clearly will, regardless of how ridiculous it might be.

I'm not sure whether you've purposely missed the point, or whether you are actually so blinded by your leftist need to see a bad economy that you really believe what you believe.

Yeah, the dollar is down against the Euro.

IT'S NEVER HAPPENED BEFORE!!!!!!!!

Are you really so ignorant of these things that you don't understand that currency is a fungible commodity that goes up and goes down in "price" alla time?

I was around in the 70s and 80s when the dollar was perennially down against the yen. Um... do you know of anyone who trades in Japanese yen these days? Let me know if you do, I'd like to sell them some beachfront property I have in Omaha (they are probably GWers, too...so that will work out for them).

As of Sunday morning, retail reports for sales volume on Black Friday (a big deal in the retail world) were up, considerably over last year and far above what those on the left were hopping for: that Wal-Mart et al., would be declaring BK this Monday morning.

That's just a fact. The fact also is that the left-advocacy media, ginning up the fear you relish, because they know a bad economy helps leftist candidates, has been attempting to scare Americans into staying home from Christmas shopping this year.

It hasn't, apparently, worked.

So, the question is: will the left-advocacy media apologize for being wrong about their "predictions" that retail sales this Christmas season would be in the rathole below the basement, or not?

Tokie

So, our dollar is still down and you are a raving nutcase. Also, you can't answer my question re: who needs to be apologized to. In all three cases, pretty much what I figured.

And you know what, yeh. Let's see these headlines you're babbling about.

NobbyNobbs

26th November 2007, 06:46 PM

and maybe you should shut your festering gob, you twit.

Do I get any points for recognizing a movie reference, Violet?

Jeff Corey

26th November 2007, 06:56 PM

'Twasn't a movie, 'twas someting I saw on the telly. Next to the penguin. And, Shirley, don't call me Violet.

Foolmewunz

26th November 2007, 09:23 PM

Davidlpf

26th November 2007, 09:33 PM

Also because the value of Canadian is higher than the greenback there is a lot of Candians using the internet to cross border shop, as well actually going to the states to shop as well. Oh there was one Canadian choclate company that actually hire americans to pack their choclates.

Foolmewunz

26th November 2007, 11:13 PM

Tokenconservative

27th November 2007, 05:51 AM

From the Wall Street Journal on Saturday, 23 November:

You're right, Tokie--it's communist-inspired left wing rags like the WSJ that are conspiring to install the Hildebeest in the White House!

Or....perhaps people who, like, know stuff about, you know, the economy have good reason to be, you know, worried?

Which just goes to show how truly brainwashed you are by the left-advocacy media...the WSJ NEWS is just as left as any other moderately-leftist "news" rag...their editorial page is a different matter, which is what the left-advocacy media needs must point and shriek about when saying "see!? SEEEEEEEE!!!?? There is TOOOOOOOO a rightwing 'news' media!!!!"

Learn the difference, then come back, share with me what you've learned.

By the way...that quote does nothing to diminish my claim that the media was hyping TEOTWAWKI this spending season...did it?

Tokie

Tokenconservative

27th November 2007, 05:55 AM

Well, I guess I've got a better insight into the retail world than some. Unlike a "certain poster", I will link to sources that I cite, but this time I have to be mysterious, because it came from an inside contact at one of my clients, and they would not appreciate me blabbing as to how good their market intelligence is and how quick it is (they feel their market and what we do for them - managing their supply chain - are parts of their competitive advantage.)

I knew this Saturday, already.

Q: When is having more shoppers in the stores a bad thing for retailers?
A: When they don't spend anything.

Anyhow, here's an article summarizing the situation. Retailers LOST on last year's pace... quite dramatically, but well within expectations. Further, even with the dollar figures down by about 3.5%, the more worrisome pattern is that they're shopping for bargains, and since the retailers have already started discounting, that ain't a good thing.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/feedarticle?id=7105417

This has been a service brought to you by the whacko left wing!

So, now that the yay-sayer has been proven wrong, does anyone think there will be an apology from Tokie.... for bringing up people's hopes and using yet another hundred lines of screen space to bash liberals for no reason whatsoever?

In the words of the inimitable Ralph Cramden.... "Har dee har har har!!"

Oh, and Tokie.... the Dollar is at its weakest aginst the Euro and that's never happened in history?

HOW LONG IS THE HISTORY OF THE EURO? I know you don't like LIIIINNNKS!! but could you provide me with a fifty year curve on the value of the Euro? I'd sure appreciate it, 'cuz us liberals just don' know nuttin' 'bout no economiez.

LOL!

The socialist Guardian...yeah, THERE's a reliably "objective" source.

The 8% increase in SALES over last year (and that's just brick n mortar--not counting online) is not an indicator of feet through the door, but as it implies to anyone who understands economics at the retail level when they say "sales" they mean um...well, whyn't you take a guess or three?

I always love people who have supersecret inside information they are only able to share soto voce and only in dribs and drabs.

Sheesh.

Agreed, howmsoever, that with the dollar down against the Euro, the 8% needs to be adjusted...and it IS!

LOL!

Um...you think the Euro's been around for 50 years, huh? But that brings up a good point...it's a bit touch and go comparing the Dollar to the Euro when the ink is still wet on the Euro...but that won't stop AMERCA-bashing libs like you from shrieking "see!!!?? SEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!??? This PROOOOOVEEESSSS AMERCA is dying!!!!!"

Will it?

Well, you've already answered that question by quoting (mfmmm...chortle...ya gotta be kiddin' me, Barbie)...the Guardian?

LOL!!!!!!
What n00bery.

Tokie

Tokenconservative

27th November 2007, 05:57 AM

Ah, yes, the Yanquilladoras!

Well-heeled Canuck business men moving their menial and labour(with a "u") intensive jobs to the downtrodden economies of the north woods, taking advantage of the unsuspecting American workers!

:spjimlad::spjimlad::spjimlad:

It's pretty clear you have no idea what you are talking about.

Because Canada is a HUGE petroleum producer and their massive oilsands project and other gas and oil drilling projects are working double-overtime, they are drawing tens of thousands of USians...and (gasp!!) Mehicans and other Latinos to those jobs, and the "meniul" jobs that support them.

Try not to be quite so provincial if you can.

Tokie

JoeEllison

27th November 2007, 06:03 AM

A right-winger lying, and when caught just lying some more? When does that NOT happen?

Spindrift

27th November 2007, 06:52 AM

There is TOOOOOOOO a rightwing 'news' media!!!!"

Learn the difference, then come back, share with me what you've learned.

Tokie

Please help me learn the difference.

Please show me left-wing news media outlet that said "expectations are for miserable, lousy, near-1930s levels for retail sales this Holiday season!!!" Even if it was paraphased.

Please show me right-wing news media outlet with the news that economy us roaring along.

You may be able to provide the latter, but since you made up the former you won't be able to do it.

coalesce

27th November 2007, 07:22 AM

...for atmosphere...during NBC's big SAVE THE PLANET!!!!! week.

It was very romantic.

Tokie

Using candles for atmosphere at halftime--no matter how silly it looks--is a little different than "run[ning] a game by candlelight," don't you think?

Michael

Yoink

27th November 2007, 11:20 AM

Which just goes to show how truly brainwashed you are by the left-advocacy media...the WSJ NEWS is just as left as any other moderately-leftist "news" rag...their editorial page is a different matter, which is what the left-advocacy media needs must point and shriek about when saying "see!? SEEEEEEEE!!!?? There is TOOOOOOOO a rightwing 'news' media!!!!"

Learn the difference, then come back, share with me what you've learned.

By the way...that quote does nothing to diminish my claim that the media was hyping TEOTWAWKI this spending season...did it?

Tokie
This is fun. It's "make Tokie say something even stupider than usual" day! O.K., the WSJ's business reporting is in thrall to the left wing of the Democratic party. That's an extraordinarily stupid thing to say, true, but I think we just might be able to get him to say something stupider. Who's with me?

How about we get him to say that Fox News is also a shill for the Democratic Party? Here, Tokie, explain this little piece of "pro-Hillary-propaganda" from "Fox Business":

Despite those figures, Citi said on Monday that Black Friday "had an anti-climatic air" as pressures on low-end consumers led them to "stick to the hot Black Friday promotions."

The National Retail Federation said 147 million customers shopped this weekend, up 4.8% year over year, but that each consumer spent 3.5% less.
“I don’t think there was anything overall negative from the figures that came out about the first weekend of holiday sales, but the prevailing sentiment appears to be negative," said Michael James, senior equity trader at Wedbush Morgan Securities in Los Angeles. Yep--Roger Ailes, that well known Hillary-bot....

Foolmewunz

27th November 2007, 06:54 PM

Jeff Corey

27th November 2007, 07:27 PM

No, the Red states voted for Fearless Leader. The leftist radical commie socialists were in the blue states.
Funny, you don't look bluish.

quixotecoyote

27th November 2007, 08:29 PM

No, the Red states voted for Fearless Leader. The leftist radical commie socialists were in the blue states.
Funny, you don't look bluish.

I did enjoy the irony of the color selection.

Davidlpf

27th November 2007, 09:31 PM

As to the Yanquilladoras..... It was a joke, Toke! *You know, it's like ironic that Canada would be using US labor 'cuz it's like cheaper!
Stop taking your paranoia so seriously. We don't!

Well actually the reason a lot of people have moved to where there are better paying jobs, I actually live in the area of the candy company.

ETA sorry just poking the hornets nest that seems to be tokenconserative.

Tokenconservative

28th November 2007, 05:16 AM

Update: Online spending was FIFTEEN-PERCENT (15%) higher this year than last.

I found that in the biz section of my paper....buried in the middle, under the sports.

But at least it WAS on the front page of that section.

Meanwhile, in the same paper, the same day...they ran a political cartoon showing a family that couldn't go "over the river and through the woods" because of gas prices...

And yet, all indicators show that gas prices did not impede anyone's travel plans over the Thanksgiving holiday period...and in fact...travel, like Christmas spending on Black Friday was WAY up over last year.

Still...no apologies in the left-advocacy media for scaremongering....I wonder why?

Tokie

Tokenconservative

28th November 2007, 05:22 AM

Tokie, I'd give you a LIIIINNNK, but I know you don't follow them or read anything, but for the others in this thread who might care (or if there's a nine-year-old in Wichita reading this who doesn't know that you're totally clueless on this topic and is impressed by your rhetorical nonsense)....

The Guardian (EEEEK! RUN!! LEFTIES!!) article was a Reuters feed and was in dozens, if not hundreds of papers. And the source of that source, as Yoink pointed out, and which is in the article, is the National Retail Federation.

Your figures are WRONG. Get it?

More Shoppers walked through the doors.
They spent LESS, though.
Comprende?

And since your entire rant was based on the assumption that retail sales were up, you're no longer skating on thin ice.... you've crashed through it and are risking figurative hypothermia if you continue to try to twist this to your liking.

(And yes, I know the news over the weekend was reporting higher figures, but they didn't have the sales - they were seeing crowds and assuming those crowds were spending more. The crowds were (and still as of this week, are) looking for bargains. The national retailers have already, prior to Black Friday, started sales in an attempt to draw them in, but apparently the consumer is a bit fidgety this year and is ONLY buying the sale items and not taking the bait on the rest!)

As to the Yanquilladoras..... It was a joke, Toke! *You know, it's like ironic that Canada would be using US labor 'cuz it's like cheaper!
Stop taking your paranoia so seriously. We don't!

So will you be apologizing soon for starting a thread and raising red flags based on the false assumption that the whole world was wrong and that everything is rosy in retail land.** I mean, you wanted to know if the evil media was going to apologize, so I figure that any man of honor would do the same. Or are you organizing another slant on this to prove that the downturn in sales is really Obama's fault?

Footnotes:
* I can't believe I'm explaining a joke to the humor-challenged. This is like trying to explain the concept of mercantilism to a split-leaf philodendron.
** On noez! I used "red" and "rosy"(a variant on pink) in the same sentence. That proves it. It's a left wing plot.

First, I am not talking about GB...I don't really care about spending there.

We are talking about the 8% rise in SPENDING, over last year at brick and mortar stores and the 15% in SPENDING over last year online.

I'm not sure whether it's the big numbers here, or the word "spending" you are not understanding, or perhaps that I don't care what GB'ers are doing.

If there is a 9-yr-old reading this pay close attention: "spending" means money someone pays for a good or service. "Walking into the store" means um...well...you're nine years old...time to learn to read.

No, they were counting dollars spent, not feet. You can spin this however you like, but nobody in retail counts things on Black Friday that way. Retailers understand that Americans use "the mall" as a source of entertainment, so they stopped counting "shoppers" oh, sometime back in the 70s. What they count now is sales. While they need to keep track of actual numbers of feet on the ground for OTHER reasons, what Black Friday is all about, is ACCOUNTING. And bean counters simply don't care how many feet it took to get to a certain number of sales...they only care about the sales, no matter how leftist organizations like the Guardian are now trying to spin it.

LEARN something about that which you are blowing out your anus BEFORE making such a fool of yourself in front of nine-year-olds again, k?

Tokie

Tokenconservative

28th November 2007, 05:24 AM

Using candles for atmosphere at halftime--no matter how silly it looks--is a little different than "run[ning] a game by candlelight," don't you think?

Michael

Indeed. It's stupid. Romantic is romantic...this was just...stupid.

If they really wanted to save some energy, they might've tried playing the game at noon. Outdoors. And turning off the lights. Let's face it one 6-10 hour football game under the lights uses about the same amount of energy as say, Toledo does in a month.

Tokie

Tokenconservative

28th November 2007, 05:33 AM

This is fun. It's "make Tokie say something even stupider than usual" day! O.K., the WSJ's business reporting is in thrall to the left wing of the Democratic party. That's an extraordinarily stupid thing to say, true, but I think we just might be able to get him to say something stupider. Who's with me?

How about we get him to say that Fox News is also a shill for the Democratic Party? Here, Tokie, explain this little piece of "pro-Hillary-propaganda" from "Fox Business":
Yep--Roger Ailes, that well known Hillary-bot....

I love people who understand neither economics nor statistics.

Here are the hard numbers, now being sheepishly reported by left-advocacy "news" organs such as NBC, CBS, CNN, NYTimes et al.: brick and mortar sales up: 8% (total) over last year (yes, sales records from Podunk may not yet be in...do you really believe that they will drive this number down?) and online: 15% up over last year.

You can parse it however you please, but the left-advocacy media was afire with "predictions for holiday spending this year are suggesting all time lows due to consumer fears for the economy because a Republican is in office and we want to see a lefty there...I er, that is to say...because Americans are so ascared!!!!"

Turns out um....not so much. Turns out this is almost as big a lie as the "Americans will not be traveling this Thanksgiving and even if they do, they will be lined up at TSA checkpoints until sometime after Easter!!!!" and the one that says "most Americans will lose their homes to foreclosure very, very soon!!! Vote for Hillary!!!!"

Same stuff we always see in the run up to an election...or have for the past 28 years, anyhow, from an increasingly shrill, left-advocacy "news" media.

The facts is what they is. You can run around in circles waving your hands over your head shrieking as how wrong that Token is, but it will not change these simple facts:

1. YOUR left-advocacy media was lying

2. The lie has been found out, and since they ARE your media, you are now doing everything you can to continue believing and propogating the lie.

3. Truth does not matter when leftists are intent on taking power.

Tokei

Spindrift

28th November 2007, 07:19 AM

I love people who understand neither economics nor statistics.

Well it's good to know that at least you like yourself.

ETA: Any luck finding a source for that paraphased quote? Or was that just a lie?

bruto

28th November 2007, 07:37 AM

Tokie, I'm still wondering what "left-advocacy media" you've been listening to, and how much time you must have spent scanning the opposition to come up with your generalization. Or could it be that you're basing your observations on someone else's generalization? I did not see these dire predictions you attribute to the "left-advocacy media" in the newspaper I read and the radio stations I listen to. You keep characterizing the "left" as shrill and shrieking, but the only shrillness I hear is yours.

coalesce

28th November 2007, 09:07 AM

Indeed. It's stupid. Romantic is romantic...this was just...stupid.

If they really wanted to save some energy, they might've tried playing the game at noon. Outdoors. And turning off the lights. Let's face it one 6-10 hour football game under the lights uses about the same amount of energy as say, Toledo does in a month.

Tokie

I think you missed my point; perhaps I wasn't clear. My point was that saying "run[ning] a game by candlelight" creates a different impression to people who hadn't seen the game of what actually happened. The stadium wasn't lit by candles, only the broadcast booth during halftime. It's spin on your part to make the situation sound more extreme than it really is to fit your view. It's like saying that the NFL is committed to using solar power by playing games outdoors in the afternoon. If you want to make a cogent point, there's no reason to have to either stretch the truth or worse, invent a truth to support a viewpoint.

And when do football games last 6-10 hours? And do you have a link showing how much power is used at a typical football stadium for a three-plus hour game and how much power is used by the 715,320 Toldeoans (at least according to the 2006 US Census) living in the greater metropolitan Toldeo area during a typical month and how the two figures compare? I'd be curious to see the difference.

Link for Toledo population (just to show that I didn't just invent a number to make a point):

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toledo,_Ohio

Michael

Yoink

28th November 2007, 10:55 AM

I love people who understand neither economics nor statistics.

Here are the hard numbers, now being sheepishly reported by left-advocacy "news" organs such as NBC, CBS, CNN, NYTimes et al.: brick and mortar sales up: 8% (total) over last year (yes, sales records from Podunk may not yet be in...do you really believe that they will drive this number down?) and online: 15% up over last year.

You can parse it however you please, but the left-advocacy media was afire with "predictions for holiday spending this year are suggesting all time lows due to consumer fears for the economy because a Republican is in office and we want to see a lefty there...I er, that is to say...because Americans are so ascared!!!!"

Turns out um....not so much. Turns out this is almost as big a lie as the "Americans will not be traveling this Thanksgiving and even if they do, they will be lined up at TSA checkpoints until sometime after Easter!!!!" and the one that says "most Americans will lose their homes to foreclosure very, very soon!!! Vote for Hillary!!!!"

Same stuff we always see in the run up to an election...or have for the past 28 years, anyhow, from an increasingly shrill, left-advocacy "news" media.

The facts is what they is. You can run around in circles waving your hands over your head shrieking as how wrong that Token is, but it will not change these simple facts:

1. YOUR left-advocacy media was lying

2. The lie has been found out, and since they ARE your media, you are now doing everything you can to continue believing and propogating the lie.

3. Truth does not matter when leftists are intent on taking power.

Tokei
Tokie, old bean, I said nothing at all about statistics. I pointed out that Fox News reported pessimism among retailers about Black Friday spending. You claim that only left-wing news sources were trying to peddle this story in order to scare people about the economy so that Hillary Clinton would get elected (why the "left liberal" media want a conservative centrist like Clinton elected is a puzzle that only a deranged conspiracy theorist could answer, but what they hey). Now, given that Fox News reported the same story you have two options:

1) you claim that Fox News is part of the vast left wing conspiracy (and thereby prove that you're a paranoid nut-job).

Or

2) You admit that there is no vast left wing conspiracy (and admit that you're a paranoid nut-job.)

I don't really see any alternative for you, Tokie.

JonnyFive

28th November 2007, 11:18 AM

Here are the hard numbers, now being sheepishly reported by left-advocacy "news" organs such as NBC, CBS, CNN, NYTimes et al.: brick and mortar sales up: 8% (total) over last year (yes, sales records from Podunk may not yet be in...do you really believe that they will drive this number down?) and online: 15% up over last year.

Well, "hard numbers" is actually a bit of a stretch. The 8% figure comes from a company called "ShopperTrak" (the actual figure they gave was 8.3%, but I'll forgive the rounding), which uses foot traffic to estimate sales in brick and mortar stores. I'd be more inclined to think that the online estimates are more accurate representations of actual sales, and they do look quite promising (hell, I did all my shopping online... screw waiting at the mall).

You can view their website at this URL: http://www.shoppertrak.com/index.php

And you can read a Bloomberg article that mentions the company, as well as the various figures, here: http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aPrwprvdNoQw&refer=home

I made the links open so you wouldn't have to try too hard to see that they're not leftist liberal shill plant links to direct you to goat porn or something. ;)

Anyway, I'm not seeing hard sales figures for Black Friday yet, but it seems that the estimates are for a moderate increase over last year. That's certainly not doom 'n' gloom, but I don't recall hearing any particularly dismal predictions for Black Friday.

You can parse it however you please, but the left-advocacy media was afire with "predictions for holiday spending this year are suggesting all time lows due to consumer fears for the economy because a Republican is in office and we want to see a lefty there...I er, that is to say...because Americans are so ascared!!!!"

I really wish you'd provide some evidence of the "leftists" claiming that the retail season was going to be horrible rather than just expecting us to take it on faith or something.

All the stories I saw were to the effect of "concerns about the housing market may dampen the retail season." Hardly "WE'RE ALL GONNA DIE! GAME OVER MAN, GAME OVER!!!!!!" material.

Consumer confidence doesn't really have anything to do with the President's political party. The CC index has, as a matter of fact, been trending downward: http://www.conference-board.org/economics/consumerconfidence.cfm

But I'm guessing that has to do with the credit squeeze and housing situation, possibly oil prices (but that's not really news now, so I'm guessing it's more the housing market). Of course, the housing/credit thing isn't leftist doom propaganda either - it's simply a natural extension of the financial sector's over-extension of credit to poor quality risks and over speculation in housing.

The market will correct for it, I think. Some people will get hurt, but this isn't the first time we've had an economic hiccup like this, and it won't be the last.

But anyway, it's not unreasonable to predict a slight downturn in sales when the confidence index is trending downward. Again, that doesn't have to do with politics, just consumer behavior. What were you saying about economics again?

Turns out um....not so much. Turns out this is almost as big a lie as the "Americans will not be traveling this Thanksgiving and even if they do, they will be lined up at TSA checkpoints until sometime after Easter!!!!" and the one that says "most Americans will lose their homes to foreclosure very, very soon!!! Vote for Hillary!!!!"

I don't think anyone actually said anything even approaching those two things, Token. I think that in your political zealousness, you are unable to look objectively at issues that really have very little to do with politics.

3. Truth does not matter when leftists are intent on taking power.

I've found that this particular sword cuts both ways, Token.

Tokenconservative

28th November 2007, 11:29 AM

Tokenconservative

28th November 2007, 11:30 AM

Tokenconservative

28th November 2007, 11:39 AM

I think you missed my point; perhaps I wasn't clear. My point was that saying "run[ning] a game by candlelight" creates a different impression to people who hadn't seen the game of what actually happened. The stadium wasn't lit by candles, only the broadcast booth during halftime. It's spin on your part to make the situation sound more extreme than it really is to fit your view. It's like saying that the NFL is committed to using solar power by playing games outdoors in the afternoon. If you want to make a cogent point, there's no reason to have to either stretch the truth or worse, invent a truth to support a viewpoint.

And when do football games last 6-10 hours? And do you have a link showing how much power is used at a typical football stadium for a three-plus hour game and how much power is used by the 715,320 Toldeoans (at least according to the 2006 US Census) living in the greater metropolitan Toldeo area during a typical month and how the two figures compare? I'd be curious to see the difference.

Link for Toledo population (just to show that I didn't just invent a number to make a point):

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toledo,_Ohio

Michael

I'm not sure if you are obtuse on purpose or it's just the way you are.

Of course I didn't believe the announcer's booth at that game was candlelit for romance. Um...far's I know, two manly-man announcers were in there and while I am sure plenty of gays like football, the reality is that were the color and play-by-play guys enjoying a nice bottle of wine, maybe some oysters and playing footsies under the table, NBC'd have much bigger problems than their energy bill.

It was stupid. I thought I made that pretty clear when I said previously that it was um...well...stupid. It wasn't stupid because it didn't really save any energy, it was stupid because it was um...well, stupid.

I don't watch football...I guess it just seems like they last 6-10 hours. I did not say "greater metropolitan Toledo." I said Toledo.

Once again, pedantics aside, a normal person would recognize that my throwing out Toledo was not meant to be taken literally...Toledo's a mid-sized American city and has a very recognizable name (coulda said Elko, but then people like you would say "it's spelled 'elk' Tokie! And what do large deer native to North America have to do with it!?"

See how that works? Pedantics has it's place...but not among thinking folks.

Tokie

JonnyFive

28th November 2007, 11:41 AM

I'M NOT THE SHRIIIIIILLLLLL ONNNEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Uh... what?

Are you a gimmick poster or something?

Yoink

28th November 2007, 11:46 AM

By the way, Tokie, old pal, the main source of the pessimistic news reports about the impending Black Friday sales was that well known lefty-commie-pinko organization: The National Retail Federation. Here's a link: http://www.nrf.com/modules.php?name=News&op=viewlive&sp_id=370

So--don't you think if the National Retail Federation is actively campaigning to get Hillary into the White House that that suggests that a Hillary Clinton presidency will be good for business? Why else would the National Retail Federation peddle these lies about their forecasts for the economy?

Or, perhaps you suspect that America's retail businesses have been taken over by communists in a long running infiltration operation dating back to the 1930s? And now they're finally exercising their dastardly plan: to put a moderate business-as-usual Democrat into the White House!! Flee! Flee for your life!!!

bruto

28th November 2007, 11:49 AM

Fair enough: NBC, CBS, CNN, ABC TV and radio news (as applicable) and two local news papers reporting both themselves and with the NYTimes, AP and Scripps wire services.

Tokie

Fair enough, I guess; since I can't check whether your perception of the news is accurate, I suppose I'll have to take your word for it that all those sources were wrong. You should turn off your TV and listen to NPR more often, I guess. :D

Tokenconservative

28th November 2007, 12:02 PM

Uh... what?

Are you a gimmick poster or something?

HUUUUUHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!????????

Tokenconservative

28th November 2007, 12:05 PM

Fair enough, I guess; since I can't check whether your perception of the news is accurate, I suppose I'll have to take your word for it that all those sources were wrong. You should turn off your TV and listen to NPR more often, I guess. :D

That makes sense... of course you'd have no way of knowing, when a "news" report says that "most sources" are (were) predicting a "bad year" for retailers this (2007) year, what they mean by that. Maybe by "bad" they meant it in a Michael Jackson way. Or as one poster in here is suggesting over and over, all that tourism traffic in stores is "bad" for the floors.

Yeah, I can see how that would confuse you.

You are a liberal.

As to listening to NPR. You must live on the southern coast. I can't get Radio Havana where I live, though.

Tokie

JonnyFive

28th November 2007, 12:18 PM

Yoink

28th November 2007, 12:21 PM

bruto

28th November 2007, 12:23 PM

That makes sense... of course you'd have no way of knowing, when a "news" report says that "most sources" are (were) predicting a "bad year" for retailers this (2007) year, what they mean by that. Maybe by "bad" they meant it in a Michael Jackson way. Or as one poster in here is suggesting over and over, all that tourism traffic in stores is "bad" for the floors.

Yeah, I can see how that would confuse you.

You are a liberal.

As to listening to NPR. You must live on the southern coast. I can't get Radio Havana where I live, though.

Tokie

No, I live in Vermont. I don't know what Radio Havana has to do with anything, since I would imagine Radio Havana would have happily reported as gloomy a forecast as possible, which is exactly what I keep saying I did not hear. You seem to miss my point entirely, and to be completely deaf to what I'm saying. My point is simply that your take on which media reported what may be in error. NPR and the Rutland Herald are likely more liberal than the sources you cited, yet they did not, as far as I recall at least, make the gloomy predictions you attribute to the liberal press. I did not hear that most sources were predicting a bad season. I heard that they were predicting a rather lackluster season on average, neither particularly bad nor particularly good.

Foolmewunz

28th November 2007, 04:51 PM

Tokie,
You just don't get it do you?

A Reuters news feed from New York, citing the (USA-based) National Retail Federation. See? The could print it in Mumbai, but it's still an article on USA RETAIL SALES. The fact that the article (about US retail) was in a UK newspaper doesn't mean a thing.

8% MORE PEOPLE! Wow! But they didn't spend any money! Even you must understand that basic tenet of the economy. If they ain't spending, you ain't making no money!

Sales were down. Where's your apology for starting a thread with reversed scare-mongering headlines?

Please provide the corelative as to the amount of money spent on line versus the amount of money not spent in the brick and mortar facilities.

Tokenconservative

28th November 2007, 05:23 PM

You have no idea what you're talking about, do you?

No...but I do know a damn fine cuppa coffee when I taste one....

Tokie

Tokenconservative

28th November 2007, 05:29 PM

Tokie--shouldn't you be more concerned by the commie takeover of the National Retail Federation than by the commie slant of the MSM? I'd have thought moles in the inner sanctum of capitalism would be more troubling to you than what a bunch of ink-stained wretches believes.

Hmmm...interesting point. Not the Red baiting, but the other.

It's not so much that I care what the 4th Estate or its minons have to say, it's that they beat their drum long and loudly enough (as both Lenin and Herr Doktor Goebbels taught them so well) and any lie they tell becomes the truth.

Anyone who seriously today, maintains that the vast majority of "news" organs in America are not decidedly left-biased if not outright left-advocacy, is either so far the left him or herself they cannot be relied upon to offer a reasonably objective opinion, or they are a complete moron.

Take your pick. Even the NYTimes own review of itself found that they were at minimum "slanting" the news to the left.

Why you believe that slant would not find its way to the business pages in an election year when the left really hasn't anything else to hang its hat on save the economy, and why you think their media would not help them by biasing the public into believing, against the facts, that the economy is in the dumper.

I notice that no one in here has jumped on me for noticing that the left-advocacy media was ALSO shrieking that "high" gas prices (lower, relatively, than throughout most of the 1970s) would be keeping people home on Thanksgiving, and that "poor planning" on the part of Bush's Homeland Security would make lines at airports 2 and 3 hours long.

Thanksgiving went off without a hitch. Few people let the relatively moderate price of gas keep them home and wait times in security lines at the nation's busiest airports never topped a half-hour....and yet TOKIE is the blind nutcase?

Tokie

Tokenconservative

28th November 2007, 05:32 PM

No, I live in Vermont. I don't know what Radio Havana has to do with anything, since I would imagine Radio Havana would have happily reported as gloomy a forecast as possible, which is exactly what I keep saying I did not hear. You seem to miss my point entirely, and to be completely deaf to what I'm saying. My point is simply that your take on which media reported what may be in error. NPR and the Rutland Herald are likely more liberal than the sources you cited, yet they did not, as far as I recall at least, make the gloomy predictions you attribute to the liberal press. I did not hear that most sources were predicting a bad season. I heard that they were predicting a rather lackluster season on average, neither particularly bad nor particularly good.

If you listen to NPR (I know nothing of Rutting with heralds...) then you are already so far to the left that you cannot be taken as an objective observer. They might've been screaming "run for the hills!!! Leave grannie behind!! We are doomed--DOOOOOMMMMEEEDDDDD!!" and you'd have heard only what you wanted to hear.

By the way...NPR and the Rutland Herald, you may very well be surprised to learn, are not the only news organs in America.

Probably not even in Vermont.

Tokie

Yoink

28th November 2007, 06:16 PM

Hmmm...interesting point. Not the Red baiting, but the other.

It's not so much that I care what the 4th Estate or its minons have to say, it's that they beat their drum long and loudly enough (as both Lenin and Herr Doktor Goebbels taught them so well) and any lie they tell becomes the truth.

Anyone who seriously today, maintains that the vast majority of "news" organs in America are not decidedly left-biased if not outright left-advocacy, is either so far the left him or herself they cannot be relied upon to offer a reasonably objective opinion, or they are a complete moron.

Take your pick. Even the NYTimes own review of itself found that they were at minimum "slanting" the news to the left.

Why you believe that slant would not find its way to the business pages in an election year when the left really hasn't anything else to hang its hat on save the economy, and why you think their media would not help them by biasing the public into believing, against the facts, that the economy is in the dumper.

I notice that no one in here has jumped on me for noticing that the left-advocacy media was ALSO shrieking that "high" gas prices (lower, relatively, than throughout most of the 1970s) would be keeping people home on Thanksgiving, and that "poor planning" on the part of Bush's Homeland Security would make lines at airports 2 and 3 hours long.

Thanksgiving went off without a hitch. Few people let the relatively moderate price of gas keep them home and wait times in security lines at the nation's busiest airports never topped a half-hour....and yet TOKIE is the blind nutcase?

Tokie
Tokie, why won't you address my point? I mean, I do realize it completely destroys any semblance of an argument that you might have thought you had, but still...

If the National Retail Federation puts out a press release stating that their members are pessimistic about Black Friday sales and about the economy in general, surely responsible news organizations are bound to report on that?

Now, you maintain that this claim (pessimism etc.) is a bald-faced lie, and that someone would only fabricate such a lie in order to try to discredit the fabulous job that George Bush is doing with the economy and provide a spring board for Hillary Clinton. Consequently, you must believe that the National Retail Federation (who originated this "lie" that the MSM picked up on) are deliberately playing scaremongers about the economy in order to provide support to Hillary Clinton.

If you think the NRF was telling the truth, on the other hand, then you don't seem to have any complaint left against the MSM (who, after all, simply reported upon what they heard from the NRF)?

So which is it? Are the NRF the leaders of the attempt to put Hillary in the White House (in other words, are you a complete and utter paranoid nut-jub)? OR for you second option, are the NRF telling the truth about the opinions held by their members (and consequently your entire OP was a steaming pile of nonsense?).

I understand that that's an unpalatable set of options to choose from, but--in all honesty and quite seriously--I don't see that there's a third.

coalesce

28th November 2007, 06:37 PM

I'm not sure if you are obtuse on purpose or it's just the way you are.

Of course I didn't believe the announcer's booth at that game was candlelit for romance. Um...far's I know, two manly-man announcers were in there and while I am sure plenty of gays like football, the reality is that were the color and play-by-play guys enjoying a nice bottle of wine, maybe some oysters and playing footsies under the table, NBC'd have much bigger problems than their energy bill.

It was stupid. I thought I made that pretty clear when I said previously that it was um...well...stupid. It wasn't stupid because it didn't really save any energy, it was stupid because it was um...well, stupid.

I don't watch football...I guess it just seems like they last 6-10 hours. I did not say "greater metropolitan Toledo." I said Toledo.

Once again, pedantics aside, a normal person would recognize that my throwing out Toledo was not meant to be taken literally...Toledo's a mid-sized American city and has a very recognizable name (coulda said Elko, but then people like you would say "it's spelled 'elk' Tokie! And what do large deer native to North America have to do with it!?"

See how that works? Pedantics has it's place...but not among thinking folks.

Tokie

Hmmm. I've been called many things, but "obtuse" is a new one, I'll give you that. Nonetheless, why bring up the length of a football game and the power consumption of a mid-sized American city when you admit you don't know the length of a game or how the amount of electricity needed to broadcast a typical 3-plus hour football game compares to power consumption of a mid-sized American city? And if Toledo is not meant to be taken literally, why bring it up at all?

How does citing two things used in a contrast situation further your view when you don't even know what it is you're comparing?

Or am I being obtuse yet again?

Michael

bruto

28th November 2007, 07:27 PM

If you listen to NPR (I know nothing of Rutting with heralds...) then you are already so far to the left that you cannot be taken as an objective observer. They might've been screaming "run for the hills!!! Leave grannie behind!! We are doomed--DOOOOOMMMMEEEDDDDD!!" and you'd have heard only what you wanted to hear.

By the way...NPR and the Rutland Herald, you may very well be surprised to learn, are not the only news organs in America.

Probably not even in Vermont.

TokieThat's very close to calling me a liar. What you're saying there is that even though you have no idea what NPR or my local newspaper said, and would never deign to find out for yourself, they cannot possibly have said what I heard, because you, in your wisdom, know beforehand what liberal media must have said. Are you clairvoyant, or just incapable of backing down from a stupid statement?

I know it's a great stretch to ask you to reflect for a moment without using the funhouse mirror of your political agenda , but just try it for one moment. If, as you say, I'm such a liberal, and the liberal media were broadcasting and printing pessimistic doomsday scenarios, why would I not have heard what you so adamantly consider to be that consistent liberal bias? Even if it is true that one hears what one wants (quite possible if you read and hear a lot of diverse opinions) do you not think it a bit odd, to say the least, that I would have heard the hopeful forecasts of the retailers, instead of the doom and gloom of the naysayers? You claim that liberals want to hear the bad stuff, and then say that I, whom you characterize as an ultra liberal practically off the charts, heard the good stuff because I wanted to hear it. Do you not see the contradiction here?

Jeff Corey

28th November 2007, 08:48 PM

I bet he doesn't. Watch him deny it.

Foolmewunz

28th November 2007, 11:12 PM

pipelineaudio

28th November 2007, 11:30 PM

"Admit the economy is soaring along"? Sure, try to sell you house for what it was assessed last year.

In my area, houses that were 40k 5 years ago were assessed for 300k last year but only selling for 250k right now

Yeah its lost a LOT of value, but.... still WAY WAY WAY up from where it should be

Tokenconservative

29th November 2007, 05:00 AM

In my area, houses that were 40k 5 years ago were assessed for 300k last year but only selling for 250k right now

Yeah its lost a LOT of value, but.... still WAY WAY WAY up from where it should be

Let me see if I follow this...40k 5 yrs ago, 300k last year, 250k now...and that's a net depreciation in your view?

Tokie

Tokenconservative

29th November 2007, 05:05 AM

Tokie, why won't you address my point? I mean, I do realize it completely destroys any semblance of an argument that you might have thought you had, but still...

If the National Retail Federation puts out a press release stating that their members are pessimistic about Black Friday sales and about the economy in general, surely responsible news organizations are bound to report on that?

Now, you maintain that this claim (pessimism etc.) is a bald-faced lie, and that someone would only fabricate such a lie in order to try to discredit the fabulous job that George Bush is doing with the economy and provide a spring board for Hillary Clinton. Consequently, you must believe that the National Retail Federation (who originated this "lie" that the MSM picked up on) are deliberately playing scaremongers about the economy in order to provide support to Hillary Clinton.

If you think the NRF was telling the truth, on the other hand, then you don't seem to have any complaint left against the MSM (who, after all, simply reported upon what they heard from the NRF)?

So which is it? Are the NRF the leaders of the attempt to put Hillary in the White House (in other words, are you a complete and utter paranoid nut-jub)? OR for you second option, are the NRF telling the truth about the opinions held by their members (and consequently your entire OP was a steaming pile of nonsense?).

I understand that that's an unpalatable set of options to choose from, but--in all honesty and quite seriously--I don't see that there's a third.

I love lefty parsing...the NRF ALWAYS hedges...they'd be fools not to...but there is a big difference from what they were saying "likely to be an 'off' year for retail sales" (paraphrasing) to what the "responsible media" reported: DOOOOOOMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM!!!!!!!

Now, address THAT point. See, what your (leftist )media does, it's always picks the turd out of the diamond mine.

And these were lead-story reports BEFORE Black Friday. Now, AFTER Black Friday when um...gee, ah, well...looks like um, maybe er, that is to say....

Not a word. The only place you can find this being reported is in the business pages--buried--and on Fox.

Why is that, j'spose?

Care to address MY point?

Yeah...din't think so....

Tokie

Tokenconservative

29th November 2007, 05:14 AM

Hmmm. I've been called many things, but "obtuse" is a new one, I'll give you that. Nonetheless, why bring up the length of a football game and the power consumption of a mid-sized American city when you admit you don't know the length of a game or how the amount of electricity needed to broadcast a typical 3-plus hour football game compares to power consumption of a mid-sized American city? And if Toledo is not meant to be taken literally, why bring it up at all?

How does citing two things used in a contrast situation further your view when you don't even know what it is you're comparing?

Or am I being obtuse yet again?

Michael

Well...look it up, I guess.

Anyway...

These are broad, generally acceptable comparisons: Football games are known not to have a set time like say, soccer or hockey (excluding any overtime); I could've used some other colloquial reference, but we were, if I do not misremember, talking about a football game. We (humans, esp. Americans) commonly, when talking about power consumption, compare it to that needed for a mid-size American city for x-number of days/weeks, etc. Now, if you are not familiar with that form of "measurement" regardless of its inaccurate nature, I can't help that. I am guessing you are familiar with it, and are simply being...what was that word again?

Also, the POINT is not the actual kilowatt hours, the point is um...well, the point. And that is that the candlelit half-time event was all part of NBC's save the friggin planet week or some such.

Now of course, out of your zealous need to believe such codswollop (it's a part of your religion, after all) you MUST play at being too obtuse to understand all this (or maybe you are not American) and harrumph, and pull at your bow tie, straighten your lab coat and say, "haruumph, ah, er...in fact, as we see from this chart comparing overall energy consumption (averaged) for the greater Toledo metropolitan area, when compared to that of Giants stadium for a like period of time, we find that...."

Sheesh.

You must be fun at parties.

Tokie

Tokenconservative

29th November 2007, 05:30 AM

That's very close to calling me a liar. What you're saying there is that even though you have no idea what NPR or my local newspaper said, and would never deign to find out for yourself, they cannot possibly have said what I heard, because you, in your wisdom, know beforehand what liberal media must have said. Are you clairvoyant, or just incapable of backing down from a stupid statement?

I know it's a great stretch to ask you to reflect for a moment without using the funhouse mirror of your political agenda , but just try it for one moment. If, as you say, I'm such a liberal, and the liberal media were broadcasting and printing pessimistic doomsday scenarios, why would I not have heard what you so adamantly consider to be that consistent liberal bias? Even if it is true that one hears what one wants (quite possible if you read and hear a lot of diverse opinions) do you not think it a bit odd, to say the least, that I would have heard the hopeful forecasts of the retailers, instead of the doom and gloom of the naysayers? You claim that liberals want to hear the bad stuff, and then say that I, whom you characterize as an ultra liberal practically off the charts, heard the good stuff because I wanted to hear it. Do you not see the contradiction here?

There's no contradiction: you are a lib, therefore you first, believe what your left-advocacy media says (you will dismiss the more centrist/factual FoxNews out of hand because "they are Murdoch's rightwingnutjob mouthpiece!!!! Everybody knows that!!!") while accepting as objective to a fault well-known leftst agitprop factories like NPR.

If you are lying about it, then I guess it would not be inaccurate to CALL you a liar.

As a matter of fact, if you are a liberal, you MUST lie about a great many things to maintain that level of intellectual dishonesty. See, inherent to the conotative and denotative meaning of "dishonesty" is "lying." I can't help what you are. If you don't want to be called a liar...don't lie!

The left-liberal media always--ALWAYS--spins things economic to the dark side, and esp. so WHEN they are attempting to help liberals "take back" the country.

Do you remember how many "homeless" there were in January of 1993? Some counts put the numbers at a bit above our current population of illegals: 40 million.

On January 21, 1993 the number was: 0

Now...what changed--overnight, apparently--between 1/20/93 and 1/21/03 to cause this?

And your media has only gotten more obviously left-advocacy since coming especially unhinged since the Rs "stole" the election in 2000 and again in 2004.

Now, the left-ADVOCACY media is doing all it can to help leftist retain what leftists believe is theirs by birthright: power. So they are doing everything they can to make it APPEAR as if the economy is in a virtual nosedive.

REAL numbers show just the opposite. A nice, steady, healthy economic growth of between 4-7% generally. Now, of course, you have to avg. this number over time...at least a year. But every week or two, if it dips a bit (everyone with a brain knows that growth dips seaonally for a variety of reasons) then the left-advocacy media reports like this: "growth took a turn downward!!!" or at best they will spin it like this ""growth was not as much as had been anticipated!!!"

Either way, it's spinning. They don't say "well, naturally the economy cools down a bit in the fall...it always does..." or "growth is still up, but up a little less than some analysts were predicting..."

You, as a lib are unable to recognize this as spin BECAUSE it is spinning in a direction you like. Of COURSE the economy is in a nosedive!! The war! Bush! Hate!! Racism!! Starving babies!! Ketchup is a vegetable!!!

Over and over and over, these things run like a broken record in your mind.

Of course, if Hillary wins...the economy (which really WILL take a nosedive, for a month or two anyway) will be reported in your media as rosy.

And YOU don't see that as bias and spin...nope, NPR is the most objective news source on the planet, as is some left-liberal rag in Vermont, one of the bluest states in the union.

Still, all this tap-dancing...but you are unable to tell me WHY the left-advocacy media was (you have not denied they were doing this, at least) reporting that this Thanksgiving holiday, travel would be a mess and too expensive BEFORE the event...then, when it turned out um...well, not so much...silence.

Tokie

Tokenconservative

29th November 2007, 05:38 AM

I forgot all about this tomfoolery.

Yes, Tokie, that's the point I was making.... There is no 50 year graph of the value of the euro available..... because the euro is a fairly recent thing, and it's only just now finding its level.

You follow, so far?

So, when YOU said, in great huge upper case letters, that this had never happened before, I was merely pointing out that that's sort of like saying, that a six month old baby has longer hair THAN IT HAS EVER HAD BEFORE! It's never happened before because THE EURO HAS A VERY SHORT HISTORY,.... THUS FAR!

I assume you've traveled to Europe? Check out what a Euro buys, then check out what you could get for .66 of that amount, and see if it's not a bit comparable to what you can get for a buck. (Hint: If they're driving on the wrong side of the road? That's England. Do not multiply by .66, multiply by .5, as that would be pounds, not euros.)

This is fascinating....utterly astounding, really.

So what you are saying is that the Euro is currently up against the dollar...
AND WILL BE FOR THE REST OF TIIIIIIMMMMMEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

But please, tell me if I am mis-reading you here...

Now, I am old enough to remember when the Japanse Yen, the Deutchmark, the Swiss and the French Franc were "up" against the dollar and monstershouters like you (with no understanding of the fungible nature of currencies) were also screaming

AND WILL BE FOR THE REST OF TIIIIIIMMMMMEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

And then, well, I can only assume time ended, because that all reversed and the dollare gained over all of them..for a time, as currencies do...

A few years ago, it was cheaper to send a kid to college in Europe than to send them to any Ivy League, most of the big tech schools, and many state unis here...

For some reason that did not remain the case

FOR THE REST OF TIIIIIIMMMMMEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

But because the Euro is up today over the dollar that will be the case

FOR THE REST OF TIIIIIIMMMMMEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

That's a curious view of the currency market. I will assume analyzing same is how you make your living, so it's good to hear from an expert.

Tokie

Spindrift

29th November 2007, 07:11 AM

Fair enough: NBC, CBS, CNN, ABC TV and radio news (as applicable) and two local news papers reporting both themselves and with the NYTimes, AP and Scripps wire services.

Tokie

And this is another lie.

Not one of those sources had something like what you paraphrased as "expectations are for miserable, lousy, near-1930s levels for retail sales this Holiday season!!!"

JonnyFive

29th November 2007, 07:23 AM

Let me see if I follow this...40k 5 yrs ago, 300k last year, 250k now...and that's a net depreciation in your view?

The problem with housing isn't so much that some houses have dropped in value a bit but are still up, but that there is some very heavily leveraged property out there that was issued to some pretty poor quality risks.

It doesn't matter if the house was worth $40k a year ago, or $1 during the flipping Great Depression, it matters how much the current owner paid for it, and what the arrangement with the lender is. If the current owner bought it a year ago for $300k expecting the value to keep climbing, then it is a net depreciation for that owner. Moreover, they don't have any equity in the house, so they can't use it as leverage for any credit, and they would likely take a loss to sell the house anyway.

Really, the group that's hurting the most from this as a primary cause are lenders and speculators. The thing is that the reduction in credit issuance tends to hurt the economy as a whole, because the amount of available funds dries up for everyone, not just real estate speculators.

If you bought the house back when it was 40k, you're still doing quite well. You might have a slightly more difficult time selling it, but it's hardly a catastrophic event for you. The main people hurt by the housing crunch directly are those that came in later and the lenders issuing the credit. The lenders will tighten underwriting practices for a bit (similar to what's called a "hard underwriting" cycle in insurance), and the latecomers hurt by the housing crunch will simply have to take the losses. That sucks, but that's life.

Tokenconservative

29th November 2007, 07:40 AM

And this is another lie.

Not one of those sources had something like what you paraphrased as "expectations are for miserable, lousy, near-1930s levels for retail sales this Holiday season!!!"

Really? Do you have a link--LIIINNNNKKKKKKKK!!!!!--proving the um...didn't say this?

Tokie

volatile

29th November 2007, 07:44 AM

*cough*falsifiability*cough*

You said there was a concentrated screeching, yet you haven't provided an example of even one.

Come on. Prove it.

Tokenconservative

29th November 2007, 07:48 AM

The problem with housing isn't so much that some houses have dropped in value a bit but are still up, but that there is some very heavily leveraged property out there that was issued to some pretty poor quality risks.

It doesn't matter if the house was worth $40k a year ago, or $1 during the flipping Great Depression, it matters how much the current owner paid for it, and what the arrangement with the lender is. If the current owner bought it a year ago for $300k expecting the value to keep climbing, then it is a net depreciation for that owner. Moreover, they don't have any equity in the house, so they can't use it as leverage for any credit, and they would likely take a loss to sell the house anyway.

Really, the group that's hurting the most from this as a primary cause are lenders and speculators. The thing is that the reduction in credit issuance tends to hurt the economy as a whole, because the amount of available funds dries up for everyone, not just real estate speculators.

If you bought the house back when it was 40k, you're still doing quite well. You might have a slightly more difficult time selling it, but it's hardly a catastrophic event for you. The main people hurt by the housing crunch directly are those that came in later and the lenders issuing the credit. The lenders will tighten underwriting practices for a bit (similar to what's called a "hard underwriting" cycle in insurance), and the latecomers hurt by the housing crunch will simply have to take the losses. That sucks, but that's life.

Hmm...I don't think that's what the poster in the post I responded to said.

He said that houses went from $40, to $300k then back to a miserly $250k and that this represented depreciation.

I don't know where either he or you went to school, but I know that even my miserable public schools math (all the way to the 8th grade!) could be used here to show that if Louisa (being PC) bought a house for $40k and over the course of 5-7 years, it's value increased to $250k today, this would be a net appreciation in value of...lemme see....carry the 14, hyptenize the transect...yeah, um...about $210k in APPRECIATION. Appreciation means: dun be wort' more'n afore!

Um...no, actually the things you say "matter" don't. The current owner might've paid 40million for their house. What matters is an OBJECTIVE appraisal of then-to-current values. It also does not matter if the current owner (or any others) were ripped off by bad LOs, agents, appraisers or God Himself. What matters is: what was a reasonable market value (key term) for the house then, and what is its reasonable market value (told you to remember that one!) now?

If that value was $40 k 5 years ago, and if it's a paltry $250 now (tho it may have been higher last month, last year, or in the flippin' 1930s) then it has appreciated since we started looking at its value, 5 yrs ago when it was valued at $40k.

And it especially does not matter what the homeowner "expected." I expected to have the long, lustrous locks of my youth in my coffin. Not gonna happen now, judging by the glare I get from my now hairless pate.

What you are seeing in this example is a typical, marke correction: values went up...then more, then more, on speculation, yes. Then corrected recently to a more reasonable market value as speculators bailed and homeowners were left to deal with reality.

So it goes.

No evil. Just markets. If you are dumb enough to go into real estate as an amateur and engage in specualation of this sort and you get burned you either take it as a lesson and avoid it next time, or get out.

Tokie

Spindrift

29th November 2007, 08:45 AM

Really? Do you have a link--LIIINNNNKKKKKKKK!!!!!--proving the um...didn't say this?

Tokie

http://www.cnn.com/
http://www.msnbc.com/
http://www.cbsnews.com/
http://www.abcnews.com/

You won't find a quote like yours.

Your turn, provide a source that had that quote. (Unless you just made it up and lied about it.)

patrick767

29th November 2007, 09:12 AM

Wow, this looks like a well thought out and rational thread from TokenConservative. Everyone knows that BIG RED LETTERS mean he's right! :p

The US has been running huge federal deficits and gigantic trade deficits. The housing market is a mess as the sub-prime crisis has led to a 100% rise in foreclosures over last year and real estate prices continue to drop in most of the country. The US dollar keeps falling. Real median wages have been flat to declining in recent years while the wealthiest 1% continue to get big raises. 40 million Americans don't have health insurance and many more aren't adequately covered if disaster strikes. Medical related personal bankruptcies are up over 2000% since 1980. The people of the United States recently had a negative savings rate for an entire year. Negative. That's insane.

But the economy is great and we should all be happy about it? Stop lying to yourself or at least get news from sources other than Fox, Rush Limbaugh, and the World Net Daily. Oh, but every news source that's not a far right wing shill is liberally biased! I forgot...

JonnyFive

29th November 2007, 09:34 AM

Hmm...I don't think that's what the poster in the post I responded to said.

He said that houses went from $40, to $300k then back to a miserly $250k and that this represented depreciation.

No, he didn't. He simply said that prices had gone up from $40k to $300k, then down to $250k. He said it had lost a lot of value ($50k from $300k to $250k), but was still way up. I'm not sure how you turned this into "net depreciation over five years," but it isn't what was written.

What I was talking about was a separate issue, as the original post never talked about the actual situation with housing equity as it applies in the real world, only about the average situation on the market.

This is a multi-layered scenario. We could talk about overall markets from a number of perspectives, as well as the individual financial situations involved in those markets. I'm trying to make it as clear as possible what I'm referring to, but apparently it isn't quite clear enough.

I don't know where either he or you went to school, but I know that even my miserable public schools math (all the way to the 8th grade!) could be used here to show that if Louisa (being PC) bought a house for $40k and over the course of 5-7 years, it's value increased to $250k today, this would be a net appreciation in value of...lemme see....carry the 14, hyptenize the transect...yeah, um...about $210k in APPRECIATION. Appreciation means: dun be wort' more'n afore!

And out come the barbs! As I explained in my post, the owner who bought the house for 40k would in fact come out ahead.

If you'd actually read my post, you would know that. I also explained that you can't simply look at the overall market trends in valuation and think you're getting the whole picture. I don't think I was clear enough about that, so I'll go into more detail.

As an aside to your stupid comment about math: There is much more to mortgage market evaluation than simply doing some basic math with housing prices before and after some arbitrarily chosen points in time. However, I know this is just how you talk to everyone, so I'll just let it go.

While it is wonderful that the market value of the house has increased by a net amount of $210k over five years (assuming no inflation/inflation-adjusted values and all that fun stuff), that's not how equity works, and equity is what matters to the specific owner (which is what I was talking about in my post). To say that the house "appreciated" in some sense since it was originally built, or purchased by first owner, or whatever is essentially meaningless when we're talking about specific people rather than overall markets. I made it quite clear that I was talking about specifics and not market averages, as I used the term "equity," which is a specific term in lending that does not refer to what you just did.

If the current owner owes more than the house is worth, they have no equity in the house. Thus, they have lost money on their original investment, unless the market turns around and they pick up enough equity to reasonably expect to turn a profit if they sold the house.

As I mentioned, they can also leverage the equity in the house to obtain credit, if they want to swing it that way. Either way, the equity in the house is the economic advantage to the specific owner, regardless of the market movement of the housing price.

Now, the overall market appreciation is a nice macro metric for overall economic health (actually, it's kind of a crappy macro metric, but that's beside the point), but it tells us very little about the specific situation on the ground.

Um...no, actually the things you say "matter" don't. The current owner might've paid 40million for their house. What matters is an OBJECTIVE appraisal of then-to-current values. It also does not matter if the current owner (or any others) were ripped off by bad LOs, agents, appraisers or God Himself. What matters is: what was a reasonable market value (key term) for the house then, and what is its reasonable market value (told you to remember that one!) now?

No, that might be useful in terms of determining how the housing market has done on average in a given location, but it is worthless information when it comes to assessing the actual situation with the present owner. Without knowing how much someone owes on a home in addition to how much it's worth, you can't say that they actually have any equity in the house, and therefore you can't say whether or not they've come out ahead in a given market situation.

If that value was $40 k 5 years ago, and if it's a paltry $250 now (tho it may have been higher last month, last year, or in the flippin' 1930s) then it has appreciated since we started looking at its value, 5 yrs ago when it was valued at $40k.

Well, it gets even more complex when you move beyond the specific owner and into the wider market. First off, the mortgage lenders are very sensistive to price and interest rate changes, and a drop of $50k in a year (a 17% drop in value) can be enough to switch them over to a much harder underwriting stance on new loans, if the drop is widespread. That will contract the credit market, regardless of whether or not there was some market appreciation on the houses.

Also, there are mortgage-backed securities that are negatively affected by increases in foreclosures. If you want to evaluate foreclosure risk, you'll have to return to the specifics of the owners' situations, rather than looking only at the overall market appreciation. If most of the current owners are recent buyers with heavily leveraged homes with no equity, then the risk of foreclosure increases dramatically, which impacts the value of the related securities negatively and impacts the extension of credit from the lenders.

And it especially does not matter what the homeowner "expected." I expected to have the long, lustrous locks of my youth in my coffin. Not gonna happen now, judging by the glare I get from my now hairless pate.

What I said was that if the owner buys the home for $300k for the reason that they are expecting the value to rise (which was an aside not related to the main point), they will experience a net loss because they lose equity in the house. Let's say they paid 10% down (not ideal, but not as heavily leveraged as some mortgages are) and paid an additional $8k towards principle in the year (a reasonable estimate, I think, the remaining mortgage payments would be towards interest). The owner would have:

Assets Liabilities
$250k house value $262k loan balance

So they would have no equity. In fact, if they sold the house for the appraised value (a rare thing indeed), they would owe $16k to pay off the remaining balance on the mortgage.

I never said that expectations influence valuation, and if you think I did you need to read more carefully.

What you are seeing in this example is a typical, marke correction: values went up...then more, then more, on speculation, yes. Then corrected recently to a more reasonable market value as speculators bailed and homeowners were left to deal with reality.

Yes. I never said it wasn't a correction. I have said in numerous threads that I believe the lenders over-extended themselves when issuing credit. What's happening is a natural result of that.

No evil. Just markets. If you are dumb enough to go into real estate as an amateur and engage in specualation of this sort and you get burned you either take it as a lesson and avoid it next time, or get out.

I never said there was "evil" there. I agree that speculation is risky and difficult, but that's beside my various points. I'm talking about the various economic and financial factors, not assigning some moral value to all of it.

Yoink

29th November 2007, 10:46 AM

I love lefty parsing...the NRF ALWAYS hedges...they'd be fools not to...but there is a big difference from what they were saying "likely to be an 'off' year for retail sales" (paraphrasing) to what the "responsible media" reported: DOOOOOOMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM!!!!!!!

Now, address THAT point. See, what your (leftist )media does, it's always picks the turd out of the diamond mine.

And these were lead-story reports BEFORE Black Friday. Now, AFTER Black Friday when um...gee, ah, well...looks like um, maybe er, that is to say....

Not a word. The only place you can find this being reported is in the business pages--buried--and on Fox.

Why is that, j'spose?

Care to address MY point?

Yeah...din't think so....

Tokie
Tokie, you have yet to provide a single link to a single "left wing" news source that screamed "DOOOOOOOOM." All I've been able to find is responsible reporting that mirrors EXACTLY the language of the National Retail Federation. So, either provide a link to a "DOOOOOOOOOOM" report or admit that you really don't have a point.

By the way, the NRF didn't "hedge it's bets"--it predicted that the sales would be poor because of the poor economic situation. Your claim was that the economy is roaring along and that people would only suggest that it was troubled because they want to put Hillary in the White House. By your own account you have to include the NRF in the great Hillary conspiracy.

Yoink

29th November 2007, 10:51 AM

By the way, Tokie, if you need some help finding these "DOOOOOOOOOOM" headlines that you think were everywhere in the MSM--go to the Google "news" page, go to "advanced search." You'll find that you can restrict your searches to a particular date range (say the week before Black Friday). You can type in the search string "black friday." I've done it and I couldn't find any reports in mainstream newspapers like the NYTimes et al. that remotely matched what you claimed was so ubiquitous. Still, I'm sure with your memory of so many DOOOOOOOOM laden headlines you'll quickly find enough examples to prove that you weren't just making this nonsense up.

Tokie?

Tokie?

Or, you know, you could always argue that evil lefty Google has SUPPRESSED these news articles now that they've done their evil pro-Hillary work.

(By the way, does anyone else suspect that Tokie is a rabid lefty who is performing this act of flagrant stupidity just to discredit the right?)

Corsair 115

29th November 2007, 01:08 PM

Because Canada is a HUGE petroleum producer and their massive oilsands project and other gas and oil drilling projects are working double-overtime, they are drawing tens of thousands of USians...and (gasp!!) Mehicans and other Latinos to those jobs, and the "meniul" jobs that support them.The economy of Alberta is indeed booming. The economy of Ontario, being more manufacturing based, is not. The Canadian dollar topping the U.S. also makes it more attractive for an American to work in Canada than it was when the Canadian dollar was worth substantially less that the American dollar.

To name another sector, the U.S. insistence on not abiding by the terms of NAFTA and still slapping illegal tariffs on Canadian softwood lumber isn't helping our lumber industry; the rise of the Canadian dollar and the slump in the U.S. housing (thanks in large measure due to lax U.S. regulations and dubious banking practices) only compounds the problem.

JonnyFive

29th November 2007, 01:17 PM

By the way, Tokie, if you need some help finding these "DOOOOOOOOOOM" headlines that you think were everywhere in the MSM--go to the Google "news" page, go to "advanced search." You'll find that you can restrict your searches to a particular date range (say the week before Black Friday). You can type in the search string "black friday." I've done it and I couldn't find any reports in mainstream newspapers like the NYTimes et al. that remotely matched what you claimed was so ubiquitous. Still, I'm sure with your memory of so many DOOOOOOOOM laden headlines you'll quickly find enough examples to prove that you weren't just making this nonsense up.

This is exactly what I did, as I don't follow all the papers very closely at all.

Nothing. A few "estimates are down this year" such stuff, but hardly DOOOOM.

coalesce

29th November 2007, 01:27 PM

Well...look it up, I guess.

Anyway...

These are broad, generally acceptable comparisons: Football games are known not to have a set time like say, soccer or hockey (excluding any overtime); I could've used some other colloquial reference, but we were, if I do not misremember, talking about a football game. We (humans, esp. Americans) commonly, when talking about power consumption, compare it to that needed for a mid-size American city for x-number of days/weeks, etc. Now, if you are not familiar with that form of "measurement" regardless of its inaccurate nature, I can't help that. I am guessing you are familiar with it, and are simply being...what was that word again?

Also, the POINT is not the actual kilowatt hours, the point is um...well, the point. And that is that the candlelit half-time event was all part of NBC's save the friggin planet week or some such.

Now of course, out of your zealous need to believe such codswollop (it's a part of your religion, after all) you MUST play at being too obtuse to understand all this (or maybe you are not American) and harrumph, and pull at your bow tie, straighten your lab coat and say, "haruumph, ah, er...in fact, as we see from this chart comparing overall energy consumption (averaged) for the greater Toledo metropolitan area, when compared to that of Giants stadium for a like period of time, we find that...."

Sheesh.

You must be fun at parties.

Tokie

Actually, I am a great deal of fun at parties, sans bow tie and lab coat, thank you very much.

As a football fan since 1974, I am well aware of the average length of a football game, which is why I brought up the issue where you're trying to make a point about power consumption and the average length of a game, which you said it's something like 10 hours. You later then admitted that you "guess" they last 6-10 hours since you really don't watch football. I though it odd to bring up a comparison where you don't even know what one or both of the values are, yet you still rely upon these inaccuracies to make a point. How does my--or anyone--asking for clarification about a viewpoint you support be construed as being obtuse? For all I know, you could be 100% right about the power consumption comparison between, say, Giants stadium and Toledo (lesser or greater). All I ask is the basis of your view. In other words, prove it. After 1,000+ posts here, I would imagine you would be familiar with the idea that the person who makes a claim is incumbent to provide the proof.

Michael

Hokulele

29th November 2007, 01:35 PM

Actually, I am a great deal of fun at parties, sans bow tie and lab coat, thank you very much.

As a football fan since 1974, I am well aware of the average length of a football game, which is why I brought up the issue where you're trying to make a point about power consumption and the average length of a game, which you said it's something like 10 hours. You later then admitted that you "guess" they last 6-10 hours since you really don't watch football. I though it odd to bring up a comparison where you don't even know what one or both of the values are, yet you still rely upon these inaccuracies to make a point. How does my--or anyone--asking for clarification about a viewpoint you support be construed as being obtuse? For all I know, you could be 100% right about the power consumption comparison between, say, Giants stadium and Toledo (lesser or greater). All I ask is the basis of your view. In other words, prove it. After 1,000+ posts here, I would imagine you would be familiar with the idea that the person who makes a claim is incumbent to provide the proof.

Michael

Super Bowl party at coalesce's! I'll bring the guacamole and chips!

TC, your habit of throwing out incorrect tidbits and hyperbole on topics you admit to knowing little about (football and Toledo) gives readers the impression that you will throw out incorrect tidbits and hyperbole on topics you haven't yet admitted to knowing little about. Just sayin'.

coalesce

29th November 2007, 03:46 PM

Super Bowl party at coalesce's! I'll bring the guacamole and chips!

TC, your habit of throwing out incorrect tidbits and hyperbole on topics you admit to knowing little about (football and Toledo) gives readers the impression that you will throw out incorrect tidbits and hyperbole on topics you haven't yet admitted to knowing little about. Just sayin'.

Well, now, you're just being obtuse, too!

And by all means, Super Bowl party at my house! I'll make the wings!

Michael

Jeff Corey

29th November 2007, 04:07 PM

(By the way, does anyone else suspect that Tokie is a rabid lefty who is performing this act of flagrant stupidity just to discredit the right?)
Not a rabid lefty, but that guy at the end of the bar who is spewing a rant with all Tokie's capitalized words being screamed out in an extended. "LLLLLIIIINNNNKKKKK!". And everybody else sits as far away as possible.
And you say to the bartender, "Ralph, WTF is with that guy?"
"Dunno. He came in this afternoon, was OK. Pounded down a few JD rocks, and Hillary Clinton came on CNN. Then he went batshot. Cut him off. He's 86 and I got his picture on my phone for the other bartenders."

bruto

29th November 2007, 06:43 PM

There's no contradiction: you are a lib, therefore you first, believe what your left-advocacy media says (you will dismiss the more centrist/factual FoxNews out of hand because "they are Murdoch's rightwingnutjob mouthpiece!!!! Everybody knows that!!!") while accepting as objective to a fault well-known leftst agitprop factories like NPR.

If you are lying about it, then I guess it would not be inaccurate to CALL you a liar.

As a matter of fact, if you are a liberal, you MUST lie about a great many things to maintain that level of intellectual dishonesty. See, inherent to the conotative and denotative meaning of "dishonesty" is "lying." I can't help what you are. If you don't want to be called a liar...don't lie!

The left-liberal media always--ALWAYS--spins things economic to the dark side, and esp. so WHEN they are attempting to help liberals "take back" the country.

Do you remember how many "homeless" there were in January of 1993? Some counts put the numbers at a bit above our current population of illegals: 40 million.

On January 21, 1993 the number was: 0

Now...what changed--overnight, apparently--between 1/20/93 and 1/21/03 to cause this?

And your media has only gotten more obviously left-advocacy since coming especially unhinged since the Rs "stole" the election in 2000 and again in 2004.

Now, the left-ADVOCACY media is doing all it can to help leftist retain what leftists believe is theirs by birthright: power. So they are doing everything they can to make it APPEAR as if the economy is in a virtual nosedive.

REAL numbers show just the opposite. A nice, steady, healthy economic growth of between 4-7% generally. Now, of course, you have to avg. this number over time...at least a year. But every week or two, if it dips a bit (everyone with a brain knows that growth dips seaonally for a variety of reasons) then the left-advocacy media reports like this: "growth took a turn downward!!!" or at best they will spin it like this ""growth was not as much as had been anticipated!!!"