Do you personally feel that economy goes down?

[temnov]

European music goods (plug-ins, monitors, pre-amps, etc) cost more, you have less customers in your studio than before, in your district you can see more houses for sale than you

[Dean Roddey]

The problem is overplayed in the media, as always. Bad times are when a large number of parts of the economic system are going south at once, which isn't the case here. This is an anomolous problem caused by overly speculative activity a while back. It's not a generally heading south economy. Unemployment is low and other economic indicators are not plunging rapidly that I've heard. It's sad for the people affected, and it's even worse that everyone else has to suffer with them for their past activity. But I don't think we are heading for any sort of meltdown. And those of us who sell 'frictionless' products, like software, can immediately benefit from increased overseas sales as the cost of our product goes down in other places, and help balance the trade deficit a bit.

[franknputer]

I think you're oversimplifying things a bit - the oil market is also biting every sector of the economy in the ass, at the same time that all of this speculation comes home to roost. Food prices are rising, along with the costs of durable goods - and when all that goes up there's less discretionary spending, etc. etc.

 

Overplayed or not, I'm sure as hell feeling the economic crunch.

[rasputin1963]

It was devastating when the Texas oil industry bottomed out in 1987. Why? Before that, there was a very large ultra-rich class in Texas who were always throwing parties... I myself had a great ($$$) party to play every weekend.

In 1987, much of Texas very rich lost their shirts, and things have never really been the same, as best I can see it.

In the 1970's, Texans spent money like it was water, and did so with a big smile on their faces.... now they are more judicious. Music is traditionally a "luxury item", is it not?

[the stranger]

 

The problem is overplayed in the media, as always.

 

 

Yeah, sure.

[Ernest Buckley]

As a musician who has to commute, I feel it everytime I put gas in my car. As a musician who also makes some extra cash on the side selling real estate, I feel it. Yeah the media definitely makes things out for the worse but I`m still feeling the effects on my wallet every month even w/o watching the news or reading the papers.

[Philter]

Restaurants around here are closing down one after another, and the malls are like ghost towns compared to the past. I notice less traffic on the roads, especially at times away from rush hour (discretionary driving.) Seeing a fair number of empty store fronts.

[amplayer]

Here in New England, I think the general economy must not be too bad (yet). I haven't seen many store closings, and the malls are completely packed, and there's just as much traffic as ever.

However, I have noticed the impact of rising gas and grocery prices, which is also driving up a lot of other costs. For musicians, the one business I have noticed having more closings and less opportunities is the clubs. It's harder and harder for working musicians around here.

 

Personally, I think it's just insane for the Federal government to be borrowing from our kids and grandkids to send us $600 each. I just don't see $600 making much of a difference in the economy, and there's no way that much will turn it around. I also think lowering interest rates is BAD as well. It's causing the dollar to sink dramatically compared to other economies that have higher interest rates. The dollar drop is also a LARGE part of the rise in oil/gas and commodities. Plus, the ridiculously low interest rates are a part of the reason for the speculation and predatory lending that created our current mortgage crisis.

[bbach]

I think the ecomony affects us all to a point no matter your occupation. However, I'm a believer that attitude goes along way with rolling along the ups and downs of business. Economic up and downturns are inevitable, and some worse than others. Recessions and depressions are likely. You gotta believe you can survive them.

[Ernest Buckley]

To me its not a matter of attitude...

 

In larger cities (like here in NY), there is such a high cost to living today compared to when my folks were my age, its easy to see why so many younger people (-40) are waiting to get married, have kids and buy a house. Its almost impossible to do it if you are not making $150,000 a year and thats living comfortably.

 

Obviously comfortable is relative but here in NYC a $150,000/yr might get you a house for $500,000 and that does not mean the schools are worthy enough to send you kids there. Maybe my big city mindset has got me down but there are many issues besides the economy that I`m concerned about. The high cost of living is kicking many people out of the city and thats a shame.

 

I could go one but I`m not an economist so much of my input would be just personal experience...

[Richard King]

I own a commercial building here (anyone want to put a studio in a 1150 to 2300 square foot wide open space in sunny Florida? ). The building is 1/3 occupied. It was 100% before being destroyed by hurricane Jeanne in 2004 http://www.pbase.com/rking401/420_1st_street_damage&page=all. Since the substantial completion of the rebuilding of local hurricane damage and the fall of the new construction business, the building industry, and those related to it, here has fallen on hard times. Many of the renters in my building were building industry related, and so, I am being directly effected.

 

The dollar drop is also a LARGE part of the rise in oil/gas and commodities.

You beat me to it. Another large part of the cause of food price increases is the REDICULOUS insistance on pushing ethanol down the throats of the American people and, at the same time restricting (refusing) its import from other countries.

 

predatory lending that created our current mortgage crisis.

I just don't get this. The government has for many years been encouraging lending money to people who wouldn't normally qualify for loans in order to get more people into home ownership. The mortgage industry has also been making such loans for many years. Finally, the whole thing collapses and it's the mortgage industry that gets the bad name. If the government had stayed out of the picture from the begining the RE business wouldn't be in the mess that it is. The overbuilding here is totally out of line with reality. If not for government "encouraged" loans this wouldn't have happened. It's great to have a goal of having every family own their own home, but there are some people who simply can't handle the responsibility.

[blue2blue]

I don't think the media are overplaying our economic troubles... if anything, they're underreporting them.

 

(Which, frankly, is OK with me... we don't need any more panic... look at what happened to Bear Stearns over one weekend. That huge ass company was wiped out in a few days simply by lack of confidence.)

 

I'm a fiscal conservative and as any fiscal conservative will tell you, we're sitting on a volcano of debt. The disastrous misadventure in Iraq and the extraordinary incompetence of the current leadershp have combined with an overreaching misuse of money-printing have created a trap for the US economy it will not long escape. (By money-printing, of course, I mean the continued lowering of interest rates trying to gin up the economy and the enormous and steadily growing government borrowing -- which simply pushes the day of reckoning into the future and means that that day will be much, much worse than if we had had responsible economic leadership in the WH, Congress, and at the Fed).

 

We have entered a serious spiral of inflation, and now that a lot of the big ticket manufactured goods from China -- that have finished off a lot of US manufacturers -- are finally going up in price, the chickens are coming home to roost. And they're nasty, mean little things with evil eyes, long talons and serrated beaks. This will not be pretty.

 

We can continue to try to artificially extend the economy but the fundamentals can't be denied.

[Super 8]

I feel it whenever I go to the pump mostly. But I only drive when I have to, so I fill up roughly once every 3 weeks.

The cost of living in my area really isn't too bad, and we're not mortgaged to our necks. Our jobs are drought and famine resistant, so I think we'll manage.

 

 

Personally, I think it's just insane for the Federal government to be borrowing from our kids and grandkids to send us $600 each. I just don't see $600 making much of a difference in the economy, and there's no way that much will turn it around.

 

 

I don't really understand why anyone would be against this, but if you don't want your $600 I'll be glad to take it.

Mine is going right back into the economy to buy a new dishwasher. But I understand a lot of people will just sign the check over to pay down their Visa cards, so it won't make much of difference for them. What's the average credit card debt now? 7-8 grand?

[blue2blue]

Almost everything I pay money for has increased. Obviously, the gas pump is one place -- but I've cut my driving way down, already.

 

Where I really see it is at the supermarket. It seems like every time I go in there, something is signficantly higher -- often as much as 15 or 20% higher -- none of this 5% inflation crap. I mean, we are talking serious upward spiral with a number basic commodities costing close to double what they did a year or two ago.

 

Hell, I'm even seeing it with regard to things like web hosting, particularly with low-margin hosting. It might only be a few bucks to the client -- but these increases are running over 10% in most cases in just the course of a year.

 

 

And I have to say that I'm REALLY getting sick of hearing these BOGUS, jury-rigged inflation rates they design not to scare folks (by removing key-elements and constantly changing the baseline to prevent proper comparisons).

[Dean Roddey]

 

I don't think the media are overplaying our economic troubles... if anything, they're underreporting them.

 

 

Well, I think that they always underplay the long term issues we need to grapple with, since that's not sexy and they can't splash big headlines about those things, then they overplay short term issues, which just makes those short term issues worse. We live in a semi-unregulated economic world, so it's goign to cycle back and forth. It's inevitable. But, despite the fact that it does it over and over again, and that within a few years it's starting back up again, everyone always seems to think that the world is coming to an end every time it starts the downward part of the cycle again.

 

I'm not trying to underplay the pain this causes people, and us Americans most of all because we don't save and therefore every down part of the cycle becomes a crisis. But it's just the nature of the cyclical beast, not a sign of collapse.

[dahkter]

 

Well, I think that they always underplay the long term issues

 

 

I agree, anything more than 2 years in the future, people don't want to discuss. The US Government is in a state of denial regarding social security and medicaid. This article was a real eye opener to me:

 

http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/03/26/beck.deficit/index.html

[Dean Roddey]

What kills me is that so often the solutions are just completely common sense, but we don't have any common sense unfortunately. We make these cycles worse because, when things are up, we spend like crazy and make the bubble bigger so that, when it finally pops, it's worse than it would be and we don't have anything to cushion it.

 

If instead we saved a lot during the up cycles, then the bubble would be much smaller. When the down cycle started, it would be milder (generally), and we would have savings to draw on, so that spending wouldn't be nearly so badly effected, which would prevent the down cycle from being so deep and prevent so much unemployment from occurring. So there'd be less panic, and that in and of itself would make the down cycle shallower. As the down cycle started and prices dropped, people could pick up large ticket items at lower prices by drawing on their savings, and get good deals and that desire to buy when the price is low would also contribute to a shallowing of the down cycle.

 

Obviously there are external influences that would sometimes make either phase of the cycle more intense, so it's not a foolproof method. But, generally speaking, this utterly common sense approach would make things so much better. But almost all the pressures are applied to get us to do the opposite of what is in our long term best interests. We do exactly the opposite of what every investment analyst tells us. We buy high and sell low.

[Dean Roddey]

I should say here that maybe my point of view is different because of the fact that I've been running a startup company (of the self-bootstrapping type) since 2002. So I've been living on the edge of disaster for years now, with no health insurance, and working 7x12 or more for basically just survival money. So maybe I've become inured to economic risk.

[Anderton]

The oil aspect is huge. Sure, it costs more to gas up your car. But it costs more to send anything from one place to another, whether by truck, plane, or ship (see the price of diesel lately?). That's a big part of why food prices are going up, coupled with the cost of fuel to run tractors, irrigation, etc. Oil is used in just about all plastics, and in many things we don't even consider. As oil goes up, everything goes up.

[temnov]

In this situation, will people attend more concert shows, buy more music - CDs or downloads - go to movies just to forget for some time about their problems? Will they create a "personal" mental and emotional cocoon?

 

In years of depression in previous decades a lot of good music and artists emerged, I think more than in good times. I heard a phrase

[Dean Roddey]

Certainly the cost of oil might finally create the incentives to push forward various other alternative energy technologies, since they will become more cost effective. Gas has always been far lower priced here than in Europe, and that has limited the interest in alternatives. There's no one magic bullet on the alternative energy source front, but with wide adoption of various technologies we could do a lot to help reduce our dependence on foreign energy. And it'll probably be sufficient to overcome the anti-nuclear feelings in this country.

[amplayer]

 

The government has for many years been encouraging lending money to people who wouldn't normally qualify for loans in order to get more people into home ownership. The mortgage industry has also been making such loans for many years. Finally, the whole thing collapses and it's the mortgage industry that gets the bad name. If the government had stayed out of the picture from the begining the RE business wouldn't be in the mess that it is. The overbuilding here is totally out of line with reality. If not for government "encouraged" loans this wouldn't have happened. It's great to have a goal of having every family own their own home, but there are some people who simply can't handle the responsibility.

 

 

Um, actually I agree with you on this. However, even though the government had it's ugly hands in helping create this problem, there are some lenders who knowingly lent to people they knew were at risk to have a problem with it. The best example of this the issuance of ARMs to people with shady income and/or credit, and then having BIG penalties for early payoff (i.e., refinancing). Plus, many of these loans were made to people with such extremely poor math skills that they didn't understand the shark nature of the agreement.

Mind you, I still think it's mostly a problem with the buyers of these loans, and not the lenders, but there are definitely some lenders who share in the blame for this debacle.

 

One thing is sure. If Hillary or Obama take the White House in November, and then make good on their promises to "fix" the mortgage crisis, the long term problem will get much worse. Taxpayers shouldn't be forced to foot the bill for a problem primarily created by the government (and certain lenders) and exasperated by stupid and/or greedy buyers.

[rasputin1963]

 

In years of depression in previous decades a lot of good music and artists emerged, I think more than in good times. I heard a phrase

[Richard King]

My two favorite eras for American popular music were during World War II (1939--1945) and during the Viet Nam era (roughly 1966--1972).

I can agree with you on the second time slot, in fact I would probably agree on both, with 1939-45 being the boom time for big bands, a type of music that I enjoy very much (just not as much as the music from '66-'72). I can recall as a young punk, my father playing big band records all the time, and myself, being rebellious at the time rejecting that music. Now I look back and realize how stupid that really was and I would love to get my hands on some of his old records. One day I will have to go through all his "stuff" and see if I can find any of the old records (33's and 78's).

[Dean Roddey]

Though, to be fair, the second one didn't have so much to do with economic as political issues.