O/T They forgot to tell us

I drove North through Columbia, Mo. this afternoon. Dead center of MO., Center of US, pretty close. I guess someone forgot to them them the economy was in bad shape. New subdivisions everywhere, strip malls going up, New bank buildings, They were widening N763, concrete truck everywhere, cranes, workers. Looked like a human bee colony of workers. I had to buy gas and danged near had to wait in line to get a pump. It was 5:20pm and the place was packed with construction workers getting fuel for their trucks and a 12 pack.

No long faces around here.


Gene

Sounds like they are boycott'n the recession like alot of rual America is.

Glad for'm!

Dave

Were they working fast enough on the buildings to have more value through construction, than loss of value through our present economic situation?

If you really listen to the reports on the news and read enough trade magazines you"ll see that the economy screwed up mainly in the housing sector. When it comes to "infrastructure" projects such as water and sewer and road building it"s still mostly on track. Too the commercial and medical side of things isn"t doing all that bad either with hospital related buildings (medical villages they call them around here) and strip malls going up everywhere.

I see the all of this everyday within 10 miles of my house. There are several large housing development sites that are like ghost towns, There are some that never got beyond the underground utility stage and then some with maybe one or two houses with people living in them and a club house that"s not finished, unpaved roads washed out, etc etc. Then a few miles away there is fresh ground being cleared for a new strip mall (retail space), a Presbiterian Healthcare "medical village", and a few more miles from that a new grocery store and another "medical village" for another hospital.

What I can"t understand about this is with the economy so tanked where are we gonna find the money to spend in these new malls. I can understand the hospital building since I know the medical field is always gonna be booming. Heck they have a pill nowdays to "cure" everything but being broke from buying all those pills, etc. and even lacking a cure they probably have something to make you just not care that your broke....

Like you said I see the bad economy in the slowdown of our business (construction equipment repair) due to fewer machines working and breaking, as well as in the ability of the people we do work for to pay their bills due to lack of being paid themselves from the primary contractors. Beyond that though things don"t seem as bad as they make them out to be on the nightly news.

North of Indy on I 69 at the 10 mile marker or at St. Rt. 238 a strip mall was built quite a few years ago. It was never used except for an amish furniture store. Now I'm told the strip mall was torn down to build a hospital. Obviously some stores are built on prospect. Building, not using and tearing down-- I'm too dumb to understand the economics. Oh yeah... and Indy is tearing down their old dome stadium since they now have a new one.

The smart money builds during a slowdown when they can get better deals on material and labor. Observe where the building is going on now becaue that's where the growth will be when things turn up again.

I watched that happen at the Lake of the Ozarks during the last big downturn but didn't have big enough money to buy in.

they can build it..... BUT WILL THEY COME????

(field of dreams....and every other builder's philosophy...... if you build it, they will come)

The company I work for is the largest one of its kind in the world. Tuesday they announced an emergency freeze on all capital, freeze on hiring, promotions, transfers and travel, etc. My sister is an RN at a large hospital. They closed one whole floor and laid off nurses. People are holding off on elective surgeries etc.
My dad always said that no matter how hard times are they always build two things: banks and insurance bulidings, because they make it off the gov't. That may not hold true now.

Hey, if things are going well in your area, count your blessings.
Housing was crazy out here; condo"s just coming on line aren"t selling, some being converted to apts, one in builders liens foreclosure. Local banks that weren"t big enough to jump on the ninja mtg gravy train made land loans to developers instead, now getting the land back, except--guess what??--suddenly worth a lot less than the bank loaned...well, it was fun while it lasted!

I was just reading an article about Allen Greenspan.
Looks like he is taking it on the chin for all the problems we are having.
He provided artificially low interest rates wile at the same time championing the derivitives. that allowed mortgage sellers to sell bad loans and then dump them off on the derivitive market.
With no goverment over sight.

He some how believed that wallstreet could police its self. I read that part and said to my self " Are you friggin nuts!!!!" A bunch of greedy,live for the moment, money grubbers could never police them selfs. Never.

Basicly too low of interest rates allowed prices to soar past levels that would normally happen, wile mortgage sellers could write mortgages to people who wouldnt normally be able to qualify for those loans. No risk for them just dump them off on the derivatives market and spend your check.

How stupid can these smart people be?
Looks like one of the dummies was the guy managing my 401K.

Yeah well you didnt ask the guy buying the fuel for that construction equipment how happy he was now did you?I bet you wouldnt be happy then either,and you might even have a black eye and maybe more than that.

I cant believe that you are trying to spin something like this?Guess you didnt know harvest was on,diesel still high,gas coming down?Yeah you can try to act like nothings going on,but thats right deceptive of you now isnt it?If you dont know theres a problem you think it excuses you from having guts enough to admit it,and try and fix it?No it doesnt excuse it,ignorance is no excuse,and if you need medical care,or have to go to court in Missouri,see what that costs you.That will wipe that smile right off your face.You make me mad,dont you have kids?Do you want them to have a terrible place to live from all this when you pass away?Nobody is going to defend this crap and gutlessly get away with it,especially after that bailout.Thats just too much spin.I hope we never see a bunch as stupid as we have in Jefferson City again.I cant believe the people of Missouri would even vote for this trash.Probably didnt,probably was a stolen election here like in Ohio too.At least we did get rid of that worthless Talent,should have been the rest of them as well,and if you think different,I dont even care what you think because you are wrong and would know it if you had any sense.All the problems I am talking about are coming from your side and everybody knows it except you maybe.

T- 40 ain't you just a ray of sunshine and sweetness?