How will an economic collapse affect the RV/TT lifestyle?

[shantz]

This ride had to end and I am so against handing 800 billion over to these firms to prop tem up knowing full well that our houses were way overvalued to begin with and now we are socializing the losses. Anyway. Prepare for home prices to come back to reality, prepare for the US to have to pay our bills and prepare for more socialization of everything from our economic system,govt, businesses, and medical care.
We really got caught up in CONSUMPTION and the whole world depended on the wild spending habits of the US.
Focus on things that are really important like god, family, friends, fellowship. You can still enjoy and go camping if you plan it right.

[TomR]

Originally Posted by Fancy Nancy

Things are pretty bad for your cousin to the North also. Our gas is 30% more expensive, we just lost 20% on the TSX in the last 10 days and, with the price of oil, we are going to freeze our fannies off this winter as things get pretty cold up here.

Hey Nancy...my wife's mother is from Saint John, NB. We visited there a couple of years ago and had a very nice time with her Canadian relatives.

I told her a few days ago that we may have to move to Canada if things don't get better...now you've ruined my hopes

We, I guess Northern Minnesota is "almost" Canada anyway...maybe you can annex us?? Tom R in Two Harbors, Minnesota

[Gene]

Yes, Denis, the GI Bill helped a lot, but what party got it passed? I seem to remember it was opposed by the other party, but correct me if I am wrong. It helped that we were a creditor, not a debtor, nation after WW II (along with Argentina and S. Africa, the only ones in the world then).

I too am skeptical about promises made by politicians—hold your nose, hope for the best and pull the lever (though now we blacken a circle here). One party might do a better job than the other, maybe a lot better. Hope is what keeps me voting.

Correction—the Canadian dollar sank lately without telling me. It's now around 90¢. We can go to Canada again! Whoops, we have to finally get those damn passports. It used to be you needed a passport to get into other countries, not into your own. Maybe they should just tatoo a number on our wrists (whoops again, that's what they did in the Nazi concentration camps).

Gene

[Jim & Susan]

A more important reason that the United States economy boomed in the post war period is probably because the rest of the developed world was in shambles. 50 million people were killed in that war. 25 million in the Soviet Union alone and most of the rest in Europe. All of Europe was basically destroyed, as was Japan. 80% of the entire worlds’ manufacturing capacity was in the United States in 1946. When you’re the only game in town…. It took a couple of decades for Europe to get back on its feet and Japan was intentionally held at bay by the Allies out of fear that they might rearm.

The G.I. Bill of Rights was a very important factor in America after the war. I wish I could remember the numbers, but IIRC, the number of college graduates something like quadrupled in the first decade after the war. Lots of educated folks plus a large market with few suppliers made for a perfect situation at the time. It certainly isn’t like that any more, eh?

BTW, what is TSX? Is that "Canadian" for "exchange rate"?

Jim

[Silverwanabe]

This thread is making me depressed

Are we heading for a "Great Depression" so to speak???

Every since Sept 11th, things do not "feel" right.

Or is it me?

[Jim & Susan]

Hey Greg, I have a brother-in-law in Winston named Greg. If it'll make you feel any better, Dirty Jobs is on Discovery right now. Mike Rowe is cleaning bird poop off a 130' tall main mast on an three masted ship. Funny stuff!

And I agree, since 911, it's been really weird.

Jim

[Blevi]

The posts the past few days make me compelled to repeat what I posted about 3 weeks ago. Make time to see the documentary I.O.U.S.A. It is a tremendous film about the nature and scope of our current debt and the unfunded future liabilities several of you have mentioned recently.
Former Commerce Secretary Pete Peterson became so concerned about this problem he created a foundation with a personal contribution of a billion dollars to try to create awareness. If you won't take the time to see the movie, please spend some time on the web site I.O.U.S.A.: The Movie
There is a wealth of information including a very easy to read and understand copy of the State of The Union finances which include a section of what you can do to become involved in a solution.
All this spending is of course prior to the nonsense of the past few months.

[Gene]

Jim, TSX is Toronto Stock Exchange.

I'm trying not to think of stock exchanges, but then I turn on CNBC or Bloomberg and at any time of day or night I can look at Nikkei, Shanghai, Hong Kong, CAC, FTSE, DAX, Dow futures, and a bunch of others usually going down, down, down. It's depressing, but not quite as depressing as Mike Rowe. Remember when the History channel had history and Discovery wasn't reality TV?

It's time for that difficult discussion of where we can cut expenses since dividends are starting to be cut, thus our income drops. What are the first things we think about—long trips, restaurants, fancy foods, new clothes (what do retirees need anyway?—sweat pants or jeans for dress up and a T shirt). If everyone does that, this consumption based economy isn't going to recover soon. If we don't buy all that stuff from China, how are they going to buy our bonds?

Gene

[ROBERT CROSS]

Originally Posted by CrawfordGene

Remember when the History channel had history and Discovery wasn't reality TV?
Gene

The last History show on TV was Victory at Sea, and the last host of a reality show was Buffalo Bob Smith.

[purman]

Originally Posted by ROBERT CROSS

What we need is a good war to fix the economy....

WHAT??...we already have two.

Never mind..

" NO NO NO"

You were right the first time We need a good war not two bad ones....

[COArgosy78]

I'm not a political animal & not affiliated w/a particular party - but there is much to be concerned about these days (especially if in a certain age bracket, it seems) & I am trying to be as informed as I can possibly be. In that light, I thought I would post this here for anyone else who is like minded. It was e-mailed to me.

Burning Down The House: What Caused Our Economic Crisis? V2

[IndyAnne]

The RV manufacturing in Elkhart, IN is closing down. That's not Airstream (we seem to be doing OK, but I do see a lot of for sale signs in the classifieds, especially on the diesel MH ASs), but it's still meaningful. I'm rehabbing a vintage AS, a project that requires sometimes making do with what is currently available from the SOB industry. I got replacement hubs and tires from Elkhart. I bought my AC from an Elkhart discounter; I was saving up for new beds and bath fixtures from a discounter in Elkhart. Most troubling is that behind these manufacturer and vendor losses are the people who will no longer have jobs. Watch for fire sale discounts once the mfg. close for good.

My $.02
Anne

[IndyAnne]

On Burning Down the House: Convenient to blame the poor.

[Jim Foster]

Originally Posted by IndyAnne

On Burning Down the House: Convenient to blame the poor.

My wife was in charge of loan computer systems for a locally owned bank in Sacramento during the time that lending institutions were not only allowed, but encouraged to to make "sub-prime" loans to people who should not have borrowed. We called it "creative financing". It was done to create "affordable housing".

The only way the bank was able to avoid the pressure to make these loans was to get out of the home loan business all together, and that's exactly what they did.

Lynn and I thought at the time that at some later date, all of that would come home to roost. Well, it did, and in a big way.

Adding to that huge problem, is the massive credit card debt taken on by people who have no idea how they will ever pay it off. This problem is yet to be addressed.

We think that many of the people who can not pay their home mortgages, are the same people who can not pay their credit card debt.

So, hang on, there may be another bump in the credit road ahead.

[flashbackk]

Originally Posted by COArgosy78

I'm not a political animal & not affiliated w/a particular party -

Dude ,,, maybe if you had left this comment out and just just posted this as purely political, it would not be so bad. It's a very very slanted take of what happened.

[Gene]

I agree with Jim in #174 credit card debt is another issue no one wants to talk about.

I have read how credit card companies are lowering debt limits for people with good credit who pay their charges off every month, so I can imagine what they are doing to people with average credit. The credit card companies, like the mortgage industry, has been sticking it to people with excessive fees and charges and arbitrary interest hikes for years, so when the economy is stressed, the whole system tends to collapse under a wave of defaults. It's easy to stick it to people when there are few defaults, but there's a point when it cascades and the credit card or mortgage company does not have the capital to make it through the recession or near depression.

A lot of people have overspent and who has set the example?—the government. A political party that has always preached responsibility in spending promoted reckless spending while reducing income. The Baby Boomers seem to be in charge and they sure love credit and spending. What kind of example did the government set in the past 8 years? Shop after 9/11, and rely on unregulated mortgage companies to create new financial instruments to fuel the housing boom—unfortunately it was made of magical paper. It was really no different than a government printing money and debasing the currency to pay its debts.

They relied on the Laffer Curve, an untested theory that basically says the lower taxes are, the more income will be produced and thus, more taxes will be collected. It is true that if the government taxes too much, so much money may be removed from the economy that tax receipts will drop. There was no evidence that this has happened in the US. We may have high corporate tax rates on paper, but there are so many loopholes, the US real corporate tax rate is very low and the US is rated as one of the most desirable places in the world to do business. When government tax and spending policies were based on the Laffer Curve, US public debt skyrocketed and we were told to spend, spend, spend. So we did.

Another thing to think about is where the government spends money. If that money is invested in things that enhance the economy and produce wealth, then the entire community benefits. If it is invested in things that don't do that, it is a drain. A bridge to nowhere obviously produces little wealth and the same is true of many, but not all, earmarks. But earmarks are a miniscule part of the budget.

Military spending is a major part of the budget. It does provide jobs, but a lot of the money goes to fancy toys (I'd like to have a supersonic jet plane too) and munitions—that does little to help the economy because the goal is to destroy things. In fact, we destroy them and then we rebuild whatever country we destroyed. Wars have become extremely expensive and we have to ask whether we can afford them. Maybe one, but two? So, don't we have to ask whether national security requires a military as expensive as the one we have? As an investment, can we afford the wars we have been sold?

Another government investment is making sure old people have decent health and income. How much would it cost society as a whole if old people didn't have Medicare and Social Security? Could their children afford it (they often cannot afford their own health care)? What if they didn't have children? Do we want to bring back the (wholly inadequate) Poor Houses run by counties before the 1930's? Of course, there's a moral question involved here too.

What about roads? Before the automobile, the US had a pathetic road system. Commerce relied on railroads and shipping. Some roads were toll roads, thus limiting how many people could use them. A very effective interurban trolley system was built in the more populated states (now we are recreating it). The AAA and other auto lobbying groups convinced the feds and the states to build a non-toll modern highway system. Commerce increased amazingly because efficient communication is necessary for a modern economy. The creation of the interstate highway system was one of the major accomplishments of the mid-20th century and had similar results.

But since then, we have not invested in such communication. Some want to go back to the inefficient toll road system of the 19th century. And, we have not invested in information communication. Early in the 20th century, vast areas of the country did not have phones or electricity. The people were struggling in great poverty—in America's rural areas the Depression started in the early 1920's. Under the New Deal, the government helped bring telephones and electricity to rural America. I get my electricity from an electric co-op. It is cheaper and more reliable than any for-profit electric company I bought electricity from before I moved here. Now, however, there has been little government investment in making sure all of the country has cheap, reliable information communication. Many of us also get TV from cable or satellite companies that overcharge and underperform—no meaningful regulation.

The poor made bad judgments, but those judgments were no worse than those made by the middle class and the rich. Some people kept saying this can't work, but they were ignored or shouted down. The governing class too often pander. What a good party it was! The hangover is brutal.

Gene

[craftsman]

We may very well have one of the highest corporate tax rates in the world but what good is it when there are loop holes and corporate welfare in the form of tax brakes and incentives that corporations end up paying less than the average middle class citizen as a percentage of income. Because people rely on the major networks ( owned by the same large corporations) for almost all their news, it's no wonder it starts sounding like a broken record. I would say that there is a sizable portion of the population sleep walking though life basically parrotting what they hear on the nightly news and considering themselves informed .

[Boondocker]

Oddly enough, in the current situation diesel is coming down. If the price continues to drop (or at least stays where it is) I will be able to enjoy my AS. Yes, I did travel all summer this year, but it was on a severe budget and there were lots of things I would have liked to do that I was unable to due to diesel at $4.90 a gallon.

[Jim Foster]

The price of fuel does seem to be coming down. One factor is surely the economic situation.
I think another factor may be the push to get off of oil.
Think about this........If you had control of all of the oil, whether here or somewhere else in the world, and you ran the price way up, as it has done, then the users not only talk about using something else, but start using other sources of energy, as is happening all over the world right now, what would you do with the price? Would you want to be stuck with oil that nobody needed to buy?

If you have a product that you need to sell in order to exist, and that is all you have to sell, the mere thought of your customers going to some other product should scare the daylights out of you.

How many products that you buy, other than oil, are exported from the middle east? They may just find themselves over the barrel, so to speak.

[Stefrobrts]

Originally Posted by CrawfordGene

Now, however, there has been little government investment in making sure all of the country has cheap, reliable information communication. Many of us also get TV from cable or satellite companies that overcharge and underperform—no meaningful regulation.

An interesting point to this is that ten years ago many citys started looking into setting up wireless internet that would have open city-wide coverage. But companies that wanted to sell everyone internet services complained/sued/ did whatever they needed to do to shut those systems down. Last I heard some citys that had got it going were dismantling their systems. So our city has almost no free internet access points, but the city did feel it was wise to invest in building a failing hotel and a failing ampetheater (an open outdoor performance space in the rainy NW - what a great idea). Gobs of our tax money spent to prop up corporations with a poor business plan to start with, instead of spending just a tiny fraction of those amounts offering a service which should be considered a basic need in our high-tech age.

I had thought by this point we'd be able to go anywhere with our trailer and just turn on the laptop and get wireless, check maps, catch up on news. Still waiting.