If things don't start to pick up in this economy. I'm not sure people have a full grasp of reality on how bad it is. I have worked in the construction industry for 20 years. I have never had a slow time. I build custon cabinets and furniture. I have turned away work for many years. I have several buddies who own cabinet shops around here and they are done for a while. Our local economy is driven on housing, and we better start to realize that it's over for quite a while. I've been fortunate enough to live within my means and can make for a while in this slow time. Fortunatly my wife works and we live a very conservative lifestyle.

It's gonna be a real slap in the face to so many americans who have lived beyond their means for so long. It's gonna sink so many households. The "easy money" is over and most people are gonn ahave to work hard to EARN their money now. Hopefully the world isn't too dumbed down to know how to do another type of work.

i listened to a friend talk the other day about her husband being out of work and not sure when he will go back. I asked her why she didn't get a job as a receptionist doing something to help bring in money to oay bills and feed kids. As she is very well trained in that field. She did a great job for a friend on mine ten years ago as his secretary.

I almost fell over when she replied.........

"I hated doing that reseptionist job"

I don't feel a bit sorry for those people who are looking for a gravy train. Good things come to those who work their ass off for them. especially in times like this.
nobody is too good to flip burgers.

Very well said Kevin...

We're seeing some seriously slow times in our industry too... It is what it is though.

I'm a believer though, things will turn around as soon as the media get's off the high horse freaking everyone out...

Keith

This entire nation has fallen into "living beyond it's means".

Huge credit card debt, Re-Fi the house with an eternal mortgage, everyone making 20 bucks an hour is driving Cadalac Escalades and watching plasma big screens that they bought with the credit card.
Feels like everyone's being flushed down the credit toilet.

I sold my big roomy two story home & now live in a smaller home in the country with no mortgage.

I'd love to spring for the big adventures and some new toys, but I'm in a pretty good place as it is, especially where we are at now.

Feel for guy's who's livlihood becomes dispensible as people cut their budgets.

Hang tough.

I would agree with you 100% if the title wasn't so dead wrong. Our Nation is on the brink and it will make a huge difference. As far as the work goes I agree. Lot's of folks are in for a real wake up call. I have no need to look at a man's skin. The color of his heart is what matters to me. Everybody will have to scramble to survive. The freeloaders will be crying the blues when the Government can't meet their needs. Plant your garden and tend it well. It just might be a cold and long winter. God Bless us all.

I'm not sure that any President can force people to live within their means so long as credit card companys are giving cards to people that can't pay them. What happens when there are no housing starts? contractors don't work.

It's a trickle down effect for everyone. It really is amplified by the poor fishery this fall on the coast. Guides are having a very tough time finding fish. I have only taken two trips this fall and am considering a complete cancelation.

The scary thing is that is is only getting started, the bad economy thing anyway.

The credit junkie boom is over. A good example is AMEX cancelling cards or drastically lowering spending limits this week simply based on who your mortgage is with, where you shop and what you buy. It didnt matter if you had never missed a payment, had a great job and an 800 FICO.

There are new risk formulas coming out very fast right now all across the mortgage and small lending/credit spectrum. They are not friendly to anyone other than the top 10% of ficos, incomes, assets etc...it makes sense though that we are now over-correcting to the conservative side and was one of the biggest issues IMO with the mortgage related issue which has morphed into a much bigger problem.

There was no risk based pricing. You could get a stated income, stated asset 30 yr fixed loan or a zero down interest only loan at the basically the same rate as someone who verified everything. Back in the day it use to be that if you wanted a loan outside the box you PAID THE PRICE for it ie 1-2 or even 3% higher rates. Underwriting and pricing matrices went to shiat, we drank the coolaid and now are finding it was laced with some pretty nasty stuff.

"Dem can walk in Rome, dem just don't do as da Romans do".

I work for a architectural millwork shop in Seattle, we make mouldings, doors, sash and custom cabinets, mostly tending to the high end. We have 25 guys in the manufacturing process. I layed off 6 guys 2 weeks ago and put everybody else on 4 8 hour days a week.

And you're gonna send the rest of those guys home in just a few months. Seattle area has a few more people in it, thus taking a little while longer to see the effect. I good buddy of mine is a painter here and he is tapped to the max on his credit line. Not because he lives beyond his means, but his contractors are 120 days behind on paying. The sad part is they have been stealing from Peter to Pay Paul for the last year. Now my buddy is gonna get hung out to dry. Kinda like all the subs who worked for Randy Sabastian @ Renesanase homes. He left 59 million on the books for his subs and filed chapter 13.

You can pretty well sum this whole mess up on one word, "GREED". Greed on the part of people, Wall Street, Banks, and you name it. It took everyone to come together to create this mess.

I do believe one thing though, the U.S. is a very resiliant country. Despite all of the negatives now, there are a lot of positives, and once panic and speculation has run it's course, common sense will again prevail. Unfortunately there is still a lot of pain to come before that happens.

We're hearing this a lot lateley. In fact GW said this about 10 different ways this morning in an attempt to boost confidence. What does it mean? Can someone please tell me how it's not just cliche? IMO this is like expalining the fear you experience when your drift boat is against a log jam as panic and speculation. Let's be honest...it may be panic but it is also reality. By the way, how much did it boost your confidence to have your president come out and read a prepared speech then have the audacity to walk away without showing the american people (or the world for that matter) any respect by his refusal to answer questions?

What Curious George doesn't instill hope in you and he refused to answer any questions. Dude he wasn't prepared to answer any questions because he didn't have a chance to study them prior to making his speech this morning. Did you expect him to just say the first thing that came into his head. That could have caused PANIC on wall street and you know we don't need that right now. Where are all his followers now? Where is Blue Jay and Lead Bouncer telling you how great he was and how inspired they are to be followers of Bushco.

A person has to be nuts to want to be president under this economic cloud.

I'm in the middle of building a house, and the first hand reports I'm getting from my contractors are grim. My concrete contractor has never missed a payment, but is having difficulty getting concrete delivered from the same vendor he's used for 5 years because the concrete company - a large one at that - is having cash flow issues. My plumber is doing everything he can to hang on to every job he's bid to keep himself scheduled in the coming months. Jobs like my house count because he knows he'll be putting in more time there in a couple months or so after the framing is finished. I had a union carpenter offer to work for $18/hr cash to help me finish some framing while he waits for more contract work to come in. Makes me feel pretty fortunate to have a steady paycheck.

In a way maybe it's good that my construction start was delayed so long. At least I'm helping keep some contractors busy during a time when things look pretty lean for them.

We work mostly in an extreme high end market and those people always seem to have money and we don't extend credit very much, we do progress billings on the big jobs---- million dollars in cabinets for one house.

Salmo G, I feel the same way... Glad to have the steady paycheck. I was having thoughts of making a change as sometimes the stress level gets turned way up at my job. Now is just not the time to be trying to start something that will be risky and not as secure.

I may not love my current job situation but like Kevin said, you just have to work through things sometimes to make it.

Good luck to us all.

I didn't hear Bush this morning and I wasn't refering to anything he said. This country has been through some terrible sh%t over it's history. Start with coming pretty close to losing the Revolutionary War, building our goverment, expanding to the West, figting off the Brittish again, Civil War, WWI, the Great Deprestion, WWII, all of the strife of the 60s etc, etc, etc. As bad as times seem now, they are not as bad as what we have been through before.

Anyone ever walk the fields in Gettysburg or walked through the graveyard where our sodliers and allies are buried after dying during the Bantam Death March? Ever walk through Arlington National Cemetary?

Give me a break, no one is dying in this crisis. There is no body count on the news. The only count is how far the Stock Market has dropped. If you want to see some tough economic times take a look at what is happening in Darfur and other regions of the world.

I don't want to diminish the loss of a job or a home. That is some tough stuff. I am looking at the big picture and I believe that as soon as Americans stop thinking soley about themselves and start working together, rather then trashing and blaming each other, the sooner the good times will return.

God, I can't wait until this election is over.

"God, I can't wait until this election is over."

You and me both.

Imagine a government who in "tough" times cuts war veteran/Armed Forces benefits/pay, takes away it's blue collar (core taxpaying sector), citizen's ability to recieve any type of financial assistance, cut SS and not guarantee retirement funds, or finally as a last resort the ability to file bankruptcy... All the while creating a massive war effort deficit, further promotes corporate welfare/bailouts and engages in partial takeover situations of the private financial sector as times get "tougher".

If things aint running effectively under current leadership, I aint voting for one of two dipsh*ts that will just be showering more candy sprinkles on top of old dog crap. (Save the "no vote, no voice" rhetoric !) We live in a system of such contradiction that it is now impossible to right, it can only be brokenly maintained... "Always the cure, never the prevention" should become our new anthem.

A photo in Bob's killer Skeena post jolted my memory, hard. The one where it's Grandma and family around the kitchen table that says, "they don't make tough like this anymore".
I miss my grandparents, aunts/uncles and all of our family friends that lived hard in America's past, they always smiled. I come from a long line of tough timer's that worked their asses off, lived into their 90's-100's and didn't take f*ckall from lazy asses. Conversley we as an American society today live softly into our 70's, take all kinds of f*ckall from lazy asses, and don't always smile...

Sorry to agree Kevin but you're right, it won't matter who is president.

Doomsayer ? Nah. I'm going on a bike ride with my daughter this morning, work my ass off this afternoon and fishing after that. Still livin' the daily deal in spite of a horrifying economic outlook... All smiles !

Crash, on the last splash. I think that is how the song goes. As does the stock market. And the economy, and everything else. I don't even feel confident about have a job for the government right now.

My computer's broken. I thought I clicked on the fishing forum...