Let’s Cut the Crap — the Economy Sucks

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Big Red Car here. Going to be a great day in the ATX, as usual. How many days until Longhorn football?

You do the math, dear reader. The Horns play Notre Dame in South Bend (Touchdown Jesus, y’all!) on 5 September. The game is on NBC and starts at 6:30 EST.

So, the economy? What is going on with the economy?

The economy is not good, y’all, but you wouldn’t know that if you listened to the folks in the White House who are spiking the ball and touting their success in growing the economy.

Let’s cut the crap about the economy and get into some facts.

Let’s take a quick look at new home construction. Here is reality, baby. Reality. R E A L I T Y

As you can see, we are not looking very good even though that is an improvement from where we were just a few years ago. But, look at the peak in 2005. We peaked out at almost 1,400,000 new home sales. We bottomed out — all time bottom, y’all — at less than 300,000 new home sales and we are currently at 507,000 new home sales annually.

So, the economy? How is it doing? You decide.

This is not a ungrateful rant failing to acknowledge the improvement since 2011. No, the Big Red Car is as grateful as a barrel of monkeys.

What this is intended to be is a sober look at exactly where we are in comparison to a period of time when we were prosperous and a sober appreciation of how damn bad things got. Look at the slide from 2005 to 2011. Wow!

That is the biggest decline in new home sales ever!

Let’s stay grounded in reality, if we can. The economy is not anywhere near where it was when we left the diving board in 2005. Let’s stop pissing on our own legs and pretending it’s raining. Keep working hard but stay grounded.

But, hey, what the Hell do I really know anyway? I’m just a freakin’ Big Red Car! Cut the crap, y’all.

 

 

13 thoughts on “Let’s Cut the Crap — the Economy Sucks”

  2. Being a Consulting Architect ,a loss of inventory hit us hard ,especially in the smaller cities in the Northwest.The ATX-MSA is much stronger ,yet is a indicator. The first 1 tril. we should of paid back is to China. It would interesting to see where all that development capital comes from. It’s hard to comment to the big red car when you stand on a skateboard,yet wheels are wheels….

  3. Interesting. I am wondering if this is due to fallout from the last recession. Are sellers asking for prices higher than market value when trying to sell due to being underwater on mortgages? There are a lot of houses for sale in my neighborhood. It’s a completely flooded market here in Fairfield County, CT. Almost all of the houses on the market that I see are overpriced (I get a daily email of listings because I like watching this stuff). Wondering if this is a nationwide trend.

    Also, how much of the population does not want to own a home? (I don’t. I love renting. Don’t want the responsibility of owning. Of course that’s perfectly qualitative.) Is there a cultural shift to non-ownership?

  4. Surely you know the peak was a ridiculously over inflated bubble? As an American living in Canada, but being paid in US Dollars, what matters most to me is the strength of the US dollar vs CAD. Which is pretty awesome right now.

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