A man of coffee and typos, I'm starting on my next novel which will be set in the inner cities of southeast... Some story about a new generation of American youths that have cast off the post Clinton/Bush south of SUVs and subdevelopments for cramped apartments and a leaner, tougher life.

Thoughts? Questions? Comments? Feel free to drop me a line via the "CONTACT" button or directly at markslomiany@gmail.com

Oct 3, 09
Comment from the Wall Street Journal on the unemployment rate

The US is in a structural deprecssion, which is considerably different from a classic inventory recession. Inventory recessions are the only type of economic declines the US has experienced since World War II. In a classic inventory recession, once excess inventory has been liquidated the fundamental trend growth in long-term demand leads to a prompt recovery, usually within 9 to 18 months from the start of the recession.

Structural depressions are considerably different. Structural depressions are caused by misallocating large amounts of borroewd funds during a major credit boom. Becuase the capital has been misallocated, it cannot earn a return adequate to service the debt which remains after a credit boom ends. The end result is forced liquidation of the most marginal capital investments, until the capital stock has been reduced to more productive levels.

The two best known types of captial misallocation in the US are of residential and commercial real estate construction. In my opinion liquidation of excess assets in these asset classess will not cease until mid 2011 to early 2012. Anemic growth of new construction thereafter will be caused by the ready availablility of excess real estate which has moved from weak to strong hands.

The strong hands will not tear down their newly acquired cheap buldings in order to give unnecessary employment to construction workers, and there will be no major demand for construction materials and supplies until much of the excess real estate is put to productive use.

The third, and in most respects the worst capital misallocaion, is in the form of human capital which has been very seriously misallocted. The Department of Labor has published its Occupatioal Survey Handbook every two years for more than 50 years. This publication has an amazingly successful record in predicting the projected supply and demand for specific job categories over the next 10 years.

Lawyers, architects, advertising copywrighters, graphic artists, psychologists and other memebers of the so-called "creative class" will face etremely bleak labor market prospects over the next 10 years. By contrast, engineering and medical employment, both of which require considerable hard science coursrses as a prerequisite, will enjoy excellent labor market conditions over the next 10 years. There will also be very fine employment prospects, for plumbers, welders, electricians and other skilled tradesmen, who must serve an apprenticeship term before becoming highly skilled in their chosen trades.

Educational misallocation of human resources is the worst form of capital misallocation for the following reasons..

1. The time wasted on a marginally effective education is gone forever, and cannot be recovered. Income earned during this priod is virtually never sufficient to cover the educational expense, leaving a resudue of debt which cannot be repaid because of low future earnings prospects. Eventual bankruptcies are virtually assured.

2. People with a newly minted dgree nominally qualifying them to work in a given field will not promptly say, "I was an idiot to decide to be an architect. I will immediately start an apprenticeship to be plumber, where I can easily find secure and higher-paying work." Not unitil severral years have passed will a job prospect cease his fruitless attempts to earn a good income from a heavily oversupplied job category. The income shortages incurred during this period can never be recovered, nor can the loss of time.

I predict that the national headline number for unemployment will exceed 12% before it peaks, and that after the reported unemployment level first exceeds 10% (which should happen within the next 3 months) it will not drop below 10% for approximately five years.

Oct 2, 2009

There was this guy on BBC news who wrote a travel book about India and then went on tour with like every street person he met-- a circus of musicians, street performers, etc...

The theme of his book as he described it-- totally what I was going after in WEST of 16W---

How do you write a travel book in a world where everyone travels?  Well, its not about the locations- because everyone's been to Chicago or San Fran-- its not amazing getting there like its 1860--- rather its about the people and the interaction with the land like a subtle beat or harmony.

Sept 25, 2009

This was such a great comment posted in the New York Times in response to an article about 9/11:

Dave Brooklyn, NY September 10th, 2009 6:17 pm:

 I remember watching the peace marches that happened only days after the 9/11 attacks. New Yorkers of all colors and ages, marching, chanting "Peace, Salaam, Shalom." I also saw the spontaneous debates and discussions that happened wherever people gather--parks, plazas, etc. They often got heated, but ended in a handshake and a deep appreciation for our Bill of Rights. Many saw a world in smoke and embers, a world burning. I saw a world healing, on the verge of breaking through to a new day, a new society, a new world community.

Then George W. Bush and the neo-cons got hold of things, and all we knew from then on was fear, fear, and more fear. The terror they sowed was rivaled only by the terror sown by the 9-11 hijackers themselves. Their culture of fear has persisted ever since, leading us to invade two foreign nations, embroil ourselves in legal/moral/ethical quandaries, and sow discord throughout the world (NOT just the Muslim world).

I still admire New Yorkers for their bravery, dignity, and courage in the face of the horrors inflicted upon them after 9-11. And I will never forgive the Bush administration from taking that away from them, and turning it into a political tool for achieving their foreign policy agenda. They turned the grief of American families into gold in their pockets, and into the grief of families in Iraq and Afghanistan. For that, they will be judged.