port of Houston doesn't move anything good for me unless you call a whole shitload of Hyundais good for the US economy
what's left of Detroit wouldn't exist without Laredo. Who do you think assembles all the transmissions? All Detroit Diesel knows how to do is overpay a bunch of union has beens who put together what Mexico has already made. And all Texas does is skim off the top. Take away Mexico and Detroit and then see how productive Texas is. Texas aint nuthin but a high priced toll road.
it's just a place you have to pass through to do business, and just like the government, they charge you a fee everytime you hiccup. Don't get me wrong, a gatekeeper deserves his pay, but if his fee gets too high he can easily be replaced. I wouldn't invest in Texas unless you think someday they may become the gatekeepers of the world. (which is entirely possible, but it's also all they know how to do.) Who knows? The world may someday need expert gatekeepers.
probably the dumbest post in the history of the internet. paycheck to paycheck is what the bushmen of the kalahari do. surplus is what creates civilization.
we're not even in a recession let alone a depression. GDP is positive, and there is monthly job growth. by definition, if those two are positive then there cannot be a recession. end of argument. you're not allowed to make up your own freaking definition of "depression" or "recession" whenever you feel like it. that's like saying water is a solid just because I feel like defining it that way. some of you are totally clueless.
and one more thing: there are ALWAYS a lot of people living paycheck to paycheck. even in the boom years of 1999 or 2005, there were those types of people (hell, i knew plenty of them). it has nothing to do with the economy; there are just some people who are horrible with money management. you can quadruple their salary and they'll STILL be living paycheck to paycheck.
And this is the whole point. Current slump is masked by Keynesianism via food stamps and other gov't aid payments. How long can this continue until shtf as is occuring in europe at this very moment.
A decent sized portion of Americans have shitty money management skills. If you randomly chose one American in the USA and handed them 1 million dollars. Most likely they would have spent it all by one year.