It depends upon whom you want to believe. I tend to see a more negative reality than many paint, the economy is in fact in the dumps. There are significant long term issues that really don't have an easy solution. Part of the problem is excessive population growth combined with rapid automation of just about everything.
Locally I've not seen as many businesses go under in a very long time and combined with vacant commercial real estate I don't see a pretty picture. Frankly it is the worst I've seen in years.
The amount of real estate sitting vacant concerns me as well. It reminds me of Europe too much. I see too many shopping malls with lots of boarded up stores.
Why doesn't Apple buy back some national debt? Then when the government tries to screw them over they can demand their money back and screw over the government.
Time to update my English idiom: "To horn in on something". Hm, seem unable to find it anywhere, except in this article. Might have something to do with bull fighting though.....
Money has to be printed because of all the cash hoarding. Corporate welfare is not just expensive, it's dangerous! We're playing a giant game of Monopoly, and as the 1% gets richer, we get closer to the end of the game. In real life, the end of the game is violent revolution. Too bad the 1% can't see it coming and ease up.
Time to update my English idiom: "To horn in on something".
Hm, seem unable to find it anywhere, except in this article. Might have something to do with bull fighting though.....
Really? Maybe it's a regional colloquialism, but I've heard it used informally many times over my lifetime.
To answer Serndip: I'd like to better understand how they bypass repatriation taxes by buying up corporate bonds of foreign companies.
These are two different issues. They have foreign cash they can't use to buy their own shares. So instead of putting cash in TBills at about 0%, they are buying bonds of other companies.
It depends upon whom you want to believe. I tend to see a more negative reality than many paint, the economy is in fact in the dumps. There are significant long term issues that really don't have an easy solution. Part of the problem is excessive population growth combined with rapid automation of just about everything.
Locally I've not seen as many businesses go under in a very long time and combined with vacant commercial real estate I don't see a pretty picture. Frankly it is the worst I've seen in years.
I don't know where your "locally" is, but businesses going under and vacant real estate has more to do with the transition to e-commerce, the domination of big box stores and malls and real estate owner greed than with the health of the economy itself. Many commercial real-estate companies don't want local businesses - they want national chains because they pay more, they tend to stay in business and they'll keep paying the rent even when a given location is losing money. I've seen locations stay empty for two years in order to get a rent that's impossible for a store to make money on. I've seen plenty of local stores in my neighborhood forced out because the landlords want upwards of $200 sq/ft. That's a rent that's simply impossible for many small businesses. In Manhattan, some neighborhoods now get $1000 to $2000 sq ft. I know of a small restaurant known for its burgers that was forced out of its location that it had for about 50 years. The landlord wanted over $1 million in rent per year. That's $2740 a day going just to rent. It's now a bank.
Another factor is over-building. Every developer thinks they can build another strip of commercial property and that the neighborhood can handle the additional retailers. Just how many retailers does any one neighborhood need?
In a capitalist economy, you need population growth because public companies' stocks only grow when you have ever-increasing sales. And in most western countries, you actually don't have much population growth ( aside from immigration). In most European countries (and Japan), the birth rate has fallen below the replacement rate for many years. In the U.S., we were slightly above the replacement rate for a long time, but in the last few years, we've also fallen below the replacement rate. In 2013, the birth rate in Europe was 10.63 births per 1000 people and it was 13.66 in the United States. A 1.4% birth rate is actually quite small. The country with the highest birth rate was Niger with 46.84 births per 1000 people.
When did the U.S. economy do the best? It was during the baby-boom years after World War II. (Of course, there were jobs available then and corporate America was willing to pay enough to create the largest middle-class in the world.)
In addition, you need 6-7 people working for each person retired in order to keep Social Security funded. Of course an increase in population doesn't necessarily mean an increase in working population.
Where I believe the economy does suck is for middle-class and lower-income people who don't have specific technical job skills. Middle-class workers haven't received an increase in real wages in 30 years. If those workers got a substantial increase, almost all of it would find its way back into the economy and I personally believe (although I can't prove) that local businesses would benefit. Obviously, some of this is due to automation, but more of it is due to the exporting of manufacturing jobs. And if Congress doesn't step in, more incidences like that at Disney, where H1B workers were brought in to replace American IT staff through an outsourcing company.
Honing: using an abrasive machining process that produces a precision surface on metal.
Horning: to try to become involved in a discussion or activity when you are not wanted: She's always horning in on our conversations.
Honing: using an abrasive machining process that produces a precision surface on metal.
Horning: to try to become involved in a discussion or activity when you are not wanted: She's always horning in on our conversations.
"Home in means to direct on a target. The phrasal verb derives from the 19th-century use of homing pigeons, but it resurged in the 20th century to refer to missiles that home in on their targets. It’s also commonly used metaphorically, where to home in on something is to focus on and make progress toward it.
Hone inbegan as an alteration of home in, and many people regard it as an error. It is a very common, though, especially in the U.S. and Canada—so common that many dictionaries now list it—and there are arguments in its favor. Hone means to sharpen or to perfect, and we can think of homing in as a sharpening of focus or a perfecting of one’s trajectory toward a target. So while it might not make strict logical sense, extending hone this way is not a huge leap.
Outside North America, home in prevails by a huge margin. It also prevails in North America, but only by a ratio of about two to one. Hone in is common even in technical, scientific, and military contexts, where one might expect home in to prevail. A few American and Canadian publishers clearly favor home in as a matter of policy, but most apparently have no strictly enforced policy one way or the other."
Comments
It depends upon whom you want to believe. I tend to see a more negative reality than many paint, the economy is in fact in the dumps. There are significant long term issues that really don't have an easy solution. Part of the problem is excessive population growth combined with rapid automation of just about everything.
Locally I've not seen as many businesses go under in a very long time and combined with vacant commercial real estate I don't see a pretty picture. Frankly it is the worst I've seen in years.
The amount of real estate sitting vacant concerns me as well. It reminds me of Europe too much. I see too many shopping malls with lots of boarded up stores.
Hm, seem unable to find it anywhere, except in this article. Might have something to do with bull fighting though.....
Horning in?
hehe I think "horning in on" deserves an entry in urban dictionary.
It means ' to try to become involved in a discussion or activity when you are not wanted' in the English I grew up learning.
When that happens to me, I become hornery!
Really? Maybe it's a regional colloquialism, but I've heard it used informally many times over my lifetime.
I'd like to better understand how they bypass repatriation taxes by buying up corporate bonds of foreign companies.
These are two different issues. They have foreign cash they can't use to buy their own shares. So instead of putting cash in TBills at about 0%, they are buying bonds of other companies.
It depends upon whom you want to believe. I tend to see a more negative reality than many paint, the economy is in fact in the dumps. There are significant long term issues that really don't have an easy solution. Part of the problem is excessive population growth combined with rapid automation of just about everything.
Locally I've not seen as many businesses go under in a very long time and combined with vacant commercial real estate I don't see a pretty picture. Frankly it is the worst I've seen in years.
I don't know where your "locally" is, but businesses going under and vacant real estate has more to do with the transition to e-commerce, the domination of big box stores and malls and real estate owner greed than with the health of the economy itself. Many commercial real-estate companies don't want local businesses - they want national chains because they pay more, they tend to stay in business and they'll keep paying the rent even when a given location is losing money. I've seen locations stay empty for two years in order to get a rent that's impossible for a store to make money on. I've seen plenty of local stores in my neighborhood forced out because the landlords want upwards of $200 sq/ft. That's a rent that's simply impossible for many small businesses. In Manhattan, some neighborhoods now get $1000 to $2000 sq ft. I know of a small restaurant known for its burgers that was forced out of its location that it had for about 50 years. The landlord wanted over $1 million in rent per year. That's $2740 a day going just to rent. It's now a bank.
Another factor is over-building. Every developer thinks they can build another strip of commercial property and that the neighborhood can handle the additional retailers. Just how many retailers does any one neighborhood need?
In a capitalist economy, you need population growth because public companies' stocks only grow when you have ever-increasing sales. And in most western countries, you actually don't have much population growth ( aside from immigration). In most European countries (and Japan), the birth rate has fallen below the replacement rate for many years. In the U.S., we were slightly above the replacement rate for a long time, but in the last few years, we've also fallen below the replacement rate. In 2013, the birth rate in Europe was 10.63 births per 1000 people and it was 13.66 in the United States. A 1.4% birth rate is actually quite small. The country with the highest birth rate was Niger with 46.84 births per 1000 people.
When did the U.S. economy do the best? It was during the baby-boom years after World War II. (Of course, there were jobs available then and corporate America was willing to pay enough to create the largest middle-class in the world.)
In addition, you need 6-7 people working for each person retired in order to keep Social Security funded. Of course an increase in population doesn't necessarily mean an increase in working population.
Where I believe the economy does suck is for middle-class and lower-income people who don't have specific technical job skills. Middle-class workers haven't received an increase in real wages in 30 years. If those workers got a substantial increase, almost all of it would find its way back into the economy and I personally believe (although I can't prove) that local businesses would benefit. Obviously, some of this is due to automation, but more of it is due to the exporting of manufacturing jobs. And if Congress doesn't step in, more incidences like that at Disney, where H1B workers were brought in to replace American IT staff through an outsourcing company.
I think you guys (meaning AppleInsider writers) mean homing in, not horning in. Horning in means to intrude, interrupt, or butt in to a conversation.
Huh. Must be a midwest thing.
Horning in means to encroach on something in which there is already an established presence.
“She’s horning in on my market!” said Dave of the Girl Scout who was selling cookies near his bakery.
I read that as horny ... I had to do a double take! LOL
Honing: using an abrasive machining process that produces a precision surface on metal.
Horning: to try to become involved in a discussion or activity when you are not wanted: She's always horning in on our conversations.
Honing: using an abrasive machining process that produces a precision surface on metal.
Horning: to try to become involved in a discussion or activity when you are not wanted: She's always horning in on our conversations.
"Home in means to direct on a target. The phrasal verb derives from the 19th-century use of homing pigeons, but it resurged in the 20th century to refer to missiles that home in on their targets. It’s also commonly used metaphorically, where to home in on something is to focus on and make progress toward it.
Hone in began as an alteration of home in, and many people regard it as an error. It is a very common, though, especially in the U.S. and Canada—so common that many dictionaries now list it—and there are arguments in its favor. Hone means to sharpen or to perfect, and we can think of homing in as a sharpening of focus or a perfecting of one’s trajectory toward a target. So while it might not make strict logical sense, extending hone this way is not a huge leap.
Outside North America, home in prevails by a huge margin. It also prevails in North America, but only by a ratio of about two to one. Hone in is common even in technical, scientific, and military contexts, where one might expect home in to prevail. A few American and Canadian publishers clearly favor home in as a matter of policy, but most apparently have no strictly enforced policy one way or the other."