US unemployment up: 500K+, 34-year high

[Broomstick]

Hell, this week I'm learning to hang drywall - it's not that I'm unwilling, it's just that I don't fit the profile for whom those programs were set up. I'm "too educated" and frequently too old - nevermind I might well have a good 30 years of working life ahead of me.

How's that going Broomstick?

Better than I expected in some ways. I wouldn't do it for free but it's one of the better jobs I've had in my life.

As a professional drywaller myself, I know it's far from the physically easiest job and it isn't mindless work either (at least if you want to do a good job).

Yes, there is an athletic component - we were actually hanging the ceiling, and I got to be the one holding the panel up while the boss drove the screws. At least it was a thin panel but it still had weight. The boss is rather surprised at both how long I could hold it up there without complaint and that I wasn't sore the next day. I pointed out I'm short, I'm used to working over my head, at least more so than he is. (He's not particularly tall himself, but taller than me)

And it's not mindless, none of it is. You have to think ahead, plan, use math, know a crapload about materials, assembly, and rules, be aware of what's going on around you at all times. If you're working on someone's home, like we currently are, the customer is twitchy because you're pulling apart a piece of the most valuable object they own, hammering, drilling holes and doing scary things like that and you have to conduct yourself in a manner so that they can trust you really are going to make this look and function better.

Me personally, I'm currently working for a company that is utilizing/expanding my skills beyond just boarding; steel studs, fire taping and T-Bar installation. Certainly doesn't hurt to do that in this economic crisis.

Nope, education of any sort never hurts, and neither do new skills. The person I'm working for is a general contractor and jack of all trades. He used to have a crew of a couple dozen, but the economic downturn has whittled that away to almost nothing. When I started it was just painting because we thought it would just be for a couple months then I'd get a full time job somewhere else. Now, it's looking more and more like that's not going to happen so I'm becoming more of an apprentice. It's ironic since I really am not interested in owning a house but by the time he gets done with me I'll probably not only be able to maintain a home but actually build one.

In a lot of ways I think I would have been happier being a tradesman all along, but when I was young "young ladies just don't do that!", it was before several lawsuits that forced the unions to take on female apprentices, and because I was smart I was pushed into academics and college. It's sad, really, because we need tradesmen who can think and reason and I like to use my hands and build things.

[Darth Wong]

I know that easy credit may still be an issue but honestly if the prices around here are indicative of gas prices in the no one need claim that the gas prices are drastically high. I heard that they are predicting sub $1 a gallon within the next year, doesn't that debunk the OMG HIGH GAS PRICES reason?

One of the reasons that gas prices were skyrocketing was speculation on trends in demand. But that demand is tied to economic activity, so when the speculators believe (quite rightly) that the economy is going into the shitter, they will project demand to decline. Also, a lot of people believe the oil-producing nations opened the taps to discourage all of the burgeoning talk of investing in alternative energy.

[Darth Wong]

Hell, this week I'm learning to hang drywall - it's not that I'm unwilling, it's just that I don't fit the profile for whom those programs were set up. I'm "too educated" and frequently too old - nevermind I might well have a good 30 years of working life ahead of me.

How's that going Broomstick?

As a professional drywaller myself, I know it's far from the physically easiest job and it isn't mindless work either (at least if you want to do a good job).

Me personally, I'm currently working for a company that is utilizing/expanding my skills beyond just boarding; steel studs, fire taping and T-Bar installation. Certainly doesn't hurt to do that in this economic crisis.

The problem is that the entire housing industry is headed into a slump, because it's based on a product where there is a huge supply/demand imbalance right now.

[Broomstick]

Hell, this week I'm learning to hang drywall - it's not that I'm unwilling, it's just that I don't fit the profile for whom those programs were set up. I'm "too educated" and frequently too old - nevermind I might well have a good 30 years of working life ahead of me.

How's that going Broomstick?

As a professional drywaller myself, I know it's far from the physically easiest job and it isn't mindless work either (at least if you want to do a good job).

Me personally, I'm currently working for a company that is utilizing/expanding my skills beyond just boarding; steel studs, fire taping and T-Bar installation. Certainly doesn't hurt to do that in this economic crisis.

The problem is that the entire housing industry is headed into a slump, because it's based on a product where there is a huge supply/demand imbalance right now.

Indeed.

My boss used to build large commercial buildings - now he's remodeling homes. He's surviving in part because he IS a jack of all trades rather than a specialist, and because he's smart enough to follow the money even if some of what he's doing now is not stuff he particularly likes. So we aren't building, we're maintaining, doing repairs on buildings already bought and owned. The sad thing is that there is a lot of potential work right now but the owners have no money and can not obtain credit... and we can not work for free. So even the repair business, which should be booming due to the local tornado and flood damage, is very thin right now.

Very sad, very sad - there are homes right now that have tarps instead of solid roofs, and it's fucking cold in the winter around here. Yet there is no way to fix this at present.

I heard on the news last night that the city of Chicago has already had five people die of the cold this winter, and it's only December. January and February usually bring our worst weather. It is a sad time indeed.

[ray245]

Which reminds me, doesn't this mean the world as a whole can forget about New Orleans as a city?

[Broomstick]

No - there is still a city of New Orleans and it's still a fairly large city - it just doesn't have as much population as it used to and parts of it are still a mess. The next official US census isn't until 2010, but several studies have been done and seem to indicate that New Orleans retains 1/2 to 2/3 of it's pre-Katrina population, somewhere around 250,000 people. Over half the city area is actually above sea level - although not by much, admittedly, though some spots are as high as 5 meters above sea level. Despite problems with flooding, which aren't going away simply because the terrain is so low, there will continue to be a city there because it's at the mouth of the Mississippi and a major point for both river traffic and traffic from the Gulf of Mexico. Even if the city was abandoned (which is highly unlikely) a port would still be needed in the vicinity.

[Broomstick]

From CNN Money

Grim Job Report Not Showing Full Picture
By DAVID LEONHARDT and CATHERINE RAMPELL
Published: December 5, 2008

As bad as the headline numbers in Friday’s employment report were, they still made the job market look better than it really is.

The unemployment rate reached its highest point since 1993, and overall employment fell by more than a half million jobs. Yet that was just the beginning. Thanks to the vagaries of the way that the government’s best-known jobs statistics are calculated, they have overlooked many workers who have been deeply affected by the current recession.

The number of people out of the labor force — meaning that they were neither working nor looking for work and that the government did not consider them unemployed — jumped by 637,000 last month, the Labor Department said. The number of part-time workers who said they wanted full-time work — all counted as fully employed — rose by an additional 621,000.

Take these people into account, and the job market may be in its worst condition since the early 1980s. It is still deteriorating rapidly, too.

Already, the share of men older than 20 with jobs was at its lowest point last month since 1983, and very close to the low point of the last 60 years. The share of women with jobs is lower than it was eight years ago, which never happened in previous decades.

Liz Perkins, 24 and the mother of four young children in Colorado Springs, began looking for work in October after she learned that her husband, James, was about to lose his job at a bed-making factory.

But the jobs she found either did not pay enough to cover child care or required her to work overnight. “I can’t do overnight work with four children,” she said. She has since stopped looking for work.

The family has paid its bills by dipping into its savings and borrowing money from relatives. But Ms. Perkins said that unless her husband found a job in the next three months, she feared the family would become homeless.

Even Wall Street economists, whose analysis usually comes shaded in rose, seemed taken aback by the report. Goldman Sachs called the new numbers “horrendous.” Others said “dreadful” and “almost indescribably terrible.” In a note to clients, Morgan Stanley economists wrote, “Quite simply, there was nothing good in this report.” HSBC forecasters said they now expected the Federal Reserve to reduce its benchmark interest rate all the way to zero.

Such language may sound out of step with a jobless rate that, despite its recent rise, remains at 6.7 percent; the rate exceeded 10 percent in the early 1980s. But over the last few decades, the jobless rate has become a significantly less useful measure of the country’s economic health.

That is because far more people than in the past fall into the gray area of the labor market — not having a job and not looking for one, but interested in working. This group includes many former factory workers who have been unable to find new work that pays nearly as well and are unwilling to accept a job that pays much less. Some get by with help from disability payments, while others rely on their spouses’ paychecks.

For much of the last year, the ranks of these labor force dropouts were not changing rapidly, said Thomas Nardone, a Labor Department economist who oversees the collection of the unemployment data. People who had lost their jobs generally began looking for new work. But that changed in November.

Much as many stock market investors threw in the towel in early October, and consumers quickly followed suit by cutting their spending, job seekers seemed to turn darkly pessimistic about the American economy in November. Unless the numbers turn out to have been a one-month blip, large numbers of people seem to have decided that a job search is, for now, futile.

“It’s not only that there’s nothing out there,” said Lorena Garcia, an organizer in Denver for 9to5, National Association of Working Women, a group that helps low-wage women and women who are looking for work. “But it also costs money to job hunt.”

Just how bad is the labor market? Coming up with a measure that is comparable across decades is not easy.

The unemployment rate has been made less meaningful by the long-term rise in dropouts from the labor force. The simple percentage of people without jobs — including retirees, stay-at-home parents and discouraged would-be job seekers — can also be misleading, though. It has dropped in recent decades mainly because of the influx of women into the work force, not because the job market is fundamentally healthier than it used to be.

The Labor Department does publish an alternate measure of unemployment, which counts part-time workers who want full-time work, as well as anyone who has looked for work in the last year. (The official rate includes only people who told a government surveyor that they had looked in the last four weeks.)

This alternate measure rose to 12.5 percent in November. That is the highest level since the government began calculating the measure in 1994.

Perhaps the best historical measure of the job market, however, is the one set by the market itself: pay.

During the economic expansion that lasted from 2001 until December 2007, when the recession began, incomes for most households barely outpaced inflation. It was the weakest income growth in any expansion since World War II.

The one bit of good news in Friday’s jobs report, economists said, was that pay had not yet begun to fall sharply. Average weekly wages for rank-and-file workers, who make up about four-fifths of the work force, rose 2.8 percent over the last year, only slightly below inflation.

But economists said those pay gains would begin to shrink next year, if not in the next few weeks, given the rapid drop in demand for workers. “Wage increases of this magnitude will be history very soon,” said Joshua Shapiro, an economist at MFR Incorporated, a research firm in New York.

Nice to see some acknowledgment that the "unemployment number" is not the whole story.

I'm convinced were in something worse than a recession.

[PainRack]

For us, well, if the service industry crash and burn, Singapore's screwed. To increase the amount of 'high-earning' people here, we decides to outsource construction crews, electricians, welders and technicians to overseas workers and thus allowing us to pay them with lesser amount. Which in turn, tried to focus Singaporeans on those higher paid jobs in the service industry.

Errr........ because 4 million people and counting simply isn't enough to sustain a domestic tradesman skillbase? We're not the States. Despite the relative large industrial investment and component of our economy, to open up new avenues for jobs, you're simply going to have to go into service industries. It doesn't help that costs in Singapore has been constantly going up and you can't just keep subsidising industrial development.

As it is, the new push into medicines and medical equipment is going off quite nicely. Creating another service industry based around hospitality and medical tourism is something that would be nice, although I doubt how successful it would be. To p ut it simply, if Singaporeans themselves don't know about the tourist aspect of Singapore, why would other people bother to do so? Our sole highlight in tourism still rests in shopping and dining with an English based population, but that's nothing compared to Bangkok and other countries in the region.

[ray245]

For us, well, if the service industry crash and burn, Singapore's screwed. To increase the amount of 'high-earning' people here, we decides to outsource construction crews, electricians, welders and technicians to overseas workers and thus allowing us to pay them with lesser amount. Which in turn, tried to focus Singaporeans on those higher paid jobs in the service industry.

Errr........ because 4 million people and counting simply isn't enough to sustain a domestic tradesman skillbase? We're not the States. Despite the relative large industrial investment and component of our economy, to open up new avenues for jobs, you're simply going to have to go into service industries. It doesn't help that costs in Singapore has been constantly going up and you can't just keep subsidising industrial development.

As it is, the new push into medicines and medical equipment is going off quite nicely. Creating another service industry based around hospitality and medical tourism is something that would be nice, although I doubt how successful it would be. To p ut it simply, if Singaporeans themselves don't know about the tourist aspect of Singapore, why would other people bother to do so? Our sole highlight in tourism still rests in shopping and dining with an English based population, but that's nothing compared to Bangkok and other countries in the region.

Doesn't that make us extremely vulnerable IRT to a global or regional recession?

[Singular Intellect]

How's that going Broomstick?

Better than I expected in some ways. I wouldn't do it for free but it's one of the better jobs I've had in my life.

Can't disagree there. I got into the business leaving a till job; to say it's an improvement is an understatement.

As a professional drywaller myself, I know it's far from the physically easiest job and it isn't mindless work either (at least if you want to do a good job).

Yes, there is an athletic component - we were actually hanging the ceiling, and I got to be the one holding the panel up while the boss drove the screws. At least it was a thin panel but it still had weight.

What kind of drywall (1/4, 1/2, 5/8 inch?), if you don't mind my asking? (and also, what size pieces of drywall...I'm curious ) I'm under the impression the US has different regulations and ways of building their structures.

The boss is rather surprised at both how long I could hold it up there without complaint and that I wasn't sore the next day. I pointed out I'm short, I'm used to working over my head, at least more so than he is. (He's not particularly tall himself, but taller than me)

Truth be told, in my experience I'd be somewhat surprised too. Even guys who've done physical labour all their life can find it a challenge to get used to it. Ceilings especially; it's a whole different kind of lifting from many other fields.

And it's not mindless, none of it is. You have to think ahead, plan, use math, know a crapload about materials, assembly, and rules, be aware of what's going on around you at all times.

Unfortunately, so many useless, lazy and incompetent bastards work in construction, and can give the trades bad names.

If you're working on someone's home, like we currently are, the customer is twitchy because you're pulling apart a piece of the most valuable object they own, hammering, drilling holes and doing scary things like that and you have to conduct yourself in a manner so that they can trust you really are going to make this look and function better.

Definitely. Companies tend to hire two types of workers; those they use for big projects and then let go, and those who really prove themselves as hard, honest workers whom they keep around and send to the jobs that need a good image.

Nope, education of any sort never hurts, and neither do new skills. The person I'm working for is a general contractor and jack of all trades. He used to have a crew of a couple dozen, but the economic downturn has whittled that away to almost nothing. When I started it was just painting because we thought it would just be for a couple months then I'd get a full time job somewhere else. Now, it's looking more and more like that's not going to happen so I'm becoming more of an apprentice. It's ironic since I really am not interested in owning a house but by the time he gets done with me I'll probably not only be able to maintain a home but actually build one.

Did you do the same thing I did? Once you get into drywalling and related work, you look at your own residence slightly differently, appreciating what's behind the (hopefully) nice exterior.

In a lot of ways I think I would have been happier being a tradesman all along, but when I was young "young ladies just don't do that!", it was before several lawsuits that forced the unions to take on female apprentices, and because I was smart I was pushed into academics and college. It's sad, really, because we need tradesmen who can think and reason and I like to use my hands and build things.

Same here.

The problem is that the entire housing industry is headed into a slump, because it's based on a product where there is a huge supply/demand imbalance right now.

I know, residential projects here in Calgary have taken a nasty hit and I've noticed it. I've been doing most commercial jobs now, since there isn't much else. Word is commercial is still booming, so hopefully things will hold tight for awhile on that front.

[Big Phil]

The problem is that the entire housing industry is headed into a slump, because it's based on a product where there is a huge supply/demand imbalance right now.

In the Seattle area, there are some folks screaming that we have a housing shortage.

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

Doesn't that make us extremely vulnerable IRT to a global or regional recession?

Yes it does. Because many of the newer factories in Singapore employ largely polytechnic or university graduates. Seems that the only sole purpose of our education system is to churn out either bankers or factory workers or civil servants, and very few in between. With a good portion of our economy dominated by MNCs, yeah we are screwed. We haven't even really felt the pain yet.

We ought to head in the direction that Sweden or Israel have taken in their economy but the government has thus far refused to build up local capabilities or have been incredibly selective on what they want to build upon, often through the direct infusion of cash, or foreigners.

[Darth Wong]

The problem is that the entire housing industry is headed into a slump, because it's based on a product where there is a huge supply/demand imbalance right now.

In the Seattle area, there are some folks screaming that we have a housing shortage.

Are they delusional? Was there some huge population influx into Seattle recently? Or did the entire Seattle area refuse to participate in the home building boom of the last decade?

[Big Phil]

The problem is that the entire housing industry is headed into a slump, because it's based on a product where there is a huge supply/demand imbalance right now.

In the Seattle area, there are some folks screaming that we have a housing shortage.

Are they delusional? Was there some huge population influx into Seattle recently? Or did the entire Seattle area refuse to participate in the home building boom of the last decade?

I guess he's arguing that we'll be seeing a serious shortage in three or four year, not today, but still. I've read similar articles in the community papers, but the neighborhood papers don't really have websites I can link to.

I do recall reading an opinion piece a few weeks back talking about a shortage in "affordable" housing here locally. I don't recall how they defined "affordable," but it was an interesting, if somewhat simpleminded, argument.

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/business/ ... ing18.html

[Samuel]

The problem is that the entire housing industry is headed into a slump, because it's based on a product where there is a huge supply/demand imbalance right now.

In the Seattle area, there are some folks screaming that we have a housing shortage.

Are they delusional? Was there some huge population influx into Seattle recently? Or did the entire Seattle area refuse to participate in the home building boom of the last decade?

This guy thinks the people complaining are nuts:
http://seattlebubble.com/blog/2008/11/0 ... nd-demand/

The best I can find is they are too expensive or people are complaing and not counting appartments. It does look like they are delusional though.

[Darth Wong]

I do recall reading an opinion piece a few weeks back talking about a shortage in "affordable" housing here locally. I don't recall how they defined "affordable," but it was an interesting, if somewhat simpleminded, argument.

That's like complaining that there's a shortage of affordable caviar. The obvious answer would be to eat something else, and the obvious answer to these twits is to live in a lower-rent district.

[ray245]

Doesn't that make us extremely vulnerable IRT to a global or regional recession?

Yes it does. Because many of the newer factories in Singapore employ largely polytechnic or university graduates. Seems that the only sole purpose of our education system is to churn out either bankers or factory workers or civil servants, and very few in between. With a good portion of our economy dominated by MNCs, yeah we are screwed. We haven't even really felt the pain yet.

We ought to head in the direction that Sweden or Israel have taken in their economy but the government has thus far refused to build up local capabilities or have been incredibly selective on what they want to build upon, often through the direct infusion of cash, or foreigners.

What kind of sectors can we focus on if we are unable to sustain a domestic tradesman skillbase?

[Magus]

I do recall reading an opinion piece a few weeks back talking about a shortage in "affordable" housing here locally. I don't recall how they defined "affordable," but it was an interesting, if somewhat simpleminded, argument.

That's like complaining that there's a shortage of affordable caviar. The obvious answer would be to eat something else, and the obvious answer to these twits is to live in a lower-rent district.

How do you know they want caviar? As the economy has contracted, so have people's definitions of what they can afford to pay for housing. If enough people try to move into cheaper housing, it can leave the more expensive homes empty while the affordable housing is hard to find. Empty homes don't do you any good if you can't afford to pay for them.

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

What kind of sectors can we focus on if we are unable to sustain a domestic tradesman skillbase?

That depends. We need to pick and choose industries that can sustain themselves through foreign sales or domestically. We sorely do need excellent machinists and welders etc. in the shipyard industry. But that is going to take a hit as well. Keppel Corp and Sembcorp's days of endless deals for their oil rigs are over, though they may make it up by repairing foreign ships especially when the shipping companies are cutting back on capacity on a scale never seen in decades.

[Darth Wong]

I do recall reading an opinion piece a few weeks back talking about a shortage in "affordable" housing here locally. I don't recall how they defined "affordable," but it was an interesting, if somewhat simpleminded, argument.

That's like complaining that there's a shortage of affordable caviar. The obvious answer would be to eat something else, and the obvious answer to these twits is to live in a lower-rent district.

How do you know they want caviar? As the economy has contracted, so have people's definitions of what they can afford to pay for housing. If enough people try to move into cheaper housing, it can leave the more expensive homes empty while the affordable housing is hard to find. Empty homes don't do you any good if you can't afford to pay for them.

They can live in apartments. No one said that everyone has to have his own house.

[Edi]

That's like complaining that there's a shortage of affordable caviar. The obvious answer would be to eat something else, and the obvious answer to these twits is to live in a lower-rent district.

How do you know they want caviar? As the economy has contracted, so have people's definitions of what they can afford to pay for housing. If enough people try to move into cheaper housing, it can leave the more expensive homes empty while the affordable housing is hard to find. Empty homes don't do you any good if you can't afford to pay for them.

They can live in apartments. No one said that everyone has to have his own house.

Depending on the local economic conditions it is entirely possible that there are not enough apartments to go around for everyone who can't afford to own or rent a house. Broomstick's area isn't an average example now because of all the natural disaster damage, but there aren't any to be had around her location. The same may be true of various other places for otehr reasons than disasters.

Of course, whining about the cost of houses and refusing to move into an apartment if there are any available is inexcusable.

[Admiral Valdemar]

That's like complaining that there's a shortage of affordable caviar. The obvious answer would be to eat something else, and the obvious answer to these twits is to live in a lower-rent district.

It's the same over here. The "shortages", are in houses anyone can afford. For instance, there have been campaigns to get housing prioritised to those who are required to live near or in the city, such as firemen or doctors. Instead, you get yuppies buying a country manor, then loads of flats and houses in the city that they keep hold of as an investment for the future.

[Broomstick]

What kind of drywall (1/4, 1/2, 5/8 inch?), if you don't mind my asking? (and also, what size pieces of drywall...I'm curious ) I'm under the impression the US has different regulations and ways of building their structures

As background, the house was built in 1946 and the walls and ceiling are plaster. Unfortunately, after 60 years of being in a bathroom the plaster is deteriorated. We knocked out the loose stuff and the boss suggested that, instead of attempting to patch the ceiling we hang a sheet of drywall up to give a smooth, consistent surface. What we used on the ceiling was US standard width of 4 feet (122 cm) and 3/8 inch thick (about 1 cm).

The plan for the walls is to replace the plaster around the tub and shower (multiple patches, all of which are deteriorating) with moisture resistant drywall, then apply tile over that. Where we had to knock a hole in the wall to get at the tub/shower and sink plumbing will also be repaired with new drywall. Away from the tub the wall plaster is mostly intact, so it's a matter of repairing a few spots (already done). Everything will get several coats of paint, including primer and a layer incorporating some sort mold/mildew/moisture resistance. Then we relay tile on the floor, install new sink and cabinet, and recaulk the tub. The toilet will be the old one, which still looks nice, but with new inner workings.

Then we do it all over again in the upstairs bathroom.

The boss is rather surprised at both how long I could hold it up there without complaint and that I wasn't sore the next day. I pointed out I'm short, I'm used to working over my head, at least more so than he is. (He's not particularly tall himself, but taller than me)

Truth be told, in my experience I'd be somewhat surprised too. Even guys who've done physical labour all their life can find it a challenge to get used to it. Ceilings especially; it's a whole different kind of lifting from many other fields.

Well, there was finding and confirming the stud location with a drill. There were three floor joists on standard 16 inch (40 cm) centers and I drilled 12 series of holes to confirm where the wood is with a cordless drill, so there was doing all that over my head, then fitting and attaching three pieces of drywall at the standard width and, if I recall correctly, 58.5 inch lengths (149 cm). By my calculations (using weight provided for Sheetrock brand, the one we were using) that means each panel was 27.3 lbs or about 12 kg each, which is easy to simply lift off the floor but not so much fun maneuvering overhead or holding it there.

We used both adhesives and screws to attached those panels. Boss was also happy the studs were accurately located and marked.

Did you do the same thing I did? Once you get into drywalling and related work, you look at your own residence slightly differently, appreciating what's behind the (hopefully) nice exterior.

Oh yes. As an interesting note, the building I currently live in was the very first one bought by the boss and rehabbed, about 30 years ago. The unit next to mine he uses as storage and workshop, so he never bothered to finish the other side of the north wall of my apartment. That means I actually can see the details of the work when I'm in that unit. You can see a couple patches where he had to make repairs when you're on his side of the wall, but on my side it's a smooth, seamless wall. I've occasionally made comments that you could tell the place was laid out by a single college guy. His wife and I (she lived there the first years of their marriage) both agree the kitchen is an afterthought with counters exactly large enough for a pizza box, and while the bathroom is adequate for hygiene it's about what you'd see on a small boat, small and cramped, OK? The bedroom, however, is "orgy sized". The walls are a mix of drywall, brick, and wood paneling. The wood, by the way, is not standard commercial paneling, it's a somewhat rough wood in wide planks set on a diagonal, on the interior of the south wall of the building, which he made from some lumber salvaged from another building

[Broomstick]

Regarding the housing "shortage"....

I'm guessing, since we're talking about Americans, what is really meant is a shortage of affordable housing. We've got shitloads of McMansions no one can afford to live in - hell, we even have those around here (including a couple subdivisions of half-finished ones that are no longer being worked on) but not enough places that people can afford. The boss has a couple units that need repair and are frankly not legally habitable until they are done (in one case the bathroom needs major repairs - a piece of tree crashed through the roof and smashed the toilet into pieces so that needs to be replaced, as just one example) but at least once a week someone offers to live in there anyway and make repairs, just please rent the place so they can get out of the cold. Some of the McMansions could be subdivided, at least potentially, but that would require both changing the local zoning codes (doable, if things get bad enough) and money, to make the necessary alterations (and money is the biggest obstacle right now). Of course, in my area we do have a genuine housing shortage due to tornado and flood, but elsewhere it's more a matter of affordable housing, be it single-family dwelling or even apartments.

Over in Gary we do have abandoned housing that could, potentially, be rehabbed but it requires major repairs, like replacing smashed windows and missing doors and stolen plumbing, and again, where does the money come to do that? Not to mention that the reason that housing was abandoned in the first place is that the neighborhood is dangerous.

What we have, of course, is a convergence of problems.

[Broomstick]

Of course, whining about the cost of houses and refusing to move into an apartment if there are any available is inexcusable.

It can be morbidly funny how quickly someone can go from "I would NEVER live in an apartment!" to "I don't care if the ceiling is falling in and the sink leaks - I'll take it" when the alternative is sleeping in a cardboard box under a bridge in a Chicago winter.

Let's just say a lot of people are reevaluating their previous bias.