Have you ever wondered why we call a piece of wood that measures no more than one and five eighth inches by three and one half inches a two by four? Have you ever noticed that coffee makers say they will make 12 five ounce cups of coffee, while you thought a cup was a measure of 8 ounces? What's up with all this? Do we live in a time when measures and weights and credit ratings don't mean anything?
For months, I have written about the relationship of credit ratings, its failure, and the recession that the United States now finds itself in. Many very bright economists have written what they think will turn this economy around and get people back to work. There are arguments about taxes and who should pay what. I have never studied the impact of taxes on the growth rate of our domestic economy, but I am sure taxes, if set too high, could keep the economy from growing at a faster rate. But, when you look at tax rates around the world, our taxes are hardly at the top.
The problem with our domestic economy is the fact that credit has dried up. Credit has dried up at many levels, and the tools that gave this country the ability to sell its private debt around the world in the form of bonds are now broken. The fact that we no longer can have an active bond market for structured debt obligations such as mortgage-backed bonds, car loan bonds and other collateralized debt obligations, has impacted our economic growth. This is the problem not taxes. Tax rates were much higher in the 1980s and there was economic growth that set the stage for the economic growth of the 1990s.
The problem as I see it is not taxes, but the reluctance of Wall Street to clean up its act and bring creditability back to the credit rating system. When New York City defaulted on their General Obligation Notes in the 1970s, Wall Street firms that sold and underwrote municipal bonds started building their own bond analysis departments and started printing weekly credit reports on the new issues that were coming to market each week. Unfortunately, given the state of creditability of Wall Street banks such a solution today would be meaningless.
The fact remains: without a viable credit rating system, the movement of debt to investors around the world has broken down. The dollar denominated private debt securities from our domestic economy would be sought the world over, but first it has to be a real two by four before investors will touch it.
Stay tuned.
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4 comments:
I remember when Julia Childs tenderized a steak with a 2x4. That was hilarious. It was right up there with the time she cut up a chicken with an Officer's Saber.
Still, the notion of tenderizing with a 2x4 has some merit, especially as one considers that it is people, people made of meat and bone, who populate, run and obfuscate our Financial House of Cards.
Yeah. I'd like to tenderize some of 'em.
Lou, you certainly had your own ideas about that 2 x 4. I know you got the point I was trying to make, and I found your response true Lou.
This has nothing to do with the main idea of your posting. When we say 2 X 4, that is a nominal dimension, meaning, for this purpose, in name only. When a sawmill cuts the board, it is actually/literally 2" X 4". Then they season the wood, which means it is dried out to a certain percentage of moisture. Seasoning shrinks the wood. After seasoning, the wood goes through a planer, which "shaves" it down to the finished size.
Early standards called for green rough lumber to be of full nominal dimension when dry, but the requirements have changed over time. For example, in 1910, a typical finished 1-inch- (25 mm)board was 13/16. In 1928, that was reduced by 4%, and yet again by 4% in 1956. In 1961, at a meeting in Scottsdale Arizona, the Committee on Grade Simplification and Standardization agreed to what is now the current U.S. standard: In part, the dressed size of a 1 inch (nominal) board was fixed at 3⁄4 inch; while the dressed size of 2 inch (nominal) lumber was reduced from 1 5⁄8 inch to the now standard 1 1⁄2 inch.
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