Yeah Country Clubs took a huge hit in Atlanta as well. Discretionary expense when times were tough that was easy to cut. Same thing for private schools who have seen applications drop.
The solution, in my opinion, lies in the federal government getting the hell out of the way so the economy can grow faster. The GOP is just as bad as the Dems.
Here is a quote from Dalls fed President Richard Fisher:
“It is my firm belief that the fault in our economy lies not in monetary policy but in a feckless federal government that simply cannot get its fiscal and regulatory policy geared so as to encourage business to take the copious amount of money we at the Fed have created and put it to work creating jobs and growing our economy. Fiscal policy is not only “not an ally of U.S. growth,” it is its enemy. If the fiscal and regulatory authorities that you elect and put into office to craft taxes, spending and regulations do not focus their efforts on providing incentives for businesses to expand job-creating capital investment rather than bicker with each other for partisan purposes, our economy will continue to fall short and the middle-income worker will continue being victimized, no matter how much money the Fed prints.”
Strange admission coming from fed. In their opinion (the fed) creating money creates jobs and grows the economy.
Just got back from the Tampa area on vacation. I've been going down there about the same time since the crisis hit. Even this year it is still easy to get tee times on what were once totally private clubs. Before the crisis hit, it was hard to get a tee time for under $100 anywhere in Feb. One can play many of those courses for $60 or so. The golfers have been out in full force the last couple of years, but are unwilling to drop mega bucks to do it. The bars near the condo are full at 9:00 A.M., so money is flowing again...
There’s not much more the Fed can do. They really are out of bullets. I suspect that Obama will not acquiesce even in the face of a GOP rout on Congressional races in the fall.
Obama and his cadres are true believers in a way that the Boy President wasn’t. Clinton needs to be liked and gets politics. He compromised and tactically cut around the GOP while coopting their program. He wraps himself in it all the time.
Obama will reject that and fight to the death. He’s taking Reid down with him along with the DNC. That’s why I believe little will change after the GOP takes over Congress. It will be better for us on judicial and other appointments, but Obama will still use every lever of federal power to undermine the free market.
So the next two years will be, hopefully, the GOP working to rein Obama’s abuses in and the 2016 POTUS will sit on the greatest economic expansion since the Lochner Era. Just undoing all the anti-business executive decisions would free up capital. The US could grow 5%+ in real terms as excess labor is brought into productive capacity and welfare/government debt is curtailed.
Country club buying opportunity. Things will come back. Eventually pessimism gives way.
I get nervous when our Fedgov bankers speak so blasely about printing gazillions of dollars backed by little more than our reserve currency status.
Rather soon, that status will no longer hold true, imho.