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Yes, physical exhaustion can be mentally trying until you work up some stamina. I'm not lecturing. It's been years since I've been there. Still, you should have gotten some help perhaps. It might not be too late.

 

If only we could force Ben or Tim or some select Pigmen on a roofing crew for a month I think we might begin to see some change.

 

Great idea! I'm all for that. The Bernanke-Geithner-and-Primary-Dealer roofing crew. Now that would be change I could believe in.

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For the sake of discussion....

 

First off, I'm not aware of any "gun," despite repeated rhetorical invocations.

 

Second, GM & Chrysler bondholders were the benefactors of $17 billion governmental credits back in December, when both were up against the ropes after years of appalling mismanagement. Any shareholder or bondholder of GM at this stage is to some large measure a dice-tosser. If the dice turn out to be loaded in favor of the UAW, tough titties. It's a little late & stale in the process for any GM investor to be awakening to the prospect that corporate life or death decisions for GM are going to have a political component that works to their disfavor.

 

Lastly, while I don't necessarily agree (or disagree, for that matter, because I frankly haven't given it much thought) with the Administration's diktat in this example, the rant sure presupposes that the bondholders are the only stakeholder.

 

Some will also quickly observe, "They aren't! So too are shareholders."

 

Is that it?

 

Not by my reckoning. Those employed by the firm are also its stakeholder.

 

"But... but... but... they haven't contributed any capital to it!!"

 

Which ignores the sustained contribution to the firm's very existence from human capital.

 

The implication is that a prudent bondholder and a prudent shareholder will be only modestly impacted by bankruptcy of a publicly traded firm, because basic portfolio theory dictates diversification: those capital investors who are disproportionately harmed were imprudent, by definition. Got what they had comin', so to speak.

 

It is far more difficult for an employee to diversify one's human capital. Yes, they can learn new roles and skills at work, take weekend classes and night school and such. But they can't diversify their "portfolio" in the same convenient manner, say, that one can purchase SPYders.

 

Human capital - qua "employees" - therefore are the stakeholder and investor overwhelmingly vulnerable and harmed by bankruptcy.

 

None of that is to excuse the current specificities.

 

It's just that we have passed through about a 20 year period where we worshiped and genuflected deferentially to the Captains of Financial Capital. Wall Street pulled down gigantic fortunes for themselves, and Americans passively allowed it to happen, I believe in part, because we internalized some dimunition and denigration of human capital.

 

Human capital didn't become simply subordinate to financial capital - it became something apart from "capitalism." Perversely, represented and characterized as an opponent of it.

 

The casual contempt for learning, for line workers, for academics is a broader reflection of this.

 

I think for this country to right itself, ultimately, it must learn to place human capital again along side financial capital as twin pillars of Capitalism.

 

We expressed this equivalence once - nobly - with the GI Bill.

I've gotten so inured to the stale "free market" aphorisms, repeated ad naseum like a magic incantation, especially when sh*t gets murky and absurd, that I normally just let that sort of restatement of misconception slide out of my periphery vision. But now and then ...

 

Thanks for an excellent reframing of such an important elemental and forgotten precept of the capitalist structure. Tho' our overlords' corporate fuedal bastardardization of same still thinks of itself as a, nay THE capitalist system. :wacko: :( :lol:

 

But, now that our collective beliefs are being waterboarded by reality, so deeply down the rabbit hole, where even a compass couldn't find north, perhaps a new zeitgeist and framework will emerge that keeps the pigmen in better check. I am increasingly looking at you younger thinkers for a glimmer of that framework.

 

Of course, you being a lawyer (i think?), means you're incapable of such new thinking and will have to be shot, before a new revolution can occur. Of course, if you will swear now, that you are not and have never been a lawyer, I'm sure something can be worked out. :lol: :lol:

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When I was a kid, I got into the habit of checking the coins I would get as change to look for "old" or "collectible" coins. It must have been a product of the small coin collection that most kids, at least at that time, had. Well, old habits I guess never die and one of the things I've noticed, in particularly the last six months, is a large number of "collectible" coins (wheat back pennies, pre-63 nickles and quarters, etc...) that I have been receiving as change. I guess people are digging into their old piggy banks and cashing in on the their life savings.

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I am SOOOOOOOOO f**king exhausted from this stoopid roofing project

 

Never again !!!

 

No more "Manuel Labor" for me....now I know why they call it "Manuel Labor"....because friggin' Manuel should be doin' it

 

Hopefully I'll be posting more next week, assuming I don't hang myself first or fall off th G**damn roof

 

Ugh!!!

 

L8tr

 

Trader, you could of asked us here "who know it all" before you attempted such a task. Take it from me, I did it last year. 22 squares of shingles and 3 1/2 months later. The minute I arrived onto the roof the heat was enough to discourage me, but I wanted to prove whether I had the vitality to complete the job. I only installed one row of roof brackets and planking at the bottom of the roof and anything beyond reach from there I used a light aluminum ladder and even built a short set of wood stairs to get around. I worked off a ladder on the roof and on my knees and pounded every nail. Whatever you do, DO NOT screw up your job standing on warm/hot shingles.

 

Your just an ape man, so get over it. :lol:

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I am SOOOOOOOOO f**king exhausted from this stoopid roofing project

 

Never again !!!

 

No more "Manuel Labor" for me....now I know why they call it "Manuel Labor"....because friggin' Manuel should be doin' it

 

Hopefully I'll be posting more next week, assuming I don't hang myself first or fall off th G**damn roof

 

Ugh!!!

 

L8tr

 

Hang in there TJ!

post-4700-1242182272_thumb.jpg

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I envy the roofer with the extra helper, nailgun and extra set of staging. I used a ladder about 16 feet long to get to the very peak of mine. I used two inch insulating board in areas I was working to keep from dragging shingles across the completed job or accidentally damaging the shingles I had already applied.

 

It was fun! NOT. I'd would have rather watched fiddler on the roof.

 

istock_000000234958xsmall1.jpg

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I am SOOOOOOOOO f**king exhausted from this stoopid roofing project

 

Never again !!!

 

No more "Manuel Labor" for me....now I know why they call it "Manuel Labor"....because friggin' Manuel should be doin' it

 

Hopefully I'll be posting more next week, assuming I don't hang myself first or fall off th G**damn roof

 

Ugh!!!

 

L8tr

 

 

Girlebull! LOL

 

Just kidding. Now imagine the good ol' days when the middle class and wealthy built constructions of finer quality materials and craftsmanship. A good ol' fashione slate roof comes to mind. Square blocks of stone were quarried and split into smaller squares the size of the roofing shingles. A hole was then manually drilled through these blocks [for the nailing hole] before the block was split into the individual shingles. Have those shingles hauled up the roof and start nailing the slate shingles with copper nails by hand. By not nailing the nail all the way and leaving some free play there is room for expansion and contraction and reaonable ice tolerance. The shingle basically hangs from the nail, not fastened ny the nail. 500 year roof...or more.

 

Oh, and be sure there is one hell of a structure to support all the weight. Masonry or timber frames with elaborate truss systems would be quite the norm, and quite beautiful.

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If you were thinking now would be a good time to get your roof fixed, think again. You'll likely have to pay up to $2,000 more this year than last year.

 

That’s because the demand for asphalt is up, due to construction projects fueled by stimulus funding.

 

Contractors are paying twice as much now for asphalt shingles as they were a year ago – and in many cases, that cost is being passed along to the consumer.

 

A bundle of shingles cost $45 last year; now, they’re $80.

 

You can save on roof repairs through a $1,500 federal tax credit if you buy certain energy-saving shingles.

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another vote for the suckishness of roofing. i dropped out of medical school after two years. mind-numbing boredom. could not bring myself to do the mindless rote memorization of irrelevant details that had nothing to do with taking care of sick people.

 

my stubborn nature led to me returning after a year away. i took a job with a general contractor, as a laborer, so i could learn the basics. years later, i am told what i suspected, my mother and the contractor conspired to work me so hard i would long for the academic life. i was going to go back to school anyway, but the roofing chores, during the 100-degree days in the sacramento valley were probably the clincher.

 

speaking of cali housing, jimi, this is for you:

10 Reasons Why Buying a Home in Southern California today is a Mistake. California Housing and Financial Market Analysis produces no Green Shoots.

 

most of those reasons apply to the kensington hills area you were looking at.

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another vote for the suckishness of roofing. i dropped out of medical school after two years. mind-numbing boredom. could not bring myself to do the mindless rote memorization of irrelevant details that had nothing to do with taking care of sick people.

 

my stubborn nature led to me returning after a year away. i took a job with a general contractor, as a laborer, so i could learn the basics. years later, i am told what i suspected, my mother and the contractor conspired to work me so hard i would long for the academic life. i was going to go back to school anyway, but the roofing chores, during the 100-degree days in the sacramento valley were probably the clincher.

 

speaking of cali housing, jimi, this is for you:

10 Reasons Why Buying a Home in Southern California today is a Mistake. California Housing and Financial Market Analysis produces no Green Shoots.

 

most of those reasons apply to the kensington hills area you were looking at.

Pretty damned funny - I tore roofs off of houses my first summer out of college.

 

Apparently, it is the one other thing we all share. LOL.

 

We're still holding patient on the house thing. Second baby due in three weeks, so we have to quit our apartment one way or another. From rental to rental to rental got old years ago....

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