Once we see some at-first innovative and private-enterprise changes in individuals’ behavior (like, I don’t know, micro-commuter lots on the perimeter of downtown, with low-cost taxi service in and out)

This sounds like a *great* idea.

I think people are taking a long time to adjust to the reality that we can’t spend more than we have. In this transition period, we see consumers, drivers, banks, car companies looking to OPM (other people’s money) to cover their gaps, so to speak. An adjustment will take years, and very different expectations about leverage ratios. Goldman has reported that its leverage ratio has gone from 1:24 to 1:12. How long will it be before that hotel on the Mall gets finished, I wonder? What was Lee Danielson’s operating model when he built the Ice House and the movie theater? Repeatable? Sustainable? Evidently not. Has the region’s household borrowing followed suit? I wonder.

Prices won’t behave until we get there…which is going to be darned hard to do on foot, so there’s going to have to be some leveraging somewhere. This leverage might need to be social–i.e. human-capital leverage–first. Once we see some at-first innovative and private-enterprise changes in individuals’ behavior (like, I don’t know, micro-commuter lots on the perimeter of downtown, with low-cost taxi service in and out), we can expect the approach to spending and revenue to follow suit. But until then, we can’t just ask the government to solve it for us and keep our fingers crossed.

I think people are taking a long time to adjust to the reality that we can’t spend more than we have. In this transition period, we see consumers, drivers, banks, car companies looking to OPM (other people’s money) to cover their gaps, so to speak. An adjustment will take years, and very different expectations about leverage ratios. Goldman has reported that its leverage ratio has gone from 1:24 to 1:12. How long will it be before that hotel on the Mall gets finished, I wonder? What was Lee Danielson’s operating model when he built the Ice House and the movie theater? Repeatable? Sustainable? Evidently not. Has the region’s household borrowing followed suit? I wonder.

Prices won’t behave until we get there…which is going to be darned hard to do on foot, so there’s going to have to be some leveraging somewhere. This leverage might need to be social–i.e. human-capital leverage–first. Once we see some at-first innovative and private-enterprise changes in individuals’ behavior (like micro-commuter lots on the perimeter of downtown, with low-cost taxi service in and out), we can expect the approach to spending and revenue to follow suit. But until then, we can’t just ask the government to solve it for us and keep our fingers crossed.