[BCowan]

Courses used more land in last 40 years due to EPA judging what a wetland is and what can be tiled.  Also land was inexpensive for ''Golf only'' in a good many states or the larger land lot size had housing attached to it (which paid for the course construction). Land was really cheap in the 80's and 90's in Michigan and I'm sure most states without huge city.  Then the gov't got in the raising the price of land game in 00's.  Some of the course closing have had the land/course paid for 70+ years.  This notion that ALL courses maint more land if they are on a bigger parcel is simply 3 by 5 talking points said by a few archies on here that becomes gospel.  Many have undisturbed wood lot with island tees and holes cut through wood or prairie lot.  Could make the argument that some modern cart ball tracks maint less turf then your average 6400 yard Ross Golden age track.  Obviously NYC, LA, Arizona are exceptions but they don't represent US Golf IMO. 

Please someone give me a name of a course who's rounds have decreased?  Have friends in many states and their rounds are going up.  There is no central planning theme or organization that gets people to play golf.  Spontaneous order determines that.  Friends asking friends to join their work league.  Kids playing because their friends play. 

[Mike_Young]

I just left a course I did in 1998  www.cateechee.com.  It' an audubon signature for whatever that means and has won all types of environmental, save the whales , type awardsas well as some listing for best new public in GD back at that time....It's a good course.  The owner has died and the course has 300 members with it being a semi private track.  The family is selling it.  He put 22 millon into it with a very very nice clubhouse.  The land is a 50 year lease with an option to buy for $500,000 and the course does 21,000 rounds per year at an average over 50 dollars per round.  Plus the county plays $120,000 per year toward the cost of spraying water. 

It's a $22 million dollar deal that can be bought for $500,000.  No takers....it all comes down to location location location...

So put plain golf in the right location and you make money....it's that simple...

[Steve_ Shaffer]

Yes, location is paramount in appraising value of courses just as it is in real estate. It's all local. Some second and third tier private clubs in major metro areas should consider going semi-private, on a limited basis, as LuLu has done in the Philly 'burbs with their " Member for a Day" program. It's limited to 7 rounds per year. I don't know how successful it's been financially but it's worth a shot. The primary obstacle, of course, is gaining membership approval if it's a member owned club. LuLu is now corporate owned. 

[Mike_Young]

Yes, location is paramount in appraising value of courses just as it is in real estate. It's all local. Some second and third tier private clubs in major metro areas should consider going semi-private, on a limited basis, as LuLu has done in the Philly 'burbs with their " Member for a Day" program. It's limited to 7 rounds per year. I don't know how successful it's been financially but it's worth a shot. The primary obstacle, of course, is gaining membership approval if it's a member owned club. LuLu is now corporate owned.

Steve,
Another issue that comes up often with member owned is that most are 501c7 and only a certain percentage of income can come from outside of the members....start getting too muh and you lose the non profit status

[Mike Wagner]

One of the reasons clubs in the US are failing is that membership limits are too small.  Since each member plays less than they used to, a private club should be selling more memberships at a lesser price - as they do in Australia or the UK. 


Trying to maintain "exclusivity " is something most clubs can't afford.  But the knock on effect of this is if membership rolls are bigger, we don't need as many private clubs.  More consolidation is still necessary.

There's surely merit in this suggestion, but the number of those interested in joining private clubs in the Chicago area, for example, isn't going up, it's going down.  On the South Side, where the middle and upper middle class has been devastated by the Bush-induced recession, there isn't a single club that has a waiting list.  So, we're not suffering because we are limiting the number of members, we're suffering because we can't even fill our desired number of members.  In response, all clubs have drastically reduced initiation fees, some to the point that they let members in for next to nothing, just to get the monthly dues revenues.  But those kind of trunkslammer members don't have much of a track record of remaining members for more than a season or two.  Clubs are closing because it has taken eight years to come to some semblance of recovery from the $6 trillion spent on two unnecessary wars and the $7 trillion lost in the housing crash.  The middle and upper middle classes suffered the brunt of these losses.  They will have decades of distress while the 1%ers had a bad year or two.  Damage to the club industry is just one manifestation of this distress.

It's amazing the policies of Chicago didn't keep itself immune to the "Bush-induced" recession.  Even more, I can't believe the last 8 years haven't improved things .. especially around Chicago .. weird. 

[Terry Lavin]

One of the reasons clubs in the US are failing is that membership limits are too small.  Since each member plays less than they used to, a private club should be selling more memberships at a lesser price - as they do in Australia or the UK. 


Trying to maintain "exclusivity " is something most clubs can't afford.  But the knock on effect of this is if membership rolls are bigger, we don't need as many private clubs.  More consolidation is still necessary.

There's surely merit in this suggestion, but the number of those interested in joining private clubs in the Chicago area, for example, isn't going up, it's going down.  On the South Side, where the middle and upper middle class has been devastated by the Bush-induced recession, there isn't a single club that has a waiting list.  So, we're not suffering because we are limiting the number of members, we're suffering because we can't even fill our desired number of members.  In response, all clubs have drastically reduced initiation fees, some to the point that they let members in for next to nothing, just to get the monthly dues revenues.  But those kind of trunkslammer members don't have much of a track record of remaining members for more than a season or two.  Clubs are closing because it has taken eight years to come to some semblance of recovery from the $6 trillion spent on two unnecessary wars and the $7 trillion lost in the housing crash.  The middle and upper middle classes suffered the brunt of these losses.  They will have decades of distress while the 1%ers had a bad year or two.  Damage to the club industry is just one manifestation of this distress.

It's amazing the policies of Chicago didn't keep itself immune to the "Bush-induced" recession.  Even more, I can't believe the last 8 years haven't improved things .. especially around Chicago .. weird.

Thanks for the snark!  I can't imagine that Chicago is any different than other major urban areas in terms of the after effects of eight years of Bush. The eight of Clinton before and eight of Obama after have helped many but real wages for the working class are still lower than they should be. How and when that will help the non-elite, non-main line type clubs remains to be seen.


Now that we have a Billionaires' Cabinet,  I'm sure we will all have some great trickle down coming to save the day.

[Mike Wagner]

One of the reasons clubs in the US are failing is that membership limits are too small.  Since each member plays less than they used to, a private club should be selling more memberships at a lesser price - as they do in Australia or the UK. 


Trying to maintain "exclusivity " is something most clubs can't afford.  But the knock on effect of this is if membership rolls are bigger, we don't need as many private clubs.  More consolidation is still necessary.

There's surely merit in this suggestion, but the number of those interested in joining private clubs in the Chicago area, for example, isn't going up, it's going down.  On the South Side, where the middle and upper middle class has been devastated by the Bush-induced recession, there isn't a single club that has a waiting list.  So, we're not suffering because we are limiting the number of members, we're suffering because we can't even fill our desired number of members.  In response, all clubs have drastically reduced initiation fees, some to the point that they let members in for next to nothing, just to get the monthly dues revenues.  But those kind of trunkslammer members don't have much of a track record of remaining members for more than a season or two.  Clubs are closing because it has taken eight years to come to some semblance of recovery from the $6 trillion spent on two unnecessary wars and the $7 trillion lost in the housing crash.  The middle and upper middle classes suffered the brunt of these losses.  They will have decades of distress while the 1%ers had a bad year or two.  Damage to the club industry is just one manifestation of this distress.

It's amazing the policies of Chicago didn't keep itself immune to the "Bush-induced" recession.  Even more, I can't believe the last 8 years haven't improved things .. especially around Chicago .. weird.

Thanks for the snark!  I can't imagine that Chicago is any different than other major urban areas in terms of the after effects of eight years of Bush. The eight of Clinton before and eight of Obama after have helped many but real wages for the working class are still lower than they should be. How and when that will help the non-elite, non-main line type clubs remains to be seen.


Now that we have a Billionaires' Cabinet,  I'm sure we will all have some great trickle down coming to save the day.

I think your imagination needs to work a little harder.

[Steve Lang]

   Well, Chicago does have its Windy City history...


as stated, plenty of pressures on time and money for golfers, simple supply & demand economics, and of course the general cost of things steadily growing

[Terry Lavin]

One of the reasons clubs in the US are failing is that membership limits are too small.  Since each member plays less than they used to, a private club should be selling more memberships at a lesser price - as they do in Australia or the UK. 


Trying to maintain "exclusivity " is something most clubs can't afford.  But the knock on effect of this is if membership rolls are bigger, we don't need as many private clubs.  More consolidation is still necessary.

There's surely merit in this suggestion, but the number of those interested in joining private clubs in the Chicago area, for example, isn't going up, it's going down.  On the South Side, where the middle and upper middle class has been devastated by the Bush-induced recession, there isn't a single club that has a waiting list.  So, we're not suffering because we are limiting the number of members, we're suffering because we can't even fill our desired number of members.  In response, all clubs have drastically reduced initiation fees, some to the point that they let members in for next to nothing, just to get the monthly dues revenues.  But those kind of trunkslammer members don't have much of a track record of remaining members for more than a season or two.  Clubs are closing because it has taken eight years to come to some semblance of recovery from the $6 trillion spent on two unnecessary wars and the $7 trillion lost in the housing crash.  The middle and upper middle classes suffered the brunt of these losses.  They will have decades of distress while the 1%ers had a bad year or two.  Damage to the club industry is just one manifestation of this distress.

It's amazing the policies of Chicago didn't keep itself immune to the "Bush-induced" recession.  Even more, I can't believe the last 8 years haven't improved things .. especially around Chicago .. weird.

Thanks for the snark!  I can't imagine that Chicago is any different than other major urban areas in terms of the after effects of eight years of Bush. The eight of Clinton before and eight of Obama after have helped many but real wages for the working class are still lower than they should be. How and when that will help the non-elite, non-main line type clubs remains to be seen.


Now that we have a Billionaires' Cabinet,  I'm sure we will all have some great trickle down coming to save the day.

I think your imagination needs to work a little harder.

You can continue to perseverate over political viewpoints; I'll leave this argument with facts. In November, 2008, just before Obama took office, there was a 538,000 job loss reported, the largest in decades. This November saw job growth of 178,000. 15 million jobs have been added since 2010. The pay they're receiving hasn't kept up with inflation for a variety of reasons, but mainly because workers are settling for less. None of these increases are likely to have any effect on the waiting lists at your city's country clubs, but it let's people feed their families.

[Mike Wagner]

One of the reasons clubs in the US are failing is that membership limits are too small.  Since each member plays less than they used to, a private club should be selling more memberships at a lesser price - as they do in Australia or the UK. 


Trying to maintain "exclusivity " is something most clubs can't afford.  But the knock on effect of this is if membership rolls are bigger, we don't need as many private clubs.  More consolidation is still necessary.

There's surely merit in this suggestion, but the number of those interested in joining private clubs in the Chicago area, for example, isn't going up, it's going down.  On the South Side, where the middle and upper middle class has been devastated by the Bush-induced recession, there isn't a single club that has a waiting list.  So, we're not suffering because we are limiting the number of members, we're suffering because we can't even fill our desired number of members.  In response, all clubs have drastically reduced initiation fees, some to the point that they let members in for next to nothing, just to get the monthly dues revenues.  But those kind of trunkslammer members don't have much of a track record of remaining members for more than a season or two.  Clubs are closing because it has taken eight years to come to some semblance of recovery from the $6 trillion spent on two unnecessary wars and the $7 trillion lost in the housing crash.  The middle and upper middle classes suffered the brunt of these losses.  They will have decades of distress while the 1%ers had a bad year or two.  Damage to the club industry is just one manifestation of this distress.

It's amazing the policies of Chicago didn't keep itself immune to the "Bush-induced" recession.  Even more, I can't believe the last 8 years haven't improved things .. especially around Chicago .. weird.

Thanks for the snark!  I can't imagine that Chicago is any different than other major urban areas in terms of the after effects of eight years of Bush. The eight of Clinton before and eight of Obama after have helped many but real wages for the working class are still lower than they should be. How and when that will help the non-elite, non-main line type clubs remains to be seen.


Now that we have a Billionaires' Cabinet,  I'm sure we will all have some great trickle down coming to save the day.

I think your imagination needs to work a little harder.

You can continue to perseverate over political viewpoints; I'll leave this argument with facts. In November, 2008, just before Obama took office, there was a 538,000 job loss reported, the largest in decades. This November saw job growth of 178,000. 15 million jobs have been added since 2010. The pay they're receiving hasn't kept up with inflation for a variety of reasons, but mainly because workers are settling for less. None of these increases are likely to have any effect on the waiting lists at your city's country clubs, but it let's people feed their families.

If you're going to leave an argument with supposed  "fact," please use NET #s on anything to do with jobs. 


This is classic ... CNN (and I can't stress C..N..N enough) just yesterday ... the big, bold, online headline story of the day was "unemployment at 4.7% - lowest since 2007."  Well, if anyone actually read the article it painted a much different picture than the headline.  Better yet, I can't even find the article this morning ... CNN couldn't even stand themselves to keep it .. the new benchmark for "misleading." 


Mu opinion is the last 8 years have been an epic failure.  For the fist time in a long time, I (and many others) have hope things will change for the better. 


As for golf, if the election went the other way, we'd be doing to same old thing.  Everything takes time, and it will take time to unwind many of the messes created the last 8 years.  My guess is once we see some type of clarity on the FUBAR health care front, folks who actually are out there creating jobs (government does not create jobs) will do just that.  This will take time. 

[Rich Goodale]

Land is expensive
Golf is expensive
Golf is difficult
To many other things are cheaper and easier

Bingo, Craig!

[V_Halyard]

Watching professionals play golf on television for millions of dollars during 4-5+ hour rounds sets a horrible example of how to play the game.

Totally agree... where to start: How about here: ($) * (Time Available) x (Pace of play/ Absurdity of Design) = Stab Me in the Eye.
In addition to "golf costs a lot for most", you a make key point in this digital media age. Arnie and his army grew the game because he was a "regular guy" playing great golf on TV. Tiger grew the game because he was astonishing and broke the mold of golf's stereotype on TV.  Today's automatons are phenomenal but droll on TV. The Rory/Reed Dual on the 6-7th-8th Hole of the Ryder Cup is by far golf's best recruiting footage since early Ernie and Tiger's stalled Nike Ball on 16 at Augusta. Rory/Reed had phenomenal golf, natural hype, fist bumps, smiles and the finest example of fantastic heart warming sportsmanship maybe ever in any sport.
GCA loves the game for the nuances taught, learned and experienced through PLAY. Enabling kids to PLAY, increase the respect of the female and busy family of golfers to PLAY will also go a long way.

Back to: ($) * (Time Available) x (Pace of play/Absurdity of Design) = Stab Me in the Eye. This can be addressed by the PGA in concert with the Rules of Golf and ludicrous golf architecture where harder is supposedly better for all.  As for TV, the cash laid out by sponsors well supports more walking officials to streamline and anticipate every question. And get a damn clock like the NFL, NBA, Premier League, Formula 1 and even Baseball-ish. Move it along. For the rest of us, I'm a big fan of 6 holes loops, Punchbowls like Bandon and the to be named par 2/3 playground at Sand Valley. "I have an hour, how much golf can I squeeze in before I have to pick up the kids."
As a media pro, I will submit that the coverage has improved but in this digital media world, still has to get better, at least for lay viewers.  NFL has yellow lines for 1st downs, scrimmage lines etc. Baseball has strike boxes.  I recall past European Tour coverage that used to highlight target landing areas and distances describing the objectives. "Why is he happy he hit it there" should not be a question unanswered. Some of the commentators are so pompous and droll, they should be... "repurposed". Be informative and educative. 

In Golf Media, there is hope that may improve the reach and participation of the game. Maybe not enough to save courses in dire straits but will offer programming on which to bandwagon. The resurgence of Tiger, the play of DJ, Rory, Speith, Reed, Day and Fowler, Stenson, Resurgent Rose, and Skechers Kucher.  Don't kid your self, non-golfers love "Kooch". Also watch Bob Parsons and PXG. Whether you like him or not, he is committed to damn good golf and they are poised to raise the noise to the benefit of golf in the coming years. He hates to lose. The LPGA media strategy and outreach has improved and will continue to evolve. There is great potential within the USGA/Fox partnership to improve their coverage of the US Open and feature the next wave of amateurs. The sleeper opportunity to grow revenue, viewers and playersby replacing lame infomercials and re-aired content with fresh collegiate coverage. People, don't hate me but I'm sorry, Bagger Vance is not a good movie... show me collegiate. Regional cable and streaming are great vehicles. Everybody, send an email to Golf Channel and Golf Week, "Please show more college golf". We don't need a reality show, just cover the real life collegians in real battle.
OK. I'll breath now. ... back to being mesmerized by Bahamian officer badge 2097 shadowing Tiger Woods in the Bahamas.

[A.G._Crockett]

The fact that the ball travels much farther than it used to because of better club and ball technology - increases the time it takes to play and the cost of a round.  Pulling a ball off the tee and having it go 20-30 yards farther results in more balls lost and longer searches.   The need to have more real estate drives costs up significantly.  I believe these are the factors that Jack was alluding to.

Having said that - I also agree that his own personal style of slow play that was mimicked by a generation of golfers has been a big contributor!

Guys, I don't know how old you are, but there is NO way that golfers spend more time looking for balls than they did in the "good old days"; the ball simply doesn't curve like it used to curve, and it's not even close.  And that doesn't touch on the improvements in clubs that also lead to straighter shots. 

My worst swings for 40+ years have been duck hooks.  They used to hook incredible distances; now they don't.  It's that simple, and I don't look for or lose golf balls at nearly the rate I did prior to the ProV1.  (Or actually the Callaway Rule 35, to be completely correct.)


This is precisely what i was thinking -- so thanks for saving me the time to write it!

[Mike_Young]

VHalyard,

Not sure what good it would do emailing Golf channel and asking for college golf.  I too would enjoy seeing it but there is an unsung golfer out there just like there was a voter out there in the last election.  Those reality shows are some of their highest if not higest ranked shows.  The Big Breaks with women at the beach are their highest ranked shows.   

[V_Halyard]

VHalyard,

Not sure what good it would do emailing Golf channel and asking for college golf.  I too would enjoy seeing it but there is an unsung golfer out there just like there was a voter out there in the last election.  Those reality shows are some of their highest if not higest ranked shows.  The Big Breaks with women at the beach are their highest ranked shows.   

You are correct regarding ratings however the production cost/hour of those shows is the reason we don't see them anymore. They are "pricey" to produce. They take a ton of prep, travel and logistics setup. Each "Challenge shot" can take a 1/2 day to setup and an hour or two to actually film. Setup, Makeup Shoot the shot and any mock up angles.  Move 6 Cameras and setup, Makeup again, Check Wardrobe, hit the shot and any mockup close ups that don't change the results... Repeat and Repeat...  you get the idea.

In comparison, the NCAA Men's and Women's Championship golf had compelling real life action and surprisingly good ratings with the very demographic that buys the goods and services as advertised.  Golf gear, financial services and travel. So on the whole, the collegiate golf was as good as an investment. Stanford two years ago and Wash U this year were nail biters that surprisingly lowered productivity in offices around the nation and the re airs were rated fairly high for cable. Not Big Break numbers but a solid investment.

The connection to this thread is that this is the type of content that can attract and interest people to play golf... at golf courses. It is not the flashy make believe or staged but it IS compelling and relatable to those with kids in sports.  People know these kids through the elimination rounds and have affinity with the schools and conferences. The model can be expensive but cheaper than a Big Break.  I say send them an email partly tongue in cheek but partly in seriousness.  Letters and communication matters. If they know you're watching and you are from this demographic, it matters. There is no deeper "Core" Golf Channel demographic than GCA.

[James Brown]

The Golden Bear has give his opinion here, and it's not a new one (http://www.mygolfspy.com/jack-nicklaus-says-golf-ball-is-reason-golf-courses-are-closing/)


I like that MGS calls out "the industry" for always turning to the same 3-5 great ones for pronouncement on what ails the game. We know why they do (hint: they sell tickets).


MGS suggests that a devolution is not the answer. Do the folks around the GCA block agree or disagree? How many more courses need to close before balance is returned to the force?

Coming to this late, but I think what Jack is saying is essentially right.  Distance gains have made courses bigger, harder, and longer, which has added to the time and cost of the game. 

[Mike_Young]

VHalyard,

Not sure what good it would do emailing Golf channel and asking for college golf.  I too would enjoy seeing it but there is an unsung golfer out there just like there was a voter out there in the last election.  Those reality shows are some of their highest if not higest ranked shows.  The Big Breaks with women at the beach are their highest ranked shows.   

You are correct regarding ratings however the production cost/hour of those shows is the reason we don't see them anymore. They are "pricey" to produce. They take a ton of prep, travel and logistics setup. Each "Challenge shot" can take a 1/2 day to setup and an hour or two to actually film. Setup, Makeup Shoot the shot and any mock up angles.  Move 6 Cameras and setup, Makeup again, Check Wardrobe, hit the shot and any mockup close ups that don't change the results... Repeat and Repeat...  you get the idea.

In comparison, the NCAA Men's and Women's Championship golf had compelling real life action and surprisingly good ratings with the very demographic that buys the goods and services as advertised.  Golf gear, financial services and travel. So on the whole, the collegiate golf was as good as an investment. Stanford two years ago and Wash U this year were nail biters that surprisingly lowered productivity in offices around the nation and the re airs were rated fairly high for cable. Not Big Break numbers but a solid investment.

The connection to this thread is that this is the type of content that can attract and interest people to play golf... at golf courses. It is not the flashy make believe or staged but it IS compelling and relatable to those with kids in sports.  People know these kids through the elimination rounds and have affinity with the schools and conferences. The model can be expensive but cheaper than a Big Break.  I say send them an email partly tongue in cheek but partly in seriousness.  Letters and communication matters. If they know you're watching and you are from this demographic, it matters. There is no deeper "Core" Golf Channel demographic than GCA.

The GC is interested in travel promotion and happens to place a little architecture in the mix.  They have no desire to cover architecture and the 1500 people on here would not really move the dial for them.  A Big Break cost a Development around $700,000 and it takes 10 days.  16.5 minutes of advertising an hour and they can show it five times a week for twleve weeks...don't get me wrong..would love to see more college golf but it would have to be covered by GC itself and not by a sponsored show...cheers

[Greg Chambers]

Golf courses are closing because they're run by morons

[A.G._Crockett]

One of the reasons clubs in the US are failing is that membership limits are too small.  Since each member plays less than they used to, a private club should be selling more memberships at a lesser price - as they do in Australia or the UK. 


Trying to maintain "exclusivity " is something most clubs can't afford.  But the knock on effect of this is if membership rolls are bigger, we don't need as many private clubs.  More consolidation is still necessary.

There's surely merit in this suggestion, but the number of those interested in joining private clubs in the Chicago area, for example, isn't going up, it's going down.  On the South Side, where the middle and upper middle class has been devastated by the Bush-induced recession, there isn't a single club that has a waiting list.  So, we're not suffering because we are limiting the number of members, we're suffering because we can't even fill our desired number of members.  In response, all clubs have drastically reduced initiation fees, some to the point that they let members in for next to nothing, just to get the monthly dues revenues.  But those kind of trunkslammer members don't have much of a track record of remaining members for more than a season or two.  Clubs are closing because it has taken eight years to come to some semblance of recovery from the $6 trillion spent on two unnecessary wars and the $7 trillion lost in the housing crash.  The middle and upper middle classes suffered the brunt of these losses.  They will have decades of distress while the 1%ers had a bad year or two.  Damage to the club industry is just one manifestation of this distress.

It's amazing the policies of Chicago didn't keep itself immune to the "Bush-induced" recession.  Even more, I can't believe the last 8 years haven't improved things .. especially around Chicago .. weird.

Thanks for the snark!  I can't imagine that Chicago is any different than other major urban areas in terms of the after effects of eight years of Bush. The eight of Clinton before and eight of Obama after have helped many but real wages for the working class are still lower than they should be. How and when that will help the non-elite, non-main line type clubs remains to be seen.


Now that we have a Billionaires' Cabinet,  I'm sure we will all have some great trickle down coming to save the day.

I think your imagination needs to work a little harder.

You can continue to perseverate over political viewpoints; I'll leave this argument with facts. In November, 2008, just before Obama took office, there was a 538,000 job loss reported, the largest in decades. This November saw job growth of 178,000. 15 million jobs have been added since 2010. The pay they're receiving hasn't kept up with inflation for a variety of reasons, but mainly because workers are settling for less. None of these increases are likely to have any effect on the waiting lists at your city's country clubs, but it let's people feed their families.

If you're going to leave an argument with supposed  "fact," please use NET #s on anything to do with jobs. 


This is classic ... CNN (and I can't stress C..N..N enough) just yesterday ... the big, bold, online headline story of the day was "unemployment at 4.7% - lowest since 2007."  Well, if anyone actually read the article it painted a much different picture than the headline.  Better yet, I can't even find the article this morning ... CNN couldn't even stand themselves to keep it .. the new benchmark for "misleading." 


Mu opinion is the last 8 years have been an epic failure.  For the fist time in a long time, I (and many others) have hope things will change for the better. 


As for golf, if the election went the other way, we'd be doing to same old thing.  Everything takes time, and it will take time to unwind many of the messes created the last 8 years.  My guess is once we see some type of clarity on the FUBAR health care front, folks who actually are out there creating jobs (government does not create jobs) will do just that.  This will take time.

Let me know if you find any reputable economists speaking in "net" jobs instead of the unemployment rate expressed as a percentage.  And the current unemployment rate was reported everywhere, including CNN, and I have no idea what you are referencing when you speak of it being misleading or disappearing.

As to your opinions about the past 8 years, have at it.  Perhaps you can provide stats that show that the country is, for the most part, worse off now that it was in late January of 2009.  MY opinion is that you will struggle to do that.

[Rob Marshall]

I'll tell you what's worse and it concerns me more than the economy. Race relations. Probably the worse in the last 40 years. Our current president has none nothing in my opinion to improve it. In fact he's hurt it with some of his statements. I don't see our president elect as anyone who can solve it either. Back to golf.........

[Terry Lavin]

I'll tell you what's worse and it concerns me more than the economy. Race relations. Probably the worse in the last 40 years. Our current president has none nothing in my opinion to improve it. In fact he's hurt it with some of his statements. I don't see our president elect as anyone who can solve it either. Back to golf.........

"He's none (sic) nothing" to improve on race relations."

I really can't understand this oft-repeated point of view. So Obama, our first black president has been a failure in race relations. Maybe I'm biased because I've known him personally for a very long time but this argument makes no sense to me. It is undeniable that there was a big movement to make him fail from day one. That's Mitch McConnell on day one. Now we have a prez elect who appealed to all of the racist, bigot and xenophobia out there but it's the black guy's fault that there's problems with race relations. I'm not saying the Combover is a racist but he was happy to take their votes. Fair enough. Let's see how his trickle down Twitter advice will help the little guy.


The black guy didn't help the bigots like blacks better. What a horrible loser!  Turned W's shit salad into a nice meal but since it was served by a black Harvard man it's a disaster.


This is my last post on this site. If nobody will stand against this bullshit I'll find another group to host in Chicago.

[BHoover]

Personally, I agree with you on this, Terry. I just wish we could leave politics off this forum.

[David_Tepper]

Don't let the facts confuse you.

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/heres-the-verdict-on-that-terrible-obama-economy-2016-11-30
 

[noonan]

I'll tell you what's worse and it concerns me more than the economy. Race relations. Probably the worse in the last 40 years. Our current president has none nothing in my opinion to improve it. In fact he's hurt it with some of his statements. I don't see our president elect as anyone who can solve it either. Back to golf.........

Obama has ruined race relations.


As far as the Obama economic numbers quoted above: We are not seeing growth in the rust belt. If the economy is booming on the coasts great. But Ohio is ready to collapse.

[Steve Lang]

.....
This is my last post on this site. If nobody will stand against this bullshit I'll find another group to host in Chicago.

No need for leaving.  Just turn off the computer and all other electronic input.  read an old style book or go for a walk, get something to eat, and breathe slowly human being... come back another day

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