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One more difference between Now and Then. Back then no Internet so the blissful optimism of youth was in full swing. No one to tell you how bad things were so things always looked as if they would improve. There was a difference between having hope in the future and only seeing gloom as folks are today.
One thing I'm doing over the last few weeks is really limiting news that is "pushed" to me. I've basically cut off notifications for news apps on my phone. The local NBC station's app alerts to virtually everything going on the city. Indy is a high crime area, and I don't need to know about every assault or murder that occurred - the way it's going now, my phone is buzzing multiple times a day with bad news.
There is nothing I can do about these things and getting bombarded with bad news constantly is depressing and frustrating.
Sure, things aren't great out there, but trying to stay positive is critical, especially if you're unemployed or struggling.
I know that, not yet, we're not to the point of the Great Depression, but I think we have passed up the Recession of the 1970's. Am I being overly dramatic to assume such or do you think I'm right?
'the Carter one' ?
'the recession of the 1970s' ?
The economic word recession is not some vague term meaning 'kinda sucky economy'. It has a very precise definition, and the last recession that occurred in the 1970s ended in 1975, before Carter was elected. There was a brief recession in 1980 but it was fairly minor. Another recession, this one more severe, began in mid-1981 when Reagan was President (and it obviously didn't happen in the 1970s) but which was attributable to the fiscal policy of the Fed to get control of inflation during the Carter Administration - a policy which continued when Reagan took over, for what it's worth.
Now, which one as more severe? The Great Recession (that's why it was given the label 'great'), clearly. The contraction of the GDP was easily the highest since the post-war recession of 1945. The broader effects, which do not define a recession but are aspects of it, were also more severe.
The Great Recession was also demonstrably worse than mid-1970s recession.
I believe we are in a limbo between recession and expansion. The very late part of the business cycle. With the Atlanta Federal Reserve predicting 0.4% growth in Q1 which cannot be attributed to the weather(other than that east coast blizzard), It is clear our economy is slowing down. When the Recession hits? No one knows until we are in one. People in 2007 or 2000 were not predicting a Recession in the next year and then boom they were in one. I think though it will be sometime before 2018.
It is sort of sad my family has yet to fully recover from the Great Recession, my parents had to foreclose on our sprawling house in 2011 and we moved into a much smaller house. My parents were both unemployed from late 2012-late 2013 and though we are in a much better place, its still rough. My parents are making much more money than they were before the Recession but our standards of living has certainly decreased, and with me graduating high school in 2018(I know I know, I am pretty young) I am worried about my future. Have applied to multiple jobs and have not gotten one yet. The labor market seems to have tightened up a bit around here in the last few months, unemployment rate has gone up from 3.9% to 4.9% but it is still below the national average.
The economic word recession is not some vague term meaning 'kinda sucky economy'. It has a very precise definition, and the last recession that occurred in the 1970s ended in 1975, before Carter was elected. There was a brief recession in 1980 but it was fairly minor. Another recession, this one more severe, began in mid-1981 when Reagan was President (and it obviously didn't happen in the 1970s) but which was attributable to the fiscal policy of the Fed to get control of inflation during the Carter Administration - a policy which continued when Reagan took over, for what it's worth.
Now, which one as more severe? The Great Recession (that's why it was given the label 'great'), clearly. The contraction of the GDP was easily the highest since the post-war recession of 1945. The broader effects, which do not define a recession but are aspects of it, were also more severe.
The Great Recession was also demonstrably worse than mid-1970s recession.
Bolded, just because everyone should have to read it again.
"Recession" has a precise meaning. I may not know the meaning or may have been around people who incorrectly use the word, but that does not change that it (it just makes me or whoever is using it wrong ... well, wrong).
From my perspective it seems much of the public sector is still somewhat in recession due to budget cuts and the sequester. That slows everything down. The private sector is better off. They say small business is the engine that runs the economy but the public sector is the wheels. It takes a while to get approvals and permits. If you venture into national parks or forests you will see that most campgrounds or other access points are closed down. Communities that depend on federal dollars are still struggling.
- the publicly traded company (ie, "big business") for illegally firing me from a job I was perfect for and excellent at per my reviews
- the government for FAVORING big businesses and having too many loopholes, one mega one that makes it so it might as well not exist at all, in the ADA law. (And for all of you upset about too many people on SSDI, *THE ADA LAWS* is where your real anger should be focused.)
Someone told me the ADA law has hurt people more than it helped. Something along the lines that a person will not get hired in the first place because the company is apprehensive of being sued.
First, the "formal definition" of a recession is two consecutive downturns in the GDP. This last recession has really rewrote the rules on recessions.
The question of which recessions are worst.....are really set by definitions. Most definitions of recessions are set by GDP. I think the real change in the 2008 recession is the slow recovery and the effect on middle class wages.
The 1979 recession was awful. I lived in a county that had a unemployment rate of 25%. The state of Washington closed the unemployment office in the county. I think they gave up!! The recovery was quick in urban areas, but it really lingered in outside the major urban areas. Even cities like Spokane, were still recovering from that recession in the 1980's.
But the real difference in that recession was the middle class came through in fairly decent shape. It was really the low-wage American's that were hard hit by that recession.
The 2008 recession really hammered the middle class. Our net worth went down by about 30%. That is not the worst of it. Fortunately, years ago I decided the way to invest was like the rich since they controlled the government. It has served me well over the years.....always invest like your rich. The deck is rigged, but fortunately in America you can pretend that your rich and invest like them!!
I had friends with post-doctorate degrees in the SCIENCES, 30 year careers in other professions and their INCOMES went down by 30-40%. It particularly hit hard the folks in their 50's who suddenly became expendable.
My sense is that the 2008 recession was worse because it hit a larger number of people and particularly the middle class.
Not to bring up politics, but there is a reason Sanders and Trump are leading in elections.
My concern is that once the middle class is lost, countries have moved fairly rapidly to revolution. It is a serious situation.....our Elites do not have a clue.
It wasn't the recession that wrecked the middle class. That had been going on for a long time, but was masked by people, and businesses, mining paper equity. The jobs vanished because businesses were forced to cut work force for survival, but the only reason those jobs existed at all was sheer inertia. In the 1980s, businesses still needed file clerks, stenographers, and carpenters still drove nails with hammers. The last place I worked before I retired (2011), morning staff meetings were a thing of the past, replaced by weekly or monthly briefings. It was OK, because the department had been shaved from 22 people to 9 to do the same amount of work. The secretaries/stenographers were gone, except for one receptionist who answered the phone. That wasn't the recession, that was the future.
I tried to tell people in 2009, "Welcome to the new normal." I took a lot of flack for that. People didn't believe it. Maybe now, years later, people will be more receptive to the idea, no matter how distasteful it is.
You were lucky to have a net worth in 2007. Many people didn't. I learned a bitter lesson in the 1980s that you can't trust the economy. When the dotcom bust happened, I slapped myself in the head for being so stupid, but did manage to bail before 9/11 killed Wall St. In 2006, when gasoline pushed past $4/gallon I decided it was going to suck the life out of the economy, so I moved all my stocks to cash and just sat on it. I bought back in at the bottom of the market, and by 2010 had doubled my net worth.
Recessions always have a trigger event. You just have to pay attention. In 1973 it was the oil crisis. In 1979 it was the currency crisis. 2001 was tougher to spot, because it was just an airware crisis, but by 2007 we were back to an oil crisis. The one that really scares me is another currency crisis, so look for uninflated assets. Thanks to the Fed, uninflated assets are really hard to find. Keeping your money in money has just been a little loser for the last few years, but it has the potential to become a big loser. Right now everyone thinks the dollar is unbreakable, which means everyone is probably wrong. If you are a big gambler, as soon as things start looking shaky, leverage yourself to your eyeballs and be ready to flip for a profit. The big cash reserves will be looking for a safe harbor. Keep your credit score high and your eyes open.
It wasn't the recession that wrecked the middle class.
Thw middle class isn't wrecked, so no explanation is need to support hyperbole.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Larry Caldwell
I tried to tell people in 2009, "Welcome to the new normal." I took a lot of flack for that. People didn't believe it. Maybe now, years later, people will be more receptive to the idea, no matter how distasteful it is.
Why would people be more receptive now? Since 2009 unemployment has gone down by over 50%, the stock market has tripled, the economy is slowly expanding, consumers are spending, today is nothing like 2009 so that clearly wasn't a new normal.
Which recession? The one that ended in 2009 or the one that will occur sometime in the future?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Vision67
We're not in a recession.
Quote:
Originally Posted by bpollen
We're not in a recession.
Quote:
Originally Posted by GiantRutgersfan
I dont think the economy is bad at this point. I wasn't alive back in the 70s, but I think the general consensus is that the economy from 08-12 or so was the worst since the great depression.
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