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I've been asking this question for the longest now, but are we really in a recession? I mean, despite the supposed economic woes, I've seen people still buy expensive stuff like HDTVs and gaming consoles during Black Friday.
Then I've heard of businesses opening new stores and some forth. Some companies are still pulling in profits. So, is this supposed to be a recession or a "poor man's recession" where most of the poor to low middle class people suffer?
yes, we're truly in a recession. a recession is when the economy contracts, instead of expands. you can't determine this by anecdotes, you need to use appropriate data. Individual people or individual firms might do great business during a recession.
When $hit becomes valuable, poor folks will be born without a$$holes !
We are fairly poor but we are still able to buy properties. Of coarse there was or still is a recession, and when it hits bottom it is a depression, when economic activity gets moving again we will be in a period of economic expansion (hopefully without too much price inflation). It is always cyclic and varies on local levels. Our state isn't doing all that bad but then again, you can't lose jobs you never had to begin with !
Gauging economic conditions by the behavior of corporate-conditioned materialistic consumerholics is one parameter that is moot.
We could be in the middle of the worst inflationary depression and people will still stampede Walmart workers to death over sales and have shootouts at Toys R US over Cabbage Patch dolls.
Americans will starve to death before not buying the latest Air Jordans.
10% or so unemployed, 90%, roughly, still working.
Actually if you count unemployment as they did years ago, then the number is running around 22% of those they know about. I don't know about you, but 1 out 5 people who want to work full time, that are not, is a pretty bad statistic IMO.
People still "bought stuff" during the Great Depression. It is a myth that the whole country / world rubbed soot on their cheeks and moped around until the Government paid 'em to paint murals and build Lodges at the National Parks... Many companies still had a signficant base of employment and though total economy contracted it did not cease.
The scale of this recession has been broader and more visible than the the more minor recessionary periods of the past two decades. Further, the degree to which the party in power has attempted to use this period to their political advantage is unprecedented.
The commentary by the "media organizations" is also rather unique -- while there is scant evidence that the top celebrity news-readers / blabber mouths have had any real pressure on their enormous wealth they too are using stories of economic hardship to paint a picture of 'suffering' that does not match the reality of the majority of Americans. In so doing they ridiculously over state the supposed disparity that exists between the least well off Americans and those that are easy targets of excess. While this is destructive in many ways, and may in fact making the recession seem "made up" the reality is that thousands and thousands of people that have had their employment end will attest that things are not good.
From people that were employed building houses or condos a year or more ago and have no real prospects of that working coming back anytime soon to those that may have worked for a financial firm that imploded to those assembly line workers that have received their last paycheck ever from a Saturn or Pontiac plant the economic has very definitely contracted.
There is not (yet) a czar of "acceptable consumer spending" and if some one wishes to bring home a flat TV , smart phone or video game to make things a little happier for themselves / their family I really feel no need to wag a finger at them. Of course I would hope that over longer term they have SOME sort of plan to think about increasing their skills to make themselves more employable / productive...
You also have to them count them has in normal times,there are all kinds of reason for people not to be working.About the only figure you can rely on is the offlical figure.
People still "bought stuff" during the Great Depression. It is a myth that the whole country / wm aorld rubbed soot on their cheeks and moped around until the Government paid 'em to paint murals and build Lodges at the National Parks... Many companies still had a signficant base of employment and though total economy contracted it did not cease.....
History does not support this statement however if you want to clarify it, I am willing to listen. Things were so bad that the people voted out the existing government and voted in a president that is the only president in our history to hold this position for 4 terms and only left office upon death. In fact this was so unprecedented they amended the US Constitution to keep it from happening again.
Furthermore, times where so perilous they took the unprecedented steps of seizing all of the valuable money from people, namely gold coins and gold dollar certificates under the penality of $10,000 fine and federal jail time if the people did not turn them in within 10 days. They were replaced with federal reserve notes. They sealed all safety deposit boxes. Before the people were allowed do access them again, federal agents had opened them and removed anything related to gold and replaced them again with the FRNs.
FDR was extremely worried about existing government being overthrown by either the Communists and Fascists that many of th se kinds of programs and WPA programs were put in place to prevent it. The suggestion the USA was some sort of consumerist society similar to the present world, is pretty funny. If you would like to explain this in more detail why you think otherwise, I certainly would like to hear this but the overwhelming documented evidence over the past 70 years is certainly not in agreement.
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