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We are pulling out of this recession just like we've pulled out of every recession before it. An awful lot of people had "the sky is falling" mentality when Jimmy Carter was in office, and we recovered from that. What makes the period we are living in any different?.
No, we did not pull out of that recession (which actually began toward the end of the Johnson Administration).
Most people do not remember--or did not realize--that the US went into an economic crisis under Richard Nixon that required things like taking US currency off the gold standard and letting its value float for the first time in US history, or Nixon ordering a wage and price freeze over the entire nation (imagine the hew and cry if Obama attempted that).
Extreme events like that plus the fact that so many middle and lower middle class families suddenly became two-earner families in the 70s is why the US avoided collapse.
Ultimately, the base economic picture did not improve in the 80s--rather, government and consumers became much more willing to go into debt to keep churning commerce.
But that can only go so far. We never fixed the problems of the 70s, and some are simply not fixable.
This is what we need to realize: It was the Boomer Generation that enjoyed a unique and anamalous period in human history. Because of WWII, the United States for 30 years held the position of being the single great nation on earth with no close economic rival. We had the premier industrial base and access to worldwide resources unfettered by competition. The Roman Empire didn't even have it so good.
Industry in America boomed as it had never boomed in human history. Companies couldn't get enough middle managers, secretaries, or assembly line technicians. Everyone moved to the city. The government was providing GI Bill money and VA home loans to a whole generation of parents who raised their kids to believe that everyone ought to go to college and buy a house. A whole new concept of human reality was created for a single generation--the Boomers.
The Boomer Generation was raised in that bubble...but the bubble broke in the late 60s/early 70s when Japan and Europe finally recovered from WWII and their former colonies suddenly realized that the US "soft colonialism" was no better than the European hard colonialism.
I remember seeing the first Honda Civic and wondering, "What the heck is that?" I remember the Arab Oil Embargo. Those should have been wake up calls...but the Boomer Generation didn't wake up.
So here we are thinking that the world that was true for Boomers--getting any kind of degree in college and walking into a permanent job with a good company--is supposed to be true forever. But it's not. That was a bubble, a blip in history. That party is over.
Last edited by Ralph_Kirk; 12-09-2013 at 08:00 AM..
The fact remains that we are living in a totally unsustainable system. Something is going to have to give, or things will get very bad. And then things will get worse - when the have-nots finally get squeezed just a bit too far and it reaches critical mass. I foresee another Civil War in this country...and not a neat North versus South thing...I foresee a hundred different factions bitterly fighting each other for the rancid remains of what was once a great country.
You can only push people so far into the corner before they start pushing back. The Boomers are a non-factor in this. They are too old. They got theirs, anyway. By MY generation...the X'ers...and even more so the Gen Y - we are NOT the same type of Americans who survived the Great Depression. Many of us do NOT know how to survive on as little as they did - and with our "instant gratification" attitudes (this is what we are used to) - we are not likely to stand for too much deprivation.
It will take less and less squeezing to finally cause a large pushback, and I can only hope the pushback will be peaceful, but I fear not. The United States itself may die of it. Thus, in the end, proving Khrushchev right, and prophetic...when it comes time to hang the capitalist West, an American businessman will sell him the rope.
The only difference being this country, and the overlords of it...and their greed...will be who hangs this country...not Khrushchev, and not Russia.
No, I don't share the optimism expressed by our illustrious Gen Y poster here. I'd like to. But I've seen too much, done too much, and I've become cynical.
I do see a few hopeful glimmers, though. Much of it is coming from our new Pope Francis.
I am not Catholic, not even Christian. But I recognize that this is a man in a position of power an authority - a person to whom many will listen. A man who has the power to be a transformative force in the world. And, as Pope, presumably a man of peace. And I see him speak out against the form of capitalism we practice in America. I see him speak out against economic injustice. I see him sneak out of the Vatican and night and anonymously minister to the homeless of Rome.
I see Francis and I see hope that this man may be the one who can lead the world, and America...out of darkness....and in a peaceful way. I see little else that gives me hope, but Francis does.
You can only push people so far into the corner before they start pushing back.
The Boomers are a non-factor in this. They are too old. They got theirs,
anyway. By MY generation...the X'ers...and even more so the Gen Y - we are NOT
the same type of Americans who survived the Great Depression. Many of us do NOT
know how to survive on as little as they did - and with our "instant
gratification" attitudes (this is what we are used to) - we are not likely to
stand for too much deprivation.
I'd point out two things:
A. We Boomers did not experience the Great Depression. The Boomers were born and raised in an economic boom. When we were kids, we sent CARE packages to starving children in Europe. We were raised with the idea that we could have it all. We Boomers as a generation have no real experience with such things.
C. The Boomers still control industry and politics--the CEOs and Senators and Governors are predominatly Boomers.
So the people making the big decisions are people who don't really understand--or believe--that "we're not in Kansas anymore."
I'm 50, and in my lifetime there has NEVER been a period exceeding 6 months where the national employment situation was so bad that personable, intelligent kids of Middle Class families with college degrees didn't have any hope of getting a job in their fields, or any jobs with hope of advancement or decent pay.
For the past 5 years I have watched EVERY young adult in my extended family graduate with huge student debt ($50-80,000), including one nurse who graduated this last June, only to find NO jobs in their field.
Then what happened to them? I assume they found jobs eventually. Sometimes you have to relocate to get a decent job. It is harder now, but motivated graduates willing to relocate can do it.
Then what happened to them? I assume they found jobs eventually. Sometimes you have to relocate to get a decent job. It is harder now, but motivated graduates willing to relocate can do it.
It's hard to get promised a job from long distance, even at middle class levels. So that means a 48-year-old manager has to sell his house (perhaps at several thousand dollars loss--he's in a depressed area, which is why he needs to move) and move his family to another state on the possibility that he might be offfered a job there.
It wasn't hard for me to type that, but it's very hard to do it. If he's lost his job and spent his savings on his family's home and sustenance while trying to find a new job, he may literally not be able to afford to move.
This is not true. One of the great fallacies out there. Receiving unemployment benefits is not a factor at all in the national unemployment rate.
So called "discouraged workers" are no longer counted as "unemployed"
And this IS true. Administrations constantly muck about with the formula to determine the "unemployment rate" which is a totally fictitious number.
The actual rate of un/under-employed persons is far higher than the number given as the official "unemployment rate."
Take, for example, myself. I am a small business owner. I pay into unemployment for myself, as an employee of my company. Yet, as the owner of the company...if it goes out of business, I don't get to collect any benefits.
So, if that happened to me - I'd be unemployed...yet, because I never collected any benefits (even though I paid in like a good girl) I would not be counted as "unemployed." The same holds true for workers who have exhausted their benefits.
Yeah, because people are running out of benefits without having found a job and are thus no longer counted as "unemployed."
What is the actual figure of people who WANT to work a forty-hour a week job who do not have one? That figure is your REAL un/under-employed figure.
What is the actual figure of people who want to work...and don't have a job...whether or not they get unemployment benefits...THAT is your real unemployment figure.
Don't get stuck in 2010. Last month the economy created 220,000 new jobs, many of them high paying manufacturing jobs. The economy really is recovering.
A. We Boomers did not experience the Great Depression. The Boomers were born and raised in an economic boom. When we were kids, we sent CARE packages to starving children in Europe. We were raised with the idea that we could have it all. We Boomers as a generation have no real experience with such things.
C. The Boomers still control industry and politics--the CEOs and Senators and Governors are predominatly Boomers.
So the people making the big decisions are people who don't really understand--or believe--that "we're not in Kansas anymore."
The recessions in 1980 and 1982 were just as bad, if not worse, than the 2008 crash. If you lived in an oil producing state or next to a military base you did OK, but the rest of the country was in the toilet. Anybody who lived through the Great Recession in the '80s learned not to speculate and not to trust a boom economy. Some of the boomers were too young to own anything, so they missed the lesson, but plenty of us got our diplomas from the U of Hard Knocks. We had already seen real estate prices drop 40% once, and expected it to happen again any time.
2008 was the same old same old. If you are a boomer, you remember the Savings and Loan bailout, and Jeb Bush walking away from a bankrupt S&L with $6 million in his pocket, because his daddy was Reagan's VP. That was thanks to deregulating the S&L industry. Sound familiar?
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