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Fortunately enough Pubs and Dems understood the need for central actions in 2008. Of course Bernanke was ahead of them.
Following up though we have had to tolerate stupidity from both sides of the aisle.
From the Right sequestration and from the left taxation.
What they did was use a can of ether with a wood saw. Its better than no surgery at all but hardly any real kind of cure. That is why gangrene is setting in.
Although, I was lucky not to be directly affected (i.e. have a job, lose investments), I have learned to do without many things: buy a "less well appointed" car, go only sparingly to the movies, buy less clothes, eat out much less often.
I look for high quality and haggle on the price, even in chain stores.
I have learned how rigged our economic system really is. This isn't to say I don't do all the prudent things like saving, etc. But it has helped me retain a certain detachment to the whole money system. It's run by a small elite who can take it down any time they want.
Location: East of Seattle since 1992, 615' Elevation, Zone 8b - originally from SF Bay Area
44,585 posts, read 81,225,683 times
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A recession is not a collapse, and we are currently in a recovery. From the recent recession of 2008-09 I learned that liquid savings is a must, the more the better.
Switching from banks to credit unions means at least a little bit of interest without having all my money in high risk/high reward instruments that can go downhill fast. I also learned that while owning a business is a great way to make a living during good times, there's nothing like a good paying job with great benefits and a retirement plan to weather an economic storm. The year or so between the business and the new job in 2009 was a rough time that I prefer not to repeat.
First, location is everything. Location determines the availability of jobs, what they pay, whether or not you can buy or sell a home, the connections your school has - virtually anything you can think of is determined by location. While Hemlock140 is technically correct that we're in a recovery, this recovery isn't being felt uniformly by location. He lives around Seattle, which is doing very well, and I live in TN, which is still in distress. Our perspectives will be shaped accordingly. The most important advice I could give someone ten years younger than me heading to college next year is to go to a growing big city ASAP and do not stay in rural America for any reason.
Second, you probably won't be doing what you want to do. For that matter, you may be doing something you are very ill suited for and not even very good at. Once you are in a career track, there seems to be a "locked in" factor where you can't really move up or down - the only jobs you can get are the ones you've already done before, and if the initial choice was forced, rushed, or just not a good fit, it's game over.
Third, education and training doesn't seem helpful. Again, this is partly colored by location. All the education and certifications I've taken have done absolutely nothing for me. The job I have now would have been great to get me acquainted with the industry ten years ago at 17, but at 27, with experience, degree, and certifications, making $10.82/hr on a forty hour "equivalency wage" is catastrophic.
Lastly, life doesn't have the hope and promise that it once did. I was 23 in 2010, coming out of college with a major in a field that should have been decent (economics) and it was something I really enjoyed. Roughly four years later, I'm still stuck in a call center, no benefits, no insurance, and no real hope for the future. The collapse has really made me wonder how life went so terribly wrong, and it has killed my hope for a better tomorrow.
That when I had a gut feeling in 2006 and 2007 that houses can indeed go down in price when everyone around me said that never happens, I was....right!
This. I swear growing up in Florida all I heard were old crows squawking that you can't ever loose money on land or housing property. Oh man did some people find that out the hard way.
I have learned how stupid all of our politicans are in regards to
how the economy really works.
THey are all clueless.
Well, mabey a couple know how it works, but not enough.
Also, I have learned how bought off our politicans are.
They don't work for any of the people, that is clear.
This goes for both parties, but I have to admit, the Republicans
are actually embarassing, to think that people in this country are so
ignorant as to vote clowns like this in. JESSH.
At least the ultra billionaires prevented the last "DEBT CEILING" calamity
from happening, probably with one phone call.
It's the American people's fault too, not educating themselves and seeing
what the representative in Congress that they pay are really voting for.
Where are the jobs?
THey are gone people, and they aren't coming back.
Things are gonna get nasty this year.
Sad.
I learned that words like "collapse" and "bubble" have become popular and misused terms, like many others.
I learned that most people are whiners and complainers.
I learned that the United States is the biggest waster of resources on the planet but, on a per capita basis, most other countries are worse, it is still the greatest country on earth, perhaps not as much by far as thirty years ago, but still the greatest country on earth.
But that's of little consequence, because I also learned that wealth is in the heart.
For what? The pharaoh of Egypt was financially wealthy but couldn't spend it on antibiotics and couldn't buy a photograph or listen to an old CCR track . I am well positioned too, financially, but it doesn't look like I'll be able to spend it on as much progress as we could have because money now flows to the best scams.
You're upset because the Egyptian pharoah couldn't buy stuff that didn't exist yet and you can't buy obsolete technology????
Quote:
Originally Posted by gwynedd1
What they did was use a can of ether with a wood saw. Its better than no surgery at all but hardly any real kind of cure. That is why gangrene is setting in.
ROTFLMAO. Your medical analogies are as ludicrous as your technological ones.
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I swear growing up in Florida all I heard were old crows squawking that you can't ever loose money on land or housing property. Oh man did some people find that out the hard way.
