Recession

[creaker]

Businesses are creating a lot of jobs - it's just a lot of them are overseas. Given how hard many businesses were working to outsource to reduce costs prior to the recession, I can't imagine many of them are going to do much hiring here if they can do it more cheaply elsewhere.

[Greg44]

I work in the "Big Toy" industry - Motorcycles and ATV's. We are just beginning to see some change. It is very slow. The change we are seeing are the young adult males starting to buy again. There is some confidence back in the market.

We had several large manufacturers close or shut way down - Motorhome/coach plants, computer chip plant, etc. So I think that those YAMs (Young Adult Males) that didin't lose their jobs, saw their buddies lose their jobs and all the pain they experienced, so they too just stopped buying. And I mean STOPPED.

There seems to be a willingness to take on debt again. If this continues there are two big hurdles we must face - running out of product to sell. The dealers have pulled way back in their ordering and likewise the manufacturers have reduced their production to record lows. The second hurdle is sticker shock. Today it is a buyer's market. Prices are cheap, cheap, but as the non-current year models clear out their replacements - for the same models are up to $ 2k more expensive!

This recession has hit us very hard. During the last recession my wife had a cush government job - and we had a young family. This recession my wife is a homemaker. Had we not paid off our home & car during the years "of plenty", and built up our savings accounts - we would have been out on the street. No way could we have done a mortgage with just my income.

[ApatheticNoMore]

I've seen worse. The official unemployment rate hovered around 10% or worse for much of the early 80's with 82 and 83 being the worst of the bunch. On top of that, we had astronomical interest rates, think 18% for a 30 year fixed mortgage. I bought my first house in 1979 and was lucky to get a 10% VA loan. Add 11 to 15% annual inflation rates to the mix and you've got some severe economic hurt.

The situation we're in now is painful as well but not as bad as then. I see no reason to believe we won't be celebrating another upturn in the near term.

I've never seen worse around here. State unemployment of over 12% (12.5% now) is the highest it has ever been since they started measuring state unemployment (in the mid 70s). I can't imagine it being worse in the 50s and 60s (those were the glory days). Now I will concede things were probably worse in the Great Depression! And I can see a lot of reasons why things might not be improving anytime soon (inevitable state layoffs in the pipe etc.). In the long run, I don't know. But I don't see recovery right around the corner or anything.

[Eggs and Shrubs]

That's why history is such a wonderful vehicle for adding context to current times. I've lived through worse times, and they got better. I'm betting they will again.

Well said Alan.

I often feel stressed but try to think of the real stress my Grandfather felt in the trenches of Belgium or the real stress my Father felt serving in the navy in WW2. History gives a real perspective.

What is the worst thing that can happen?

[Eggs and Shrubs]

I don't know about life for the ordinary person in the US but here in the UK an unemployed person enjoys a much higher standard of living then their parents and a much higher standard of living than I enjoyed as a child.

[Yppej]

I never had a problem finding work in the 80's, and the jobs lost then did come back for the most part. I am concerned, that as Creaker notes, some of the jobs we've lost won't be coming back. We've already lost so much of our manufacturing base -now the service sector is being outsourced or automated in many places. I hope Alan is right.

[Gregg]

Heck, didn't the French legislate a 35 hour maximum workweek in 2000, to reduce unemployment? That'd suck up 12.5% unemployment right there, with a stroke of a pen...

Without a corresponding 12.5% drop in consumer prices I'm not sure spreading the available work around to more people will pull us out of a recession. Since everyone seems to hate the thought of deflation that doesn't seem likely to happen.

Bae, I thought your question regarding who's responsibility is it to create jobs was intriguing. A couple knee jerk answers roll off my tongue, but given a little thought its not such a simple question to answer. Certainly I think the government (all branches) has a responsibility to foster an environment in which citizens have a reasonable opportunity to prosper. Part of that is the expectation of employment opportunities. IMO that is brought about by the government not unnecessarily handcuffing employers, but that is not the same thing as directly creating jobs. I have the responsibility to provide for my family. The manner in which I've chosen to do that does (hopefully) create jobs, but I am not responsible for unemployment or any reduction thereof. Could it be that there simply isn't anyone with an actual 'responsibility' to create jobs?

[loosechickens]

One of my theories for why this recession seems so much worse to many people is that it reached into the ranks of middle-class and professional people, people with college educations, people who mostly were not affected by other recessions, which tended to hit blue collar workers, minorities, but spare the white, educated and professional class. That, combined with the housing bubble and high consumer debt, even by highly paid white collar workers, formed the "perfect storm", where even people who had done everything right, gone to school, had a profession and the nice home in the suburbs, etc., were not safe from disaster.

This recession shook the foundations of even the people who thought their education, position and status and comfortable middle-class lives were more or less invulnerable. JMHO

[flowerseverywhere]

I don't think what we are going through now is nearly as bad as what we are leaving for our ancestors. Tons of landfills, aging nuclear reactors, genetically modified food and tons of chemicals in the ground, abandoned oil wells. Add to that the debt that we just can't seem to stop growing. Just think about it.

The only way we are going to have more than a short term fix to our problems is for people to stop producing so much personal and industrial waste. We also have to step up our conservation efforts. Population control would be another good fix. Demand balanced budgets.

I hardly doubt that any of these would even be mentioned by our politicians- heck our Tea Party congresswoman spent time marching against abortion in DC her first few days in office while our district is seeing the few remaining factories close down and our school districts in real peril.

For those out of work, I have no idea how to get good jobs back.

[ApatheticNoMore]

I do remember the last recession. It seemed bad at the time. It DEFINITELY affected white collar workers. Who do you think worked for all the dot coms after all? I swear half of silicon valley must have moved down here to get jobs. It seemed like that, jobs were scarce.

Then again I'd gladly go back to those days now. So I spent 6 months looking for work then and it seemed like there were no jobs. For unemployed people now 6 months is lucky indeed!! Really if most people were taking 6 months to get jobs that's not really unmanageable for either people's savings or the unemployment system. The problem is it's worse than that now. Unemployment rates of what 6-7% here, seemed so high back then. I'd almost CONSIDER THAT RECOVERY AT THIS POINT!!! I'm not kidding, that kind of recovery would help a lot. I mean that's almost half of what it is now.

So I'd say no the last 2 recessions have affected white collar workers (less so before then) but this one is definitely worse.