Recession..is it over?

[manish]

Is there recession going on in your country?

Here in India recession is over..companies are recruiting..so all good

One of friend is in US and he tells USA is really hit by recession and its gonna hit more ..worst this time

Guys what u feel abt it..?

 

[SoldMySoul]

The government is trying to make people believe it is over, but far from it. I heard the other day that a lot more home's mortgages will be underwater in 2011 and since mine was I decided to dump it when I filed for chapter 7.

With that said, the recession is not over and from what I hear and people I discuss it with feel our economy is never coming back and harder times are in the mail.

Unemployment rates are reported like a yo-yo, up and down around 10% nationwide, but the numbers are false and the does not include people that have given up on looking for work, had to take BS part time work that do not pay bills and others who retired earlier than they intended.

TIMES ARE INDEED BAD!!!!

 

[comic_relief]

this is more of a political discussion, but I won't delve into that realm.

Simple answer, not at all.

I look at history to give me an idea of what will happen next. The same things are being done from the great depression and i see it as a double dip recession. Looks good and then bang, life sucks again

 

[synergy1]

I'll address this from the standpoint of an engineer looking for work. After the 2008 collapse, I saw industry struggle in general. My previous company had let go of a ton of technicians, and the company I was working for did the same prior to letting me go. The symptom was the same at both places; **** wasn't selling and there was no work for engineers to do. I recall the principal engineer at my first job playing card games on his computer during times when our products weren't flying off the shelves.

The bailout money was a band-aid solution to the problem, and the slowdown we are observing is proof of that. As a job seeker, I am noticing increasingly more temp jobs, meaning companies don't feel they have capitol for a long term contract OR they just don't feel they are growing and need to expand their personnel. The second issue is that many job postings are requiring increasingly more and more just for early/mid career positions. I consider myself a talented engineer, not in the top 10% or whatever, but able to do anything you throw at me...and the job requirements for most mid/early career positions are nothing short of insane. They want a mechanical engineer with a electrical engineer background, wraped up with full JAVA programming, not to mention 3+ years of experience on their products. its that difficult to break into positions.

I don't think the recession is over; i am not even sure if it has truly begun. That said, I am frantically trying to secure some form of income before **** really hits the fan, and I think it will. The upside is that foreign economies are doing well so those provide job opps which are worth checking out!

 

[Razor Sharp]

Anytime you wonder what the future has in store all you need to do is look at the past.

Look at our last terrible economic bust, the Great Depression. It was also a massive ponzi scheme which milked the 20's, an era of great prosperity for America. How did we ever recover from that? Oh yeah, it was World War II and all of a sudden the gov't had billions of dollars to infuse into the system. Funny how they can do that. Sure wish I could just print up money whenever I needed to pay for something *shrugs*

The only problem now is that we can no longer print more. The dollar just can't take that kind of beating. It's already being reconsidered as a standard global currency - having about 10% of the value it had 70 years ago. If we keep printing then America could face a similar situation to Zimbabwe, where a stick of gum cost $200,000.00, and people were using money as KINDLE.

The only way out for the US is

1. A massive war the likes of which human civilization has never seen
2. Destroy the dollar and unite currencies with neighboring countries (Amero?)
3. Responsible financial planning at all levels of government (haha, sorry I can't even type that sh*t with a straight face)

#1 and #2 are obviously band-aid solutions to a massive gaping wound, definitely not long-term solutions.

My guess is that they will continue to inflate the dollar as long as they can - maybe for another year or two tops until they either go #2, or get us into deeper water which will necessitate a #1.

It's not all doom and gloom though. Some countries are recovering at an astonishing rate. Both France and Germany are no longer in recession and continue to pick up steam. Both countries got out of it by cutting gov't spending while decreasing their dependence on imports and employing more people locally.

America would have to make huge lifestyle/cultural shift to do the same. There's definitely no room for Walmarts or Targets in such an economic model, can the American people give up their addiction to ridiculously low prices in favor of supporting themselves and their communities? They haven't done such a great job so far.

The real shooting star right now is China, no surprise since they are the kings of cheap labor. They are seeing explosive growth in all sectors and already outperform our richest citizens - http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1930337,00.html. China also recently granted America a loan for military spending in the Iraq War. That's right, project Desert Freedom may be all-american, but it's paid in China now.

You know, considering our options I have to wonder if we can liquidate that debt buy declaring war against them? That would sure kill two birds with one stone!

 

[Quiksilver]

Personally I can't ever see America's economy returning to what it was or recovering.

In the 18th, 19th, and much of the 20th century, America became a superpower because it BUILT things. It was a manufacturing economy, producing things the entire world wanted.

That manufacturing economy created steady and meaningful jobs at all levels of the economy, from primary industries (mining, etc) to factories, to storefronts on Main street.

Now due to oppressive regulation and in competition with slave-markets over in Asia and elsewhere, those manufacturing and industrial jobs are drying up very quickly.

Chances are, the computer you are using now was made in Southeast asia. Why? Because that is where most of the manufacturing jobs are now. Also, the car you drive is probably made in Asia, Brazil, or eastern Europe.

--

You can't have a meaningful recovery in the United States unless jobs return and the produce-and-save mentality comes back. Right now your economy is a borrow-and-spend one bent on increasing the welfare population, driving down wages, and burying the middle class under mountains of debt and taxation.

--

There will probably be some sort of downturn before the end of the year, but unless you're well connected on Wall Street, it's very hard to predict these things.

Best thing -- and likely only thing -- you can do is just get your own finances in order so you can face whatever comes on your feet, rather than on your knees with creditors pointing shotguns at the back of your head

--

And try to avoid politics guys, we don't like closing valuable threads.

 

[manish]

I'll address this from the standpoint of an engineer looking for work. After the 2008 collapse, I saw industry struggle in general. My previous company had let go of a ton of technicians, and the company I was working for did the same prior to letting me go. The symptom was the same at both places; **** wasn't selling and there was no work for engineers to do. I recall the principal engineer at my first job playing card games on his computer during times when our products weren't flying off the shelves.

The bailout money was a band-aid solution to the problem, and the slowdown we are observing is proof of that. As a job seeker, I am noticing increasingly more temp jobs, meaning companies don't feel they have capitol for a long term contract OR they just don't feel they are growing and need to expand their personnel. The second issue is that many job postings are requiring increasingly more and more just for early/mid career positions. I consider myself a talented engineer, not in the top 10% or whatever, but able to do anything you throw at me...and the job requirements for most mid/early career positions are nothing short of insane. They want a mechanical engineer with a electrical engineer background, wraped up with full JAVA programming, not to mention 3+ years of experience on their products. its that difficult to break into positions.

I don't think the recession is over; i am not even sure if it has truly begun. That said, I am frantically trying to secure some form of income before **** really hits the fan, and I think it will. The upside is that foreign economies are doing well so those provide job opps which are worth checking out!

i can feel what are you going through..i,m software engineer.. and i know how difficult it is to get engineering degree..we invested so much time and money to get that degree .. and now no one cares abt it..thats hard

As our IT/software industry is mostly dependent of USA..as USA started bending down ..our software industries started feeling the heat..

but now i don't think there is a problem , major software firms like Accenture, Infosys , TCS are recruting in bulk..[they had removed in bulk when they felt the heat].i get atleast 15 job offers everyday

the firm which i,m working in develops project for very huge pharmaceutical firm based in USA[Merck]..few months back they has almost stopped the software development work..but now they are investing huge in software development.. which according to me is a positive sign..

but as i read all the replies here..i can feel the tension building up.

I look at history to give me an idea of what will happen next. The same things are being done from the great depression and i see it as a double dip recession. Looks good and then bang, life sucks again

i hope that double dip should not occur...if that happens ...its gonna be real hard for every one..

Best thing -- and likely only thing -- you can do is just get your own finances in order so you can face whatever comes on your feet, rather than on your knees with creditors pointing shotguns at the back of your head

That seems to be temporary solution to me...till how long one can live with out a jobs..when he has wife , kids to be taken care off.

we really need to think of the ways..where we can earn/keep jobs alive even in double dip recession..

 

[Alle_Gory]

2. Destroy the dollar and unite currencies with neighboring countries (Amero?)

Look how well that turned out with the Euro.

You know, considering our options I have to wonder if we can liquidate that debt buy declaring war against them? That would sure kill two birds with one stone!

I don't think America needs more enemies now.


What works in China, besides being the international centre of cheap labor is tarrifs. Most people in China buy only Chinese products. It's only the rich that you'll see owning anything quality, and there's not that many rich. Tarrifs always help to protect local industry. Sometimes it's a bad thing if the industry is made of a few weaklings who can't compete, but America has a decently large enough market even though most of it has been exported.

 

[Razor Sharp]

Alle_Gory, as I said those would be temporary fixes, something the US prides itself on (hello, $700 billion in bailouts) My comment on war was sarcasm - sorry I forget that never reads as well as it sounds.

I actually agree with you - give the people incentive to support their own economy/workforce and it's win-win for everyone (as long as you don't abuse people's civil rights). I'd really like to see more folks putting their money where their country is.

We need companies like Apple to hire Americans, instead of working Chinese people till they kill themselves.

We also need to lose this fiat currency and start trading with solid, actual value, be it gold or other tangible resources.

And would it kill us to make derivatives completely illegal? I mean seriously, you can't go to Wall Street and openly throw down on a game of craps - but you sure as hell can place bets on whether John Doe's mortgage will default or not. That's just wrong.

Really who am I kidding though, the whole system needs a f*cking enema to get rid of all the sh*t that's caked on over the years. Almost makes you want to cheer on its collapse in hopes that we can build something that actually works for everyone involved, instead of just a few.

I'm tired of watching the average, hard-working Joe get stiffed at every corner. They try to sell us this dream of prosperity, but they are quick to raise our taxes, de-value our currency and send our jobs abroad. Every day people work harder for less, until one day they're just minimum-wage serfs, just like feudal times.

I just hope we sort it all out before things get all medieval on our asses.

 

[AAAgent]

Clearly you are unaware of basic economics. Your so called produce and save mentality does not work. Once we get the ball rolling and unemployment is low; if people save their money they are sadly going to bring the economy back down. This is the paradox of thrift. There will be no money to inject into the economy because it is all sitting in bank accounts. With no money being spent; companies will not get the revenue they need; which in turn people will be let go. Therefore all those people will have going for them is that money they saved. You can beat the paradox of thrift though. You can do it through exports. This way an outer source of income is being put into USA. Instead of all the americans trading there money around, they get to take some from other economies to balance with what is being saved. Sadly this won't happen because the USA is just to damn expensive compared to other countries.

Don't quote me on this but i think what he meant was that since people again would be making more money, they could also afford to save more as well. That doesn't mean they won't be spending it, it just means they can spend more and save more then they could when they were making less and spending/saving less.

 

[Alle_Gory]

Clearly you are unaware of basic economics. Your so called produce and save mentality does not work. Once we get the ball rolling and unemployment is low; if people save their money they are sadly going to bring the economy back down. This is the paradox of thrift. There will be no money to inject into the economy because it is all sitting in bank accounts. With no money being spent; companies will not get the revenue they need; which in turn people will be let go. Therefore all those people will have going for them is that money they saved. You can beat the paradox of thrift though. You can do it through exports. This way an outer source of income is being put into USA. Instead of all the americans trading there money around, they get to take some from other economies to balance with what is being saved. Sadly this won't happen because the USA is just to damn expensive compared to other countries.

You can free that money sitting in bank accounts no problem. Take it away from the bastards hoarding it. The same bastards who profited from this mess anyways. The top 1% has at least 50% of the money. Don't quote me on capitalism. It wasn't earned, it was stolen.

 

[Cry For Love]

Clearly you are unaware of basic economics. Your so called produce and save mentality does not work. Once we get the ball rolling and unemployment is low; if people save their money they are sadly going to bring the economy back down. This is the paradox of thrift. There will be no money to inject into the economy because it is all sitting in bank accounts. With no money being spent; companies will not get the revenue they need; which in turn people will be let go. Therefore all those people will have going for them is that money they saved. You can beat the paradox of thrift though. You can do it through exports. This way an outer source of income is being put into USA. Instead of all the americans trading there money around, they get to take some from other economies to balance with what is being saved. Sadly this won't happen because the USA is just to damn expensive compared to other countries.

No brother, you dont understand basic economics. The paradox of thrift is no paradox at all. More savings means less revenue in low level capital industries but more investment and income in higher level industries, which leads to heightened structure of production and lower cost of production -> increase in wealth. Austrian Fvcking capital theory, ever heard of it?

 

[ARrocket]

It angers me to see people labeling a stimulus package as a band aid. It is keeping jobs alive. People just need to get the recession equals save mentality out of their head and help stimulate the economy.

Maybe in an ideal world, but people also feel the need to look out for themselves. You ever heard of Permanent Income Hypothesis? People spend money based on their future income, not their current income. So a stimulus check they receive mostly goes towards their savings account, because they know that THEY WON'T HAVE those extra earnings in the future.

 

[Bible_Belt]

Tensions Rise in Greece as Austerity Measures Backfire

This reminds me of 1930's Germany:

http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/0,1518,712511,00.html

"Everything is getting more expensive, I'm hardly earning any money, and then I'm supposed to pay more taxes to help save the country? How is that supposed to work?" asks Nikos Meletis, the shipbuilder. His friends, gathered in a small cafeteria on the pier in Perama, are gradually growing more vocal. They are all unemployed, desperate and angry at the politicians who got them into this mess. There is no sympathy here for any of the political parties and no longer any for the unions either.

"They only organize strikes to serve their own interests!" shouts one man, whose name is Panayiotis Peretridis. "The only thing that interests me anymore is my daily wage. A loaf of bread is my political party. I want to help my country -- give me work and I'll pay taxes! But our honor as first-class skilled workers, as heads of families, as Greeks, is being dragged through the dirt!"

"If you take away my family's bread, I'll take you down -- the government needs to know that," Meletis says. "And don't call us anarchists if that happens! We're heads of our families and we're desperate."

He predicts the situation will only become more heated. "Things are starting to simmer here," he says. "And at some point they're going to explode."

 

[Alle_Gory]

They threw money into large infrastructure in their countries which helped rally to a booming economy. It angers me to see people labeling a stimulus package as a band aid. It is keeping jobs alive. People just need to get the recession equals save mentality out of their head and help stimulate the economy.

Except these snake oil salesmen aren't spending that money into the country. The world is bigger than your country now thanks to the global economy. That money's leaving one way or another. Whether an expensive vacation in the swiss alps, or buying hookers in Thailand. Those CEOs won't be spending the money on America.

Trickle down economics doesn't work. It should be called golden shower economics because that's what it really is.

What you should be talking about is government spending on infrastructure which has been proven to work in many countries, unfortunately it's not self sustainable long term.

 

[JustLurk]

Lots of good points in this thread, especially from Razor Sharp and comic_relief.
@ Razor: 1 may be in the works, 2 was attempted/being attempted (google "amero". No, seriously.) and 3... :kick: :nono:
@Luke: How is paying a company going to create extra jobs? That's a terrible band-aid fix. More demand for what the company produces is going to create jobs...

 

[Cry For Love]

Luke,

Government expenditures are a coerced transfer of resources
from private producers to the uses preferred by government
officials. It is customary to classify government spending into
two categories: resource-using, and transfer. Resource-using
expenditures frankly shift resources from private persons in
society to the use of government: this may take the form of hir-
ing bureaucrats to work for government—which shifts labor
resources directly—or of buying products from business firms.
Transfer payments are pure subsidy spending—when the gov-
ernment takes from Peter to pay Paul. It is true that, in the lat-
ter case, the government gives “Paul” money to decide the allo-
cation as he wishes, and in a sense we may analyze the two types

of spending separately. But the similarities here are greater than
the differences. For, in both cases, resources are seized from
private producers and shifted to the uses which government
officials think best. After all, when a bureaucrat receives his gov-
ernment salary, this payment is in the same sense a “transfer
payment” from the taxpayers, and the bureaucrat is also free to
decide how further to allocate the income at his command. In
both cases, money and resources are shifted from producers to
nonproducers, who consume or otherwise use them.53

This type of analysis of government has been neglected
because economists and statisticians tend to assume, rather
blithely, that government expenditures are a measure of its pro-
ductive contribution to society. In the “private sector” of the
economy, the value of productive output is sensibly gauged by
the amount of money that consumers spend voluntarily on that
output. Curiously, on the other hand, the government’s “pro-
ductive output” is gauged, not by what is spent on government,
but by what government itself spends! No wonder that
grandiose claims are often made for the unique productive
power of government spending, when a mere increase in that
spending serves to raise the government’s “productive contribu-
tion” to the economy.

What, then, is the productive contribution of government?
Since the value of government is not gauged on the market, and
the payments to the government are not voluntary, it is impossi-
ble to estimate. It is impossible to know how much would be paid
in to the government were it purely voluntary, or indeed, whether
one central government in each geographical area would exist at
all. Since, then, the only thing we do know is that the tax-and-
spend process diverts income and resources from what they
would have been doing in the “private sector,” we must conclude
that the government’s productive contribution to the economy is
precisely zero. Furthermore, even if it be objected that govern-
mental services are worth something, it would have to be noted
that we are again suffering from the error pointed out by Bastiat:
a sole emphasis on what is seen, to the neglect of what is not seen.

We may see the government’s hydroelectric dam in operation; we
do not see the things that private individuals would have done
with the money—whether buying consumers’ goods or investing
in producers’ goods—but which they were compelled to forgo. In
fact, since private consumers would have done something else,
something more desired, and therefore from their point of view
more productive, with the money, we can be sure that the loss in
productivity incurred by the government’s tax and spending is
greater than whatever productivity it has contributed. In short,
strictly, the government’s productivity is not simply zero, but neg-
ative, for it has imposed a loss in productivity upon society.

 

[Alle_Gory]

China and the rest of the world being so cheap in labour it is hard for them to be successful. They need to transition into a new area of work for the majority of the population.

With robots and machines taking place of even more workers, I find this hard to believe.

 

[synergy1]

With robots and machines taking place of even more workers, I find this hard to believe.

The ironic thing about engineers is that they develop technology to put engineers out of work!