Are These the Economy's Good Old Days?

[metalman]

Are These the Economy's Good Old Days?

Five years from now, will we look back on the dismal unemployment that we're suffering on Labor Day 2010 and see this year as the good old days?

[touhy]

Re: Are These the Economy's Good Old Days?

Thanks. You have a good day too.

[don]

Re: Are These the Economy's Good Old Days?

As the ever-shrinking voting electorate, aka Nostalgiacs, continues to vote out whatever party is in, with whatever party is out.

[jk]

Re: Are These the Economy's Good Old Days?

if what has already happened has not been sufficient to cause systemic change [and it hasn't], we obviously need things to be worse before change can occur.

[WDCRob]

Re: Are These the Economy's Good Old Days?

Yeah... we're a victim of FIRE one more time as the TBTF policies were just good enough to stave off real reform until at least the next dramatic event.

[thriftyandboringinohio]

Re: Are These the Economy's Good Old Days?

if what has already happened has not been sufficient to cause systemic change [and it hasn't], we obviously need things to be worse before change can occur.

The widespread pain is guaranteed but has yet to arrive in a visceral way.

The folks I know who are out of work for the past two years are only just now reaching the end of their rope.

While unemployment checks are only a fraction of wages, it was enough to stay afloat and look for work with a stiff upper lip-food on the table, gas in the car, and combined with severe draw downs of savings and 401Ks, the rent or mortgage paid. The married folks have muddled through on one income and can stretch things another year or so.

Unemployment checks are only now running out, and savings will be gone in a couple months.

The big stagecoach named "widespread destitution" will be pulling in just about the mid term elections.

[ASH]

Re: Are These the Economy's Good Old Days?

It seems to me that now is a great time to be 1 year old, or 80 years old...
an okay time to be 40 years old...
and a really shitty time to be 20 years old or 60 years old.

If you're 1, things are likely to be sorted by the time you become aware of your circumstances. Provided nobody starves, young kids don't know that they are poor. And people who are very young at the bottom of a depression experience the post-depression recovery in their youth.

If you're 80, you've already got yours, and it might take long enough for things to truly fall apart that it won't matter.

If you're 40, you're hopefully old enough to be established, but with enough working years ahead of you to recover from this downturn.

But if you're 20, you can't find a job, and your lifetime earnings are going to be impacted by the stunted early years. If you're 60, you're entering retirement (perhaps before you wanted to) in a period where your investments might not take you as far as you need to go, and you'll be around long enough for the fallout of our fiscal dysfunction to matter personally.

[metalman]

Re: Are These the Economy's Good Old Days?

It seems to me that now is a great time to be 1 year old, or 80 years old...
an okay time to be 40 years old...
and a really shitty time to be 20 years old or 60 years old.

If you're 1, things are likely to be sorted by the time you become aware of your circumstances. Provided nobody starves, young kids don't know that they are poor. And people who are very young at the bottom of a depression experience the post-depression recovery in their youth.

If you're 80, you've already got yours, and it might take long enough for things to truly fall apart that it won't matter.

If you're 40, you're hopefully old enough to be established, but with enough working years ahead of you to recover from this downturn.

But if you're 20, you can't find a job, and your lifetime earnings are going to be impacted by the stunted early years. If you're 60, you're entering retirement (perhaps before you wanted to) in a period where your investments might not take you as far as you need to go, and you'll be around long enough for the fallout of our fiscal dysfunction to matter personally.

that is the most spot-on accurate & depressing post i've read here in a long time.

[don]

Re: Are These the Economy's Good Old Days?

that is the most spot-on accurate & depressing post i've read here in a long time.

I bet you're not 20.

[thriftyandboringinohio]

Re: Are These the Economy's Good Old Days?

I agree with ASH's sentiment but not that lower age.
My kids are 19 and 20, and I think they will be just fine.
They'll be poor college students the next 4 to 6 years no matter what the economy.
Just a couple years after they get out things might be on the mend.
Even if it takes longer, they'll be young and just starting their careers, plenty of time to make up lost ground with hard work and frugality.

Many hourly wage people 50 to 60 years old right now will never have a job again and miss all their peak earning years.
I have 4 dear friends and a brother-in-law in that cohort who will likely never be employed again.

[metalman]

Re: Are These the Economy's Good Old Days?

The widespread pain is guaranteed but has yet to arrive in a visceral way.

The folks I know who are out of work for the past two years are only just now reaching the end of their rope.

While unemployment checks are only a fraction of wages, it was enough to stay afloat and look for work with a stiff upper lip-food on the table, gas in the car, and combined with severe draw downs of savings and 401Ks, the rent or mortgage paid. The married folks have muddled through on one income and can stretch things another year or so.

Unemployment checks are only now running out, and savings will be gone in a couple months.

The big stagecoach named "widespread destitution" will be pulling in just about the mid term elections.

[LargoWinch]

Re: Are These the Economy's Good Old Days?

MM, your image is not displaying properly.

Please log in into your FRED account and fix it.

[metalman]

Re: Are These the Economy's Good Old Days?

MM, your image is not displaying properly.

Please log in into your FRED account and fix it.

ain't got no fred account. a pm to fred usually does the trick, tho.

[dummass]

Re: Are These the Economy's Good Old Days?

I
Many hourly wage people 50 to 60 years old right now will never have a job again and miss all their peak earning years.
I have 4 dear friends and a brother-in-law in that cohort who will likely never be employed again.

Well, some of us aren't employable at any age.

[thriftyandboringinohio]

Re: Are These the Economy's Good Old Days?

Well, some of us aren't employable at any age.

No argument there!
The 5 people I mentioned are skilled, dependable, and hardworking, as evidenced by their 30+ years of steady good work.