Quote:
Originally posted by filtherton
I'm working on it.
However, even those with the "right" skills get laid off to save the company a few bucks. They then can look forward to 3+ months looking for a new job. Living off severance is a great motivation to spend money.
Besides, I thought stock prospectors were responsible for recessions. They were responsible for the great depression, right? Or was it the consumer there too? Overinflate everything and then burst the bubble. Isn't that the way things go?
The consumer is the one who pulls us out of recessions. It's the people who gamble on the stock market and/or inflate financial statements who cause them.
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Glad to hear you're working on it. There are a lot of people out there who aren't. Employees with the "right" skills won't be out of work for long. They may not be making what they made when the economy was booming, but the vast majority will be able to get by with some belt tightening. For many years the labor market was an employee's market. Business needed employees and there were few to be had. This pushed pay and benefits up to attract or keep employees. Now, it's an employers market. Pay and benefits are down, even those with steady jobs will not likely be seeing much in the way of salary increases and corporate attitudes are more in the "you should be grateful you have a job" spectrum than in the "we really want to keep you" realm.
Stocks are only one form of bubble, there are many others. The housing market/real estate investment are examples of a couple of others. Depressions are entirely different than just a slow economy. The reason that this downturn feels so bad is the fact that the growth we saw over several years was so huge. A large part of that growth was fed by the refinancings in real estate and the money made in the stock market.
Consumers felt more rich than they did in the past because their home values were shooting up, they were saving in the form of 401ks, IRAs, etc, and they had other investments in the stock market which were doing well. This enabled them to spend. That spending is what allowed our economy to go from around $7 trillion 4 years ago to $10 trillion today.
None of this is helpful to those without jobs right now but it does show that having many skillsets helps to insulate you from the effects of a downward economy.
IMO, downturns can create great opportunities. There are industries that continue to grow even when the economy is in really bad condition (which it isn't right now). An example is anything in the service industry. Landscape maintenance/construction, housekeeping, etc are all in demand. The jobs associated with them aren't the greatest paying or the most glamorous but who says you need to do them? Why not start your own business? Slow equipment sales and low interest rates combine to make it pretty low-cost to get into the market and there's plenty of opportunity to make money.
There are other examples of this out there. But hey, that's just my opinion and something that I would consider if I came in tomorrow to find out my job was eliminated. In reality no one is safe but if you have back up plans you're be a hell of a lot better off than your peers who have none.
--Paul