Has the Recession hurt anyone here and If so is it still lingering ?

[kvnchrist]

I remember President Obama's first year as about the worst year I'd ever had in the trucking industry. I remember having very little freight and setting for days at a time.

 

I just wondered if anyone else had better or worse and If so, are things looking up for you ?

[Vagrant0]

Housing market still sucks, so subsequently there aren't many jobs in the architectural field.

 

Many people under the age of 25 still can't get even menial jobs since there are few places hiring and many of them have replaced their typical teenage rosters with those who were unemployed by the economic downturn initially started by Bush. This has a related effect on the amount of liquid money floating around the system since you don't have as many young people with excess funds spending money on whatever they want. This also has an effect on the number of people in the 23 and older group who have no real work experience since we're going on a little over a decade of "tough times". This leads to a greater problem at the end since you have older adults working jobs that were designed for younger people, remaining in those positions for several years (and getting raises), and those jobs not being the standard revolving door which allowed the actual wages (and therefore costs) to remain reasonably low. This later part will probably be the next domino to fall as even Walmart is starting to run into money problems.

[Flintlockecole]

Long story short I still do not have a job aside from the odd jobs I do to keep going and that market itself is drying up.

 

If things are looking up for myself I cannot say.

[Nintii]

If you're on your own it could still be a real grind.

The answer to "getting by" for many seems to be a numbers game.

 

... or you could become a politician they're making the moola ... right ?!

Edited March 9, 2013 by Nintii

[HeyYou]

I was thinking about running for president on '16....... :D

[ginnyfizz]

Here in the UK, things are clearly going down the tubes, our credit rating got downgraded. I am surviving because of the goodness of family and friends. There are two problem groups in the employment stakes - youth with no experience and the over 50's who scare the wotnot out of the people interviewing because they have more experience than they do. I'm in the latter group.

[JimboUK]

It would help if we had a government that knew what it was doing, instead we're stuck with a couple of gormless toffs who have surrounded themselves with the terminally clueless. Somehow they've managed to massively increase spending while at the same time strangle the economy, quite a feat, they make the previous government look almost competent.

[HeyYou]

It would help if we had a government that knew what it was doing, instead we're stuck with a couple of gormless toffs who have surrounded themselves with the terminally clueless. Somehow they've managed to massively increase spending while at the same time strangle the economy, quite a feat, they make the previous government look almost competent.

Could say the same thing about our government. :)

 

I don't think it was a recession though. I am of the opinion it was a CORRECTION, and this is the new 'normal'. Just from my own observations, America simply cannot compete on the global stage with the likes of China, India, Malaysia, et. al. where wages are microscopic, and there are no employee protection laws.... as compared to the states, not to mention a lack of environmental protections...... Add to that, a government that thought it would be a good idea to give corporations TAX BREAKS for 'creating jobs in developing nations', which translated quite literally to "MOVING jobs to developing nations." Pile on top of that the various free-trade agreements, NAFTA, etc, and you have a recipe for manufacturing jobs to flee to foreign shores on a massive scale. Which is what we saw happen.

 

Given that these are all policies put in place by our government, at the prompting of the large corporations..... and those are the folks that make the biggest campaign contributions, I don't see anything changing in the near future......

[JimboUK]

Recessions and downturns are really just corrections and part of the cycle, it's when politicians interfere with that cycle that the real problems occur. For years western governments have been avoiding corrections with debt fuelled artificial booms, now it's come back to bite them (and us) on the arse big time, the correction now is a big one and one that's going to take quite a while.

[HeyYou]

I don't think we have seen the worst of it yet. I suspect this is just an aritficial "lull before the storm". When the storm breaks, the feces is really going to hit the rotory, oscillating device....