The Next Depression ?

ok, maybe it's the "winter blues" bothering me here in Pittsburgh...fortunately spring is coming real soon, probably just in time !
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where are the jobs? unemployment rate is low, yes, but what kind of jobs are they? Walmart, McDonalds... you know what I mean, very low paying jobs with no benefits. Not to mention the people that quit looking for work and are removed from the unemployment stats.
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Who says this "upcoming" depression (or bad recession) has to look like 1929.
I know there are no or virtually no similarities, but so what ? That's no reason to believe it can't happen.
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You're right, we are producing a lot of cars here, but they are all foreign owned, but at least American workers are building the autos, so ok, remove that point from my original list.
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Savings - Investment: all the same to me because you're increasing your wealth either way.
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Libertarian President : ain't gonna happen.
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comparying how the poor live to how the rich lived 200 years ago doesn't make sense to me. Fact is, the middle class seems to be disappearing and that's not good.. please don't make out to be a socialist, because I'm not advocating a government like Sweden... I don't have the answers, just asking you guys.
 
bennevis said:
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where are the jobs?   unemployment rate is low, yes, but what kind of jobs are they?   Walmart, McDonalds... you know what I mean,   very low paying jobs with no benefits.   Not to mention the people that quit looking for work and are removed from the unemployment stats.
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Click to expand...

I don't disagree that a lot of the jobs that have been created in the last few years are lower wage, low/no benefit positions, mostly in the service sector. A lot of manufacturing jobs are being "repriced" one way or another, with wages falling off a cliff and benefots getting slashed (check out the auto industry, for example).

The unemployment rate is a little more squishy. Gen X, especially the women, has far lower labor participation rates than the Boomers did. We don't know exactly why, though. Some of it is likely not being able to find a job, but a lot of it is not. DW dropped out of the formal labor force 3 years ago. The income wasn't worth the sacrifices and she started a part time business. Now we are having kids and it would be very uneconomic for her to go back to work. I have to believe we are not the only ones in this trend.
 
bennevis:

I think part of your problem is that you should stop watching and reading the news. It is mostly full of alarmist predictions. I dont see a lack of jobs in my area esp. if you want to educate yourself.
 
Bruce said:
The future is so bright I have to wear shades!    8)

Just remember that the economy does not grow in a straight line. it grows exponentially. A poor person in America today lives better than a king or a queen lived 100 years ago. How many people were able to retire early 100 or even 50 years ago? The great people on this board are testament to the power of the economy to raise the economic well being of people over the wrong turn....

No chicken little the sky is not falling!
Click to expand...
Hear, hear, Bruce.  I wish I had said this.  Very good.  

Y'all remember Ravi Batra?  The great depression of 1990.  Surviving the great depression of 1990.  Now he has one about the depression of the millenium.  Heck, he's made a living being wrong.  Utter nonsense and pessimism. And remember economists and newscasters have to say something.  "On the other hand. . ." :LOL:
 
Let me ask a slightly related question... of all the economic blogs I read, I can't think of any that aren't seriously worried about the near future (e.g. national debt, trade deficit/strength of dollar, individual debt, etc - many of the points bennevis mentioned). I'm thinking of blogs like Brad DeLong, Brad Setser, Nouriel Roubini, Calculated Risk, Angry Bear -- okay, the name of that blog is a giveaway... :)

Since people tend to choose to read things that reinforce their worldview, there's a good possibility that I've done that with my choice of economic blogs.

For an opposing point of view, does anyone here know of any well-researched economic blogs that feel good about the current state of the US economy?
 
So bennevis, the big question on my mind is...what is the point of posts like this? Usually when I post something, I have an expected outcome. What was your expected outcome?
 
I can't speak for other jobs, but as in IT, there are not enough qualified people to fill all of the openings in my profession. We've had an opening for over 2 months because we can't find anybody who is qualified to fill it. We've had many applicants, but none qualified.

Yes, it is government work, but whether the position is filled or not your taxes remain the same. So your paying for the body, but not receiving the benefits of the labor.
 
Brewer:
The unemployment rate is a little more squishy.  Gen X, especially the women, has far lower labor participation rates than the Boomers did.  We don't know exactly why, though.  Some of it is likely not being able to find a job, but a lot of it is not.  DW dropped out of the formal labor force 3 years ago.  The income wasn't worth the sacrifices and she started a part time business.  Now we are having kids and it would be very uneconomic for her to go back to work.  I have to believe we are not the only ones in this trend.
Click to expand...

I don't know if it is a trend or not but my daughter commented on the same thing.  Several of her well educated peers dropped out of the workforce when children arrived.  Maybe the cost of child care and long commutes contribute but we women who fought for the right in the 60s (including her boss) are perplexed. 
 
Brat said:
Brewer:
I don't know if it is a trend or not but my daughter commented on the same thing.  Several of her well educated peers dropped out of the workforce when children arrived.  Maybe the cost of child care and long commutes contribute but we women who fought for the right in the 60s (including her boss) are perplexed. 
Click to expand...

It's interesting, more anecdotal evidence, at you know, DW is leaving her work to be a stay at home mom, but she is far from the first in our circle of friends. But staying at home doesn't mean aprons and greeting me with a martini at the door. Like Brewer's wife, DW is starting up a small consulting business, and our other friends are doing similar things. In fact, I think the rights you fought for in the 60's are bearing fruit, because these women are actively engaged in fullfilling careers (we are talking IT, Biotech, etc. not assembling toys or stuffing envelopes), yet also get to be there when their kids grow up. The latest trend I have seen is Dad's getting to do the same thing, I have one friend who is a work at home Dad, and two others (including one who wants to incorporate with DW) who are looking into it.
 
Brat said:
Brewer:
I don't know if it is a trend or not but my daughter commented on the same thing.  Several of her well educated peers dropped out of the workforce when children arrived.  Maybe the cost of child care and long commutes contribute but we women who fought for the right in the 60s (including her boss) are perplexed. 
Click to expand...

Dunno what to tell you other than us juniors (men and women included) are grateful that women have such choices these days.

The economics of the decision were pretty straightforward for us.  In round numbers:

- $50k gross earnings
- Less $15k for taxes
- Less $3k for commuting costs
- Less $5k for work-related expenses
- Equals $27k net, or about $13 an hour.

Add-in the net earnings from DW's business (roughly $5k) and we are down to $11 an hour.
I don't even want to think about what childcare would cost in a relatively expensive area like suburban NJ, but it would pretty much wipe out the rest of her earnings.

No-brainer for her to quit.
 
Cute 'n Fuzzy Bunny said:
So bennevis, the big question on my mind is...what is the point of posts like this?  Usually when I post something, I have an expected outcome. ?
Click to expand...

Could this be a function of your marketing background, thus not necessarily shared with other posters?

Ha
 
Y'all remember Ravi Batra? The great depression of 1990. Surviving the great depression of 1990. Now he has one about the depression of the millenium. Heck, he's made a living being wrong.
Click to expand...

Some people have a knack. ::)

Thinking about the subject of depressions (excluding Sam's and mine), as I recall, a depression is when people refuse to spend money. Someone here noted that Japan's past few decades qualify as a depression, but nobody says the word. Let's see, recession was "banana"; by what euphemism what shall we call a depression?

I also remember that JM Keynes made his name by studying depressions and came up with the idea that, if people would not spend money, then government had to. The Japanese government was doing that, but it is not clear how much it helped. Maybe they should have had a war?
(ducking! :D )
 
Here's a math exercise I like to do.

Calculate the probability of a depression.    We all know that the market is volatile, and that's usually expressed in terms of standard deviation (sigma).   A depression like we experienced from 1929-1933 is a four-sigma event.   Very rare.   Once in 400 years.

But if you plan to be in the market for the next 40 years, that means there's a 10% chance you'll see such an event in that timeframe.

The chance of your being killed in a car accident is much smaller, but you wear seatbelts, don't you?
 
HaHa said:
Could this be a function of your marketing background, thus not necessarily shared with other posters?

Ha
Click to expand...

No, actually I dont think so. Not even a little bit. People post to learn something, tell a joke, share something, have something explained to them, see if someone can change their mind, get concensus, see if they can change someone elses mind, garner support for a decision they've made that they're unsure of, see if they can start a squabble...

I'm just curious about the basis of this and the other 'doom and gloom are coming' posts. They all seem to contain the same content, are received the same way, and end the same way. We dont know whats going to happen, if and when it could happen, when it has happened in the past there was little if any consistent warning from any set of "indicators", few people's "guts" told them to get out before it happened, few peoples "guts" were right on when it was going to stop, its a good idea to plan for downturns or decide that you're only going to plan for the 95% of non-disaster scenarios, and its a waste of your life to gather all of your fears and concerns into a bathtub and wallow in it, wringing your hands over the possibilities...and in the process, invest in a manner that assures you will suffer the very fate you fear.
 
wab said:
Here's a math exercise I like to do.

Calculate the probability of a depression. We all know that the market is volatile, and that's usually expressed in terms of standard deviation (sigma). A depression like we experienced from 1929-1933 is a four-sigma event. Very rare. Once in 400 years.

But if you plan to be in the market for the next 40 years, that means there's a 10% chance you'll see such an event in that timeframe.

The chance of your being killed in a car accident is much smaller, but you wear seatbelts, don't you?
Click to expand...

Lets see...where to start with this one...

Death is a finality, a depression or downturn is not. Waiting for 2, 5, 10 years wont result in your being alive. Also, while in the downturn, you wont just be 50, 60 or 80% dead. Its 100%.

Driving and your interactions with other people are relatively random compared to the stock markets behavior over long periods of time.

I'll also bet if you drove continuously for 400 years, you would be hit and killed a good number of times.

I'd be willing to bet that if stock traders periodically started putting on makeup and pouring coffee on themselves, causing them to slam a 4000lb weight into other stock traders without warning...stock traders would start wearing seatbelts.
 
Cute 'n Fuzzy Bunny said:
Death is a finality, a depression or downturn is not.  Waiting for 2, 5, 10 years wont result in your being alive.  Also, while in the downturn, you wont just be 50, 60 or 80% dead.  Its 100%.
Click to expand...

I see, so you only want to protect yourself from total devastation.   60% devastation isn't worth worrying your little bunny head over, eh?

That's a perfectly sane approach, as long as you know the risks.    It's the "fat tails" of the economic probability distribution that usually catch investors flat footed.

There are 10 types of investors in the world.   Those who understand binary, and those who don't.  :)
 
What is the devastation exactly? The selling value of some paper assets temporarily losing value for an unsustained period of time is "devastation"?

Apparently you've never seen me swing a 20lb sledge. THATS devastation ;)
 
wab said:
There are 10 types of investors in the world. Those who understand binary, and those who don't. :)
Click to expand...

haha, i dont really understand binary, but i get that joke!
 
C'mon, you're losing your touch.   The correct response was "and stop talking about my fat tail again."
 
Cute 'n Fuzzy Bunny said:
So bennevis, the big question on my mind is...what is the point of posts like this? Usually when I post something, I have an expected outcome. What was your expected outcome?
Click to expand...

The point is up for discussion. How can anyone know for sure what the future will bring, but there are lots of smart people on this board with lots of interesting opinions and ideas. That ok with you ?
 
saluki9 said:
Nords, does that mean the state of Hawaii will be returning some of money I left there as part of that business friendly 11.5% hotel tax? If for some reason they don't, I'm just going to have to come back for a couple weeks and start asking around ;)
Click to expand...
"Business friendly"? Hawaii!?? Well, perhaps compared to California... but Hawaii is mostly friendly to taxation & retirees. Workers get taxed a lot here. Visitors do too, but you hardly feel the bite when you're sipping another Blue Hawaiian. So come on over, don't worry about your expenses, Waikiki's streets are paved with gold!

Funny how that tax is 11.5% and that's about how far ahead the tax receipts are of projections. Must be quite a coincidence. There was rash talk of a rebate this year until some smart-aleck pointed out that the state tax-receipt surplus was just about the size of the public school maintenance/repair backlog. And the teacher's contracts are coming up for renegotiation in the next year or two.

brewer12345 said:
Add-in the net earnings from DW's business (roughly $5k) and we are down to $11 an hour.
I don't even want to think about what childcare would cost in a relatively expensive area like suburban NJ, but it would pretty much wipe out the rest of her earnings.
No-brainer for her to quit.
Click to expand...
Business Week did this math in an article a few years back and arrived at the same pitiful wage rate.

But then they made in interesting point-- that the mothers who were working for less than minimum wage were developing job skills that provided a source of income if they were divorced, and within 10 years they were making a much higher salary with more compelling math. BW's conclusion was that everyone should develop work skills instead of being totally dependent on the family's one salaryman.

Cute 'n Fuzzy Bunny said:
No, actually I dont think so.  Not even a little bit.  People post to learn something, tell a joke, share something, have something explained to them, see if someone can change their mind, get concensus, see if they can change someone elses mind, garner support for a decision they've made that they're unsure of, see if they can start a squabble...
Click to expand...
Give the man a break-- he's venting and hoping that someone will make him feel better about the economy. Many of us have repetitively demonstrated that we don't always have to post with a purpose!

Cute 'n Fuzzy Bunny said:
I'm just curious about the basis of this and the other 'doom and gloom are coming' posts. They all seem to contain the same content, are received the same way, and end the same way. We dont know whats going to happen, if and when it could happen, when it has happened in the past there was little if any consistent warning from any set of "indicators", few people's "guts" told them to get out before it happened, few peoples "guts" were right on when it was going to stop, its a good idea to plan for downturns or decide that you're only going to plan for the 95% of non-disaster scenarios, and its a waste of your life to gather all of your fears and concerns into a bathtub and wallow in it, wringing your hands over the possibilities...and in the process, invest in a manner that assures you will suffer the very fate you fear.
Click to expand...
This type of post serves another vital function, as demonstrated by today's stock-market jump. Without a wall of worry, the market can't rationally climb higher. The more doom & gloom, the more I'm inclined to be fully invested. Then when it nosedives, I'm ready to ride it out, or even get out. But when everyone's smiling & cheerful while the market rockets up in 200-point daily increments, that's when I get worried.

Weren't you looking at leading economic indicators a few months back? When were their dire predictions due to manifest themselves?
 
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