How did the fucking economy get so bad? I’m on the verge of loosing my company and filing Chapter 11.
The Democrats will blame Bush, calling him a moron. The Republicans will blame eight years under Clinton, blaming him for tax and spend policies that don’t work in the long run. Even Ivy League economists won’t agree on why things sometimes go into the shitter. But I have the secret, and I’ll share: the economy behaves like a living, breathing thing. It ebbs and flows. To suggest that we can wrangle it and always prosper is rubbish. Without occasional lean times, there can be no prosperity. Hope that didn’t sound too “Zen-mastery”, but that’s the way it always has, and always will work, regardless of who is in the White House or on Capitol Hill.
I feel for you, we are hanging on by a thread. The government is blaming Bin Laden (Sept 11).
Good answer demo dick. My dad is an economics teacher and he always said that the economy goes up and down. thats just the way it is regardless of who does what. Lipo just try to hold on the best you can. i wish you luck.
I couldn’t have said it any better than Demo. Right on the button, there. I don’t even listen to the economic “experts” anymore. I only know what I need to do to keep my head above water (economic-wise). Lipo: just stay the course. You know there have been two times when unemployment rates were sky-high and these “experts” were spouting how jobs were difficult to find. Both times, I scored jobs. Good positions with good organizations. SO, with tenacity and some luck - you can swim upstream. Just remember: Whatever does not kill you, will only make you stronger.
The economy works on mob psychology and tries to balance out two opposing forces; fear and greed. During the 90’s, greed was predominant and the economy really took off as everybody tried to get their share. This threw the economy out of balance, it crashed and now fear is predominant; everybody is trying to protect their assets. Terrorism and problems in the middle east have added to the fear. Maybe you need to re-orient your company to work in fearful times?
One of the most important things to understand is that the government cannot improve the economy, the government can only hamper it. The best they can do is to leave it alone. Many politicians still believe in Keynesian economics which says the government can tax and spend to drive up the economy. Keynesian economics have been proven wrong by history, but many pols (ie Dems) never learned. The best the government can do is tax less and reduce regulations to free up the economy to do its own thing.
Lipo - hang in there! I was ‘downsized’ about 6 weeks ago, and there have been no prospects at all. Everyone says things are picking up, but I’m not sure I can wait a few months. I’m trying to survive on freelance work, but even that is very slow. What kind of business do you have?
Certain sectors of the economy are still very bad, especially in the service sector. The company my partners and I have is in manufacturing, high performance automotive parts, and sales have really picked up the last 45 days although they were miserable for the 18 months previous to that. Hopefully that is a good sign for all sectors. Hang tight Lipo.
Somebody better do something. I can’t afford supplements anymore. I can’t do this (gasp) naturally.
Lipo, my dream when I was in college was to have my own business and be my own boss. After I was done with my compulsory 10 months in the army at the beginning of the 2000 I started my own business, computer related. It failed miserably and right now I am a slave support engineer in an international company in the country where I live. Whatever you do, try to be your own boss.
Lipo - What line of business do you have?
The economy does go in cycles. It happens every 7-8 years. The bible even hints at this when one of the pharoahs has a vision and God gives the message to one of his people. He says to save all you have for there will be seven years of prosperity, and it will be followed by 7 years of down times and famine. This might have been situational, but I think it still holds truths. Lets look at the last 20 years. some people think that the 80’s were good. Then the market crashed in the late 80’s. Bush takes over and we go to war and things are kinda shaky. Then Clinton takes over and it starts to get better Then we had another slight crash in 1997 I think and another one after the september 11 bombings. These cycles have been repeated throughout time. But as time goes on we learn to handle them better.Plus if anyone keeps up with business, then we can point the finger at Greenspan. He felt that he had to slow the economy because the cycle had not gone into effect. That is a big part of things. Then you have all the layoffs. The best place to look for answers is retail and consumer spending . It is doing decent right now. I work for The largest sports and fitness company in the world (not to name names) and things are pretty good. Everything will be all right soon. We are justrecovering from a brief recession.
I own an IT consulting firm. Left the Defense & Aerospace industry years ago after the oil crash. Problem is I’ve been a high paid consultant for a long time. Now the bottom has dropped out and I can NOT get either a perm or contract job to save my life. And no one will touch me for a low end position 'cause they know I’ll leave when things pick. I’m in serious trouble here. I still have the debt load of a six-figure income and no money coming in.
Actually, the economy is not “so bad”
and wasn’t at any time during the recession.
Sure, a two percent annual rate of decline is not as good
as a three percent or five percent annual rate of increase, but it’s hardly a disaster.
At any time, including periods of expansion, there are individual sectors that experience contraction, due to demand decreasing BECAUSE PEOPLE NO LONGER WANT AS MUCH OF THAT GOOD OR SERVICE. And businesses go out of business all the time even during expansions: in fact, most new businesses fail. But what happens is when the newspeople say it’s a recession, then everyone attributes their job loss or business failure to the recession. But since
the overall decline is (or was) only on the order of two percent, this leaves 98% that was NOT lost, and it stands to reason that it was the weakest 2% that was lost.
Yorik above has it right, at least where the stock market is concerned. He has obviously been reading Dave Dremman. The economy moves in cycles. Nothing you can do, except try not to have any debt, and keep high reserves just in case. Of course, that is easier said than done. Lipo, have you considered doing something totally different? Raw IQ is a valuable commodity. Like a gun, you can aim it wherever you want. If you have been doing 6 figures, you have something to offer. Just have to find the guy (or gal) that needs it. Good luck.
Hang in there Lipo, now is the time for good people to get together. You will soon know who your true friends are, if you have not found out already. For there is nothing like adversity to bring out a persons true character. I wish you true luck for fortune favors the strong !
“Knowledge Gives Birth to Strength”
I disagree. Almost every major company I’ve approached is under a total hiring freeze. Sales of manufactured goods is way down for Panasonic, Hitachi, Michelin, Adidas, etc. Its obviously not just contained to the ‘service’ industry. The people that are still working are being required to do the jobs of two or three people to pick up the slack. I’ve had multiple customers pull out of negotiation because they lost funding somewhere between identifying the need and filling the position.
Its simple. The entire computer industry peaked and pushed themselves to far. A downward spiral like affect takes place and affects us all. Top that off with the terrorists situation and its bad. But its on the rise again. Stay strong and remember it takes strong leadership qualities to get a country through tough times and Bush and his team are the right people for us at this time. In the end we always come out on top so don’t worry.
he’s right, the cyclical nature of things stated that this was due as shit was going too good crazy for too long. The tip off comes when things like oil prices get sky fucking high with no relief in sight, this dribbles it’s evil down the rest of the entire system. Also, I think Bill Roberts is wrong, the unemployment rate is disastrous right now, although at least if nothing else it’s thinning out the herd of unqualified motherfuckers contaminating the workplace.
I don’t see why people are shooting down Bill.
And the unemployment factor has a lot to do with the airlines and auto industry as always. I am in my early 20’s and can always remember hearing of airline and automotive layoffs. You have to understand that 150,00 people were laid off at one time in these industries. That is phenominal. Then you take into consideration the 50,000 or so that lost jobs in the tech sector. That is atleast 200,000 jobs in like 2-3 months. That is in three industries and then it creates a dominoe effect. But the crazy thing about it is that there are still jobs out there. They may not pay as much, but $1 is better than $0. Alot of people have too much pride. Yes there are the people that may be overqualified, but you can still work soemthing out. And a little lesson to all. try to save atleast 6 months worth of necessary money at a time. That is money for rent,car,insurance,etc. It is hard, but it helps in crunch time. The economy is turning around though.Unemployment is at5.8%. Last time it was around this was in 1994 at 6%. People are spending and traveling again, so it is good. You know what would be good? If all these million and billionaires would dump a bunch of money into the economy to get it really going. What is a billion dollars to Bill Gates. He has over 60 billion dollars.