Is the US really entering a recession?
February 3, 2001 10:10 AM   Subscribe

Is the US really entering a recession? Even with recent layoffs, the last time unemployement was this low before 1999 was 1970. And maybe a recession is not such a bad idea, what with spending outmaching saving in recent years. [more inside]
posted by croutonsupafreak (3 comments total)
 
I just think with all the news of recent layoffs that it's important to realize that most of the people who've been fired in the past month were able to be rehired pretty quickly, what with the huge need for tech workers. Also interesting: the greatest need of all seems to be for construction workers. I remember an article in the Washington Post a few months back that said a skilled construction worker can make $70,000-plus per year, so maybe this would be a good second career for some of you folks looking for work.

The second article makes the argument that if we are entering a recession, it's maybe a good thing. People have been so confident in the economy lately that they're overdoing it, spending more than they can afford. A minor recession now, triggered by shifts in the economy, would offset a major recession later triggered by the staggering debt individual Americans are amassing.
posted by croutonsupafreak at 10:14 AM on February 3, 2001


Recessions could only be "good" if economics obeyed a mechanistic apportioning of blame and reward: if those who benefitted from the boom suffered in similar proportion from the bust. This doesn't happen: in the 80s, while the economic bias of the UK switched to advocates of Thatcher's "Me culture", the losers were those in precisely those old, unionised industries that underwrote the service sector.

Who loses this time? Those living beyond their means, not extravagantly, but in order to make ends meet. I'm always suspicious, though, of people who regard recessions as some kind of purge, an economic detox. It suggests that they haven't yet had a dose of their own medicine.
posted by holgate at 12:32 PM on February 3, 2001


I think what a lot of people are not realizing yes people are getting hired on quicker. But what is the difference in income to the new job? I know from my experience I have been having a terrible time getting any type of job in which I would be making enough money to support myself and my loans from school.

I also know many people who have been laid off and taken jobs that paid much less than what they were making because they cannot afford to be out of a job.

We are heading into a recession but its unlike any we have known before there are still jobs, still money to be made but the amount of disposable income is really diving. Which means the American economy is going to go down also because the people just do not have the money to buy the luxury items they were able to buy even 2-3 years ago.

Maybe the recession will thin the mass of respetitive business's doing the same things two or three doors down from each other. But its also going to cause a higher stress level as well as crime level. Talking with my sister recently she has noticed the trend in her office of the prosecuting attorney. The more layoffs the more stupid crime.

Its just my two cents but I think its a pretty good two cents:)
posted by Karyn at 1:19 PM on February 3, 2001


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