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U.S. Economy Shrinks at 4.8% Pace, Signaling Start of Recession

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Re: U.S. Economy Shrinks at 4.8% Pace, Signaling Start of Recession

#311

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> No school means poor kids roam the street like packs of feral dogs asking for money for food around here. I think this is possibly the single biggest long term problem we're going to face as a result of all this. Economic recessions will come and go. But missing 5/8ths of a school year is going to be absolutely devastating for this generation of kids. They will be left permanently behind without a serious concerted…

>The bar (which is already dismally low) will have to be lowered further for them to graduate, and how/when will it ever be raised back again? You don't have to lower the bar. There are other options. There is no fundamental law of physics that says a generation has to graduate at age X, so we -- the society -- should be perfectly able to delay that process for a year, instead of lowering the bar. That said, there's…

Hahaha... delay that process for a year...

Poster, you're so out of touch. So far. You have no idea of these kids home lives. Heads up: they give zero fucks about government mandated school education.

Re: U.S. Economy Shrinks at 4.8% Pace, Signaling Start of Recession

#312
post #98

This is anecdotal and it might come across as bitter and tonedeaf as someone who is not in a STEM job and cant see the bigger picture very well. Im a diesel engine tech who repairs those big trucks carrying food and shit tickets to grocery stores. the fact that ANY market is completely detached from whats actually happening to Americans is frustrating. My job just cut benefits and hours but we're "essential." Remembe…

> No school means poor kids roam the street like packs of feral dogs asking for money for food around here. I think this is possibly the single biggest long term problem we're going to face as a result of all this. Economic recessions will come and go. But missing 5/8ths of a school year is going to be absolutely devastating for this generation of kids. They will be left permanently behind without a serious concerted…

It’ll also discriminate on educational and monetary lines. Highly educated households are better prepared to self educate, both in terms of experience and available resources. While they probably won’t do as well as teachers did, they’ll do better than less educated households, conferring a competitive advantage.

Re: U.S. Economy Shrinks at 4.8% Pace, Signaling Start of Recession

#313

I wish I could say I disagree, but to be perfectly honest, I was fully expecting a recession last year. As someone may have already mentioned though, between FED basically keeping the market afloat, stimulus working its way through the economy and dollar still riding as a safe haven, it is not that surprising that US economy did not crash, while a good chunk of population is at home and out of commission. The thing t…

> The thing that worries me is that by attempting to prolong it as long as we are, we are basically setting up a stage for a greater depression Killing thousands of people in the name of the economy would also set the stage for an even longer, deeper recession...

If Thanos snapped his finger and disappeared the oldest 10% of the population, ~33 million people, I'd wager that would do far less economic damage than keeping everyone on lockdown for 365 days. The rate of the economy shrinking is going to get worse and worse as more companies go out of business.

Re: U.S. Economy Shrinks at 4.8% Pace, Signaling Start of Recession

#314

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Literally no one anywhere wants central planning, no one wants America to be anything like Venezuela, these are fevered fantasies of uninformed minds, so feel free to put these lines to bed permanently.

Plenty of people are calling for central planning of economies right now, and that's freighting if history is any teacher.

Examples of any influential individuals calling for overthrowing the current economic system and replacing it with a centrally planned economy?

Re: U.S. Economy Shrinks at 4.8% Pace, Signaling Start of Recession

#315
post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I never said businesses will come back from grave. But people will want to get out once this passes. I'm personally sick of staying at home, I am going to try to make better use of my time. Somebody will get that business anyway. I am also putting off repairing my car until after all this passes. Yes, car repair shops may be at loss now because I decided not to do business with them, but my car is still broken and I…

I think folks are underestimating how long this will go on. At least until the end of the year, minimum. There is absolutely nowhere near the amount of testing being done in the USA due to incompetence, that is needed to allow folks to feel safe, or to safely allow bars / concert venues or other large gatherings to happen. Massive amounts of businesses are never coming back from that. We're a massively long way from…

> At least until the end of the year, minimum.

Will people resist sheltering in place until the end of the year? I for sure won't. (and I'm not in the USA).

Re: U.S. Economy Shrinks at 4.8% Pace, Signaling Start of Recession

#316
post #251
post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The lion's share of the pandemic closures have been in Q2 so this seems either irrelevant or disingenuous.

We'll see. Facebook might do poorly in Q2, but Alphabet does way more than advertising now: it does cloud infrastructure (GCP) and productivity (Google Apps for Business), both of which have experienced sharp gains in this pandemic.

We'll see if the lion's share of the pandemic closures happened in Q2? That's an objective fact. We started feeling it in March but the vast majority of action happened in April.

April is in Q2.

Re: U.S. Economy Shrinks at 4.8% Pace, Signaling Start of Recession

#317
post #34

Nah, it signals exactly nothing. If there was no Coronavirus, then maybe. With Coronavirus it is just as likely that the economy is going to rebound once the worst of the virus passes. People stopped buying stuff but rest assured, they will make up for it when they finally can.

I used to think that too. The buildings and are still there, and the workers can come back easily enough. Unlike, say, a hurricane, we should be able to just start things up. However, I think two factors make that unlikely now. One is the inadequate, spotty government intervention. They should have strongly pressured banks and landlords to just extend mortgages and defer or suspend rent. They should have encouraged u…

I agree with this. The failure to contain the spread is the problem and the government wasting all this time means we could have had much better containment by now.

Re: U.S. Economy Shrinks at 4.8% Pace, Signaling Start of Recession

#318
post #98

This is anecdotal and it might come across as bitter and tonedeaf as someone who is not in a STEM job and cant see the bigger picture very well. Im a diesel engine tech who repairs those big trucks carrying food and shit tickets to grocery stores. the fact that ANY market is completely detached from whats actually happening to Americans is frustrating. My job just cut benefits and hours but we're "essential." Remembe…

> This is anecdotal and it might come across as bitter and tonedeaf as someone who is not in a STEM job and cant see the bigger picture very well. Im a diesel engine tech who repairs those big trucks carrying food and shit tickets to grocery stores. the fact that ANY market is completely detached from whats actually happening to Americans is frustrating. Thanks for posting this comment. I know it sounds trite, but I’…

> My question is how much, if any, social unrest this will lead to.

Individuals must answer this question, not just ask it.

Re: U.S. Economy Shrinks at 4.8% Pace, Signaling Start of Recession

#319
post #236
post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So the market is looking to, what, 2025 or something? Well, another point not mentioned is, where else are you going to park your money? Interest rates globally are basically <= 0, real estate may be a dicey proposition for many years to come, bond yields are garbage, so... stock market. And considering so many companies are selling at a discount (regardless of whether or not you think that’s the case), dumping mon…

Could you share your thoughts on why real estate may be dicey in the years to come?

Well, think about what happened to housing after 2008, now consider that this is gonna be 2008 on steroids.
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