This makes me want to ask: Where did all of the money go? It had to go somewhere, right?
Americans are 40% poorer than before the recession
51–60 of 92 posts
Re: Americans are 40% poorer than before the recession
#52"The recession is over" has always struck me a political double-speak. We never left the recession; mainstream America just collectively forgot how it felt to have enough money. We have become accustomed to the 60 hour work weeks for folks fortunate enough to have jobs, chronic unemployment for those unfortunate enough to work outside of tech, the cheaper processed food, the increasing debt, and the lower standard of…
>mainstream America just collectively forgot how it felt to have enough money.
Yeah, no more easy line of credits for deadbeats and people with zero collateral who want to flip a home they can't afford and sell at a price that won't work. Banks shouldn't provide insurance for investing.
> We have become accustomed to the 60 hour work weeks for folks fortunate enough to have jobs
This kind of thing happened way before the recession and the mythical 1950s worker who went home right a 5 is just that, a myth.
> chronic unemployment for those unfortunate enough to work outside of tech
Tech sucks. I know blue-collar guys who paint or install drywall making my salary. Except they have no student loans, no office politics, etc to worry about. Granted a lot of them pay union dues, but its okay as Joe Taxpayer has agreed to pay their pensions. Do nothing jobs like HR pay six figures. The average salary for a Chicago school teacher is $85,000. If you think tech has all the money you obviously have no finance, lawyer, or doctor friends.
>Being poor is the new norm
If you're an American, you're far from poor, globally.
It bothers me that there's so much whining from people nowadays. Its like they never became a bazaillionare so they buy into the fallacious "things were better in the past" mumbo-jumbo. Yeah, the past wasn't too bad but try not to be black or asian or latino or a woman back then if you wanted to get ahead.
It also helped that the rest of the world was rebuilding from WWII while we had all our infrastructure, business, etc still intact. Maybe being relatively poorer is a good thing if it takes a world war to make us "rich."
Re: Americans are 40% poorer than before the recession
#53Earlier quoted context omitted.
How do you figure we haven't left the recession? Since June 09 we've been growing and not shrinking, which means the recession was over. It may not be the boom we all want, however the recession is over by any reasonable measure.
It takes about 10 minutes on Google to conclude that, regardless of any technical definition of a "recession", the economy is terrible unless you you're in a handful of industries or happen to make your money by owning the means of production (shocking that the group for whom the system is named always seem to do just fine...) Here's a good example: http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2014/10/09/for-most-wor... Some…
>> We never left the recession;
The OP suggested the American economy is still in a recession, which is false. Not according to any obscure "technical definition" of recession, but according to the only widely accepted definition of the word.
> Over-aggregating and being pedantic about technical definitions adds nothing to the conversation
His post opens with a statement that is plainly false. Spreading misinformation (even unintentionally) is not a good way to contribute to a conversation either.
While you might find it pedantic to learn how to use words correctly, others may appreciate the opportunity to learn about subjects outside their area of expertise.
Pvnick ultimately makes a good point, but he quite unnecessarily loses credibility among anybody who knows what a recession is. Imagine someone telling you that "The best tablet is the Android" or "Git is a bad compiler." You're likely to consciously or unconsciously discredit whatever comes out of their mouth next.
Re: Americans are 40% poorer than before the recession
#54Calculating how poor people are based on comparing against a time known to have unrealistically high and unsustainable housing prices, which made up a very large portion of net worth, seems like clickbait. We haven't re-entered a housing bubble massive enough to make every a paper millionaire. We shouldn't sulk about that.
It doesn't seem like clickbait. It seems pretty important to think about, actually.
Little story: In 2007, a member of my family landed a lot of signed contracts to commission him to do a certain type of job. These were actually so lucrative that he quit his dayjob.
Then 2008 happened. All of those signed contracts became meaningless. People simply said no, we're not paying you anymore, sorry. Fast forward a month, and he's contemplating ways to kill himself to make it look like an accident so that his family will keep their house via life insurance payments.
Luckily, things didn't turn out that way. He was able to get his job back. Somehow.
Might it be true that comparing the present to the lucrative year of 2007 isn't necessarily productive? Possibly. Probably. But it's an interesting historical perspective, and it's also interesting to remember how much people's faith in the economy matters. The type of work he was being commissioned for wasn't anything related to tech or housing. The ripples are profound, both in the upswing and the downswing.
Re: Americans are 40% poorer than before the recession
#55This makes me want to ask: Where did all of the money go? It had to go somewhere, right?
Its actually imaginary points. It doesn't have to go anywhere.
Re: Americans are 40% poorer than before the recession
#56"The recession is over" has always struck me a political double-speak. We never left the recession; mainstream America just collectively forgot how it felt to have enough money. We have become accustomed to the 60 hour work weeks for folks fortunate enough to have jobs, chronic unemployment for those unfortunate enough to work outside of tech, the cheaper processed food, the increasing debt, and the lower standard of…
"Recession" means that GDP is shrinking, not growing. That's the definition of that word: noun: recession; plural noun: recessions 1. a period of temporary economic decline during which trade and industrial activity are reduced, generally identified by a fall in GDP in two successive quarters. So technically, the recession is over. There's not much room for interpretation there unless you choose a different definitio…
Your narrow technical definition of the word "recession" is by no means universally accepted [1] [2]. In addition, as another post adjacent to your's points out, there is a common meaning used by everybody outside of economic-savvy circles that refers to periods of general economic difficulty. It is this definition which is more important because this is what the technical definitions of recession attempt to formalize with math and economic indicators, and the tendency to play semantics and say "since GDP hasn't fallen for two successive quarters the recession is over" when the economy is clearly still in shambles ignores the real struggle of millions of Americans who are not seeing the benefits of our "recovery," other than hearing about it on the news.
[1] http://www.nber.org/cycles/recessions_faq.html
[2] http://clubtroppo.com.au/2008/11/23/what-is-the-difference-b...
Re: Americans are 40% poorer than before the recession
#57This makes me want to ask: Where did all of the money go? It had to go somewhere, right?
The article seems to be discussing the median. The money went to the top of the curve.
Re: Americans are 40% poorer than before the recession
#58Earlier quoted context omitted.
It takes about 10 minutes on Google to conclude that, regardless of any technical definition of a "recession", the economy is terrible unless you you're in a handful of industries or happen to make your money by owning the means of production (shocking that the group for whom the system is named always seem to do just fine...) Here's a good example: http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2014/10/09/for-most-wor... Some…
So as long as one persons wage is falling that's a recession? That makes the word meaningless.
Pretty sure that's not what I said. I said that would be a recession for that person, in other words, from the point of view of that one, individual person. Of course you've over-extended my point. I wasn't talking about individuals, I was talking about fairly large groups of people.
Re: Americans are 40% poorer than before the recession
#59Is this page violently broken for anyone else on desktop?
Re: Americans are 40% poorer than before the recession
#60Is this page violently broken for anyone else on desktop?
Broken for me, too. Running Firefox