How Serious is the Downturn in Economy?

iVillage Member
Registered: 04-24-2008
How Serious is the Downturn in Economy?
14
Wed, 12-17-2008 - 7:13am

Recently, I heard two moms say there is no recession because they'd just been to the stores and the stores were packed.

Pages

iVillage Member
Registered: 11-11-1999
Wed, 12-17-2008 - 9:47am

Recently, I heard two moms say there is no recession because they'd just been to the stores and the stores were packed.

dablacksox


Cynic: a blackguard whose faulty vision sees things as they are, not as they ought to be.---Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary.

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-30-2007
Wed, 12-17-2008 - 10:11am

I rely on my pocketbook.

iVillage Member
Registered: 04-03-2003
Wed, 12-17-2008 - 10:14am

Yes, we're in a recession regardless of how it appears to a couple of moms in Walmart or anyone anywhere else in the country, and indicators are still trending downwards.

iVillage Member
Registered: 10-09-2008
Wed, 12-17-2008 - 11:04am

Yes, we're in a recession. I think that the left media is making it out to be worse than it really is, until Obama takes office. Soon after we will begin seeing articles about how things have gotten better and we are on the road to recovery because Obama did this or that.


Look at the NY Times front page today. Hard hitting article about his chief of staff being on the surveillance tapes of the Illinois governor? Nope. A nice puff piece on how his big spending is going to help children. And puppies and kittens too, I'm sure. What a great guy!


He must be mixed up in this scandal if they are putting this stuff on the front page.

Community Leader
Registered: 09-14-1997
Wed, 12-17-2008 - 12:15pm

I live in the rust belt, and our major employer used to be the Air Force, until the bases closed.


We lost customer service jobs overseas, and other jobs to different places in the states.


We have been in a recession for years.... I wish I were joking.

The good news is, the housing industry wasn't booming to begin with, so there are not as many people being foreclosed. The bad news is that now the jobs that were here are being impacted by the ones in other parts of the country. Forty jobs lost here, fifty jobs lost there...


I am fortunate, I have some seniority in my area of teaching, so when the layoffs come, and they will, there are more than five people lower than me on the list. My husband's business repairs things, so they are fairly recession proof. His business actually gave a bonus (token, but still a bonus) for the first time in 5 years. It was a symbol that the business was going to still be here.


Some of my friends are not so lucky.

iVillage Member
Registered: 12-16-2008
Wed, 12-17-2008 - 2:16pm

Some areas of the the country are stronger than others, ag areas are stronger for now. Big 3 auto areas I'm sure are closer to depression than others.


The next housing crisis is looking to be 12-24 months from now.


I learned how the misuse of credit can bite you in the early 80s.

iVillage Member
Registered: 12-13-2008
Wed, 12-17-2008 - 2:20pm

This isn't the 'big one,' but it's not looking very good either.


Many of the bad things we've heard in the news have not filtered through the economy yet.

iVillage Member
Registered: 04-04-2003
Wed, 12-17-2008 - 6:07pm

The stores may be packed (after all it's Christmas)....But perhaps people would be buying the equivilent of a CD for gifts instead of the CD Player....the game, instead of the X-Box....some gloves instead of a coat etc...


iVillage Member
Registered: 08-13-2008
Wed, 12-17-2008 - 6:43pm

Yanno, in a weird way, it would be great if everyone - including bankers - felt that way. Confidence is everything.


Absent such a development, you can pretty much tell how serious by what the Fed has done.


When you see them go full bore as they now do, they see a 50 foot boulder rolling down the hill, and are trying to find something big enough to stop it.

Full length fiction: http://llhaesa.org/ (pronounced la.hay.ess.sa)



Full length fiction: worlds undone

"You have no power over my body..." ~ Anne Hutchinson

iVillage Member
Registered: 05-18-2005
Tue, 12-23-2008 - 9:36pm

Well, in Michigan, I think we are close to a depression.

Jan

Pages