Wait the Recession is over?

[MauEvig]

I feel like I missed a huge, very important memo here. People are still talking about how jobs are scarce, people are still talking about the poor economy, and I even opted to write a history report on the Great Depression and compare it to today's Recession.
But apparently, the Recession already ended. Really? Then why are people still having such a hard time finding jobs? Why is the Unemployment rate still high? I don't get it.
I get that jobs are going to be more scarce in the rural areas, but still. If the job market isn't so great, why say the Recession's over? To me at least when I graduated college the first time in 2005 before I went back in 2009 to get an Associates in Medical Administrative Assistant, and again now to get a degree in Education, I've always had a hard time finding a job at least for the most part. The exception being part-time minimum wage work that I don't even enjoy or get any satisfaction out of.
Is the American Dream over, or has it turned into the American Nightmare? Is it regarded as bad to try and find something better rather than settling for something you don't like?

Economic down turns have happened a lot throughout history. None of them have ever been as Global Scale and depressing as the Great Depression. But I'm curious about what causes this flux of down turn and rise in production?

[Murfreesboro]

Mau, I am not an economist, but I don't believe our economy is in good shape at all. I think the media are trying to whistle past the graveyard with all the talk about things being better. The truth is, our government is several trillion dollars in debt. How many trillion depends on whom you listen to. But several years ago (maybe in 2010 or 2011) I heard someone on the radio say, "If you paid one million dollars every day, from the day Jesus Christ was born until today, you wouldn't have paid out one trillion dollars." I thought that was hyperbolic, so my husband did the math. And at the time, that statement was true. On the day my husband did the math, the figure came somewhere around 783 billion dollars, well short of one trillion.

What does this mean? Well, I don't believe there is enough money in the universe to pay back the kind of debt we are in right now. I hear rumors that China is quietly moving away from the American dollar. I think our economy--Wall Street etc.--is running on paper money that is being printed in excess of anything solid to back it up. Throughout history, when this happens, economies crash. I don't see how we can avoid it.

But I don't make myself miserable about this. I just figure, when everything goes, we will all be in the same boat. Somehow, some way, people manage to survive even the hardest times. As Gerard Manley Hopkins says in one of his poems, "For all this, Nature is never spent."

[Andybev01]

One estimate of the total, global derivatives market is 1.2 QUADRILLION dollars.

Say that out loud.

Quadrillion.

A derivative is in essence, a bet.

A bet that is 20x the entire global economic product, 95% of which is held by 4 financial institutions.

The house always wins.

[Murfreesboro]

Mau, you asked, Is the American Dream over? And I wondered how you define that term. In my lifetime, it seems to me that most people have defined it as home ownership. However, I think it originally meant more than that. I'm pretty sure that the American Dream originally meant, Be your own boss, which of course included home ownership. But most of the people who came over here either wanted their own land to farm, or they wanted to own their own business. Being self-sustaining, not having to answer to higher authorities--that was the American Dream. Most of us no longer live on farms, and current regulations are making it increasingly difficult for entrepreneurs. So, yes, I think the American Dream is endangered. But then again,if you define it down as home ownership, and only that, it is still attainable.

[MauEvig]

Wow Andy, that is quite a numerical figure. Quadrillion. I don't think it would ever be possible to get out of national debt; if only there was some kind of "reset" button we could push to just bring everything back to square one.

Murf you brought up some interesting points about the economy. I'm certainly no economic expert either. I do not believe for a fact that we're in good economic shape. If we were, jobs would be plentiful, there would be plenty of opportunities for starting your own business, there'd be no poverty (even this would be impossible, but ideally I'd like to see everyone making a stable, sustainable income. It doesn't mean being rich, but it does mean that no one has to struggle to survive) or at least poverty would be at a minimum. I think exploring "green" technologies is one way to create jobs. I think the American dream might be a little different for everyone. For me it's opportunity for success. Finding that dream career after college. But most people I talk to say that we should just "settle for whatever we can find." But I'm a little more stubborn than that. Even if I wind up with another part-time job that I don't like, I'm not going to settle for it. A friend of mine I used to work with has a degree in IT, but he was working in Internet sales just like I was. He lasted longer at that company than I did, but after several years he's finally finding a job in IT. Doesn't help that the college he went to is one of the same colleges I went to the first time around; and they do nothing to help you find a job. I don't really consider "resume writing and cover letter writing" to be helpful. Every single place I go to when it came to working on my resume has said something different about how I should change it.

As for me, I've come too far with college education to give up now. Even if I have to commute, so be it.

[Kolchak]

Most folks I know are living paycheck to paycheck. Cutting back on vacations and travel, and trying to make ends meet. From my vantage point, the middle class grows smaller every day. The rich get richer and the poor get poorer. For some the recession has been a way to get wealthier, but at what and whos cost?

[MauEvig]

Agreed. I feel like it's a right sham and there's no way to get out of it. I went to college because I wanted to do better than my parents did, especially with minimum wage jobs and such, or working in dead-end factories.

But then I ended up working in part-time minimum wage grocery stores, restaurants and more...and I feel like I'm worse off financially than my parents are.

Some people play the lottery hoping to find a way out. Me I'm just working at college hoping to find a successful career. I don't plan on being rich; I just want to make enough to pay debts, make ends meet and maybe take an occasional vacation trip. Making enough to be considered "comfortable" and not worry is plenty. But I don't think that's possible in this day and age. I won't stop trying though. I think the important thing is feeling satisfied with my career choice. I want a job I'll love. Not to say I won't have any bad days...we could work the perfect dream job and still get those. But I want to enjoy what I do. I'll never feel satisfied working as a cashier.

[Murfreesboro]

I've told my kids that you don't have to be rich to be happy, but you do need "enough"--enough so that you know you can get what you want if you save for it. For some people that's a house, for others it's travel or some rather expensive hobby, etc.

The real pinch comes, I think, when you have children. Doing without stuff for yourself is easier than it is to see your kids doing without. And the stuff most of us consider necessary for children these days is expensive--braces, lessons of some sort ( music, sports, dance), occasional trips with organizations like bands or Scout troops, etc. Heck, even high school graduation isn't cheap anymore. We have paid hundreds of dollars for senior portraits for each of our kids. When I graduated a million years ago, you got one senior portrait in the yearbook. For girls you wore some type of drape the photographer provided. It was probably a $30 pr $40 photo.

It seems to me the ante has been upped about everything--prom and weddings, etc. Back in the '70s and early '80s, I never went to a wedding that had a sit-down dinner. The receptions always had cake and punch and hors d'oevres, not a meal. Now I never go to a wedding that doesn't have a catered dinner. When did that happen? When did it become necessary to feed a meal to everybody who showed up at your wedding? I mean, there were always a few rich people who would do that, but even my more affluent friends and cousins didn't feel the need for that when I was first grown.

[Andybev01]

It all started with the baby boomers' parents.

Nothing was too good for the 'best & the brightest' , and they took that concept and freakin ran with it.

Their kids we're the first generation to get trophies for just showing up.

[Murfreesboro]

Well, I guess there's some truth to that.

Part of it, too, has been the anxiety parents feel about the dangerous world we live in. My mother, who was born in 1914, said that in her childhood, you walked out your back door, and someone would yell, "You're it!" IOW, there was always a game being played outside by the neighborhood kids. There were so many kids, and nobody worried about keeping them safe. No one ever thought about abducting a child whose parents weren't wealthy, and most parents weren't wealthy. Already in my 1960s childhood, we often had "play dates," although they weren't called that. But we would make appointments to go to each other's houses. When you don't feel safe letting your kids run and play in the neighborhood and explore on their own, then you have all these organized activities for them, and those usually cost money.

I think, too, that modern weddings are often paid for by the bride and groom themselves, who have often delayed getting married until they are a little older than previous generations. If both parties have jobs, then they feel they can spend more money on the "perfect" wedding.

Maybe the whole celebration of prom and sweet sixteens and such has taken the place of the wedding teenaged girls often used to have.