Economists say we're in a recession ... oh, really

Yes, I realize there is a recession going on. Supposedly, people are hurting. It is hard to tell locally, however, when I drive by the WalMart or Costco. Their parking lots are always full. And I always find it amusing how gas prices come down with reluctance and at a snail like pace. But when oil prices increase it seems the gas stations follow suit aggressively and almost immediately. They say it's (the price increase) for delivery in the following months, but effidently Exxon and Chevron and the others seem to miss that part.

So far I am still employed and working full hours. I did find out last night that I will be required to take 160 hours of no pay in Q1 and Q2 of 2009. I just hope I'm not one of the 1500 scheduled to lose their jobs this year.

Anyway, I remain optimistic and will muddle through. I may not purchase too many books in 2009 and make more visits to the local library. I hope all is well with all my fellow authors. What happens after a recession? Hmmm.

Charlie

Charlie,

I think we could come out better. We had become a spending society with few people saving, and now people are thinking more about saving. If people save than they can invest in our products and services.

I've seen the cars at WalMart and don't quite understand that. We go to WalMart sometimes to walk the aisles to get some exercise since we can't do so outside. (People who have fallen on the ice are filling emergency rooms.)

My children are all employed which is important. One is worried and one in construction is in a good position to get some of the jobs that might become available with the new administration. He has a good reputation that he will take on any job no matter what. One family member has had to take a 10% cut in pay and says he is as busy as he ever was so he doesn't quite understand this.

Carol

Nevada which always had a healthy state budget (one year they even gave us money!) thanks to the gaming business, is actually having cutbacks!! Yeah, people from California and Utah just aren't coming in to play the slots like they used to.

My son who works as a CO for the state prison is wondering if he will even have a job when he returns from Afghanistan.

And I know people are not buying ... because there is much less freight moving. The trucking industry has been going down tubes since diesel prices (which got even higher than gasoline) soared.

Call it what you want ... I just know my family has been hit by whatever it is.

Three of my good friends were laid off just before Christmas. They had jobs in varying fields. My brother just found out yesterday that he's being laid off, too. He is one of the lucky ones as his wife also works, so they will go from two incomes to one. He will be able to collect unemployment, at least.

We are in challenging times.

JoElle, that new avatar of yours appears to be more than mischievous, which is how I think of you. Does it represent your 'dark half'?

No matter what the economy does, people will always manage. Some may even learn some hard lessons, such as the ant ant grasshopper.

Others may wind up moving into communes and sharing what they have with others. Even if there are tougher times ahead, I know that humans are resilient and they are survivors, even if some of them are unaware of it.

Charlie,
strange as it seems, we were not supposed to be in a recession until it was officially declared a recession. Do you think they will officially declare when we are no longer in a recession or does that follow the pattern of gas prices?

Actually, we were in a recession for a long time but no one would acknowledge it - officially. Based on what we heard from the White House over the previous years we should have know that what is said was not reliable.

I think everyone should subscribe to the Boy Scouts motto: "Always be Prepared."

People always get out and about, Charlie. They have to do that in order to survive. Even during the worst years of the Great Depression the streets were crowded and life went on. That didn't mean people had money to spend or even food on the table every day. The weakest committed suicide and you hear of that happening on a smaller scale today. Few areas have been hit harder than the one in which I live, yet looking out the window you would never know that. You do know it when you see the vacant storefronts and empty parking lots at factories. So far, however, it doesn't come close to the 1930s when I was a kid, but it's bad.

The terms "recession" and "depression" as economic terns involve the length of time in which economic growth is negative. So it takes awhile before you can call it by those names. Once the economy turns around for a couple of quarters, recovery is acheived and there is no term applied.

This is a back door recession that is being caused by multiple failures in obvious and hidden parts of the economy that shows up on the doorstep of working people in the form of lost jobs. The housing market failure is visible, the drying up of buying, selling, lending etc. is like a python slowing squeezing the life out of its victim. In my business, some banks won't funds leases for city and state government equipment purchases, that's alarming. Doing business with government entities was always fool proof, not anymore because of budget shortfalls. Most government contracts have clauses that allow them to exit early if money is not available year to year, banks don't want the risk.

This is a new age slowdown that is us simply running out of money and the ability to generate our way out of the crisis is limited because of how our economy works now.

A number of the local stores have closed or are on the verge of doing so. Woolworths has gone, so has MFI. The local Iceland has gone, and so has Adams. Several small businesses have failed. Property isn't selling, although you'd never know it to look at the prices people are still expecting to get.

So far we've not been affected all that much personally, but that could change any second.

So long as we don't go into a mental recession we'll make it.

I have noticed that instead of tearing buildings down and putting up new, they have been improving those that are already there in our two close towns. The store fronts they have worked on are beautiful. Now that is something that would be an improvement in our society, where we sometimes tear down perfectly good buildings to put up newer not so unique or nice looking ones.

Carol

All I know is...

I pulled up at the Dollar Store (I am the Queen of discount shopping, as trained by my sweet mama), and I parked next to a Mercedes.

I am finally in fashion. Seems, frugality is the new trend. I knew if I waited long enough...

It is no longer considered cool to lust for a huge house. Hmm...wow. I am in fashion again. I never wanted or needed more space than I required.

Recession? yep. Believe it is true. But if this is what it takes to knock some common sense into folks, then so be it. We have been too greedy too long.

Flip-side...I do feel for those who have lost employment. It could happen to anyone. The only answer is to hang on the best we can, work together, and get through the changes coming our way.

Rhett,
you summed it up well.

I have posted this little piece of information before but it seems appropriate now. My grandfather grew up during the depression. He was a poor dirt farmer, money earned came from selling timber or the occasional cow. They lived off the land. His son came home from school one day and asked his father if he could tell him about the depression.

"Depression!" Exclaimed his dad.

"Depression is something rich folks get. You don't half to worry about the depression."

The problem, Nutter, is that owning timber and a cow would have qualified as being well off during the early years of the Great Depression. When it began, my father was making good money as a salesman for a large, national company and my mother was the nurse at the Fox Theatre in Detroit. My dad's company went under, few people were going to the movies so the Fox closed its hospital room, millions were out of work and no one was hiring so for quite some time we lived in the back seat of a Model-T Ford that was open on both sides. People managed to survive, at least most of them, but it was rough beyond imagining.

Carol Troestler wrote:

I have noticed that instead of tearing buildings down and putting up new, they have been improving those that are already there in our two close towns.

I wish that were the case here. I love Victorian architecture, but the locals here don't seem to share that passion. Despite the current property situation, they will insist on knocking down perfectly sound buildings that were built around 1850 to make way for ugly modern ones.

Gina & Carol,
I share your views. Preserving the old well-built structures not only makes sense but preserves a bit of history. New is not always better, just different.
The house I live in was built in 1752. It required a lot of work to renovate but it was worth the effort. In the cold wave we're having, those thick walls help to keep out the cold. In summer they serve to keep out the heat.

Modern high-ceilings and many windows require much more to heat than the opposite.

He my HAIR is in a recession and you don't see me jumping out any windows.

Not all farmers had AW's fathers attitude. The depression broke my grandfather, as I wote in my blog on my website.

http://www.annjoiner.com/myblog.htm?archived=1




Gina writes about old buildings being destroyed. Around here, and this was true in Houston and my home town, Orange, the problem is that builders have no compunction about bulldozing trees to make construction easier, both with commercial buildings and private homes and apartments. When my ex and I built our "dream home" we had to literally fight the man we hired to clear a space on the property to build our house. One species of tree in particular, the camphor tree, was plentiful on the lot. The man we hired called it a "junk" tree, in spite of the fact that it's fall colors were brilliant yellows, oranges, and reds.

At one point, Bill and I were supervising his work, and we saw the bulldozer backing up and heading toward one of those trees. Bill started to say, "Ann, didn't you want to...," just as the bulldozer rammed into the pretty little thing. All I could say was, "I guess not."

This picture was taken the first winter we lived there. Most of the decidual trees had already their leaves, but you can see a bit of what we wanted to do.



My current little garden home in SA is perfect for my retirement needs, but you can see that it suffered from the bull-dozing mania.



Ann

Reading the replies about my grandfather and others on how terrible the depression was, made me realize how fortunate I have been. My grandfather told me a story about how the bank continued to send him notices regarding payment to his farm. One day he loaded his family into the wagon and proceeded to the bank where he shoved the paperwork across the table to the banker and said.

"I can't pay for so you might as well take it."

The banker looked at Grandpa for a few minutes and shoved the paper work back across the table.

"Well, I can't sell it so just pay when and what you can."

Grandpa and his family got back in the wagon and headed home.

Dick Stodghill wrote:

The problem, Nutter, is that owning timber and a cow would have qualified as being well off during the early years of the Great Depression. When it began, my father was making good money as a salesman for a large, national company and my mother was the nurse at the Fox Theatre in Detroit. My dad's company went under, few people were going to the movies so the Fox closed its hospital room, millions were out of work and no one was hiring so for quite some time we lived in the back seat of a Model-T Ford that was open on both sides. People managed to survive, at least most of them, but it was rough beyond imagining.

Dick,

What a life--the army must have been,"duck soup," after this ordeal.
How many children were there in your family?

Me thinks you are a survivor.
More, tell us more.

Thanks!

Abe F. March wrote:

In the cold wave we're having, those thick walls help to keep out the cold. In summer they serve to keep out the heat.

They do indeed keep in the heat and keep out the cold. When those who live in modern rows of thin-walled cubes are sweltering in the heat, I am up here feeling very cool. And these old places have so much character. This place spoke to me the moment I saw it... I'm sure it has a life of its own.

My grandparents were young during the depression years, but were indeed affected. One thing I learned from them was to be self sufficient. Of course, I was born well after the depression, but my grandparents kept these values through the years. I remember food was provided almost entirely without benefit of a visit to the store. Meat was shot and butchered, vegetables were grown in a garden and fruit grew on trees in the orchard. There were dairy cows for milk, butter, and cheese. I can remember helping grandma make homemade ice cream and rootbeer. I can even remember helping make soap. I learned the meaning and importance of hard work.

The funny thing about it is this. My grandparents have all passed on and I'm ashamed to say I don't keep up with the garden and orchard. I became a city person who relies on multiple trips to the grocery store each month. I will see one thing without equivocation. Nothing I've eaten from the box out of the grocery store or from any so called fancy restuarant (and I've tried a few) have ever compared to my grandma's home cooking when all she used was the basics from the garden and orchard to compliment the deer or elk or beef grandpa had available at the time.

Well, we get through each new difficulty as best we can with the resources we have at hand.

Charlie

zadaconnaway wrote:

JoElle, that new avatar of yours appears to be more than mischievous, which is how I think of you. Does it represent your 'dark half'?

No matter what the economy does, people will always manage. Some may even learn some hard lessons, such as the ant ant grasshopper.

Others may wind up moving into communes and sharing what they have with others. Even if there are tougher times ahead, I know that humans are resilient and they are survivors, even if some of them are unaware of it.

Hi Zada!

Oh I saw this avatar and just LOVED the look on his face!!!

I see so much adorable naughtiness in that expression ... and can just imagine what he must be up to. Yeah, I found a soul mate in this avatar.