8 ms·

I think people have memories of goldfish nowadays and the second hiring picks back up everyone will forget all about this

jf22 2y ago
This is the 4th or 5th downturn I've been part of. The same articles were written each time. Once growth starts up again things will be the same.
- taylodl 2y ago
  Me too but - remember the jobless recovery from the early 1990's? This time around feels a lot more like it did then. Corporate profits are soaring, Wall Street is happy - there's lots of money being made. Except employees have been left out of the party and are on the outside looking in. This feels very much like that. Then again, that era presided one of the largest periods of economic growth in US history! If history repeats itself then we're all going to be in for a great time in about five years! Of course, that may be of little help to you if in the meanwhile you've depleted your life savings and have been foreclosed on.
  - jf22 2y ago
    I guess. With media so gamified and managed, it's hard to know what's true or what big spenders want us to think is true about the economy.
    - taylodl 2y ago
      Media can't gamify the facts: corporate profits are soaring and the stock indices have been doing great. GDP is up, US-based manufacturing is up, and job growth is at the highest levels in the modern era. The fact that's not helping the guy out on Main Street much is exactly what we saw in the early 90's. The one thing I would say is different between now and the early 90's is we have a lot more retirees, and retirees as a group are much more exposed to inflation. Though its largely the Boomers who are that group of retirees and they've been through periods of much higher inflation and so if they thought Quantitative Easing was going to last forever then they were just being foolish. They're also the generation rapidly losing power and so they like to complain so they can still feel like they have some power. If anything, because of the Boomers I'd say the media is being overly pessimistic about our current situation. It's still better than where we were in the early 90's.
      - cyanydeez 2y ago
        These cuts are stock boosts and a result of lending rates rises coming from fed inflation response. The fed even.reported theyd want unemployment to rise to help. The inflation itself is driven by corporate price gouging, so its mostly rich people fighting eachother and seeing which part.of the proletariat is easiest.to downsize.
      - jf22 2y ago
        I hear you and probably believe you. However, I also don't understand macroeconomics enough to evaluate whether your statement is true. It's as if I doubt myself more than I doubt you.
        taylodl 2y ago
        Honestly, the best electives I took in college was microeconomics, macroeconomics, political science, and world history. After those four courses the world made a thousand times more sense to me. It's a shame these courses were electives and I didn't even have to take them, they simply fulfilled an elective requirement. It just seemed to me that if I were to regard myself as having a "well-rounded" education then I should know these things. BTW - I was a lot older when I went to college, I was something like 25 or 26 when I started and had already worked for two startups and had even lived and worked abroad. I had a lot of experience coming into college and so I was very mindful of my electives. My 18 year old self would have never made such smart choices.
LarsDu88 2y ago
Just remember that the previous 15 years were a historically unprecedented low interest rate environment. We also have AI based efficiency boosting tools and greater offshoring to contend with
- coin 2y ago
  > offshoring to contend with They’ve been saying that for at least 20 years.
- taylodl 2y ago
  People are complaining about "high inflation" and I'm thinking today inflation is finally back to normal. I was around in the 70's. Back then people would have considered the inflation we have today as an answer to their prayers! That just goes to show perspective is everything!
  - rybosworld 2y ago
    The rate of change is much more important than the absolute inflation number in terms of how it effects workers and the economy. It's the rate of change in the inflation number that causes pain, more than the absolute percentage. There's nothing scientific about the Fed or other central banks targeting for 2% versus, say 5% or 10%. A finance minister in New Zealand suggested the 2% target in the 80's: https://www.cfr.org/blog/history-and-future-federal-reserves-2-percent-target-rate-inflation-0 https://www.cfr.org/blog/history-and-future-federal-reserves.... Other central banks copied it and now it's set in stone. What matters is that everyone has an agreed upon expectation for what inflation will be. This is because the economy is based on expectations. Things only get bad when inflation moves suddenly higher or lower and it catches everyone off guard. All their annual projections are wrong and they have to make adjustments. So the absolute inflation number doesn't really matter, so long as it is steady and predictable. It is true though, that psychologically the higher number may have a negative effect on people. The 70's and 80's did have big inflation numbers, but what really causes the pain is the fluctuations. And in hindsight it's clear that the actual inflation number wasn't the problem, it was that no one knew what next years inflation rate would be. The point is: on an absolute basis, today's inflation rates are lower. But that's not what we should be paying so much attention to. It's the rate of change of inflation that matters. Moving from 2% to 8%, is effectively a 4x adjustment in expectations. Whereas going from 10% to 20% is just a 2x adjustment.

jf22 2y ago

This is the 4th or 5th downturn I've been part of. The same articles were written each time. Once growth starts up again things will be the same.

taylodl 2y ago
Me too but - remember the jobless recovery from the early 1990's? This time around feels a lot more like it did then. Corporate profits are soaring, Wall Street is happy - there's lots of money being made. Except employees have been left out of the party and are on the outside looking in. This feels very much like that. Then again, that era presided one of the largest periods of economic growth in US history! If history repeats itself then we're all going to be in for a great time in about five years! Of course, that may be of little help to you if in the meanwhile you've depleted your life savings and have been foreclosed on.
- jf22 2y ago
  I guess. With media so gamified and managed, it's hard to know what's true or what big spenders want us to think is true about the economy.
  - taylodl 2y ago
    Media can't gamify the facts: corporate profits are soaring and the stock indices have been doing great. GDP is up, US-based manufacturing is up, and job growth is at the highest levels in the modern era. The fact that's not helping the guy out on Main Street much is exactly what we saw in the early 90's. The one thing I would say is different between now and the early 90's is we have a lot more retirees, and retirees as a group are much more exposed to inflation. Though its largely the Boomers who are that group of retirees and they've been through periods of much higher inflation and so if they thought Quantitative Easing was going to last forever then they were just being foolish. They're also the generation rapidly losing power and so they like to complain so they can still feel like they have some power. If anything, because of the Boomers I'd say the media is being overly pessimistic about our current situation. It's still better than where we were in the early 90's.
    - cyanydeez 2y ago
      These cuts are stock boosts and a result of lending rates rises coming from fed inflation response. The fed even.reported theyd want unemployment to rise to help. The inflation itself is driven by corporate price gouging, so its mostly rich people fighting eachother and seeing which part.of the proletariat is easiest.to downsize.
    - jf22 2y ago
      I hear you and probably believe you. However, I also don't understand macroeconomics enough to evaluate whether your statement is true. It's as if I doubt myself more than I doubt you.
      - taylodl 2y ago
        Honestly, the best electives I took in college was microeconomics, macroeconomics, political science, and world history. After those four courses the world made a thousand times more sense to me. It's a shame these courses were electives and I didn't even have to take them, they simply fulfilled an elective requirement. It just seemed to me that if I were to regard myself as having a "well-rounded" education then I should know these things. BTW - I was a lot older when I went to college, I was something like 25 or 26 when I started and had already worked for two startups and had even lived and worked abroad. I had a lot of experience coming into college and so I was very mindful of my electives. My 18 year old self would have never made such smart choices.

LarsDu88 2y ago

Just remember that the previous 15 years were a historically unprecedented low interest rate environment. We also have AI based efficiency boosting tools and greater offshoring to contend with

coin 2y ago
> offshoring to contend with They’ve been saying that for at least 20 years.
taylodl 2y ago
People are complaining about "high inflation" and I'm thinking today inflation is finally back to normal. I was around in the 70's. Back then people would have considered the inflation we have today as an answer to their prayers! That just goes to show perspective is everything!
- rybosworld 2y ago
  The rate of change is much more important than the absolute inflation number in terms of how it effects workers and the economy. It's the rate of change in the inflation number that causes pain, more than the absolute percentage. There's nothing scientific about the Fed or other central banks targeting for 2% versus, say 5% or 10%. A finance minister in New Zealand suggested the 2% target in the 80's: https://www.cfr.org/blog/history-and-future-federal-reserves-2-percent-target-rate-inflation-0 https://www.cfr.org/blog/history-and-future-federal-reserves.... Other central banks copied it and now it's set in stone. What matters is that everyone has an agreed upon expectation for what inflation will be. This is because the economy is based on expectations. Things only get bad when inflation moves suddenly higher or lower and it catches everyone off guard. All their annual projections are wrong and they have to make adjustments. So the absolute inflation number doesn't really matter, so long as it is steady and predictable. It is true though, that psychologically the higher number may have a negative effect on people. The 70's and 80's did have big inflation numbers, but what really causes the pain is the fluctuations. And in hindsight it's clear that the actual inflation number wasn't the problem, it was that no one knew what next years inflation rate would be. The point is: on an absolute basis, today's inflation rates are lower. But that's not what we should be paying so much attention to. It's the rate of change of inflation that matters. Moving from 2% to 8%, is effectively a 4x adjustment in expectations. Whereas going from 10% to 20% is just a 2x adjustment.