All around the world, recessions are being confirmed. My only response to this stunning news is:

WELL, DUH! What took these schmucks so long to finally fess up?

tim

Now now... talking about recession like its real has such an air of negativity about it. Since this thread has embraced such a depressing tone, let me add to it .

From Fool.com

About the time our original thirteen states adopted their new constitution
in 1787, Alexander Tyler, a Scottish history professor at the University of
Edinburgh, had this to say about the fall of the Athenian Republic some
2,000 years earlier:
'A democracy is always temporary in nature; it simply cannot exist as a
permanent form of government.'

'A democracy will continue to exist up until the time that voters discover
they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury.'

'From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates who
promise the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that
every democracy will finally collapse due to loose fiscal policy, which is
always followed by a dictatorship.'

'The average age of the world's greatest civilizations from the beginning of
history, has been about 200 years'

'During those 200 years, those nations always progressed through the
following sequence:

1. From bondage to spiritual faith;
2. From spiritual faith to great courage;
3. From courage to liberty;
4. From liberty to abundance;
5. From abundance to complacency;
6. From complacency to apathy;
7. From apathy to dependence;
8. From dependence back into bondage'

Professor Joseph Olson of Hemline University School of Law, St. Paul ,
Minnesota , points out some interesting facts concerning the 2000
Presidential election:

Number of States won by: Democrats: 19 Republicans: 29

Square miles of land won by: Democrats: 580,000 Republicans: 2,427,000

Population of counties won by: Democrats: 127 million Republicans: 143
million

Murder rate per 100,000 residents in counties won by: Democrats: 13.2
Republicans: 2.1

Professor Olson adds: 'In aggregate, the map of the territory Republican won
was mostly the land owned by the taxpaying citizens of this great country.
Democrat territory mostly encompassed those citizens living in
government-owned tenements and living off various forms of government
welfare...' Olson believes the United States is now somewhere between the
'complacency and apathy' phase of Professor Tyler's definition of democracy,
with some forty percent of the nation's population already having reached
the 'governmental dependency' phase.

If Congress grants amnesty and citizenship to twenty million criminal
invaders called illegal's and they vote, then we can say goodbye to the USA
in fewer than five years.

May be some people thought talking positive would help overcome a bad situation.

Well aslong as the recession doesn't effect me I dont really care... well thats abit harsh, it'll badly effect alot of people but... Aslong as I have my job I'm not as worried. naturally

Originally Posted by Macro

Well aslong as the recession doesn't effect me I dont really care... well thats abit harsh, it'll badly effect alot of people but... Aslong as I have my job I'm not as worried. naturally

That is an extremely selfish and short sighted view point. A recession and job losses effect everyone, whether you have your job or not. You weren't paying exorbitant prices for gas? The cost of your groceries hasn't increased? It hasn't been more difficult to pay your bills? How much worse do you think it is for someone that isn't as lucky as you? Someone who worked for the same company for the last 40 years and now doesn't have a job.

I was paying market rate for gas, well, diesel anyway.. Cost of groceries is about the same.. Mostly coming from the freezer where we put the cow and pig we slaughtered and of course the canned fruits/veggies.. Only "bill" we have had for 10 years is a mortgage payment (6 years to go) and we have been paying cash or paying off the credit card every month for 15 years.. So no real bills to speak of either..

Luck has "NOTHING" to do with it.. Absolutely NOTHING..

If they have worked for 40 years they should have a retirement account and be living comfortably by now.. If they didn't, and relied on someone else to take care of them, well, sounds like a bad plan to me..

And yes, I'm a hard ***.. I feel like the ant and most everyone else is the grasshopper.. I'm tired of taking care of the grasshopper.. Someone else can do it now..

There are a lot of people who have worked for the same company for 30-40 years and have 5 or 10 years left until retirement that are without a job because of being laid off. There are also a lot of people who have been working for 20-30 years that are in their 40's and 50's who are having a difficult finding a job after being laid off because the are "over qualified."

There is no excuse for working more than 30 - 40 years at one location and not having set up your own retirement or emergency fund..

I'm just amazed that so many people attribute success and planning and saving to "luck"..

Tell that to the people who had their 401(k) with Wachovia. Shortly, when Wells Fargo wants it's free handout from the government (that we get to pay for), will they have to wait in line with the auto execs with their life histories to speak with a case-worker-for-life like the ones that got laid off?

tim

Originally Posted by Feydakin

There is no excuse for working more than 30 - 40 years at one location and not having set up your own retirement or emergency fund..

I'm just amazed that so many people attribute success and planning and saving to "luck"..

Originally Posted by serandfae

Tell that to the people who had their 401(k) with Wachovia. Shortly, when Wells Fargo wants it's free handout from the government (that we get to pay for), will they have to wait in line with the auto execs with their life histories to speak with a case-worker-for-life like the ones that got laid off?

tim

That's one scenerio, another is having just finished raising your children and putting them through college, you are 55 years old, have worked for the same company for 35 years and get laid off. Your emergency fund is very low because you just put your kids through college, you aren't old enough to retire and no one wants to hire some one with 35 years experience because they either 1) don't want to pay the salary that experience merits or 2) even if you are willing to take a significantly lower salary they don't want to hire you because the don't think you will stay in a position so much lower than the one you just left.

Originally Posted by KML9870

You weren't paying exorbitant prices for gas?

Gas is actually the one thing that's come down (almost in half, almost to pre Bush levels) since we've been in recession.

Originally Posted by Feydakin

Luck has "NOTHING" to do with it.. Absolutely NOTHING..

If you had been lucky enough to have been born in Somalia, I'm sure you would be a very diligent pirate. Luck didn't have everything to do with your life story, but you certainly enjoyed a lot more opportunity than most of the 6.8 billion people on our planet, because of circumstances outside your control. By definition, that's luck, and had more than "nothing" to do with it. Your high horse is wearing stilts.

To be fair, you don't have to have all your money in the "Wachovia" stock pension fund to have lost your *** right before your retirement. Mutual funds lost 60% of their value on average this year which means that most people who were expecting to retire this year now have significantly less money to do it with.

For those who stuck with good financial planning, a good portion of their retirement is in cash(MM accounts) and Bonds. Even then if 50% of their cash took a 60% hit, they have %30 less to retire with, and thats without being directly leveraged into one of these failing giants. Maybe thats why they raised the mandatory retirement age for Social Security to 72. Lots of older folks are going to have to go back to work in a time when we are bleeding jobs, and thats just the way it is.

Originally Posted by KML9870

That is an extremely selfish and short sighted view point. A recession and job losses effect everyone, whether you have your job or not. You weren't paying exorbitant prices for gas? The cost of your groceries hasn't increased? It hasn't been more difficult to pay your bills? How much worse do you think it is for someone that isn't as lucky as you? Someone who worked for the same company for the last 40 years and now doesn't have a job.

I wasn't trying to be selfish or short sighted. I was just stating a fact. the fact that aslong as I have my job I'm not as worried as I would be if I didn't have my job. Which I think is fair enough.

I did however say that it was harsh on people that dont have a job and also that it will badly effect alot of people. just because I said that I'm not that worried due to my particular circumstances doesnt mean to say that I'm not sympathetic to those who aren't as fortunate as I am. I didn't mean to offend anybody or say something that was so unreasonable. I appologise profusely. Sorry to anybody whom I may have offended.

-Macro

Kandi, did work and put my kid through college, until she had 'issues' and had to move back home.. I just quit my full time job to do something new.. It's a huge risk in this economy, but I think that the potential reward justifies it.. Wife pointed out that I have never held a job for more than 7 years.. I've had many that overlapped, but I have always moved up as often as possible.. I never "just" went to work.. I pushed every minute of every day.. I still remember quite clearly the huge deal it was when we got to move in to our very own trailer when I 11 or 12..

I've done jobs that I was incredibly over qualified for from delivering pizza to stocking shelves at Autozone to job that I was incredibly under qualified for but felt I was capable of learning and doing, making jewelry.. I'm probably wired different than many people.. I can't fathom going in to "work" every day, day after day, year after year, and NOT trying to push for something better..

Newbie, do you really think that it's intellectually legitimate to compare being born in another country with being born in the US as luck?? And for the record, I would probably be a warlord in Somalia, or a druglord in Columbia.. Or dead because I tried to take the spot from the person that held it..

Yes, the recession is going to hurt.. But we've known it was coming for a few years now.. And people will get caught out through no "fault" of their own.. But dropping billions in to the corp welfare system isn't the solution.. Failure is the solution.. If you don't let failed businesses fail then you hurt everyone in the long run..

And for the record, I do volunteer, and I do donate.. But I'm incredibly picky about where and how much..

The problem is cause by the fed pumping out money from thin air and de-basing our dollar. The root of the problem is systemic and we need a whole new system. We need to go back to the gold standard.