Global Recession really over?

[mookiemookie]

Originally Posted by NeonSamurai

On another note I really don't think the western world is going to return so quickly to their excessive spending ways. Demand has been vastly over inflated in the west by marketing, particularly when it comes to technology. People were convinced by marketing that they needed all this new crap, that they needed a brand new state of the art cell phone every 6 months, that they need to spend 1000$ on computer video cards every year. Large numbers of rather foolish people were getting heavily into debt trying to keep up with the trends and technology. On top of it we have the "i am entitled to everything I want" generations who see no difference between borrowed money and money in hand.

I agree wholeheartedly on this point. We're seeing a secular, as a opposed to cyclical, change in consumer behavior here. They are being buoyed by government stimulus, but that's a temporary distortion and, long term, I expect we're going to see some reckoning. In this current recession, people have lost the "use your home as an ATM" option - home values have been slashed, and still have a long way to go, and credit is still tight from banks ravaged by bad loans. People are re-learning to spend what they have instead of running up purchases on credit. I don't believe that we can have recovery, at least for America, can truly be over until the consumer leads us to it. Consumer spending accounts for, on average, 2/3rds of domestic GDP.

Is the recession over, meaning have we stopped cliff diving in every measurable barometer of the economy? Yes, probably so. Does the end of a recession equate to recovery? No. It's going to take years to replace the job losses that we're seeing and will continue to see for a while. So if you want to call it a "jobless recovery" I think that'd be pretty close to accurate. And if things turn sour again over the next year, they're probably going to look at it as a continuation of the Great Recession instead of a second one.

[Platapus]

I can only speak for my family, but even after the economy recovers, our spending habits will remain low. We were VERY VERY lucky this recession, my family only suffered a little and we have recovered.

However it was a wake up call (especially for The Frau) that we don't need to constantly buy new stuff just because it is new and to really think about our discretionary spending.

I doubt I am the only one thinking like this.

Unfortunately, this means the businesses that catered strictly to luxuries and discretionary spending by the consumers, may not recover to their past levels as people, no longer in a recession, are not as eager to borrow money and/or splurge on that 50" Plasma that we simply "HAVE" to have.

[Onkel Neal]

Originally Posted by UnderseaLcpl

Out of that entire post, you pick that one sentence to quote? The whole point of the post, and the rest of the paragraph you quoted, was to suggest that trying to legislate artificial demand is a futile effort. Why take it out of context like that?

Perhaps I wasn't being clear. What I intended to say was that state interference in the form of monetary injections and atempts to create production that is without demand is a recipe for failure. When I said that a stimulus program must encourage demand I meant that the business environment must be made more favourable.

Like you, I am more in favor of option 2, but.........


...there are a lot more than two schools of thought when it comes to economics. I see what you are saying here, and you are correct to some degree (marketing professionals deal with these principles all the time), but a general positive trend in economic activity can only be brought about by leaving the market alone. There is no amount of state finance or manufactured demand that can significanty affect the free market in anything but a detrimental fashion.



Economics is neither a science nor an art. Economies consisting of millions or billions of individual transactions with an untold number of motives do not lend themselves to categorization or artistic interpretation as a whole.

The market cannot ever really be controlled. It can be hindered, and it can be stifled, but it cannot be stopped or directed with any certainty. It is human nature itself, expressed in the forms of competition and mutually beneficial transactions. We can attempt to control it with the intent of supporting an ovveriding purpose, but we will not be successful. All we will ever really achieve is to drive the market underground, which results in a black market and the associated criminal activity.

Our best bet is to just leave it alone. Beneficial enterprises will take root and prosper, and bad ones will die. Smart consumers will benefit, and dumb consumers will have to rethink their behaviour. One way or the other, the economy will reach a kind of homeostasis.

The worst thing we could do is to entrust economic policy to economic "scientists" or politicians. Talk about having the fox guard the henhouse

Man, I love reading your stuff!

[XabbaRus]

What bugs me is when companies, like my own who are doing very well, use it as an excuse to not give much of a bonus or a rise.

My company for 2008/09 on a turnover of £30million made £20million profit.

OK even if you deduct the amount of the debt the company has taken on to fund one of our projects we are still making lots of money.

I can bet the directors are taking their cut.

Any way as it stands I'm looking for a new job.

[Blacklight]

What bugs me is when companies, like my own who are doing very well, use it as an excuse to not give much of a bonus or a rise.

My company for 2008/09 on a turnover of £30million made £20million profit.

OK even if you deduct the amount of the debt the company has taken on to fund one of our projects we are still making lots of money.

I can bet the directors are taking their cut.

Any way as it stands I'm looking for a new job.

This was actually ALWAYS the case with EVERY company I ever worked for. The company would make record profits, topping itself each year. The CEO's and top brass getting BIGGER AND BIGGER bonuses and raises while at the same time, slashing our benefits and telling us that we're not getting raises anymore (and or laying people off to make the profit) by claiming "These are troubled times". This happened EVERYWHERE I EVER worked from the time I was 16 till now with several different companies. Even when the economy was good, they always claimed "We're just not making the money anymore and recession... etc..". Yet.. the CEO's and upper management are getting big bonuses and raises. Heck. In my last job, they even did a major construction project on their corporate office just to put in a "Top Brass Only" fitness center, lounge, pool hall, in ground indoor swimming pool.
I've never had an experience working for a company where ANYTHING trickled down to the lower employees. Add to that the fact that each year, they'd always expect us to do the work of more and more people as they laid off more and more and cut benefits and health insurance...
Meanwhile.. the upper guys are enjoying their indoor pool and such.

This is the corporate culture.

[Oberon]

[nikimcbee]

I'll say no. Salvation Army (locally) announced the were hiring for bell ringers (50 positions) for the holidays and they had A LOT of people apply for the job.

There must be a lot of desperate poeple out there looking for any work.

[Onkel Neal]

Who knows, maybe the worst is over?
Coming Soon: Jobs!

We've just witnessed the fastest two-quarter productivity surge since the first year of the Kennedy administration. Economists can read these omens the way Roman priests read chicken entrails. And here's one of their explanations: Just as investors and businesspeople don't believe things could ever go wrong at the peak of the boom, they have difficulty imagining things can get better at the trough of the bust. And so they respond to rising demand not by hiring new employees but by coaxing existing employees to work harder. But just as hamsters can run only so fast on their treadmills, there are limits to productivity growth.

[Torvald Von Mansee]

Originally Posted by Blacklight

This was actually ALWAYS the case with EVERY company I ever worked for. The company would make record profits, topping itself each year. The CEO's and top brass getting BIGGER AND BIGGER bonuses and raises while at the same time, slashing our benefits and telling us that we're not getting raises anymore (and or laying people off to make the profit) by claiming "These are troubled times". This happened EVERYWHERE I EVER worked from the time I was 16 till now with several different companies. Even when the economy was good, they always claimed "We're just not making the money anymore and recession... etc..". Yet.. the CEO's and upper management are getting big bonuses and raises. Heck. In my last job, they even did a major construction project on their corporate office just to put in a "Top Brass Only" fitness center, lounge, pool hall, in ground indoor swimming pool.
I've never had an experience working for a company where ANYTHING trickled down to the lower employees. Add to that the fact that each year, they'd always expect us to do the work of more and more people as they laid off more and more and cut benefits and health insurance...
Meanwhile.. the upper guys are enjoying their indoor pool and such.

This is the corporate culture.

I remember a professor of mine gave an example of how Reagan's corporate tax cuts were used by one Baltimore company for PURELY the benefit of the executives, e.g., more and better corporate jets, golden parachutes, etc. There was absolutely NO trickle down; no upgrading in manufacturing infrastructure, hiring more workers, and so on.

It would seem only sociopaths become the leaders in private enterprise.

[Otto_Weddigen]

Go figure in NZ,I applied for a $35NZD an hour job and there are over 700 applicants for train driving

[NeonSamurai]

Not at all surprising about corporate behavior. You have to remember why corporations are formed. To make money for the principle stockholders/inverters (who are also often upper management). That is their only reason to exist; to turn as much of a profit as they possibly can for the shareholders. Also, investors in corporations are highly protected legally should the company screw up or break the law.

This is why they do all the hideous things they do in the world, and get away with it too. They don't care at all about their employees, or sustainability, or the harm they do, be it environmentally or economically (or both). Their structuring is one of diffused responsibility "I'm not responsible, I am just a shareholder" "I'm not responsible, the shareholders dictate what I do", and thus utterly lacking in ethics or care as well. If they can get labor cheaper someplace else, they will go there. If they can use the local government to further exploit their workers, even better still.

This is the basic nature of capitalism (of which corporations are the spawn of). You exploit those with much less capital (money/power) than you to make you self more capital. You provide the money, they do all the hard work, and you reap the reward. Ideally to make the most capital from your workers you try to find a way of making them totally dependent on you, that way you can dictate what ever terms you like as far as wages and benefits. This is even easier if there is a large pool of unemployed persons available as they in an effort to survive will try to undercut your existing employees. Lastly to keep the workforce from eventually revolting against you, you convince them that if they work hard enough, they can become you (aka the American dream).

This is not to say that all companies and corporations are like this. But unfortunately most of them are. Not a new phenomenon either, this started right at the dawn of capitalism during the industrial revolution.


Oh and no, communism is not a better system either, the money/power people will exploit that system to their own ends just as much as any other system.

[Torvald Von Mansee]

NeonSamurai - Have you seen this film?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Corporation

[NeonSamurai]

Originally Posted by Torvald Von Mansee

NeonSamurai - Have you seen this film?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Corporation

No I can't say I have. My comments tend to be based on my own observations and analysis. But it looks interesting, so I will look into it. Thanks for letting me know about it.

[Torvald Von Mansee]

Originally Posted by NeonSamurai

No I can't say I have. My comments tend to be based on my own observations and analysis. But it looks interesting, so I will look into it. Thanks for letting me know about it.

It basically confirms what you've written.

BONUS: it's Canadian!!

[Platapus]

Originally Posted by NeonSamurai

Their structuring is one of diffused responsibility "I'm not responsible, I am just a shareholder" "I'm not responsible, the shareholders dictate what I do", and thus utterly lacking in ethics or care as well.

This reminds me of a story I read about Coleman Lanterns.

Evidently shortly after WWII, there was a rash of fires caused by Coleman Lanterns due to a defect.

There was a big meeting where the corporate lawyers were discussing how to address this problem without actually admitting fault and the engineers were discussing how to gradually makes the changes while keeping profits up, and the marketing people were worried about how to spin this so that sales would not drop.

In walks William Coffin Coleman (Old Man Coleman himself!) to this meeting. This was unusual as by now Mr. Coleman was getting up there in years (he died in the late 1950's) and was having less to do with the details of the corporation.

After the lawyers, engineers, and market people had their say, Old Man Coleman, according to this story, stood up and said

"Are you telling me that MY lanterns are hurting MY customers?

(Nods from the people around the table)

"Fix the problem now!" and he walked out.

To everyone else it was just a corporation with, what NeonS wrote, a feeling of diffused responsibility.

To Old Man Coleman, they were still HIS lanterns... and HIS customers... and therefore HIS problem.

They recalled the faulty lanterns, fixed the design problem and re-issued new lanterns for the customers. Lost a ton of money, but got a ton of customer loyalty. Perhaps this was why Coleman had such a good reputation after that.

You don't find too many Old Man Colemans around these days. Pity.