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This is what has always confused me when hearing people talk about "the economy"... Clearly in the US we romanticize the post-WWII era beyond belief, and indeed
by bootsz 9y ago
This is what has always confused me when hearing people talk about "the economy"... Clearly in the US we romanticize the post-WWII era beyond belief, and indeed it was an incredibly prosperous time. But is it really reasonable to use that as a baseline for comparison as to what constitutes the "normal" state of things? During that time you had so many favorable factors aligning in just the right way that made the post-WWII era what it was, that to me it seems more like an example of an improbable and unusually prosperous situation, not "the way things are supposed to be". It just seems like now anything short of the economy of the mid-20th century is seen as a disaster.
I remember during the last recession how much everyone was always equating it to the Great Depression. I'm sorry but... what? Yes I know a lot of people were out of work, many in my family were as well. But my grandparents went through something of an entirely different magnitude in the 1930s. It's just not even comparable. But because we collectively have this idea in our heads of the post-WWII situation being "the real America", as soon as things deviate a bit and go south it's as if we're in an apocalyptic situation. Just seems to me like people need a bit more long-term historical perspective.
The Boomer generation (economically speaking) came up in possibly the most favorable conditions possible. But to them it was just the "normal" way of things so they wonder why younger people can't be just as successful.
- rb808 9y agoAgreed see also the late 90's - that wasn't normal. Also the 2004-2008 economy - people say the bankers ruined the economy - my view is the bankers made 04-08 too good and the following depression was more normal.
- blindwatchmaker 9y agoThat's a very odd view. The bankers did ruin the economy, because an economy with a bubble + the ensuing shock is far worse by most metrics than one where the bubble never happened in the first place.
- wolfgke 9y ago> because an economy with a bubble + the ensuing shock is far worse by most metrics than one where the bubble never happened in the first place. Only for those who invested directly or indirectly into the bubble.
- claudiulodro 9y agoWhat about the people that started their career right after the bubble popped? There is a large segment of the population that has had its career and income dramatically stunted because they entered the workforce right after the housing bubble popped. "You can even see this in the statistics, a divot from 2008 to 2012 where millions of jobs and billions in earnings should be. In 2007, more than 50 percent of college graduates had a job offer lined up. For the class of 2009, fewer than 20 percent of them did. According to a 2010 study, every 1 percent uptick in the unemployment rate the year you graduate college means a 6 to 8 percent drop in your starting salary—a disadvantage that can linger for decades. The same study found that workers who graduated during the 1981 recession were still making less than their counterparts who graduated 10 years later. “Every recession,” Spriggs says, “creates these cohorts that never recover."[1] [1] http://highline.huffingtonpost.com/articles/en/poor-millennials/ http://highline.huffingtonpost.com/articles/en/poor-millenni...
- wolfgke 9y ago> What about the people that started their career right after the bubble popped? These belong to the group that I called "[those who] invested indirectly into the bubble".
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- rb808 9y agoI agree they had bad timing, the original question though was are those people worse than normal - or just normal and the people who graduated 5 years earlier were unusually lucky.
- chasingthewind 9y agoI agree with this to an extent. Where I'd diverge is on the question of whether we should say that some of the reasons things aren't "as good" as they were in the post war period is because certain segments of society (business interests, capital owners, etc) have used their influence to improve their prosperity at the expense of the average citizen. To the degree to which that's the case, describing the post war period as "lucky" will gloss over the systematic process of favoring corporate interests over individual interests and normalize the idea that a strong prosperous middle class is an abnormal scenario that we shouldn't attempt to replicate. I don't believe it's easy to return to the specific economic circumstances of the post war period but I'm not sure we're trying very hard right now in the U.S.
- bootsz 9y agoGood points. I'd agree (as would most people) that a strong middle class is highly beneficial. I think the disconnect I see is more related to how likely/realistic that particular set of conditions is. But of course just because something is hard to attain doesn't mean we shouldn't strive for it. The issue is that a lot of people who benefitted from these circumstances perhaps don't realize how fortunate they were.
- knuththetruth 9y ago>It just seems like now anything short of the economy of the mid-20th century is seen as a disaster Well, I think it's also about what Boomers did with the prosperity of that time. Many of the countries destroyed post-WWII invested heavily in building a floor on their economies that made sure people had equitable access to things like healthcare and education. The US, especially from the 1970s on, did precisely the opposite. And it's into that era of privatization, destruction of unions, and massive wealth inequality that millenials were born.