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Ask HN: How worried are you about the upcoming recession?

• Tigere 4y ago
  Without writting out too much, in my view recessions are fraught with opportunity because problems need solutions.
• Vladimof 4y ago
• GoGo415 4y ago
  • ham-sandwich 4y ago
    Biden isn’t as sharp as Carter and will likely be a one term president due to health issues. We may be properly screwed if he doesn’t have the ability to lead here. It’s sad, he was a true lion in his youth
    • dmead 4y ago
      Well he shouldn't have fucking plagerized the Canadian parliament for a stump speech. That being said I don't know who is on the democrats bench that could fill in for him. It's not Harris.
      • jen20 4y ago
        It was the British parliament (Kinnock), not the Canadian one. If you’re going to snipe, at least try to be factually correct.
        • dmead 4y ago
          Ok.
    • ShivShankaran 4y ago
      a true lion in his youth? dude was racist af. he sponsored the crime bill which incarcerates most african american. Not sure how much power a president really has but this was absolutely NOT the time to meddle in Russia Ukraine war given that the previous moronic president messed around with china. pumping infinite weapons to former soviet republics will be the stupidest and final mistake that US does. I will be back in 5 years to revisit this comment and see if I was the stupid one or did the public not think beyond their noses.
      • robonerd 4y ago
        > pumping infinite weapons to former soviet republics will be the stupidest and final mistake that US does. Can you expand on that? Are you suggesting Ukraine will turn on Europe or something?
        • Vladimof 4y ago
          that would be good for the war cartel
        • jerkstate 4y ago
          a slew of articles came out a few weeks ago where the top US brass admitted that they have no idea where all of the weapons we're sending are going. https://www.jacobinmag.com/2022/04/united-states-military-aid-ukraine-war-weapons https://www.jacobinmag.com/2022/04/united-states-military-ai... you know how when a movie is almost over, they start setting up for the sequel? well..
          • robonerd 4y ago
            That may be true, but I find it hard to believe that an uncontrolled proliferation of antitank weapons/etc in Europe could be the final mistake that undoes America. It could certainly cause a big mess for our European allies, but destabilizing America itself? That seems like quite a stretch.
  • willcipriano 4y ago
    History doesn't repeat itself but it does rhyme.
    • GoGo415 4y ago
• donsupreme 4y ago
  I think "most" people in tech still think this will be over soon, mainly because we don't personally feel the impact yet. Many of us are so used to the paradigm that we have seen in the past decade. We think stocks are so "cheap" right now. But they have been propped by injected liquidity for over a decade. The correction is just starting. The Fed has no way to fix the current supply chain shortage issue, which is half the equation in the rising inflation, their only tool in the box is aggressive rate hike to dampen demand. Essentially Fed wants demand to go way down, we don't feel the impact yet because the stock market isn't cracked yet. Fed wants it cracked.
  • deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
• giantg2 4y ago
  I'm mostly looking for things like I bonds, solid blue chips, and ex-China developing world ETFs. No idea if that will play out well. I'm not that worried though.
• anm89 4y ago
  I think two things: 1) Things are about to get incredibly nasty over the next 3-6 months. 2) Things only stay bad until the Fed capitulates and decides to start rescuing things. In this case we will be choosing inflation over a recession. And I'm saying inflation as a long term trend, at least 5 years. But basically the game is up. This all ends up in one of two ways 1) The fed defaults on the debt and tells the Boomers they were just joking about Social Security and Medicaid existing as interest expenses drastically increase while tax receipts drastically decrease from a baseline of 127% debt to GDP (this will NEVER happen. You don't default on your debt as the world's reserve currency. Why would you? This is the one thing the MMT crowd gets right) 2) We give up and take our inflation medicine to cure our sovereign debt issues. It's going to be option 2 11 out of 10 times. History is pretty clear on this point. To me, no one lays this case out better than Luke Gromen: https://youtu.be/VCAe4lVEpgs?t=37 https://youtu.be/VCAe4lVEpgs?t=37
  • shireboy 4y ago
    "You don't default on your debt as the world's reserve currency" What about those who say USD's reign as world reserve currency is ending? Aren't China/Russia making moves that way?
    • anm89 4y ago
      The only path to quickly losing reserve status is a default. If you just inflate your currency you can let things play out and try to play politics to control it and slow it down. I think very likely the future doesn't have one reserve currency, that the USD still plays something similar to its current role but similar transactions also happen in more currencies. so we lose sole reserve currency status, but not reserve currency status. The truth is we are already past this point. A lot of oil is already being traded outside of the dollar system already which wasn't true even 10 years ago. There are 100s of hours of people including Gromen discussing this topic in depth on youtube if you look around. It's more accurate to say: you don't default on your debt when your debt is denominated in your own currency. It doesn't require any specific reserve currency status to play that game.
    • causality0 4y ago
• mikercampbell 4y ago
  I'm not sure how bad it will be, but I'm just tired. I'm tired of living through "once in a life time events" every decade or less. I'm tired of the world insisting that every company must be growing in order to be valuable, and then when growth stagnates, people ditch it to cause massive losses. Can we not just have moderate success? Can we create a system that doesn't self implode every so often? Can we create a system where making money at all costs (including the decimation of the planet, the wage-slave workforce, and the engorging and toppling of governments through cronyism) isn't the the default? I have to remember that people are _generally_ good. I have faith in the next generation of leaders, thinkers, and doers. What will happen will happen, but I have hope that the youth who have seen wave after wave of "being at the brink" might be able to create a system where this isn't the norm. That's a ramble, sorry. But it's just what I'm feeling. I have to ride this wave, take care of my partner and children, do what I can for others, and hope it ends soon.
  • donsupreme 4y ago
    Cyclical collapse in capitalistic system is built-in. Risk tolerance expands slowly over time and then collapsed dramatically when the system is unsustainable, then restart.
    • anm89 4y ago
      Yeah the world was just really stable and peaceful before capitalism came around.
      • mandelbrotwurst 4y ago
        The comment you're replying to didn't imply otherwise.
        • anm89 4y ago
          > Eating and breathing in the capitlistic system is built in. See why people don't say this even though it's true? Because the only reason to point this out is to imply causality and to point out that it's different than some other system.
• b1n 4y ago
  For many people 2008 never ended. Policy makers (and voters) have kept the zombies alive, pumped assets and introduced exciting new complexity. This is the big one.
  • Nicholas_C 4y ago
    > This is the big one. Or maybe it isn’t. No one knows.
    • b1n 4y ago
      > Or maybe it isn’t. No one knows. Or maybe it is. Maybe someone knows.
    • deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
  • mostlysimilar 4y ago
    Can you elaborate? Somewhere I can read more?
• nickysielicki 4y ago
  Required reading: https://www.epsilontheory.com/things-fall-apart-part-3-markets/ https://www.epsilontheory.com/things-fall-apart-part-3-marke... Start at part 1 if you have time.
  • feoren 4y ago
    > You have reached the maximum number of free, long-form articles for the month. It says, after literally 1 article. What a garbage website.
    • Woberto 4y ago
      Writers put significant amounts of work into these articles. They post them onto a website that requires funds to host and maintain and run. And you're calling it garbage because they ask for come compensation for this work that many people enjoy or find interesting? People don't consume food for free, why should they consume entertainment for free? If you don't want to pay, fine, but that doesn't mean the food is garbage, or this website either
      • cruano 4y ago
        Who said that's the reason he was calling them garbage ? In my case I followed the link, realized it was a 3 part article so I went to the first part and got the message, said "Well, lets check the third one then" and got the message again. So objectively it is a garbage website, they were trying to convince me to subscribe by showing me something I was not able to see due to the site design
• refurb 4y ago
  For all the complaining online, the last 14 years have been an amazing run of economic growth. I can remember in 2008 when people were saying “the US is finished”. It was bound to end some time and no doubt in 2-3 years people will look back and say "man, I wish it could be like that again".
• ilrwbwrkhv 4y ago
  It will be fine. All of this is a giant game anyway. So just enjoy it and you can always grow your own potatoes in the wilderness wtshtf.
  • ISL 4y ago
    The wilderness gets crowded fast when a hundred million others consider similar plans.
    • culi 4y ago
      Then we'll convert the most wasteful human invention yet, suburbs, into farms like the retrosuburbia movement in Australia
      • Spastche 4y ago
        no need to wait, get rid of your lawn today
        • lupire 4y ago
          HOA says No.
      • Akronymus 4y ago
        And how will you pay for tearing them down to prepare them for farming?
• gregjor 4y ago
  Not at all. I cashed out of the few stocks I had when gas prices started going up (seen that pattern before). Never got into crypto. I work with boring technologies that are always critical to business and in demand: relational databases and system administration. I lived through recessions since the ‘60s. The 2008 bust almost wiped me out but at least I stayed employed. I worry about my kids, though.
  • tetris11 4y ago
    This is the same mindset I have; that I'll probably be fine and that I just need to tune out the suffering of countless others I can do nothing about in order for me to live a happy life. But all I'm doing is ignoring it for a generation. My kids might be okay, but my grandkids might not.
  • lance_klusener 4y ago
    Are you DCA'ing back in the market?
    • gregjor 4y ago
      No. Playing video poker is more predictable and less rigged.
• robonerd 4y ago
  Not so much for the direct economic impact to myself, but rather for the civil unrest that might come with it.
• ergonaught 4y ago
  I’m mostly just tired of hearing about it. Especially in areas where I don’t turn for economic topics.
• rawgabbit 4y ago
  Been through a couple of recessions. Have been at a couple of companies where an IT department shrank from hundreds to turn off the lights on your way out. We will all survive. Until the next bubble starts. What angers me more than anything is the blame game. Frankly what drove the stagflation of the 70s was the Arab Oil embargo because the oil producers were mad at US foreign policy. When China gets Covid under control and the price of oil stabilizes, we will be OK. It will take years to wean ourselves off Russian oil and gas though.
  • giraffe_lady 4y ago
    > We will all survive. https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/news/press-releases/economic-downturn-excess-cancer-deaths-atun/ https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/news/press-releases/economic-do... We absolutely will not. Economic catastrophe leads to misery and death for many.
    • rawgabbit 4y ago
      I do not discount those who lost their jobs and never recovered. I personally know several middle aged men who lost all hope. I, nevertheless, believe that America is a great country and as a country we will all survive. Can we do better? Yes, we can. The issue of economic boom and bust and the effect on people's lives, at its heart, I believe is a philosophical one. If you view it from the perspective economic libertarianism where government regulation is evil -- boom and bust cycles occur frequently. If you view it from the perspective of social justice and equality where government oversight of business is a necessary evil -- boom and bust cycles occur less frequently.
      • giraffe_lady 4y ago
        Saying you don't discount it isn't the same as not discounting it. Are we all going to survive, or aren't we? If we aren't then I don't think you should say it! It's like those signs we saw so much of in the first covid year "we'll all get through this together." Well, a million of us didn't, did they not count as "us?" I don't know your politics here and I'm not trying to pick an ideological fight. I just wish it was more routine for people to acknowledge the actual human costs of large scale events. Keeping hope alive is necessary, but a recession will kill people, so "at least no one will die" can't be the hope you provide here.
• artificialLimbs 4y ago
  I've been trying to replace all my worry with gratitude. It's slow going replacing all those neural pathways that slide down into the muck. Most often, I find myself in those old habits rather than feeling grateful. There is also the compounded problem of 'fake it till you make it', because before I started practicing I didn't even know if I had ever genuinely felt a moment of gratitude in my life. It is my experience, however, that faking it till I made it worked in this instance. One of those moments of genuine gratitude is worth years of effort.
• rwcarlsen 4y ago
  Global supply chain problems. Inflation problems. China still doing rolling lockdowns. Geopolitical conflicts. Ukraine. China-Taiwan. Off the heels of a not unlikely a lab evolved virus pandemic. Extreme political polarization in the U.S. Increasing anxiety and other mental health problems in youth. I'm going to go with very worried. But maybe I'm just becoming an old cynical curmudgeon.
• don_neufeld 4y ago
  Upcoming?
• deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
• itake 4y ago
  If I get laid off, I am looking forward to a nice break from work. I'd have a nice excuse to go travel instead of feeling compelled to earn money.
• yopawngungmstyl 4y ago
  I am thrilled. Burn it all to the ground. The only way this ends is with serious systemic reforms, and a massive crash will force those to happen sooner. Maybe in a decade or so, property ownership will be within the reach of middle-class families again.
  • HomeGear 4y ago
    It looks like you’ve been voted down, but I agree regarding housing. The housing market is absolutely absurd. It’s time for a reset there. Majorly.
• sudden_dystopia 4y ago
  More like 1929. At least as it relates to deep recession and food scarcity. But on a global scale.
• rubicon33 4y ago
  Eh, whatever. I guess I could worry, but having been through enough of these "sky is falling" events I've mostly decided to just tune out. I think it was covid, or more specifically the wildfires during covid, that finally just broke me down into a "i no longer give a fuck" mindset. Bad shit happens. I'll continue to be kind to others, and try to treat people the way I would want to be treated. Life will do what life is going to do.
  • philomath_mn 4y ago
    I think this is the best approach. Turn off the news, delete social media, commit yourself to caring for those around you. You need to focus on the stuff within your sphere of influence, otherwise you'll drive yourself crazy. There are good and bad things happening to the 7+ billion people on this planet each day, there is no way we can have an emotional reaction to every event. Edit to add: regarding the recession, talk to your supervisors and others in your company. Are layoffs actually likely? What is the outlook? You should only worry if your company specifically is in trouble. Even then, we are in a highly in-demand field, there is a good chance you'll find a new job if you focus on doing excellent work here and now (be so-good-they-can't-ignore-you, as it were).
    • moviewise 4y ago
      I agree! Commit yourself to caring for those around you. That’s the number one priority. Anger or disillusionment is not the answer. I wrote more about that here: https://moviewise.substack.com/p/a-vow-to-never-get-angry-again https://moviewise.substack.com/p/a-vow-to-never-get-angry-ag...
    • inkeddeveloper 4y ago
      Why does everyone say “turn off the news. Delete social media.” Kids are still being murdered, pandemics still pandemic, and the economy is still crapping its pants.
      • philomath_mn 4y ago
        Kids getting murdered is absolutely horrible, we should all be mortified by that and looking for ways to help solve the problem. But at some point it is worth acknowledging that prolonged anguish or anxiety about something bad isn't useful unless it leads to action (see sphere of influence). We can't stop all bad things from happening and they are happening continuously to people around the world -- we can't let that get in the way of improving the lives of ourselves and the people around us.
• invalidname 4y ago
  I'm not concerned about the finances. Recessions are when dictators rise around the world and democracies fall. That's the scary bit. People blame the current leadership and look toward what they perceive as "strong". Then they can't go back.
• streetcat1 4y ago
  Note sure what recession you are referring to? Unemployment is 3.6%. Nasdaq was overvalued - QQQ went from 100 in 2016 to 400 in 2021. No reason not to return to 150-200. The only concerning events is that the capital that left the market would never return since it was the baby boomer last big capital injection before they retire en mass and remove thier 401K from stocks. On the other hand, there is a lot of job openings due to this retirement. High inflation is actually a good thing, as it is result from wage increases, which means that there are shortages in the job market. Overall, this looks to me like the wage arbitrage is being removed from the market.
  • jdhn 4y ago
    >High inflation is actually a good thing, as it is result from wage increases, which means that there are shortages in the job market. This is quite the take. I very much doubt that high inflation is good, and that it's primarily derived from shortages in the job market.
  • cntrl 4y ago
    > High inflation is actually a good thing, as it is result from wage increases is it though? At least here in Europe high inflation is mainly caused by rapid increase in energy, logistic and food prices. Wages haven't even started to catch up, which will just cause more inflation in the short & mid-term.
  • 0daystock 4y ago
    > High inflation is actually a good thing, as it is result from wage increases, which means that there are shortages in the job market. Except wages rarely keep up with inflation. Inflation is for rich people to erode and erase debt - or, more accurately, externalize it on others - nothing more.
• dqpb 4y ago
  Engineers produce way more value than they’re paid. That will be even more true during a recession if companies freeze hiring. (Although one could make a queuing theory argument that a hiring freeze could reduce efficiency of existing engineers if it results in poor division of labor and too much context switching)
  • PraetorianGourd 4y ago
    I think you vastly over-estimate the value that engineers produce. A good portion of this value is predicated on the reality that consumers and businesses have cash to spend. These days, most tech revenue comes from advertising, hosting, or consumer services. If consumers stop spending, consumer services contract which will cause advertising budgets to tighten. The only relatively safe haven in tech during a recession is cloud services as long as the cloud enables companies to reduce head count and cut costs. Otherwise capital expenditure budget cuts would hit clouds as well.
    • dqpb 4y ago
      > A good portion of this value is predicated on the reality that consumers and businesses have cash to spend Your argument is that I’m overestimating the value engineers produce because that value depends on them getting paid to do the work?
      • PraetorianGourd 4y ago
        No, my argument is that the actual output that many engineers produce has very little intrinsic value and only produces value in so far as it is of utility to someone. Once the market for advertising or consumers dries up, there is a reduced demand for the utility of the things engineers produce.
        • defterGoose 4y ago
          Once the "market dries up" doesn't that mean there's reduced demand for everyone. Or is there some reverse black hole that CEO pay gets regurgitated from?
• jdhn 4y ago
  I'm slightly nervous. I just bought a house about 2 months ago (sub 4% interest rate), and while I have more than a years worth of savings, I don't like being out of a job at all unless I consciously decide to leave it and take time off. Fortunately, I quit my old job in a cyclical industry last year and moved to a company that operates in a market that is more recession proof.
  • kypro 4y ago
    I'm in a similar position. I Brought a house last year and I live in the UK so I'm now facing much higher energy prices and mortgage rates going forward than I expected. I'll be fine so long as I can remain (mostly) employed, but with the tech job market weakening and with me being a contractor it makes me nervous.
• smitty1e 4y ago
  No human folly can obviate the sunrise. OTOH, the reckoning has been pending for some time. How long depends upon whom you care to blame. Let's get it over with, clear the decks of the deadwood leadership that have plagued us, and apply the good distributed sense toward a prosperous next several decades. Until the cycle of "derpery" repeats.
  • readonthegoapp 4y ago
    > No human folly can obviate the sunrise. pretty sure nuclear war can. and will.
    • smitty1e 4y ago
      No, the sun will rise, irrespective of the blasted nature of the landscape.
      • readonthegoapp 4y ago
        sure, the sun will rise, just nobody will see it.
• terry_lisp 4y ago
• pyuser583 4y ago
  Not very worried. I have a pretty stable position. If the stock market goes down - I’m at the height of my earning power (so far). I’ll be saving away.
• ianai 4y ago
  I’d suggest you grab some old economics texts. The current era is dominated by some truly bizarre, propaganda-level disinformation and concentrated markets. Infant formula got monopolized. As did meat production. My suggestion stays https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Great_Crash,_1929 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Great_Crash,_1929 “The lesson of 1929 was that laissez faire economics and political economy concentrates market power and the market downturns don’t always right themselves” (paraphrasing) There was a ton of stuff put in place after the Great Depression which was then undone through decades of corporate “influence.” I don’t know that what we’re headed for will be 1929 level bad. I’m not suggesting that. But that’s a great book to start enlightening yourself. The highly complex mortgage backed securities that led to 2007/2008 were never undone. The ARM loans which ballooned and kicked off the fulcrum of defaults and thus collapse from suddenly worthless securities were never addressed. And this time the international situation is far more developed and intertwined. There absolutely are things that can be done to relieve a lot of this though. Tariffs can be rolled back. That would lower many prices. My big wish would be corporations to learn to not cut quite so many corners that they become fragile to supply shocks. For people to seek out energy sources without huge social and environmental externalities. For people to choose to buy local first/where possible. For people to be open to growing local production like manufacturing of physical goods. Etc. Edit-and “buy local” includes hiring local labor. And paying local taxes-corporations benefit from things like road works and other local services.
• pyuser583 4y ago
  A low unemployment recession is not a terrible thing.
• ethn 4y ago
  I don’t believe there will be a recession due to the savings rate continuing to recover to normal levels [1]. Indeed, we see real revenues of all retailers increasing, e.g. Walmart, Target, Amazon, Costco, etc. [1] https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/PSAVERT https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/PSAVERT
  • brailsafe 4y ago
    So if revenues are increasing for companies that trade in the cheapest consumer goods, and personal savings rates are increasing, wouldn't that more likely indicate a widening gap?
    • ethn 4y ago
      All of retail is not the cheapest goods. From Disney to Roblox revenue is up. Savings rate is decreasing not increasing.
      • brailsafe 4y ago
        Oh I see. But if savings rate is decreasing, wouldn't that also likely be a short term effect that retracts when people realize they can't save as much while spending what they normally would?
        • ethn 4y ago
          Shouldn’t occur in a positively inflationary recession. That is behavior that we would expect in a deflationary recession like the prelude to the 2008 period, 2007. If it goes to around 4%, I will start worrying.
  • codingdave 4y ago
    I'm not sure what chart you are looking at. The one you linked showed that not only have we not recovered, but are on a sudden sharp downward spike. And revenue simply means the money coming in, so inflation explains the increase of retail revenue. People spending more, and saving less, due to rising costs at places like Walmart and Target might not be the reassuring story you think it is.
• swat535 4y ago
  No not really. I'm perhaps one of the odd HN users. I'm religious and don't really have too much attachment to material wealth. I make decent money right now but there has been times in my life when I have been poor. I was born in a third world country and know what it's like to survive on little (it sucks but not as much as you think). If I lose my entire fortune and life savings tomorrow, I'll be fine. I'll flip burgers, deliver pizza or wash cars if I have to (though I doubt the west will have such a massive crash, but who knows?). My happiness doesn't derive from my comfortable clothes; it comes from being with my loved ones, especially my fiance. I go to Mass regularly and volunteer at Church with her often. One thing that's been very important for us spiritually is willing the good of others (this is what love means in a Christian sense) and when you do this often enough, you stop putting so much emphasis on your salary, your iPhones and Macbooks. I'm not saying this to come off as "morally superior" , au contraire, it's to simply share my experience; If it comes off that way, I apologize. Finally, allow me to leave you with one of my favorite poems by Charles Bukowski. "don't forget there is always somebody or something waiting for you, something stronger, more intelligent, more evil, more kind, more durable, something bigger, something better, something worse, something with eyes like the tiger, jaws like the shark, something crazier than crazy, saner than sane, there is always something or somebody waiting for you as you put on your shoes or as you sleep or as you empty a garbage can or pet your cat or brush your teeth or celebrate a holiday there is always somebody or something waiting for you. keep this fully in mind so that when it happens you will be as ready as possible. meanwhile, a good day to you if you are still there. I think that I am--- I just burnt my fingers on this cigarette."
  • dgellow 4y ago
    > If I lose my entire fortune and life savings tomorrow, I'll be fine. I'll flip burgers, deliver pizza or wash cars if I have to I only have a limited understanding of economics, but I have a feeling that you may be misunderstanding dynamics at play during a recession. If I get it right people would stop spending money for non-essential things, so no more burgers, pizza delivery, car washing, spending on hobby’s, holidays, etc. Jobs with lower wages and ones with lower requirements are likely to be the most impacted. Add to this that more people are desperate looking for anything to get some form of income, you’re now competing with way more people for your burger flipping position. Doesn’t sound like a great plan. But again, I may be completely incorrect here.
• 8note 4y ago
  I was really wanting to stop working for a bit and do some travel and vacation, but then covid happened, and now it could be sought getting working again:/ There's still tons of things to automate, so I don't think there's going to be a lack of jobs, but the easy money won't be around for a while
• brailsafe 4y ago
  I don't know enough about finances to be able to judge confidently what will happen, but things feel pretty sketchy. At 30, I've never had a job longer than a year and a half, and in tech it's usually 6 months at most and I'm just hitting that. My company is either being acquired or going bankrupt, but I'm a contractor, so have some considerations there. I have no money really, and a not insignificant debt burden, and zero assets in a high cost of living city that seems to only be rising. It took the whole first 2 years of the pandemic to find _any_ job, so if I lose this I'm fucked. But, I do have to count my blessings I guess. I'm not dead
• Proven 4y ago
  [dead]
• peter303 4y ago
  I have been through seven bear markets since the late 1989s. Sometimes I capitulated and sold. But not the most recent two.
• peter303 4y ago
  Tech people may not be immune this time. There are already hiring freezes and layoffs. Last tech employment slowdown was after dot.bomb in 2001. Surplus of web developers. College computer science enrollments even dropped.
  • derwiki 4y ago
    2001? I was at IBM in 2009 when they were doing layoffs, and we weren’t the only. Friends who graduated a semester later than I did had offers rescinded in 2008.
• refurb 4y ago
  It's certainly no different today than its ever been. 1637, 1797, 1819, 37, 57, 84, 1901, 07, 29, 1937, 1974, 1987–Jesus, didn't that fucker fuck me up good–92, 97, 2000, 07 and whatever we want to call this. It's all just the same thing over and over; we can't help ourselves. And you and I can't control it or stop it, or even slow it, or even ever-so-slightly alter it. We just react. And we make a lot of money if we get it right. And we get left by the side of the road if we get it wrong. And there have always been and there always will be the same percentage of winners and losers, happy fuckers and sad suckers, fat cats and starving dogs in this world. Yeah, there may be more of us today than there's ever been. But the percentages–they stay exactly the same.
• nzealand 4y ago
  In early 2000 Shiller published Irrational Exuberance, which warned of a stock market bubble. The second edition in 2006 warned of a housing market bubble. The third edition in 2015 warned of a bubble in almost everything. So I've been concerned since 2015 about the next recession. It does look increasingly likely to happen in the next 1-2 years. Damodaran has some interesting analysis on what might happen to different market sectors. https://aswathdamodaran.blogspot.com/ https://aswathdamodaran.blogspot.com/ All the best.
• 5350-uiop-1130 4y ago
  > there don't seem to be any "easy" option like Quantitative Easing that what caused the problem in the first place. and it was only "easy" for the bankers. banks got away with murder in 2008 and got bailed out. we had over decade of "austerity", social benefits cut, disabled and mentally ill forced to work, zero hour contracts and exploitation. destabilising the middle east causing waves of immigration and societal pressures. the baby boomers have created a mess, and now their next act the great reset is coming.
• ernirulez 4y ago
  I am personally quite worried. The thing that worries me most is that our government (at least in Spain) would do anything in order to keep their power and maintain their high salaries at the expense of our lives. That involves increasing and creating more taxes everyday. So it´s like living in the Titanic. Everybody knows it´s sinking and the government is just stealing from us (the passengers) in order to buy nicer lifeboats just for them, and paying the musicians (media, labor unions, allied parties...) to keep citizens still and quiet. We are under an autocracy disguised as a "people´s party" that is bleeding us dry while many families are just drowning because of the high cost of living and unemployment.
• TradingPlaces 4y ago
  The amazing thing is you don’t first ask, “Is there going to be a recession?"
• MikeAshley178 4y ago
  The issue now is that the Middle class stand to lose their houses by the end of the year because over over leveraged and over borrowing. Now that's why it's getting so much (more) attention.
  • smileysteve 4y ago
    But without ARMs, payments aren't changing. Maybe a small percent will find it advantageous to walk because they're underwater and can fanangle and can financial magic to buy a different house cheaper. A small percentage might not be able to pay their 2021 payment because of gas prices or job loss. The biggest risk to prices or banks is likely collateralized commercial investors.
• taylodl 4y ago
  Welcome to life! I'm a Gen Xer and this has been pretty much the state of things throughout all my life. Looking at American history this seems to be the status quo also. European history isn't much better - everything always in flux, everything always in crises. That's what they mean by fighting to survive. The process of biological life is going against the grain. It's never easy. I'm no economist but my career spans the "is this a depression?" recession of the early 1990's, the Y2K crash after 2000, the market collapse in 2008 and whatever the hell is coming up for us now. The 2000 crunch was the absolute worst - BY FAR. Between the Y2K work ending, the DotCom Bubble bursting, and the towers falling programmers were being let go by the tens of thousands all at once. The market was flooded with people looking for work. The 2008 recession and the recession in the early 1990's didn't have nearly that impact on developers. So far I'm not seeing a reason to be overly concerned about this recession either. If anything, companies are going to be looking to improve efficiencies and they're going to be looking to technology to do it. As long as you're focused on saving hard dollars and you can quantify those results, then you should be fine. What do I mean by "hard dollars"? That's actual savings, a reduction in accounts payable as a result of your work. For example, terms like "improved efficiency" are too vague - how about we improved efficiencies enough that we avoided having to hire X FTEs, or we were able to improve our sales by X% using the same staff resources, or we were able to take on X more clients as a result. Something measurable, impactful, and actual money being saved or being made. As long as you're always focused on the bottom line you should be okay. In the past some people have responded to me by saying developers don't always get that information. That's true - but I've never worked for a company that would withhold that information when asked. Typically they're thrilled to have a developer who talks business and dollars and cents. They just assume you don't want to hear it. Ask. You should always know why you're doing what you're doing and saying that's what the BSA put into our requirements is not a good answer. If your career has been focused on delivering cool, whiz-bang features or your revenue is largely derived from advertising - then all recessions are bad. Those developers are the first let go. Advertising slumps during recessions and companies tend to shift from whiz-bang features to belt-tightening and improving operational efficiencies. Bottom line - companies are always interested in people who can make them or save them money. Understand your business value.
• lamontcg 4y ago
  The real problem we're seeing now is wage inflation and unionization. Policymakers don't really care that much about asset bubbles, your ability to buy housing or the cost of gas. The negotiating power that ordinary workers (not just tech workers) are showing right now is what they're going to be worried about. The 1% unemployment rate, the overhang of 2 job openings for every job seeker and likely the removal of some workers from the pool from coronavirus due to death and disability and the retirement of baby boomers are the main factors to focus on in this cycle. And that actually is a bit different. As a result I think the Fed is going to slam on the brakes. They've already started to do that using 0.50 basis point hikes and signalling their intent to get to 2% by September. I still don't think that's enough to tank the economy into a recession, but they're indicating that they're willing to tank the economy very hard in order to create a glut of workers for the available jobs. It is likely going to be worse than 2008. CMBS should pop at some point creating a financial crisis, and crypto will get stress tested and may entirely collapse (wiping out the "savings" of a lot of Millennials). What I would be real worried about is that the Republicans are likely to take over congress this year and likely to take over the Presidency in 2024 one way or another. And the social unrest will be jacked up to 11 again and a good chunk of the Republicans are now people whose stated belief is in just letting the system collapse. Unlike 2008 they may sit on the sidelines and watch money market funds collapse, short term lending fail, payrolls fail and ATMs stop working (enough of them may realize this will tank their stock portfolios that they blink though, particularly if the Republicans are the party in power and it would fall on them). I still continue to think that the economy is not right now in a recession and that the Fed is going to have to jack up funds higher than 2% to cause a recession (they were 2% in 2019 before the pandemic as well), but I think it is clearly coming by 2024. They'll still panic though and drop the funds rate back down to zero and start doing QE. I don't know if it works yet again. The cycle does seem to be able to continue forever, but at some point we may reach the "pushing on a string" moment where faith in the US economy and dollar starts to evaporate, or where social unrest takes things to a whole new level.
  • fallingfrog 4y ago
    "they're indicating that they're willing to tank the economy very hard in order to create a glut of workers for the available jobs." I agree- the fed knows that profit levels are higher with low wages even if it means a recession than if you continue to let workers have all that leverage. But there's only so far that you can continue to cut the pay of workers and make up the lost consumer spending with leverage.
• anonymouswacker 4y ago
  The amount of death and destruction that the recession/depression is expected to cause to certain parts of the third world is tantamount to genocide. For those of us in the "laptop class", sure, we will be impacted adversely (and especially those who didn't plan for it, despite all of the red flags in the past 10 years), but it's hardly the same thing. I should be fine, as I have a comfortable, government job, but I fear for many of my friends who already were living paycheck-to-paycheck and will be like deer in the headlights once their jobs are impacted.
• qiskit 4y ago
  No. I'm excited about it. The 2008 recession was the best opportunity for people to buy homes, stocks, etc. Even in the great depression almost everyone had a job and were doing fine. During the 2008 recession, almost everyone had a job and did fine. As long as you didn't get scared off by the fearmongers in the news and media, you would have done well if you bought a home or invested in pretty much anything. If you have a decent job and/or some money save ( this is pretty much every working individual ), you want a recession. Not only do you want a recession, you want a really bad recession.
  • nverno 4y ago
    Huh? The great depression had the highest unemployment rate on record for the states, nearly 25% in 1933! And stayed high for over a decade.
• fallingfrog 4y ago
  Here's the nightmare scenario, which is looking more and more plausible: -When profits started to decline in the 70's, they decided to let manufacturing go overseas and to jack up interest rates in order to suppress wages and fight inflation. -However, this left a problem where American consumers no longer had enough spending power to buy the products they were making. They dealt with this problem by printing money and using it to finance debt and then exporting the extra dollars overseas. They were able to do this because the US dollar is the world reserve currency and is in demand everywhere. -However, this created a series of debt bubbles in the united states. Each one was dealt with by printing ever increasing amounts of money, kicking the can down the line until the next recession. Interest rates steadily fell and fell until they hit zero. -When interest rates hit zero, they had to switch to quantitative easing. This was accompanied by a speculative "everything bubble". But now, with the amount of debt continuing to increase, the value of the US dollar started to slide, manifesting in inflation again. -The fed will have to raise interest rates a lot to fight the problem. But this will cause a massive deleveraging as debt cannot be rolled over anymore, plus the interest on the federal deficit will be enormous. -It is politically impossible to raise taxes to deal with the shortfall, so deficits will grow even larger, and to get people to buy the debt, interest rates will have to go up even further. -This will eventually culminate in a loss of confidence in the US dollar. Prices of imports will skyrocket and the economy will crash. The united states will ultimately have to default on its debt. -The resulting political instability will likely result in an autocratic government. The formal structures of congress and the senate will continue to exist but actual rule will be by presidential decree. Fascist governments or Bonaparte-like leaders can only maintain power by promising greatness and a return to traditional values (The traditional values part comes from the fact that some reason must be found for the country's problems, the explanation given tends to be that we have offended god in some way)- this usually results in war. That's the nightmare scenario.
  • ernirulez 4y ago
    This is the best explanation I have read that explains the current situation
    • enchiridion 4y ago
• athrowaway3z 4y ago
  I'm a little worried about the people not worried in this thread. Especially the older ones having experienced it before. Every recession 'first hand experience', had as a backdrop a rising China and more valuable world population by the end simply by the relative size of the boomers. China is facing serious challenges to the point that I'd stay clear of them, and the boomers are retiring. changes them from high spenders and risk takers into low spenders who don't want risk. It's going to be a bumpy ride before the generational accounts balance out, and i fear we're going to have a shitload of grumpy old people waking up a lot poorer than they ever expected. A good recipe for even worse political decisions.
• enchiridion 4y ago
  There’s whole lot anxiety in this thread. Quite a few comments with vague financial insight paired with non sequidor about some other issue. Seems like the markets are bad for reasons that are hard to understand, so people are creating stories by combining the other ambient bad things at the moment. No real point or argument to what I’m saying, just an observation.
• JaneYe 4y ago
  I'm very worried. I've been reading about layoffs lately and I'm worried that I'll be the next one.
• easytiger 4y ago
  Wait until you hear what happened in the 1910s and the 1940s
• mikewarot 4y ago
  Given that Congress has been kicking the can down the road since 1971 and the Nixon shock... I'm surprised that the Greater Depression hasn't happened yet. Working class wages stopped growing at the end of the 1960s in real terms. The income inequality is approaching French Revolution levels. Media of all types is tuned for maximum "engagement" which externalizes it's costs as the destruction of the social fabric. I'm really worried. I can't change the big picture, all I can do is to try to strengthen the bonds I have with friends and family, cut expenses, and stock up on food and supplies.