NationStates

Cisco is about to dump 10000-16000 workers.

Borders is about to close which will dump another 10000 workers.

But they keep saying the recession is over.

The Black Forrest wrote:Cisco is about to dump 10000-16000 workers.

Borders is about to close which will dump another 10000 workers.

But they keep saying the recession is over.

If I recall correctly, and I might not be doing so, a recession is considered over when you have three quarters of growth. Last quarter the U.S. economy looks like it's trending toward shrinking again, so it looks like you might not be out of the woods yet.

This site shows 7 quarters of growth but it's not exactly stable.

(It's 6am, I had to make many corrections to this post because I was thinking something else.)

http://www.nber.org/cycles/recessions.html

The recession ends once we've past the trough. The economy can still be in a shitty state though and have minor reversals of growth.

Growth and unemployment can also be separate issues, a company can grow while letting employees go, as can economies.

Simply, a large portion of Americans are not educated enough to take up the jobs available nor can they compete against the twin forces of globalisation and technology.

Borders closing is a particularly good example of this, where technology is destroying those jobs, jobs that are replaced elsewhere through higher education employees at Amazon etc.,

Barringtonia wrote:Growth and unemployment can also be separate issues, a company can grow while letting employees go, as can economies.

Simply, a large portion of Americans are not educated enough to take up the jobs available nor can they compete against the twin forces of globalisation and technology.

There are plenty of educated Americans but now there is a retardation or simply dirty ploy to avoid hiring them as the argument being if you were laid off there must be something wrong with you. Why hire a person when you can try and poach a person who is already working.

Globalization is an interesting argument. Cheaper labor good! Underpaid executives bad. American workers always seem to over paid but American executives are never paid enough.

Borders closing is a particularly good example of this, where technology is destroying those jobs, jobs that are replaced elsewhere through higher education employees at Amazon etc.,

Jobs are not being replaced. Well they are else where.

Technology destroys more jobs then it will create.

Part of the problem with the use is the people and the leaders still base a job but post industrial standards. We are in a new era and nobody seems to see this. The power of computing will keep a large part of the population unemployed.

Now this is what will really mess things up. When people don't see jobs coming back; they will do the "wrong" things like form unions. Pressure the government to tax the poor oppressed wealthy class.

People will figure it out. Why should I be concerned about low taxes for the wealthy class when they will take it and create jobs offshore?

Mr Bananagrabber wrote:http://www.nber.org/cycles/recessions.html

The recession ends once we've past the trough. The economy can still be in a shitty state though and have minor reversals of growth.

Could not the trough be long? Continuous minor growth will falls?

The Black Forrest wrote:

Mr Bananagrabber wrote:http://www.nber.org/cycles/recessions.html

The recession ends once we've past the trough. The economy can still be in a shitty state though and have minor reversals of growth.

Could not the trough be long? Continuous minor growth will falls?

The recovery can be slow, yes. Or it can turn into another (double dip) recession. So being "out of the recession" isn't exactly a great indicator of the performance of the economy.

Mr Bananagrabber wrote:

The Black Forrest wrote:
Could not the trough be long? Continuous minor growth will falls?

The recovery can be slow, yes. Or it can turn into another (double dip) recession. So being "out of the recession" isn't exactly a great indicator of the performance of the economy.

I don't buy the recession is over...it's a jobless recovery talk.

Everybody has their economic indicators.

I look at the costs of the basics. I look at the amount of education people unable to find meaningful work. I know many people who are educated and experience who are going on 2 years without a job. I know others who are underemployed.

Another indicator is the loss of perks with a replacement of a nonspoken "your job is your reward"

When they are working I will believe in the economy again.

The Black Forrest wrote:

Mr Bananagrabber wrote:
The recovery can be slow, yes. Or it can turn into another (double dip) recession. So being "out of the recession" isn't exactly a great indicator of the performance of the economy.

I don't buy the recession is over...it's a jobless recovery talk.

Everybody has their economic indicators.

I look at the costs of the basics. I look at the amount of education people unable to find meaningful work. I know many people who are educated and experience who are going on 2 years without a job. I know others who are underemployed.

Another indicator is the loss of perks with a replacement of a nonspoken "your job is your reward"

When they are working I will believe in the economy again.

Going by NBER's indicators and definitions it's over but yeah, that doesn't mean the economy is awesome again. If we want to see quick job growth we need to get real GDP growth up levels of 5-7%. But with the fiscal stimulus being handled terribly and the Fed sitting on a ridiculously low 2% inflation target, that's not gonna happen.

The Black Forrest wrote:There are plenty of educated Americans but now there is a retardation or simply dirty ploy to avoid hiring them as the argument being if you were laid off there must be something wrong with you. Why hire a person when you can try and poach a person who is already working.

I don't disagree, but there is a large amount of people who are essentially unemployable due to the gap between education level and job availability.

Globalization is an interesting argument. Cheaper labor good! Underpaid executives bad. American workers always seem to over paid but American executives are never paid enough.

I agree.

Jobs are not being replaced. Well they are elsewhere.

Again, I agree, hence advanced economies move into the service and IT economy, for which a large portion of the populace is simply not geared towards. Hence I've always strongly supported increased investment in education [and healthcare - but that's possibly a separate debate.]

Technology destroys more jobs then it will create.

Part of the problem with the use is the people and the leaders still base a job but post industrial standards. We are in a new era and nobody seems to see this. The power of computing will keep a large part of the population unemployed.

To be fair, the power of computing both enables us to have more time to do more - the history of progress is about providing the individual with more time to specialise, that results in shared progress. Did the cotton loom lead to less jobs, sure in a specific sector but it also freed human labour to do other things.

Essentially, I don't hold to the idea that computing destroys jobs overall, just existing aspects that required on inefficient human labour.

Now this is what will really mess things up. When people don't see jobs coming back; they will do the "wrong" things like form unions. Pressure the government to tax the poor oppressed wealthy class.

Hard to get your tone here but where I will agree is that 'jobs' and 'economy' are different, to some extent people couldn't care about the economy given they have a job, to an extent.

People will figure it out. Why should I be concerned about low taxes for the wealthy class when they will take it and create jobs offshore

Life goes on..

Yes, the recession is over because the economy is growing albeit slowly. The effects of the recession are not over and most likely won't be over for a very long time.

The fact that unemployment isn't falling is even more troubling because of this. But that doesn't mean you get to redefine words.

The recession is over, Definitely.

We're (the developed world - US included) now in the slump - the period of stagnation and weak growth that follows particularly bad recessions. A particularly bad slump is known as a Depression. I don't think we're quite in that territory yet.

Maybe most American (developed countries) is suffering from the depression, but in Asia, most of us is suffering from inflation.

Holaloperho wrote:Maybe most American (developed countries) is suffering from the depression, but in Asia, most of us is suffering from inflation.

Yep. All that money that's being saved by firing people at Cisco is coming to your place, driving up your share prices, down your interest rates and your banks are using it to lend to people. To the point where central banks are getting pretty desperate to slow things down a tad.

Whoo, the system works!

the world wide, international recession, won't REALLY be over, until ideological prejudice breaths its last with it, and the most powerful nation on the planet, is no longer the thrall of its chamber of commerce.

Cameroi wrote:the world wide, international recession, won't REALLY be over, until ideological prejudice breaths its last with it, and the most powerful nation on the planet, is no longer the thrall of its chamber of commerce.

Are you using some unconventional definition of recession?

There are such definitions, which include the loss over time of uncounted assets (the environment mostly). By those definitions, the world and particularly the US have spent more time in "recession" than "recovery" for the last century at least.

For that matter, adjusting GDP for population makes 'almost recessions' into full recessions, and makes acknowledged recessions appear longer. But we don't use that definition either

Neu Leonstein wrote:

Holaloperho wrote:Maybe most American (developed countries) is suffering from the depression, but in Asia, most of us is suffering from inflation.

Yep. All that money that's being saved by firing people at Cisco is coming to your place, driving up your share prices, down your interest rates and your banks are using it to lend to people. To the point where central banks are getting pretty desperate to slow things down a tad.

For real? That sounds like "cheap money" looking for borrowers. A bubble in the making. Asian Financial Crisis in the offing?

I want to make it clear that I wouldn't wish for such a thing.

Borders is closing down?! Oh dear, where will I get books when I visit the UK now? ;___;

Neu Leonstein wrote:

Holaloperho wrote:Maybe most American (developed countries) is suffering from the depression, but in Asia, most of us is suffering from inflation.

Yep. All that money that's being saved by firing people at Cisco is coming to your place, driving up your share prices, down your interest rates and your banks are using it to lend to people. To the point where central banks are getting pretty desperate to slow things down a tad.

That is definitely not a good news and it may cause another recession lead by developing countries in a short period of time which will drag the developed countries into another mess just after they get out of this one

Snot Sniper wrote:

Neu Leonstein wrote:Yep. All that money that's being saved by firing people at Cisco is coming to your place, driving up your share prices, down your interest rates and your banks are using it to lend to people. To the point where central banks are getting pretty desperate to slow things down a tad.

For real? That sounds like "cheap money" looking for borrowers. A bubble in the making. Asian Financial Crisis in the offing?

I want to make it clear that I wouldn't wish for such a thing.

Yes, financial crisis will start in Asia and other developing countries very soon due to the effect of QE1and QE2

Holaloperho wrote:

Snot Sniper wrote:
For real? That sounds like "cheap money" looking for borrowers. A bubble in the making. Asian Financial Crisis in the offing?

I want to make it clear that I wouldn't wish for such a thing.

Yes, financial crisis will start in Asia and other developing countries very soon due to the effect of QE1and QE2

QE is an odd thing. Some call it "printing money" and though it involves no new printed paper it is a bit like that, except that the "new" money is only entered into the economy indirectly, by buying Treasury offerings (bonds and such).

To simplify by pretending that the US really was printing new money: this would increase US inflation (lower the dollar). I don't see how that creates a crisis in Asia?

Snot Sniper wrote:For real? That sounds like "cheap money" looking for borrowers. A bubble in the making. Asian Financial Crisis in the offing?

No major indications as of yet. What problem areas there are seem to be mostly domestically based, ie confined to idiosyncracies in individual economies. Plus, you'll find that the kind of straight-forward crisis like 1997 would have a much harder time working now, since emerging economies are generally ready for it and have mitigating policies in place. For now, this isn't hot money chasing after stuff as much as it is a genuine rebalancing of the world economy towards "emerging" markets. It's an ongoing process, and hick-ups happen along the way, but it's ultimately the way to overcome a couple of centuries of colonialism and warfare in Asia and Latin America.

Just gotta manage it properly, which is where the Asian economies are actually better at listening to the helpful suggestions coming from places like the IMF than Latin America has been of late.

Snot Sniper wrote:

Holaloperho wrote:
Yes, financial crisis will start in Asia and other developing countries very soon due to the effect of QE1and QE2

QE is an odd thing. Some call it "printing money" and though it involves no new printed paper it is a bit like that, except that the "new" money is only entered into the economy indirectly, by buying Treasury offerings (bonds and such).

To simplify by pretending that the US really was printing new money: this would increase US inflation (lower the dollar). I don't see how that creates a crisis in Asia?

It create crisis because those money which were create by the fed doesn't cause banks in the US to lend more money out domestically, instead they turn into hot money and enter the developing countries. That the reason Asia have a lot of "cheap money" waiting to be lend out.

At the meantime, two third of USD are not circulating in the US, Instead, they were use as clearing currency for most trading conduct in the rest of the world. Therefore, printing more USD won't really increase the inflation of USA greatly.

Snot Sniper wrote:

Cameroi wrote:the world wide, international recession, won't REALLY be over, until ideological prejudice breaths its last with it, and the most powerful nation on the planet, is no longer the thrall of its chamber of commerce.

Are you using some unconventional definition of recession?

There are such definitions, which include the loss over time of uncounted assets (the environment mostly). By those definitions, the world and particularly the US have spent more time in "recession" than "recovery" for the last century at least.

yes. i completely agree on both counts. and it is everyone's loss that logic and honesty are unconventional.