Question on the economy and stats

[The Cosworth]

How come some people are talking about how this is the worst economic situation in a generation, when every stat that I read (real estate, lending rates, unemployment) are all from 2001.

Lending rates and unemployment were this low right after 9/11, and real estate sales were this low in January 2001.

Am I missing something? Or are people blowing this out of proportion a little bit?

[adam c]

you can't really compare 9/11 to today

back then, we weren't in a recession, but now we are

[Supa Dexta]

I thought the number of unemployed is as high as it was in 83 or sumtin, at like 10mil in the US?

[GTI_Fahrenheit]

Originally posted by The Cosworth
...

Am I missing something? Or are people blowing this out of proportion a little bit?

You aren't missing anything. It is being blown out of proportion by idiots and the media and economists looking for headlines.

edit: when it comes to unemployment and other stats it is important to look at the % of total workforce, vs. a raw number like 10 million. Yes the # is high, but relatively speaking it is a small number given how the economy in the U.S. and labour force has grown. Be warry of the media hype with these numbers.

[Tomaz]

We are definitely not getting it as bad compared to the states. They are having a hard time keeping afloat.

[Legless_Marine2]

Originally posted by The Cosworth

Am I missing something? Or are people blowing this out of proportion a little bit?

My gut tells me this will be as bad as anything since the Great depression, and will surpass economic troubles of the 70's and 80's.

Of course, living in prosperous Alberta, it's easy to dismiss the pains of the rest of the world, but increasingly, as we are seeing, we are not isolated from them.


The problem is that it is not just the economy itself that is our of balance, but that many facets of our modern world are, including the climate, resource availability, population pressure, etc.

Personally, I see this all as a collective manifestation of various limits to growth.

My prediction is that we will recover from this in a couple of years, but will never again reach economic heights seen previously... Instead, we will be faced with a long term economic decline due to decreasing energy availability.

[russianrocket21]

Originally posted by Legless_Marine2

My prediction is that we will recover from this in a couple of years, but will never again reach economic heights seen previously... Instead, we will be faced with a long term economic decline due to decreasing energy availability.

I'd have to disagree with you. Don't quote me on the years, but economists in the 70's were also saying that we were running out of oil and natural resources, and that by the 90's the world would be dry. However, increases in scarcity have been matched by advances in technology, resulting not only in additional reserves being found, but also in improved extraction methods allowing more efficient extraction. In fact, we will never reach a point where energy will no longer be available. Although the technological advances cannot be sustained long enough to match the increased scarcity in natural resources, we will eventually simply hit a point where it will become cheaper to use renewable energy. Thus, my prediction is that although these next few years will be rough, there will be positive things to come in the future.

Also, my finance teacher brought up a very interesting point when asked about increasing unemployment. He said, "Sure, the current unemployment rate in the US has risen to ~7%. And what does that mean? That 93% of people are still employed."

[Canmorite]

Unemployment stats do not work like that. There is not 93% employment, it's 7% unemployment for people who are eligible for work/not retired.

[realazy]

Well that still proves that 93% of people who are eligible for work are employed. That's still good odds for people who are eligible for work.

[Redlyne_mr2]

The media has nothing better to talk about.. we need another OJ or some sort of shitty event to have them focus their attention somewhere else. It's amazing how the media affects our society.

[BananaFob]

Originally posted by Canmorite
Unemployment stats do not work like that. There is not 93% employment, it's 7% unemployment for people who are eligible for work/not retired.

Not exactly. It's 7% of people who are eligible for work and are ACTIVELY seeking jobs. The number does not include those unemployed that would like to remain unemployed.

[Fivewayradio]

Does anyone here even remember the crash of the early 80's? Every week the newspapers were printing stories about this company laying off 400 people, that company laying off 200 with another 400 to come next month. And it kept up like that for a few years. Thousands and thousands of people lost their jobs. Unemployment was over 10%. Older, more expensive guys in highly educated jobs, like engineers, geologist etc. found themselves totally incapable of finding work and retrained to get into the burgeoning computer industry.

My point is that it was BAD then and what we're seeing in Calgary right now is NOTHING like what happened then. I can certainly see why comparisons are being made, but trust me we're not there yet. Of course that's not to say it won't get worse, because that's pretty likely. This might just be the tip of the iceberg. But I think it's sensationalist to start making comparisons to the great depression. Unemployment was 30% during the great depression, right now in calgary it's like 5% or something.

[01RedDX]

.

[Xtrema]

I think there was a chart I saw (can't find it now) where it compare S&P % growth ever since it's tracked. 80% of the years are around -10% to +10%.

2008 is the same as 1933 @ -50% as worst ever. Then following years has the biggest swing with +40%, -30%, +30% etc before it normalize back into the -10% +10% range after WW2.

[Legless_Marine2]

Originally posted by 01RedDX


Unless you are trying to sell your house, or have been laid off, or have investments. Then it doesn't really matter what the media says does it?


Nicely said.

I'm amazed that people still exist who aren't feeling the pinch.

[Redlyne_mr2]

Originally posted by Legless_Marine2


Nicely said.

I'm amazed that people still exist who aren't feeling the pinch.
There are tons of people out there not feeling the pinch. It's the people and companies that overextended themselves that will feel the pinch.

We were in a boom, things are starting to level off and go back to how they were 10 years ago, it's the people who rely on the boom lifestyle that will go down. Houses arent selling because people are still trying to sell for close to boom prices. I've been looking at condos that are in the 250-300 range, many of these were originally purchased for 120K, the prices still have not crashed, people are still holding out.