[ClearCase_guy]

Pretty much everyone I know is stressed. Whether they have a job or are out of work, no one is happy. Here in MA, people blame Bush but I think that will be hard to sustain for much longer.

[jdsteel]

OK, so someone tell me why this is different than ANY OTHER business cycle we’ve been through? This isn’t new at all. Productivity rises as the least productive are cut and the ones left work their butts off. Then consumers start buying and businesses eventually have to hire more workers. Same old same old.

[HangnJudge]

More cheerie news...


http://market-ticker.denninger.net/

Consumer credit decreased at an annual rate of 6 percent in the third quarter of 2009. Revolving credit decreased at an annual rate of 10 percent, and nonrevolving credit decreased at an annual rate of 3-3/4 percent. In September, consumer credit decreased at an annual rate of 7-1/4 percent.

We are a credit-based system, as are all modern monetary systems. No meaningful economic recovery can or will occur until the consumer has purged his balance sheet of the inappropriate debt he has and is once again able to earn and borrow.

[Plumres]

Something that was not in this article are salary people being forced to work many hours overtime for no pay. My wife is a retail manager. She works many 12 hours days for no extra pay. She does not get bonuses. She is paid a flat salary. I don't understand why this is not slavery? The job market does not allow her to move now, but if she could get a different job she would take it. She has been trying to get out of retail for 2 years, but can not. There just are no companies in Pittsburgh willing to interview someone that does not match an exact profile.

[elpadre]

Having lived through several economic depressions while working in HR in heavy industry, it is my experience that once the necessary layoffs are made, the hard work of reorganizing starts. Better methods, streamlining processes, automation introduced, etc. are all part of it. The company becomes "mean and lean” productivity rises and, hopefully, profits result.

It almost cyclic as companies go through the same process each time the economy tanks. Once the economy improves, production managers begin requisitions for more, and often unnecessary people, costs of production go up and profits slide.

[yawningotter]

The place where I work has cut hours and positions to the point that productivity is now suffering and customers are going elsewhere because of poor service in the most important areas. And guess who was tapped to take up the slack?

[dr_who]

From beginning of wikipedia article on the Economic Policy Institute mentioned in this article: Jump to: navigation, search The Economic Policy Institute is a US think tank. Economists who founded the nonprofit organization in 1986 included Jeff Faux,[1], Barry Bluestone[2], Robert Kuttner[3], Ray Marshall[4], Robert Reich[5], and Lester Thurow.

Same old marxist trash.

[Just mythoughts]

Why a few more months of this ‘fear’ of job losses and we just might have an insurgence in seeking ‘union’ protectionism. s/

[lentulusgracchus]

Note also the provenience of the article. Business Week, not the Guardian, the NYT, or the New York Review of Books.

[ex-Texan]

Hards Times are going to get a lot worse. The time to wake up is long past:

Video: Bernanke's War on Trade and the US Dollar

Video: A Sign of the Times Ahead -- Not good!

[Kenton]

I retired last year, but I spent most of my working lifetime being affected by this cycle. When the economy got slow, the layoffs came and the 'survivors' wound up picking up the slack for those who got let go.

And by the time they started hiring again, those 'extra duties' usually didn't go away, they just became part of your job, because after all, you'd showed them you could do it, why hire somebody else?

I guess I was one of the lucky ones, I went through 4 or 5 of these business cycles and never got let go, and I retired on my own schedule, but I can't say I miss this kind of thing.