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.
1. debt burden squeezes profit margins, forces "productivity" at the expense of...you name it: quality, customer service, etc.
2. outsourcing. not new to this cycle, but to this generation.
3. the myth factor. not all "productivity" is productivity. For example: you wait on hold for tech support for an hour, because there is simply not enough staff. That's hours that a company doesn't have to pay, that's "the same output with less labor," from their perspective. But what's your hour worth? They've outsourced tech support partly to you. Their productivity at your expense. What a country!
And the consumers will start buying with... what?
Wages are down. As the above charts indicate, consumers are de-leveraging, ie, they’re not increasing their credit.
So with a downturn in wages, consumers not taking on more credit (and credit being increasingly difficult to come by), what will consumers spend? Quatloos?