For example, I deal with massive traffic jams on a nearly daily basis getting to and from work. As my territory covers most of the Northeast, I experience constant rush-hour gridlock from southern New Hampshire all the way down to Long Island/NYC area. If the traffic is this bad now, I'd hate to see what it would look like if we ever attained full employment.
In an economic downturn, one of the first things people cut back on is eating out. Yet I'm not seeing that. All the restaurants are slammed just about every night. And on Friday and Saturday nights, you are likely going to spend at least a full hour waiting for a table if you don't have a reservation. I'm not talking fancy restaurant either, but the down-market casual eating joints like Longhorns, Applebees, Olive Garden, Chilis and Buffalo Wild Wings. Those places are madhouses replete with screaming kids in high-chairs and raucous college-age kids at the bar. Now wouldn't you think that if our standard of living was in decline, that you would see these places start to shutter up and close down? Instead, here are HELP WANTED signs in most of these places.
I can go on and on. Yes, a lot of retail stores are closing up but that's a function of more consumers deciding to purchase their goods online. Go ahead and sit on your front lawn some sunny afternoon and see all those big brown trucks lumbering buy. Those are UPS trucks laden down with boxes of merchandise from Amazon.com; NewEgg; and Ebay, etc.
I want to believe but somebody please explain my observations to me. Am I living in some kind of fantasyland?
I don’t really disagree with you, but I would encourage you to balance what you are seeing in one of the “wealthy-er” portions of our Republic with the abject poverty down here in the area between Savannah and Macon, GA.
I think it’s about the same amount of territory.
Good work with good pay is hard to find unless you want to abandon 150 years of family land and head to the city (which the children are doing).
I blame a weak, weak dollar for most of our problems. It all sort of goes back to that one topic.
If you head to flyover country, you’ll see that 50% of the commercial buildings have “Available” or “For Lease” signs.
I would agree the NE has an element of artificially supported prosperity.
Traffic means little or nothing.
By your analogy heavy traffic means good economy. In LA it seems to be rush hour all the time yet unemployment here is very high.
Just possibly, it could be the greedy developers who bribe and pay off government officials to fast track more and more apartments etc., yet they leave the roads and highways to become gridlocked nightmares.
BTW, we have to make room for all the foreigners/illegals the government pours into the country 24/7.
My observation is that areas with a large governmental presence, such as state capitals and certainly Washington DC, are booming right along and barely even registered much of a blip even in 2008.
Most urban areas with increasing populations are doing OK and some are thriving.
The ag and commodity belt through the center of the country from Texas on up to North Dakota is in good shape and some areas are booming due to fracking.
The rest of the country appears to be in a years-long downward spiral that would be a depression if not for social programs.
So, it depends upon where you are.
I live in N. Idaho. Closest “big” city is Spokane, WA. The timber and mining industries that used to be the main employers in this area are shadows now. Medicaid and SSI are the only growth “industries”. We are fortunate to have been spared the invasion of illegals like southern Idaho.
Most of the higher end real estate is being purchased by retiring out-of-staters and Canadians.
The explanation is math. There’s 311 million people in this country, not everybody is effected by the downturn. I’ve gotten 3 significant raises during this whole thing, I’m doing better than ever. Most of the folks at my job are in a similar boat (except for the occasional random layoff our corporate masters throw at us to remind who’s really in charge), our subsection of the company is in smooth shape because the subsection of the market we’re in is recession proof (4% annual growth over inflation since the 80s, good economy or bad our market always grows).
Other subsections of the world things aren’t so smooth. But you always have to remember recessions are really built on a small number of people. Even with the really ugly charts projecting projecting 25% un/underemployment that still leaves 225 million people NOT in a household in that boat. For a lot of folks recessions happen to other people, I’ve always ridden them out smoothly, most of the people I know are riding this one out well, but it wasn’t always that way, we’ve learned lessons and caught some lucky bounces.
I travel around a bit. Even in your area. Outside of the financial services areas, the East just seems rundown. Now it isn’t worse than before, but I do see more empty storefronts than before. If you go outside the mega cities, I see a lot more desperation. In my area the two major employers are cutting back, and there are no jobs to replace them. People often can’t move. Heck there was an article about the rise of 50 something’s moving back in with their parents.
So things are spotty, but what I see is a growing sense of desperation. People no longer expect to make it
The metropolis in DC to Boston isnt doing that bad due to an increase in federal spending.