Is a Double Dip Recession Looming?: Tips for Surviving the Next One

[Heather Smith]

This recession still has nothing on the Great Depression though…and we never made it to Stage 5. In fact, I think that human’s do better in crisis then when things are going well. To survive you often need to rely on each other…whereas when things are going hunky dorey you mosey on your own way. Even consider this website…if we were all employed at wonderful firms…well…we wouldn’t be on here in the middle of the day. 😉

I heard someone on NPR speaking on global warming and he said exactly this. One reason we haven’t taken drastic steps to head this off is because we just don’t do well with far off threats that loom in the distance. But when the sh*t hits the fan the things that are important become evident.

[Heather Smith]

Wheres mauibob in this and all his stocks? Looks like the stock market is breaking records again! Too bad it is the other direction.

[Thomas J. Johnson]

I’m not going to touch that one… 😉

[Thomas J. Johnson]

Trace –

Easy for you to say Ms. Cushy Gov’t job… 😉

Out here in the real world it’s pretty grim…

I applied for a job managing a coffee shop last week! I’m 33 and live with my Mom! It couldn’t be much worse… I actually fantasize about being a hobo and riding the rails… at least it would be more exciting than this slow humiliating death… there is no bottom in sight : – o

[Trace One]

I do count my lucky stars with this job – I’ve only had it for four years..and I am 54..When I was 33, (got my MLA at 30) I was working for $10 an hour for a florist who did perennial garden installation and maintenance in the summer – I didn’t live with my mom, but neither did I pay my bills very effectively..Never really got much better than that – a succession of planning jobs, which, while stable, are hateful, pay crap, and similary make one want to ride the rails..

don’t know what the answer is – I think I would go to China, if I was younger, but after reading David Sedaris’s last description of china  – the spit, the pooping, the pollution, and the food (‘Like someone attacked the chicken with a blunt instrument who also had a grudge against chickens – bones, gristle, all together – one soup meal with the chicken feet attractively and yellowly hanging off the bowl..)  – I don’t know about that either..

Sorry, Thomas, if I see anything that can help anybody I will post it…

[Tanya Olson]

Hey Thomas – we have a camper in the woods with its very own outhouse if you’re in danger of becoming the King of the Hobos. On second thought, better Jim Tully than Ted Kosinski. Maybe you’re destined to write hobo poetry, pulp fiction and lasting ballads of Americana….

 

[Heather Smith]

Thomas you SHOULD ride the rails and see who you meet…then write about it. You can be the next Keroauc. That might be interesting. I know people still do it…when I was in high school we helped at the shelter and met families riding the rails from WA to MT in the middle of winter!

[Chupacabra]

Go north, young man.  There’s work available and if things get really, really bad, there’s lots of large ungulates to eat should we dip below Stage 3 Societal Collapse.

 

It’s why I’m here.

[Jason T. Radice]

 

Go ahead…be a Landscape Architect. You’ll end up livin’ in a VAN…down by the RIVER!

 

[Thomas J. Johnson]

[Thomas J. Johnson]

[Alan Ray, RLA]

did you say “next” recession???

what about the never ending one we’re in now?

[Alan Ray, RLA]

How’s your Portugese?

Brazil’s ecomomy is ROCKING!!!!! check it out…..

If only our so called leaders were half as smart as the Brazilians, in so many ways…..

[mauiBob]

Looming? It started back in April 2011. The recent stock market crash only means one thing: time to BUY! Are you a wolf or a sheep. I’ll come back to this trend later and give my two-cents worth of opinion…

[Leslie B Wagle]

Nope, this generation can’t get out and build the beautiful stone arch bridges on the Blue Ridge Parkway and other CCC projects that the still-manually skilled men of the 30’s knew how to or could be taught to do. “Shovel ready” jobs now take considerable construction training and we also have a lot of “undocumented immigrants” here that can compete for anything offered at the lower skill rungs. Also the nation was more insular back then, whereas now in the global economy, even companies that start to hire, can use competition from nearly anywhere.

 

I was in a city planning office from the 90’s through 2007 and while none of us grasped or talked about the financial ease of building nearly anything, we we deluged with subdivisions and development plans in general, and I remember wondering how in the world there could really be a solid demand for so much stuff? Turns out there wasn’t. It had crossed my mind that people were flocking into bricks and mortar and all the ripples from it (interiors, kitchen equipment, even the sales and paperwork) because it was reasonable pay and the last “domestic” product we could safely retreat to. Now those people can’t find an alternative and are joining many others whose industries disappeared in the 80’s.

 

There was a brief boost in the early arrival years of the computer revolution, but then the “dotcom” burst took care of the idea that everybody would become a programmer (later, website guru). The debt of this country is a huge source of concern but a lot of it would become more manageable if there was higher employment. I agree that some experts charting inventories or productivity might have seen an “end” to a recession, but where most folks live, the first one stuck and never rolled back. So no, we aren’t facing a second, the first never left and continues on.

 

By the way, this may belong in the “are you leaving the field” question, but I’ve been lurking in a discussion about Art Therapy (due to peripheral curiosity since I have a relative who got a degree in it and really struggled before dropping out for mixed reasons). There was a person in her grad studies who openly wondered if she should continue considering the expense and likelihood of never finding pay that would justify it. The answers were cheering her on more than I would have at the expense she quoted (I would have said go ahead if you’re determined but be careful of big student loans in the process). However, they also mentioned how they weren’t “respected” by others in the mental health field and that further depressed opportunities and wages. It distantly reminded me of the LA discussions here. I’m just bringing it up because that dilemma of what to do at the start of your life is hard enough anyway, and now so many doors seem barely cracked open, I just ache for all of those in her shoes, and it isn’t clear what path to suggest except to listen to your soul but also blend in reality and realize you’re not alone in this.

 

Like LA, art therapy would seem be a “personal delivery” vs. easily off-shored sort of field but that hasn’t spared either of us when local enterprises and governments are in a money tight operation mode.

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