1.11.2009

The Great Depression of 2011

In my neck of the woods every day brings news of new layoffs, plant shut downs, scaled back operations, and going out of business sales. We recently downsized our own offices and were unable to even donate un-needed furnishings to charity because of the volume of material already donated by other businesses either doing the same or closing up shop.

The winter weather gutted holiday retail and we are seeing a lot of mom and pop stores failing. The cascade of bankruptcies after the poor Christmas sales season hasn't reached its full intensity yet. Boeing announced a reduction in 1700 jobs and Intel is looking at similar numbers in light of the economic downturn. A regional producer of plywood panels (making enough per year to supply 21,000 homes) is closing operations. Once these wage earners are out of the equation how long will it be before trickle down economics results in even more losses to stores, restaurants, you name it.

I fear that we aren't anywhere near the bottom of this pit yet. Anyone else as scared as I am?

4 comments:

pboyfloyd said...

Bwahahaha! The destruction of the middle class is on schedule.

Bush and Cheney would have rather started WWIII before leaving office if the success of these plans were not inevitable.

The only difference between the REPS and the DEMS now, as always is the way the news treats them.

If McCain had gotten into power we'd hear nothing of the monetary 'crisis'.

Now, since Obama is 'in', we'll hear nothing BUT, no money, no money, no money.

Even without the totally engineered bank crash, I mean who buys up usurous debt except gamblers?, the USA would still be trillions of dollars in debt, for Bush's war.

I didn't really hear any boo-hooing from anyone about that except the 'left' really now, did we?

All of a sudden the REPS are screaming money, money, money!

This bank-gambling loss is a cover. No one is blaming Bush, that's all.

mac said...

Yes, I'm scared shitless !

GearHedEd said...

If I had any 'real' work to do, I'd be out doing it instead of blogging. Things better start picking up pretty soon...

Anonymous said...

I'm personally not really scared.

Here's how I view it:

One, I have a long time until my own retirement, so I am fairly safe on that. I do feel for the people who are trying to retire right NOW. That is awful.

Two, we eat out every here and there, about 3-4 times per week for lunch or dinner. The good restaurants, even during the week, are always packed, so business is still up in some areas. I feel if we were in a true depression, the restaurants probably wouldn't be so busy all of the time...

Three, I don't make a lot of money, but there are a few people at my work with my exact salary who have the same phone as Paris Hilton. And EVERYONE has at least some kind of cell phone, if not a brilliant, expensive one.

I just don't call that a really bad time for people... The economy is obviously not great, and a lot of areas are taking hits, but it's not bad for so many individuals either, and these are not rich people.

I think we all desperately need to readjust our standards of living as a whole. For example, most people who can't afford their houses over-reached. We can afford our current house because it's quite small and nothing to brag about. That is why we, personally, aren't losing it right now...