How long for the economy to get better?

Man! You really believe the stuff those people tell you?

It has to get better eventually…

Economic conditions often have cyclical characteristics. We go through cycles of “boom and bust.” This being the case, Notreallyhere is correct, the economy will likely rebound at some point in the future. Unfortunately, in this case, the problems with the current economy are fairly widespread and quite deep. A recession that begins in the housing market, as this one did, is not likely to be a short-term downturn. It takes time for people to get out from under their bad mortgages and begin to spend money at their previous levels again. More bad news: the “credit crunch” combined with higher energy and food costs has resulted in an overall lower level of consumer spending and consumer confidence. Businesses, therefore, are cutting back to try and control costs in the face of likely lower revenues. This contributes to a feedback effect, as workers either lose their jobs, get fewer hours, or find it harder to advance.

At a certain point, probably twelve to sixteen months from now, the economy will probably hit a sort of “hard bottom” where it can’t sink much lower. This will be when all those with sub-primes have already entered into their variable rate period, when businesses have cut back as far as they can without drastically reducing size, when demand for consumer goods reduces to the levels produced by those workers in relatively safe jobs. At that point, the economic indicators will being to flatten out, and people will start saying “the worst is over,” or, “there’s light at the end of the tunnel, ” etc. Then consumer confidence will being to tick back up, and the economy will start to grow again.

This process could be helped along somewhat by smart government policy, but at base, this is the scenario for recovery.

Just like the weather, wait long enough it will change. More to the point though, the “global economy” and the pundits that right it about don’t know, so I am as useful a resource as they are I guess. Executives, managers, mothers, teachers, government leaders, economists are all trying to figure things out. This is where the problem lies, I believe. We are working with historical information that is largely not relevant for forward looking events. For example, how can you achieve continuous growth at 10% if technology creates a cost advantage? It won’t if people don’t need to purchase more of your product or service, your margins just increase, but not growth and that is what drives the economy. Or, if you lower your costs and your competitors lower costs through headcount reduction there are fewer people working with income to purchase. So, the economy is a dynamic organism and if we continue to look to the “past” as a barometer for the future, we will continue to ask this question. The more compelling opportunity is, how do we grow as individuals to take advantage of economic changes taking place now and in the future?

@keso2: Attend a “Business 101” class before you comment on this please.

what? what’s wrong with what scheti said? it seemed sensible to me. If people don’t
buy all the Stuff, we can’t grow. Is this wrong? Please explain.

Sorry, that was directed at the first commenter in this thread. That’s what the ”@keso2” part is about, as in, “this is at keso2”.

oops. I got overexcited.

Please. The economy isn’t what’s f@cked up. It’s all the fat cats sitting up at the top that make millions, and don’t share the wealth that let the economy go to sh!t. While they keep their abundant wealth locked up somewhere, we suffer for it. So you see, my lack of knowledge in business isn’t the issue here. It’s those people that keep their money locked up somewhere and dont spend it, that make everything rise in cost and they profit from it.