We're officially in recession. How about you?

[billyskank]

The last quarterly figures now confirm it. The only question is how deep it will go.

[mcctatas]

1. We don't know....

our talking heads don't tell us anything

[billyskank]

2. Even if they did tell you something

it wouldn't be anything worth hearing. They certainly don't say anything worthwhile here.

[siligut]

3. I think we are looking at 2-3 years of pain.

Change is painful, but it has to and will happen. People are already suffering. The food bank people tell me that donations have dropped off. Lay offs are happening every day. Major chain stores are closing.

[billyskank]

4. If you're right, then it will still be less bad than I fear.

[JCMach1]

9. Bskank I'm afraid is right... looking more and more to me like Japan - 10yrs

of recession and stagnation...

[Fire Walk With Me]

5. Was a Bush recently Resident?

[billyskank]

6. The prime minister we have is equally useless.

[Fire Walk With Me]

7. Then hopefully, change is contagious.

[billyskank]

11. I hope you're right. Our problem is that we have no credible alternative

The conservatives are the party most likely to succeed the government, but in truth they support the same save-the-bankers-and-screw-everyone-else kind of policies the government does. They only real beef is that it should have been them in power implementing them, and I see no evidence that they have any clue how to turn this country around.

[Fire Walk With Me]

13. Since this post, you have removed your signature line

by mcctatas saying something to the effect of "sometimes you have to just get in there and poke the badger".

[billyskank]

14. No, I was trying to get the red bold font that you all seem to have

I wanted it to say, "this is the DUer formerly known as billyskank" but it proved beyond my skills!

[Iggo]

8. Yep. Couple of layoffs already.

Also, we were informed at the end of year sales meeting that there would be no salary increases this year.

Some of us were brought into the bosses office and told to "be ready" to take over the duties of anyone that might be laid off. I'm already doing 2 jobs for the price of one ever since the last round of layoffs in November. Hopefully that means I'm on the short list of people the company has decided to keep. But who knows...

[billyskank]

10. You never know, do you?

Reasons to fire people are not always based on employees' value to the company. Prejudice and politics come into it as well.

[no name no slogan]

12. The US has been in one since December 2007

Which they confirmed in December 2008. I would guess we've got a few years of the same until things get better. This will take years to recover from, no doubt.

My job is fairly safe. I am the only person who does my job in an organization of 7,200. I'm also in a union, in the public sector, so I have some safeguards built in. However, our governor has announced a pay freeze for all employees, so I'm not counting on any pay increases in the near future.

This is the DU member formerly known as WillDUForFood.

[Writer]

15. We've been a recession for some time now, but quite frankly, I think we're in a mild depression.

It's all depressing anyway.

[lizziegrace]

16. We call your recession and raise you a depression.

It's been bad here for years. We have 47 million uninsured and millions unemployed. I'd take a recession any day.

[grilled onions]

17. Many Retired People Are Struggling

Houses don't move. Empty houses often can't even find those who can afford to rent. Food pantries are far too busy with far too many empty shelves. Many are taking meds and splitting them to make them stretch. Grocery stores find many takers on the cheap items yet the deli and ready cooked foods don't have the business they once had. Car dealers are clsoing shop and so many chains have "going out of business" banners. Malls look like ghost towns and each vacant store represents more people out of work. Yep it's a recession---more like a recession and a half!

[leeroysphitz]

18. I live in Detroit, Michigan. I fuckin' WISH we were back in a recession.

Sorry to hear about your woes though.

[texanwitch]

19. We are still OK I guess here in Houston.

I don't think it will stay this way.

Hurricane Ike hurt a lot people down here, so they were already in a recession.

[LeftyMom]

20. Post-apocolyptic horror movie.

Pretty soon our few remaining jobs will be taken by zombies.

[SPKrazy]

21. Approaching depression....

jobless rate up

funny money being printed

banks going belly up

retail giants closing

markets bombing daily, all my funny money in my retirement accounts is pretty useless now. Markets might go up. Real estate is plateaued and tanking in a lot of places

I don't know the standards of depression, but I would suspect a worldwide depression followed by a worldwide plague to lower the population, and a gradual pickup of the economies of the world in a very different way.



but I'm an optimist...