Watching this economy is like watching a drawn out car crash
Watching this economy is like watching a drawn out car crash
(OP)
This ain't your father's recession. We're seeing a fundamental shift in our country, mostly for the worse. The groundwork has been laid for the past twenty years and only in the past year and a half has our market reacted to it
Anyway, what does that spell for us engineers? Nearly all professions have been hit hard. RELATIVELY speaking (which doesn't account for much) are engineers in a "better" position than they were 5 years ago compared to other white collar jobs? I know law, finance, consulting, sales (both corporate & the sleazy car type), accounting, actuarial, etc. have all been hit hard
Anyway, what does that spell for us engineers? Nearly all professions have been hit hard. RELATIVELY speaking (which doesn't account for much) are engineers in a "better" position than they were 5 years ago compared to other white collar jobs? I know law, finance, consulting, sales (both corporate & the sleazy car type), accounting, actuarial, etc. have all been hit hard





RE: Watching this economy is like watching a drawn out car crash
We won't know for sure until a 'real' war starts. War usually gets us out of recessions or a depression. Then engineers will be busy....IMO.
Chris
SolidWorks 09, CATIA V5
ctopher's home
SolidWorks Legion
RE: Watching this economy is like watching a drawn out car crash
flashback to 1980, "How to Prepare for the Coming Crash, or something like that, purported a fundamental change in the economy, and the need to stockpile weapons to protect your possessions from the maraudering hordes. Well, that never happened.
The people that actually have the wealth and power are pretty old-fashioned and set in their ways. They manipulate the economy to their own ends, regardless of what it might appear to us, on the outside.
TTFN
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RE: Watching this economy is like watching a drawn out car crash
RE: Watching this economy is like watching a drawn out car crash
In order for things to improve we need to accept a lower standard of living or go out and borrow loads more money from banks that will lend it to anyone, I predict the latter.
However this will not happen as Flash Gordon has told us apart from saving the world he has done away with boom and bust, so there will never be a recession again and in fact this one does not exist either.
Personally I don't believe politicians and expect highs and lows to be the norm for the rest of my life time.
RE: Watching this economy is like watching a drawn out car crash
The company I work for has not seen a slow down in engineering. Our surveying branch has been a little slow lately though.
RE: Watching this economy is like watching a drawn out car crash
Lessons are being learned, that's all -- hopefully this time we'll be done with the instant-gratification credit woes, or at least make progress on them. Maybe next recession we'll finally learn that burning oil is not the best foundation for all of industry...
Good on y'all,
Goober Dave
RE: Watching this economy is like watching a drawn out car crash
I see engineering in my area (mid-south US) looking pretty stable at this time, much better than a few months back. Much better, relatively speaking, than the legal, medical, and financial communities...
Thanks for the thoughtful topic!
Goober Dave
RE: Watching this economy is like watching a drawn out car crash
Straight from my personal broker at Merrill Lynch; "This is a depression, the bottom of which was estimated to hit around mid-2009. The bottom is expected to be long and fairly flat with the slow climb back out around first quarter 2010."
As for my local economy, I'm not the person to ask. I'm seeing a lot of volatility in the area of building fornsics in Northern CA. I was told in June that I was to be let go. Managed to hang on for awhile, now I'm back out, or possibly in for a little bit more. It's given me a real bad attitude about a lot of things.
"If you are going to walk on thin ice, you might as well dance!"
RE: Watching this economy is like watching a drawn out car crash
Then there's the Cap and Trade debacle that's about to unfold.
I don't think this is a regular recession. The government never admits defeat. Those making money in the finance market will never admit to it, they want your money. The stock market is more indicative of people's behavior than economic strength.
On the upside, there might be manufacturing jobs coming back to the U.S. due to the weakening of the U.S. dollar.
RE: Watching this economy is like watching a drawn out car crash
Cheers
Greg Locock
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RE: Watching this economy is like watching a drawn out car crash
Agriculture -> Industry -> Service -> Information. The companies already in the Information economy are Google, Linked-in, Media Companies, Ratings Agencies, Supply Chain etc. However, it seems to me that most of these companies do not have much purpose outside of serving as aggregators, and they could be replaced by 'free' Wikipedia like solutions.
The most profitable position for a country to be in is the
Industrial phase, but the US has long gone by that point, and I wonder if we will ever make it back.
RE: Watching this economy is like watching a drawn out car crash
Mike McCann
MMC Engineering
RE: Watching this economy is like watching a drawn out car crash
As long as people keep pumping out babies and colleges keep turning out engineers, it will take years before there are enough jobs to go around.
RE: Watching this economy is like watching a drawn out car crash
I agree, and what makes this downturn in the economy so unique from other downturns is that all business sectors were affected. I really don't see the economy returning to the pre-recession spending and borrowing level of activity nor do I see any immediate sustained recovery.
Two things that concern me about this downturn - the first is that we don't have the public borrowing money to spend on goods and services, as in the past, to revive the economy. We have drawn down on inventories, which is a good thing. However, what mechanism will revive the economy this time around.
Second, the government stimulus money experiment is only a band aid fix and will eventually run out. When this happens along with the repeal of the current tax breaks that are soon to expire in 2011, this will be the second recession (double dip) that will be far worse than the current downturn. Do you realize how much the government is spending on current unemployment benefits? Think about this, when unemployment benefits run out, what happens?