It depends on who “we” are.
If you’re in the US, then bad news buttercup - you’re already under the thumb of a ruthless insane dictator, and the economy is the last of your worries.
We are heading into a feudal system of a sort. The wealth gap is absolutly massive and the only way to end up in the upper class is to inherit. As per usual the population feels that the system is unfair, but is unable to see the real problem. Media is really pushing far right talking points, as the upper class realizes that the system is broken and a real revolution is a problem. Thats how the US ended up with a de facto monarchy. The UK is moving towards that pretty quickly too.
The good news is that Labour might make some really usefull changes. Mainly end first past the post to prevent Reform from taking over. That might very well allow left wing parties like the LibDems and Greens to win more seats and change the narrative.
What makes you think Labour are looking to change that?
Labour had a bit more then a third of the votes, which is pretty close to were Reform is polling today. However Labour won a massive majority with those votes. If Labour wants to prevent a Reform victory they need to change the election system. It is even worse for the Tories. So long term Tory supporters will cheer them on.
I know that makes sense to do, but that’s different from them making plans to do it
The first change doesn’t seem to be related, but that second link is promising.
We are always headed for a crash. That’s the cycle of capitalism without strong regulatory mechanisms to mitigate it. I believe it is every 4-7 years that a crash has happened in the last 300 years.
We’re headed for a revolution, of the French variety.
Bonjour
Don’t worry. Trump is making sure you can get a job picking crops. You’ll be living in a tent. No rent, not utilities. You’re welcome!
Brave of you to assume he won’t make people who live/work there pay rent and utilities, and that “the haves” won’t say he’s a great guy for providing this.
Sarcastic humor aside, migratory agricultural work is a thing in the US. Some of my friends did it back in the 80’s. Live in a tent on site, earn by how much you pick, save money because no rent and no place to spend. No federal taxes. Blueberries here, apples there, travel to where the crops need picking. Clean fish in Alaska or work on the boats.
Yes. We are heading towards a crash. We are very much already in one, and have absolutley no way out.
Trump killed all US international commerce with his TACO tariffs and is currently propping up a failing stock market by converting medicaid dollars into ICE / TECH BRO MILITARY funding. The stock market keeps doing great because our tax dollars are propping up companies like Google, Plantir, and Amazon through government grants instead of providing us a safety net. That money will run out eventually, but likely not before more CEOs are killed over it.
Literally we are living through the gilded 1920’s again but with an American Hitler.
We now have years of uncontrolled inflation well above target rates, a corrupt government, wealth inequality worse than the French revolution, and rampant unintelligent Tariffs hurting all international trade at the cost of every small business in America. These are the same factors that caused the great depression, and if you think it’s not going to happen again, you are wrong.
We are a country being lead into disaster by the least competent people imaginable.
We are heading towards a crash. We are very much already in one, and have absolutley no way out.
I think this is what folks lose track of when they talk about “the crash”. We’re all waiting with baited breath for the financial system to topple over. But the financial system is increasingly just a dozen private equity firms bidding up one another’s baseball cards. They can’t “crash” in the traditional sense until a sufficient number of them refuse to contribute more to the pot, and so long as everyone has easy credit there’s no real reason to do that.
Incidentally, JPow and Trump (and every Fed Chair/President going back to Bernenke/Obama) have both been militant in keeping Fed Interest Rates at historic lows going on nearly two decades.
Literally we are living through the gilded 1920’s again but with an American Hitler.
I mean, the parallels between Trump and Coolidge Eras are in abundance. War on Immigration. A finance/tech sector that’s eating the industrial economy. Massive spike in white nationalism paired with a full blown Red Scare. Deficit hawkery that never touches the national security state. Global ecological crises compounding into massive famines and agricultural failures.
We are a country being lead into disaster by the least competent people imaginable.
Part of the problem is that we’ve lost track of a consensus on what “competent” looks like. I see plenty of people (rightly) insist guys like Trump and Speaker Johnson and governors like DeSantis and Abbott are criminally incompetent. But then these same people get fully behind Gavin Newsom and Pete Buttigieg and Kamala Harris, seemingly without recognizing that they’re pushing the backside of the same privatization / national security state coin.
What do you do when blue state bastions like California and New Mexico are turning out Crypto Shills as quickly as any captured conservative enclave like Wyoming or South Carolina? What does competency look like in the wake of Biden’s squandered four years or Obama’s or Clinton’s corporately compromised time in office, for that matter?
How do you talk about climate change or even scratch the surface of our US-backed genocides in Gaza and Yemen and Afghanistan or talk about housing policy or college debts or union organization when half the elected liberal contingent is just a commodity that’s traded on the stock market?
We’re all waiting for the dream to end in a sudden shocking economic turn. I don’t know if that’s necessarily what will happen. What if we’ve just pivoted our economy towards a monetization of human suffering? What if this system is stable and enduring? There is no crash because there’s nothing left to be broken into and fleeced.
Competency implies having some qualification other than loyalty, listening to subject matter experts, considering consequences. The result of competency could easily be just a matter of degree and awareness.
For example, tariffs can be a powerful tool for addressing specific trade inequities or supporting local production, especially in conjunction with other tools. Many US administrations have successfully used them. Only an incompetent buffoon would just throw them down everywhere all at once as the only tool, or as a bullying tactic.
wealth inequality worse than the French revolution
When the creator of the Revolutions podcast was asked about the one theme that follows every revolution, he said that it was wealth inequality.
If I remember correctly, the French revolution had three major elements that kicked it off the way it did: huge wealth inequality, a major event that hits the lower classes (in this case a drought that destroyed lots of crops and therefore caused a wheat shortage), and incompetent leadership that is unable to deal with said event. Looks like the US is getting there, step by step.
Slapping on tariffs at a time with inflation, high consumer anxiety, and wage stagnation is going to be looked on as one of the worst moves a president has made.
He is, without a doubt, the worst and second worst president in the country’s entire history.
Trump: “Ah, but you have heard of me!”
FAKE NEWS TDS, TRUMP IS OUR LAWD N SAVIOR, HE HAS RISEN AND REPLACED JESUS CHRIST. /s
He rose from the dead? I knew something about him seemed zombie like. The dead eyes and awkward hand motions gives it away.
Um, dude we’re not just talking about any normal man, we’re talking about Our Lawd N Savior Convicted Felon Donald J Trump. He didn’t just rise from the dead, he made his own bible.
Praise be his hypocritical name. In the name of the racism, the grift, and the holy crime, amen.
Amen in the name of the bigT
We can only hope! (That this is considered one of the worst ones…)
ye best start believin in economic depression, yer in one!
And I just found out I need a new job as we are being ordered into the office after they moved it 50 miles away.
Things are not looking good. I think they will hit us with another round of redundancies after some people leave too.
That’s scary. How are you holding up?
Scrolling through indeed right now, its not great. Maybe just give up trying to find anything I have skills for and find something unskilled?
But I think my contract states once a month in the office so if I can argue that its probably worth staying and just going through a shit commute once a month. Still not great but probably slightly better than taking a local retail job.
other jobs weve been hearing 3-5 days mandatory a week.
3-5 days and I would look to quit without even working my notice period.
All we gotta do is
trickconvince some company to hire us as CEO. Get paid millions more than the employees and do nothing! Sounds like my kind of gig.Yes it’s rough mate, I hope it picks up soon
If they force your hand, file for UI.
I’ve been WFH since Covid forced it, but then a year ago the promised us WFH full time was here to stay and only those that needed or wanted to be in the office could. They downsized buildings and everything. Nice!
They just told us we all had to be back in the office in a month. There isn’t enough offices, not enough parking, we’ve blown away all the productivity metrics at home, half the company is out of state. But, uh, REASONS! We must have butts in THIS specific chair or work doesn’t count.
There is literally no valid reason to force it. I think it’s all about control and power. They really don’t care about productivity or employee satisfaction at all, they just want to force everyone to comply. If they wanted either of those other things we’ve proved what works.
I hate it. It feels like the dumb “open office” fad all over again. Let’s cram 200 people into a single giant open noisy room. Employees HATED it. Managers all gloated how innovative they were. Then it faded away again as they all slowly accepted that no one gets anything done in that chaotic environment.
So too with office vs home. We live in a digital age. The computer age. The internet age. Long gone is the age of work being done by shaking hands and looking at a binder of papers. It’s an email, zoom call and a pdf now. Accept it.
In a weird way I’m actually looking forward to my company all going back with 0 coherent plan and not enough parking or desks and then I’ll giggle as productivity and morale absolutely tanks.
It’s also very likely they know a certain % will quit over it and do it on purpose to lay off without having to. The only problem is that all the most experienced and qualified people leave first.
Companies have had 5 years to accept reality, sell off the MASSIVELY expensive offices and stay fully remote where possible, but no, I think they want control over profits. They want to FEEL like they are managing instead of actually managing.
constructive dismissial, create a situation where it becomes untenable to stay at your job, eg far away location limit office space, so people resign. seems like it has been ogoing since '23. one of my bros was in tech, they just got impatient and straight up laid people off at the mid size tech company, gotta gid rid of people who are earning 200-400k/year to record profits. he hasnt found another job yet, and i detect a distinct hint of a late 30s life crisis too.
Oh I absolutely expect morale to tank. We barely have parking at all, the office is large enough for about 25% of the company, the parking is enough for 5% of the seats in the office.
I am hoping I can get it down to once a month, at that point its no worse than commuting into town for retail every day as far as total commuting time each month. The pay I get is barely over minimum wage so that is hardly a benefit compared to retail. Full WFH is pretty much the only benefit that is worth anything.
Then at once a month hopefully avoid coming in for a few of them. Plan holiday for the days we were going to be in, that kind of thing.
Yeah, honestly once a month isn’t that bad. Annoying because you MUST do it, but like you said, not so bad. I’ve done once a week and it feels ok ish. Like, I can’t get ANYTHING done in the office anymore. It’s too distracting, too many meetings, and as opposed to being at home, I now have to commute, get lunch, etc. And when in meetings in person you can’t really keep working, but a zoom call, yeah I can get half my work done while sitting through all the meetings all day, but not now and I’m not about to go into unpaid overtime to make up their awful decision. And I’m not going to log on early or stay late either. Done with all that. You get your 8 hours, no more now. So I’m sorta looking forward to sitting around in meetings all day discussing all the things we could be working on.
That would be hilarious if you took PTO that 1 day every month. Amazing. Come in like, one time per year just to make a point that you didn’t skip them ALL. Hahaha.
Honestly though, if your pay isn’t that great keep looking and bail asap.
its called constructive dismissal learn that when they were doing the very first round of layoffs in '23, from reddit.
You will own nothing, live in the company town, owe your soul to the company store, and be grateful.
And that’s different from now, how exactly?
What I am saying is that IS now. Next up, rats and maggots on the menu.
It’s in the making since 1971
More of a slow collapse than a crash. Ever seen a dilapidated house on a country road, parts of the roof caving in, paint chipped, vines covering the yard? We’re working on being that house by slowly letting social and physical infrastructure in the US collapse over time.
my parents house is like that, lol dad getten older and is too lazy to do anything, he keeps hoping something will magically happen.
Florida is already the rusty old car on blocks in the front yard.
with hurricanes washing away homes that are built on flood prone areas too.
The US could poke along forever, North Korea style because our entire country is full of cowards who will just take oppression without any fight.
…the climate, tho. 😬
What you’re describing is basically stagflation. It doesn’t necessarily mean a crash. It’s possible for the majority of people to keep on earning less and less real income for a long time without a crash.
I do wonder what the effect of all the layoffs from tech and the public sector and all the cuts in federal funding will do though. Dunno if that’s enough to flood the housing market and crash it or not. I think I’ve read that banks are in a good position to absorb housing market losses, so it won’t be like 2008.
AFAIK, most current economic indicators are OK. Not necessarily great, but not dire either.
The stock market makes no sense to me. It doesn’t appear most stocks move on the fundamentals of the companies or anything like that. It all appears to be driven by hype/gambling, and propped up from sustained lows by 401ks on auto-pilot and people trained to “buy the dip” by the quick Covid recovery.
The USD appears to be rapidly losing a lot of value compared to other currencies like the EUR. But, that fits well into the plan to reduce imports and boost US exports. Inflation with stagnant wages makes US exports more attractive/cheaper.
The stock market makes no sense to me.
That’s because “The market can remain irrational longer than you can remain solvent.”
Could the housing market crash independently? Or would it be always with the other markets?
Isnt a crash in the housing market a good thing for the average person?
The crisis happened because everyone got credits to buy a house, even if they shouldnt, and banks made money by betting against them ever paying it back. This caused a huge bubble that had to burst.
It was more a housing-credit crash than anything else.
Sure, it’s bad for people wanting to sell their house to make profits, but it’s good for people that want to buy a house.
Only if there’s laws in place to keep the ultra rich from buying up multiple properties, otherwise it’s just an opportunity for people to keep hording homes to rent out.
That’s exactly what happens; crisis capitalism wherein the upper wealth layer scoops up assets for pennies on the dollar, which it then uses to extort more wealth from the less advantaged. So even when the greater economy “turns around,” there are more people who have less access to the mechanisms that have historically allowed upward economic mobility.
The 2008 financial crisis is a perfect example, and much of what we are still suffering today stems from that manufactured catastrophe. Ultimately, none of the perpetrators were held accountable, while wealth simply flowed upward, concentrating even further at the top, while the average American has seen almost none of the benefits of our productivity growth, 17 years later. Big businesses, on the other hand, had nearly 14 years of open purse monetary policy from the Fed, and could therefore operate on nearly free debt. This long period of finance junkyism has created a capability trap of today, where most businesses don’t actually have many capabilities, ie don’t produce, service, or generate any real commerce, AND largely refuse to invest in their employees or business functions, which is why we have been gliding downward in a spiral of enshitification and massive inflationary pressure.
Ultimately, the “good jobs” of yesteryear have been dismantled through outsourcing, arbitrary job requirements, collapsing white collar work, and decades of demonizing trades and union busting, while further roadblocks have been erected through insane education costs and a dearth of the “starter homes” that Boomers used 50 years ago to launch themselves in financial prosperity. They promptly pulled up the very ladders they climbed afterwards, ensuring no successive generations would be able to participate. Boomers mortgaged their children and children’s children’s futures for their own well-being. Which has continued to today.
Its the 1% vs the proletariat. Not generation vs generation.
Not that this means you’re wrong.
