No Recovery in Sight

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/27/opinion/27herbert.html?_r=3

by winanga • 17 years ago

20 10 17 years ago

bwd• 17 years ago

I've been kind of worried about this for a while. Week economic conditions place selection pressure on companies to learn to do more with less, and technology steadily improves the tools that are available to reach that goal. When the economy starts to turn around these companies may not need to hire more workers to meet rising demand. The recovery from the recession was called "jobless" and I suspect that this one will be even worse.

ardit33• 17 years ago

My company shut down two weeks ago (with little drama), and I was back in the job market. I got three jobs offers within two weeks, all with a significant raise what I was making, and one "name your price" type of offer.

If you are a really good engineer with special skills, there is no recession for you.

If all you did is some php app, or some bug fixing here and there (mediocre engineer in a big corp), then you probably gonna have trouble finding a job.

It is a skilled based economy right now, and people with skills either find jobs right away, or just start their own companies.

miked• 17 years ago

"The first step in dealing with a crisis is to recognize that it exists."

The rest of Bob Herbert's article is just as insightful.

jackmoore• 17 years ago

As if the topic wasn't scary enough, they mixed up Bob Herbert's photo with that of Frankenstein.

johnohara• 17 years ago

What does it mean, he asked, when kids are under stress because there is no money in the household, or people have to move more, or are combining households, or lose their health insurance? I believe this is going to leave a permanent scar on a generation of kids.

I've believed for quite some time that the current generation of kids is closer in thought and deed to their grandparents than to their parents. Circumstances are increasingly showing that to be true.

RobGR2• 17 years ago

My observations agree with yours. I have noticed that many of my age group (late 20s to early thirties) seem to be more socially conservative, especially with regards to divorce, sex, and drugs (but more accepting of homosexuality and especially race than the older friends).

In particular I have noticed on an anecdotal basis that the children of divorced parents marry later and more cautiously.

Most of the fiscal old-fasionedness is in males who feel unsure of their careers, which jives with Herbert's observations on gender.

aharrison2• 17 years ago

The economy can’t be re-established on a sound basis without aggressive efforts to put people back to work in jobs with decent wages.

As a college student who will be in the job market before too long, I have been keeping a decently close eye on these economic recession stories. Time and again people have claimed for strong measures, aggressive efforts, and assertive changes. Never have I seen an actual recommendation. Is it just common knowledge what should be done? Bob Herbert says "decent wages" like it is a commonly understood legal term...but what is the market value of their labor? I am not asking this as a free-market capitalist libertarian devotee, but more from the perspective of "Ok, so what do you want [me|theGovernment|bigCorp] to do?"

Also, why the hell don't journalists cite sources? "...and most analysts now expect it [unemployment] to hit 10 percent or higher." Says whom? How many is "most"? Why is it they get away with this?

gojomo• 17 years ago

The vagueness and hand-waving here is frustrating... but as a once-upon-a-time op-ed columnist, I understand why Herbert's pieces are intermittently weak.

Op-ed writers only have about 800 words to try to make a point or two. So the concrete suggestions and detailed citations are often thin, as a matter of the form.

And they may have to write to exactly that word budget (as here with Herbert) on schedule twice a week. He can't tell his editor, "I've only got 600 words today", or "Here's 1200 words you can run a day early." So sometimes they've got more to say than fits, and other times have to stretch half-thoughts as filler.

This one is 804 words, and seems worse than most such columns in its generalities. I wouldn't be surprised, though, if it's just an initial 'expression of concern' that gets followed up with his pet recommendations in future columns. (The same clockwork word budget that hurts the form in some ways helps in others -- no one column should be thought of as standing completely apart from the series, even though it may get forwarded that way.)

Still, blogs are rightly crushing this op-ed form. Blogs give greater flexibility of pace, size, interactivity, citation-via-linking, etc. -- meaning smarter, deeper discussion.

aharrison2• 17 years ago

Thank you for your perspective on the matter. I had assumed something along those lines, but it is still frustrating to see someone making an argument as important as this without two fundamental parts:

1. Data to back the argument up.

2. Some recommendation.

Which reminds me: does anyone, anywhere, actually have a recommendation? I know the HN crowd would say "start a million startups!" but realistically, what can we as a society do?

No Recovery in Sight

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