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“You Could Power The Globe With The Hatred I Have”: 30 Things About Recessions Many Don’t Realize
If your birth year starts with a nineteen-eighty or a number lower than that, you probably still remember The Great Recession causing havoc on the world’s economies from 2007 to 2009. It’s not hard to see why—events like this usually have an effect that’s difficult to forget.
But those who did not live through the difficult time—or were too little to understand or care much about it—might not know just how terrible it can get. That’s because some things can only be fully grasped when they happen, as was the case with the impact of The Great Recession.
One member of the ‘Ask Reddit’ community recently started a discussion on the less-than-cheerful topic, asking what is something about a recession that can only truly be comprehended after it happens. A number of netizens shared their two cents on the topic, compiling quite an extensive list of things that might happen. If you want to learn more about them, scroll down to find the Redditors’ answers on the list below.
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#1
Seeing your friends and coworkers be pulled into the corner meeting room by HR, only to emerge 10 minutes later with a 1000 yard stare as they grab a box and putting their pictures of their kids, plants, and other stuff into it.
If you have any empathy, you feel terrible that their entire life just got abruptly changed in a blink of an eye. And if you have any self-awareness, you then instantly realize how precariously close you are to it being your turn.
A deep recession like 2008 is miserable, so you could power the globe with the hatred I have right now for everyone involved with, or are cheering on, intentionally pushing us off an economic cliff.
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#2
That the only way out of it and the only way to end it is to quickly and thoroughly get democrats back in control.
You can look at the historical record on this going back to the Great Depression, every recession aside from a mini one with Carter began under republican rule and was then fixed with democrat regulation.
There’s a trend now on TikTok of genz asking millennials how they got through the Bush Jr recession, know what we did?..we f*****g ended it by voting for Obama. We didn’t blather on about the lesser evil, we showed up and voted.
R Ferreira 4 days ago
It's amazing how the Americans can't look for or vote for a third option.
#3
Some people lives will be ruined and they will never recover, just because they were an unlucky one. They will see no mercy, and always be told it was their own fault, that they lost everything, despite doing everything they were supposed to.
keyboardtek 4 days ago
The number one common denominator of all dictatorships is that the dictator steals a huge amount of money from the tax coffers and the majority of the population remains poor. That is Trump's and the Republican party's objective.
#4
How quickly your average family can go from feeling like a secure middle class family to being absolutely destitute. It takes most people about a month.
#5
That many people will be brainwashed into blaming everybody for their lot in life except the people actually causing it.
#6
People lose their jobs, sure. You expect that. But people lose their homes too. And some of those people have no safety net, nowhere else to go. Those people wind up maybe living in their car, or at a shelter, or worse. And it's because of policy choices by elected officials somewhere.
#7
America is so afraid of socialism that we will let families with children be homeless. In Vegas, the tunnels were full of families. Also, so many pets were homeless. We had roaming cat gangs who had feral kittens.
#8
How quickly a micro business that you’ve spent years building can disappear.
#9
The 2008 recession was interesting for me because I was young and poor, but had a ton of older wealthy clients at work. I couldn’t believe how many of them went from extreme wealth to losing everything. No amount of money made them untouchable. One of my clients took his own life when he lost everything. I remember being in constant fear that the business I worked for would go under because eventually there was almost no clients coming in. I think you can’t grasp the magnitude of fear and loss during that time unless you were old enough to really experience it.
#10
The jobs are just gone.
Like, not the jobs you're qualified for and generally work in are gone, that can happen pretty much anytime, but like there are *no job openings anywhere.*
As a result, a lot of migration happens. People move around looking for jobs, or they move places where their money will go further.
#11
I’m more interested to know what an economic boom is like, feels like I’ve seen nothing but recession all my working life.
Foxglove🇮🇪 3 days ago
Unfortunately, even in a booming economy, it is those who have most that gain most. Those in low and middle incomes don't get much more than crumbs, though sometimes the crumbs go further.
#12
I hope you love your job, because if you don’t get laid off, you’re going to be working there for many more years with no raises and no new job prospects on the horizon.
#13
Showing up to test for a single county job that pays $12/hour with 500 other people who passed the initial screening.
#14
That people can do everything “right”. Have more than the suggested amounts in the bank, be debt free, and be at the wrong place at the wrong time and end up bankrupt and homeless without having done anything wrong. Just one failure *around* them, a business, a bank, a job, a medical emergency, and it can all come crashing down and burn through any prep you may have done.
#15
How ruthless some people will be in taking what they want from others.
And how close some communities will become when facing a common adversity.
Michael Largey 3 days ago
The first sentence describes a cause of recessions, not a result. That common adversity communities will identify will be a scapegoat chosen out of their own ignorance and bigotry.
#16
How slow it starts, and then how fast it cascades.
Geoffrey Scott 4 days ago
Look at purchases like boats, snowmobiles, ATV's, if they are way off, it's coming. Excellent indicators for past downturns. Arctic Cat (snowmobiles) shutting down lots of production right now.
#17
Won’t have a friendly government, will have significantly more sovereign debt, and won’t have allies. Foreign countries had a significant impact on stabilizing the US.
If this continues and we hit a recession, it’s likely going to be so much worse.
#18
That everything about work sucks more during a recession even if you keep your job. People will get fired or laid off and you’ll wonder if you’re next. Managers will get more persnickety about things like utilization rate (hassling you for every hour that you can’t bill directly to clients), deepening the anxiety. Raises will be trimmed.
There will be fewer openings so even as work sucks more, there are fewer off ramps, and more competition (lower wage). Because of various factors (employers inquiring after past compensation, lower confidence and risk taking), your wages may be depressed for the rest of your career.
Oh! And there may a dearth of personnel at a particular level of experience in your field forever (because companies didn’t hire junior staff during the recession). This is a big problem in civil engineering.
Years later, all the smartypantses will tell you you missed the best opportunity to buy (because you didn’t have cash).
Hoi-Polloi 3 days ago
The smartypantses aren't wrong... if you do have any cash, down markets are the right time.
#19
There’s a lot of “antiwork” style content on Reddit. If we hit a recession, and unemployment skyrockets, a lot of people are going to see just how much worse that can get. A lot of people who weren’t alive in 2008 don’t know the leverage the recent low unemployment numbers had given folks. And the Great Recession happened under Obama, who pushed for consumer and labor protections. Now it will be under Trump, who is completely gutting OSHA, the NLRB and the CFPB.
They’ll be some states allowing some INSANE labor practices. Imagine what employers will get people to agree to, when the unemployment rate has doubled and it’s legal to replace workers on the factory floor with literal children.
geezeronthehill 3 days ago
I'm firmly convinced that president Obama saved the country from spiraling down into a deep depression. He is possibly our greatest president since Roosevelt. FDR recovered us from Hoover's tariffs. The big rump's big idea? Tariffs and inflation.
#20
In 2008, my husband lost his family’s decades old construction business. He couldn’t even get a bag boy job for a few years. Unemployment was $275 a week. I took on 2 jobs (nursing) so we didn’t lose our house. His credit is still messed up as he borrowed from personal credit cards to make payroll and pay for supplies. Families up and down our block lost homes. No one was in any restaurant or store. No one bought a home or car. So scary.
#21
You are not going to f*****g believe how hard it's going to be to get a job. Hardly anyone will be hiring, for years on end. On the rare occasion that someone can't avoid hiring, you're gonna be looking at 500 applicants for one empty position. You won't be able to get a gig at McDonald's, because they can get someone with 20 years experience with fully open availability who will work for less than you.
#22
Companies will use it as an excuse long after it’s over to give paltry raises & bonuses, giving a line that you’re lucky to get anything at all.
#23
The sheer amount of redundancies. I remember the 08 recession, all the older and middle aged people that were let go from their jobs started taking anything just to pay their mortgage / bills. A lot of them started working at McDonalds etc. Younger or inexperienced people literally had nowhere to work because everything shifted from the top downwards. It was sad to see on both sides tbh.
April Pickett 4 days ago
If they're letting lower-level folks go, I'm happy that some companies are also reducing their management people as redundant. If you're letting all the staff go, why is management needed?
#24
It's temporary for the lucky, permanent for the many.
Geoffrey Scott 4 days ago
I've been laid off for 3 months a couple times over 40 years, but by and large we have had VERY good timing.
#25
In knowledge fields, which is a lot of the USA right how, two groups get really f****d during a recession: those entering the workforce and those about to exit.
The new workers with no experience are outcompeted by those who have experience. An experienced worker is dollar for dollar more effective.
The old workers have the most pay and are easy cost-cutting targets because they were a few years from retirement anyway. They also are now needing to use a pension that may be tied up in the market, but aren't yet able to collect social security.
Those in the middle get a different kind of s**t, they only end up doing the work of the other two groups with no raise or advancements in sight.
Geoffrey Scott 4 days ago
One 'bright spot' for the olders, is unemployment, which depending on how long and deep it lasts can be extended.
#26
The constant unending, 24/7 stress of it all. If you keep your job, you're stressed every minute about losing it. If you lose your job, you're constanlty trying to find a job that isn't there. You can't even get hired at Burger King. One obviously sucks worse than the other, but either way, you are at high alert for months on end and it is exhausting.
#27
I'm an economics major, and people always ask me why they cant just get rich buying cheap equity during a recession. The truth is, most of us will need every dollar possible to keep our lives going. Buying stocks isn't really an option when you're living pay-cheque to pay-cheque.
#28
People will argue endlessly for the entirety of the recession whether we are actually/still in the recession.
Michael Largey 3 days ago
It's easy to identify. It's an economic downturn if my neighbor loses his job. It's a recession if a family member loses his job. It's a depression if I lose my job.
#29
The way all the things you appreciate about where you live disappear, to be replaced by empty buildings or corporate chains. The nonprofits, the friendly neighborhood joints, all gone. It really destroys the soul of a place. .
#30
I ve been through a few. The one in 2008 was the hardest. My husband lost his job and didn’t get another one for 6 months. He applied everywhere. You will learn what you can live without. Start looking at your expenditures today and stop spending money where you can. Cut off services and pay off credit cards and whatever bills you can. You can live with a lot less than you think you can. It’s about to get really bad I fear and you need to take a long hard look at where you spend your money. .
What do you think ?
Captain Kakapo 4 days ago
what none of commentors mentioned and what they probably missing is that calling 08 recession great is not fair, it was far from great, you will see greater
Lee Gilliland 4 days ago
How isolating recession can be. No money to go out, no money to see friends, no entertainment because it's expensive, and no everyday casual hanging anywhere but your own homes.
Sandy Jones 4 days ago
I'm an electronic engineering technician. When recession hits, all the people with degrees ( IT, network admin, electrical engineers) want my job.
Captain Kakapo 4 days ago
what none of commentors mentioned and what they probably missing is that calling 08 recession great is not fair, it was far from great, you will see greater
Lee Gilliland 4 days ago
How isolating recession can be. No money to go out, no money to see friends, no entertainment because it's expensive, and no everyday casual hanging anywhere but your own homes.
Sandy Jones 4 days ago
I'm an electronic engineering technician. When recession hits, all the people with degrees ( IT, network admin, electrical engineers) want my job.
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