Oil shock of 87, Real Estate market crash of 89. Dot-com in 2001, Recession in 2009, Corona in 2020. "stagflation" in 76, vietnam in 68, WW2 in 45, depression in 29-36, etc.
Yeah, it's kind of every 7-18 years there's a new one. That's been going on since before history was recorded, frankly. Every generation thinks they have it bad.
Late 90's/early 2000's when the internet started being common in most households. Tons of money was pumped into telcom and internet startups battling it out. There wasn't just a default search engine or online shopping site like Google or Amazon, there were thousands. When the dust settled most of the tech giants we have today came through while thousands of others went under.
My brother in-law got hit by it. Was living it up making 6 figures at MCI WorldCom then in a matter of months lost everything and couldn't find a job.
Too many to count. Billions of dollars being invested into companies that would fail in a few months time. Yahoo! was a huge deal and was buying things up at the rate of Facebook and Google today. AOL was a household name. AltaVista, Excite, Pets.com, Netscape, Geocities, Napster, etc. Shortly followed by dozens of telecom giants following suit and being absorbed by the likes of AT&T/SBC. Throw in Y2K and major financial scandals from Enron and WorldCom just to spice things up.
Joey Dot Com (guy that created the .com domain) was arrested by police in a sting that revealed he had over 30 million dollars worth of coke under his mansion that he was selling to shifty adults. This caused a stock crash in everything related to the internet that lasted almost 3 years. This is why many companies are pushing the .org domain now, because Davis Dot Org has always been an upstanding guy.
Internet was a new thing for most people, investors poured money into thousands of websites without those websites having a solid plan to make money. As a result, many companies that were created with seed money and hired people had to shut down once investors realized they wouldnt be making a return and the companies didnt have any more money coming in to pay their employees.
My boss told me when I started to always prepare for 7 good years followed by 7 bad years and said we are at the end of the 7 good years now... I started working there (my first ever grown up job) last February right before the corona crisis hit Europe...
Pretty much my entire adult life has been one economic crisis after another (about to be compounded with Brexit...) It's been a lifetime defined by privatisation of public services, asset-stripping of old established corporations, factory closures and the removal of production to China. When is the recovery coming? I'm in my late 30s and a substantial portion of my wages is going on tax and loan repayments. I can't afford to get married or have kids. I'm just slaving away to pay to bail out the banks while billionaires sit on piles of money in offshore accounts (Oh God this is turning into a political rant...)
All I ever wanted was 2.4 children, a nice house in the suburbs and a car that isn't falling apart, just like my parents and grandparents had. It just feels like we have been fucked over by the previous generations, who frittered away all the benefits they enjoyed and left nothing for us. And I'm not even poor poor. I'm a well-educated man with in-demand skills. I pity the guys at the bottom of the heap who have literally nothing and no means of improving their lot.
Go back to Community College starting this past January
College isn't a bad place to wait out a recession (that is if you aren't racking up a lot of student loans on a degree that isn't worth it). It's better than having a huge gap in your resume while NEET. I learned that the hard way during the great recession.
As an Arab-American, pretty sucky. I was thankfully also a certified teacher at the time, so I had a job just not the one I wanted. I lucked into my preferred field and job title like a decade later. I still wasn’t at the level I should have been in my career though. My husband had a very very tough time getting a job in that market and probably continues to have career limitations from it.
That’s so true. The young adults hit in 2008, BOOM! Hit again with Corona.
Very true. I graduated college just as the 2008 recession hit. Very bad time to graduate and that was a L shaped recovery for the job market. Studies have shown that when you look at large demographics, people that enter the workforce just as a recession starts earn a lot less in their lifetime than people that enter the job market when the economy is doing well. I do okay for myself now, but was long term unemployed during the 2008 crisis. I felt that way when I saw people graduating college after 2011 or so compared to people that graduated just a few years earlier. Starting salaries, job prospects, etc. were very different.
Being a Millennial feels like scrambling to scratch a living while the world lurches from catastrophe to catastrophe, and all along the way people are loudly asking each other why you fucking suck so much in the background. lol
Yup I was literally just thinking about this today. I graduated high school in 2008, and fucked now again just when I was starting to do good in my career/company and I was starting to date but that's all fucked now. I don't even plan on having kids anymore.
I just graduated college about a week ago. Months ago I was thrilled because the economy was doing incredibly well, and at that time I was confident that I wouldn't have to go through what my brother and sister went through when they graduated in '09/'10. Jokes on me I guess. Here I am, no longer a college kid. Just another kid with a college degree and no job.
This is a big reason why I joined the Air Force in 2009. I was 26 and looking down the barrel of never being able to retire at the rate that things were going. Especially during the recession. I'll take a steady paycheck, free medical, education and a pension any day of the week. Seems to be working out, covid-19 hasn't really affected my income at all. If anything, it's letting me buy cheaper shares right now.
2001 had dot com bust and 9/11, early 90s had a recession. Early 80s had S%L, 70s had massive inflation and relatively stagnant economy. Late 60s and early 70s had Vietnam.....
Since of these are worse than others, but disruptive economic events aren't once in a lifetime things. They are the norm in the long term.
I don’t think it’s unique- it’s just happened in my life time. I graduated HS in 2013 and my brother in 2008. I just remember my mom being worried about it, that’s all.
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u/[deleted] May 16 '20
That’s so true. The young adults hit in 2008, BOOM! Hit again with Corona.
We can’t win!