I'm not sure how bad it will be, but I'm just tired. I'm tired of living through "once in a life time events" every decade or less.

I'm tired of the world insisting that every company must be growing in order to be valuable, and then when growth stagnates, people ditch it to cause massive losses.

Can we not just have moderate success? Can we create a system that doesn't self implode every so often? Can we create a system where making money at all costs (including the decimation of the planet, the wage-slave workforce, and the engorging and toppling of governments through cronyism) isn't the the default?

I have to remember that people are _generally_ good. I have faith in the next generation of leaders, thinkers, and doers. What will happen will happen, but I have hope that the youth who have seen wave after wave of "being at the brink" might be able to create a system where this isn't the norm.

That's a ramble, sorry. But it's just what I'm feeling. I have to ride this wave, take care of my partner and children, do what I can for others, and hope it ends soon.

> Can we not just have moderate success?

Step outside of the news and step outside of cutting-edge tech companies and moderate success is basically the norm. There are many companies out there that are chugging along, doing okay but not really shooting for the moon. They're not making headlines or coming across your social media feeds as the hottest companies around, though, so you're not going to see them unless you go looking.

The catch, of course, is that the average moderately successful company pays a lot less than the average high-growth startup company. You might find that you're less pressured, of course, so it's not exactly unfair. However, many of us are drawn to high-paying companies, and high-paying companies generally correlate strongly with high-growth expectations.

IME the vast majority of startups actually pay terribly, because they can lure a bunch of inexperienced people in with the prospect of making buck in the longer term. I'm sure there are startups which pay well, but I suspect they are a small minority, working on things which are even less likely than normal to become a unicorn.

I don’t think the above commenter was referring to startups. It’s very easy to fall into the though that all tech companies are either FAANGS, Unicorns or Startups.

The vast majority of tech companies are ones you’ve probably never heard of. They don’t pay spectacularly like the SV shops but they don’t underpay either.

I currently work for an digital agency in Ohio. You probably have never heard of them and you likely never will. They don’t make headlines but they’ve chugged along for over a decade, making a healthy business out of building applications for local companies in Ohio as well as some larger companies you have definitely heard of.

Companies like these are the majority, but you never hear about them because the media is focused on a few select companies, mostly consumer tech, that everyone’s heard of and generate headlines.

> Can we not just have moderate success?

Sure, but Hacker News is a strange place to lament about that.

The country is full of exactly what you're looking for. Go work in an IT department in a medium size business, or a non-profit. Join a consulting group that does software development outside a major metropolitan area. Join a software company that's been around for 20-30 years running the same product. Join the software development team at a company who focuses on the development of their internal proprietary applications.

(I'm not insulting these place. I spent half my career at them. There's nothing wrong with them. They're just different. And they tend not to have the focus on growth.)

There's a lot of companies doing exactly what you want. They just don't make the headlines. And they're definitely not talked about on Hacker News. It's a bit like vegetarian showing up at a steakhouse & acting surprised.

Hang on, what mid-sized independent software companies have been around with the same corporate ownership since 1992?

In today's world of corporate growth via acquisition, having a modestly successful job with a modestly successful mid-sized company in no way insulates you from the economic forces of the outside world.

Legitimate modest success tends to result either in a series of endless acquisitions where a mid-size business gets absorbed into incrementally larger businesses time after time - or where the business gets acquired by one of the larger, monolithic players in the industry. With any acquisition, restructurings, layoffs and product changes have substantial impact on those moderately successful staffers.

Alternately, stagnation or modest decline typically results in vulnerability to market forces which results again in a buyout by another player in the market, or a buyout by a private equity group who cuts costs, lays off staff, and tries to leverage whatever assets they can to maximize their return at the expense of the business itself. The effects on the staffers are even worse.

Sure, you can find a boring, moderately successful job for yourself. It may last 5, even 10 years. But the days of being able to have a modestly successful, boring job with the same company for 30 years appear to be completely gone.

Great point. That said, I read the OP as complaining about the boom-bustiness of the world and modern life in general for everyone, not limiting the perspective to just one's employment, nor limited just to the perspective of if one is a software engineer. A stable job helps a lot but does not totally insulate you.

I'm tired of seeing the people who caused the 2008 financial crisis not going to prison, and things like the Mossack Fonseca leaked panama papers being a hot news item for maybe a few days and then disappearing.

There is so much to be tired from. Lots of stuff repeats itself over and over again and nothing (seemingly) ever changes. Only yesterday the mass shooting in Texas. I'm not a US citizen, but every time I wonder how many times more do US people need to suffer before finally changing 'something'. I'm not in for a political discussion about a solution, but it should be obvious that there is a problem. No other country has this problem (on that scale). How many times more?

WHA8m says >" but it should be obvious that there is a problem."<

It being so "obvious", perhaps you could clearly state the problem. And then you might possibly also have a solution (as do so many commentators today)?

If you've studied complex social systems (e.g., the USA's socio-political environment) nothing is "obvious" about them and most "solutions" prove to be illusory.

-"Life is a bitch and then you die."

https://quoteinvestigator.com/2016/10/16/life-hard/

Dude, really?

The problem being that every 3 month there is a mass shooting with about 20 casualties. Including schools.

How about you also read the first part of the sentence you cited me on:

> I'm not in for a political discussion about a solution

I explicitly stated that I am not in for that. For the exact reason you want to blame me for. Maybe read more careful next time or put up a little more good will. Especially on a delicate topic like this.

You need to take a break from social media. You’re not even a US citizen but US news tires you?

I certainly don’t lose sleep over what happens in Australia for example.

I don't have social media (the big ones). I rarely read news papers. Nevertheless I don't miss bigger events. This is actually not about a specific event. You must have misunderstood me.

What's tiring (and turns people cynic) is, that even though a problem is visible for everyone to see, nothing ever (seemingly) changes. That seems like a universal behavior that can not only be seen in the US, but everywhere humans are involved.

Working class people suffer in every downturn. It is very difficult to break out of paycheck-to-paycheck when you’re working for $7.25 an hour. When I worked for minimum wage they still took out close to 30% so increased gas prices hurt (have to get to work to get money!) cars break down (can’t afford a reliable car because they’re more expensive) food is expensive (can’t afford to eat cheap and healthy because working all the time). God help you if you need medical care or get sick and miss work, or have an unexpected $500 expense. Or have an expensive vice like smoking or drinking.

If you’re trapped in that rut like tens of millions of people are in the US, a downturn hurts.

I’m currently not in that rut, but I count my blessings every day that I escaped and a feel for people who are.

Idk where you're from, but people are definitely struggling in the US relative to the system they're stuck in, and "first world problems" in its usual usage is not relevant in these regards.

Your comment reminded me of this handy chart regarding the developed world:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_violence_in_the_United_Sta...

Are you assuming that only those who have it worst can truly suffer?

Or are you in possession of the true meaning of the word 'suffer' and stand above us all to decide whether someone is suffering or not?

Without being actually affected by all this (not a US citizen), I can say that your comment is flawed either way.

CEO's learned to never put anything controversial on record. They imply to underlings dodgy requests so they can blame them later if bleep hits the fan.

> people are _generally_ good

People came up with the idea of good, being good is essentially acting in consensus with society therefore it is unsurprising that most people are good.

I think that people are generally neutral rather than good. Most of us conform to social norms and do what is expected of us and no more. It's a pretty severe lowering of the bar to consider that good in my opinion. We are neutral and generally motivated by harmless self interest for ourselves and families.

There are people who are genuinely good and almost without fail, they are people who have devoted their lives to helping others. Often they fly under the radar and aren't very well off. They don't make the news but you know one when you meet them and they have a huge impact on those around them.

There are also bad people, if you'll forgive the Marvel level depth of that proclamation. There are people who make the world worse, usually for their own benefit or entertainment.

Generally I think 95+% of people are neutral - just minding their own business. Is that virtuous, or just the minimum?

I lean towards thinking 15% of people are good 15% are bad and 70% are distributed somewhere in between but mostly follow the herd/social conventions.

I disagree. “Goodness”, which I think is more accurately “fairness” is an emergent behavior of social species. The idea of helping others who need it, wanting to be treated (roughly) equally by peers, and avoidance of doing things that hurts others (at least within a tribe) are all things that can be seen in more than just humans.

Maybe the idea of “goodness” is a layer on top of that, created by consciousness, but it’s not a completely invented thing by society just to make people conform.

It's just a mechanism to enable more efficient, larger scale cooperation to kill the folks next valley over who have the less efficient version.

Life is hard. That's just the plain truth.

But we have it much easier than previous generations. We've got better health, wonderful technology, more information than ever before. There's less poverty and less disease. Less racism. More empathy.

Consider the folks who were around for WWI. It was followed by a flu outbreak, huge stock market crash, Great Depression, then WWWII and Korean conflict.

Life is hard. But we don't have it so bad.

> Life is hard. But we don't have it so bad.

Life is relative. It's not an argument to say "yea but we're better than the Ancient Egyptians!" So what? That isn't meaningful.

Using World War 1 really tells. That was a century ago. No one is even alive from then anymore.

> Life is hard. But we don't have it so bad.

That doesn't mean that there aren't parties that are responsible for much of our current troubles - be it the state of the education/healthcare systems, the state of the housing market, the state of salaries/wages, environmental issues, human rights, as well as the ever growing trend of identity politics and a variety of other issues.

It is also not infeasible that these problems might have actionable solutions and that change for the better would actually be possible with lots of effort. Ergo, accepting things as they are because "it could be worse" isn't a valid stance that would motivate one for whatever actions are necessary to improve the world in whatever capacity possible - be it protests, exercising your rights to vote, or calling out problematic behavior.

We are in agreement, we should not just accept the status quo. We should vote, call out inequalities, strive for efficient government, etc. This is how we advanced from prior states to where we are today. We simply keep going, and keep improving.

The system works. (Maybe not as fast as we like sometimes, but it absolutely works.)

You're meant to live through a lot of "once in a life time events" every decade or less. There are many different "once in a life time events", and they are spread out throughout your entire life.

Rather misses the point of 3 once in a lifetime recessions in the space of 23 years.

What gave you the impression recessions only happen once in a lifetime?

More like once in a decade, and recent ones are substantially smaller than in previous centuries: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_recessions_in_the_Unit...

Current standard of living is predicated on 3-4% annual growth. All developed countries incur massive debts, hoping that, thanks to growth, it will not be hard to pay off 10-20 years into the future.One of the biggest component of this are state and public pensions. So yeah, we could live without constant high growth, but it would mean living within our means and not borrowing against the future. In practice, that would lower standard of living for everyone (not retiring to Florida etc.).

It is usually like < 1% of people causing all the destruction and mayhem using the apathy of the masses.

> I'm not sure how bad it will be, but I'm just tired. I'm tired of living through "once in a life time events" every decade or less.

Recessions aren’t once in a lifetime?

> I'm tired of the world insisting that every company must be growing in order to be valuable

They don’t. It’s just the growth companies don’t pay dividends

> and then when growth stagnates, people ditch it to cause massive losses.

Because it’s price is speculation on future profits which would create future dividends

> Can we not just have moderate success?

Yeah

> Can we create a system that doesn't self implode every so often?

Not really, but we can make the implosions less severe

> Can we create a system where making money at all costs (including the decimation of the planet, the wage-slave workforce, and the engorging and toppling of governments through cronyism) isn't the the default?

No

> I have to remember that people are _generally_ good. I have faith in the next generation of leaders, thinkers, and doers. What will happen will happen, but I have hope that the youth who have seen wave after wave of "being at the brink" might be able to create a system where this isn't the norm.

Seems dubious to me. We will do better on some select issues but mostly otherwise the same

“Recessions aren’t once in a lifetime?“

Depends on where you are. Parts of Latin America have been in an economic pit since the late 70s - I guess you could say “once in a lifetime” - for some people, their entire lifetimes have been spent in a state of economic crisis.

Yeah but for functioning economies, you can expect a recession every 10-20 years, with smaller corrections more often.

I remember the talk about "stagflation" in the 1970s, though I was too young to really understand it. The boom economy that started in the 1980s crashed in 2000. I remember that well as I lost my job. In 2008 I was working in the public sector and my employment was unaffected, I also didn't have any mortgages with stupid terms, and didn't need any of my retirement investments yet so I just rode that one out. So a recession in 2022, especially given the past two years, is maybe a bit early but not really surprising.

Not especially familiar but is it really a 50 year recession and not just stagnation

More economic and political seige and sabotage than anything that might be misconstrued as a "natural" economic fluctuation or condition.

Parts of Latin America have been specifically targeted by capitalist nations worried about the spread of South American influence on the neoliberal world order they control.

Amen. The continual hysteria about "growth" is goddamned annoying. Things can't grow forever. Can't they just make a healthy living?

Meanwhile, what the U.S. should be doing is ruthlessly cracking down on de facto monopolies and oligopolies that are ripping off Americans and making record profits, like meat... baby formula... and most of all TicketMaster.

This is all fundamentally driven by the Red Queen effect. If you focus on quality living, somebody else will just sprint a bit harder and destroy you.

This is supposed to be Free Enterprise's incentive to keep you competitive, i.e., you will lose it all if you don't keep your sprinting top notch. This is the nature of disruption. Look at what Uber did to the taxi industry (and the value of taxi medallions in NYC).

Oligarchies offer a way to buffer this effect, so that there can be several companies existing in an industry that slow-walk (disruptive) innovation and buy up competitors in their early stages. Hard to say how long an oligarchy can hold, though. Look at Intel & AMD, and how they're facing a serious test from ARM chips. Even further, what will the onset of Quantum Computing do to the market holds they have.

Free enterprise's nature as winner-take-all is what makes the difference here. Why was it that Friendster, Myspace, and Second Life could all co-exist, but when FaceBook came along they went defunct (mostly). In a more extreme example, consider robotics/AI and how it will replace humans. When robotic surgery is perfected, will 'manual' surgery even be considered 'safe' anymore?

Many of those same monopolies exist as a result of US agencies regulating companies in to non-existence. The ones the that you call monopolies happen to be the survivors.

From a geopolitical competitive lens, no.

All that would mean is a replacement of the world order and an even further degradation of quality of life.

When in history was what you're asking for possible for as long as you're asking for it?

Does not seem reasonable, tbh...

> people are _generally_ good

generally means they are average which means half of the people are even worse!

I think Australia is the option to take in that situation. The American Dream is to build something huge out of nothing, sell it for a billion dollars, and poorly compensate the non dreamers who worked hard to make it happen.

What does Australia mean to you? It's a whole country, a complex object, but you seem to use the word as though it has some obvious meaning in this context - that meaning isn't immediately apparent to me, as an Australian

Mostly the lifestyle in larger cities - Adelaide, Brisbane, Canberra, Melbourne, Perth, Sydney.

You still have a family unit, that's not too individualistic but also not too tribal. You have technological and military progression, and a fairly comfortable stable economy. You don't have to worry about billions of dollars in corruption or an aggressive president using nuclear weapons in negotiations. Nor are there the wars and tensions of the middle east or eastern Europe.

I left Australia a few years ago because it is rapidly becoming a highly corrupt police state. Chinese influence is rife. National security laws have legalised mass surveillance and undermined all sense of IT security and personal privacy. Major journalists have been raided without reasonable justification. Basic human rights ratified in the Geneva Conventions are no longer upheld such as the right to leave the country, or for citizens to return. The average person with 'moderate success' will struggle to even own a home, and the climate is very hot already; so I don't forecast much hope for high quality of life relative to other highly developed nations, especially for the HN demographic that cares about digital infrastructure. So I disagree in general, since Australia has its own fears to worry about

Yep as an Aussie, can confirm our various leadership's regressive slide into greed, corruption and loathing these past 10 years.

I've had several European co-workers express disbelief at the gross levels of corruption evident at all levels of large business and government (especially when the latter is buying something from the former and large sums are splashed about wastefully to line pockets of the pencil pushers).

Hopefully the recently elected new Labor-led coalition govt will follow up on their promise to implement anti-corruption trials of various members of the previous government, who were blatantly stealing taxpayer money, via their offshore Cayman Islands family trust accounts and similar.

After the recent election defeat, we now have an ex-cop opposition political leader who "somehow" is now worth $300 Million, not an inheritance, but most probably various corrupted kickbacks from giving out overly expensive contracts (it's been famously called "The Game of Mates"). And he is just one of dozens of obviously over-wealthy liars.

The list of people involved is huge at many levels, and I hope several of these people end up in jail, but the damage is already done (e.g. cancelled Fibre-to-the-Home rollout, and we already spent double the fibre costs to purchase Murdoch+Telstra copper cable instead, for only 1% the bandwidth capability).

Personal quality of life here can be excellent, especially if you earn 50% over the average wage, which is any 5+ years experience software developer role.

Just don't work for old bigbiz or govt if you want to avoid dealing with sleazy theiving weasels.

www.MichaelWest.com.au

and

"Friendly Jordies" (on YouTube)

are two of the best investigative journalists here, and helped sway the vote in the last election.

Change is coming and the exposed corruption will be a force for greater public accountability in the future (hopefully!)

Ah, wasn't aware of that. Last time I was in Australia was about 10 years back, so my perception could very well be wrong.

Sums it up pretty well actually. Life isn’t so easy in Australia anymore, I guess thats what happens when realestate has indebted the entire population. Personally, Id rather buy something in Europe for a fraction of the price, with more freedoms and liberties.

I recommend watching videos from juice media, funny and informative, showing corruption and shitfuckery in Australia - https://www.youtube.com/user/thejuicemedia/videos

This actually convinces me that things are great in Australia, if those are the worst issues.

We are truly the "lucky country" - even a derogatory term has been misunderstood by the general population as a compliment.

You can go a long way with incompetent leadership if you can dig stuff out of the ground and sell it.

> I'm tired of living through "once in a life time events" every decade or less.

The world is getting "smaller". An ever smaller group of people can create bigger chaos than they could in the past, be it hacking, 3D printed WMD's, or Tweeting hate. We have entered the Century of Trolls.

“Once in a lifetime events”

You’ve been misled. While the exact details may be once in a lifetime, expect world shaking events every 10ish or less years.

Sounds like you want regulation, comrade.

Are you now, or have you ever been... poor?

Think of the 20th century and people dealing with WWII and perpetual nuclear threat of the cold war? The world is too complex to be free of instability, free market capitalism makes it less so. Consider that developed democracies seldom fight with each other.

Modern societies seem incredibly averse to allowing recessions take their natural course these days.

There has been unprecedented money printing in tough times that doesn't revert to mean before the next economic crisis comes along. This results in huge misallocation of resources and a lot of long term negative consequences all to avoid short term pain.

At some point the developed governments on Earth will have their hand forced rather than playing god with the economic cycle.

"Avoiding short term pain at the cost of long term consequences" is the cause of most instances of civilizational collapse.

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/indiana-jones-collapsed-...

Yeah the world was just really stable and peaceful before capitalism came around.

The comment you're replying to didn't imply otherwise.

Saying that something exists in one system does not imply that it does not exist in no other system. At best, it implies it it does not exist in some other systems.

Eh, whatever.

I guess I could worry, but having been through enough of these "sky is falling" events I've mostly decided to just tune out. I think it was covid, or more specifically the wildfires during covid, that finally just broke me down into a "i no longer give a fuck" mindset.

Bad shit happens. I'll continue to be kind to others, and try to treat people the way I would want to be treated. Life will do what life is going to do.

I think this is the best approach. Turn off the news, delete social media, commit yourself to caring for those around you. You need to focus on the stuff within your sphere of influence, otherwise you'll drive yourself crazy. There are good and bad things happening to the 7+ billion people on this planet each day, there is no way we can have an emotional reaction to every event.

Edit to add: regarding the recession, talk to your supervisors and others in your company. Are layoffs actually likely? What is the outlook? You should only worry if your company specifically is in trouble. Even then, we are in a highly in-demand field, there is a good chance you'll find a new job if you focus on doing excellent work here and now (be so-good-they-can't-ignore-you, as it were).

Why does everyone say “turn off the news. Delete social media.” Kids are still being murdered, pandemics still pandemic, and the economy is still crapping its pants.

Kids getting murdered is absolutely horrible, we should all be mortified by that and looking for ways to help solve the problem.

But at some point it is worth acknowledging that prolonged anguish or anxiety about something bad isn't useful unless it leads to action (see sphere of influence). We can't stop all bad things from happening and they are happening continuously to people around the world -- we can't let that get in the way of improving the lives of ourselves and the people around us.

Because it's not your kids, you are not getting sick, you still have a job, etc.

Worst of all, you can't do anything about either of those

It may not be the right approach, but if you are suffering because of everyone else you should reconsider your priorities

The news and social media can cause tons of anxiety and stress when they consistently report on the many terrible things happening all of the time.

It doesn’t mean they’re not important, it’s just that it’s ok to take a break.

Sometimes people need that break from the eternal flow of news and social media so that their mental health isn’t impacted and so there is time to process what’s going on.

I agree! Commit yourself to caring for those around you. That’s the number one priority. Anger or disillusionment is not the answer. I wrote more about that here: https://moviewise.substack.com/p/a-vow-to-never-get-angry-ag...

Not at all. I cashed out of the few stocks I had when gas prices started going up (seen that pattern before). Never got into crypto. I work with boring technologies that are always critical to business and in demand: relational databases and system administration.

I lived through recessions since the ‘60s. The 2008 bust almost wiped me out but at least I stayed employed.

I worry about my kids, though.

This is the same mindset I have; that I'll probably be fine and that I just need to tune out the suffering of countless others I can do nothing about in order for me to live a happy life. But all I'm doing is ignoring it for a generation. My kids might be okay, but my grandkids might not.

Are you DCA'ing back in the market?

No. Playing video poker is more predictable and less rigged.

I'm not concerned about the finances. Recessions are when dictators rise around the world and democracies fall. That's the scary bit. People blame the current leadership and look toward what they perceive as "strong". Then they can't go back.

I am personally quite worried. The thing that worries me most is that our government (at least in Spain) would do anything in order to keep their power and maintain their high salaries at the expense of our lives. That involves increasing and creating more taxes everyday.

So it´s like living in the Titanic. Everybody knows it´s sinking and the government is just stealing from us (the passengers) in order to buy nicer lifeboats just for them, and paying the musicians (media, labor unions, allied parties...) to keep citizens still and quiet.

We are under an autocracy disguised as a "people´s party" that is bleeding us dry while many families are just drowning because of the high cost of living and unemployment.

Been through a couple of recessions. Have been at a couple of companies where an IT department shrank from hundreds to turn off the lights on your way out. We will all survive. Until the next bubble starts. What angers me more than anything is the blame game. Frankly what drove the stagflation of the 70s was the Arab Oil embargo because the oil producers were mad at US foreign policy. When China gets Covid under control and the price of oil stabilizes, we will be OK. It will take years to wean ourselves off Russian oil and gas though.

> We will all survive.

https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/news/press-releases/economic-do...

We absolutely will not. Economic catastrophe leads to misery and death for many.

I do not discount those who lost their jobs and never recovered. I personally know several middle aged men who lost all hope. I, nevertheless, believe that America is a great country and as a country we will all survive. Can we do better? Yes, we can.

The issue of economic boom and bust and the effect on people's lives, at its heart, I believe is a philosophical one. If you view it from the perspective economic libertarianism where government regulation is evil -- boom and bust cycles occur frequently. If you view it from the perspective of social justice and equality where government oversight of business is a necessary evil -- boom and bust cycles occur less frequently.

Saying you don't discount it isn't the same as not discounting it. Are we all going to survive, or aren't we? If we aren't then I don't think you should say it!

It's like those signs we saw so much of in the first covid year "we'll all get through this together." Well, a million of us didn't, did they not count as "us?"

I don't know your politics here and I'm not trying to pick an ideological fight. I just wish it was more routine for people to acknowledge the actual human costs of large scale events. Keeping hope alive is necessary, but a recession will kill people, so "at least no one will die" can't be the hope you provide here.

No not really.

I'm perhaps one of the odd HN users. I'm religious and don't really have too much attachment to material wealth.

I make decent money right now but there has been times in my life when I have been poor. I was born in a third world country and know what it's like to survive on little (it sucks but not as much as you think).

If I lose my entire fortune and life savings tomorrow, I'll be fine. I'll flip burgers, deliver pizza or wash cars if I have to (though I doubt the west will have such a massive crash, but who knows?).

My happiness doesn't derive from my comfortable clothes; it comes from being with my loved ones, especially my fiance.

I go to Mass regularly and volunteer at Church with her often. One thing that's been very important for us spiritually is willing the good of others (this is what love means in a Christian sense) and when you do this often enough, you stop putting so much emphasis on your salary, your iPhones and Macbooks.

I'm not saying this to come off as "morally superior" , au contraire, it's to simply share my experience; If it comes off that way, I apologize.

Finally, allow me to leave you with one of my favorite poems by Charles Bukowski.

"don't forget

there is always somebody or something

waiting for you,

something stronger, more intelligent,

more evil, more kind, more durable,

something bigger, something better,

something worse, something with

eyes like the tiger, jaws like the shark,

something crazier than crazy,

saner than sane,

there is always something or somebody

waiting for you

as you put on your shoes

or as you sleep

or as you empty a garbage can

or pet your cat

or brush your teeth

or celebrate a holiday

there is always somebody or something

waiting for you.

keep this fully in mind

so that when it happens

you will be as ready as possible.

meanwhile, a good day to

you

if you are still there.

I think that I am---

I just burnt my fingers on

this

cigarette."

> If I lose my entire fortune and life savings tomorrow, I'll be fine. I'll flip burgers, deliver pizza or wash cars if I have to

I only have a limited understanding of economics, but I have a feeling that you may be misunderstanding dynamics at play during a recession. If I get it right people would stop spending money for non-essential things, so no more burgers, pizza delivery, car washing, spending on hobby’s, holidays, etc. Jobs with lower wages and ones with lower requirements are likely to be the most impacted. Add to this that more people are desperate looking for anything to get some form of income, you’re now competing with way more people for your burger flipping position.

Doesn’t sound like a great plan. But again, I may be completely incorrect here.

Yup. I had the misfortune of being in Michigan, unemployed, at a particularly bad time. I applied to about 30-40 gas stations, movie theaters, fast food places... Everywhere I went I was told the same thing, "I'm required by law to give you this application form, but we're not going to hire you. Good luck." I didn't know anybody and couldn't get a job cleaning floors let alone flipping burgers.

unfortunately it does take time but eventually those not paying you, me, us all, they stop making money by sitting on it, then they have no choice but to spend

Maybe I felt like this before having kids.

I've been trying to replace all my worry with gratitude. It's slow going replacing all those neural pathways that slide down into the muck. Most often, I find myself in those old habits rather than feeling grateful. There is also the compounded problem of 'fake it till you make it', because before I started practicing I didn't even know if I had ever genuinely felt a moment of gratitude in my life. It is my experience, however, that faking it till I made it worked in this instance. One of those moments of genuine gratitude is worth years of effort.

Here's the nightmare scenario, which is looking more and more plausible:

-When profits started to decline in the 70's, they decided to let manufacturing go overseas and to jack up interest rates in order to suppress wages and fight inflation.

-However, this left a problem where American consumers no longer had enough spending power to buy the products they were making. They dealt with this problem by printing money and using it to finance debt and then exporting the extra dollars overseas. They were able to do this because the US dollar is the world reserve currency and is in demand everywhere.

-However, this created a series of debt bubbles in the united states. Each one was dealt with by printing ever increasing amounts of money, kicking the can down the line until the next recession. Interest rates steadily fell and fell until they hit zero.

-When interest rates hit zero, they had to switch to quantitative easing. This was accompanied by a speculative "everything bubble". But now, with the amount of debt continuing to increase, the value of the US dollar started to slide, manifesting in inflation again.

-The fed will have to raise interest rates a lot to fight the problem. But this will cause a massive deleveraging as debt cannot be rolled over anymore, plus the interest on the federal deficit will be enormous.

-It is politically impossible to raise taxes to deal with the shortfall, so deficits will grow even larger, and to get people to buy the debt, interest rates will have to go up even further.

-This will eventually culminate in a loss of confidence in the US dollar. Prices of imports will skyrocket and the economy will crash. The united states will ultimately have to default on its debt.

-The resulting political instability will likely result in an autocratic government. The formal structures of congress and the senate will continue to exist but actual rule will be by presidential decree.

Fascist governments or Bonaparte-like leaders can only maintain power by promising greatness and a return to traditional values (The traditional values part comes from the fact that some reason must be found for the country's problems, the explanation given tends to be that we have offended god in some way)- this usually results in war.

That's the nightmare scenario.

This is the best explanation I have read that explains the current situation

The financial part maybe, but the impending doom is pure fear porn.

For many people 2008 never ended.

Policy makers (and voters) have kept the zombies alive, pumped assets and introduced exciting new complexity.

This is the big one.

> This is the big one.

Or maybe it isn’t. No one knows.

> Or maybe it isn’t. No one knows.

Or maybe it is. Maybe someone knows.

Can you elaborate? Somewhere I can read more?

There’s whole lot anxiety in this thread. Quite a few comments with vague financial insight paired with non sequidor about some other issue.

Seems like the markets are bad for reasons that are hard to understand, so people are creating stories by combining the other ambient bad things at the moment.

No real point or argument to what I’m saying, just an observation.

In early 2000 Shiller published Irrational Exuberance, which warned of a stock market bubble.

The second edition in 2006 warned of a housing market bubble.

The third edition in 2015 warned of a bubble in almost everything.

So I've been concerned since 2015 about the next recession.

It does look increasingly likely to happen in the next 1-2 years.

Damodaran has some interesting analysis on what might happen to different market sectors.

https://aswathdamodaran.blogspot.com/

All the best.

Required reading: https://www.epsilontheory.com/things-fall-apart-part-3-marke...

Start at part 1 if you have time.

> You have reached the maximum number of free, long-form articles for the month.

It says, after literally 1 article. What a garbage website.

Writers put significant amounts of work into these articles. They post them onto a website that requires funds to host and maintain and run. And you're calling it garbage because they ask for come compensation for this work that many people enjoy or find interesting? People don't consume food for free, why should they consume entertainment for free? If you don't want to pay, fine, but that doesn't mean the food is garbage, or this website either

Who said that's the reason he was calling them garbage ?

In my case I followed the link, realized it was a 3 part article so I went to the first part and got the message, said "Well, lets check the third one then" and got the message again.

So objectively it is a garbage website, they were trying to convince me to subscribe by showing me something I was not able to see due to the site design

It's certainly no different today than its ever been. 1637, 1797, 1819, 37, 57, 84, 1901, 07, 29, 1937, 1974, 1987–Jesus, didn't that fucker fuck me up good–92, 97, 2000, 07 and whatever we want to call this. It's all just the same thing over and over; we can't help ourselves. And you and I can't control it or stop it, or even slow it, or even ever-so-slightly alter it. We just react. And we make a lot of money if we get it right. And we get left by the side of the road if we get it wrong. And there have always been and there always will be the same percentage of winners and losers, happy fuckers and sad suckers, fat cats and starving dogs in this world. Yeah, there may be more of us today than there's ever been. But the percentages–they stay exactly the same.

I'm slightly nervous. I just bought a house about 2 months ago (sub 4% interest rate), and while I have more than a years worth of savings, I don't like being out of a job at all unless I consciously decide to leave it and take time off. Fortunately, I quit my old job in a cyclical industry last year and moved to a company that operates in a market that is more recession proof.

I'm in a similar position. I Brought a house last year and I live in the UK so I'm now facing much higher energy prices and mortgage rates going forward than I expected. I'll be fine so long as I can remain (mostly) employed, but with the tech job market weakening and with me being a contractor it makes me nervous.

I don't know enough about finances to be able to judge confidently what will happen, but things feel pretty sketchy. At 30, I've never had a job longer than a year and a half, and in tech it's usually 6 months at most and I'm just hitting that. My company is either being acquired or going bankrupt, but I'm a contractor, so have some considerations there. I have no money really, and a not insignificant debt burden, and zero assets in a high cost of living city that seems to only be rising. It took the whole first 2 years of the pandemic to find _any_ job, so if I lose this I'm fucked. But, I do have to count my blessings I guess. I'm not dead

I am thrilled. Burn it all to the ground. The only way this ends is with serious systemic reforms, and a massive crash will force those to happen sooner.

Maybe in a decade or so, property ownership will be within the reach of middle-class families again.

It looks like you’ve been voted down, but I agree regarding housing. The housing market is absolutely absurd. It’s time for a reset there. Majorly.

I don’t believe there will be a recession due to the savings rate continuing to recover to normal levels [1]. Indeed, we see real revenues of all retailers increasing, e.g. Walmart, Target, Amazon, Costco, etc.

[1] https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/PSAVERT

So if revenues are increasing for companies that trade in the cheapest consumer goods, and personal savings rates are increasing, wouldn't that more likely indicate a widening gap?

All of retail is not the cheapest goods. From Disney to Roblox revenue is up.

Savings rate is decreasing not increasing.

Oh I see. But if savings rate is decreasing, wouldn't that also likely be a short term effect that retracts when people realize they can't save as much while spending what they normally would?

Shouldn’t occur in a positively inflationary recession. That is behavior that we would expect in a deflationary recession like the prelude to the 2008 period, 2007. If it goes to around 4%, I will start worrying.

I'm not sure what chart you are looking at. The one you linked showed that not only have we not recovered, but are on a sudden sharp downward spike. And revenue simply means the money coming in, so inflation explains the increase of retail revenue. People spending more, and saving less, due to rising costs at places like Walmart and Target might not be the reassuring story you think it is.

I think "most" people in tech still think this will be over soon, mainly because we don't personally feel the impact yet. Many of us are so used to the paradigm that we have seen in the past decade. We think stocks are so "cheap" right now. But they have been propped by injected liquidity for over a decade. The correction is just starting.

The Fed has no way to fix the current supply chain shortage issue, which is half the equation in the rising inflation, their only tool in the box is aggressive rate hike to dampen demand. Essentially Fed wants demand to go way down, we don't feel the impact yet because the stock market isn't cracked yet. Fed wants it cracked.

It will be fine. All of this is a giant game anyway. So just enjoy it and you can always grow your own potatoes in the wilderness wtshtf.

The wilderness gets crowded fast when a hundred million others consider similar plans.

Then we'll convert the most wasteful human invention yet, suburbs, into farms like the retrosuburbia movement in Australia

And how will you pay for tearing them down to prepare them for farming?

no need to wait, get rid of your lawn today

HOA says No.

The amazing thing is you don’t first ask, “Is there going to be a recession?"

> there don't seem to be any "easy" option like Quantitative Easing

that what caused the problem in the first place. and it was only "easy" for the bankers.

banks got away with murder in 2008 and got bailed out. we had over decade of "austerity", social benefits cut, disabled and mentally ill forced to work, zero hour contracts and exploitation. destabilising the middle east causing waves of immigration and societal pressures.

the baby boomers have created a mess, and now their next act the great reset is coming.

I’d suggest you grab some old economics texts. The current era is dominated by some truly bizarre, propaganda-level disinformation and concentrated markets. Infant formula got monopolized. As did meat production.

My suggestion stays https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Great_Crash,_1929

“The lesson of 1929 was that laissez faire economics and political economy concentrates market power and the market downturns don’t always right themselves” (paraphrasing)

There was a ton of stuff put in place after the Great Depression which was then undone through decades of corporate “influence.”

I don’t know that what we’re headed for will be 1929 level bad. I’m not suggesting that. But that’s a great book to start enlightening yourself. The highly complex mortgage backed securities that led to 2007/2008 were never undone. The ARM loans which ballooned and kicked off the fulcrum of defaults and thus collapse from suddenly worthless securities were never addressed. And this time the international situation is far more developed and intertwined.

There absolutely are things that can be done to relieve a lot of this though. Tariffs can be rolled back. That would lower many prices.

My big wish would be corporations to learn to not cut quite so many corners that they become fragile to supply shocks. For people to seek out energy sources without huge social and environmental externalities. For people to choose to buy local first/where possible. For people to be open to growing local production like manufacturing of physical goods. Etc.

Edit-and “buy local” includes hiring local labor. And paying local taxes-corporations benefit from things like road works and other local services.

I was really wanting to stop working for a bit and do some travel and vacation, but then covid happened, and now it could be sought getting working again:/

There's still tons of things to automate, so I don't think there's going to be a lack of jobs, but the easy money won't be around for a while

No human folly can obviate the sunrise.

OTOH, the reckoning has been pending for some time. How long depends upon whom you care to blame.

Let's get it over with, clear the decks of the deadwood leadership that have plagued us, and apply the good distributed sense toward a prosperous next several decades.

Until the cycle of "derpery" repeats.

> No human folly can obviate the sunrise.

pretty sure nuclear war can.

and will.

No, the sun will rise, irrespective of the blasted nature of the landscape.

sure, the sun will rise, just nobody will see it.

Given that Congress has been kicking the can down the road since 1971 and the Nixon shock... I'm surprised that the Greater Depression hasn't happened yet.

Working class wages stopped growing at the end of the 1960s in real terms. The income inequality is approaching French Revolution levels. Media of all types is tuned for maximum "engagement" which externalizes it's costs as the destruction of the social fabric.

I'm really worried. I can't change the big picture, all I can do is to try to strengthen the bonds I have with friends and family, cut expenses, and stock up on food and supplies.

I'm mostly looking for things like I bonds, solid blue chips, and ex-China developing world ETFs.

No idea if that will play out well. I'm not that worried though.

Not very worried. I have a pretty stable position. If the stock market goes down - I’m at the height of my earning power (so far). I’ll be saving away.

If I get laid off, I am looking forward to a nice break from work. I'd have a nice excuse to go travel instead of feeling compelled to earn money.

Without writting out too much, in my view recessions are fraught with opportunity because problems need solutions.

I have been through seven bear markets since the late 1989s. Sometimes I capitulated and sold. But not the most recent two.

More like 1929. At least as it relates to deep recession and food scarcity. But on a global scale.

Tech people may not be immune this time. There are already hiring freezes and layoffs. Last tech employment slowdown was after dot.bomb in 2001. Surplus of web developers. College computer science enrollments even dropped.

2001? I was at IBM in 2009 when they were doing layoffs, and we weren’t the only. Friends who graduated a semester later than I did had offers rescinded in 2008.

The issue now is that the Middle class stand to lose their houses by the end of the year because over over leveraged and over borrowing. Now that's why it's getting so much (more) attention.

But without ARMs, payments aren't changing.

Maybe a small percent will find it advantageous to walk because they're underwater and can fanangle and can financial magic to buy a different house cheaper.

A small percentage might not be able to pay their 2021 payment because of gas prices or job loss.

The biggest risk to prices or banks is likely collateralized commercial investors.

Welcome to life!

I'm a Gen Xer and this has been pretty much the state of things throughout all my life. Looking at American history this seems to be the status quo also. European history isn't much better - everything always in flux, everything always in crises.

That's what they mean by fighting to survive. The process of biological life is going against the grain. It's never easy.

I'm no economist but my career spans the "is this a depression?" recession of the early 1990's, the Y2K crash after 2000, the market collapse in 2008 and whatever the hell is coming up for us now. The 2000 crunch was the absolute worst - BY FAR. Between the Y2K work ending, the DotCom Bubble bursting, and the towers falling programmers were being let go by the tens of thousands all at once. The market was flooded with people looking for work. The 2008 recession and the recession in the early 1990's didn't have nearly that impact on developers.

So far I'm not seeing a reason to be overly concerned about this recession either. If anything, companies are going to be looking to improve efficiencies and they're going to be looking to technology to do it. As long as you're focused on saving hard dollars and you can quantify those results, then you should be fine.

What do I mean by "hard dollars"? That's actual savings, a reduction in accounts payable as a result of your work. For example, terms like "improved efficiency" are too vague - how about we improved efficiencies enough that we avoided having to hire X FTEs, or we were able to improve our sales by X% using the same staff resources, or we were able to take on X more clients as a result. Something measurable, impactful, and actual money being saved or being made. As long as you're always focused on the bottom line you should be okay.

In the past some people have responded to me by saying developers don't always get that information. That's true - but I've never worked for a company that would withhold that information when asked. Typically they're thrilled to have a developer who talks business and dollars and cents. They just assume you don't want to hear it. Ask. You should always know why you're doing what you're doing and saying that's what the BSA put into our requirements is not a good answer.

If your career has been focused on delivering cool, whiz-bang features or your revenue is largely derived from advertising - then all recessions are bad. Those developers are the first let go. Advertising slumps during recessions and companies tend to shift from whiz-bang features to belt-tightening and improving operational efficiencies.

Bottom line - companies are always interested in people who can make them or save them money. Understand your business value.

Wait until you hear what happened in the 1910s and the 1940s

Huh? The great depression had the highest unemployment rate on record for the states, nearly 25% in 1933! And stayed high for over a decade.

I'm a little worried about the people not worried in this thread. Especially the older ones having experienced it before.

Every recession 'first hand experience', had as a backdrop a rising China and more valuable world population by the end simply by the relative size of the boomers.

China is facing serious challenges to the point that I'd stay clear of them, and the boomers are retiring. changes them from high spenders and risk takers into low spenders who don't want risk.

It's going to be a bumpy ride before the generational accounts balance out, and i fear we're going to have a shitload of grumpy old people waking up a lot poorer than they ever expected. A good recipe for even worse political decisions.

I'm very worried. I've been reading about layoffs lately and I'm worried that I'll be the next one.

The amount of death and destruction that the recession/depression is expected to cause to certain parts of the third world is tantamount to genocide. For those of us in the "laptop class", sure, we will be impacted adversely (and especially those who didn't plan for it, despite all of the red flags in the past 10 years), but it's hardly the same thing. I should be fine, as I have a comfortable, government job, but I fear for many of my friends who already were living paycheck-to-paycheck and will be like deer in the headlights once their jobs are impacted.

Note sure what recession you are referring to?

Unemployment is 3.6%.

Nasdaq was overvalued - QQQ went from 100 in 2016 to 400 in 2021. No reason not to return to 150-200.

The only concerning events is that the capital that left the market would never return since it was the baby boomer last big capital injection before they retire en mass and remove thier 401K from stocks.

On the other hand, there is a lot of job openings due to this retirement.

High inflation is actually a good thing, as it is result from wage increases, which means that there are shortages in the job market.

Overall, this looks to me like the wage arbitrage is being removed from the market.

>High inflation is actually a good thing, as it is result from wage increases, which means that there are shortages in the job market.

This is quite the take. I very much doubt that high inflation is good, and that it's primarily derived from shortages in the job market.

> High inflation is actually a good thing, as it is result from wage increases

is it though? At least here in Europe high inflation is mainly caused by rapid increase in energy, logistic and food prices. Wages haven't even started to catch up, which will just cause more inflation in the short & mid-term.

> High inflation is actually a good thing, as it is result from wage increases, which means that there are shortages in the job market.

Except wages rarely keep up with inflation. Inflation is for rich people to erode and erase debt - or, more accurately, externalize it on others - nothing more.

Not so much for the direct economic impact to myself, but rather for the civil unrest that might come with it.

I’m mostly just tired of hearing about it. Especially in areas where I don’t turn for economic topics.

I think you vastly over-estimate the value that engineers produce. A good portion of this value is predicated on the reality that consumers and businesses have cash to spend. These days, most tech revenue comes from advertising, hosting, or consumer services. If consumers stop spending, consumer services contract which will cause advertising budgets to tighten.

The only relatively safe haven in tech during a recession is cloud services as long as the cloud enables companies to reduce head count and cut costs. Otherwise capital expenditure budget cuts would hit clouds as well.

> A good portion of this value is predicated on the reality that consumers and businesses have cash to spend

Your argument is that I’m overestimating the value engineers produce because that value depends on them getting paid to do the work?

No, my argument is that the actual output that many engineers produce has very little intrinsic value and only produces value in so far as it is of utility to someone. Once the market for advertising or consumers dries up, there is a reduced demand for the utility of the things engineers produce.

Once the "market dries up" doesn't that mean there's reduced demand for everyone. Or is there some reverse black hole that CEO pay gets regurgitated from?

Upcoming?

A low unemployment recession is not a terrible thing.

The real problem we're seeing now is wage inflation and unionization. Policymakers don't really care that much about asset bubbles, your ability to buy housing or the cost of gas. The negotiating power that ordinary workers (not just tech workers) are showing right now is what they're going to be worried about. The 1% unemployment rate, the overhang of 2 job openings for every job seeker and likely the removal of some workers from the pool from coronavirus due to death and disability and the retirement of baby boomers are the main factors to focus on in this cycle.

And that actually is a bit different.

As a result I think the Fed is going to slam on the brakes. They've already started to do that using 0.50 basis point hikes and signalling their intent to get to 2% by September. I still don't think that's enough to tank the economy into a recession, but they're indicating that they're willing to tank the economy very hard in order to create a glut of workers for the available jobs.

It is likely going to be worse than 2008. CMBS should pop at some point creating a financial crisis, and crypto will get stress tested and may entirely collapse (wiping out the "savings" of a lot of Millennials).

What I would be real worried about is that the Republicans are likely to take over congress this year and likely to take over the Presidency in 2024 one way or another. And the social unrest will be jacked up to 11 again and a good chunk of the Republicans are now people whose stated belief is in just letting the system collapse. Unlike 2008 they may sit on the sidelines and watch money market funds collapse, short term lending fail, payrolls fail and ATMs stop working (enough of them may realize this will tank their stock portfolios that they blink though, particularly if the Republicans are the party in power and it would fall on them).

I still continue to think that the economy is not right now in a recession and that the Fed is going to have to jack up funds higher than 2% to cause a recession (they were 2% in 2019 before the pandemic as well), but I think it is clearly coming by 2024.

They'll still panic though and drop the funds rate back down to zero and start doing QE. I don't know if it works yet again. The cycle does seem to be able to continue forever, but at some point we may reach the "pushing on a string" moment where faith in the US economy and dollar starts to evaporate, or where social unrest takes things to a whole new level.

"they're indicating that they're willing to tank the economy very hard in order to create a glut of workers for the available jobs."

I agree- the fed knows that profit levels are higher with low wages even if it means a recession than if you continue to let workers have all that leverage. But there's only so far that you can continue to cut the pay of workers and make up the lost consumer spending with leverage.

Yeah at some point it seems like something has to break.

And I should have highlighted more that given the overhang of job openings and secular trends like retirement of baby boomers, that they may not be able to accomplish their goals short of a great depression and substantially tanking the broader economy.

For all the complaining online, the last 14 years have been an amazing run of economic growth. I can remember in 2008 when people were saying “the US is finished”.

It was bound to end some time and no doubt in 2-3 years people will look back and say "man, I wish it could be like that again".

I think two things:

1) Things are about to get incredibly nasty over the next 3-6 months.

2) Things only stay bad until the Fed capitulates and decides to start rescuing things. In this case we will be choosing inflation over a recession. And I'm saying inflation as a long term trend, at least 5 years.

But basically the game is up. This all ends up in one of two ways

1) The fed defaults on the debt and tells the Boomers they were just joking about Social Security and Medicaid existing as interest expenses drastically increase while tax receipts drastically decrease from a baseline of 127% debt to GDP (this will NEVER happen. You don't default on your debt as the world's reserve currency. Why would you? This is the one thing the MMT crowd gets right)

2) We give up and take our inflation medicine to cure our sovereign debt issues.

It's going to be option 2 11 out of 10 times. History is pretty clear on this point.

To me, no one lays this case out better than Luke Gromen:

https://youtu.be/VCAe4lVEpgs?t=37

"You don't default on your debt as the world's reserve currency" What about those who say USD's reign as world reserve currency is ending? Aren't China/Russia making moves that way?

The only path to quickly losing reserve status is a default. If you just inflate your currency you can let things play out and try to play politics to control it and slow it down.

I think very likely the future doesn't have one reserve currency, that the USD still plays something similar to its current role but similar transactions also happen in more currencies. so we lose sole reserve currency status, but not reserve currency status. The truth is we are already past this point. A lot of oil is already being traded outside of the dollar system already which wasn't true even 10 years ago.

There are 100s of hours of people including Gromen discussing this topic in depth on youtube if you look around.

It's more accurate to say: you don't default on your debt when your debt is denominated in your own currency. It doesn't require any specific reserve currency status to play that game.

With China eyeing Taiwan, I doubt the major players will start buying Yuans at the moment and the Ruble is out of the picture. What else is there? CHF? GBP? Can't see those replacing the USD as a world reserve currency -- those days are (most likely) over.

There is the Euro, but it's not like there aren't several EU countries with severe financial issues. COVID hit the Eurozone pretty hard, and with high inflation, the war in Ukraine and the prospect of very high food and energy prices the next six months I wouldn't be too sure. Interest rates are finally going up aswell. EURIBOR just went above 0% for the first time in many years and there's a lot of people in overvalued homes currently fearing the bubble will burst.

They're trying but it isn't going to work. China already manipulates the yuan so hard it screams and Russia is too involved with foreign trade to resist the temptation of manipulation. The USD is by far the best option for the world at large.

Russia has been rapidly watching its foreign trade wind down…

What happens in 3-6 months?

Financial tightening capitulates. One or both of major monetary and fiscal stimulus. My bet is on both together which is exactly what caused the last two years of craziness and our current inflation.