What is your survival Plan for Recession[modified]

[hairy_hats]

Christian Graus wrote:

I have a three year contract ( if I get fired, they pay me out )

Why not get yourself fired and take three years off?

[stevepqr]

Starting my own business - www.keepitunderthemattress.com Only problem is as I get more customers I will find it harder to sleep... ;)

Apathy Rules - I suppose...

Its not the things you fear that come to get you but all the things that you don't expect

[ghle]

Best career move I've made. I took a job as CIO for a company that buys bad loans. Business is better than ever. Sorry folks.

Gary

[Lost User]

Stay in work and out of debt.

Visit http://www.notreadytogiveup.com/[^] and do something special today.

[Dan Neely]

I'm still renting, but the money I've saved towards a down payment would cover at least a years living expenses (assumption being I live frugally ofc). Otherwise, my program's got about a years work waddling through the fed contracting process so I should be good for a bit regardless.

Today's lesson is brought to you by the word "niggardly". Remember kids, don't attribute to racism what can be explained by Scandinavian language roots. -- Robert Royall

[Roger Wright]

Mine is probably a poor one, but I have little saved and few options. I plan to keep working, and try to keep my head, financially speaking, above water. In the short term I've done something I always advise others against. We have a 401k plan at work, but the particular securities we're allowed to choose from have all lost money for two years running, and the recent fiasco has only accelerated the losses. We're allowed to borrow up to one half of the balance and pay it back to our own account (with interest) by payroll deduction over a period of months or years. In the meantime, I have a house that is falling apart and a vehicle that needs maintenance I can't afford to do. So I've taken a loan to effect repairs on both, and to stop the bleeding in my 401k. Hopefully the market will settle down in a year or two, but my savings will no longer be exposed to it, and the loan interest will probably be the only earnings my account has. That's ordinarily bad investment tactics - staying in the market during bad times and selling when good times return is the smart way to invest. But in this case there are immediate needs for ready cash to protect much larger investments (home and vehicle) which I can't count on future cash flows to maintain. It was a tough choice, but the right one, I hope. On another front, though, when the market tanked a couple weeks ago I immediately bought shares in troubled banks at or very near the bottom, and both stocks are doing very nicely. :-D

"A Journey of a Thousand Rest Stops Begins with a Single Movement"

[Dr Walt Fair PE]

My wife and I own all our houses and condos and cars. I rarely spend money on gasoline. I paid off all debts before I started my own business in 1991 and have never run up a credit card bill since. I plan to keep dealing in cash and not buying things I can't afford. I'll be turning down job offers I don't like and keep working --- and buy cheap houses from those who over estimated their economic worth.

[grgran]

So how will you be able to tell that it's the bottom and not just a local minimum, on a long downhill coast?

[grgran]

This is of course if you actually believe the 'signals' as provided by the gov'ment. Over the last 30 or so years this data has been skewed that it's almost useless. Most of this foolishness was to reduce the reported cost of living thereby reducing the future SSN outflow. Compare the rapid rise in commodities with the relatively tame gov'ment reported inflation. Add to this that these signals are lagging indicators, that are often 'corrected' months after there initial release. We've been in a recession ... the question is will it slide into a depression?

[grgran]

Chris Austin wrote:

Christian Graus wrote: I'm contemplating solar. What are your thoughts ? It's really cool. It's just really expensive, at least in my part of the world (Dallas). We decided to do it just because we were was getting pissed off when we saw our electric bill go up ~15% despite our year to year consumption going down by more than 20%. If I could get away with it in my HOA I'd put in a wind turbine as well.

In Raleigh NC, power costs aren't too bad (as long as the big nuke plant doesn't melt down) ... Solar is insane, everytime I look the ROI suggests that I would have to live to around 250 years ... and that's with the tax breaks. Finding someone to do the work is another problem. People here who know which end of a hammer to pick up consider themselves 'master craftsmen' and I've yet to find one who's work I would consider even 'good' ... on the other side here everyone seems to be buying 800K houses on postage stamp lots ... they can't build enough of them, and if it's slowed down it certainly hasn't shown up here ... ya can't throw a rock without hitting a 800K MacMansion under construction ... I don't know what these folks do for a living but it must pay a whole lot better than computer work. Maybe they are all signed up to get baled out

[Joe Woodbury]

I don't believe we're in a recession. The availability of loans, both personal and business, as well as historically low unemployment belie an overall economic contraction.

Anyone who thinks he has a better idea of what's good for people than people do is a swine. - P.J. O'Rourke

[Theodore M Seeber]

14% is historically low? Or are you believing the "official government numbers" that exclude "discouraged" workers from the labor market?

[Joe Woodbury]

Theodore M. Seeber wrote:

14% is historically low?

Try 6%. This is valid since that's how it's been calculated for a long time and which is how you create a legitimate basis for any economic measurement. You can't compare numbers calculated one way with numbers calculated another. You may not like it, but (Strictly speaking, if you count every adult over 18 and who is not unemployed, the number is over 50%. So what?) (The same thing happens with inflation numbers; too many people get all uptight since it doesn't measure everything, but you can't measure everything and constantly changing what is measured and how would make any inflation number meaningless over time.)

Anyone who thinks he has a better idea of what's good for people than people do is a swine. - P.J. O'Rourke

[Ri Qen Sin]

Add more money to my mutual fund account, and hope the economy gets back on its feet again. Imagine the return on my investment if all goes well! :-D

So the creationist says: Everything must have a designer. God designed everything. I say: Why is God the only exception? Why not make the "designs" (like man) exceptions and make God a creation of man?

[Theodore M Seeber]

Joe Woodbury wrote:

Try 6%. This is valid since that's how it's been calculated for a long time and which is how you create a legitimate basis for any economic measurement. You can't compare numbers calculated one way with numbers calculated another. You may not like it, but

My point is that isn't how it has been calculated for a long time. It's how it has been calculated since the Reagan Administration, basically. If you use the same calculation we were using during the last depression, you get the 14%.

Joe Woodbury wrote:

(Strictly speaking, if you count every adult over 18 and who is not unemployed, the number is over 50%. So what?)

"not unemployed"? No, about 60% of the adults over 18 are unemployed. But the grand majority of those are either independently wealthy OR disabled to the point of being worthless OR self-employed, and not even the Depression-era workforce figures included those three groups.

Joe Woodbury wrote:

(The same thing happens with inflation numbers; too many people get all uptight since it doesn't measure everything, but you can't measure everything and constantly changing what is measured and how would make any inflation number meaningless over time.)

Well, actually, with a large enough computer network you CAN measure everything, but only WalMart cares to, and they're not trying to measure inflation but worldwide just in time shipping. I'd be happy if they just went back to the Carter admin CPI which included fuel, food, and housing in the consumer price index- instead of the current inflation measurement which only measures a bunch of stuff that doesn't change to keep people from panicing.

[Joe Woodbury]

Theodore M. Seeber wrote:

If you use the same calculation we were using during the last depression, you get the 14%.

I'll disagree until I can see a reputable link. Regardless, 14% is still a lot lower than 25%. Moreover, in the 1930s, there was relatively little underemployment (thanks largely to FDRs idiotic economic plans.) Where I live, unemployment is very low--barely over 3%. In IT, it's about .3%. These aren't made up; it's very difficult to hire anyone. Several people where I work have gotten jobs in industries across the board and in all regions of the country. Right now, not a single friend or close associate is unemployed. This is a far cry from 2003 when the exact opposite was true.

Theodore M. Seeber wrote:

"not unemployed"? No, about 60% of the adults over 18 are unemployed.

Bad editing. My point is that most adults are unemployed. For example, full time homemakers. You can't simply discard these today since today many people move in and out of the workforce. My wife substitute teaches. Due to back pain, she hasn't taught for a few weeks. Is she unemployed? Underemployed? How do you factor that in? My daughter transitions between working for someone else as a cosmetologist and working for herself. She's also about to have a baby and will take time off. How does she factor in. Point being that this was almost a non-issue in the 1930s.

Theodore M. Seeber wrote:

Well, actually, with a large enough computer network you CAN measure everything,

But that's not how it's done and doing it creates other misleading figures. For example, the TV you buy today is not the same TV you could have bought a year ago or ten years ago. If you actually factor in gadgets, you end up apparent deflation. This causes headaches with calculating inflation.

Anyone who thinks he has a better idea of what's good for people than people do is a swine. - P.J. O'Rourke