The Autism Spiral? (obligatory loluk thread)

[Krugerrand]

still havnt really noticed this recession yet

My family have only in the form that retail trade dropped last couple years, but wholesale trade has increased. Retail side most of our customers were OAPS...so only now their savings probably running a bit lower due to lack of "safe" interest from banks.

Only way I've felt it is the doom and gloom I got fed at uni surrounding the job market, which I kinda saw 1st hand but I still got a job lined up next year. My fear is if it does go into recession I'm gonna lose it

[Resi]

still havnt really noticed this recession yet

Some of my family have really noticed the recession, but in a good way through being able to buy cheap houses.

[Xennith]

I might be the only FHCer who has been effected by the recession - because I'm a government employee my pay has been frozen for a while, I'm facing redundancy and even if I keep my job, a possible paycut.

From what I can see the private sector is still churning along, sky isnt falling yet.

[Liare]

I might be the only FHCer who has been effected by the recession - because I'm a government employee my pay has been frozen for a while, I'm facing redundancy and even if I keep my job, a possible paycut.

From what I can see the private sector is still churning along, sky isnt falling yet.

resigned from a public sector job in may 2009, took until august 2011 to find something.

[Ralara]

I might be the only FHCer who has been effected by the recession - because I'm a government employee my pay has been frozen for a while, I'm facing redundancy and even if I keep my job, a possible paycut.

From what I can see the private sector is still churning along, sky isnt falling yet.

Private sector has more or less been on pay freezes for the last 3-5 years with massive redundancies. Public sector is not special.

[Liare]

Private sector has more or less been on pay freezes for the last 3-5 years with massive redundancies. Public sector is not special.

rich get richer, everybody else gets poorer, everything is good, amirite ?

[Krugerrand]

Private sector has more or less been on pay freezes for the last 3-5 years with massive redundancies. Public sector is not special.

p. much this. Which is why when I see public sector bitching about pay freeze/pension changes it really pisses me off

[Ralara]

p. much this. Which is why when I see public sector bitching about pay freeze/pension changes it really pisses me off

Yup. I see a lot of them whining about this new scheme in the UK to have them work longer or pay more in their pensions. Yeah? Well same for me and the other 20 odd million private sector workers.

I'll tell you what, Labour were really smart when they spent all that cash - hired a load of jobsworths and useless people in to unneeded departments and new sectors - all now "public sector" jobs - and now the cuts are here, all of them are gonna vote labour.

Which is fine, I guess, after all, Labour will fix it.

[Herschel Yamamoto]

Also.
http://physics.ucsd.edu/do-the-math/...c-growth-last/

Yeah, okay, there's physical limits on stuff. Good to know, it's not like anyone has ever pointed that out before. What exactly is your point? And I don't mean some Marx-wannabe historical inevitability thing, I mean that I want to know what exactly you're saying that we should do about it. "Well it can't go on forever, so let's just put a bullet in the head of the economy, and go all be masturbatory nihilists instead" isn't exactly my idea of a good policy. Yeah, it might stop someday. But that will be a sad day, and I see no need to speed it along. And if that's not your proposal, you're basically just saying the economic equivalent of "Dude, why are you so happy? You know you're going to be dead someday, right?". It's not public policy, it's just being an asshole.

[Liare]

Yeah, okay, there's physical limits on stuff. Good to know, it's not like anyone has ever pointed that out before. What exactly is your point? And I don't mean some Marx-wannabe historical inevitability thing, I mean that I want to know what exactly you're saying that we should do about it. "Well it can't go on forever, so let's just put a bullet in the head of the economy, and go all be masturbatory nihilists instead" isn't exactly my idea of a good policy. Yeah, it might stop someday. But that will be a sad day, and I see no need to speed it along. And if that's not your proposal, you're basically just saying the economic equivalent of "Dude, why are you so happy? You know you're going to be dead someday, right?". It's not public policy, it's just being an asshole.

"GUYS! LETS IGNORE THE SYSTEMIC PROBLEMS WITH HOW WE ARE DOING THINGS AND PRETEND EVERYTHING WILL BE ALL-RIGHT, BECAUSE AFTER ALL ITS NOT OUR PROBLEM, ITS OUR DESCENDANTS PROBLEM!"

[BLEURRRRGH]

Meh. I think I've accepted that the West is pretty much fucked. May as well get ahead of the game and start hailing our soon-to-be Chinese overlords.

[Liare]

Meh. I think I've accepted that the West is pretty much fucked. May as well get ahead of the game and start hailing our soon-to-be Chinese overlords.

who are going to crash and burn for similar reasons in about 20-40 years...

[Dartzap]

who are going to crash and burn for similar reasons in about 20-40 years...

Probably less if they end up in a war of some kind.

[Xennith]

Private sector has more or less been on pay freezes for the last 3-5 years with massive redundancies. Public sector is not special.

When I left the private sector 2 years ago the wages were still pretty good. Just to make this crystal clear: I'm not bitching or going "woe is me", I'm saying that everyone else seems to have not really noticed this current downturn from the posts in this thread and that I wouldnt have either if I wasnt paid directly by the public purse.

Cuts are neccessary (if hilariously poorly implemented and lied about frequently), my pension is pretty generous and its about the only thing I'll miss when I make the leap back into the private sector. Yes I am looking to sell my soul again because frankly _fuck this shit_.

Oh, and I will never vote labour in my life thanks to Brown.

[Herschel Yamamoto]

"GUYS! LETS IGNORE THE SYSTEMIC PROBLEMS WITH HOW WE ARE DOING THINGS AND PRETEND EVERYTHING WILL BE ALL-RIGHT, BECAUSE AFTER ALL ITS NOT OUR PROBLEM, ITS OUR DESCENDANTS PROBLEM!"

This is pretty much the definition of "problem we want to have". Saying that there are limits to growth is all well and good, but it's not actually a reason to stop short of those limits. There's no tragedy of the commons here, no reason to believe that growth will lead to collapse. The claim is that growth will lead to stagnation, and the proposed solution is starting the stagnation early. That's not a solution, that's a bad troll.

Meh. I think I've accepted that the West is pretty much fucked. May as well get ahead of the game and start hailing our soon-to-be Chinese overlords.

The Chinese overlords who are trying to run an illiberal autocracy full of people who are actually getting enough money to want better? The Chinese overlords who are facing a demographic collapse that'll make Europe's look like a cakewalk? The only thing the Chinese have done right is to go from "murder 60 million people" repressive to "Great Firewall and jail time for people who talk too much" repressive. That's a big improvement, and it's led to big advances in their standard of living, but unless they change their society very fundamentally - i.e., decommunize fully, repeal the one-child policy, and probably move to a liberal democracy - they're never going to catch up to even the losers of the western world, never mind the winners.

[Toxic]

+1 not having felt the "crisis".

What you guys need is a social-democracy like us Scandinavians. That said, we just voted communists into government

Luckily I predict they will last a year to a year and a half.

[BLEURRRRGH]

When I left the private sector 2 years ago the wages were still pretty good. Just to make this crystal clear: I'm not bitching or going "woe is me", I'm saying that everyone else seems to have not really noticed this current downturn from the posts in this thread and that I wouldnt have either if I wasnt paid directly by the public purse.

My dad, working in the private sector, ended up facing a pay cut about two years ago.

Working as an IT consultant, he was surrounded by (as he called them) "incompetent Indians" and, over the course of about 18 months, did his best to get at least five of the worst sacked. Each time, he would take over their duties and negotiate a pay rise as a result. He has this funny strategy, where he never accepts contracts longer than 6 months. That way he has the opportunity to negotiate a pay rise at least twice a year. He also devotes a lot of time to finding problems on the projects, raising the issues in mass emails, so managers are aware, and then making sure he's put in charge of getting them fixed. That way, his employers are forced to keep him employed.

That said, towards the end of 2009 (so quite some way into the downturn) the project was facing cuts, just as his contract was up for renewal and he was hoping to get a pay rise to compensate for the losses the new 50% tax band would incur. When he told his employer that he wanted a rise, they said that he would actually have to take a cut. He told them he would leave before he accepts a reduced rate, so they told him that that week would be his last (his contract wasn't due to expire for another 6 weeks).

Thankfully for him, a few phone calls landed him job offers in Paris, Frankfurt, Zurich and Copenhagen by the end of the week. Taxes were too high in Denmark, he was already being pursued for evasion by the German tax authorities (which he has since been cleared of) and he said that the French smoke too much, so, after spending one week out of work, he moved to Switzerland. To be honest, I think he would have chosen Zurich regardless, since he earns twice as much here as he did in the UK and pays half the tax (~20%). Fucking lucky for him.

Thinking about it, I can, off the top of my head, think of 9 family friends or parents of college friends, all private sector workers, who have been made redundant since 2008. All, bar one, have found work since, all by moving abroad. The one that hasn't found work ... well ... he may now have a job, but I don't know since we haven't heard from him in a year. I can also think of just as many who have moved abroad voluntarily in search of a higher quality of life or, more often than not, lower tax rates, but that's another issue entirely.

That's a big improvement, and it's led to big advances in their standard of living, but unless they change their society very fundamentally - i.e., decommunize fully, repeal the one-child policy, and probably move to a liberal democracy - they're never going to catch up to even the losers of the western world, never mind the winners.

Why do people believe that becoming more Westernised is the only route to prosperity? China's GDP is due to match the size of the USA's by 2020 and will be the largest by nearly double that of the USA's by 2050, assuming they don't implode before then. Just because, socially, they won't be a Western paradise, doesn't mean they won't dominate the world economically. They're the world's biggest investors in Africa, close friends Brazil (another rapidly expanding economy which is predicted to be on par with the US in 2050(?)) and they've stated that they're going to start 'liquidating' their holdings of US Treasuries and invest the money, instead, assets ... physical assets. As far as I'm aware, the last time a country said that they were going to start using their trade surpluses to buy assets in the US (I believe it wasSaudi Arabia), the US threatened military action in response, but I don't see the US invading China any time soon. Not because they don't want to, but because they don't have the money, nor military power to do so.

[Liare]

This is pretty much the definition of "problem we want to have". Saying that there are limits to growth is all well and good, but it's not actually a reason to stop short of those limits. There's no tragedy of the commons here, no reason to believe that growth will lead to collapse. The claim is that growth will lead to stagnation, and the proposed solution is starting the stagnation early. That's not a solution, that's a bad troll.

Jamming your fingers firmly in your ears and yelling "LALALALALA I CAAANT HEEAR YOU!" is not a acceptable solution anywhere in the world, is it ? because that's basically what you are advocating here.

rather than keeping things running on a track that will lead to inevitable failure, probably as a result of us reaching the point where we don't have enough natural resources to go around, and end up going on a merry killing spree to steal each others "stuffs", we should perhaps stop and consider if there's a better way of doing things, certainly having a long term systemic failure on the cards cant be good for us as a whole.

+1 not having felt the "crisis".

What you guys need is a social-democracy like us Scandinavians. That said, we just voted communists into government

Luckily I predict they will last a year to a year and a half.

as opposed to handing the keys to the government over to Løkke another 4 years ? his track record is fairly impressive, sadly its the wrong kind of impressive. (could be worse, could the the "vacation minister", her as the head of government would really be )

[Toxic]

Um, yeah. Løkke wont leave our country in a state of financial ruin.

Im just glad he didnt go "fuck it" and left politics. We need him to clean up the mess after the next government.

Also, the government literally got communists in it. The former party secretary of the communist party is a leading member of the new government.

Edit: Our intelligence services also labelled him a "national traitor" in its records. He performed subversive actions, in particular during his enlisting in the military. How he is even allowed to be in parliament, I dont know.

[Lancehot]

Woolworths closing & more charity shops opening are the only ways I've really experienced the recession. Can't complain about either.