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Have any of you been affected by the current economic climate? Have you had to save much? Having any financial difficulties? Nobody I know has, mostly because of our nation avoiding recession and that lovely little stimulus package earlier in the year. I don't hear much about how this affects the common man.

1 word cheese, redundency, hit me bad lost my job and had to move back with my parents

Well Im not affected by it personaly as im 15 (1 hour and 44 minutes ago I turned 15)

But I heard gak about it on the news etc all the time. So Yeh I think its pretty gakky and people are being affected by it.

I worked in pubs/hotels as a cook (can't say chef no training), so many pubs closing the work has dried up totally

In Soviet California we HAVE no jobs... and the chickens get to get deluxe sweets... because they are special.

Look into the new laws for Chicken farms... frakking slowed liberals, fly fishing is bad, hunting is bad, farting is bad, man these guys just do not know when to quit. At some point we will be forced to eat the vegetarians to sustain ourselves, just make sure you cook them with beef bullion, they tend to be quite chewy.



I think 6% is considered normal, and at one point I think we may have peaked 14% (these statistics are usually biased to the states perspective). The economy is getting slower around here, it will be at least 5 years before we see a really solid economy return. As far as I know part of the reason we are in such big trouble is because of our elected officials and their generally irrelevant hyperbolic reactions to the hippies and the otherwise pre-occupied crazies. Perhaps it is due to the fact that we get too much sun, I really couldn't tell you.

Wrexasaur, I thought you had a conservative governor.
What are the local governments like in Calli?

Damn with libearls like that they will be banning your guns next

California's problem is the people who live there. You have a state where 50% can pass an amendment to the constitution, basically forcing the government to do something, but pass another that prevents them from raising the necessary revenue to do it.

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As to the original question, personally, this recession hasn't impacted me all that much. My job hasn't given out raises the last two years, and our bonuses were smaller, but other than that, I'm still employed at the same company, and getting my bills paid. I have several friends out of work though.

The construction industry and associated trades have been hit badly here, which has a knock on effect into other sectors

Arnold is a Republican, but that does not stop the state from being incredibly liberal on many things... most of the time too liberal.

Well, our local governments are usually quite good, but the town-hall meetings are usually just too crazy. All in all it is a great state, but huge mistakes have been made in the past, and I am sure we are still making them now.

Seriously though if people want to be so liberal about everything, we need to start doing things like taxing and heavily monitoring the pot dispensaries to that this goddam state can get some frakking money already. As it stands now, I see most dispensaries as a way for people to sell drugs, not medicine. Regardless of my views on any of this, there is obvious evidence that pot helps some people, and we are broke as holy hell out here.

The distrcit i live in the UK ivested their spare money into 1 of the Icelandic banks and when they failed lost about £2mill so things like coucil tax have gone up

Here is a link about unemployment in the UK:http://www.tradingeconomics.com/Economics/Unemployment-Rate.aspx?Symbol=GBP

The number of people seeking work in the three months through June rose 220,000 to 2.44 million

@ Lord-Loss i am not on those figures

They are nearly three months out of date. But its only got worse.

The main issue is that there is so much competition in most fields now. Even if you have a lot of experience in the construction and property maintenance industry, there is really no way to compete with the cheap labor out there.

Unions have taken a huge toll on this country in all honesty, not that they haven't achieved necessary goals for our workers, but there are limits to what a company can provide their employees. The fact that pretty much any high-paying career REQUIRES a college degree now is a very scary thing for the future of the economy. I can tell you right now that any experience I have will be taken to Europe soon if nothing gets better.

I haven't signed on, it's no good doing it

Too many people are highly educated now, most of which have a minimum of a 4-year degree. This causes huge problems for small businesses, due to the fact that having those degrees means you are looking for very well paid work. On top of this the more important careers such as teaching take so extremely long to develop, and end up paying so very little because of those stupid teachers unions, who would want to even be a teacher now?

I would teach, but I am not going to try and tackle that tsunami, it works out to be a total waste of my life on the whole of it. I applaud teachers that do their jobs well, and can maintain a clear frame of mind, but it is my general opinion that most U.S. schools are incredibly bad, and on top of this they lack funding to a degree that is astounding.

The worst part about education in the U.S. is the fact that the community colleges have taken a massive hit in terms of funding. Due to this lack of funding I have seen nearly every "extra-curricular" activities just disappear. I was planning on taking a course that would have given me some serious experience that I could apply directly to a job in my chosen field, but they did not get enough applicants so this incredibly useful class just disappeared.

Not only small business, back in the mid '90's i was training to be a maintence engineer, we had a guy come in who had 4 yrs building maintenance from uni but couldn't change a tap, education is good but you also need practical experience as well

Wrex wrote:Too many people are highly educated now, most of which have a minimum of a 4-year degree.

Hmmm... this may be a bit untrue, but the economy cannot support this many brains, especially when most of the best brains go to other countries to pursue their careers anyway. I think that if their were effective distribution of degrees through various fields (this raises a whole new set of problems though) we could see a balanced job market with minimum interfering competition, rather than beneficial competition. Frankly, I would be happy if I could find work in the dining industry as a waiter preferably.

Ever get that feeling that minimum wage just isn't worth it? I have had several minimum wage jobs and there was no real way to get anywhere in most of those companies. Assistant managers get like 12 dollars/hour on average, while Floor managers get 20-25 dollars/hour, and the district manager would get in excess of 70$ per hour... something is just wrong here. I seriously doubt that anyone besides the shareholders would be losing any money on the overhead, yet instead of just being fair across the board with a sensible scale of pay and benefits, you end up with this cliff-face of opposition. Do I really want to have to be that big of a douche to make a measly 70$ an hour? No... not at all, I would rather eat boot leather sir .

I didn't mean it as an attack on graduates, just was my experience, i have no real qualifications only my GCSE exams which to be honest were not good grades. I never really studied to much as i wanted to join the RAF and would have got all my training there but that got blown apart when i failed the medica.

No worries, I was just thinking out loud about what I had said earlier.

I thought about joining the military, but it is really not my cup of tea, and I would be forced into a role of authority and douch-a-tude just given my overtly... not sure how to put this, my fierce demeanor.

Being a tank commander would have been sweet though, but I.T. would have had it's perks... like being hundreds of miles away from the stuff with the bang-bang most of the time. Snap is loud man, it will make you go deaf , couldn't hear the music and all that stuff. My cousin was thinking about joining the U.K. army as a commander or however you would put it. Leader training academy-r-us , he never followed through on it though, I think the experience that they required of him changed his mind about joining. Lucky bastard has a sweet job at a bank where he makes frakking crank calls at work right now though ... lucky prat.

Worked with a guy who fought in gulf war1 in the RTC (Royal Tank Corps) came back with the unknown gulf war syndrome, now known as ptsd, also have a friend in 42 comaando royal marines, they all do a surperb job and deserve all our respect and support

My engraving business, which depends upon impulse buys of completely unnecessary crap has dried up to the point that I'm considering getting a part time job to make up the lost income. If that happens, you shall see my dark side.

Do you have any pictures of your work warpcrafter? I have always been interested in engraving, seems like fun stuff.

I am a hobby craftsman, and I was hoping to be able to sell some of my stuff in the future. The lack of burning money around here has made me change my mind about ever becoming a full-time artist.

Overall I am hoping for a bit more opportunity as a designer, but there is no real guarantee that I will be able to do anything besides live in the woods and grow my own veggies in the long run. Kinda funny cycle... like a social unicycle being ridden by a very strange elephant/donkey.

My ability to confuse my self knows no bounds .

Wrexasaur wrote:Too many people are highly educated now, most of which have a minimum of a 4-year degree. This causes huge problems for small businesses, due to the fact that having those degrees means you are looking for very well paid work.

In the Washington DC area, we call that Degree Bloat. I'm a network engineer with 10 years experience at the Service Provider and Carrier levels (ATT and international) - my experience is equated to a Bachelor's degree in this area. 4 years of school somehow = 10 years experience. I was contracting in 2008 to ATT 120 miles south of my home. Things got so bad in the DC area that I took a 10% pay cut to work back there while I fight uphill to get a job closer to home. Luckily I get overtime now rather than straight time, so I'm working the same hours as before for more money.

The worst part of the economy here in the US IMHO is that the Baby Boomers are the current geriocracy. They don't want to let go of their current positions because that would mean they are 'old'...a hit to their pride as they make budgetary room for the younger replacements. In my office we have 8 network engineers with my same experience. I am the youngest by 32 years. So much for younger adults being able to strike out on their own.

Its also interesting to note that the statistics for unemployment just drop people who haven't looked for work in 4 weeks. Apparently those people just stopped being unemployed. The percentages simply are wrong, and do not reflect the real situation.

Well, even if I wanted to, I couldn't work, not 16 yet. Feth you Labor Laws.

As for saving, it's something I usually do anyways. Save up allowance, picking up change n the ground also really pays off.

But I wish to God my neighbor needs her lawn mowed. Only source of income I have.

Uncle Cheesey, could you grant me this wish? Pwease?

Wrexasaur wrote:

Wrex wrote:Too many people are highly educated now, most of which have a minimum of a 4-year degree.

Hmmm... this may be a bit untrue, but the economy cannot support this many brains, especially when most of the best brains go to other countries to pursue their careers anyway.

Wait did you just have a disagreement with yourself?

I lost my Job and became a Full Time DakkaDakka Trolle and waster. Over a year now and I have been utterly unable to find a single job.

I am in Ireland though, and having lived in Both the UK and Ireland, I would prefer to live in Canada.

My company is actually managing to grow in the nations worst economic climate.....Michigan..we are a IT consulting company.

17-20% unemployment yet we are hiring.

How? We work our ass's off, its wed and I have 36 hours in already.

I'm still unemployed...my work is all free lance and such...