I find myself less interested in whether or not something is a recession or not. I mean, sure, the numbers of the economy are going down, but the big numbers don't necessarily mean much for anyone's personal life. Of course it can; losing your job is no fun. But the big reason why the Great Depression was so bad, is that we didn't have any social security back then. Unemployed meant having no income at all. No health insurance, no pensions, none of the things that people started fighting for exactly because of the Great Depression.
And because of that, these recessions and depressions are far less devastating than they used to.
Of course I'm saying this living in a rich country that does have all of these amenities; in poorer countries that don't yet take care of their poor (and possibly the US that chooses not to take care of its poor), things may still feel like the 1930s. But in a rich, well-organised country, there's really no need for that anymore. We can easily get through this is we want to. Skip a vacation, buy a luxury item less, make sure the poorest don't fall through the cracks (and there will be more cracks of course), and we'll be fine. The misery is mostly a political decision.
> We can easily get through this is we want to. Skip a vacation, but a luxury item less...
Wow that is pretty out of touch with reality. If you have a household where two people were all of a sudden out of a job at the same time with absolutely no warning or preparation, having to pay for two kids, a mortgage and no prospect to find a job in the next few months then I'm afraid skipping a vacation or not buying a luxury item will not cut it! And this shit doesn't just happen to the poor. If you are a restaurant manager on a high salary but all of a sudden the restaurants are forced by the government to be closed and before they are allowed to open again might have gone bankrupt, and the other person is in a high paying office job (fashion buyer for a big brand) and has been sacked because the entire fashion industry is having a fucking heart attack now then both people might be out of work for nearly a whole year before they can get back to anything like what happened before our governments decided to completely shred our livelihoods to the grounds for some yet known overall good. These people will be fucked for years and can be lucky if they are not going to loose their homes, get divorced and become alcoholics.
Sure, but that's why we need to take care of each other. Poor countries may not be able to, but wealthy countries absolutely are. Of course choices need to be made, but the choice not to help out those who are hit hardest by this, is a political choice. It's not an inability to help.
Of course there are countries, like the US, that seem eager to fuck this up, but again, that's a political choice. There's no doubt that the US has the economic capacity to get through this if it wants to. The problem is that its political class has other priorities.
In Netherland, people who lose their job still get paid. Restaurants survive by switching to delivery. Some companies may go bankrupt, many people will have to take a step back in their lifestyle, but overall, life here has been pretty good, and we have that leeway to make that step back.
That doesn't mean nothing will change once this is over; I think and hope a lot of people will reassess what's important. I hope we'll pay the people in these "essential jobs" better than we've done so far. And I hope people will learn to appreciate the essentials of life more and be less eager to get back into the rat race of status and useless crap. But we do have a lot of useless crap in our society that we can easily cut back on without letting anyone fall through the cracks.
In western Europe at least. I'm well aware that some other countries love rugged individualism for the poor and care more about bailing out the rich. But again, that's a political choice.
If people aren't working and creating a functioning economy, all of those things you described go away. They're tax-dependant. They aren't just whistled up from the wild blue yonder.
I think you are underestimating the effects of real depression even in a wealthy first world country. Finland went through depression in the 90s when the Soviet Union collapsed and it left behind a cohort of people who never really recovered or gained employment.
You seem to think that being poor in a first world country is just skipping few vacations and luxury items but otherwise life can be wonderful. I think you severely underestimate how poor people can get even in countries with strong social security, like the nordic countries.
Also the idea that misery is mostly political decision sounds just silly. Most of Europe hardly recovered from 2008 financial crisis and are already cracking under the demographic shift, baby boomers retiring. Add a covid depression into the mix and things can get really bad. There's just not enough money in the economy to share for both the retirees and a large number of unemployed. This can cause a vicious cycle as the increasing social spending will increase taxes, increased taxes will go to increased labour cost, increased labour cost will drive down demand on European goods increasing the unemployment even more etc...
There's always a cynic to rain on your optimism :)
Look into unemployment system tech. In my state, its physically impossible to access it. Whenever you call or go online, it is straight up broken and dozens of contact attempts have yielded nothing.
Our economic system is not nearly robust enough for these suddenly 5-10% unemployed and underemployed citizens. We can not "easily get through this if we want to".
I can't speak to the states, but as a Canadian, my wife and I tried to tackle the communication problem together - it took us a collective 550 calls over the day to even make it to the "on hold" queue, and I'm pretty sure making into the queue was purely by luck - my wife continued trying and never got through. The system is completely overwhelmed.
That's a really good point. Even if a society technically has the resources to take care of everybody, a big disruption can still threaten access to it. As much as I'd like to see western/northern European countries as fairly well organised in this regard, government sites are crap everywhere.
And because of that, these recessions and depressions are far less devastating than they used to.
Of course I'm saying this living in a rich country that does have all of these amenities; in poorer countries that don't yet take care of their poor (and possibly the US that chooses not to take care of its poor), things may still feel like the 1930s. But in a rich, well-organised country, there's really no need for that anymore. We can easily get through this is we want to. Skip a vacation, buy a luxury item less, make sure the poorest don't fall through the cracks (and there will be more cracks of course), and we'll be fine. The misery is mostly a political decision.