Finally, the truth. Thank you, NYT's writers and editors.
1
Next time around, it's gonna be a credit bubble. Be smart people.
OK Now we have the propaganda. When do we get the facts?
Life can be hard. Times can be tough. The nimble thrive, but the slow merely survive. Always been this way. The exact circumstances are irrelevant.
4
nearly invisible in all this is the part of the population that "certain-aged out" during the recession/recovery...by the time the smoke began to clear they emerged into a fog of age discrimination...no matter the jobs, now they were passed over because of their age, the availability of younger, cheaper hands
who could be "brought up to speed" in an acceptable time, no matter the deterioration of services during the wait, pushed the older folks aside and, apparently, out of range of anti-discrimination laws, (which seem to work for every category but age).
12
Ten years later, and the Republican prescription to improve peoples lives is to roll back banking regulations, give enormous tax cuts to those who least need a break, run up the national debt, deprive people of healthcare, eviscerate any and all consumer protection programs, threaten to decimate Social Security and Medicare, spend money on the military instead of infrastructure, threaten our security by withdrawing from trade agreements, climate agreements and nuclear deals, and start trade wars with our biggest trading partners. I'm sure I failed to mention everything.
It staggers the imagination how anyone who isn't fabulously wealthy, votes for a Republican! What possibly can these people be thinking??
9
We need a much better understanding of the connections between finance, economics, sociology and what actually happens in people's lives. Risk-taking in financial markets seems harmless enough...until we realize it destroys our communities, our natural environment, our biodiversity, our health, etc. Financial markets are not democratic and they are not fair. Safety and soundness does not come naturally to these markets.
2
Thanks for sharing these perspectives. Let's hope that young people who may not remember or have understood this trying period of time read this and absorb the lessons. Unexpected adversity is just that. When making financial decisions, one has to take into account that future may not play out as we plan.
6
The American capitalist system has been a Rube Goldberg contraption since its Inception. It has always lacked logical management and has been governed from day one by greed. As long as such Behavior continues it will continue to have the Sawtooth ups and downs that have characterized it from the start.
5
Yes, some made mistakes or had in poor judgement. They quit jobs. They borrowed too much or for the wrong reasons.
But, many others did all the right things and got wiped out anyway. They didn't quit; they were fired. They didn't buy too much house. They saved money, but used it up during extended unemployment and eventually couldn't pay the mortgage.
Others have already stated some problems and fixes, e.g. restore repealed financial regulation. Here are others I have not read:
Better higher ed funding so students don't have to borrow so much. Also, higher admissions standards so fewer inadequately prepared students enter college. Give everyone greater financial education; most people don't understand compound interest and credit. Too few Americans put away any money for retirement. Easier retirement savings options (in some countries, you can save at the post office). Of the decreasing number who have access to a company pension plan, too few take advantage of it, and of those who do, most invest only in the safest option with the lowest return.
Raise top marginal income tax rates to a maximum of 70% on income above $1 million and/or the top %10. Raise unearned income (interest, dividends) tax rates. Raise the corporate tax rate; it's way too low. And eliminate the hedge fund loophole.
Break up banks with over $100 billion in assets, and have steeply rising capital requirements for those with over $10 billion in assets.
Health care for all.
Child care for all.
13
Notice what those who did not recover have in common: they are over 45.
14
I am looking for a new job in an a different industry so comb job boards like Indeed.com constantly and can tell you, while we all hear reports of unemployment being low and job opportunities flush, the jobs pay $11 an hour. Not 'Unskilled Fry Cook: $11 an hour', i am talking about "Executive Assistant: needs to know Excel, Access, Word, Outlook, will compile reports, report to three managers, run a busy office in every aspect, college degree preferred: $11 an hour'.....THIS is the better economy we all were waiting for????
28
This was a great article. I attach no blame to any actions taken by the people noted in this article. Life just happens sometimes and it is not always good when it does. I feel pretty fortunate to not have faced such challenges.
We seem to be stuck in a boom bust economy. In the early 2000s, internet stocks soared and crashed. In 2004 to 2008, Real Estate soared and crashed. The cushion put under both crashes was a debt balloon that will surely burst one day.
The real truth is that the good paying jobs that supported the middle class are disappearing. Pick your poison, offshoring to cheaper locations or the real silent killer called technology. The real question we need to start asking and solving is what do we do with people when there really is nothing for them to do? The day is coming and its not a Democratic or Republican issue it really is a mankind issue.
Soon it will be the machines with a small cadre of people running things. The rest of us? Maybe we will be forced to get in really good shape helping to keep health costs down.
11
It's sad and grotesque that some commenters are implying that the people negatively affected by the recession essentially brought it on themselves because they were simply "living beyond their means." You can't save when you're living month to month, paycheck to paycheck, holding down two jobs, and it's still not enough to reliably cover the essentials. (In fact we had 2 full-time jobs, 1 part-time job, and 2 extra gigs for supplemental income, between two educated earners.)
Poor people aren't lazy or foolish, they just aren't paid as much. And they work just as hard, often harder. If you happen to be well off, that doesn't necessarily mean that you deserve it, that you were savvier, or even that you earned it by working harder. There are plenty who do everything they're "supposed" to do and more, only to find there is no realization of reasonable progress. And believe me that's a bitter pill to swallow, and incredibly taxing on body and soul. But we can't give up.
By all means be thankful for your blessings, but show a little compassion (and logic) for people who didn't have as many lucky breaks. And for those who face greater obstacles like socioeconomic disadvantages, physical and hidden mental disabilities, unexpected medical expenses, trauma, and any other countless setbacks.
14
What balances these stories are the people they could not find and the suicides and the homeless kids who are going to school. Add to that the elderly who are traveling around the country for migrant jobs in places like Amazon. It goes on and on and the media should be ashamed of not telling the truth. That is the only way we will understand the Trump phenomena.
11
In my experience, luck, education, drive and luck factor in to who survived and who didn't. It seems to me that a single decision determined many of the outcomes you portrayed.
I left a job in November of 2009 with six months severance and began looking for work in a very competitive field that didn't and doesn't reward failure. I had a kid heading to college in the fall. I was in my mid 50s - not a great age demographic when everyone is looking for a job. The housing market in our mid-size town was just horrible.
The luck was an African American head hunter who championed me, the education was a terminal degree and keeping current in my field and the drive was seeing that severance as funding a six month application process. I can't emphasize this enough, my supportive spouse never blinked at relocating.
46
@gopher1
Congratulations!
4
When we bought a house many years ago, the bank's standards and limitations gave us an education about what we could afford. It's a critical lesson.
With the (Clinton) repeal of Glass Steagall and the (Clinton) passage of the Commodity Futures Modernization Act -- both deregulatory -- many people in the 2000's didn't receive the education that we did as youngsters. "Stated income" applications? Really?
Many commenters think that consumers should know better, shouldn't make financial mistakes, etc. What I say is this: human beings have always made stupid mistakes with money, and governments should maintain strict regulation to protect them.
Look at the speculative 1920s, or the tulip bubble of the early 17th century. Why should an individual be judged harsher than Wall Street, which is full of educated people, yet they bundled investments they knew to be junk, out of greed?
This is why strong regulation to protect the populace and the broader economy is so important. But the few regulatory measures put in place under Obama are now being shredded. We're being set up for another catastrophe.
87
@Jules - Hmm not really. The top 3 or 6 in the finance company needed to make their contract-stated goals. They could that by commoditizing the mortgages they had issued.
Worked for 5 or so years, until the finance companies had no more good mortgages to sell, then they needed to package the bad loans they had made.
Oops too bad for the buyers, but the finance companies were out of the picture. Example: Countrywide sells $4 billion in who knows what are good mortgage loans to BofA.
4
My bad apparently BofA purchased CountryWide for $2.5 B and lost $50 B.
My mortgage was with CountryWide originally and transferred to BofA then to M & T Bank (Ohio) currently with no expense to me.
I have no complaints but ...
2
@Jules Just pick one: student loans, credit cards, are all examples where individual people are overexposed to risk for the long term. A job loss, an accident or an economic downturn or bout with inflation are more likely to put overextended people in a precarious situation.
5
People comment that some people profiled in the article lived beyond their means and made bad decisions. Many people who lived within their means lost their homes, savings and retirement simply because they lost their jobs and couldn't find full-time work and/or work with comparable pay. And the people, who some claim made bad decisions obviously thought they were making a good decision for themselves and it took a catastrophic economic downturn for the decision to be faulty. If the recession wasn't so great and it was just an ordinary recession they may have been able to survive it relatively unscathed.
36
@Patty
So many of us--virtually everyone--thought that real estate would continue to escalate in value. Some of us were fortunate that the falsity of that assumption didn't cripple us. But for those who lost jobs--and guessed wrong about the real estate market--the damage was enormous. None of us should feel superior.
12
@Patty Yes, but that ignores the choices made here. This is all very depressing to read, but I am struck that those profiled typically didn't consider the future when making financial decisions, assuming that everything would be okay, regardless. And two of those profiled here had unforeseen medical debts, and I'm assuming they had no or very limited insurance. None seemed to have financial resources saved during good times to fall back on.
@kcp, You CAN"T save when your wages or salary are so low that they barely cover basic needs. Just how far do you think $7.50/hour (that's $300 a week) goes to cover housing, groceries, utilities, transportation, clothing and medical - none of them are free, and many jobs are hourly and don't include insurance. The federal minimum wage has not kept up with inflation, and there are many employers who will not pay more than that unless forced to do so.
2
Notice a pattern here? It's us women in our 40s or older who haven't really recovered, and have been forced into part time work. Age and gender discrimination are very, very real.
Please report on this, NYT.
13
I’m confused by this story. You spoke with five people and then made broad statements that “many of them” never fully recovered and “for others” the recession was when it all fell apart. How can you make such bold assertions after interviewing only five of the “hundreds” you claim to have contacted during the recession?
2
@Never Trumper I've seen cold hard stats that paint a broader picture, but it's more emotionally engaging to hear about the real people behind the bloodless stats.
What happens when the stock market collapses (even people like Warren Buffett think it will happen) and everyone NOT affected by what happened ten years ago finds out what it's like? Everyone's 401k will be gone. There has to be a government safety net in place or the chaos will be out of control.
58
@Joe @Joe . If everyone loses everything, there won't be any tax dollars to pay your precious government.
4
@Joe - How do you define a 'collapse'? What do you mean 'everyone's 401K will be worthless'? Do you actually believe that profitable companies like Verizon, Chevron, Merck, P&G, Apple and Duke will be of no value?
Sure, the stock market may go down 20%, 30%, or maybe even 40%. But that's not to say that America's biggest companies will go to zero. Moreover, at some point value investors will come in and start buying.
19
@Joe
If you want any of the social safety net to survive another recession (or even hopefully to keep the stock market from collapsing again) VOTE in the coming legislative election for Democrats because the "Republicans" are planning further cuts in social programs --("Republicans" is in quotes because this radical bunch has nothing in common with former Republicans)
Perhaps there's still time to reinstate the regulations the Obama administration put back on the stock market that got us out of the 2008 recession and are needed to prevent us from falling again into an even more devastating recession or even a depression.
VOTE
16
Thank you for covering the truth about our "low unemployment" figures. I have asked journalists who cover markets and employment to do deeper research (as you have done) into the "fake news" that employment is up and great. They are unresponsive to the requests. More than 43% of those that ARE employed work as PT or contract employees with no benefits or retirement. The work is not steady, competition is keen and wages are low, and the stress is tremendous. This will impact the U.S. in a decade. Thanks again!
75
@Suzanne B. That is why the president insists that there is a lot to be done, and why we are not out of people and need more immigrants.
Even though it is obvious that this story is purely anecdotal, it seems insane to frame these stories as simple snapshots: this is how these people were doing ten years ago and this is how they're doing now. This approach completely undermines the wealth that vanished ten years ago; it neglects the massive compounding opportunity costs that these folks incurred due to negligence in greed in Wall Street for which no one was punished.
101
@Bob Good point. It would have been illustrative to compare a few multimillionaires alongside these folks. Ten years ago and today.
15
@Bob Most of the "wealth" that vanished was sky high real estate price "wealth" supported by 105 ARM loans, that could not be serviced. People were buying multiple homes to flip with these "products." I have fully recovered and then some from those days. Homes bought at the top of the market don't "compound", that's simply a fantasy.
4
@Ernest Montague
Well, no, not really. I’m with Bob on this one.
My husband and I did fine because 1) we weren’t in industries that were laying people off and 2) we had a low-interest fixed montage on our modest home that we never monkeyed around with.
But we also contributed fully to our 401K’s and even rolled the small inheritances we got from our fathers who both died in the early 2000’s into investment accounts. And then, presto, all those assets were worth 40% less. Sure, they recovered with the bull market, but starting out at 40% less. What would we have if that major crash had never happened, if we’d only experienced minor ups and downs? We would have been better off taking the cash we got from our fathers and paying down the mortgage or buying a new car (still driving a car purchased pre-recession!)—something concrete of which 40% couldn’t disappear overnight.
So, yes, we’re fine and I’m grateful for that, that we had the kinds of jobs and situations that allowed us to take advantage of savings plans and this bull market. But the current lack of fiscal responsibility and free-wheeling attitude in Washington has me very nervous about the future.
1
In 2008, I was 54 years old, a widow with a 14-year-old daughter. Self-employed writer/editor. Renting, driving an old car. Net worth around $85K. No health insurance. (Annual income around $40K, not including Social Security benefits for daughter around $450/month.) I started seeing the signs that things were about to get really rough: clients pulling out of projects, paying later, etc. So I took the Foreign Service exam, passed all the hurdles, and joined the FS in 2009. Uprooted my daughter and spent seven years moving around, doing interesting work, seeing the world. Many, many perks, including rent-free living and a low six-figure salary, which I plowed into savings and investments. Daughter went to college debt free. I retired two years ago and now have health insurance, a small pension, my own home, and a net worth slightly above $500K. Back to freelance editing, but with a great safety net. What saved me? Education, first of all. But also looking at reality and realizing that the water in the pot was getting too hot. When it's time to jump, do it!
121
@Patricia. Great story. Beats complaining that the factory closed 15 years ago.
13
@David. That's been my argument about the those who felt left behind when manufacturing plants and steel mills closed. It didn't happen overnight. Weren't there signs? Take some action, educate yourself and not meaning college if it's not for you; become a plumber, electrician, carpenter, uproot if you have to. Instead, now many just expect the government to make those jobs magically reappear and, hence, the administration we have today promising what will never be for a vote.
1
@Patricia Good for you!
3
Congress needs to fix the Age Discrimination in Employment Act so it protects a lot more people and courts need to stop agreeing with former employers that it's not discriminatory to refuse to offer a job to an older person who once made more money and/or had more responsibility. Yes, that's discrimination, and it should be illegal.
Failure to consider an older person because they person is "overqualified" is often age discrmination.
94
@Charlie - Left up to the States - Right to work means employers can delete employees for any or no reason.
11
@Charlie
I got that in 2009-2015 before I became a 'burden on society' (my words), as I was gainfully employed at a civil engineering company, but took a layoff to help out a younger person who was buying a house with his fiance. After burning through savings, 401k, and some stock shares I had, I finally was told that I should try and apply for SSDI. as I have a older work related back injury.
I still have not found work, and I am not sure why. I look all the time, but now at 64 I cannot compete. I have hear ALL the excuses to why I could not be hired. Even with the fire last year, I was rebuffed at trying to get back to engineering work due to age, without saying it, but I could tell after a while because of being told had too much experience, not enough experience, wanted to much salary, not current on software or did not know enough of software. Crazy when a person wants to work but is limited in some ways, and my is purely physical. So I have made myself as physically fit, lost 135 pounds that I had gained, got off ALL painkillers, and reduced medications. I am in better health now than I was in my 20's - 30's. I have learned to be frugal, but not cheap, eat better and exercise, and have much better outlook on life, but I get money from the government which puts me in a class that could end up with nothing in the current political climate.
Maybe the political weather will change and something new will come up and I can find a job where age means something and nothing.
1
Agreed it is. If a 50 person chooses a career/job path that pays less but they are willing to take that job and pay...denying it on those grounds only is age discrimination.
1
Does not matter who is in power...nobody cares about common man. Some have flowery rhetoric and some have brash rhetoric...Hmmm
3
Who should get much of the blame for this? Why it's our old buddy Andrew Cuomo who headed HUD and caused the bank and mortgage crises which led to the collapse of banks and the implosion of the economy resulting in recession.
Good going Andrew. Rarely has one person so singlehandedly caused such damage.
https://www.villagevoice.com/2008/08/05/andrew-cuomo-and-fannie-and-fred...
8
If this was supposed to be a painful and honest look at what the Great Recession did to Americans then it fell short.
This was fluff and not representative of the whole by far. What a waste of my time (and of course the time I took to write this).
3
You did not report on people who were literally abandoned by the job market because of the recession and who are in permanent and abject poverty. There are millions who dropped from the ranks.
26
"But the scars of the recession have never fully healed," the reporter wrote. But the truth is the "scars" are NOT about the material goods lost that the author details in the paragraph that follows.
The scars are the lack of routine, the death of trust, the end of hope.
THOSE are the scars to study and those are the scars that heal unevenly or, often, not at all.
17
I lived through the Oil Busts in Houston during the 1980s and it scared the heck out of me and my wife. Our incomes dropped but we were always able to cover our bills. I saw middle class people living under bridges, mass evictions of people from apartment complexes (with them on the curbs trying to keep thieves away!), and met once vice-presidents of corporations now living (wife gone!) in one-bedroom apartments. My wife and I vowed we'd scrimp and save and avoid debt, so -- when the 2008 debacle came along -- we were OK. Somehow I realized the things happening in 2005 to 2007 were unsustainable and I began to study (thank you, Nassim Taleb) puts and calls. I adopted a pure hedging strategy and the two of us did ok during the 2008 disaster. I write this not in way of boasting, but mostly because my experiences reminded me of my parents and grandfather's stories of The Great Depression. I now knew and understood their attitudes toward money from watching the 1980s unroll around me. I am thankful to them and I caution those who wrongly assume that "it can't happen to us" or that "it won't happen again" that it not only can, but will happen. Few listen, but to the few (like my son) who do, I preach the same as my parents did with me: "Save; don't buy what you cannot afford; if you borrow, pay off those debts as fast as you can; and -- most importantly -- don't assume your job is anything more than a temporary gig.
28
At the end of the movie The Big Short, they describe how Wall Street bankers made a fortune ripping off middle America and stated that none of them would go to jail and instead they would blame migrants for America's economic problems which is exactly what has happened. American's have been badly fooled and elected a con artist who has filled the swamp and provided tax cuts to rich corporations while nothing has been done for lower income and middle class workers.
Income inequality has never been greater and that is the real problem. The solution is raise the minimum wage to $15 per hour, Mandate a Canadian / Australian health care system which covers all and is less costly, reverse tax cuts for corporations and the wealthy to reduce the deficit.
44
I can tell you one thing with absolute certainty - Donald Trump doesn't care about any of this. Or anyone, except himself.
Number of lessons learned since the great recession? Zero.
Number of measures taken to prevent another one? Zero.
Number of dollars the middle class will have after the next collapse? Zero.
Number of times history will be repeated by those who learn nothing from it? Infinite.
38
I feel bad for the people in the article who fell on hard times. I really do, but a little planning would have gone a long way towards preventing at least some of their pain and suffering. I hope they see better days soon.
5
The great recession woke me up. I had saved and accumulated stuff for years. I had a great job, great income, house, car...the American dream. I was laid off, and went from a salary to contract work. I lost my health insurance. I managed and hung on, but then I shattered my knee in a simple fall. In around 3 seconds everything changed. I had a 100K plus injury and all I had was a house and the stuff in it, which I would have to sell to get my leg fixed. I did not get my leg fixed for more than six months, but then a miracle, I finally got Obamacare and it was no longer a pre-existing condition. I vowed that if I could ever walk again I would walk around the world. I had equity in my house, but Wells Fargo took over my bank and wouldn't even talk to me about refinancing, they just wanted the house. Eventually I sold everything I owned. I am now six years into that stroll around the world and on my 70th country. Probably the best thing that ever happened to me, but I didn't see it that way at the time. Once I realized that worrying about 'what's the worst that can happen?' when the worst has happened, there is no point. All my possessions now fit in one suitcase, I went from a 5 bedroom house, to one suitcase. It can be done. Stuff is just that, stuff, experiencing this world has been the gift the recession gave me. I don't know what's around the next corner, but I've already survived the worst.
89
@thewriterstuff - Good for you. Sounds great.
4
@thewriterstuff
This is really inspirational.
I struggle with stuff ... and as aging and bad knees plague me ... know it should ALL go.
Your story has given much much hope.
Thank you.
7
Obamacare was not 'a miracle'. Please consider thanking the democrats, Nancy pelosi, Obama. They made it happen.
11
Mnuchkin (sp?) just listed his 5-bedroom apartment at 740 Park Avenue for $34 million and change.
And it's not because he needs the cash.
I expect the 'lovely' wife, Louise Linton, is feeling a bit cramped and needs something more expansive.
Some had to lose everything 10 years ago ... and then, there are his ilk.
Remember this come November, and vote accordingly.
79
@jazz one, Steve Mnuchin has been called the Foreclosure King. He bought the failed IndyMac, created OneWest bank. The bank acquired my mortgage which I was able to modify after my husband died. They canceled the modification so I spent 15 months sending massive amount of documents to prove hardship. They finally a modification with no debt forgiveness and a contract where I would have to agree they could lean on any or all of my other assets if I could not come up with the full amount.
He's a selfish, evil man.
44
@Corvids -Even though, the original mortgage was a contract. My original contract with CountryWide became advantageous to me.
@jazz one - Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin is selling his Manhattan home for $32.5 million.
This Park Avenue condo has been in his families possession for decades.
Mr Mnuchin bought the apartment from his aunt in 2000 for $10.5 million. His family has owned it since the 1960s.
Don't hate the multi-decades old rich! You should plan as they were able to.
One in a thousand handles adversity well, but one in a million handles prosperity well.
14
@phil Would love to put that to the test , and give more an opportunity to fail at prosperity
1
I have many older friends & family members who may never bounce all the way back.
Several well qualified ones who were over 50 lost their jobs and have only worked sporadically since. These were very successful people till then. Then they had to spend their retirement savings, till they ran out. (Selling assets into a declining market will do that. ) The economy is better but the future looks bleak for them.
I was reminded of my great-grandfather & grandfather, 2 guys who were doing fine before 1930 and were close to broke afterwards. They both died before they saw the benefits of economic recovery.
So, rich folks—be compassionate. It really could be you.
43
Wealth is relative, it is not absolute. For example, at the beginning of the game of Monopoly, everyone starts out with $1,500, so no one is rich or poor, no more than if they added or subtracted as many zeros and decimal points either way to infinity. The end of the game is that one has won it all and the rest lost it all, and along the way, the relative wealth and poverty advanced to this conclusion.
Before the 2008 recession the rate of inequality was intolerable, however, after the recession it became much worse. The recession dropped the absolite wealth for all people, but the relative distance between the rich and the middle/ lower class increased. The recession made the rich richer and everybody else poorer.
So while the majority of people worry about gas, food and rent prices, the rich did not take notice as they pulled ahead in the race for wealth: in the race the overall speed for everyone was slowed, forcing some to come to a complete stop or crawl while the folks who own and control the political economy dropped from 150 mph to 120 mph.
If I was a rapacious <1%er and was impatient about the growth of my wealth, I'd figure out a way to rig a great recession, calculating the potential losses I'd make relative to the masses, and when the quants that work for me said they'd figured it all out, I'd throw the switch, and in 10 years time make more money by increasing the relative distance between me and all the proles than if I'd just stuck with the status quo.
8
@Chris Not really - those who retained their jobs, understood the new economy, reduced their consumer debt, increased their investments and were in for the long-term could have prospered.
5
@RenegadePriest
A lot of outcome also depends on where one is on the demographic arc.
For older folks, especially those already well into their retirement, when '08-'09 came down, it was both difficult to 'recover' from a strictly $$ standpoint ... because that also required having to find the faith to stay in, or even more critical, to invest in a bottomed out market.
That bottoming out was terrific if one in their 20s, 30s, even 40s. Yes indeed, prospering was nearly impossible to mess us.
Waaay tougher to recover from if one in the 50s, 60s, 70s and above.
It's all about timing.
@jazz one - Yes older folks should have positioned their economics to prepare for any eventuality. Too bad, so sad if you cannot see a trend several years in advance.
For whom did these people vote in 2016?
40
By the time the 'Crash' caught up with my job, it was the end of 2012, well after the current Bull Market had started. Thanks to our good budgeting and financial analysis skills were able to extend our glide slope during our small c 'crash'. We had to start our Social Security earlier then planned, and that of course will have long term consequences going forward. My favorite movie, of course, "The Big Short".
14
@Richard Mclaughlin
That and "Margin Call," which, despite having Kevin Spacey in it (ick), I was able to get through as I wanted to remind myself how it all came to pass.
3
One must take a look at the skylines of cities from 2008 and another one from 2018 of large urban cities such as LA, NYC, London, DC, Miami, Houston, SF, Oakland, Denver, Chicago and other American cities and then the conclusion becomes clear. While the many middle class and the poor lost their jobs, savings and homes, following recession, it created opportunities for the few rich that only the rich could capitalize into because they were the only ones with capital. The one's without capital were left behind.
Not much has changed since. People continue to find themselves deep under debt, whether it be student loans, credit card loans, payday loans, personal loans or auto loans. Debt has now taken in a different form.
Americans must save. The president, media, congress never refrain from saying, 'putting back $ into American pockets so they can go out there and enjoy the economy'. Americans must learn how to save. If only Mr. Whitefield had saved for times of crises. If only Americans could be OK with living with an $399 iPhone instead of the new best one. One can blame media, president, congress and the immigrant who now makes more money. But we must honestly ask ourselves, 'What have we learnt from our own irrational exuberance?'. Mom and dad's who lost their homes for being unable to pay debts have their children, 10 years later, unable to pay their credit card and student loans.
American is a debt-ridden economy. Americans must save.
33
@John - Amen Brother! If you want to be forever poor, do not maximize your chances when you are presented with them.
The opportunities really begin when your children have children, maybe even before. Think Multi-Generationally!
Myself - I was a smart kid, my father said he would not pay for college, so I went in the AF. I was able to get a EE degree.
I didn't really plan adequately for my wifes' daughter, but she did well. My grandson, however, he has a 529 plan worth $40K now.
Make sacrificies, they may pay off in the long term.
15
@John Understanding personal finance is an asset in our economic environment. People who are raising teen agers and have college aged young adults would do well to introduce them to the books of Dave Ramsey, "the millionaire next door" and other popular writers on personal finance. Learning to live a bit below one's means in order to pay off debts faster and put something away for a rainy day, and learning how to invest and possibly earn passive income, can make a huge difference in having a little more control over one's life even on an average income.
I'd guess that older job-seekers (say >50) fared worse than the young. We know employers prefer young to old, and as you age you find it more difficult to adapt and change course.
Been there, done that. I'm glad I'm retired now.
23
@ring0 - Indeed I'm 58 unemployed for 3 years. My 10 year employer fired me because I was too old. Right-to-work state, no problem.
Right to work - as long as the employer cannot get a cheaper version of you.
44
@RenegadePriest. So your employer said "Your too old?"
I'm 55. I can't quit because I don't have at-will employment. I must give six months notice. I can't look for a job in the US and tell the employer "I'll start in 6 months".
At-will employment is empowering to both parties, if you understand it, and can roll with it.
1
@David - No the separation agreement, (in a right to work state), said in 2.5 pages that I was not being fired because I was too old to learn anything new.
Of course I was not given that opportunity.
3
If you really step back for a second and think twice about this article, the overarching message that rings clear is that:
"There were some people who suffered here and there, maybe they had to struggle, some more than others, which seems unfair, but look, they've all got homes or apartments, appear showered and well-fed despite the ketchup story, and the complaints sound like first world citizens were mildly disrupted by a temporary drop in the superpower's economy."
Of course this is just baloney. We know that there is a large population of people who suffered greatly and will never recover their lives. If there was a better way to promote the sanguine message that the recession was really not that bad, I don't know a better way to do it than through such reporting as this.
17
@Chris, the beginning of the article says that some of the people the Times spoke with in 2008 have fallen off the grid completely, and there was no way to see how they are doing. The ones who were interviewed were generous enough to discuss their current states. For the most part, they underscored my personal fear that full employment is still UNDERemployment for far too many people. The middle class continues to shrink as the wealthy and corporations crow about tax cuts and a booming economy. And the future for these strong souls in the article is not very rosy. As long as they can work, they are ok. But they are one missed paycheck from another financial disaster, and they could well join the people who weren't able to be contacted.
20
I also lost my job during the Great Recession but as a Canadian, a few of the key differences were absolutely no medical expenses and much more generous social programs such as unemployment insurance. We call it Employment Insurance or EI up here and it paid me about $1800 per month for almost a year. Canada has universal basic health care so medical costs were of no concern. Losing my job was hard but not catastrophic and we were never in danger of losing our home. We have recovered quite well and I am grateful for the social programs available in Canada.
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@Mike Pasemko
I agree, medical expenses are mentioned several times in the article. USA is the only developed country without universal health care.
15
My husband and I bought our first home in 2007, near his Marine barracks in NC. It was not beyond our means. We had two modest incomes after relocating from NY, put down a large down payment on this home and our monthly mortgage payments were paid on time- without stressing our monthly budget.
In 2008 I lost my job. Even though I had several years of experience and a college degree, I could not find a job. Walmart would not take me. We could not survive on my husband's meager deployment salary of $22K. We eventually lost our car, our home, all of our belongings in that home and divorced. Gone was all of the equity (our life savings) in our very modest house which the bank foreclosed upon.
So many years later, the loss of that money can not be overstated. We were not young 20 year olds, but in our late thirties, believing we had put our hard earned savings into the soundest investment known to Americans...one's home.
I have rented ever since; a middle aged person in the workforce who has aged out of the physically demanding work I was schooled for (Chef/restaurant/hotel industry). I know I do not see any way to recover what was lost.
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@Alfred Juniper - You bought at the top of the market. The Great Recession came upon you and you lost everything. You paid a heavy price and it continues.
The middle class who had and were able to retain their jobs prospered, if they were able to perceive the change that was happening.
Late thirties, you can still recover.
2
@RenegadePriest - she is now late 40's. She was in her late 30's when they lost everything. Still not too late, but a sparse resume and lack of education doesn't help.
The recession of ’82 was The Great Depression of my working years. No income for two years as I was in commissioned real estate sales. Fortunately, had always lived well below my means, had rental properties. Didn’t lose my house, did have to sell one rental property on land contract to keep going, however.
When things opened up in early ’83, I took a job for peanuts with the richest law firm in the state. I also got back into real estate part-time selling only very high-priced homes. I had learned my lesson. You work for people who are RICH.
I am now 76 yo and retired – but happy to say I kept my job at that law firm until 68 y/o when the The Great Recession hit. My job was then “eliminated” – of course, the fact I was 68 had nothing to do with it. Lol.... fortunately, I had saved liked a mad person – and pulled my money from the market before the crash – sensed something was coming. I have far more discretionary income today than I ever did when I worked.
I do feel badly for today’s workers. Jobs like I had at that law firm don’t pay today what I was earning at the end. The years I worked were better for people like me (no college) – no doubt about it – than for people today.
4
@Diana - Real Estate sales -OMG
I remember coaching my step-mother for her realtors exam in the early 70s. Don't know if she ever made any money.
Whenever there are serious job & career disruptions as we had around 2008, only the best of those harmed would come out better. When companies layoff employees, they usually terminate those who are either less critical to a downsized organization or are weaker performers.
Additionally, it's a time for senior management to reevaluate their long term strategies and tactics. This reassessment often means significant changes to the skills required in their new organization.
Having been the point-person in the downsizing of an 8,100 person division of a major manufacturing company, I worked with consultants and division managers to totally revamp the organization. We eliminated a hug amount of redundant work, automated thing that should have been automated years ago, as well as employees who never have made a contribution to the well-being of the organization.
We also organized a list of terminated employees who should be rehired when appropriate, employees who are deserving enough to be actively recommended to competitors and suppliers, as well as organizing for them a list of their accomplishments and those in our organization who would provide excellent references with specifics, so that their references would truly shine out.
This is not to say that there were missteps and people who were left behind. But our board-level executive committee believed that it was the right thing to do.
7
@Enarco
My question to this stunningly sang froid analysis: does senior management ever reconsider redundancies in its ranks? Is deadwood pruned in its branches?
Why do cuts rarely seem to occur within senior management's level--without golden parachutes and handshakes, that is?
23
@Enarco
You wrote: "When companies layoff employees, they usually terminate those who are either less critical to a downsized organization or are weaker performers." Your experience is anecdotal and from the company perspective. Another person might state that law offs adversely impacted those employees 40 + years and older who didn't sue because they signed releases to get severance pay or the more expensive employees, many of whom were 40 years of age or older.
13
@Charlie. So I undertand, you RIF'd poor performers instead of managing them out for performance?
So essentially if the economy collapses when you are under 40 years of age, you’ll recover and come away having learned a powerful life lesson. Ifyou are over 40 when it collapses, you’ll spend your life in poverty working menial part time jobs. Swell.
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@Julie
True, and it's good to understand that when you're young. (I never did!)
18
@Julie
And I believe being a woman 'of a certain age' is even more punishing.
26
@ring0 - if you can, teach your children (or actually grand-children). My grand-son (11) seems to listen to me when I show him the NYSE, but maybe most of his interest is showing respect to the old guy!
I can only hope he is learning foundations for the future!
4
During the Savings & Loan crisis 1,043 bankers went to jail as a result of the fraud they perpetrated. During the aftermath of the 2008 subprime meltdown caused by pumping up the CDO's with loans that the banks knew no one would be able to pay, one banker went to jail. They learned how to buy into the government, including Treasury. But, many more borrowers did go to jail. The unsung story, still not told, is how TARP money went to prosecutors and how bankers, Wall Street traders and mortgage brokers made a killing while many people to took loans wound up in State or Federal prison. D.A's all across the country were being paid, in addition to their Asset Seizure bonanza, to prosecute average people who took loans out.
26
The economy has been expanding for the last 112 months (second longest expansion in our history). Get ready for the next crash.
19
Who is prey and who is predator.
Are you prepared for the next "recession" in 2019?
Adjusted for inflation since 1968 the minimum wage should be 50 dollars an hour.
"Rule Of Law" should read " No Rule Of Law." Do as I say, not as I do.
Oligarchy is alive and well.
16
@Tim - @2019 - show some proof? You all in cash? Earning 2%? You Go!
Most of these stories are sad, the people made not so good choices that led to them suffering more when the economy turned down.
9
@vulcanalex - Yes we don't know previous education, asset accumulation, and employment for most of these citizens.
As a nation we were hit by the tech recession of 1999 and the Great Recession in 2008, if we were employed during the Second Recession we might have learned to reduce our debt and increase savings.
If we could not do that, we would suffer, until this day.
I couldn’t fall asleep without drugs… but soon realized I needed a different tactic… one for the long haul. Audiobooks became my drug of choice. There were nights when I’d listen to an entire audiobook without a moment of sleep. At least I wasn’t worrying myself sick all night.
Today, I still fall asleep listening to audiobooks, but I repeat ones I’ve already listened to because I fall asleep faster and can’t follow the plot of a new one. (That's not to say DJT doesn't give me plenty to keep me awake at night.)
7
The years after 9-11-2001 we were busy.
Folks apparently were buying homes and cars with no credit.
Then came the crash.
My company struggled but survived.
We had to lay off many good people.
Customers just stopped spending.
It was slow for around 7 years.
For the last two years we have had the most business in the last 30 years.
Most companies in my field are booked. Any recovery is going to leave some folks behind. Right now this is making news for obvious reasons ( mid terms ). Good news is that millions of Americans are better off than they were 5 years ago. That I can tell you.
5
The millennial you picked for the article wasn't really relevant since his parents paid his college tuition to give him a hand up. He didn't figure things out for himself like having to work 2-3 jobs to stay in college.
87
Economy booming. Poverty lower, wages higher, job opportunities higher, low inflation. Yea, pretty much desperate times. Nothing like objective journalism. The past 18 months will soon be referred to as the good old days of a booming economy.
5
@Shamrock And the deficit is over a trillion in a boomong economy. Why? Let's wait to see where we are in 2 or 6 years before we start celebrating.
33
@Shamrock "low inflation" is a misnomer. The key aspects of daily living: housing, health care and education costs, have all increased at a far higher rate than the official inflation rate over the past two decades. At the same time wages have been stagnant or feebly increasing. Investors do better than wage earners under such conditions.
1
@Shamrock I want to clarify that Trump is not responsible for the economic upturn. He basically gave the stock market a boost in anticipation of how he would change economic policies. Job growth has increased steadily under Trump. However, Obama had more job creation in his last 10 months of his term than Trump has had in his first 17 months as president.
Trump's policies recently enacted can't be credited for the economic growth as it takes time for companies to make changes/reinvestments that improve their financial status. Presidents can affect the economy through the decisions they make, but it often takes years to gauge the impact. *"For instance, most economists now say President Obama’s stimulus package helped pull the U.S. out of the recession, even though a majority of Americans at the time believed it didn’t work". So these gains are due to Obama's policies. Because the recession was so bad, it just took time to recover.
*Fact check: The economy is booming. Who gets credit, Trump or Obama?
4
So many problems could be averted if home prices held steady, rather than rising and falling willy-nilly. It feels like a big casino, with some property owners making a fortune (hello, California cities) and many other going bust.
I would favor government policies that tended to dampen price fluctuations, even if they meant my own home price would not rise.
6
@M. You're feeling the invisible hand described by Adam smith rocking the economic cradle
3
@M. Here I have a house worth less than I paid for it with the improvements I have made, not a lot less. So we don't yo yo either.
@M. Oh no we can't do "socialism"
I’m sure to be lambasted for what I am about to say—but here it is.
A lot of people who lost their homes, cars and lifestyles as a result of the 2008 recession were living beyond their means, not saving for a rainy day, acting as though residential real estate
appreciation was a given and the “equity” in their homes—on paper—was a bank account to be spent. They spent money like their jobs were secure and would always be there.
While my family was not directly involved in farming, I grew up in small towns where farming was the dominant industry. Wheat went to $5.00 a bushel in the Summer of 1973 for the first time. The really good times had finally arrived. Many farmers bought more land at higher prices, planted more wheat, and bought more equipment. The banks were happy to lend money to finance it all based on inflated land values. Then, the price of wheat receded and many farmers who had carelessly overextended themselves with the encouragement of their bankers lost their farms.
Always remember that there can’t be “good” times without “bad” times. That doesn’t mean we must live like monks, but a lot of money is frittered away on stuff which fills three-car garages that we don’t need to be content with our lives. Join a book club or chess club, or a bowling team. Help your elderly or infirm neighbors. Read a book.
No one worthwhile likes you because of your stuff.
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I completely agree. While many were living responsibly and simply fell on hard times after losing their jobs in the recession, many others could have saved themselves a lot of trouble by living within their means. Relying on borrowed money is never a good idea.
20
@Duane Coyle
Keep up the posts in defense of the likes of Goldman Sachs selling derivatives based on junk. And no that junk was not simply sub-prime mortgages.
15
@Icy
"Relying on borrowed money is never a good idea."
Tell that to Wall Street in 2006 or 2018. Or tell it to Donald Trump in 1990.
9
I know that you not many care about white collar problems, but similar issues occurred. I was let go from a high powered job with a large international bank in New York.
Many suffered the same fate. Some never re-emerged. Try getting a high level, white collar job when your are 50 or older and the economy has crashed to near Great Depression levels. My significant experience and education accounted for very little at that moment.
Fortunately, I did have resources to withstand the miserable job market. However, the mental and financial pressures do not change much based on income level.
Ultimately, my job search took 2 years and landed a job which paid less than half of what I made in 2008. I did hold on to most of my assets (but not without some losses) and have just about recovered to where I was before the crisis. When I get unhappy about how things turn out, I try to focus on how much worse it could have been.
One might say, you deserve such as an evil banker. Not really true, as most people in the financial industry had little or nothing to do with what happened and are just trying to do the same as everyone else.
Also, keep in mind that the higher income people in New York keep the big machine running through taxes and spending. When we don't do well, New York and the country don't do well.
I emerged a bit scarred and more cautious. However, I did emerge.
38
One percent of the population make 51 percent of the income.
The Republican Party held to policies that ruined the economy in 2008 and continue those policies in the face of stories like these.
22
@JimmyMac Doesn't the 1% need another tax cut?
5
@James They're about to get another one soon, whether they need it or not
I don't blame people who voted for Trump in 2016 out of sheer desperation for change.
I will blame them if they vote for him or his stooges again.
71
I would love to know whom these people voted for in November 2016.
13
I will always remember W saying just before the crash - the economic fundamentals are strong! Yet, you can find people saying the same thing today, and they will be found to be equally wrong. Perhaps things will change when we find that the opinion of an economist is much like the forecast of a meteorologist, with full apologies for denigrating the latter.
9
@Marty Rowland, Ph.D., P.E.
Yes, this.
And to all those lambasting people for living beyond their means -- and I get that, I do -- let's not also forget the infamous G.W., within a week of 9/11, exhorting people to go shopping. Spend, spend, spend was the message. Shop for the holidays!!
And buy homes, home ownership is everything.
Well, he missed 9/11, too busy to read or act, or even just warn Americans about, the Presidential Daily Briefing foreshadowing the attacks -- y'know, because he had to clear that brush and all -- and then after that massive dereliction of duty, gave us bad / rigged advice on how to press on.
Bitter? Just a bit. Exhausted? You bet.
~ 9/11 family member
7
Many middle aged men and women remain practically unaffected by this so-called recovery. Too many of us who lost our jobs (and nearly everything else) in the late 2000s will never know full-time employment again, and will consequently be ill-prepared for retirement. And some of us (I am not one of them) are the very people who, out of sheer frustration and desperation, voted to put an amoral T.V. huckster in the White House.
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@Jackson
so how do you feel now? is this great economy restoring your fortune?
3
@jonathan berger. After several years of post crash (post primary employment loss) temporary gigs, I retired at approximately 70% of what my benefits would have been had I been able to keep my full time job an additional 5 years. I’m making it, but it’s a monthly challenge. I never remotely considered voting for Trump, but I understand why many working class folks did. The irony in that, of course, is that he is a career charlatan who never had any genuine interest in easing our lot.
It seems like the people who were in their 40s or 50s when the recession hit were hurt worst. None of them will be able to retire. I am now 46 and wish the next recession could be planned to make sure it is less severe than the last one.
13
@Jason Galbraith College graduates of that period also suffered a setback, fewer job opportunities and less opportunity for advancement, stuck with student loans and low paying jobs until the recovery took hold
1
Timing is everything in every aspect of life.
I've had friends stroll through life without a care and not one bad thing has ever happened to them. During the recession they worked for the government, so they were basically untouched: their salary and retirement was guaranteed, and now they're living the good life in retirement.
One friend had lost everything three times before the recession; including his farm that burned to the ground; a wife who took every penny from his bank account before leaving when he was working overseas, and an injury that wiped him out financially. Each time he fought back. When the recession hit his body was completely worn out, so he was hit being without a job and with a body unable to work and his savings (his safety net) downgraded or gone entirely. So he fought again, got himself an office job that also didn't last because he needed pins in his spine. At 50, he was never going to get another job. He now lives on the paltry rent from his house that he was forced to leave, hoping it will last until he can collect what little retirement comes his way at 62. (Oh, and the property tax on his home has more than doubled since 2008, just to further add to his burden. So he'll never be able to move back into his home.)
An article on age related to the recession would show the real damage done, because those in their 50s who lost everything after a lifetime of work is the real travesty. And who was held accountable for ruining all those lives?
132
@James Devlin
A sad story....
I believe your friend my be eligible for social security disability? Unless the radical "Republicans" have already succeeded in eliminating it?
9
@James Devlin Government employees did not get through unscathed. Salaries for fed employees were frozen. State employees probably faired worse considering the hit state budgets took.
8
@James Devlin the best part about a NYT articles is often the comments section. Your comment proves just that. Timing is truly everything like you say, and age is a fundamental determining factor. I pretty much had it with the old tired cliche', one-size-fits all of the "living beyond one's means"...Thank you.
15
Middle aged women are invisible. Our resumes are filtered out based on our age and gender before they're even read. Please note the people who haven't been able to bounce back or recover their previous income are middle aged women. I lost my job in November 2007 at the start of the Great Recession. I have had one full time job since then and it was one of those jobs where they pay you a mean little yearly salary and expect an 80 hour work week in return. You end up earning about $3 an hour. Corporations love this. More money for the CEO.
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@Jenifer
I've been an admin, and a site supervisor among other things. Laid off after a few years every time!
At 58 I'm working as a security guard at a University. I took this because no one would give me the time of day.
I make little over 10.00 an hour. If I didn't have a small business pet sitting I would not be able to keep my head above water. I do have healthcare through my job, and I am thankful for that.
26
When labor statistics tout "job growth", how are those "job" defined? That is the critical definition and the public must know. Making "prayer shawls" is not really a "job" in the same sense as a VP in a tech firm, but it is given the same statistical weight. Is a "fast food job" really the same as a junior accountant? College grads who can't find work are "employed" even when they flip burgers for carfare. Should that count? The fourth estate has done a very poor job of explaining exactly where jobs are being created, what they pay, what benefits they provide, and how easy they are to obtain. An unfilled job on the west coast may not be a realistic option for an unemployed New Yorker. Just what does "full employment" mean in the real world? We can challenge the fourth estate to find out. Better yet, send a reporter to investigate how many of those "unfilled" jobs are actually real jobs, rather than just ways for companies to get "hits" on the internet.
58
@et.al.nyc You're absolutely right that not all jobs are created equal. This shows up in the economic data in some complicated ways. Ms. Fisher, for example, would be considered "employed" for the purposes of the unemployment rate -- even though, as you note, she isn't working full-time and isn't on anybody's payroll. She would not, however, show up in the monthly figures for jobs created ("nonfarm payrolls"), because those only count W-2 jobs (though they can still be part-time/low-wage).
Your broader point, though, is an important one. Broad measures of employment and job growth can miss important nuances about pay, hours, benefits and quality of life. We try to reflect those complexities in our economic coverage, but there is always room to do more.
27
@Ben Casselman. Many contract employees are W2 employees of someone. They are generally hired and fired to satisfy a specific contract.
@et.al.nyc. Making prayer shawls is not a job. Your correct. It is a business. Under some kind of corporate umbrella. Probably an LLC. So, she can write off of a part of the house. Part of the electric bill. The Car. The Computer. Inventory.
We don't know the full story.
1
2008 was a challenge for law school grads looking for non-profit work. Big law firms chose to cut the salaries of their incoming class of law school graduates in half, to $80K. The idea was that the associates could come back to work after a year of deferment. Some partied, but the industrious ones were able to find nonprofit work because they were free labor for the organizations. At some point some nonprofit job openings were only open to deferred associates.
Who can compete against free labor?
13
These were very moving stories of hardship. Ordinary Americans suffered greatly, and they remember everything but politically have learned nothing (Republican Congress? Trump?).
They could learn, for example that Canada was largely unaffected by the worst of the damage. Why? Because Canada has regulations such as the ones the US threw out starting under Reagan. Also, Canada has a better social safety net, and single payer.
You too could have all that too, but you have to vote Democrat to get it.
269
To be fair, they did vote for the Democrats in 2008, did not help. There is no political option that would deliver to the Americans the standards of living of other developped countries.
8
@D Priest
" .. They could learn, for example that Canada was largely unaffected by the worst of the damage .."
Canada is 85% white, relies on USA medicine and defense, much higher taxes, still under British rule, no First Amendment, Conservatives took power and laid off bureaucrats.
You want that, be my guest.
@passer-by
Actually it was Democrats who lifted the country out of the recession. This despite obstruction for Republicans at every turn. The passage of the ACA attempted (and succeeded) to provide health care insurance to millions more Americans. Loans to GMC and Chrysler kept those industry giants from going under, saving thousands of jobs. The economic health that DJT regularly boasts about was and is due to Democratic actions taken when Barack Obama assumed the presidency and after.
The Great Recession took my brother. 60 years old, unemployed for nearly 5 years with no hope of getting another job, a mountain of debt and very few possessions except for his beat-up car, he took his own life in 2012. THAT is what the Great Recession took from his children, siblings and friends. 6 years later, it still hurts to write about it.
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@JenD I'm so sorry for your loss. Unfortunately, you are far from alone. Economic research has found that unemployment can have long-lasting effects on people's mental and even physical health. I fear that some of the people we weren't able to reconnect with for this story could have been lost as well, although we do not know for sure. No matter what, the human toll of the crisis is still being felt a decade later.
Thank you for sharing your story.
51
@JenD
I'm sorry, Jen. And I don't care who you or your brother voted for or whether he ever made a mistake that someone could "blame" for his sorrow. It's a tragedy.
We can beat our tiny fists again the wall (Street), but there's little you or I can do to entirely protect ourselves, our families, and our jobs when the vast percentage of major social decisions are made well above our heads (and pay grades).
Helplessness and hopelessness can get to anyone.
11
@JenD
Jen, please accept my sincere sympathies on the loss of your dear brother.
Thank you for being willing to post this. People just don't know, or care to know, the full extent of the harms of '08.
The massive scale of the personal hardships and lives upended, and that maybe one individual has been prosecuted and jailed as result is just ... shameful. (Fines don't count. Wall Street firms make those back in a day.) This market manipulation was a crime.
You, and your brother, have educated and helped countless people today.
I wish you peaceful moments ...
~ 9/11 family member
6
A very meticulous account of those on the wrong end of inequality, but not a mention of the fact that neither party lifted a finger for working people - both parties too busy lavishing aid on Wall Street.
And let's face it, working people weren't exactly thriving BEFORE the meltdown, owing to the fact that when both parties engineered the large scale transfer of manufacturing jobs overseas, job retraining programs never advanced beyond the level of rhetoric.
The Democrats did produce quite a bit of rhetoric on the need for these programs - but no action, indicating clearly that they knew globalization would be devastating to working Americans but that the party did not, and does not, care.
A progressive enlightenment is sweeping across the country, but the Democratic party bosses are determined to stamp out that fire, with Nancy Pelosi "vowing to handcuff her party’s progressive ambitions, including in the event that a Democratic president succeeds Donald Trump, by resurrecting the “pay-go” rule that mandates all new spending is offset with budget cuts or tax increases."
https://theintercept.com/2018/09/04/nancy-pelosi-2018-midterms-democrats/
16
The recession was also generational which put an additional hardship on recovery. For example, I’m a generation X person and for me: my spouse was unemployed for over two years, my business decreased by 70%, mortgage underwater, “qualify for a mortgage modification” but it took my lender over a year to process (lost documents, over 27 different representatives, etc), our 9 months of living expenses savings and all of our retirement savings were gone. And then my parents, they lost everything - everything. We are all still working to recover. However, due to the effects of the recession, I am also aware that I will be even more financially responsible for my parents as they age.
72
Ask a person in the investment, corporate executive and political class what they think, and they'll go on about monetary and fiscal policy, about economic growth and retraction, about loosening and tightening regulations, about employment rates and wage increases and decreases, about stock and bond markets and the holographic world of derivatives, swaps and other side bets to complex to name, and they will go on about the past, the present and the future in a macro view of things, casting aspersions on their peers who compete with them controlling all this stuff.
They will not talk about their rent or mortgage, the cost of toilet paper, gas and food, nor will they talk about themselves personally as all the folks do in this article.
Ask people from the bottom 90% of the population, and the vast majority of citizens will talk about how their life is going, and how their ups and downs have transpired. They will talk about personal challenges and opportunities, some will brag they were smart and others will admit failure due to internal and external forces impacting their lives.
They will not talk about the FED interest rate hike approaching the dropping yield in the 10 year bond market, they will not mention the monthly Case-Shiller reports, nor the stock market that is overpriced, and they will not see how their jobs, and by extension, themselves, have been viewed as commodities, as "things".
The experts have all the agency, the rest of us do not, we just muddle through.
47
Average Americans suffered while the “well to do” pillaged the wreckage of their handiwork.
Mnuchin, the “forclosure king” happily capitalized on the misery of others.
Greed and corruption run our government, and it needs to be called out and reined in.
230
@Grove: I believe you make fine points here.
Let us also consider how Shawn Hannity did his fair share of such pillaging in that wake of wreckage: he amassed a small fortune in foreclosed property.
As you say, "Greed and corruption run our government, and it needs to be called out and reined in." Fox News is much like state-owned media. Hannity works for Fox News. Hannity has maintained a highly unusual, unethical relationship with 45 (revealed in initial Cohen hearings.)
Connect the dots as you like...
36
@Grove
Well said, certain elements capture the system through rent seeking activities that may take the form of regulation or the elimination of regulation.
Paulson claims he did not bail out the financial system but saved a system, warts and all.
A system is needed but at present it does have collateral damage and it is certain the fortunes of some unfortunates met very bad results.
I'm a 2008 grad. The hard working type. Between the decade of six day work weeks in manual labor and daily physical pain that comes with it, balanced with attending school part-time on and off and the birrage of rent-increases and lack of job security, topped with the condescendence of my elders, it feels like my little heart is going to explode. Good thing for Big-pharma and my stack of antidepressants, blood pressure meds, and sleeping pills/antipsychotics. If I make it through, I'll be able to start living my life at 40, well over 100k in the hole. What an exercise for mental fortitude!
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@Kitty Take heart and take steps. It will make a difference. Ease up on the meds unless they are essential medically, and work your plan of attack again. There are better job opportunities for a college educated person and there are opportunities if a person has the flexibility to move.
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These are very brave people to come forth and speak up about their life experience.
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You could have picked a lot better representations of the millennial face of the recession than a white kid whose parents saved him. How about those of us who graduated college into the jaws of the recession and didn't have parents to pay for a year of grad school so that we literally never even experienced the recession? What about those of us who took out student loans because we could not go to school without them (not our fault tuition has been spiking for decades) and could not get hired for $10/hour out of undergrad? What about those of us who have had to give up all the underpaid or unpaid "learning experiences" that springboarded our peers with financial backing into great careers, and are stuck now trying to compete with resumes full of the menial work experience you insisted we weren't above doing? What about those of us whose lack of said experiences have created a personal and professional network of similarly situated people who are powerless to help us? What about us?
The guy you picked is the perfect illustration of the resilient and insulative power of privilege.
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@Andre
Radical organizing is the only fix for us.
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@Andre This is a fair point. We wanted to pick stories that reflected a wide range of experiences, good and bad. Mr. Martin's story may not be typical, but he certainly isn't alone -- there are many people for whom the recession proved a temporary setback.
One thing that became clear in our interviews (both the ones printed here and others left on the cutting room floor) is that bits of fortune -- again, good or bad -- could make all the difference. People's choices mattered too, of course. But a lot of what happened came down to factors beyond their control.
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@Andre
There will always be those who succeed and those who fail no matter the circumstances. There are those who make the right choices and those who make the wrong ones. That's just the way it is.
The "white kid" was on the right side of the equation and you were on the wrong one. Don't blame him for the luck of the draw.
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Echoing what others have said about the 31-year-old white guy who adverted disaster in 2008 by going to grad school, partially on his parents' dime. If anyone doesn't understand (STILL) how white and class privilege works in the country, Jason Martin is Exhibit A.
(That's not to diminish the work he did to get to where he is. But he had help that many folks who struggle with job loss and financial security DO NOT).
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@bklynfemme I see only class privilege, not a race privilege. There are a lot of white-working class Trump supporters that don't recall any "white" privilege saving them from the devastating effects of the recession.
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@acblack
The race privilege is apparent. Yes, poor whites exist in large numbers and suffer the effects of poverty. But, as melanin increases, the proportion of your population living in poverty does as well. Seriously, I'm white but I'm honest enough and secure enough as a human (morally, not financially) to see that and admit it.
@bklynfemme. While white privilege exists, Jason is an example of class privilege not white privilege. His parents money is what saved hIm. The whiteness of other people who never recovered from the recession did not save them. They are still hurting.
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The New York Times should have interviewed me. After a series of horrifying misfortunes, in 2008 I spent 10 months living in a homeless shelter while my application for SSI disability dragged on and on. I was finally awarded SSI disability payments in 2009. And by some miracle was given a housing voucher. I ended up first on a list of 75 other applicants by what I conclude was an act of God.
The rate of unemployment for those with the official status of disabled is 79% (the last time I heard). And despite having graduate degrees in what is now called “data science” along with expertise in at least a half dozen computer languages, and in spite of looking for and applying for work on an almost daily basis for the last 10 years, I’ve had two telephone interviews in the last 10 years (no job offers or interviews otherwise). My life currently consists of Food Stamps, Medicaid, a housing voucher and a discount bus pass so I can get to the grocery store. My hopes for the near future consist of having enough money to buy a new pair of shoes.
In another article in today’s NY Times, Asian immigrants since 2010 flood the nation. Since many get well-paying jobs from other Asian immigrants to the exclusion of vulnerable and impoverished people like me, I hope these people understand the resentment they are earning.
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It is very difficult to get a new job once you have qualified and used Social Security disability. Is is discriminatory? Absolutely.
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@sguknw Note that there are immigrants from various places not just Asia - just to put it in perspective. It is rarely mentioned but there are a fair amount of people from the Netherlands, Canada, France, Brazil, Ireland, who come to the US as immigrants who will search for work. Note that companies are in search of the lowest cost and export jobs overseas, be it a programmer or a call center operator. Note that the consumers want that low cost cheaper price. Note that the voters have favored those who weaken enforcement of fair employment practices and a better social welfare network. Note that the country is turning its back on affordable healthcare for all.
you guys, americans dont know what is to been hungry.
i´d to watch or go to another contries that are really on poverty.
i went to the state and what i saw was a bunch of lazy people waiting to get feed.
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@jose francisco gonzalez I graduated from college in 2008, I worked my way through a bachelor's degree for 7 years and graduated at age 27.
I job searched daily and took demeaning jobs under the table. I cleaned houses, cleaned up people's garage sales, and refurbished used appliances to resell, was a personal assistant to an elderly real estate millionaire.
I eventually found real work using my degree in 2010 as an AmeriCorps member. I served my country while feeding my family on 850/month plus SNAP in the Portland OR area.
Lots of Americans doing the same, finding creative ways to keep their families afloat, but chances are you just didn't ask, rather just assume.
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@jose francisco gonzalez
This is a vast country. Experiences vary.
It is true that this is the heart of Empire and the country benefits on the backs of others, but those benefits are not uniformly distributed. How could they be? Being willing to exploit the world doesn't foster beneficence.
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These ten years are America's lost decade, not at all unlike what the Japanese encountered in the 1980-1990 period. To this date, people have still not recovered there either.
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"The Great Recession", a nice phrase, and it brings up comparison with the Great Depression.
Fact: Nobody starved in the Great Recession. In the Great Depression, at time, half of the populace or more had NO access to money. They depended on food banks to survive. They lost everything. There was no work, no government benefit programs, no nothing.
The Great Recession was a blip, a momentary inconvenience. The Great Depression was a decade long horror. Read about it, please.
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It’s not an either/or and there’s zero reason to demean those that suffered the more recent economic disaster. Both were horrible at their time and many suffered.
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@Ernest MontagueAnd that's the difference between Depression and Recession. However, we had a World War looming back in 1939 after 10 years of depression and suddenly, as we were supplying all of Europe, labor was needed to fulfill the need Europe had. Full employment with good wages.
We don't have that now. Due to government intervention, we have essentially full employment with poor wages and extreme wealth maldistribution. Those two last issues didn't exist as we emerged from the Great Depression. Roosevelt made sure that that didn't happen, our current leader is making sure it DOES happen.
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@Ernest Montague
"Nobody starved in the Great Recession."
I think you have a very narrow view of what "starving" means. Mr. Whitfield talking about eating condiments for meals...that's not starving?!
Furthermore, this article shows that for many (far more than those interviewed), the 2008 financial crisis was more than just a "momentary inconvenience."
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The recession took my savings, my cash, my credit rating, my car and my house.
10 years later I have managed to regain some credit, no savings, a car.
But oh, how things have changed enormously since 2008.
Turns out that a credit rating of 680, is now considered low credit.
Despite my wife’s credit of 700+ and a combined income of 6 figures, we cannot qualify for a mortgage. We can’t even qualify for a rental! True story, 8 rental applications all turned down due to low credit (700’s) and low income (6 figures) and we’re not even talking a luxury place, just a regular apartment.
At least a friend of mine sold me her old car, as am sure I could not qualify for that either.
So I hear the housing market is ok. Maybe for those very rich, and those subsidized by local governments who qualify for ‘affordable housing’.
Because for those of us who refused to give up, the cards are stacked against us at all turns.
Guess we’re staying in out tini studio and keeping our 12 years old car for the duration of whenever.
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@AutumLeaff - Only in Manhattan can a household with an income over $100K and a credit score in the 700s not qualify to rent an apartment. Nationwide, things are not that bad.
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@AutumLeaff
The details are important. Your wife has a credit score of 700+ but you don't reveal what your's is. A combined income in excess of $100,000 and no savings? There's the red flag.
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@Jonathan I have half that income and a credit score of 824. The fact that you make $100k a year does not indicate you are a good risk, it indicates that, from your score, you carry to much debt, spend too much on credit cards, and manage money poorly.
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Not a surprise the women did not fare as well as the men-- especially a young white guy being supported by his parents.
Sadly, this is all too predictable.
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@Anna
I resent your picking on the "white guy". What's wrong with his being supported by his parents? Isn't that what families are for?
I'm a white guy who paid for his daughter's college education and she graduated debt free. I was able to do so because I made the right choices in life - my parents were poor and never went to college but instilled in me the importance of getting a good education. I took that to heart and went on to be an attorney. My parents contributed what little they could to my education and I took part time jobs to pay the balance of the tuition. My hard work, not skin color determined my success.
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@BSB
I am also a white guy who paid for his 3 kids to go away to university from 2001 to 2009. I did not want my kids to have to repay student loans. They took out loans but I paid them. While they were in college, I worked a full time job and 2 part time jobs. This is what a parent is supposed to do. It has nothing to do with race.
My parents paid for my siblings to go to college, the GI Bill paid for my education. I’m 71 years old, retired and paying my bills. I am certainly not rich, but I have always worked. There are still a majority of Americans of all races and cultures who have “old fashioned” values. They do their own home maintenance, fix their cars, and help their kids.
I think a lot of Americans don’t like planning or math. The schools and parents need to do a better job with both. High schools need to teach financial planning and need to show kids the bills they can expect to pay as an adult.
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@BSB. While I understand your point, the kid didn't suffer the recession.
And, some of these folks would have the same problems recession or no recession.
Problem one for Americans is this bizarre sense of entitlement to live large. Once people start earning good money, they go out and spend it on homes they can't afford, buy large gas guzzling SUVs, often eating and drinking out, and take fancy vacations. They finance all this using credit believing that money will just get easier. Reality is that most will encounter major setbacks in the future, be it loss of jobs or health problems. It's worse than just keeping up with the Joneses. It's keeping put with the thousands of images on Facebook of other financially irresponsible people.
Folks, if you are not saving and investing at least 30% of your after tax income, you living way beyond your means. If you can't easily pay cash for all your purchases, you are living way beyond your means. If you live beyond your means, there's a good chance you'll be homeless and eating out of trash cans in the next downturn. Now that's Trump's in charge, the next downturn will make 2008 look like a walk through the park.
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@James Osborn
I agree with you, but it's important to remember how dependent the American economy -- and even the world economy -- is on consumer spending. What would happen if everyone in America started behaving as sensibly as you apparently do? Total collapse!
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@Richard Janssen
The point is to consume sensibly. A person earning $60,000 per year has no business looking at $400,000 homes no matter what the terms of the mortgage are. Living within one's means will not collapse anything.
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@James Osborn No, many people cannot possibly save 30% of aftertax income. Basic living expenses prevent that. The best many will ever be able to do is contribute to their Social Security.
The sad fact is that housing, transportation and food cost too much.
Maybe if everyone were paid $15/hr we could get somewhere but it's not because folks our out 'keeping up with the Joneses' as you say.
4
In the summer of 2007, my IRA portfolio hit an all-time high. It was composed mostly of mutual funds from fidelity. I read the wall street journal almost daily then (the actual paper version!). One day that summer, I read a story in the journal about a large hedge fund managed by (i think) Bear Sterns that consisted of very highly leveraged mortgage debt. The story was that the fund was refusing to allow investors to redeem shares for their money. From what I was able to understand from this very brief article and a later internet search, the fund managers were dealing with an eroding net asset value, mostly due to the changing perception of credit risk that was slowly happening in the market then. A day or two later, I had seen enough and withing minutes liquidated perhaps 400k in various mutual funds. I never went back into the market until late 2011. Honestly, I was also a very active real estate investor then. I was buying investment property up until about 2003 when every deal stopped making any financial sense based on what people were then willing to pay. I had plenty of advance notice of the meltdown that was coming. The lesson you can take away from my good fortune is that often the clues to the "recessions" and "meltdowns" that come upon us every so often are broadcast to you on a daily basis. I am not particularly smart or rich. I just read everything I can get my hands on, and I think about what I am reading as objectively as possible.
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@M
yes very interesting.. It is Sept 2018, and I am almost 80% in cash. I began lightening up on stocks about a year and a half ago.. gradually down from 65% to 20%. And yes, I see many folks laughing at me, as I give up the 30% run up in the market in the last 18 months... but I know the next financial surprise will be something different.. so while everyone is justifying high P/E values, the macro economic factors suggesting a booming economy etc.. I am standing on the side lines..
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@M - There are people like you, but not many of them. I would be interested to see the NY Times interview a few people who made a lot of money in the aftermath of the financial crash. Assets were cheap, if you had the money and the confidence. Even as late as 2013, there were plenty of bargains.
Of course, one of the reasons assets were so cheap is that everyone had lost all their money and had no cash to buy.
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@M Plus, you had money.
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So many of these people have no savings or plan for retirement.
Our country is sitting on a time bomb with the baby boomers retiring. They don’t have enough savings, and either their children will take a financial hit to provide care or to hire care, or our country will need to step up social security right when we don’t have money for it. Far too many will be left working long hours when they should be retired.
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We (white americans, yes I'm in that group ) demand personal responsibility from anyone not from america and especially those with different skin color and religious practices. . . but of course we (white americans) do not really live by those values. Yet, we whine about not getting to live the american dream that we feel entitled too. Even when we don't take steps to improve our own fiscal situation or live freely and then expect that social security and medicaid will kick in and take us to the end. And then act surprise when social security isn't enough to live on (it only replaces 40% of salary--it is an anti poverty program, not a retirement savings program). Of course, we aren't responsible for our own ignorance and stupidity either. That is someone else's fault too.
Just note, the other young male (Mr. Whitfield) turned his life around, acknowledges his mistakes and says he is living/planning differently.
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My these stories hit home... Pretty much the same disaster awaited me in 2008. I was beginning to see success in my real estate career selling new construction homes and was also buying and renovating homes for re-sale..was making really good money and on top of the world.. Had my own home, nice vehicle etc.. Then poof all gone and I mean all in a matter of months... I was hospitalized right after I lost my house ..the depression was seemingly insurmountable.. days would go by and all I would do is sleep and cry...Couldnt eat but didnt have anything to eat and no money to buy it if I were hungry.. It has taken me 10 years also to begin to recover from that financial disaster...
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I understand these problems, I had the same problem in Brazil a year ago, unemployment, lack of money, I recovered in that year, but I want to go to another country in search of safety, better quality of life.
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I hope you are successful!
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@Eduardo Brazil led Latin America in reducing inequality in the early part of this decade. Your country has a bright future if you can avoid electing Bolsanaro president. Stay and fight for a better Brazil.
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No surprise that the young, white, male with parental financial support came out the other side untouched.
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@MA I was thinking the same thing, lol. He really should not have been included in this round up. His life was hardly affected compared to the others.
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There are a lot of 'young white male' who didn't make it. So it isn't a race and sex issue but a matter of class. And that is very predictable.
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@MA You're right, he should be punished for having parents who saved up so they could support their children.
So the young white male has the easiest path. Typical.
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I am very grateful I read the Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin when I was young and adopted many of his recommendations, particularly thrift.
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I graduated in 2007 and decided to stick around my college town for a year, working a job I already had, while I figured out and prepared for my next step. Bad timing! I didn't lose my job, but I was highly overqualified for it and I ended up working it for several years afterward. Eventually I went to get a Master's, which was paid for through teaching, and now a PhD in a funded program. But the job market in my academic field has actually never recovered from the recession - since 2008 there have consistently been only slightly more than half the jobs there were in a typical year leading up to 2008, and many more of those are temporary, overworked and low paid, basically adjunct positions. This probably has to do with professors not retiring after the recession (loss of savings etc.) and with the loss of funding for public institutions, and perhaps lower donations and investment earnings for private institutions too (I haven't seen the data on that). Pretty much all of my friends have gotten back on their feet now, but there were lost years for a number of them, even the most highly qualified for professional positions.
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@reader . Perhaps it indicates that your choice of a degree was not a good one.
3
Instead of so many disparate government programs, with no many different layers and red tape, why isn't Universal Basic Income discussed more often? Wouldn't it help people during good times and bad?
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@dc: because it would cost $3 TRILLION a year, and who would pay the taxes for that?
It would mean giving the same check for $10K or whatever, to Bill Gates and Warren Buffet as the poor folks here.
In Finland, which tried UBI and found it a disaster....the "check" was for $645 (US) a month.
Can you live on $645 a month?
Liberals think UBI would be $50,000 a year per person....hahahaha...it would never be anything close to that!
5
I would like to see you profile a college grad who didn't have help paying for their schooling, who took loans and who maybe didn't have a Plan B.
Let's see how well the graduates of 2008-2009 are faring, compared other cohorts.
Here we are 10 years later and my alma mater's foundation doesn't call my Class of 2008 for scholarship donations, and still offers special discounts on alumni events for us.
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@Ella Washington: they have cherry picked some atypical folks (which is par for the course here).
I have a friend who lost her 20-year job in a real estate management company at Christmas 2008 -- yes, they laid off everyone at CHRISTMAS that year!!! -- and she has not worked a day since. She was 52 at the time, and today is 62....thank god, she now gets Social Security.
Up until this summer, when she turned 62....she was on WELFARE -- general relief -- of $225 a month, plus another $205 in food stamps. She was able to rent out rooms in her home, otherwise she would have been homeless. Her tenants pay the rent and utilities. So she was lucky.
Besides the home (heavily mortgaged)....she spent down every other asset, liquidated her 401k and IRAs and savings before going on welfare (as you can't get welfare with more than about $1500 in assets besides your home -- her home did not count as an asset, because it was "underwater" in debt).
She has no car now. She has to take the bus, despite serious mobility & health issues.
By taking SS at 62 vs. 67....she is getting 35% LESS than she was entitled to, but she had choice as it pay about $900 vs. $430 a month on welfare.
I want to hear THOSE stories, not some rich kid who parents sent to ANOTHER college (3 degrees? to get a moderate level job?).
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@Concerned Citizen
You have described perfectly why we should all use our votes to protect social security from privitization.
Although these people are beaten down, they are also exhibiting pragmatism and common sense. You don't need to buy things and spend foolishly to live a good life. They are planning ahead, trying to save. All good outcomes, despite the painful paths.
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