Quote from Allspread:
Chiming in from the southeastern USA:
- First time in my adult life (I'm 40) that I have friends who are unemployed and are having a tough time finding work, and these are middle class people pulling down $40K-$50K a year, not the top end of the scale.
- In an area that did not have the real estate bubble as in other parts of the USA, seeing an incredible number of houses for sale in the neighborhood many of which have been on the market for quite some time.
- Everyone I know (self included) that sells something or depends on $$ coming in from outside sources is bemoaning the huge drop in revenue. Sales where I work are off 40% from 2007. The biggest year over year drop I've ever seen was in the single digits, and I've worked there for 13 years.
- I play with guitars and basses and amplifiers, and there is a ton of high quality equipment for sale at fire sale prices via local retailers and craigslist.
I've never seen people in general so concerned about their well being. I guess this must have been the case in 1982 here, but I was 13 then and not nearly as attuned to it. I've never seen anything like it.
Ditto.
This will be worse than 81-82, though, because the plants/factories were temporarily idled back then; now, they're gone.
Cheers.