Job Market Woes

Posted by: Henry B. | Jan 04,2008


Ugh, I just report em like I see em.  I don’t want to be the bearer of bad tidings – especially the day after an historic caucus that I find pretty inspiring, no matter who you support – but the prospects for the 2008 economy don’t look all that promising, especially to this writer.  That’s just the way it goes on this blog – we’ve started it up just as the word “recession” is being used more and more in the mainstream press.

Now, I realize that there’s probably another economist who will fault the writer of this piece for erring on the side of negativity, but what he says does make some sense.  You can’t really argue with number crunching, and the news that employment is up 5% from 4.7 doesn’t really inspire outbursts of optimism.  The basic thrust of the article is that we’ve been shuffling along all right, even through the slog of high debt, foreclosures, low savings, and other problems.  The economy hasn’t completely fallen on its face because there’s been good economic news, like the job market, to help maintain balance.  

Well, with the rise in unemployment, this just might be the perfect storm to finally tip our economic structure into a recession.  What does this mean to you?  Suppose your gainfully employed and you have a fair amount of savings in investments and pure cash.  For one, those investments may be worth less and those savings may end up earning less in interest.  A faltering economy hurts everybody, not just those 5% who are struggling through unemployment.  

If you’re on shaky economic ground, you have even more of an impetus to pay down your debt now and save for the future, as our collective economic future is less certain than it was, say, six months ago, before the subprime mortgage failure started to tumble this house of cards.  So surf around the Experts on Credit site and look for ways to pay down your debt, save for the future, and generally live a financially healthy life.  I suppose it’s a good think we’ve started up this project just as the economic ground is becoming a little more shaky.  

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