Professor Mark J. Perry's Blog for Economics and Finance
One thing you can always count on at (or towards) the end of a recession? An "end of the world," the "sky is falling," "it's never been this bad," "gloom and doom" article in Time Magazine, here are 4 examples: 1. "The Recession: Gloomy Holidays--and Worse Ahead" (December 1974): "Some consumers are so alarmed that they are muttering about a return of the Great Depression of the 1930s. Are even harder times coming? Probably. The recession still has some way to go, and though economists fore see an upturn some tune by next year, it is difficult to pick its timing and predict how far down the economy will go before it turns back up. Indeed, the course of the recession so far is something of a lesson in the hazards of economic forecasting: its length and virulence have surprised almost everyone." 2. "Recession: Why We're So Gloomy" (January 1992): "'Whining' hardly captures the extent of the gloom Americans feel about the current downturn. The slump is the longest, if not the deepest, since the Great Depression. Traumatized by layoffs that have cost millions of jobs during the slump, U.S. consumers have fallen into their deepest funk in years. "Never in my adult life have I heard more deep-seated feelings of concern," says Howard Allen, retired chairman of Southern California Edison. "Many, many business leaders share this lack of confidence and recognize that we are in real economic trouble." Says University of Michigan economist Paul McCracken: "This is more than just a recession in the conventional sense. What has happened has put the fear of God into people." 3. "The Long Haul: the U.S. Economy" (September 1992): "If America's economic landscape seems suddenly alien and hostile to many citizens, there is good reason: they have never seen anything like it. Nothing in memory has prepared consumers for such turbulent, epochal change, the sort of upheaval that happens once in 50 years. That may explain why so many polls reveal such ragged emotional edges, so much fear and misgiving. Even the economists do not have a name for the present condition, though one has described it as "suspended animation" and "never-never land." 4. "Are America's Best Days Behind Us?" (March 2011): "It is now possible to produce more goods and services with fewer and fewer people, to shift work almost anywhere in the world and to do all this at warp speed. That is the world the U.S. now faces. Yet the country seems unready for the kind of radical adaptation it needs. The changes we are currently debating amount to rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic."
About Me Name: Mark J. Perry Location: Washington, D.C., United States
Dr. Mark J. Perry is a professor of economics and finance in the School of Management at the Flint campus of the University of Michigan. Perry holds two graduate degrees in economics (M.A. and Ph.D.) from George Mason University near Washington, D.C. In addition, he holds an MBA degree in finance from the Curtis L. Carlson School of Management at the University of Minnesota. Perry is currently on sabbatical from the University of Michigan and is a visiting scholar at The American Enterprise Institute in Washington, D.C.
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