http://www.forbes.com/sites/adamhart...est-president/
With the stock market hitting new highs, some people have already forgotten about the Great Recession.
Recall 2009. Things looked pretty bleak economically.
But the outlook has changed dramatically in just 4 years. And it has been a boon for investors, as even the safest indices have yielded a 250% return (>25% annualized compound return
Read the article.
Originally Posted by BigLouie
If this is your idea of good, I'd hate to see what bad looks like.
Many companies are showing good bottom lines because they laid off all the deadwood. Once they got profitable again, the stock values went up.
Unfortunately, that left us with millions more unemployed and with stagnant wages for everyone that lacks a college degree and even for some that DO have a college degree.
If lots of new jobs have been created over the last five years, all of those newly unemployed workers would simply have moved into new work. But companies that previously got burned are holding onto cash rather than investing - at least until the business climate is more predictable.
And the government has been miserable about creating new jobs. No surprise there.
So we are left with unemployment generally between 8% and 9%, lower pay among existing jobs, and new jobs that generally involve flipping burgers.
And, the feeling is inescapable that all we are doing now is building another bubble with all of the money we are printing. Hence, the reason companies are holding onto cash. Cash is king in a recession.
But, hey, Wall Street got taken care of by the bailouts and the Dow Jones is back up to where it was before the last bubble burst.
I hope you don't plan on retiring. Working until you die or until you are into your mid-70s is about to be the new normal.