Having now been around the block a few times, I can say with 100 percent accuracy that recessions make businesses better. . . . provided you survive.
Long continuous business expansions have a tendency to grow us fat. It takes a good recession to show us exactly what we can live nicely without. . . get us back to being lean and mean.
Take Ryan Staffing for example.
In 2007 we generated $315 per staff hour worked. The same number today is $454 or about 44 percent higher.
Let’s face it, competition makes us better.
One of the downsides to this is that it may slow job growth and keep the unemployment rates high.
The unemployment rate has crept to about 10, and will probably stay there, as former chairman of the Federal Reserve Alan Greenspan predicted in October.
Now, can someone explain to me why the spending on WWII and the Vietnam War led to booms while Iraq and Afghanistan are blamed for the huge deficits? And what exactly did wage and price controls in the early 70’s accomplish except to keep me making $2.10/hr at the hospital I worked at? Does anyone remember surplus cheese distributions?
Out here in the Mahoning Valley we’re petrified about the impact of losing GM-Lordstown’s 3,500 jobs but we’ve lost site of the fact that about 30,000 GM jobs have disappeared since the early 80’s.
I guess what living through all the ups and downs of the past 50 years has taught me is that like the dinosaurs only the strong survive and the smartest thrive. As with prior recessions this one too will pass and we will be the better for it.
No comments:
Post a Comment