[rubicon33]

> The Great Recession officially ended in June of 2009

As a "millennial" who graduated in 2008, I seriously hate reading shit like this. Maybe it recovered for the Boomer's pension funds and 401k's, but it took many of my friends over a decade to find work equal to their qualifications. They're only JUST NOW starting to get payed what they deserve (PHDs, MBAs, and Masters degree holders).

[dragonwriter]

> As a "millennial" who graduated in 2008, I seriously hate reading shit like this. Maybe it recovered for the Boomer's pension funds and 401k's

No, it didn't, certainly not at the point the recession is deemed to end.

The end of a recession is when the aggregate recovery begins, not when it is complete. (And yeah, recovery from recession doesn't mean most people are doing better, as it's an aggregate about the economy that isn't concerned with distribution—the long “recovery” between the short recession of 2001, IIRC, and the Great Recession saw every quintile but the top without gains, and the bottom three declining.)

The isn't a Boomer vs Millenial thing (it's more of a bourgeoisie vs. proletariat thing.)

[refurb]

Considering the definition of recession is “2 quarters or more of negative growth”, the recession did end June 2009.

Levels of pay have nothing to do with whether or not we’re in a recession.

[drevil-v2]

> They're only JUST NOW starting to get payed what they deserve

That is absurd. In a free market with free movement of goods and people, whatever you are getting paid is what you "deserve" aka what other participants in the market are willing to pay for your services.

It is only explicit government intervention that overrides this process; subsided renewal energy sources, childcare, housing etc.

But with everything else being equal your friends were getting exactly what the market could afford. Just because you have a PHD or Masters does not mean someone else owes you a high paying salary.

[mirimir]

In real markets, "free movement of goods and people" just doesn't happen. Workers arguably have more constraints on movement than employers and goods do. There's no human equivalent for long-haul trucking and container ships. Not to mention learning Chinese or whatever, getting a work visa, and adapting to the culture.

[lph]

> ...getting exactly what the market could afford.

"afford" is an odd word choice. As if to suggest that employers simply don't have any money by which they could have increased worker salaries.

In this same period, average CEO compensation increased 25-50%, depending on how you measure it. So, apparently, there's lots of money, but its distribution is skewing increasingly to the very top.

So let's not say "afford".

[refurb]

A CEO getting an extra $5M leading a 100,000 employee company means each employee could have gotten an extra $50.

So i would argue it still about what the company can afford.

[viraptor]

Thats only the CEO though. Add a few board members and VPs and it gets more significant. But even with $50 per employee - why not do that instead if you're aware of recession impacting people? (Apart from the obvious - because you want more money)

[refurb]

CEO comp is typically mostly equity, not salary. So is it surpassing that CEO comp goes up when the markets go up? Probably not.

[PenguinCoder]

An extra $50 per what? Year? Paycheck? Month? That's key.

[kemitche]

> subsided renewal energy sources, childcare, housing etc.

Skipping over oil company subsidies and big bank bailouts when you're cherry picking your government intervention examples makes you appear rather biased.

[rubicon33]

I would have thought it was obvious what I meant by "deserve" but apparently I have to spell it out.

No, I don't mean that they are owed anything. This is life after all. You nor I, are owed a damn thing. And in a free market, that's explicitly true.

Duh.

What I mean by "deserve" is... prior generations with similar qualifications enjoyed a much smoother, and more lucrative career. Boomers were handed a golden egg, and managed to nearly destroy it. The middle class is shrinking, wages are stagnant, and frankly if you're not underemployed as a millennial you're among the lucky.

[tdfx]

I agree with your premise that baby boomers have very tenuous grasp on how unique and lucky they were to grow up in the economic time period that they did. When the vast majority of the world's population is third world farmers and your country is at the forefront of industry and technological progress it's easy to coast and succeed.

However, that's clearly no longer the case and the average American needs to compete with a much broader pool of labor, increasing automation, and a growing middle class in more populous, emerging countries. I don't think millennials "deserve" what the baby boomers had; I just think the baby boomers didn't particularly deserve it either and it's becoming more and more obvious that the "normal" they experienced is an outlier era that will not return. Millennials need to learn to compete in this world and on average they are not well equipped to do so because they learned their perspective from a particularly (and unusually) privileged generation.

[rubicon33]

I like your perspective on the situation. It's both accurate, and far less pessimistic than mine. I'll do my best to adopt this way of thinking going forward.

[dragonwriter]

> Boomers were handed a golden egg, and managed to nearly destroy it.

In point of fact, the policies which did that were adopted while the balance of political and economic power were in the hands of the Silent Generation, but it took a while for the effect to be fully felt and the Boomers were the last generation to have most of their working life before the wheels fell off.

[smudgymcscmudge]

The historical norm is living at subsistence levels. The last several generations have been an anomaly. We will return to mean. The millennials children will be worse off and the next generation even more so.

[rubicon33]

I'm not talking about the 1400s. The context of this discussion is not ancient history. It's the last couple of generations.

[bumby]

I'd argue that you're not necessarily paid equivalent to your worth but rather according to your negotiating options.

The problem with a recession is that it tips the negotiating leverage towards the employers because there is an oversupply of workers. I don't want to speak for them, but I'm assuming the OP means getting to the pay level they would be at had the recession not occurred.

In a sense, both wage rates are "deserved" in the context of the economic reality, but there is a certain amount of luck involved, just like for those planning on retiring in 2008.

[50656E6973]

Do you consider it a free market if the government bails out big price manipulators when their scheme implodes?

[fuzz4lyfe]

I don't. Most free market thinkers aren't the GOP talking heads you see in the news. Those guys made their fortunes via regulatory capture, war and protectionism for the most part. Frankly it seems they have ridden that train into the ground the values of conservatives can only bend so far before voters start asking questions the politicians can't answer. Only socialism can provide the level of market control that the corporatists crave. Notice how firms got 'woke' all the sudden? Do you really think Pepsi is all about social justice?

[rdtwo]

Free markets only exist in heavily regulated industries because otherwise everyone cheats and there is no price discovery. Kind of ironic really.

[kasey_junk]

They are using a technical definition of recession.

[flukus]

Technical definitions used by economists are increasingly divorced from reality experienced by people. You don't see a lot of low wage single income families buying 3 bedroom houses anymore but economists will tell us how much richer we are.

[JackRabbitSlim]

To be fair, OP was using the technical definition of shit.

[esotericn]

The point is that the uptick began then.

Of course, everything went to shit so quickly that it took a hell of a long time to come back.

Actually, it didn't really come back unless you're in the elite.

[rolltiide]

A recession just means that the prior few quarters of GDP growth did not exceed the quarters before it

It is remarkable that the domestic product increases so reliably between quarters at all

It is correlated and conflated with asset prices and needs to hire anyone but it stops there. Nuanced talking points have no room for discussing when a recession ended or not.

What you are referring to is an entirely different discussion, no matter how relatable it is to people.