[Athens]

As 2010 comes to a close, how much observations have you made regarding the economic conditions around you. Is the recession hitting you or your area hard at all? Personally myself I have not been affected. My work has taking a pretty good hit, production down easily by 25% to almost 50% depending on the month. Saw some layoffs at work. Family for the most part have not been affected directly, and only knew one friend who actually lost a job over it. Overall it seems my area survived it well and never had a major impact.

How about you? Was 2010 a better year then 2009 or a worse year. Economic reports seem to be a mixed bag of data. Job loss numbers seem to be stable but not the job growth. Wages appear to be lower while inflation is going up. US home prices are weak and the US dollar is staying low. Do you believe the worst is over are still to come. I have this fear the US is beyond the point of return in Economics and the worst is yet to come over the next 5 years.

While the bad economic situation didn't really hit home, I don't exactly have anything to look forward to in 2011 economic improvements either.

[Doofy]

I've not been affected at all (but then I'm unlikely to be).
The only difference I can tell is that for the last two years, the fireworks have started a week before bonfire night, rather than the usual six weeks before. So people don't seem to have as much money to send up in smoke lately.

By my reckoning, the worst is yet to come.

[Laminar]

There was one round of layoffs late in '09 to meet yearly financial goals. 2010 is looking to be a record year, though.

[turtle777]

2010 was good for me personally, but my company has been quite frugal and cutting back a lot.
Due to the unexpectedly strong automotive market in Asia, financially, we were doing great.

However, if you talk to people involved in food banks or charities, things have rather gotten wrose than better in 2010.

I expected the economy to double dip in the next 1-3 years. The US is heading towards sovereign default.
Just look at the unfunded liabilities: $144 Trillion. That's $1.2M per taxpayer. There is no way around it, this whole thing is going to end badly.

-t

[sek929]

The homebuilding industry in this area made small gains throughout the past year, but is still a pale shadow of itself from 5 years ago.

Before the housing market crashed our business was turning down work because we were to busy to handle it all. Now every profession that has anything to do with homes is really hurting. Every plumber, electrician, carpenter, tile-guy, painter, and contractor that I keep in touch with has had great difficulty over the past two years making ends meet. One giant new construction company around here (Care-Free Homes) that does millions of dollars worth of business just collapsed under the weight of itself.

That said, 2010 has been a better year than the two preceding it in my line of work so I remain cautiously optimistic about the future. If nothing else, old houses are getting even older and always need work.

The main problem the crash has caused a very skilled individual such as myself is now everyone is hungry for work, and I am forced to compete in price with jerk-offs that don't hold half the skills and knowledge I do. Apparently, people are fine paying a lawyer 100 dollars an hour but when it comes to ripping their house apart they scoff at me making $35/hr.

I just looked at a potentially large master bathroom renovation today located in the house across the street from me. Needless to say I am hungry as hell for this job.

[SpaceMonkey]

I had a pretty good year, but I will freely admit that the economics within the federal bubble (I use the term loosely) are not typical.

[mduell]

I live in Houston, so it's "what recession?"

The company I work for has clients across the country including recession impacted areas, so it has probably stunted our growth a bit, but we're still doubling every year.

[Snow-i]

I've been reduced from a once well-paid and ascending full-time employee to a journeyman of short term contracts and spotty consulting work for small-businesses. Its been a terrible year for me but 2011 looks like it could be promising if one of the contract positions I worked at makes good on their stated objective of making me full-time in January. Time will tell.

[Athens]

The biggest impacts on me have been related to the new HST tax, adding provincial tax to stuff that wasn't taxed before, increase in power rates, gas rates, gasoline being higher plus more taxes on that and over all inflation on every thing. I made the same amount for the last 3 years but as the cost of everything goes up, its leaving me with less and less money then before. That part of the last few years has sucked badly. There was a lot of economic activity due to the Olympics being held here in the early part of the year so we never really saw a recession here. But drive a hour south into Washington State, at least last year because I haven't gone down there this year and it was just amazing smaller communities being hit hard. Entire sections of once filled business blocks boarded up. I might go to Seattle for New Years so I will have a chance to see how things have changed since middle of last year. But you know its bad when even a beer store goes out of business.

So second part of my question what about the future. Turtle hit on the point I was making about the future being difficult with the massive debt. Any economist here have any input on it. From what I see and read it seems bleak at the very best and a utter disaster looming.

When the USSR crashed I didn't expect Russia to get back on its feat for a long long time. So looking at how much they accomplished with less I do have some hope for a correction but what happen in the inbetween. While the pensions and social services that have to take a cut only affects Americans, defaulting on debts, uncontrollable debt, and a weak economy will have a massive global impact. Does China rise atop as the new economic power? Does the EU take the lead (which I doubt will happen) I cant be the only person with a interest in this. Lets get some predictions going so in 5 years from now we can look back and see who was right or close.