The recession has created a new trend: adults moving back in with their parents. According to AARP, these ‘blended’ multigenerational households have risen to 24% of the nation (representing a total of 6.2 million) between 2000 and 2008. Additionally, an astonishing 77% of college grads move back home after completing their education (according to a 2008 CollegeGrad.com survey, up 10% from 2006’s survey results). These ‘boomerangers’ (or returning 20-somethings) are
Tag Archives: recession
Pessimist or Optimist: Who Has the Edge?
By Jim Selman | Bio
I was reading an interesting article by a prestigious think tank this morning that was saying perhaps the ‘recession’ isn’t as black or white as most of us make it out to be and that it most certainly isn’t as bad as conventional wisdom and media hype would have us believe. I noticed I felt a little better after reading it, but then I wondered why my mood shifted so easily based on only one article. Tomorrow I could read a darker scenario by another equally reputable
Where are the Boomers in a Bust
By Jim Selman | Bio
It’s getting hard to stay ‘upbeat’ in the face of all the economic news. The line between a recession and depression is blurring more and more each day. It seems pretty obvious that we’re entering what will be a long road to some sort of prosperity. The old joke about a recession is when your neighbor loses his or her job and a depression is when you lose your job isn’t so funny anymore. I learned today that China is embarking on an official policy of selling directly
Growth
I remember having conversations about real estate prices 7 or 8 years ago, particularly on the West Coast. “How can prices keep rising and where does all the money come from to buy these properties?” A house I sold in 1997 resold in 2005 for four times what I sold it for! I am not an economist, but something didn’t seem right to me about this kind of never-ending upward spiral. My ex-wife sells homes and told me people were getting into million dollar properties with little or no down payment.
Baby Boomers or Baby Busters
I have been having a lot of ‘state of the economy’ conversations lately. The consensus is that we are going in the wrong direction and the only question is how long, how deep and how prepared we are for the long haul. I made the observation that the economic consequences of a recession are only part of the problem. A recession is a trust issue. When credit dries up, it means that lenders don’t trust the borrowers to keep their commitments. It creates a kind of double-bind. Here is how it