I'm in the UK and things ain't great right now. High unemployment, increased cost of living but no wage or benefit increases to reflect this. New businesses are failing left, right and center here and several long-established chain stores have been forced to close. Interest rates have remained very low to help people manage - whilst this is great news for mortgage holders, it is disheartening for savers. I'm interested on finding out what the current economic climate is like in your part of the world.
I live in Nicaragua, in Central America. This is the poorest country in the western hemisphere beside Haiti. It is hard to describe poverty here in terms most people from the USA would even understand. But just some numbers. 50% unemployment. It is almost impossible to find a job here if you do not have a family member already in management. There is no minimum wage, but typical minimum wage type jobs pay about $100 per month. You can basically hire for almost anything at $1 per hour.
I am in New York and besides the cold it seems we are battling things on every front. The jobs have been scarce in this area for many years now. This part of NY used to have steel plants and heavy car manufacturing companies like Chevy. My wage rate is at the exact same rate as 2004, it had actually been less then it is now about 4 years ago. Now the majority of the jobs are either medical, or service based. We to have seen many stores close, but there has been a good amount of new stores opening in the last two years. Smaller private shops but the seem to just be seasonal. My biggest complaint is the price of fuel and food. It was costing on average $200 a month in gasoline just to get to work everyday. Food prices are so crazy high that meat is pretty much not an every night thing anymore. Even chicken is not cheap. I am glad I am closer to a rural area so we can at least get good produce. I just try to weather the storm and look for opportunity when I can.
The crisis continue in my country, but it seems to be picking up. Wages aren't growing, but they are being less cut lol and the same with pensions, so we are coming closer to the values of 2012...
Overall, the United States seems to be doing fine. I live in Southern California, and although we're dealing with a drought, most things are pretty good for us. Gas prices have dropped like a rock (throughout the country), there are plenty of employers hiring, and there's been on/off rain over the past couple months. Things could always be better, but they're not that bad from where I'm sitting.
I live in the Philippines and things are more stabilized compared to 2 years ago, but not any better. We are still considered more expensive compared to our neighboring countries. Also, the continuous threat to security turns off a lot of investors. Also, constant news about graft and corruption in government have completely turned a lot of businesses away. BPO used to be a big thing and provided jobs to a lot of citizens, but these are not pulling out and opening offices in Thailand and Vietnam instead.
This year we have elections, so the cuts are being reduced meaning we are seeing some more money this year haha. Next year the crisis will return in strength I am assuming.
I live all over Europe. Most countries are heading down a very very dark road and quite frankly I see some huge problems in the next 10 years or so. I'm horrible with time scales... so it might be sooner or much later. But you can only bend something so long before it snaps. Currently planning on abandoning this continent since structurally and politically it's a huge mess.
That has been happening for decades now crimsong and you are right, I see no way they can turn this around. Changing continent can be a solution lol, is there a better one though?
I'm guessing that there are quite a few common themes that we're seeing across the world - still a fair bit of pessimism, an unstable employment market and volatility in the stock market. Not the best fundamentals to be honest.
