I think I’ve firmly established my economic-ignorance in multiple earlier threads, but I was wondering if someone could explain to me why a recession is necessarily a bad thing?
Here’s where I trot out my unrealistic, overly liberal, socialist-leaning tendencies, but it seems to me that a healthy correction might bring about some beneficial results, and anything less painful is unlikely to do so.
I guess I see so much of our current economy/society as unhealthy and unsustainable - more a reflection of desiring to continue past inequities than to achieve future realities. On a personal level, households wish to acquire evermore consumer goods, and live lifestyles dependent on artificially cheap oil, while ignoring the ever-increasing gulf between the haves and have nots. Industry/businesses seem more interested in short-term gains derived from selling off assets, than in actually producing needed goods and services. Folks in the US apparently believe we are inherently entitled to live on credit, consuming more resources per capita than could be sustainable if expanded globally. And this attitude is reflected by our government who sees no problem in running deficits to support military adventurism, while neglecting a crumbling infrastructure at home, and dragging its feet at addressing (and funding) numerous social needs.
So what happens in a recession? Yes, a whole lot of people would experience pain. But isn’t it most common for an economy to rise out of a recession revigorated? And perhaps in the process it would encourage people - and the nation as a whole - to refocus their values on what truly is necessary and desireable, and the costs of their choices.
I have no doubt that my thinking along these lines is overly simplistic and full of holes. And I thank you in advance for pointing them out to me.