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Post by The Bofa on the Sofa on Jul 2, 2004 10:08:10 GMT -5
The bell curve (or normal distribution). 16% of the population will probably answer "YES," 16% will probably answer "NO," and 68% will answer that it stayed the "SAME." Usually, people's lives don't change that much over 4 years. Of course, there is no reason to expect it be a bell curve, at least in this sense. Generally, as we grow older, things tend to get better, regardless of other circumstances. Even in days of 10% unemployment, 90% of the people still have a job. Four years at the same job generally makes life better than it was before, for one thing. Families usually (though not always) tend to get better over the course of 4 years, as chilldren grow older. Some people get divorced, but I gotta say, if I ask my brother, who got divorced last year, if he is better off now than he was 4 years ago, I'm guessing he is going to say yes, because he is free of his living hell. Basically, life is hardest when you are younger, and lots of things get easier when you get older, at least for most people. Four years ago, I was an assistant professor busting my hump to create a research program. Today I am a tenured associate professor with a nice group. But like you said, it has nothing to do with the administration (although I will say, the poor economy and low interest rates have been good to me, as I was able to re-fi the house).
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Jul 2, 2004 12:01:07 GMT -5
Ah, but is the living hell out there just waiting to descend upon some other poor unsuspecting soul?
Every silver lining has a cumulus nimbus...
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Post by Gorf on Jul 2, 2004 16:18:21 GMT -5
Even in days of 10% unemployment, 90% of the people still have a job. Four years at the same job generally makes life better than it was before, for one thing. Of course those numbers are a bit skewed in how the percentages are calculated. For example, after this month there will be reportedly somewhat over 1,000,000 removed from the unemployment list because they've will have been unemployed for more than a year. They will still be unemployed, but they will no longer count in the unemployment percentages. Of the hundreds of thousands of jobs reportedly created over the past month or two it appears that something like just under 50% of those jobs are part time, some are short term, and others are without benefits. I was significantly better off job stability and financially 4 years ago than I am now. A significant part of that was the long term demand for experienced software developers perhaps keeping the stability and finances artifcially high then heavily impacted by the bottom falling out of the high-tech industry somewhat before 9/11 and continuing well after that time. Obviously to blame all of that downward trend on decisions made by the GWB administration would be akin to saying carrots cause cancer because virtually everyone that's ever developed cancer has eaten carrots at sometime in their life. Though, some of their decisions have definitely seemed to have had an impact.
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