I think the graph is accurate though I got a bit suspicious since it's comparing the Dow of 1929-'32 with the S&P 500 since then. Why not compare the Dow all the way along? It would show the same thing I think.
The graph does not give a full picture of economic crises. I noticed that the graph does not include the economic downturn from 1977-1984, but this is because the market only went down about 20% from 1977-1980. The market trended upward after that, but the way in which this period was significant was in unemployment, which trended upward starting in 1979, and peaked at 10.8% in 1982. This was the highest it had gotten to since the Great Depression. The highest the unemployment rate got to between 1973-'76 was about 9%.
Where we are now in the unemployment rate, 7.6%, is the same as the peak unemployment rate in 1992. Like the period from 1980-84, from 1990-'92 unemployment rose as the market went up.
We anticipate unemployment is going to get worse as the year progresses. This downturn is like the tech crash of 2000, in that unemployment is rising while the market goes down, though the unemployment rate was relatively mild from 2001-'03, reaching a peak of 6.3%. I can tell you it felt a lot worse than that in the field of work I'm in. It was a "tech depression" as far as we were concerned.
The Last Colonial Wars
-
Wolff and Hudson on Iran, the Strait of Hormuz, and why no deal with the US
is possible — as Western colonialism enters its final, most dangerous phase.
T...
The duck situation at Botany Pond. . .
-
. . . is dire. It is in fact so dire that although I have movies and photos
of Vashti and of the last hen and her brood of nine, I am not mentally
prepared...
Hacking Meta’s AI Chatbot
-
Hackers are convincing Meta’s AI support chatbot to let them take over
other peoples’ accounts:
A video posted on X showed the step-by-step process to ha...
On hope
-
The comments on my previous post, on recent AI breakthroughs in solving
Erdös problems and beyond, must’ve set some sort of record for the number
of separa...
Interview with Micah Zarin
-
I’m not completely happy with this interview with Micah Zarin. It was
nothing he did, it was me. I forgot to say that current-day AI wastes a lot
of energy...
AI is a Meteor. Don’t be a Dinosaur.
-
This is a linkpost for my Harvard Crimson op-ed for its commencement issue.
I will not reproduce the whole text here, but my advice to the class of
2026 is...
Data Space Standardisation in a Volcano
-
Trains at Atocha station Madrid I spent the week in Ciudad Real in Spain,
under an hour by high speed train (~200km) south of Madrid. I was there for
a ple...
Presenting at Current / Kafka Summit
-
A few of us at Current this week were talking about how Current (formerly
“Kafka Summit”) has changed over the years, and it got me remembering the
bits I’...
Pet Haidt
-
One my betes noires has been in the news lately. Jonathan Haidt has been
annoying me since at least 2012, when I was critical of his bothsidesism on
the cu...
How to build a lunar mass driver
-
Casey Handmer May 2026 What? Elon has recently (late 2025, early 2026) been
talking about building many terawatts of orbital AI compute and launching
some ...
CHI 2026 trip report: ay ay AI
-
[image: wood latices hanging from the ceiling of a beige foyer.]The foyer
lattice of the International Barcelona Convention Center
There is never a good ti...
Retracing steps
-
This is sort of a follow-up to the My journey series. In that, I talked
about learning programming on 8-bit computers, and progressing onto much
more power...
Spring 2026 PCAS Update: Recruiting a new Lecturer
-
My last update on the University of Michigan’s Program in Computing for the
Arts and Sciences (PCAS) was in March 2024 (see post here). I did give some
upd...
Rethinking climate change
-
by Nicola Scafetta My new book is now published: The Frontier of Climate
Science: Solar Variability, Natural Cycles and Model Uncertainty For more
than t...
Predictions Scorecard, 2026 January 01
-
Nothing is ever as good as it first seems and nothing is ever as bad as it
first seems. — A best memory paraphrase of advice given to me by Vice
Admiral Jo...
Some thoughts about Bondi
-
Why did it happen? I think that the combination of four factors (listed
below) was close to a sufficient cause. Sufficient at least to make a
terrorist att...
1 comment:
I think the graph is accurate though I got a bit suspicious since it's comparing the Dow of 1929-'32 with the S&P 500 since then. Why not compare the Dow all the way along? It would show the same thing I think.
The graph does not give a full picture of economic crises. I noticed that the graph does not include the economic downturn from 1977-1984, but this is because the market only went down about 20% from 1977-1980. The market trended upward after that, but the way in which this period was significant was in unemployment, which trended upward starting in 1979, and peaked at 10.8% in 1982. This was the highest it had gotten to since the Great Depression. The highest the unemployment rate got to between 1973-'76 was about 9%.
Where we are now in the unemployment rate, 7.6%, is the same as the peak unemployment rate in 1992. Like the period from 1980-84, from 1990-'92 unemployment rose as the market went up.
We anticipate unemployment is going to get worse as the year progresses. This downturn is like the tech crash of 2000, in that unemployment is rising while the market goes down, though the unemployment rate was relatively mild from 2001-'03, reaching a peak of 6.3%. I can tell you it felt a lot worse than that in the field of work I'm in. It was a "tech depression" as far as we were concerned.
Post a Comment