| Topic Name: |
Summer associate offers |
| Message Name: |
unfotunately |
| Date Posted: |
10/23/2002 |
| In Reply To: |
oh, i'm talking about the economy, baby. and i should note that i'm not basing the idea that we're just a few years into a 5-8 year downturn (which would mean that we've got 2 to 5 years left, not 8 years) on the idea that gdp contracts every quarter for that period. i'm saying i can conceive of the u.s. having shitty-to-negligible growth for another 5 years, and that i can *very easily* see such a pattern extending for merely another two years.
side-note on "markets" and the economy: the areas of law that are hurting most right now are those that are tied to the banking business. and what banks and brokerages do is tightly tied to the stock market. last i checked, the s&p 500 had a p/e of 18 -- that's around 50% over its historical average. so there's definitely more room to fall, and certainly more time to churn.
check a chart of the nikkei sometime for an idea about what can happen to a stock market following an unprecedented speculative bubble. and check japanese gdp figures for how the after-effects of years of too-cheap capital and the overcapacity created by that capital can hamstring an economy for much longer than 8 years. true, we don't have a rotten banking system like japan did/does. but i don't think the downturn is even close to being over, and the complacent faith most people show in their ability to predict a "bottom" only strengthens that belief.
but hey, maybe you're right. i grew up in detroit, so i'm always waiting for entropy to take its toll.
as for how all this affects hiring for law firms, hell if i know. clearly i've got no ability to predict what things will look like in 2006. if nothing else, it's probably safe to say that a few years of overly cautious hiring by firms will leave them shorthanded sooner or later, and they'll overcompensate. |
| Message: |
I tend to agree, good points.
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