Some small details that were just jokes at the time
A major historical storm was brewing, and we can no longer laugh
Recently, the authorities have repeatedly stated that the economy is under pressure and that major economic provinces need to take the lead and play a supporting role in fiscal matters. This year’s economic growth target of 5% has also changed from a must-achieve to a strive-to-achieve, reflecting a pragmatic attitude.
But the specific time when things went wrong may not be the same for different people and industries.
As early as 2010
In the past few days, while writing family histories in Australia, two friends discovered the time when things went wrong, with a difference of 12 years!
One was a senior executive in the mainland market of an international consumer goods company. This brand has a strong competitor in the market, similar to the relationship between McDonald’s and KFC. They are competitors on the surface, but in fact, they have long coexisted.
He found that as early as 2010, the sales of the two major brands showed a zero-sum game of “one rising and the other falling”, which meant that the market had entered a stock competition, and the incremental growth disappeared.
Another friend has been following the financial market. In the spring of 2022 in Shanghai, he experienced a period of unforgettable memories. When he arrived in Australia that year and participated in the US stock trading, looking back at those years and the domestic financial market from the perspective of the international financial market, he had a completely different feeling, to put it bluntly, it was a God’s eye view.
Perhaps it is only by keeping a distance that one can see more clearly, this is his feeling.
Aftermath of online classes
A junior high school student said that she felt things were not going well, perhaps after only being able to take online classes in 2020, and she couldn’t even attend classes, which was definitely not good.
These three years are not the whole cause, but they have made many people feel the existence of the problem. This is reflected in the job market, first, the unemployment rate has changed dramatically, and second, the labor market discriminates against graduates of the “pandemic class”.
Recently, a graduate of the class of 2024 posted an article stating that when communicating with the boss of a logistics company on BOSS Zhipin, the other party replied, “We do not accept ‘pandemic class’ graduates. ‘Pandemic class’ graduates are simply unbearable, there’s nothing we can do.”
It is one aspect that employers are forced to use mobile phone power consumption to infer work attention, but from the recruitment experience of our family history editorial department, there are mainly two aspects, one is the lack of good internships. After all, schools only teach some books, and even teachers do not understand the professional skills, which can only be trained through internships.
The second is not reading. Xiaohongshu and Douyin occupy too much time. We have family history and digital humanities courses in several universities and found that students don’t even listen to the opening remarks, and they enter the state of mobile phone games, Xiaohongshu, and Douyin as soon as they sit down. Because they don’t read, they don’t even have the basic value of cultivation.
This has led to the fact that we have hardly recruited decent graduates since 2022, and there have even been three “risky” experiences: facing rejection, a friend from Northeast China questioned, “Where am I not suitable? I think I am very suitable”; after asking a Hebei student about their views on the Russia-Ukraine war, she directly reported us for discussing politically sensitive topics; a student from Guizhou only interned for a little over a week and recorded three CDs in the office and reported them online.
The decline in the quality of students is obvious, but the overall environment is also very clear. An important manifestation is the data of the civil service examination.
In the year after the 2008 financial crisis, the number of applicants for the national examination exceeded one million for the first time, which was four times the number of applicants in 2005, which means that the employment orientation of young people has shifted from foreign companies and private companies to positions within the system, up to more than 3 million people this year.
Aversion to risk is a basic skill and economic rationality for human survival. When people tend to be conservative, stable, and enthusiastic about taking civil service examinations, rather than progress, change, and creating wealth, the economy is definitely sick.
From an employment perspective, things went wrong in 2009.
2023 private enterprise credit collapse
Those within the confident system who perceive things are not going well may be a little later. Although Mr. Wen has been saying that this year is the most difficult year in history for the past 10 years, they have all survived safely, which makes people mistakenly believe that crises have always coexisted, and to some extent, they have relaxed their vigilance, after all, the data has been growing strongly.
There are two actions taken by the authorities recently that have left a deep impression on me.
One is that the proportion of private entrepreneurs on the list of defaulters is too high. In May 2023, the National Development and Reform Commission announced the “Administrative Measures for the Correction of Credit Information after Loss of Credit (Trial)”, and the credit system had to launch a large-scale repair.
The second is that in labor disputes, the companies were almost always ruled to lose before, but now the employees are almost always ruled to lose, and the reason behind this is not difficult to understand. This is a classic means of maintaining stability: whoever is weak is right.
Recently, there was a hot post saying that many lawyers will no longer take labor arbitration cases this year:
Several friends have been owed wages for as long as 5 months and still have to work hard every day. The company is being chased by many creditors, and the employees still have to smile and help deal with it, and the working environment is filthy. The boss has to say that they are fired, and these friends came to me to file for labor arbitration, and I told them that the arbitration trend is not very favorable to workers now, and I will not take it this year, and I asked several other lawyers and they were unwilling to take it either.
It is obvious that this is the official guidance. Before, it was to let companies take out money to appease employees, and now it is to protect companies to ensure tax sources, otherwise, the companies will lay off employees and show you the consequences.
Remember when wearing masks, it was said that the economy was just a pause, and there would be a rebound after taking off the masks. Now, including measures such as a major shift in fiscal policy, it can be inferred that the authorities believe things are not going well, and the time is in October 2024.
A ray of light, a vast world
From a non-economic perspective, it was 2006.
The Sun Zhigang incident in 2003 was the highlight of market-oriented media, and people generally believed that things could get better, but it turned out to be the peak. In 2006, market-oriented media were completely cut off from the path of public opinion supervision.
Around the same time, a Mr. Hu stated that the northeastern neighbors were politically correct.
Recently, some people discussed garbage time, and I said no, it should be at least 2006. Moreover, now is a great era, changes are happening every day, and everyone should feel it.
Recently, many people feel that things are not going well, but they are still using the cycle theory to analyze, and I think that after that, it is a ray of light, and there is no ups and downs.
In addition, there is a more important time point: 2011.
That year, there was a conversation in Peru that many people didn’t even notice; some people saw it, but didn’t realize its epoch-making significance.
Just as the Nobel laureate in economics this year, Acemoglu, believes in “Why Nations Fail” that the superstructure determines the economic foundation.
After updating the analytical framework, my conclusion is that the heart disease still needs heart medicine, the problem lies in the economic foundation, but the answer is in the superstructure.
The time is 2006.
When do you think things went wrong?
I wrote a book about how Zhejiang people cultivate family entrepreneurs, and it was selected for the Zhejiang Province Book List in the month it was launched:
I have written so many family histories and found that many successful families have ancestors who were either scholars, gentlemen, or entrepreneurs and landlords.
Or, ordinary families have risen rapidly in one generation and changed their fate through reading and other means, thereby achieving class ascension.
Also, there is one boss for every 6.5 Zhejiang people, Shandong and Hunan often produce generals, and they grow as a whole clan, lush and green.
Why?
Everyone is a child of the earth, the soul of the family, and if you want to know yourself and enlighten future generations, you must first trace the deeds of your ancestors and understand the customs of your hometown.
Whether in Europe and America, or in Australia, which has only been established for more than 200 years, children first learn family history when they enter school, and then learn national history.
Everyone who has come to this world should leave a record.
Discover more from 自由档案馆
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.