Looking for a job? So is the rest of the world. My takeaways from the CredAbility.org advisory board conference. And as usual, providing personal finance advice, real estate advice and consumer advice on the Ilyce Glink Show November 20, 2011 on WSB Radio.

This past weekend I attended the annual advisory board conference for CredAbility.org for the fifth time. It’s an annual gathering of really smart people: from big creditors, think tanks and financial institutions among other  organizations.

I attended my first one in 2007, and I’ll never forget an economist from the Ford Foundation that I met. He is the only person I know that predicted exactly what has happened to our economy over the last few years:

  • People are looking for a job in record numbers. Unemployment has hovered around nine percent for years now. Think about it.
  • Toxic mortgage loans with ARMs that suddenly left people unable to pay their bills.
  • Home equity. We are down a staggering 55 percent in housing value since a 2006 peak.

Naturally, I was eager to see this gentleman again and hear what he had to say.

So the advisory board was given an exercise. We were all asked how many months we would estimate it will take until the economy gets back to “normal” (i.e. less than eight percent of the population looking for a job). Most answered in the 48 month, or four year area. I was slightly more pessimistic. But my friend from back in 2007 literally stopped the presses when he stated that he believed it would take 120 months, or 10 years, before we would be stable. 10 years!

Regardless of the timing, my takeaway from the CredAbility.org advisory board conference was that many of the experts are still negative and they just don’t think things are getting better. Count me amongst the members of this group. Looking for a job? So is the rest of the world. And it may be for a long time yet.

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