What is the Recession Legacy?

The Great Depression legacy was a generation of savers who believed in hoarding and keeping everything. Remember grandma's tin foil ball? The drawer of reusable wax paper? My mother still washes out plastic bags and brags about still using wedding gift Revere Ware 50 plus years later. Holding onto possession forever is one of the Great Depression's legacies.

The depth and length of the current recession is sure to have a legacy left on the current generations as well. Although the impact will cause a different reaction than the Great Depression caused, it will still have lasting impact on those who experienced it directly.

Expect a greater effort to take care of the planet as this financial meltdown is another example to younger generations of the Baby Boomers wrecking what they touch. Expect first time home ownership to reach a later age than ever before. Because of the volatility of our age, car dealerships and car owners are going to look for alternatives to 60 month and 72 month financing because so much in the world will change in that amount of time. Neither is interested in making that long-term commitment for a vehicle.

During the recession the divorce rate will actually go down because people can't sell joint assets and get out from under mortgages. The younger generations will see this as another trapping of marriage and will opt for cohabitation even more and avoid locking into a marriage commitment.

The need for nimbleness and flexibility will increase because that is the best defense against a negative turn.

Because the internet has made the world a village, expect expatriation to occur with greater frequency as people make use of their nimbleness and become nomadic in traveling to "better" places. Without home ownership, marriage or any other long-term commitments, people will have more freedom of relocation unless governments restrict immigration in countries large numbers of people find desirable.

Already in younger generations there is no hope for social security. They have tremendous distrust of government, and for good reason. Big business is being painted as the bad guy in causing this recession and the younger generations will use this to fuel their entrepreneurial approach to occupation and avoid working for large employers.

College degrees will be questioned because of the large expense with an undetermined return on investment causing more young people to skip the traditional education and instead go for apprenticeships or investing in the purchase of a small business. The volume of information on the internet for running a business and the social networking will make many business school majors as obsolete as history majors.

These are my projections, and the better I can define the world on the other side of this recession the better I can position myself in the correct occupation. What are your projections?