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People who own a home will adjust the prices to try and sell them. Not willingly, and not quickly, but if they have to change they'll take a hit. Who won't sell are all the corporations that bought up everything when it was a hot market going up. They can afford to sit on an unoccupied house for a long time waiting to at least recapture the investment they made.

Also a lot of these jobs aren't what you'd previously think of, which contributed to the miscalculation in the first place. Previously, from my understanding, the BLS assumed a company would eventually hire X people, based on previous averages. However, a lot of new companies are just self-employed gig-economy workers who won't hire.

Anyhow, I'm European, so my insight into that market is somewhat limited. But the signs are there: more consumers defaulting on debt, resulting in stuff like car repos... It's no coincidence BNPL for small purchases is booming. And with it, so are defaults on them.

This is why I'm so surprised European leaders are so keen on keeping tariffs low, I expect US sales to plummet significantly, especially for goods from Europe as these are typically either essential anyways, or optional and even without tariffs expensive enough to not be purchased during recession. I mean yeah it's not black and white but you get the point.

The US is in a position that can't be fixed by monetary policy, lower rates and you create jobs (though in my opinion, most of that money vanishes into speculation nowadays), but then inflation goes up, which continues to be an issue; or do the opposite with opposite effects (jobs go down, inflation slows). I think the latter combined with social programs to soften the blow would be the way to go, but the US has voted for bootstraps instead of helping anyone but the richest.

I suspect this will be worse than 2008, again with a lot of sub prime debt that has been accrued and can no longer be repaid. Just this time, all the substance is gone.

Roughly copy pasting part of my reply to another version of this thread elsewhere:

You must have missed the last 2 or 3 years where the yield curve has been inverted, then univerted, then inverted again, and at least by the way I count it, inverted and univerted a 3rd time.

Recessions tend to happen rather rapidly when the yield curve uninverts.

Not usually during the inversion period.

Roughly, think of the curve inversion period being when a whole bunch of investments are being moved around in the background (uncertainty), and then roughly when the curve uninverts, well now the money has placed its bets on what is going to happen, which sectors will trend down and which will be safe havens (certainty).

So, we are now in the certainty phase, we will certainly have a broad recession (I'd argue it'll be a 2nd Great Depression), following the longest period of yield curve nonsense in recorded history.

To summarize:

The yield curve inverting is your indicator that trouble is brewing.

The downturn happens as or right after the yield curve uninverts.

We are currently in the 'yield curve has just uninverted' timeframe, following the greatest yield curve inversion, in magnitude and duration, that has ever been seen in the US.

Depression when? FDR2 can't come soon enough.