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The Great Depression swept across the nation some 90 years ago, creating a level of despair that nearly crushed America. Standing mute and dumbfounded on a breadline, tens of thousands became "forgotten men"; stripped of their jobs, their dignity, and their future. Washington was either indifferent or inept in responding to a calamity that threatened the very foundation of the republic. Today we have a new generation of "forgotten men" – and women. They too have lost faith in a Washington that seems to have dissolved into a dysfunctional collection of politicians far removed from the difficulties facing our citizens....

A principal goal of Stark Realities is to “expose fundamental myths across the political spectrum” — and few myths are as universally embraced as the notion that US participation in World War II lifted the American economy out of the Great Depression. This myth is dangerous not only because it leads citizens and politicians to see a bright side of war that doesn’t really exist, but also because it helps foster a belief that government spending is essential to countering economic downturns. That belief, in turn, has helped propel us to a point where the national debt now exceeds $34.6...

In a post to his social media platform Truth Social, written in all capital letters, Trump wrote that there would be a catastrophic stock market crash and a new “Great Depression.” Trump wrote: THE ECONOMY IS TERRIBLE & INFLATION, WHICH BY SOME ACCOUNTS IS MORE THAN 30% OVER THE LAST THREE YEARS, HAS TOTALLY DESTROYED THE BUYING POWER OF THE CONSUMER. THE ONLY THING THAT IS KEEPING THE ECONOMY “ALIVE” IS THE FUMES OF WHAT WE ACCOMPLISHED DURING THE TRUMP ADMINISTRATION. THE STOCK MARKET IS ONLY HIGH BECAUSE PEOPLE, & INSTITUTIONS, BELIEVE & EXPECT ME TO WIN THE PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION...

Inflation is easing, unemployment is relatively low, and the stock market looks strong, economics experts say. So why does it still feel so bad? A host of TikTokers have coined a name for it: “silent depression.” They say the economy is bad – just as bad as it was during the Great Depression – but no one is acknowledging it. One viral video compares 1930 prices with today’s, claiming the average home back then cost $3,900, a car was $600 and rent was $18 a month. Meanwhile, the average salary was $1,300, the TikToker says. Today, those prices are all...

The Biden administration is trying really hard to convince us that the U.S. economy is doing just fine, but the numbers just keep getting worse and worse. Consumer confidence is plummeting, large corporations are conducting mass layoffs all over the country, and major retailers are really struggling right now. Meanwhile, some of the smartest guys in the financial world are making moves that would only make sense if the economy was headed for big trouble. Earlier this month, I wrote about how Michael Burry has bet 1.6 billion dollars that the stock market is going to crash. He made a...

Britain's finance ministry and the Bank of England are working together to minimise the disruption that could stem from a collapse of the UK arm of Silicon Valley Bank (SIVB.O), which has been seized by U.S. regulators, the ministry said on Saturday.

In this video, the day to day life of American families during the Great Depression is discussed. How did families cope? How did families live?

Hi All, Wondering if some of you would kindly provide any good recommendations for documentaries on The Great Depression. The Hoover Institution has a few interesting, but brief, video interviews with various authors and historians on YouTube, but I'm looking for something a bit more extensive.The documentary doesn't necessarily have to be hosted on YouTube or Netflix, but I'm more concerned with the level of bias exhibited. I'm looking for one that is obviously critical of government intervention and intrusion of the free market.Any recommendations? Thank you.

Despite a population that is now more prosperous and more educated by several orders of magnitude, we clearly have become more lazy.To celebrate another $1,400 in stimulus checks, a quickly withdrawn video from Wisconsin Democrats showed people dancing to a catchy rap song with captions of “$$$ IN THE POCKET” and “THANK YOU POTU$.” As Joy Pullmann noted, its release on the same day abysmal job numbers came out was a testament to Democrats’ blindness to economic reality. It also attested to our culture’s devolving expectation of something for nothing.America has definitely changed. Juxtapose that video with images from the...

In 1932, lyricist E.Y. “Yip” Harburg—best remembered for writing Somewhere Over The Rainbow for MGM’s classic film “The Wizard of Oz”—penned a song that became the unofficial anthem of the 20th Century’s Great Depression Brother, Can You Spare A Dime?Its lyrics included this poignant plea from an unemployed worker:Once I built a railroad, I made it runMade it race against timeOnce I built a railroad, now it's doneBrother, can you spare a dime?She’s obviously no wordsmith, but White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki has just updated Yip Harburg’s lyrics to Brother, can you spare $44,200? That’s the bottom line of...

A recent poll by the Pew Research Center revealed that a majority of young Americans are living with their parents for the first time since the Great Depression. As of July, approximately 52 percent of young Americans between the ages of 18 and 29 lived with their parents. The number of young adults living with their parents has spiked by 2.6 million since the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic. According to a study by the Pew Research Center, a majority of young Americans live with their parents for the first time since the Great Depression. Approximately 48 percent of young...

Minneapolis Fed President Neel Kashkari is advocating a full economic shutdown for up to six weeks to halt the Covid-19 spread...In a Friday New York Times op-ed he authored with Michael T. Osterholm of the University of Minnesota, Kashkari said the initial March lockdown didn’t go far enough..."To be effective, the lockdown has to be as comprehensive and strict as possible," Kashkari and Osterholm wrote.

If Donald Trump is to be a great president, it could well be by leading America out of the insanity of lockdown. When in the history of medicine has it made public health sense to quarantine almost all the people who are healthy? A fully funded lockdown for the life of this pandemic would be just enough socialism to bankrupt America. That's not what the free world needs. The western world (especially Hong Kong and Taiwan?) needs America to stay solvent. Its Pax Americana or China Over All. (China Uber Alles?) https://freedom-demokrasi-and-civilised-humanity.com/2020/05/18/the-second-great-depression-has-it-started-yet/

https://thefederalist.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/Trump-Mnuchin-And-Cabinet-Meet-With-China.-White-House.-Shealah-Craighead.-e1584750455621-998x649.jpg> Just beyond -- and in the midst of -- the public health and financial liquidity crises is the expansive and potentially devastating solvency crisis. The U.S. economy is in trouble, and if you can believe it, that trouble isn’t simply the closure of Main Street, the massive number of nationwide layoffs, and the danger of financial crisis we’ve all heard about. As companies run out of cash, pushing them toward insolvency, our country’s business-to-business trust is at risk of coming apart — tearing and ultimately collapsing the delicate system that keeps industries as diverse as farming, chemicals, and aluminum...

It's can be useful and instructive to observe the turning of a decade by looking back on what life was like in America a mere 100 years ago. On Jan. 2, 1920, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was 108.76. Today it is over 28,000 points. In 1920, the U.S. had become an economic power, which is remarkable considering the bloody "war to end all wars" that ended just two years earlier. Republican presidents shifted their attention from foreign entanglements to economic growth (sound familiar?). The beginning of the Roaring 20s featured new rights for women, including the right to vote,...

Ten years ago, it was too-easy credit that brought financial markets to their knees. Today, it could be a global debt of $247 trillion that causes the next crash. After a decade of escalating US household debt brought on by low wages and the national debt more than doubling over the same time frame, to $21 trillion, debt could soon put the brakes on this economic recovery, analysts warn. “We think the major economies are on the cusp of this turning into the worst recession we have seen in 10 years,” said Murray Gunn, head of global research at Elliott...

In the first century or so of our national existence, one of the Constitution’s provisions that was most often at issue was the Contract Clause. But following New Deal era decisions that eviscerated it, hardly any cases have since centered on it. The clause has been so forgotten that few Americans even know it’s there, in Article I, Section 10, reading, “No state shall pass any law impairing the obligation of contracts.” The Constitution’s drafters had good reason to include that language, meant to assure people that contracts would be inviolate. During the years under the Articles of Confederation, the...

Timing: When to Buy and Sell in Today’s Markets, by John Durand, Copyright 1938. Forward There are only two kinds of economic systems. In one, private initiative, however circumscribed, is the dominant force. In the other the State is master. In the year 1929 the American capitalist system seemed secure. Capping a long record of high achievement, it had produced our greatest era of prosperity. It appeared to be a “sound” prosperity—until the dream suddenly blew up before our startled eyes. Then came nearly three years of grinding deflation and rising unrest, out of which was born the political overturn...

My father made me wear hand-me-downs - even though I was our family's only boy, with five sisters. It wasn't too bad most of the year, but Easter Sunday was a bear. You know how hard it is to outrun the neighborhood bully with your panty hose bunching up and your bonnet flopping in the wind? My father was born during the Depression, in 1933, when life was a lot tougher. When he was only 3, his father, who had a good job working for the Mellon family, died at age 34. My father and his sister and mother moved...

Congressional Republicans are poised to deal a sharp blow to their traditional allies in the business community by allowing the federal Export-Import Bank to go out of business at the end of the month. But it may only be temporary. The 81-year-old bank is a little-known federal agency created during the Depression that makes and guarantees loans to help overseas buyers purchase US products, from airplanes to bridges to baby clothes. Over the past year it's also become a surprising test of GOP purity, as tea party-backed lawmakers and outside conservative groups have denounced the bank as crony capitalism and...