Well, folks... I can't say if $700 billion in taxpayer money will avert a depression or not, but no attempt is going to embrace a depression.
Food distribution is going to be very interesting. It will be interesting to see how fast shelves go bare in stores. I hope you don't expect your internet provider not to be impacted by a depression. Prepare for internet service to be a thing of the rich, not the common man. How will you connect to Free Republic?
The riots and violence in bigger cities are going to be very interesting to watch unfold. Just wait until things break down along racial lines and might makes right again as large contingencies vie for feudal control of portions of cities. Cops are going to be protecting the rich and influential. They aren't going to have any time for you.
So enjoy your malnutrition and disease. I'm sure the garbage of the rich will still be available. Maybe you can tear out your front yard and plant a garden. And maybe you'll even live to see some of plants start to bear fruit.
I posted this as a small reminder of how rapidly civilized society falls apart in a depression, when the normal lines of supply, communication, energy distribution and social structure break down.
Y'all think it can't happen again. "We're beyond that," you are thinking. Right. Just like NASDAQ was going straight to the moon, you thought. Just like house prices always go up, you thought. Just like the economy was peachy and it as just the evil MSM and doom and gloomers talking down the economy to get Hitlery elected you thought.
Stick around. Y'all will be shocked to see how fast the entire economy can grind to a screeching halt. Gas stations completely empty. Grocery stores completely empty. Hospitals rationing medicine. Watch and see.
But that's OK. You will have done your duty as a Conservative and screamed "NO BAILOUT, NO SOCIALISM" and you will have your pride as you look for another pair of shoes for dinner, but guess what, soles are plastic today so you can't even eat your shoes.
I'm sure I'm exaggerating, but the point remains. For those who lose their jobs -- and there will be NO finding work for years for these people -- it will be back to "Hey buddy, can you spare a $100 for a meal? I haven't eaten in a couple of days." Churches are dying. Families are scattered. Where is the support network going to come from in the next depression, from the cash strapped government running their printing presses? Not hardly.
So go ahead. Stick to your guns. Sink any chance we have, slim as it may be, to restore confidence to the market, avert depression now, and then we can shoot the bastards later. No, go ahead and embrace the new Depression. I'm sure your starving children living in the streets will thank you for it. "Mom, Dad, thank you so much for standing up for your principles. My pneumonia will kill me without medical help, but at least I'll die the child of a proud, conservative, unyielding Freeper."
Booyah! NO BAILOUT! Screw em! Bring on the Depression. Bring it all down, man! NO BAILOUT! No bailout for wall street pigs! No money for wall street! Hands off my taxes!!!
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO BAILOUT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
So long, and thanks for the Depression...
My parents and grandparents lived through the Great Depression and I grew up hearing all the stories, in addition to reading about the Great Depression. I don’t know if an economic collapse will happen or not, but if it does, then your bleak predictions are possible, and we’ll be less able to deal with it than in the past. Our country and the people are not as tough, independent and moral as they were in 1929. A much greater percentage of people either lived on a farm or knew someone that did — those could grow their own food or get it from people that did. People weren’t as mobile as we are and didn’t depend on energy to the extent we do. More people went to church back then and had a moral foundation in their lives — people were more civil then. There are now a number of racial subclasses that think society “owes” them and they have little to lose taking it. Remember the anarchy in New Orleans, the roving thugs? Most people today don’t have the financial resources to buy a remote property and built a castle to fend off their hungry neighbors and the opportunistic hoards that will flee the cities. Civilization is a thin veneer indeed.