Posted on 01/04/2009 3:26:57 PM PST by Clive
Canada ping.
A dem’s going to be in office - the MSM has got to start the “big positive economy” push...
Any other words you care to put in my mouth? That's all you've done to this point. No wonder you carried the argument here. Does it make you feel virile?
The doom and gloom of inevitability is what bothers me most.
Things could be done, if we ever found a way around the msm to get the word out that Obama wants to give 850 billion dollars to the world (Global Poverty Act) while we watch our own government in crisis, people would care.
If we could ever make the point that $850 billion would go a long way to fund the uninsured in this country or provide stimulus for jobs, people would care.
If we could only start putting Congress under the microscope with what they spend and how they spend it, people would care. This trillion that Obama is getting ready to drop to “stimulate” our economy, it’s not inevitable.
We are still a free country and our demise is not inevitable unless we do nothing.
Bubbles happen. Interventions do from time to time - they are not necessarily evil in themselves. It's triage -- because people are people they need triage once in a while. Of course hopefully the doctor knows what he's doing...
Deleveragings happen, as do the credit crunches they bring. Credit is the oxygen of a civilized econmy. We've had a mother of a credit contraction. It won't pass without effects.
A highly developed economic system requires a foundation of trust. That's been blown. It's not going to come back for some time. A command structure can presume to take the risk of a "trustless" economy -- but it will only make matters worse.
A free economy with moral participants can grow its way out of a bust and prosper again.
You can decide for yourself about whether the conditions might be met for that...
Your chart shows that in 1930, the first year of the Great Depression, yearly average unemployment almost tripled from 3.2 to 8 percent. In the first year of our current "depression" it's gone from 4.6% to 5.6%.
So by comparing our unemployment to the Great Depression of the '30's, what we got now might be called an emotional depression.
--is finally winding down. On this very thread we're beginning to hear from more and more of us that are simply fed up with the non-stop whimpering and are ready to put the kids down for a nap and get some work done.
Count me in! Any movement, any march, anywhere and any time!
Overstating our current economic difficulties is USEFUL to the powers-that-be who want to ramp up the govt printing presses and force a NewNew Deal ‘stimulus’ that will help spread corrupt govt money around.
That’s why they talk about the “Great Depression” - not because it is true but because it makes for a good boogeyman to scare people - its utter and contemptible nonsense.
There is an old saying to the effect that when the US economy gets a case of the sniffles, the Canadian one gets pneumonia.
The current state of affaires is anomalous in thyat the Camadian ecoomy appears momentarily to be healthier than the US one.
Notice that unemployment in late 1929 and early 1930 wasn’t too bad. “
That’s because in 1929 and 1930 it wasnt more than a garden variety recession. Smoot-Hawley and the collapse in global trade took care of that.
But we arent raising tariffs for 300% and we are not deflating massively - so why the false comparison?
The fact remains that the comparisons are inapt and wrong.
Why not compare this recession to 1980-1982?
My mistake in pinging you to the post above. lol..
My post was typed here in jest, and I pinged you to it. Don't like it? Too bad.
I have read your posts, here and elsewhere. You appear to get angry with anyone that disagrees with you in regards to this economy, the free trade BS and the state of American manufacturing.
You parade around, whining that others don't agree with this Tinkerbell attitude that our economy/manufacturing etc is peachy or is somehow suddenly on the rebound...And then you suggest or imply if one complains about it, "They must be a liberal", as you announce how tired you are about comments that conflict with your own.
I totally disagree with you, and believe that American manufacturing has been pulverized by this so-called free trade sham, open borders, and terrible inept leadership. So what?
You dislike that I disagree with you? Too damn bad. You dislike that I think this economy, our manufacturing and this leadership is circling the drain? Too bad.
Do I believe this country can still be saved? Yep, hopefully..But not by avoiding the obvious truth, or sugarcoating what is occurring in regards to economy/trade and manufacturing.
BTW, If you were offended somehow because I pinged you here, (what a mistake!) don't respond.
Don't be such a pussy.
Anyone with an EEG can see what's going on.
What a cry baby...lol
I’m not crying about it, I’m just busting you for it. You succeeded in trolling me and I don’t mind that one bit—I simply wanted to set the record straight.
It may indeed be dissimilar, but there are vulnerabilities we have today that people in the Thirties did not have. In the start of the Great Depression, we did not have a bloated Social Security system that was utterly dependent on wages to keep from total collapse. Fifteen percent unemployment today would cause the system to fail within a year.
We also had a greater proportion of our people near enough to agriculture to be able to grow at least some of their own food. Everybody had a relative who lived out in the country. Today, most urban and suburban people are unconnected with our agricultural past.
I'm sure there are other examples that FReepers can think of.
Yes, and no. Certainly, today's unemployment doesn't resemble that of the depression (yet, and I hope it doesn't get there). But on the other hand, the method of measurement of unemployment isn't the same either.
The fact remains that the comparisons are inapt and wrong. Why not compare this recession to 1980-1982?
That is a fair question. 1929 was not a garden variety recession. After the crash and the bank failures, capital dried up. Businesses couldn't get loans. Like turning a large ship or stopping a freight train, there is a time lag between cause and effect.
Let's take one example. Auto sales are down 40%. Auto companies don't go out of business the first month of a downturn (although they tried awfuly hard.) But if the buyers don't come back, eventually they will.
GM closes their doors, and not only puts their own workers out on the street, their suppliers also go belly up, and the suppliers' suppliers. This all will take time as the inertia of each individual company is overcome.
We also have massive amounts of toxic debt that still have to work it's way through the financial system, including the trillions of dollars' worth of low-to-no interest T-bills that we have sold off in the past two months (which is where the money for all these bailouts came from.}
When those T-bills mature, we're going to have to sell even more T-bills to pay off those T-bills. The problem is that the first wave of T-bills was purchased with money that came out of the stock markets of the world. There may not be buyers of the second wave of T-bills, which means the interest rate they pay will skyrocket. This will cause the US to spend most of it's budget on debt service. The only way out of that mess is to inflate the currency, which may cause another round of recession.
How anybody can say "unemployment isn't 25% so we aren't going to have another Great Depression" when we are only literally 5 months into this crisis is beyond me. There is a lot of crap still coming down the pike.
“There is a lot of crap still coming down the pike. “
How do you know with certainty that to be the case, after all most of the ‘crap’ - like $140/barrel oil and housing bust, and recent blowups of financials and a bear market, has landed already, and that such negative ‘crap’ will worsen and equate to a GD 2.0? On the contrary, we have seen the worst of it, and, like a blizzard, the tough part now is digging out from it.
That’s right, we are 5 months into a recession with barely a blip in unemployment compared with 1930s, and we are talking like its the end of the world. Maybe not, we are explicitly inflating our way out of bank failures and covering them with TARP, and are ginning up the stimulus; experts predict flat global growth in 2009, not a dropoff, just no growth ... so why compare it to the Great Depression?
Why not just another garden variety recession, like all the post WWII ones?
There is no good answer to this, except to say that we have some financial crisis component - well, so did the Asian crisis of 1998, but that didnt lead to the Great Depression either. Each economic situation is different. It’s as silly as comparing Iraq war to WWI to compare this to the Great Depression.
“We also have massive amounts of toxic debt that still have to work it’s way through the financial system,”
They are already in the system and marked-to-market and actually underpriced. Buying marked down debt would be a great way to make money in 2009.
” including the trillions of dollars’ worth of low-to-no interest T-bills that we have sold off in the past two months (which is where the money for all these bailouts came from.}”
- which someone already owns, hence the low interest rates on them. so what’s your point? People fled risk and bought treasuries. As the economy picks up, this will reverse as people lean to accept risk again.
I stand by my claim: The “Great Depression” meme is a false one, used by people with various axes to grind.
the #1 ax are the Govt meddlers who are using it to make excuses for unnecessary Govt spending as the ‘new new deal’.
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