Posted on 01/22/2009 3:09:01 AM PST by expat_panama
You often hear that we are now living through the worst recession since the early 1980s, and the comparison is not wrong. But it’s ultimately unsatisfying, because it is a little too vague to be useful.
Is the economy only a little worse than it was in the last couple recessions, as some have said, and still a long way from the dark days of 1982? Or are we instead on our way toward something that may even approach the severity of the Great Depression?
[snip]
The ranks of unemployed and underemployed, controlling for the size of the population, were much larger in 1982 than today.
[snip]
The recession of the early 1980s doesn’t have a catchy name, and almost half of Americans are too young to have any real memory of it. But it was terrible — qualitatively different from the mild recessions of 1990-91 and 2001. The first big blow to the economy was the 1979 revolution in, which sent oil prices skyrocketing. The bigger blow was a series of sharp interest-rate increases by the Federal Reserve, meant to snap inflation. Home sales plummeted. At their worst, they were 30 percent lower than they are even now (again, adjusted for population size). The industrial Midwest was hardest hit, and the term “Rust Belt” became ubiquitous. Many families fled south and west, helping to create the modern Sun Belt.
Nationwide, the unemployment rate rose above 10 percent in 1982, compared with 7.2 percent last month. But that rate has a couple of basic flaws, as I’ve discussed in previous columns. It counts people who have been forced to work part time, even though they want to work full time, as fully employed.
[snip]
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
They are actually being kind to the first Bush, which is when most of that unemployment spike took place.
Right, and kids never talked back to their parents and we had to walk 3 miles in the snow to school uphill both ways .. ..
If you think 1982 was bad, wait until 2011.
CDOs did exist - they were even around in 1873.
And BTW, folks, read up on the depression of 1873 because that’s where we’re likely headed.
If you can explain why the banking situation was just as bad back then, I’d like to hear it. As I recall, the biggest banks in the country weren’t in jepoardy of being nationalized back then, with private equity holders being sqeezed out.
Memories aren’t perfect, but sometimes things WERE better in the past.
No, the party line is that Clinton presided over the longest recovery, and the way they made it the longest is they began dating it to before Clinton took office.
Yes, I know it's crazy, but this is exactly what they're saying!
Post #12. Bingo. See my Tagline.
Probably, we will work our way out of this, one way or another, as long as the money-printing stays within reasonable bounds -- that will be the big task for the GOP and the reasonable dems.
The DBM is addicted to gloom and doom. They can’t help themselves. But they’ll always find a way to blame the crisis on the GOP or the “rich”.
When Bush was President, the buck stopped with him - everything that went wrong was his fault. For a while, he will still be the scapegoat, but when that’s no longer believable, someone/something else will get the blame. It will never be Obama, however.
Exactly. We would not be going through this, or maybe no where near as severely had the banks been so naively left to regulate themselves.
http://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/cpi.pdf
For the last year, overall prices increase .1 %, so by the CPI, you are correct, overall prices have not yet declined for a full year.
But that is the lowest increase since 1954, and the fall in prices has just begun.
Fine, but was there ever a time you've said it wasn't bleak?
Not recently.
Worse only as in this moment in time. Not worse when considering alll the financial data that suggests this is getting worse by the day. See us in 30-60-90 days and compare.
Well, maybe you would and maybe you wouldn't but my guess is that your mind is set and there's no possible explanation you'd ever be willing to accept.
In the meantime, I'm like most Americans. We're personally not as well of as we were say, last year, but our incomes are still rising and our wealth is still even higher than the peak we had in the dot-com boom.
If this is what we call "bad" the we're never going to see "good".
There has to be some sort of meaningful but not onerous regulation.
what is rising is unemployment...about 600,000 revised December number.
If the SEC had not been asleep at the wheel, we wouldn’t be in this mess.
Was it worse than the 30’s?
I guess you forgot about the balloon mortgages...Many lost their homes with these mortgage products...couldn’t refinance when the balloon payment came due.
Do you remember the no income verification loans? These were widely available in the 80’s.
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