One of the things which really aren’t written about in the 1930s....is that folks did make money....and just sat on it for the most part. No one truly felt secure anymore. They can all talk about FDR and all the infrastructure that he built. But in the end...we had money in early and mid-1930s to take off and be prosperous again, and we simply didn’t do it. The same thing exists today. And no, they will not pay out dividends to stock-holders, until they know how stable the situation really is.
I will offer this prospective as well. Once we turn some corner...people start feeling really positive....the economy will take off, and we are looking at one of the best economic periods of the past 100 years. The bond rating goes back AAA, and stocks will soar.
Like the day the market hit 777 under Reagan and it was a high volume day as they swapped out into stocks they thought would be the place to be during a recovery. That was the bottom if my memory is correct....
The Palin Power Recovery I can't wait.....
The question is who call's the bottom to get back in? Bob Brinker? Dougie Kass? or ?
If consumers and businesses pay down their debts, economy will boom again. Problem is banks have huge liabilities and the fed gov assumed all the bad assets under TARP. They are trying to find ways politically to tap private business and personal piles of cash to payoff the losses and not assume the losses. If gov will cater to your needs, why not??!! All of us need to remember, when an individual or organization gain so much power (ala wealth) they are capable of being abusive just like gov. Much of their abusive usage of power is done behind the scenes. Atleast Soros is very visible, but there are many like Soros who are hidden. Big gov is not the only enemy to freedom, super rich people and business are also capable of being enemy to freedom and liberty. Conservatives should not let their blind faith in free markets blind them of this abusive power by very people and private institutions we admire. In my advanced years I never could fathom how some people and organizations make more money then they could ever spend in hundreds of lifetimes, still succumb to greed and jeopardize themselves thru illegal or unethical actions.
Here is an excerpt from an old thread about a booklet from 1939 about FDR and the New Deal. The same tactics are being used today.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2185147/posts
In his first inaugural address, March 4, 1933, the President said: “Values have shrunk to fantastic levels; taxes have risen; our ability to pay. has fallen;... the withered leaves of industrial enterprise lie on every side....... Yet our distress comes from no failure of substance....Plenty is at our doorstep, but a generous use of it languishes in the very sight of the supply. Primarily this is because the rulers of the exchange of mankind’s goods have failed,... Practices of the unscrupulous money-changers stand indicted in the court of public opinion, rejected by the hearts and minds of men.... They know only the rules of a generation of self-seekers.... Yes, the money-changers have fled from their high seats in the temple of our civilization. We may now restore that temple to the ancient truths. The measure of that restoration lies in the extent to which we apply social values more noble than mere monetary profit.”
....It is not unnatural for people to think envious thoughts about large profits, and envious thoughts are very easy to exploit, as every demagogue knows. But no government before the New Deal had ever deliberately done it....Large profit as such becomes therefore a symbol of social injury, merely because it is large; moreover, it is asserted that large profit had long been so regarded by the government and penalized for that reason.
Of all the counter symbols this was the one most damaging to the capitalistic system. Indeed, if it were accepted, it would be fatal, because capitalism is a profit and loss system and if profits, even very large profits, are socially wrong, there is nothing more to be said for it.