Tell me about the Great Depression.

How did it happen in 1929?

How many died?

How many suffered?

And why do people think that the one we're about to enter will ever turn around, thanks to "limited" resources - for which it is infinitely easier to kill off excess supply, an act which is already beginning in the form of "offshoring" and "offpeopling"?

How DOES one survive in a depression?

I think this is a very important question that needs to be discussed.

Probably most of the "depression deaths" were from formerly rich people not being able to cope with their new-found poverty. The already-poor, just sucked it up and took in a few more boarders..planted a few more veggies..

My grandfather owned several properties, and was a "cash" guy.. He was offered this building in 1930.. the price $5 thousand dollars.. he had the money, but did not need a huge Masonic temple building:) It's now on the National Historic Building registry.. Probably worth more than $5k

Well, almost. bill gates xferred "his" money into the Euro, as most of the Fortune 500 by now... So they are safe when the crash comes.

Pity. They made the mess. They ought to pay for it.

:shrug:

Well, not as much dollars as their currency they loaned to us?

Our debt is 'payable' in dollars. As T-Bills, the debt is not 'on demand' but has specific maturity dates when the US redeems them. Holders of T-Bills can always sell them to others, even at a loss, in whatever currency they agree upon - that's what secondary markets are for.

Would you post a link to any news or other sourses regarding exchanges or transferences of US dollars to other currency by CEO's like Gates? This is the first I heard of it. Oddly, to start a "savings" account (for a trip to Europe) I had thought of buying Euros, as they would be hard for me to spend.

the middle class and those who basically lived wealthy off of the stock market, and small business took a hit. The ones jumping out of the buildings were the neuvo wealthy--however, the highest rate of suicide were the middle class. Domestic violence also went up. Yes, some people made it because they had strong family ties, planted gardens-basically helped each other to get by. My grandmother and grandfather owned a store in rural Ohio. They had hard times, but kept it together--they grew most of their food. My hubby's grandmother and grandfather lived in Arkansas. He had to move around just to find various jobs to make ends meet, I believe their farm house burned down--which devastated them--thank God for their family. For those who were distanced from their families or had little-they had a much harder time surviving. But the Morgans, the Rockefellers, Duponts made out just fine. One of my card playing friends, she died in her nineties, told me stories about when she was a little girl-her family was new wealth--her father had a contract to make tires for Henry Ford--apparently Ford and her father were friends. She was not allowed to dress herself. Maids dressed her every morning. Anyway, they lost everything in the depression. It was harder on her family who had been wealthy to go to poverty than someone who has known poverty. I never asked her why Ford didn't assist them--did they have a falling out? of course, the mindset of some the very wealthy was they didn't believe in handouts.

and part of the middle class got poor - those are the people who died from cold and hunger while farmers had little option but to destroy much of their produce because selling it wasn't worth it.

My father and his family would work at any thing so I guess that is why things were OK. They all helped each other. They all got some training over high school from a grandmother who brought them up and her husband went back to work at over 75 to do that. The two older brothers owned their home in the 30's and both started their own business. So if you could get a job you could make it. One brother worked on a rich mans estate to learn a trade for two years and the other went to a small business college that he did not live at but went to on a train daily. They both had to work their way through high school. They had a will to get some place believe me.

family recollections of life in America from 1929-1945.

Extended families lived in the same houses, shared their paychecks; if they had one, their heartaches and triumphs and just generally cared for each other.

I was lucky enough to be raised in this tradition. I remember listening to stories as a child and a young adult about "The Depression". My parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles didn't dwell on the bad, yeah we heard about the bad things, but at the end of the day, what they experienced made them better people and die-hard Democrats.

I asked my beloved Daddy once who was your favorite President? He replied, "Harry Truman, because he saved my ass in 1945". I asked my Irish born grandmother the same question and she replied, "Franklin Delano Roosevelt because he saved the greatest country in the world."

Granted both of their answers come from a purely selfish POV, but when you're faced with death and/or being without hope or a future, it's a pretty compelling argument.

...who had lived through the Great Depression. I interviewed my dad.

I asked: "What one word would you use to describe FDR?"

He didn't hesitate, he didn't blink, and there was nothing less than solemn reverence in his voice: "Savior."

children. The older 4 children found part time jobs. My father always seemed to find a bit of work plus he was a bootlegger. Anything to make a buck. We lived in a south central state and had some land. Grew a huge garden , had chickens,milkcows and always raised a hog. We were very self sufficent. Mother made all our clothes including coats ect. I just don't know how my parents did it all. We also had relatives we swapped things with. Consequently, I have always been aware of how quickly hard times can come along.To this day , I am prepared for more hard times, at least as much as I can be.My parents worked to get FDR elected and loved him. The whole family are still die hard Democrats,and still speak of those times.We all went on to survive and made something of our lives. Strong family makes the difference.

went up to 25 % which meant that the other 75 % were employed, so as bad as 25 % is, (it's about 5 % today) it's not like everyone was starving.

it's about the depression and fascism-Susan Sarandon, Bill Murray, the Cusacks (sp) brother and sister--it's a good film--it was a sleeper--I wonder why.

I understand that they'll be re-running it. :(

Butter tubs, pieces of string, twisty ties, used aluminum foil.

That is what the depression was, and that is how you survive.

Some of it still lingers with me. Saving twist ties, reusing plastic bags, saving plastic containers, and just about anything else that could have a future use. It's weird. When you grow up with that, it sticks.

not as obsessively as they did, mind you, but I do keep an eye on the "re-usable" and the "useful"

And she taught me that when you break an egg, you run your finger around the inside of the shell to get all the white out. Seriously.

Also, carefully scraping out cans of stuff like tomato sauce, and carefully rinsing it with a little bit of water as well. And sticking the sliver of almost-gone soap on top of the new bar so none of it went to waste.

Those sorts of things stay with you for a lifetime. My mother was born in 1925, but she was still doing all those frugal things even at the time of her death in 1999. When we kids were going through the house after her death, divvying stuff up, selling things, we couldn't even believe the stuff she had saved. And we were especially blown away by the amount of money she had managed to leave behind for the four of us and for her favorite charities, the Cancer Society and Heifer International. We had no idea. There's a lot to be said for living a low-key and thrifty lifestyle.

had soles replaced on shoes.. My mother started school in a dress made from my Grandfather's old overcoat.. they darned socks, heated the houses with fireplaces, lots did not have cars...

Everyone had a garden and neighborhoods swapped services and stuff to get by.. If you had a lawnmower, you mowed lawns to get produce or meals or clothing made for your kids.

appliances were made to last--I had a electric waffle iron that still worked. I wished I hadn't gotten rid of it. I used to work at a secondhand store and old appliances (especially fans) people would buy them as soon as they came in. I'm telling you forty, fifty years old and those things were still working.

We have a toaster that was my mother-in-law's..She got it in 1940:)

She said that since pretty much EVERYONE was in the same boat, there was a greater sense of unity and camaraderie. She remembered get togethers with friends where everyone brought an ingredient to make soup. She remembered touch football with friends in the living room on rainy Sunday afternoons, because no one had money for the Picture show.She remembered how she and all her buddies pooled their money to help a fellow friend buy a new dress for a job interview. She lamented a few years ago before she died how real friendship,fellowship, caring and self sacrifice no longer seemed to be fashionable. The Great Depression was tough for everyone, but in many cases it brought out the best in people.

Paper bags, plastic bags, old broken radios - every single one we ever owned! Old shoes, rags - lots of rags. Even wood scraps that "might be useful" sometime in the "future".

Stocked up on things when on sale - had many parts for cars we no longer owned a long time ago!

It was a complete and utter mess to clean up after my last parent died.

My mother was the executor to both grandmothers' meager estates - found clothing and old drapes.

It was truly staggering.

I remember my mom using ration stamps to buy meat at out local butcher shop, and how happy she was when he would slip in a few slices of bacon as a secret favor.

Somehow, I can't imagine the Pubs issuing ration stamps now. I think we'd all just have to starve!

I remember the better times returning. And people were so much closer then. Makes me a bit nervous thinking of what this depression will be like. Scary.

who are old enough to answer your question with anything except academics.

i'm 53, and my parents were babes during the depression. it was THEIR parents who did the surviving.

how? extended, not nuclear family units, giving support to one another. families banded together the way you see folks in third world countries do.

old world knowledge put to work in the "new world".

my folks talked about how to manage without enough. raised us to know the skills. i can make food go a really long way, thanks to their training (and helped along by being raised during a time when my dad couldn't find honest work for the life of him). later in life he did land that perfect spot that utilized all his training and experience. made a good living and a damn fine reputation for about the last 3 decades of his life. had to mention that so nobody would assume that we were poor cuz of a ne'er do well head of house.

then, during the early 70s when i was a newlywed, and later as we began our family, i learned to apply all i'd absorbed as we rode through the "rough times".

since then i've been pretty fortunate. but i remember how to stretch a chicken into four generous meals for family of seven (edited to add: i believe i can do better nowadays)...and how to make a nice beefy broth with soy sauce.

everybody in household doing as much as they can to contribute. no expectation beyond survival for another day...and trying to put ahead a buck for tomorrow. being satisfied with a warm bed, a full-enough belly and a room full of love.

'course i probably just gave you overload of info when no doubt your question was a lot more rhetorical. but believe me, i'm practicing up on my knowledge of herbs (for tonics and remedies as well as for seasoning food) and of homeopathic and naturopathic medicine. trying to stay alert to the how and where of getting fresh water, because mark my words, that will be one of the big commoditities -- (recall how the big corps tried to privatize water in South America somewhere but were dissuaded by organized protest? don't think for a minute they don't still have that one on the their wish list?)

i truly believe we'll do it by banding together into communities with cooperative effort. but some will do it through fierce competition...another, less evolved strategy for survival.

Well, some of it could be accurately perceived that way, but if survival is a goal then discussion is the best thing to do. Pool resources, et cetera...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Depression

My mother grew up on a farm in Texas during the depression. She said they were totally self sufficient -- only bought sugar and coffee at the store. She only had one pair of shoes and walked several miles to school.

Eventually, my grandparents lost the farm and moved to a small house in town. My grandfather took odd jobs, skinning cattle at one point to put food on the table. Times were hard, but neighbors helped each other.

If you google "Great Depression" + "recipes" you'll find suggestions for cooking on a shoestring budget. I used to have a Depression cookbook that told how to make things like dandelion wine.

or if it becomes too much to pay for, perhaps we'll need a way to exchange some of these recipes and other bits of knowledge!

Living on a Shoestring Budget."

At the time, my daughter was a competitive figure skater. I learned every trick in the book for paring down the budget and bringing in extra cash to afford her ice time and lessons with top coaches.

Obvious places to start include shopping for clothes, books, toys etc at resale shops -- and selling back your old stuff for cash or store credits. Scour garage sales for good stuff to sell on e-bay or delight kids as stocking stuffers. My daughter loved the jeweled boxes and other treasures I used to find this way.

Grow whatever food you can raise yourself, from herbs to veggies to fruit trees; consider a chicken coop for fresh eggs. Scrimp on the food bill by foregoing prepared items and making more from scratch -- you'll eat healthier in the bargain. Make your own holiday decorations, including fresh greenery, boughs laden with fruit, etc. Give home-made gifts.

Discover 99 cent or dollar stores, Big Lots, Ross 4 Less, etc. You'll be amazed what you can find. We hosted a big New Year's party one year and all the stores were out of those plastic wine/champagne glasses. I caught an after Christmas sale at Ross and found lead crystal goblets for 88 cents apiece! OF course they were broken sets (5 instead of 6), but at that price, who cared?

Home Depot offers classes to learn how to fix stuff yourself or even tackle projects like installing tile. We saved a thousand bucks by installing floor tiles ourself last year in a couple of small rooms.

Self employed? Tie in business trips with family travel when you can, so you can write off your expenses. Consider a home office deduction, plus deductions for office equipment, car, subscriptions, etc.

If you make lots of long distance calls, ask your carrier about a flat rate. I used to get $300-400 a month bills for international calls for one major client. Now I pay $75 flat rate and have virtually unlimited calling time to most countries in the world. Some people make calls over the Internet now for free or nearly so.

Need a cheap car? Check out government auctions of seized property. A fellow skating parent used to buy luxury cars this way (Jaguars, Mercedes, etc) and resell them at a profit, usually with only minor repairs.

Take vitamins and read up on alternative medicine (only the reputable choices). Often you can avoid costly doctor bills for minor ailments with products available at health food stores, such as tea tree oil for skin infections, aloe for minor burns, emu oil for dry skin, etc.

Own a house? Check into refinancing when interest rates drop. We refinanced our last house four times, ending up with a payment that was almost half what we'd started with back in the days of double-digit rates.

Offer to trade-out services or goods, saving on cash. I've traded writing services for dental care and photography services for kids' clothing, for example.

Find out places where you can get free or nearly free food. CostCo on a Saturday or Sunday afternoon offers enough free samples to double as a meal at lunchtime. Some bars or restaurants have free happy hour hors d'hoevres. Order a cheap drink (beer, soft drink, tea) and fill up! Look for local community festivals. In Virginia last year, I found a wine-tasting and food fair that offered all the free wine you could drink plus ham, cheese, crackers and jam -- all for a dollar or two entry fee!

My grandmother used to make that. She also made wine from peaches, plums, apple blossoms, and grapes. I also remember having sto stir apple butter that was made in a big copper oval pot for hours...everybody took turns.

Millions out of work and lost everything they had. My parents grew up in the depresion. I hope that we don't have to live through it again for people to understand what the end result of Republican greed is.

8 years later, i was working for a bank and making a whopping $3.00 an hour :eyes:

and that wasn't that long ago. Would have been in 1975.

...migrant workers that would ride the rails until they found their next job.

My grandmother saved everything, and my Mom picked up the habit from her. They lived in a railroad town in West virginia where my grandfather was the head of the railroad YMCA. Mom remembered that people would come to the back door looking for food, and her dad would always give them a sandwich or two. They were supplemented with food from my grandmother's family in another railroad town in Virginia, and my grandfather's family farm in Central Virginia...which mysteriously burned down in 1930 before it could be surrendered to the bank.

When my Mom died in 1996, her house was literally filled from top-to-bottom with everything that had come in the front door for the previous 20 years. The good part of digging through all of that stuff was meeting a lot of relatives in pictures and letters that I had previously known nothing about.

My Dad's family moved from eastern Kentucky into the West Virginia coal fields where my grandfather worked in the mines. My grandmother took care of the kids (nine of them), which was an all day (and part of the night) job of cooking, feeding, washing, and ironing. They kept a small garden in the back yard, and I think they also kept a cow for milk.

50% of Americans are single living alone. The country/families are all over, no safety net. Few are self-sufficient. I would have no idea how to GROW something, have always lived in a major city.

for elderly people. Lots of frail elderly are pushed out of their homes because they need help. Single people and young people should hook up with these lonely old people.. I think everyone would benefit.

I have always thought that daycare and senior centers should merge too..

not for the seniors that require medical attention but certainly for the seniors that are healthy and loney....DO IT! It would be a big hit!

:rofl:

or will it be every selfish person for themself and steal what someone else has? I guess it will depend on the community that they live in as to how they will do. I remember reading about the Donner Party, how they all kind of created their own dwellings-living apart but in the same area. When what was left of the party was found some still had provisions while others had none. I thought why didn't they make a great house like the indians or vikings-why didn't they pull their provisions together and make one big soup pot so that the provisions would last longer. Some of them wouldn't have cannibalized others--I mean their Indian guides were starting to look like porterhouse steaks. They isolated themselves out of distrust instead of grouping together and surviving together--you know, together we stand, divided we fall.

I think the way to survive a Depression is to load everything into a truck and drive to California.

And if you look at Europe WWI rolled right into a Depression that Europe did NOT start to come out till Hitler took power in 1933. Japan was hit in the late 1920s, but was out of it by 1936 (Through by that time Japan was attacking China as their "Solution" to their Depression).

Domestically, the peak before the Depression seems to be 1927. After 1927 the Depression slowly increased peaking AFTER the 1932 election (Every bank in the US had to close do to economic conditions AFTER the election of 1932 but before FDR inauguration on March 4th, 1933).

As to the Stock market it peaked about July 1929, but held close to peak till black friday in October 1929. The Stock market almost rose to those same heights by March 1930, but then started a slow steady decline and was never reached again till the early 1950s. This reflected a series of very short booms and recessions. Two between 1927 and 1934. What hurt most people was NOT Black Friday, but the subsequent "Sucker's rally" from October 1929 till March 1930 (and the slow economic decline afterward leading to the collapse of the Banks in 1933).

As to affect on most people, was the lost of jobs. Unemployment went up to 24.9% of work age men in 1933. AND THIS WAS THE PEOPLE LOOKING FOR WORK, not the people who gave up looking or working only part-time. FDR tried to both balance the budget AND get people jobs, that he was re-elected in 1936 and 1940 even through the unemployment rate did not go down that much (Voters liked that he was TRYING, as opposed to the non-efforts of the GOP). This was even true in the worse year of the Depression in the US (1938).

Basically if you had a job during the Great Depression, the Depression was an opportunity, prices were dropping, wages were dropping and thus if you had a steady income things were very good. The problem was when you did NOT have that steady income. Social Security was only introduced in 1934 (with first payments in 1938). States did not want to pay Welfare, so not an option and this caused problems within the big cities where people like Al Capone paid for soup Kitchens when the Government was paying nothing (and gave more support for the Mob, in that the mob feed people when their were starving, while the Government jailed the people feeding the people). A lot of these starving men (And women and Children) would vote the way the mob wanted them to do for decades afterward, FOR IT WAS THE MOB WHO HELPED THEM WHEN THEY NEEDED HELP. In many ways FDR saw this and tired to stop this by his CCC and other job programs, but these programs were opposed by the GOP who wanted the Budget balanced on the back of the poor.

List of Recessions since 1900:

http://www.bos.frb.org/economic/nerr/rr1999/q3/katz99_3.htm
http://www.marist.edu/summerscholars/96/ovpe.htm

Some more articles on the Depression:
http://www.huppi.com/kangaroo/THE_GREAT_DEPRESSION.htm
http://ingrimayne.saintjoe.edu/econ/EconomicCatastrophe/GreatDepression.html
http://www.huppi.com/kangaroo/Timeline.htm

1973,80, 81 & 90...:(

In you life you had four in 20 years, and the worse being the 1981 Reagan recession (Which was MILD compared to the 1929 Recession). The problem is NOT the number of recession, but how deep each of them go AND how far apart are the recessions. It was this one (three recessions), two punch (The decline in the 1929 recession) that was so deadly between 1927 and 1940. Lets us be frank, when Economics had to compare Bush jr's Recession to HOOVER's Recession to have one bigger than Bush's jr (for all the one in between were not as severe) it also shows how minor the recessions of 1973, 1980 and 1990 were (The worse recessions since 1929 was Bush's jr's recession of 2001 then Reagan's 1981 Recession and then in third place Eisenhower's 1958 recession). As to Reagan, if the price of Oil had NOT dropped the Economy was going the way of the 1930s, but the price of oil did drop so Reagan lucked out. Bush jr is hoping for the same miracle, i.e. price of oil to drop kick starting the economy, the problem is I see the price of oil going up and a major depression following that permanent increase in price.

http://quinnell.us/politics/knowledge/recessions.html

a WPA program, as did other relatives. No wonder they loved FDR. He tried to help people and succeeded.What a trip down memory lane. Sorry it seems to be looming once more.My father used to say that the difference between Democrats and Republicans was, they will both promise a chicken in every pot, but a Democrat will actually toss you a wing or two, whereas a Repug will promise one, but give you nothing.

Let me start by saying that my parents were young adults at the end of the depression. During the height (lowest point) of the depression my maternal grandfather left his family and my grandmother was left to fend for herself and her five children. She worked two jobs, but it was not enough. My mother recalled my grandmother sparingly placing a singular piece of coal in the furnace and the ice that remained on the insides of the windows. Grandma eventually gave the younger children up for adoption and the older children went off to the orphanage. These are my tales of the depression.


I feel strongly that we would be remiss to not prepare for another depression. I have thought on numerous occasions to begin a thread on how we could pull ourselves together in the event of another catastropic ecconomic event like the great depression. Not just for "dooms-day" purposes, but also for us to understand that we can create an economy that could essentially cut out the corporate blood-suckers.

How would we heat ourselves? Clothe ourselves? transportation? Toiletries?? Food is relatively simple, but those who can grow need to be able to trade with those who may have other necessary goods/services to offer. What about those in concrete cities (NYNY, for example) who are more suseptable to economic disaster??


This is a topic that must be talked about at length.

now is the right time to start coming to some understanding about how to manage. as you can see in the comments here, many of us are already beginning to "practice poverty" -- and i suspect it's about more than a philosophical choice.

food i've known can be grown...i can grow food. i can make a little food go a long way. and i already do without "prepared" foods for health's sake.

but when there's no money to pay for utility bills...no money to buy gasoline...

i guess i'm thinking that the internet will be a huge benefit unless of course it also becomes unaffordable or unavailable for some reason...places like craig's list already have sites for barter. more of such networks perhaps?

Presidents Coolidge and Hoover practiced the same type of fiscal policies that conservative Republican presidents like Reagan and Bush have advocated for years.

Before Hoover was elected the stock market was making fortunes for people. There was no regulation on margin accounts and stocks changed hands without sufficient collateral to back up the purchases. The banks were not federally insured and they took a lot of speculative risks with the depositors' money.

Ten months after Hoover became president, in 1929, Black Friday occurred. The stock market crashed and many people, even small investors lost everything they had. The banks closed their doors and when people went to try to get their savings they were told that there was no more money for them to have. It was all gone. Again this affected small depositors as well as big ones. There were bank runs and bank riots by people suddenly destitute. But it didn't help them.

Hoover did nothing to bail the country out. There was no social security, no welfare of any kind and no jobs. People stood in bread lines for a bowl of soup. The bread lines were sponsored by private charities or churches. Most people went hungry. In many places there were groups of children who had lost parents to death or abandonment who were left to fend for themselves. The government made no effort to care for them. People who had homes and resources left often ran them off like you a pack of stray dogs. Others helped them out of their own pockets. There was no safety net of any kind.

In the great plains, land which had been farmed for generations without crop rotation on conservation, had the soil "worn out." There was a drought and much of the topsoil blew away in wind storms. This is where the term "dust bowl" comes from. The farmers lost their land. Many of the poor became migratory workers, traveling without any fixed residence in search of some kind of income to buy food. They had lost their land, their savings, their jobs and their hope. Whole families would travel together. A lot of the people that came to California and helped build it from a small town state were migratory workers like these.

My family came here then, and worked in construction, digging ditches, roughnecked in oilfields; whatever they could find. They lived in little trailers and eventually pooled their money to get some land where they built houses. They sent for other family members as they could afford to feed them. There was no other help. Hoover largely ignored the situation and would often say, "Prosperity is just around the corner." Sort of like it is now.

It took FDR to begin to change things for the better. He formed government agencies to create jobs for people who were disenfranchised, through newly created agencies like the Works Progress Administration. He regulated the banks and formed the FDIC so that deposits were insured by the government and people could put their money in the bank without the fear of losing everything. He passed laws to regulate margin trading and other risky practices in the stock market. He passed the Social Security laws so that the elderly could have guaranteed pensions. Many of the people who suffered most during the Great Depression were elderly people who had lost everything and had no way to recoup it.

The final revival for the economy came when FDR entered World War II. He took the WPA and other groups and gave them jobs on projects building weapons for the war, and supporting and providing housing and supplies for the military. By the end of World War II he had many social programs in place which we have come to take for granted to the point where many younger people think they were always there. These are the types of programs the Conservative Republicans are determined to destroy. And believe me they have already hurt them pretty bad.

If there is another depression it wouldn't be much different. It depends on how much the government safety nets set up by the Democrats can survive them. Your savings would still be insured, but there wouldn't be much you could do with it. People are already having difficulty finding jobs which have been taken out of the US and sold to the highest bidders overseas. The stock market has been skewing up and down since 9/11.

Some of the stocks that used to be considered the most reliable moneymakers are now worthless due to "creative accounting" practices which the Bush administration has tolerated. Companies are being liquidated under bankruptcy in order to allow them to reopen without unions, benefits for their workers, lower pay than what the employees had before and the dissolution of pensions plans which people had been depending on to retire and live a decent life. Families are more scattered now and have less ability to help each other. It is almost impossible for a middle class person to buy a first home. The cherry on the cake that the Freepers are baking is to take away Social Security and lose it in the stock market so that no one will have a pension.

Bush has taken away government support services and is "privatizing" everything at the expense of the military, people who pay income tax (ask me about the Mellon Bank fiasco), and virtually every other government service which poor and average people had come to rely on. FEMA anyone? I think if you've been following the lives of the people who survived the hurricanes this season, you'll get a pretty good idea of how bad things would be. The only difference? Now you can be arrested for complaining about the Bush Administration if they think they can get away with doing it.

His family basically dissolved in the early 1930s and as a young teenager he went to live with a distant aunt (Who he liked). Once he turned about 14 he started to work on various farms in Western maryland. Farm labor was cheap, horses had to be be feed so many farmers still used horses for to use the Tractors (and most farmers also had tractors) required the purchased of gasoline (and the horses had to be feed weathered used or NOT). In the late 1930s he tried to enlist in the US navy Submarine Service but could not find his Father to sign the enlistment papers (at the time you could NOT enlist in the US Army without your parents permission unless you were over age 21). Finally in 1940 he enlisted in the Maryland National Guard (Which at that time permitted emancipated minors to enlist, something forbidden to Regular US forces at the time, and not permitted today even in the National Guard). He hunted bobwhites (and commented to me in the 1970s how few Bobwhites where around compared to the 1930s, the drop of which is attributed to the Second-growth forest of his youth becoming the Mature forests of the 1970s).

His family also cut trees for both timber and fuel. These were off "Wood lots" on the mountain sides, leading to further deforestation of the area (and the subsequent purchase of most of these mountains as either Federal or State Forests). You will do what you can to survive. His older brothers all did odd jobs like he did, but ended up being hired by the Jones and Laughlin Steel in Pittsburgh (Where most of them worked during WWII, exempt for holding a Job needed for national Defense).

One of the side affect of the Great Depression was the drop in births during the late 1920s that continued till the start of the bay boom in 1947. People just stop having children. This drop is similar to the post-1964 drop in births (1947-1964 is the Conventional dates for the Baby Boom, through various efforts to split this into smaller groups have become fashionable since the 1980s). Previous Recessions had also had such drop in births (For example the highest birth rate in the US prior to the 1930s was between 1912 and 1920, which corresponds to the least number of immigrants into the US and the highest wages prior to WWII, birth rates dropped after 1920). Another period of low Birth rates was the 1890s. another period of Economic hard times (Which contributed to the increase in wages of the 1910s for with the decrease in immigration you had a low number of people joining the work force and thus had a labor shortage that pushed up wages). In fact one of the reason for the Great Depression was the boom of the 1910s. During that boom you had more children being born who came of age and joined the work force during the 1930s causing wages to go down (and the Spanish flu of 1918 made the situation worse for it hit 20-40 year olds hard, but their children were NOT hit as hard, thus causing wages to hold up in the 1920s but fall in the 1930s).

Thus one of the explanation for the "Good Times" of the 1950s was fewer people had children in the 1930s so that wages held up in the 1950s compared to wages fall in the 1930s. Having fewer children was one way to survive during the Great Depression.

My Material grandfather ended up helping his relatives during the same time period, he had a steady job as a foreman for Jones and Laughlin Steel but he had to try to reduce costs. For example helped mined some coal out of the abandoned Coal Mines of Coal Hill (The mine openings were still open during the 1930s) for his neighbors and himself. He took on a job putting on a new steel cable for one of the inclines still in use in Pittsburgh at that time. He sent money to relatives overseas. Just because you had your daily needs taken care of did not mean you should not try to help your fellow man. My Grandfather tried and a lot of people did that and help relieve some of the hardship of the Great Depression (and my Grandfather also said the best thing to happen to the the US Steel industry was its Unionization, and he was MANAGEMENT for he was a foreman). As a Foreman he could NOT help the Union, but he did not do anything he was NOT expected to do as a foreman to stop the Union.

One of the key to understanding is to remember it was NOT any one things that helped people survive the Great Depression, it was the combination of neighbor helping neighbor, relative helping relative AND GOVERNMENT INTERVENTION in the forms of Jobs. Together all three system helped people survive the Depression and in the present Depression the same three will save us Again (If we get a Government committed to helping people get Jobs, even made up jobs).

She's sharp as a tack, and can tell stories about the Great Depression for days on end. She lived on her parents' farm with her 11 brothers and sisters. Her older brothers left home to ride the rails, looking for work, as there was little to be done on the farm. Grandpa couldn't get a good price for corn or hay, or pigs or horses - everyone was broke. Mom says the city folk were worst off - she is still very proud that Grandma never sent anyone away empty-handed.

It was a time when a guy was grateful that some good farm woman gave him a potato or two, and maybe an onion. When my uncle Clem ended up at age 17 in NYC, he was allowed to stay for two nights at Our Lady of Victory mission. They had a little volunteer shoe-shop at the mission and put new soles on his shoes, which were worn through. My grandmother, to her dying day, sent small donations every month to that mission.

There were big camps set up in the areas near train switching-yards, because there were so many guys on the rails, hungry and desperate for work. They were called "Hoovervilles" in honor of the degenerate republican president. Everyone who had something to eat tossed it in the pot, and everybody shared "poor-boy stew".

Mom gets pretty misty-eyed when she hears the midnight train echo up from the riverbottom; she remembers the prayers she said for her brothers all the long years they looked for work. She is tough as nails and fearless - she has seen everything.

To this day, I swear if Mom ever met Franklin Delano Roosevelt, she would wash his feet with her hair.

If anyone wants the definitive account of the Great Depression, read "the Grapes of Wrath" by John Steinbeck - the film with Henry Fonda is also an American masterpiece.

With their wealth in-tact,

read more about it here:
http://www.tarpley.net/bush3.htm

Don't let them commy libruls tell ya otherwise.

You have read Ayn Rand? You must be very careful. Reading cornerstones of Conservative literature can make you go blind, and call out the name "Bianca," repeated in your sleep.:crazy:

My mom's family didn't have it too bad, as my grandfather's profession was practically Depression-proof: he was a butcher. They had to rent out rooms to boarders, but they never went hungry. Oftentimes, a transient would come by and ask for a bite to eat, and my grandfather always obliged -- but he would always give the man (invariably, it was men who traveled alone, looking for work) some little job to do, like sweeping the porch, so he wouldn't feel like he was getting charity. My grandfather also forgave all the debts of his customers who bought meat on credit (and there were a lot of them). He was, by all accounts, a saint, and never suffered for it.

My father's family lived on a fruit orchard (my grandfather was the foreman), and were pretty poor, but they never starved, either. When my father, as a teen, needed fuel for his Model A, he would sneak into the orchards and steal oil out of the smudge pots to add to his gas tank. After my dad got his first job, and continuing after he went into the Navy, he turned his paychecks and ration books over to his parents, and received a small allowance in return. He didn't have any money of his own when he got married.

Neither family was ever rich, but neither ever starved. And neither family had a head-of-household who made it past the third grade.

From my parents' stories, I think the way to survive a Depression is to:

1. Work in a job doing something everybody needs. Today that would probably be a service job, like plumbing.

2. Owe nothing.

3. Save money, but don't trust banks (they fail in a Depression) or lawyers (they will screw you). My crazy great-uncle cashed every paycheck he ever got and stashed most of the cash in his attic. After he died, we found over $20,000.

4. Don't cheat on your books, or on your taxes.

5. Own land. Even if it's some piece of nothing in the middle of Nowhere, Montana, own land. My godfather, who came from even humbler means than my father (they both grew up picking prunes for one cent per two pounds picked), owned land. Now he is one of the richest people I know; he's one of the Bay Area's handful of millionaires who made it in fruit-packing.

6. Sell what you can live without. You're not going to take it with you when you die.

7. Be creative and make do.

8. Take in boarders.

9. Grow your own vegetables. They're better for you anyway.

10. If you must eat meat and can stomach the idea of hunting, hunt. I hear robins make wonderful gravy (I wouldn't know). If you must eat meat and can't stomach the idea of hunting, you will stop eating meat.

11. Ditto fishing.

12. Be kind and help other people who have it worse than you do. If you believe what goes around comes around, then it will. If you don't believe it, then at least you'll be able to sleep at night without feeling guilty about failing to help when you see true need.

My broker was very unhappy when I insisted on liquidating a good chunk of my savings to pay off my low-interest 15-year mortgage. She kept insisting I would make a better return if I kept the money in investments that paid a higher return. True, but only if the economy stays solvent for the next 15 years, and I consider that to be a high-risk gamble.

Now, completely debt-free, I know I have a fighting chance to keep my home when we descend into economic chaos. (And it even has a side unit with its own kitchen bathroom that could be rented out.)

At all times, my partner and I thank the stars that we can still afford amenities like cable, DSL, good food, a household of pets, but we NEVER take the future for granted. Hard times are ahead.

That's what I do. I read The Complete Tightwad Gazette cover to cover and learned lots of neat tricks. I've been saving money like crazy by doing things I never would have considered before. For example, yesterday my husband I went shopping and bought a nice 2-piece suit, a sports jacket, hot dog and hamburger buns and a loaf of bread; we spent less than $15 by shopping at thrift store and a discount bakery. I garden (which is hard as hell) and I'm into Mormon-style food, clothing, and money storage.

My biggest fear is that the banks will fail again and FDIC won't help because America's broke. My focus right now is on the housing bubble: very important stuff. So many people are keeping pace by doing cash-out refi's and got their homes in the first place by using questionable mortgages. There are so many average Joes out there speculating the situation is much like the stock market of the twenties. Here is a link I read every day. He has links to two other favorites -- Housing Bubble 2, and Patrick.net. Patrick.net pretty much explains it all.

http://housingpanic.blogspot.com

The current generations have lost many basic survival skills -- not to mention the emotional and psychological strength it takes to deal with deprivation -- so they will be woefully unprepared for hard times.

One of the mainstays of surviving the Great Depression was the backyard vegetable garden. You might not be able to afford manufactured goods, but there was always food on the table. Walking the back alleys of my neighborhood, established back in the 1800s, I can spot the remains of old gardens that are abandoned now. Most people today have no clue how much work and skill it takes to maintain a productive garden. It can take years to build up and condition soil, even when you already have the knowledge of how to work it.

We had a manufacturing base back then, too. Americans made things, so even if you got shit wages, at least there were jobs to be had. Or, if you had the right skills, you made things at home and sold them on the street. How many Americans have those kind of labor skills anymore? And how can they undersell cheap overseas products and still cover the cost of materials, much less make enough of a profit to buy a cup of coffee?

And Americans had not become so dependent on the automobile back in the 1930's: there was inexpensive public transportation, or people lived within walking distance of stores and shops and jobs. But with the explosive growth of surbaban developments, millions of people now live in islands devoid of any essential services -- the only way out is to drive long distances, using gas that is becoming more and more expensive.

I didn't live through the Depression myself, but I can remember the deep psychological impact it made on my parents, who were much better prepared for that crisis than current generations. And I wonder how that trauma will play out when children who are used to a life of excess consumerism and constant high tech entertainment are plunged into a world in which they go to bed hungry and their X-Box is unusable because their electricity has been turned off due to unpaid bills.

When I was peadlling up the east coast of Aussie, I camped a few days next to a rain forest park near Byron Bay. During the Slump, folk lived in the rain, surviving off the fruits that grew in there.

There are plenty of books on the depression. Studs Terkel has a good oral history called "Hard Times", There's another called "The Great Depression" by an historian who went by three names, which I can't recall at the moment (sorry).

My grandmother was widowed at the beginning of the Depression with four kids. My grandfather had been gassed in the Great War, and died from it later, as many of them did. Of course, the government wouldn't give the widows what they were due, so they organized to get it (The World War One Widows Association). Anyway, she inherited some land in Fairfax County, Virginie. She couldn't do anything with it, so gave it away. Today, it would probably be worth millions. I expect it won't be long before it's worthless again.

and on her own to care for her 8 children.

They were poor to begin with, REPUKE policies leading to the Depression only made bad things WORSE - MUCH WORSE.

He couldn't see another way out - she did.

For years my family thought it was more "acceptable" to say he was a drunk who died of clerosis of the liver, etc. than to admit he committed suicide.

It sucked big time. Deprived many of their lives.

Brought about by REPUKE policies - not unlike the policies the REPUKES are enacting and going back to today.

We've got to resserect and IMPROVE ALL of the New Deal policies ASAP.

I nearly wrote a book once called "The Cheap Skate Guide to
Living on a Shoestring Budget."

At the time, my daughter was a competitive figure skater. I learned every trick in the book for paring down the budget and bringing in extra cash to afford her ice time and lessons with top coaches.

Obvious places to start include shopping for clothes, books, toys etc at resale shops -- and selling back your old stuff for cash or store credits. You'll find gorgeous clothes and jewelry this way for a song, and it's fun putting together creative outfits for next to nothing.

Scour garage sales for good stuff to sell on e-bay at a profit, or delight the kids with stocking stuffers. My daughter loved the jeweled boxes and other treasures I used to find this way. Best find: a huge box full of baseball cards--all for a dollar! My son was ecstatic, especially since there were a couple of vintage classics in the bunch.

Grow whatever food you can raise yourself, from herbs to veggies to fruit trees; consider a chicken coop for fresh eggs. Scrimp on the food bill by foregoing prepared items and making more from scratch -- you'll eat healthier in the bargain.

Make your own holiday decorations, including fresh greenery, boughs laden with fruit, cinnamon cookie ornaments, etc. Give home-made gifts, such as baskets of goodies.

Discover 99 cent or dollar stores, Big Lots, Ross 4 Less, etc. You'll be amazed what you can find. We hosted a big New Year's party one year and all the stores were out of those plastic wine/champagne glasses. I caught an after Christmas sale at Ross and found lead crystal goblets for 88 cents apiece! OF course they were broken sets (5 instead of 6), but at that price, who cared?

Home Depot offers classes to learn how to fix stuff yourself or even tackle projects like installing tile. We saved a thousand bucks by installing floor tiles ourself last year in a couple of small rooms.

Self employed? Tie in business trips with family travel when you can, so you can write off your expenses. Consider a home office deduction, plus deductions for office equipment, car, subscriptions, etc.

If you make lots of long distance calls, ask your carrier about a flat rate. I used to get $300-400 a month bills for international calls for one major client. Now I pay $75 flat rate and have virtually unlimited calling time to most countries in the world. Some people make calls over the Internet now for free or nearly so.

Need a cheap car? Check out government auctions of seized property. A fellow skating parent used to buy luxury cars this way (Jaguars, Mercedes, etc) and resell them at a profit, usually with only minor repairs.

Take vitamins and read up on alternative medicine (only the reputable choices). Often you can avoid costly doctor bills for minor ailments with products available at health food stores, such as tea tree oil for skin infections, aloe for minor burns, emu oil for dry skin, etc.

Own a house? Check into refinancing when interest rates drop. We refinanced our last house four times, ending up with a payment that was almost half what we'd started with back in the days of double-digit rates.

Offer to trade-out services or goods, saving on cash. I've traded writing services for dental care and photography services for kids' clothing, for example.

Find out places where you can get free or nearly free food. CostCo on a Saturday or Sunday afternoon offers enough free samples to double as a meal at lunchtime. Some bars or restaurants have free happy hour hors d'hoevres. Order a cheap drink (beer, soft drink, tea) and fill up! Look for local community festivals. In Virginia last year, I found a wine-tasting and food fair that offered all the free wine you could drink plus ham, cheese, crackers and jam -- all for a dollar or two entry fee!

Minneapolis public schools announced that they would open school a month late to save money. This meant no paycheck, so my grandparents and another teacher family closed up their respective houses and headed to the North Woods, where they camped and lived on fish and vegetables and eggs from local farmers.

My mother's uncle was a Lutheran pastor in a small town, but the local people couldn't afford to pay him. My great uncle and his wife were one step short of giving their children to relatives, when he heard that the army needed chaplains. He checked the requirements, and found that he was underweight by a couple of pounds. So in the days before the physical, he bought up loaves of day-old bread and ate them. This pushed him just over the minimum weight, and he spent the rest of his career in the military. (Of course, he ended up in the jungles of New Guinea, but at least his family was taken care of.)

My father graduated from high school during the 1930s, and the only way he could get a job to support himself in college was to offer to work for free for the first two weeks.

He eventually joined one of the New Deal programs, the Civilian Conservation Corps, which worked in wilderness areas.

my dad's family had 8 kids, all survived, heck, i dated a man whose grandfather from that era came from a family of 13, and they survived

you do what you have to do, beans and rice is actually a complete protein

don't worry so much

just as fast as they can.

deja vu?

It all happened after the November 2000 Election.............