Anyone who says we are not in a depression as bad, in an overall sense, as the Great Depression is

saying so for some reason other than leveling with you.

The big difference, they like to say, is that we are not technically in a depression. And that's been true as one or another indicator, at any given time, has been at non-depression levels.

Today, it was announced that housing prices had fallen to greater depths than they had in The Great Depression - 33% now vs 31% then.

The way we count unemployment is different. Look at many cities and unemployment is considerably worse.

Investments are corporate profits are the only bright spot. They're up by massive amounts. Some cheer. I say this is largely a byproduct of the massive transfer of wealth from citizens to corporations.

So go ahead. Allow yourself, if you wish, to buy into the fact that we're not in a depression. Meanwhile, we have those wars to fight. Thatg's the real killer. The Great Depression was ended pretty much with the massive government spending that came about as a result of our involvement in World War II. This time, we took the eggs from that golden goose two times too many. That goose, dear friends, is dead.

So . . . . . how do we get out of this depression?







I dunno. I got nuttin'.

"depression".

From the OP: "The big difference, they like to say, is that we are not technically in a depression. And that's been true as one or another indicator, at any given time, has been at non-depression levels."

That goes to the point I think you were trying to make. Now, you've thrusted. I've parried, and I am done with you in this thread. Have your last word, because I have no stomach to go 'round and 'round with you.

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some people seem surprised that things arent getting better and I have to ask why they are surprised. Nothing is changing to make things better. There is little investment in the People, but more tax breaks for those who dont need them. Oh, but the rich will create jobs with these tax breaks, that's what they say. Well, they've been getting these breaks for years now and havent created shit.

So, the way to get out of this hole must be to keep digging, cause that's the path we're on and the plan that's been laid down.

ing. if you act happy you'll be happy. if you say how great it is, it will make it great. it will make it bounce back. it will make the market come back. it will make the economy do better. but while the market is doing better, the people who are living their lives aren't necessarily doing better. now some folks are doing ok. and some folks are hangin on by a thread. and some folks are living in their cars. and the rich are doing great. but as long as the media keep dancin and tryin to sell the meme, that things are doing great then maybe they will be.

there is no way this is equivalent to the Great Depression.

Official unemployment peaked at 25% during the GD. That's just the official number, the equivalent of the U6 was probably much, much higher.
Our official unemployment has peaked at 10%, and the U6 number is likely equally lower than then.

You had drought and a dust bowl without modern tech to ameliorate it like we have today. You had none of the long distance transportation of goods which made local production even more critical.

You had Hoovervilles of sizes (in proportion to the population of the country then) that you don't have now.
About half of ALL banks failed. Just think about that for a second.

In Toledo the Unemployment rate was 80%, in Cleveland 50%.
Unlike today corporations were not unaffected as their profits dropped from 10 billion to 1 billion

Immigrants actually stopped coming.
It was a wreck.

We don't have to try to make this downturn the worst ever to recognize it's really bad.

been in one before and do not like it. It will take years and years for us to climb out of this one if we do at all. WW2 did help us get out of the first one, but we are in two wars already and probably will get in another and that has not helped us this time. We hear oh yes, the last quarter was up; up from what? The powers that be in the House and Senate are just sitting on their hands and bickering back and forth. I hope I never hear the word bipartisanship ever ever again. The Republicans are crossing their arms, sticking their chins out and daring the Democrats to do something about it. Acting like third graders at recess. The rhetoric from Democrats on the hill will get us absolutely nowhere. I am tired of hearing those double-dog dares coming out of D.C. McConnell and Cantor saying they will not help this country get out of debt and will not raise the debt limit until the Democrats cave in. We need to accuse the Republicans of treason against the USA. They are guilty of political blackmail. Why can't Democrats get together and swarm over them like the Democrats in Wisconsin did. Their Dems left the state in order to protest. This isn't the 1930s. Believe it or not it is the 21st century. The wheel was invented long ago. When our military do get to come home, will there be jobs for them. If the Republicans have their way there will not be anything left for them. I think a march to D.C. is in the offing. How else will we get their attention. And if the damn media doesn't get its act together and stop glorifying the Palins, Trumps, that crazy-ass woman from MN, and Casper Milquetoast Romney they need to go out of business. Romney tells us what is wrong with our president but doesn't volunteer any information of what he will do to help us. Jobs? Who needs jobs? I am sick and tired of being sick and tired. Thanks to all for letting me vent.

There are things NOW that weren't around during the Great Depression. I *think* (playing Monday Morning Financial Analyst here) that this is the reason people don't 'perceive' how bad things really are.

The safety net (not perfect but something) was put in place by Roosevelt in those Depression years and OTHER items he laid the ground work for (think LBJ's Great Society).

It's those things - those so-called entitlements that Republicans bitch and moan about. But if we did not have them - I do think we'd have a lot more 'Shanty Towns' (they do exist in these times but they don't get media play) and a lot more 'bread lines' (Angel Food ministries is at capacity in my area to get people who need inexpensive food food).

I volunteer at two food banks in NJ whenever my fiance and I can. I started this in 2008. I'm telling you - the lines have not let up. The clients have not let up. It's bad here - whether Good Guv'nah Doughboy wants to acknowledge it or not. Now if a relatively affluent state is in trouble - how are things REALLY in Michigan. What is the media NOT showing us about how people have to struggle?

And I thank you for this thread. ;-)

:thumbsup: :thumbsup: :thumbsup:

Is this a repeat of the Great Depression? No, of course not. And that's largely because, as you point out, there are still some safety nets in place, thankfully. Safety nets that were created in direct response to the Great Depression.

I call this Depression 2.0. Much more user-friendly than the 1920's version, and a sleeker design. But all too terrifyingly real to the people caught up in it.

unfortunately, I didn't post it right away -- and that reference was scrubbed

by the time I went to post it -- changed to "recession."

Economists also told Obama that his stimulus was only 20% of what was needed --

and Obama settled for even less --

Fortunately, there are still food stamps for some -- and 40 million -- or is it 50

million -- Americans are surviving on food stamps!!

With foreclosures still underway and housing market in question, rentals are doing

better -- with substantial increases in costs to rent!!

Bush increased our homeless numbers --

but haven't heard where the numbers are now after almost 3 years of Obama --

But, sadly, it was Obama -- not Bush -- who ended the COLA increases for Social Security

receipients!!

Not a depression for corporations or CEO fat cats, however -- thanks to our bailing them

out!!


:nuke:

get the screen shots next time!

In this age I DO think that breadlines of today are the food banks. Many people are ‘marginal’ – they are on the edge of absolute disaster. Maybe in that family she lost her job, he’s still employed but neither one had health insurance. They are in debt up to their ears from having a baby and just trying to live.

The number of folks that tell me their stories as they come through are heart breaking.

So these Americans make TOO much for TANF – but not enough to get by. They are the people living in the cracks.


If anybody reads this - your local food bank can probably really use powdered milk, pasta, cans of spaghetti sauce, dried beans, rice, etc. etc. If you can lend a dime, do so. . . .

A guy working on a WPA project had been bringing a meatless sandwich to work for lunch all week (I think it was a turnip greens sandwich). He finally got so sick of it that he stole another worker's lunch and hid it. When lunch time came and he opened the stolen paper sack, he found a ball peen hammer and a handful of hickory nuts. Somebody was even poorer than him it seemed. Have you eaten any hickory nuts for lunch lately? It's bad out there for sure but it isn't that bad... not yet anyways.

...school lunch often was a sandwich of that Hellman's mayo spread with the relish in it, or mayo and lettuce, or butter and sugar. And that was way post Depression. Thank goodness I never had turnip greens or hickory nuts!

...cheap Chinese labor -- stuff that people did not have during the Great Depression. Like clothing. If you get a chance to pick up that book compiled of letters to the Roosevelts during the Great Depression, you'll see women writing to beg for a blanket for baby, or for Eleanor to send a castoff coat so that Grandma will be warm for the winter. That kind of need at least isn't happening today -- there is a surplus of old clothing and household items.

The difference in my mind lies in the seeming lack of will to find a way out. People seem resigned to this "austerity" that diverts money to banksters and war profiteers and industrialists, instead of fighting like hell to cast off the overlords.

I guess that can be explained by the fact that Americans were sold the American dream and just can't yet let it go even when everything is crumbling 'round.

Todays society would not be able to survive a depression like we had in the 30's.

The me generation can barely survive a recession.

EDIT SPELLING.

look, by way of suffering- and that's I think the essential measurement- the suffering in the Great Depression hasn't even come near being matched by today's economic crisis. We have lots of documentary evidence to support that claim.


And one more thing; Americans are still buying themselves a shitload of toys, and it's not just the rich. And lots of Americans are still going to Disneyworld, etc. I'm not denying that people are falling, at an ever increasing rate, into the cracks, which are, at the same time, becoming more crater like every passing day.

I guess I'm just saying it can get worse, it can be worse, and it was worse then.

It's not an "extreme downturn," as in the Great Depression or any other. It's the consequence of a long-term policy of government and industry of attack on workers and the middle class, of outsourcing the U.S. economy, and of welfare for the rich. From a depression there can be recovery. From our current economic straights, there would need to be a thoroughgoing restructuring -- and there is no guarantee that such a restructuring would be successful.

Er, um, on the other hand...



Link:
http://www.thestreet.com/story/11137852/1/food-stamp-participation-rises-for-37th-straight-month.html?cm_ven=GOOGLEN

I did have to wait 45 minutes for a table at Outback last night...

Was it like this during the Great Depression?

And on the fall in house prices: this is just the overdue popping of an insane bubble. House prices rose to ridiculous levels and needed to fall (and still need to fall further).

I live in one of the top three richest counties in the US. That said, the restaurant business, overall, isn't doing so well. In certain markets, however, its boominng. That's all anecdotal and proves nothing.

That bubble resulted in people plunking down far more for houses than they might have been worth. That said, the wealth lost to the downturn is VERY real. You can call it a bubble. Unless the bubble that burst was your own.

As it is to buy the groceries. :(

We often compare the cost of what we eat at home to what the similar restaurant version would cost us.

it lasted 10 years and that's why it called the Great Depression. Otherwise it would have just been another Depression.

But I think one of the reasons it lasted as long as it did was because of the Dust Bowl, which was a climate thing that affected the slow recovery.

But most were not so very deeply buried in credit, medical, and or interest-only, first or second mortgage/equity loan debt (tens if not in some cases hundreds of thousands) back then, so that when or IF they got a job, or found another higher-paying job, their creditors could garnish their wages. Ford Motor has successfully sued for a $6,000.00 judgement vs my now long-unemployed wife on a vehicle repossession, for example. Very very, little chance that at 46, she will soon find another job paying even a quarter of what she earned (~35K annually not including bennies) before her job was outsourced,and with nothing but a HS diploma and 25+ years of work "experience" and a growing three year gap of unemployment to her "credit".

Look at all of the ever-growing numbers of people now with burdensome student loans that they won't soon and maybe never will pay off, b/c they cannot and probably will not be able to find even barely related or remotely similar employment in their chosen field(s) of study.

That deafeningly louder sucking sound of ex-US jobs being off-shored and outsourced over the past several decades MIGHT have been turned down a few decibels since '07, but IF so, it is b/c the outflow has slowed from the rising cost of materials, fuel, and energy, and MOSTLY b/c consumers cannot or no longer may use or take out some of the value of their once-rising home equity (if they aren't already upside-down on their mortgage or already have become in default and foreclosed upon) as a tax-deductible loan to pay off or manage their credit card debt any longer. Those jobs that have left the US AREN'T ever coming back, and it seems to me that NOTHING has been done to change "free trade" into "fair trade" that would greatly help to stanch the bleeding, so what is the point of MORE Rethug-advocated tax-cuts that allegedly would create more jobs, if they aren't or won't be nailed down here through purely physical necessity?

The "roaring" dotcom 90s was also bubble-based on home-equity value (electronic vapor) and future income, and was largely due to easily obtained credit cards with high credit limits and relatively lower interest rates. Once food purchases could be put on credit cards, and the stores began to carry more than just mostly food, it became easier for people to go to the local grocers with a shopping list, but leave with much more food than was on that list, along with maybe a few VHS tapes, CDs and even a new big-screen TV set and/or a surround-sound stereo as well.

If the Rethugs ever become legislatively successful in drastically slashing or eliminating government "entitlements", I believe that the Great Depression of the '30s might look much more like a walk in the park, in comparison to the "Great Depression II" that could take shape in the latter half of this decade, or maybe even sooner.

Depressions and recessions are a part of a "natural cycle" this deal is a robbery at penpoint along with a generational effort to decimate wages to build up other economies so their people can be profitably exploited and to funnel resources to the few, aided and abetted by both captured political parties, in all three branches and at every level.

I'm stealing that.

A perfect description.

Nearly every thread gets disrupted with semantics to insure the meat is never gotten to or at least gets muddled.

Its time to move past the distraction of the easy labels, if the words don't fit describe the issue and boil it back down again.

welfare and welfare for the uber-wealthy, instituting universal health-care, ending wars, bringing the troops home from all over the world wherein possible, disbanding the prevailing police-state apparatus and mentality, and returning to the land of the free and home of the brave. :patriot:

Both of these monetary tools were not employed during the GD, but are creating a different dynamic thsi time around.

http://shadowstats.com

Alternate Unemployment Charts

The seasonally-adjusted SGS Alternate Unemployment Rate reflects current unemployment reporting methodology adjusted for SGS-estimated long-term discouraged workers, who were defined out of official existence in 1994. That estimate is added to the BLS estimate of U-6 unemployment, which includes short-term discouraged workers.

The U-3 unemployment rate is the monthly headline number. The U-6 unemployment rate is the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ (BLS) broadest unemployment measure, including short-term discouraged and other marginally-attached workers as well as those forced to work part-time because they cannot find full-time employment.


Lets Make Jobs #1