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Have the Last 5 Years Been Worse than the Great Depression?
What Do Economic Indicators Say?
We’ve repeatedly pointed out that there are many indicators which show that the last 5 years have been worse than the Great Depression of the 1930s, including:
- The housing slump
- The level of inequality between rich and poor (too much inequality destroys economies)
- The interconnectedness of financial systems and economies worldwide (interconnectedness leads to financial instability)
- Runaway spending and greed
Mark McHugh reports:
Velocity of money is the frequency with which a unit of money is spent on new goods and services. It is a far better indicator of economic activity than GDP, consumer prices, the stock market, or sales of men’s underwear (which Greenspan was fond of ogling). In a healthy economy, the same dollar is collected as payment and subsequently spent many times over. In a depression, the velocity of money goes catatonic. Velocity of money is calculated by simply dividing GDP by a given money supply. This VoM chart using monetary base should end any discussion of what ”this” is and whether or not anybody should be using the word “recovery” with a straight face:
In just four short years, our “enlightened” policy-makers have slowed money velocity to depths never seen in the Great Depression.
(As we’ve previously explained, the Fed has intentionally squashed money multipliers and money velocity as a way to battle inflation. And see this)
Indeed, the number of Americans relying on government assistance to obtain basic food may be higher now that during the Great Depression. The only reason we don’t see the “soup lines” like we did in the 30s only because of the massive food stamp program.
And while apologists for government and bank policy point to unemployment as being better than during the 1930s, even that claim is debatable.
What Do Economists Say?
Indeed, many economists agree that this could be worse than the Great Depression, including:
- Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke
- Former Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan (and see this and this)
- Former Fed Chairman Paul Volcker
- Economics scholar and former Federal Reserve Governor Frederic Mishkin
- The head of the Bank of England Mervyn King (and see this)
- Nobel prize winning economist Joseph Stiglitz
- Nobel prize winning economist Paul Krugman
- Former Goldman Sachs chairman John Whitehead
- Economics professors Barry Eichengreen and and Kevin H. O’Rourke (updated here)
- Investment advisor, risk expert and “Black Swan” author Nassim Nicholas Taleb
- Well-known PhD economist Marc Faber
- Morgan Stanley’s UK equity strategist Graham Secker
- Former chief credit officer at Fannie Mae Edward J. Pinto
- Billionaire investor George Soros
- Senior British minister Ed Balls
Bad Policy Has Us Stuck
We are stuck in a depression because the government has done all of the wrong things, and has failed to address the core problems.
For example:
- An economics professor says we’ll have “a never-ending depression unless we repudiate the debt, which never should have been extended in the first place”
- Fraud was one of the main causes of the Depression, but nothing has been done to rein in fraud today. Indeed, the only action the government is taking is to help cover up fraud
- All leading independent economists have said that the economy cannot recover until the big, insolvent banks are broken up, but the government has just helped them to get bigger
- The Federal Reserve caused the Great Depression and the current crisis, and has done nothing but help the fatcats at the expense of the little guy. And yet the government has given the Fed more power than ever.
- Government policies send manufacturing jobs and dollars abroad
Quantitative easing won’t help … it will only make things worse.
This isn’t an issue of left versus right … it’s corruption and bad policies which help the super-elite but are causing a depression for the vast majority of the American people.
The government and the banks are doing all of the wrong things. See this and this.
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Deja vu all over again. Guess we can't stop til it's just perfect. Neo-liberal Utopia here we come!
Or, as the Austrians prefer, "The Science of Liberty" [sic].
http://mises.org/etexts/hhhonmnr.asp
Now that's some good shit there. Every church has its choir! Hell, Hitler had Wagner (too bad he missed the Econ angle.)
diogeneslaertius
The theory put forth in None Dare Call it Conspiracy is not deindustrialization. It's lowering the standard of living in the US while raising it in the rest of the world.
You can not maintain a world government if everyone sits at a table of differing heights. Those heights would be wage, medical, social safety net,standard of living, so on.
Spot on Gully. We are witnessing the Great Leveling. Painful to those who have lived by the rules only to find out the rules have changed.
...This isn’t an issue of left versus right … it’s corruption and bad policies which help the super-elite but are causing a depression for the vast majority of the American people...
super-elite? left versus right? Is their any meaning whatsoever that can be milked from these worn-out kliches? Is their any time whatsoever that remains for arid debates over the posturings of worn-out effete urban intellectuals?
The speedy takedown of the last judicial impediments to the implementation of the DHS-driven mandate for the mass incarceration of Merikans(NDAA) announces the arrival of full press sio-nazi rule by terror.
There's no more need to hide the truth behind some opaque term like 'super-elite, oligarchy, etc. etc.,
A tiny kabal of humanity-hating gangsters who have hijacked the politico-judicial klasses of the western world and are now using their electorates as krash-test dummies in the kareening bumperkars of this Karnival of Souls remake have tested the komplancency and somnolence of their intended victims, and finding no futher opposition to their odious efforts to bring about final kollapse, have decided it's time to klose the exits and begin the bloodshed...
who, they said, kould have seen it koming?
Ya think, George!!?!! Just a bunch of "dummies", eh, George? Couldn't tie their own shoelaces, eh, George?
How about considering the remote possibility that most of those Haaavaaad, Yale, Georgetown and NYU educated tools - who regularly attend Bilderberg, CFR, Trilateral, G5/8/20 and Bohemian Grove get-togethers - are actually following orders (or being nudged into the "right" direction by their peers, in order to retain their exalted memberships)?
How about considering the remote possibility that their need for sizable donations to mount their election campaigns puts them in thrall to those who bundle and supply said donations?
How about considering the remote possibility that the most influential positions in government and the judiciary are actually filled by Luciferian co-conspirators?
Take the US Supreme Court as just one example. It now comprises:
Take the presidential candidates as a second example:
Dumb fucking sheep!!!!!!!!!!
George, you're gathering a flock. I daresay it might not make you feel all warm and fuzzy.
Perhaps Ill send to Tyler, for further passage to you for publication (so that the gathering flock can be educated), souvenir menus from a couple of Bohemian Grove or Bilderberg galas, just to reassure that there were no dead babies on the card. Good wines, though. Okay, okay, I did see a couple of contraband Cohibas, but not worth calling in the jackboots over that.
Lordy lordy, the moonbats are in full flight. Third-generation CIA (i.e., Luciferian zionist) operative you say? How does one get a visa to this version of reality? Actually, better not to know. Lordy!
Thank you for asking ... I really enjoy it when shills give an opening to provide further details that would make an original post too long!
Here is a detailed report -- complete with pictures, in case you have difficulty reading -- on Obama's three-generation connection to the CIA (himself, his parents and his grandparents):
http://exopolitics.blogs.com/files/wayne-madsen-obama-all-in-the-company.pdf
Enjoy your enlightenment, dumb fucking shill!
Well, if it's on the internet, and it can be LINKED (this is key), then it simply must be true. And of couse anyone who sees the folly of the addled brain simply must be a shill.
People here often give “advice” to other posters, such as “you belong on Huffpo” or “go back to the Yahoo! Boards”. Other times it’s “wake up, like me”. Let’s follow that same line.
Though it’s up to you, you might be better served at a place such as David Icke’s site. There you’ll find folks who share the same affliction as you, people who for one reason or another cannot deal with the real world and their modest place in it, and have either refused beneficial medication or for whom such medicines have been ineffective. You might find refuge from the fantasies and paranoia that amount to your construct of existence. You’ll feel better because you won’t be alone. You can also leave the sane and the rational to deal with the real problems facing society and the world at large, while you and those who suffer as you do can slay windmills to your heart’s content and share “secrets” about all the bogeymen who share space with your own thoughts. Over there you never need to “wake-up”. You'll be home.
Just trying to help.
LOL ... Unfortunately for you, the "name-calling" and "ridicule" tactics don't work on me. You'll have to dig deeper into Sockpuppetry101, or come up with some actual arguments, if you want to play with the grown-ups.
Just trying to help.
Most often my posts contain a smattering of sarcasm, but I won’t do that this time. While I believe the constant references to "luciferians" and endless conspiracies diminish this site's message, I am probably being unfair in not showing more understanding and compassion for those who are haunted by such demons. I’ll speak frankly, without sarcasm.
Hopefully you are just woefully naïve and overly gullible, but more likely you are truly ill. Your knee-jerk use of "shill" and "sockpuppet" is a manifestation of paranoia, which suggests your belief in demonic possession of, among others, Obama, is a deeply held belief. Yours is an illness for which help is possible, however, but a cure without some sort of external treatment is highly unlikely. Sadly, an entire internet industry has arisen where people make a living off of your ailment, not by curing you, but rather by feeding your affliction. At times the website’s founders suffer the same affliction, and have just established space in which to vent and draw in similarly troubled minds. At other times the website founders coldly and ruthlessly try to reel in the likes of you, and then make money from the site, speaking engagements, books and videos. These are carnival barkers, like Alex Jones.
You possibly could do yourself a world of good if you made an appointment with a mental health professional to discuss with him or her your fantasies and beliefs. I am not being facetious and am not in any way trying to be funny. You don’t have to be alone and you don’t have to suffer. You may not find the real world a better place, but you will find it lacks most of the problems and adversaries you now are of the belief it has. That should give you some relief. Best of luck.
...Most often my posts contain a smattering of sarcasm,...
most often, sir, yur posts kontain a smattering of sanity, heavily overwhelmed by a surfeit of smug self-kongratulation, apparently based upon a estimation of the amplitude of yur intelligence which be vastly over-inflated...
I'd be happy to help, but I fear it would be but folly, as yur situation betokens a finality of fractured synapses.
Wow.
I had no idea there are two Catholic priests on the US Supreme Court.
Why was I not informed of this?
Isotope
Dude, they are the bad child molesting Catholic priests, friends of Jerry (Sanduskie).
SPOON!
SCOTUS has been molesting the Constitution and We the People for longer than I've been alive.
All that rough, unwanted spooning makes me uncomfortable.
Julian Assange, is that you?
GW's link to the Mark McHugh article http://acrossthestreetnet.wordpress.com/2012/08/19/shhhh-its-even-worse-than-the-great-depression/
Well worth the read!