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Are We Reliving The 1930s?
Submitted by Neil Howe - author of The Fourth Turning, originally posted at Forbes.com,
At the close of last week’s G20 Summit, U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron warned that we’re on the verge of another global recession, citing problems like looming deflation, falling prices, and rising protectionist sentiment. This list evokes a sense of déjà vu: not about the Great Recession, but the Great Depression. That was the last time we ever seriously worried about disinflation, along with every practically other aspect of economic performance raising alarm bells today: low interest rates, weak investment, slow productivity growth, and chronic labor force detachment.
To be sure, this isn’t an easy comparison to swallow. The Great Depression is the ultimate measuring rod of economic catastrophe to which every other downturn is compared. But as time goes by and forecasts of full recovery keep getting deferred like an ever-fading mirage, it’s one worth examining. How does the Great Depression of the 1930s compare with the Great Recession of the 2010s? Let’s look at the GDPs of the U.S., U.K., and continental Western Europe from 1929 on and from 2007 on, using the base year as an index.

Great Depression v. Great Recession, United States GDP

Great Depression v. Great Recession, United Kingdom GDP

Great Depression v. Great Recession, Europe GDP
A few contrasts stand out. First, the Great Depression triggered much deeper drops in GDP and employment rates in the United States than in any major European country. The peak-to-trough drop in the United States from 1929 to 1933 was a stunning 26 percentage points of GDP, versus only 11 points in Europe and 6 points in the U.K. The employment drops were similar. Second, in both Europe and especially the United States, the depth of the Great Depression was much greater than the depth of the Great Recession. Only in the U.K. was the GDP loss roughly the same.
Yet these figures don’t mean that the Depression was definitely worse. Though it was deeper, it was also shorter than the Great Recession in the U.K. and in Europe - and it likely will be shorter than the Great Recession in the United States. The recovery in the ‘30s occurred much faster than it has in recent years. In the U.K., GDP was already back above its 1929 level by 1934, five years after the recession began. Europe met that milestone by 1935, six years after their recession began. Today, Europe is going into its seventh year of recession and still has not regained its 2007 GDP level. In the United States, we remain better off today (relative to before the crash) than during the Great Depression, but that’s due to the severity of the early drop.
What’s more, from 1933 on, U.S. GDP grew at a blistering average rate of over 8% per year for the next eight years. And that includes one recession year: 1938. By 1941, 12 years after the Great Depression began, U.S. GDP was 41% higher than its pre-downturn figure. This is almost certainly a much higher level, relative to 1929, than the United States will see by 2019, relative to 2007.
My point is not to diminish the magnitude of the Great Depression. It was certainly more terrifying, especially in its early years and in the social restlessness and political radicalism it spawned. But we can no longer think of it as longer-lasting: Bad times are shaping the temperament of a new rising generation around the world today just as surely as the original Great Depression did back then.
So perhaps a new nomenclature is in order. Instead of calling this the “Great Recession,” maybe we should call it the “Long Depression.” Paul Krugman, who has often pointed how much worse Europe is doing today than it was in the 1930s, coined the term “Lesser Depression” for our post-2007 experience. Brad DeLong, Krugman’s kindred spirit at UC Berkeley, also adopted this expression—until inventing yet punchier ones, like “The Second Great Depression” and “The Greater Depression.”
For Krugman and DeLong, such dire relabeling has (at least in part) one very specific objective: to shock voters and leaders into supporting the sort of massive fiscal stimulus they have long advocated. But you don’t have to be a militant neo-Keynesian to see the numbers for what they are—and to appreciate that the world has entered an era of grinding economic crisis since 2008 whose social and political consequences have yet to fully unfold.
Seeing the two “depressions” as historically and generationally comparable, makes it easier to recognize other similarities between the 1930s and the 2010s. Many are economic, as we have seen. But others are demographic (falling fertility, migration, and mobility). Still others are social (growing localism, income inequality, and distrust of elites; stronger families; and declines in personal risk-taking). And still others, ominously, are geopolitical (rising isolationism, nationalism, and authoritarianism, and the unraveling of any “world order” consensus).
The confluence of all these trends is not accidental. In general, each trend happens because most of the others are happening at the same time. The era as a whole, therefore, has its own internal logic, which doesn’t allow the component pieces to change much until the whole system changes and transforms into a new era. In my writings on generations and history, I call these sequential eras “seasons” or “turnings.” And right now, America and most of the rest of the world is in the winter season or the “Fourth Turning.”
These parallels between eras are so numerous and striking that they are hard to miss once we look broadly at the direction of events. That’s why connecting the economic challenges of the 1930s with those of the 2010s, and seeing them as comparable in some respects, makes a difference. When we are connected to history, we can comprehend better what else is happening in the 2010s, predict better what is likely to happen next, and to figure out, if necessary, how we can avoid an outcome that we regard as especially dangerous.
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Nope, the 1930ies have not started yet, but soon, very soon we will.
Well the shit's starting in NYC!
http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/exclusive-nypd-warned-militant-group...
Fucking CNN stirring it all up too so Obama gets his race war to declare martial law.
In the 1930's debt was defaulted upon. Currently, we just create more debt to cover up the previous debt making an even bigger mess! It will soon all be defaulted upon.
Screw Krugman. Seriously
The only question left to ask is........are all Keynesian's pedophiles, or does it just appear that way.
Of course Janet Yellen is the exception since she was born without genitals, just like the greys, or so i've heard.
Now redraw the US GDP chart without QE, and we'll be three for three that things are worse than the great depression.
http://y2u.be/tOW5eljyjms
Bingo. If QE works, why is Japan approaching its third Lost Decade....in a row???
All I want to know is, why were they not counting hookers and blow back then? (And, by extension, how would that have effected the charts above?)
One thing is certain, World War 3 is coming, and billions will die.
Write-off (some of) the debt.
Debasement of the dollar.
Pricing control and rationing.
Close down most of the internet.
Will come before WW-3.
LOL, militant groups are more like cops on overtime pay in civilian clothes. They go around breaking windows and vandalizing to discredit demonstrations. Then it gives cops the excuse to trample freedom of speech by stating there was civil unrest.
Yield curve says we're miles from a recession.
http://www.planbeconomics.com/2014/12/how-close-is-recession.html
If the oil drillers can lay off a few hundred thousands due to plunging oil prices, the BLS may be able to get that there unemployment rate down to 4%.
Barry will label it “very Bullish!”
Reports: Syria may have shot down drone during Israel attack on military targets near Damascus
"Long Depression" is already taken. See 1873-1896. And we think we had it bad in the 1930s. You should look at the data comparison to the 1870s. It's interesting to say the least.
Yes that was largely due to US grain exports to Europe followed by manufactured goods. Tariff walls across Europe protected countries except Britain which refused to erect tariff walls and thus began the deindustrialisation as cheaper German goods flooded in and new sectors like motor cars failed to establish firm foundations in the UK
When ya gotta go....you got to GO
Yup, and we are not even to 1932-33 yet, the real pain forestalled by FED gravy slathered on Wall Street and the Elites.
The cost put on future taxpayers, current retirees and savers, and the decimated middle class.
Good luck inflating actual production numbers, the amount of credit extended or the size of the Federal Debt.
http://y2u.be/tOW5eljyjms
I don't understand why they don't do to Keynesians what they did to Julian Assange.
You noticed that too, huh?
Keep on protestin', burn them things a da groun'
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/dec/7/obama-racism-deeply-roote...
Happy Pearl Harbor Day.
It has definitely started ... 84 y cycle ... it's just that the lying and masking and printing and kicking the can down the street is much more sophisticated
Below the glittering surface fundamentals tell the true story ... dust bowle, unemployed & jobs, national parties (esp. in Europe) everywhere on the rise, corruption where ever you look, increasing number of suicides, increasing social imbalances and hatred on the 0.01% and haves, bdi, increasing taxes and food stamps, increasing militarization of police, geopolitical tension again on the rise, commodities bubble (created by banks and other criminals) bursting, debt bubble bursting, etc. ...
It's everything already there - it's just masked and hidden by a giant show of the media and the prostitutes in governments, which still think they are in power. Within next few years though you will have the first national parties (again esp. in Europe) winning elections. As a result of the economic truth = unemployed. That, combined with upcoming MAJOR currency crisises (first Euro and Yen - then Dollar), will make it visible for even the dumbest, ignorantest and laziest sheep and government prostitutes. By then though - it will already be much much too late.
In fact it is already over as of today - if you still have eyes to see and a mind and logic to draw conclusions.
I fear that the Great Depression will - in hindsight - be seen as a Sunday walk in the sunshine - given what will happen in the next 1-2 decades. Of course that will include several more (and worse) WW's. As the Neocons and their banker buddies and the Club will do whatever is necessary to stay in power.
On the other hand terrorists like China and Russia and the Muslim world and all the other ones (refusing to accept or opposing USSA repressions - again nationalist parties = terrorists) will fight teeth and nails to get rid of the NSA/USSA and the NSA/USSA's puppet masters like European leaders. Expect fights lasting for decades.
So - Pandoras box is long open - it's just (still) hidden (for dumb and ignorant [and still employed] sheeple) by the Emporer's shows and games and tricks.
Once you have the first (noteworthy) nationalist parties in power - the blood shed literally and financially will start. And spread FAST. In the follow up CBs will finally loose control and financial institutions will fall like they fell during the Great Depression. Resulting in zillions of tons of worthless paper. Literally worthless again over night.
And then double and triple as much unemployed and incomeless as of today. Including 99% of the traders here. And then soon more nationalist parties in power. And so on and on.
The rest should be wellknown.
The 1930ies are already in full progress.
Some years back I read a post on another blog by an elderly gentlemen who was a teenager during the depression. To paraphase, they were well-to-do. His father was part owner of a small manufacturing plant that employed a number of people and they had a large home with considerable land. He said the crash of '29 never touched his father, because he didn't speculate in stock. In fact, his sister was given a blue roadster with yellow tires on her high school graduation the following spring, but soon things started to get tighter. First, they had to lay off all of the women who weren't single heads of household and the unmarried men. At home, they let the guy who took care of the furnace (furnaces ran on coal in those days and had to be fed) and the lawn care guys go. He and his older brother had to take over those duties. They were going to let the girl who helped his mother around the house go, as well, but she offered to work for room and board and begged to be kept on, though his mother and sister took over some of her chores, as his mother wasn't comfortable working her so much. Then, his oldest brother lost his job as an accountant and had to move back home with his wife and family. They moved them into the summer home on the lake on their property. The housegirl's family became homeless, so they cleaned up the chicken coop and moved them in there (don't laugh, one of my aunts lived in a converted chicken coop at one time). His brother who shared furnace and lawn duties with him decided to hop a freight train and go out west to look for work. My own grandfather did that too, and he said that the trains going west with men looking for work would pass trains heading east full of men looking for work. The boy wrote and said that he had found something temporary and would return with his pay when he was finished. Meanwhile, his father's manufacturing plant went under and they had to close. They had to start selling things for a pittance of what was paid for them, and his mother took in boarders (they couldn't sell the roadster and his father still had it when WWII broke out). The son out west wrote that he was returning, but he never made it home. They received word of his death instead. A railroad dick had caught him riding the rails, hit him in the head with a nightstick and left him to freeze to death. They found his wages tied up in a hanky and pinned inside his clothes. A program of Roosevelt's allowed his father to refinance their home and the lot it sat on or they would have lost it when the balloon payment came due, They were unable to retain the rest of the land. By the end of the depression, his father was working as a janitor in a factory and that is where he remained for the rest of his life.
David Rockefeller, the youngest son of John D., Jr. wrote in his Memoirs that he was a teen and never knew the country was in depression at the time untill some years later because he never witnessed any bit of change in his circles.
The Depression never touched the very rich.
Damn Kiss that is a heck of a story bud, thanks for sharing.
Richard Russell, the editor of The Dow Theory Letters, said that he and some other high school kids of a cycling club in New York City embarked on a cycling journey to California at the height of the Great Depression. They were stopped at gun points and escorted out by Police across America at every fucking town and city, because the cops wanted to make sure they weren't in their towns to look for work, signs saying there is no work are everywhere. There were many simply walking coast to coast. Fucking unbelieable.
Things that go bump
Thanks for the things that make you think story.
My grandfather owned a farm in ND then. They had no money, but could eat filet mignon steak any day of the week because they grew or raised all of their own food. Since most people live in cities now, it makes me shudder to even think of what is coming for the masses.
I'm 50 and, I'm young to have had parents that went through WWII and the depression.... My father fought in WWII....
My mother would tell me stories about the depression. My grandfather was lucky enough to have kept a job during the depression.... things were still bad. My grandmother would feed the hobos but, the hobos would always ask if they could work for their meal. she'd sometimes let them but, she always fed them. They left a mark on the property so others would know that they could eat there too. Mom would tell me that sometimes a katsup sandwitch was all they had and socks were a good present for Christmas. Many out of work men would feel that they were a burdon on their family and would ride the trains looking for odd jobs.
My great grandparents had a homestead.... they grew their own crops.... both cotton and peanuts.... Can you imagine plowing 250 acres with a mule doing 16" rows at a time? Those were tough people.... and that is what they did..... My mom remembers going to the farm back in the depression.... they seemed rich back then because mom would go out to the watermellon patch and break open as many watermellons as she wanted to and, she laughed about it and told me that she'd only eat the watermellon hearts.
Things were bad back then but, people were moral. Things were hard but, people like my grandmother would sacrifice things they needed so that she could feed the homeless out of her own kitchen and at her own dinner table.
It won't happen like that this time.
That was my father's family. My grandfather on my father's side had a regular job.... and then he came home and took care of the cattle. He ran about 350 head in his spare time. LOL
The lived in a modest house.... didn't think that was a big deal but, if you were to sell 350, 500 pound calves, that's about 350,000 dollars today.....( and his cows weren't 500 lbs ) Cows are giong for 2.00/lb... or even more sometimes now at auction.
The difference is EBT and SSI instead of soup lines. The cost is $18 trillion in debt. Suppose the US were to run a balanced budget. It would be worse than the 1930's. That day will come when the US either has to either hyperinflate or default. It can be 2 years from now or 20 years from now, but it will happen.
"That day will come when the US either has to either hyperinflate or default. It can be 2 years from now or 20 years from now, but it will happen."
It (we) will default. Hyperinflation is just a way station on the road to default anyhow. The show starts next fall. Even if you had the newspapers for next fall and 2016, you still wont be able to believe and therefore adequately brace for the sh*t show that's headed humanity's way.
Withdrawn Sanction
You don't get it, either.
There won't be hyperinflation this decade.
What you will see is less and less purchasing power.
Also, there will be many other things happening before hyperinflation.
The 1930's is now. What's coming is the equivalent to economic judgment day.
To the author; if you're going to compare numbers please use the shadowstats data as it will be a realistic comparison of current GDP.
If we are reliving the thirties where are the great movies? Where are the great songs? I want my spectacular musicals, I want my screwball comedies, I want my great swing bands.
Well, the Editors over at National Review are arranging to bring back the Andrews Sisters.
about every 80 years... we burn the place.... american revolution.... then the civil war.... then wwii.... and now.... again soon... hope you prepped.
Now redraw the US GDP chart without QE, and we'll be three for three that things are worse than the great depression.
With or without QE, things are worse with this depression, though they don't feel worse today. Why? In the 1930s, there was light at the end of the tunnel. Today, there is not. We may be able to increase our standard of living for a short time, but long term, the only direction that we have to go is down.
Eggzachary. The light was a quickly fading glimpse of redemption. We chose to suffer for it. Today, we've chosen to double down. Ominously on-coming train-y.
The world debt load is already at the point where it can't be paid off...ever, so we might as well blow through a few more trillion and make a really spectacular bonfire.
need bigger earmuffs
take out imputed rents while you are at it ...
OT but check this out:
http://tinyurl.com/ouf9p9m
Ebola is out of the mainstream news, but it is raging every bit as much as when it was in the news and being featured regularly on ZH. Some Ebola samples had been stolen, in one story I saw a while back. They are claiming some improvements, but over 6,000 are dead, 10 docs are dead, they are still testing folks and monitoring folks all over the US. Kind of impressive in a fucked up way to see how they can shut this down when they want to. It is there, but you must seek it out. Oh yeah, Ebola Czar is going back to private life.
And the numbers of infected in Africa are still increasing. What I fear is not the current incarnation of ebola, it is instead the possibility that a series of mutations could make it 4 times as infectious and half as deadly. While your chances of surviving it would be better in the event that you caught it, it would still kill a lot more people, and it would have a lot of social and economic side effects.
Far more worrisome to me is the prospect that ISIS motherfuckers will infect their suicide bombers and then blow themselves up in the middle of packed sports stadiums next year, when Baseball or Basketball season is fully underway. (An attack on a Football stadium is much less likely because a sport that has games every day makes it easier to plan an attack around the unpredictable speed of infection growth within the suicide bomber. They will want to attack on the day when the bomber is terminally infected, but is still able to move and carry a 100 lb bomb.)
They don't have to infect anyone. There are plenty of Muslims in Africa, they only have to wait till a sympathizer gets sick. If he knows he is dying anyway, this is his chance to get on the Jihadist A list in Heaven.
For fuck sakes! You people are more likely to be murdered by an agent of your own government, than some fucking terrorist or low infection rate, third world disease.
Spanish flu had nothing on Stalin, or Mao when it came to corpses.
Do you get extra virgins for becoming a biological weapon? Maybe a couple babes-with-balls. too?
It's not only ebola but things like the plague and TB are making a comeback but they've got our backs so party on.
"Ebola is out of the mainstream news"
On purpose. This Obama oriented news can't have this coming out. Instead they focus on racist police brutality, llike in the 60's.
You see a lot of the old players from the 60's.
The community organizer, Obama, likes to stir up discontent like in the 60's.
Job #1 for the Ebola Czar was to get Ebola out of the news. It's what you'd expect from a veteran political hack as media manipulation is a core skill set. I guess Obama hired the right guy, because he's done his job extremely well.
For people interested in keeping abreast of Ebola, I highly recommend this guy's blog, he is 100% on the case:
http://raconteurreport.blogspot.com
Wethinks you give Flounder a wee bit too much credit. All five MSM peddlers have agreed to keep ebola on the back burner so as not to scare the sheeps's away from the mall. After Christmas however, all bets are off. In south L.A. they already have a FEMA ca er, homeless shelter set up for infected persons with no current address. You know, it's easy and fashionable to ridicule Americans, but so far we have declined to take the race riot bait that the Feds are doling out in ever increasing quantities. Hopefully, the same will happen with ebola.
In NYC an actual gentle giant was violently arrested by about 7 government thugs enforcing punitive taxes on vilified cigarettes. This has something to do with Bloomberg/deBlasio and the nanny state and public sector union pensions for sure but nothing to do with race. The supervising officer off camera was...black.
it's a shame doctors work on patients
and not lawyers
There's also a lot of things that are DIFFERENT from the thirties
and none of them are good
Only first responder/medical types pay it any attention; once the public latched onto the idea that they probably weren't going to catch it unless exposed to a visibly symptomatic individual, it went down the memory hole. The epidemic is still growing; when WHO gets around to releasing the figures, should see that the number of West African Ebola victims will have surpassed 20k this week.
I remember when you were tracking it for us. Is that 20,000 on target for the pace we had going, or is it indeed slowing down just a bit? I don't mean to make work for you, but if you knew I am curious.
what the actuaries think
http://www.insurancejournal.com/news/international/2014/10/23/344542.htm
Good to see you post, I will watch for January.
The numbers are mostly crap. Early figures were from existing health care facilities before they ran out of beds. Later figures are government figures, which in West Africa means they're random numbers, for the most part. A skeptic would observe that the actual number of total cases probably passed 20K a couple of weeks ago.
Liberia figures are 'managed' by the U.S. because that's where we built our white plastic isolation death facilities. Liberia's numbers are always late and heavily massaged. Something to do with a Jewish lawyer death-camp tzar. Liberian figures are probably closest in death counts (which are still significantly understated), but the total cases are probably double the 7K they're reporting. The testing labs are overwhelmed as soon as they open, so only about a third of the suspected cases are even subject to a test. The number of tests are almost the same as the number of confirmed deaths. That could be because UN death camp testing has priority, and the people taken there are almost dead anyway.
If you are unfortunate enough to be taken to a UN ebola hospital and your initial test comes back a week or two later negative, you have likely contracted ebola in the mean time from the highly-contagious bleeding-from-every-orifice patients in the beds on either side of you. That's kind of the problem with barracks-style isolation tents. That's why the locals are learning not to go there if you merely suspect ebola - you WILL have it for sure if you spend any time in one waiting for 'confirmation'. The nice white plastic UN hospitals are where people go to die of ebola, not to get 'cured' of it.
The UK's experience in Sierra Leone is no different. More suspected cases overall are tested there with slightly less delay, but the death rate at their hospitals is something like 90%. That's clearly not representative of the observed fatality rates (which seem to run 25% for the country). So which number is garbage? Total cases, total confirmed or total deaths? Nobody knows, but the locals know that a trip to the UK's UN hospitals there are usually one-way. You don't take your loved ones there until it's way too late. And if you get a fever and don't feel well, the last place you want to go is to one of those hospitals for testing. You don't get to leave until the results are back, and they sure as hell are not going to be back in a day or two.
The only way the UN effort will be effective is if they have tens-of-thousands of heavily-armed troops driving around town, kicking down doors and 'collecting' suspected victims. It will work the exact same way in the U.S. - people will not want to go to a death camp to contract ebola (if they don't already have it) and die a miserable death alone. The problem is that no Stazi on earth is going to willingly expose themselves to ebola - and almost guaranteed lead poisoning - by obeying orders to do armed ebola sweeps of their cities. It will be interesting indeed to see how the various governments 'handle' this problem. There never seems to be a shortage of goons or thugs when governments need them, so they will undoubtedly have someone doing this - it will happen either way.
I expect the West African governments will do armed ebola sweeps sooner than later. Guinea probably get's the gold star of the three for repression and tyranny - the ebola arrests and riots will probably start there. Liberia and Sierra Leone are not far behind. None of them trust their own governments, and are even less inclined to believe the US, UK and UN.
FEMA is, of course, watching the situation with intense interest. Flounder's ebola news blackout won't help when the black DHS Stazi vans start cruising the streets looking for suspects. You won't be able to go to work, a bank or a grocery store without getting screened for temperature. Eventually, they'll come knocking on your front door just to make sure.
It's for your own protection... OBEY, God Damn it!
Slowed down in Liberia, quickened in Sierra Leone. According to latest figures, doubling every ~50 days.
PM investors have been in a depression for nearly 4 years now. There is no light at the end of the tunnel as we have wandered into a mine shaft and the entrance has been bricked up.
That's what happens when you buy things which don't create any real value.
You mean like Facebook or Twitter... or Apple who's iPhone has brought such a big productivity boost to teenagers... using Twitter and Facebook.
No, those don't create the type of value that their pricing warrants. There is definitely value there though. Bubbly social media companies and the latest tech boom/bubble are not the only companies you can invest in. Precious metal investing is only good for a hedge of serious disarray and currency failure.
This will not be news to you, you have been around here too long, but it needs to be said. You don't get into gold as an investment, you get into it as insurance when things become disastrous. Sure you can make money on the volatility if you are in the know, but not many of us are exactly in the know (short gold long Japanese stocks?). I hold to hedge. If you are doing anything else, your head will not be screwed on right about it and yes, you will see yourself trapped in a mine shaft you cannot get out of, all bricked up.
I agree with this, precious metals can act as a hedge against unforseen risks and disasters which is what I was saying above. It seems like the poster I initially replied to is a gold bug and putting all your holdings into precious metals is not a good idea. The economy is bad but the markets continue to melt up, it will eventually melt down again but I don't know when.
So you contradict yourself to save face or something then? If you want to remain consistent, and not resort to off branded labels that are meaningless to anyone with more than two braincells, try actually making a point without trying to insult someone.
Gold isn't exactly a biomedical company trying to cure diseases, I do not believe I have been inconsistent. Gold is good as a hedge but putting all your money into precious metals isn't something which leads to progress.
That's what happens when you buy an object of any kind that you imbue with intense faith, unlike the normal skepticism with which you monitor other things, even people. I remember selling my silver out at $42.
It's not that pm's have nothing to recommend them, after all.
But timing is always, still, important.
We are in a mine shaft, but lying around on the floor of that mine are piles of cheap gold and silver, waiting to be picked up. And while the entrance may have been temporarily bricked up, the builders of that brick wall used a poor foundation, free borrowed bricks from the Fed, and have leveraged up the sand-to-concrete ratio for the mortar. Building a brick wall in such a manner will surely cause it to fall one day!
You might never part with your gold and silver but "you" might be parted...indeed will be parted...from the earth. That is how valuable "the data called you" is. Oh I'm sure someone is working on something to make sure every living thing on earth isn't extinguished at the push of a button.
Stop telling me your gold is more valuable than your time and place on this earth. When existence itself is threatened gold definitely has a monetary value...and it's definitely not infinity.
Or as was asked of me once "what's an egg toss?" Whereupon I replied "a dozen is about sixty nine cents." (That was before the dollar was obliterated as a response to 2008. How original!)
And when you do pass away, it will be FAR more advantageous to your loved ones if you have left a significant portion of your assets in a severe boating accident. As opposed to digital fiat of course.
historically gold is good for two things in a disintegrating system-----buying your freedom (get out of jail card) ---and buying mercinaries (police protection in corrupt regimes) --IMHO----both are good hedges--
It doesn't lend itself well to barter or trading in a disintegrating system because making change is a hassle-- quality can't be verified in all circumstances--prices are abritrary ----It's not a good idea to let anyone know you have it---
Gold is mostly useless to insure wealth preservation in a currency collapse because prices asked/bid for gold are usually denominations of currency--
If gaining gold is your aim and this is tied to hard times it is best to have a trade or items that will be in demand and then holding out for gold--but be well armed as those with no gold will bid with violence for those.
Some worn, scruffy junk silver might come in handy, but when you are in a collapse, the last thing you want to do is give anyone reason to believe that you own gold. You cover story begins yesterday.
The only difference between the credit fueled collapse of 1929 and 2008- is that the FED was able to increase the quantity of money- in the trillions- and essentially hide who they disbursed it to throughout the world.
Sooner or later that funny money will be withdrawn and the world will suddenly recognize and accept that the industrialied world is bankrupt. Whether that happens in a domino fashion with Japan going first- or every country in unison- is all that remains to be seen.
In 1929 we were an oil exporter with thousands of feet of brand new factory space that had been built to feed the maw o WWI. Today we are an oil importer and our factories have been sold for scrap.
Agriculture remains a strength. There will be food to feed everyone. At least in the near-term, there will also be plenty of oil and natty g.
"But others are demographic (falling fertility, migration, and mobility)."
Well the reason America weathered the depression as well as it did was because America was a White nation. Over 90% White and Christian, as it was up until the 1965 immigration law that changed EVERYTHING. Now we are supposed to buy the propaganda that this landmass is STILL "America" not on your life. It may one day, AGAIN, be America but there is an awful lot of cleaning that will need to be done first.
Whites are being genocided in this country today, the fact that you may not know about it is by design, the media bosses do not want Whites to know what is happening, otherwise Whitey might just WAKE THE FUCK UP.
And that the Tribal Oligarchs DO NOT WANT, at least until their power is COMPLETE.
As Merkel said, Muticulturalism is dead. The coming storm will make this abundantly clear.
everythings fine, we have green shoots now.
More than you realize folks......there's a reason why history repeats
http://newworldorderg20.wordpress.com/2014/11/14/1945-british-national-archives-document-reveals-prime-minister-clement-attlee-desire-for-new-world-order-with-russia-u-k-and-u-s/
http://newworldorderg20.wordpress.com
Think in terms of Old World Order with a facelift.A longer perspective on history gives you a better inkling.
The old world order loved the serf system , that was only upset by the plague pandemics
of the middle ages.They want a return to the old world order, but with the modern fringe benefits.
"Although the Great Depression was a field test of the new conditions, the gold standard which was active at that time, had prevented "Federal" Reserve to print money at will thus loading government with more debt. The banksters could not fully control government through debt and Roosevelt, with his strong personality, managed to pass the laws he wanted, despite the war against him, giving some hope to the American people. In 1971, Nixon ended the direct convertibility of the US dollar to gold, and as dollar became the global reserve currency, the absolute dominance of the banksters became definite."
http://failedevolution.blogspot.gr/2013/12/december-23-2013-banksters-ce...
An the banksters absolute dominance today is challenged by only one thing - gold!
About the only difference is that in 1920's and 1930's they calculated the GDP accurately and fairly. Today, the number is manipulated up or down, seasonally adjusted, and ignores any real inflation - all to suit the needs of those releasing the GDP numbers.
Good luck inflating actual production numbers, the amount of credit extended or the size of the Federal Debt.
It has been said by others that this Depression is merely the Great Depression with benefits and deposit insurance. And there is lots of truth in that. If one follows the parallels, ISIS is analogous to the Third Reich, and has the real potential to be the greatest conqueror the world has ever known - even rivaling the Khans. The rise of ISIS was about 5 years after the crash, just as the election of Hitler was about 4 years after the 1929 crash. That would place the start of World War III about 6 years after the rise of the conqueror - about 2019. Since ISIS has a much larger natural base than the Third Reich (the reich had a German base of about 80 million, Sunni Muslims number over 1 billion), and nukes exist today, their war has the potential to be proportionately greater in terms of territory conquered and people killed. If ISIS is able to conquer Saudi Arabia, WW III becomes a certainty.
You're on the wrong continent, ISIS has no interest in conquering the world.
Uncle Scam on the other hand...
WWIII is coming, probably next year, but ISIS will not be a party in it.
The flashpoint will be the Russian launch of a SWIFT alternate with the insistence that all their
export clients use it for settlement.
Something is holding Putin back from lauching until May 2015.
I suspect a new weapons system coming on line in Q! 2015, but who knows ?
Whatever it is, it has to be big to not use Winter as a club on Russia's clients.
OMG, and LOL. He is waiting because he has nothing to deter the U.S. We go self sufficient, if he tries the gold settlement game with oil, and the last thing that dude wants is a freaked out Germany regarding energy security. We also declare Force Majeure and close the Comex paper trading in PM's.
Also, what the heck do you think our secret space shuttle was doing up there for a year? Probably attaching bombs to everyone's satelites. Good luck fighting blind.
i find frogs to go flash rendez vous in moscow airport fucking suspiscious.... prolly about the selling of mistrals boats and futur india jets.
something very discreete, but smells the shit kilometers away.
Uhh... You should do a little more research on that "shuttle" and on how basic orbital mechanics work.
I doubt the rocket that launched it could have put it into geostationary orbit where a lot of the comm sats are located. Even if there, it still takes energy to move from slot to slot. (And, even then, why be up there a year? Makes no sense.)
Start talking about the lower earth orbits where most of the spy sats are, there is no chance that shuttle had the energy to adjust its orbit to think about attacking more then one or two. (And again, why the year?)
I never bothered on this latest mission, but I recall looking for info on the last one that was up. IIRC, it was launched into about a 30deg inclination (according to sat spotters). That's about half of what the ISS is at.
Even if the shuttle had spy gear in its bay, it wouldn't have been able to hardly even see Russia. It was very likely testing next gen spy gear on the Middle East.
A lower inclination orbit (like 30 degrees) would allow it to pass over say Iraq more frequently, with the consequence of not being able to see any of the higher latitude locations at all, unless perhaps looked at from an extreme angle (with the consequence of much more atmospheric interference). It is also one of the most efficient orbits to hit from Kennedy SFC, where I know is where it launched.
Even with all this, there are a mess of polar orbiting sats (again mostly spying related--tho some science too), which we only launch into those orbits from Vandenberg AFB.
So, get your head out of scifi, and start realizing what we can and cannot do with current tech. The "secret" shuttle does not have the means to do much more then perhaps alter the way it is pointed (which will not effect where it is going, only what the instruments it has can see), maintain its orbit, and then to finally deorbit when the time comes.
Granted, *if* we build a dozen plus of these things, and start launching regularly, you might have something. But last I heard, the next one on the agenda is going to be an upscale of the current version (of which there are 2).
Even this current version is a sub-scale (40-60%) of what was originally envisioned, and there was at least one that was even more sub-scale (12% IIRC). I believe the next one will be around 80% (and if they build one, I'd bet my ammo holdings that they'll do #2 of that as well).
They might be waiting for an appropriate vehicle configuration to be built to launch the full scale article. The Delta 4 Heavy / Atlas 5 Heavy would probably do it, but there doesn't exist the covering to launch it on top of one of those. Plus, I think the Atlas is the one of those that uses Russian engines. Last I heard they wouldn't supply them anymore for military missions, due to the sanctions.
I wouldn't be surprised to see a 140%+ sized version built once the SLS starts flying (potentially man-able). The USAF have been wanting this capability since the 60s, and were a major influence on the original Space Shuttle (and by extension the Russian Buran). The design was used so it would be possible to launch from Vandenburg AFB into a polar orbit, meet or capture a satellite, and return the following orbit (at this point, just off the coast of CA). Have to do it quickly to prevent satellite spotters from realizing what is going on (and to land near where you started). Even just getting pictures of foreign secret sats, is valuable info.
And yes, this from an almost a high school dropout (did finish, barely).
Keeping smoking whatever you're doing.
Its the USA thats bankrupt and vastly over extended all around the world.
Russia is sitting pretty , bar some short term discomfort.
The gold plated toilet paper holder F35 is symbolic for the poor value and
quality of the Pentagrams toys, all of which are fine against sand farmers, but not the Russians.
The only way the US can beat the eurasian coallition is by a nuke first strike, but it will be destroyed
in the retaliation.Its over for Pax Americana, all bar the shouting and screaming, notwithstanding
your misplaced patriotism, and delusions of exceptionalism.
Can't even think of what you believe you are defending. Psychiantric care may help you.
You fucking Russian propagandists make me laugh..
http://rt.com/news/155072-chernobyl-images-now-then/
All-conquering-ISIS is a pretty unlikely scenario unless the USA destroys much of the planet first, and ISIS can pick up some big, technologically semi-competent pieces... such as Turkey or Pakistan.
GDP rises extract purchasing power from people as it is simply a measure of pointless activity chasing scarce money.
Irish wages down 1.5 % between q2 2013 & Q2 2014 despite a period of robust activity they call GDP growth..........
Wages or jobs are simply a means to chase purchasing power but the very act of chasing destroys capital before it can be used by the person.
If this is a repeat of the 1930's, does this mean the Great Recession ends with WWIII?
Yes. It also means that a true World Government is created after WW III. After WW I, the League of Nations was created, which died in its crib. After WW II, the UN was created, which still exists, but is a half-ass joke of an immitation of a real sovereign government. WW III will kill billions, and probably leave the entire Eurasian and African landmasses in total ruin. Assuming The Caliphate fails to win complete world control (this can't be ruled out), the victorious powers will want to make sure that there is never a WW IV.
Agreed on all counts... Except that we haven't yet hit the new Great Depression yet. This is just a speed bump, but it's coming.
After WW III, world government will consist of Barter Town and lots of dead zones.
Will Russia, Germany save Europe from war?
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/World/WOR-01-011214.html
Washington/Wall Street elites are now deep into nuclear war paranoia. A Council on Foreign Relations study basically "found out" what Pravda had already reported. Other pieces such as this at least hint at the obvious - glaring US strategic shortcomings.
Consider some of the basics:
Russian ICBMs armed with MIRVs travel at about 18 Mach; that is way faster than anything in the US arsenal. And basically they are unbeatable.
The S-400 and S-500 double trouble. Moscow has agreed to sell the S-400 surface-to-air missile system to China. The bottom line is this will make Beijing impermeable to US air power, ICBMs and cruise missiles. Russia, for its part, is already focusing on the state-of-the-art S-500 - which essentially makes the Patriot anti-missile system look like a V-2 from World War II.
The Russian Iskander missile travels at Mach 7 - with a range of 400 kilometers, carrying a 700 kilogram warhead of several varieties, and with a circular error probability of around five meters. Translation: an ultimate lethal weapon against airfields or logistic infrastructure. The Iskander can reach targets deep inside Europe.
And then there's the Sukhoi T-50 PAK FA. Talk about a real near-future game-changer.
...
Just in case the "pivoting to Asia" gang starts harboring funny ideas about the Middle Kingdom as well, China is massively investing in bouncing lasers off satellites; satellite-hitting missiles; silent submarines that surface beside US aircraft carriers without prior detection; and a made-in-China anti-missile missile that can hit a reentering satellite moving faster than any ICBM.
In a nutshell, Beijing knows the US surface fleet is obsolete - and undefendable. And needless to add, all of these Chinese modernizing developments are proceeding way faster than anything in the US.
you obviously are, Tyler, the rest of us are living in 2014...why dont you go buy some more gold and stockpile on bootleg alcohol til prohibition ends
The deflation in Europe during 2009 restored purchasing power back to people.
All that was needed was a national basic income policy and a tearing up of debt contracts that extract assets from their cold dead hands.
However the reinflation of costs and not credits policy employed by draghi and the other satanic worshippers behind him has caused the final collapse of the European civilisation which I am now certain was and is the goal.
The unemployment rate in Southern Europe is extremely high, these people can not afford to goods and services despite lower prices as they do not have jobs.
Incorrect -
They do not have purchasing power.
Using modern metrics the Irish unemployment rate in the 1960s was perhaps over 1 million people as almost all women once married left the workplace.
Countries such as Ireland , Spain ( with the exception of Galicia coal) Greece etc remained agrarian.
They never did have much purchasing power but had a level of redundancy from industrial costs,
The bankers wish to increase costs without increasing credit which means a return to village life now looks attractive provided a viable means of exchange can detach itself from the bankers who remain seated in the various national capitals.
The problem with his argument is: We haven't hit bottom yet. What we're experiencing now is just a momentary arrest in the ongoing collapse of credit/debt as currency.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WbrjRKB586s
Aw.. Lets just end the Welfare State all over the Planet and see what Happens...
it would certainly get interesting very Fast, but it would be over Quickly..
and we might even like the end result.. :)
No.
Actually we have been reliving December 7, 1941 since September 11, 2001!
If the crescendo continues we're going to wish it was the first week of the last month of 1941!!!
Somebody better tell Israel that their destiny will be written in stone for eternity along with the rest of us if they keep this shit up and the U.S. continues to look the other way!!!
"To be sure, this isn’t an easy comparison to swallow."
Not really. The timeline of events is simply playing out differently. Last time around, the
Florida land boom happened before the stock bubble, this time stock and property bubbles were in reversed order. The debt bubble burst in the early 1930's, this time the debt bubble has yet to burst. Last time, the first recession of the Great Depression was worst, this time it will be the second recession. Last time, fixes were already in place to prevent it from happening again, this time nothing has yet been fixed.
Once the current Great Depression era has been completed, the comparisons between the two will be obvious.
Certainly after all these years anyone that has been paying any attention knows that the unfed and all central banks will keep right on doing what they do. Create debt! They are not going to wake up one day and start encouraging savings and thirft. They are not going to jack up interest rates so that the lowly worker can build up an interest bearing rainy day account.
18 trillion in debt on it's way to 20 trillion and beyound.
That's what unbridled unanchored fiat money printers do. Our unfederal reserve is eating itself now...QE to da moon!
While it may be true that CBs WISH to create infinite piles of debt, such debts must be serviced or else defaulted upon. There is no middle course and there is a finite carrying capacity. Default will be the end of THIS world, but not the end of THE world.
Unlike the 1930s we no longer operate within national capitalistic monopolies.
We live within the the banking 9th circle.
The modern market state nightmare.
Every country now goes by the same name - NOWHERE
Add a chart comparing human population then and now.
make a solid x2
Howe, the master of stating the obvious with little insight, or possibly his goal is misdirection. Obviously the graphs look nothing alike. However, my guess is that we are not measuring GDP in the same way as we were back in the 20s. If so, then it is an apples to oranges comparison.
Also, the core issue is one of causality. In both cases, the cause was an intentional excess of liquidity and debt forced on the world by the bankers. However, the reason for the shorter and deeper depression was IMO, sensible people having a direct counter to the banking sociopathy. In 1933 Glass-Steagall was signed. Contrast that to the fact that Glass-Steagall was repealed in 1999 in the so called "Financial Services Modernization Act of 1999" and then the equally criminal "Commodity Futures Modernization Act of 2000" was passed the following year.
To ignore this causation, criminality and sociopathy of the bankers is just plain ignorant and begs the question of how deep Howe has sucked it in?!?
These are not random, cultural or generational trends unless those cultural and generational trends are FORCED UPON HUMANITY BY THOSE WHO BELIEVE THEY HAVE THE RIGHT TO USE US AS SLAVES, TEST SUBJECTS AND DAIRY COWS TO ME MILKED. We are being managed by a force that appears to be evil and sociopathic. People respond to the negative stimulus as best they can. That is all.
Its important to understand what we are dealing with.
A local bank lobbyist by the name of Colm McCarthy expressed the wish to create another slum the size of Dublin in you guessed it ,............Dublin.
This goes against the entire tradition of distributionism within Ireland pre independence.
We are dealing with a pox of bankers both of the local and international varuety,.
Each conspiring to destroy us using all means at their disposal.
This includes tax , inflation , both public and private basic utility extraction , laws and increasingly European laws.
For example Europeans banning peat cutting.
They give the usual green reasons but of course the true adgenda is to destroy all local redundancy.
To further push all value up to the apex.
There are some more crucial differences from now and then:
a) Back then, the western nations were still heavily in the "industrial" phase, not the "post-industrial" hokum we hear about today.
b) A huge part of the economy was still agricultural back then. This is far from the case now.
c) The size of the public sector was miniscule back then compared to today.
d) Debt levels were miniscule back then compared to today.
e) Resource scarcity was not an issue back then. It is definitely one now.
f) Economies back then relied much less on speculative and asset bubbles than they do today.
g) No nukes back in the 30s. Which made it easier to go to war.
While they claim otherwise, in many ways Bernanke and the Fed have put America on a path that mirrors the same unsuccessful path taken by Japan. A path that avoids real reform and bails out the very people that caused many of our problems. Bernanke has upped the ante by setting the bailout and money printing machines on high and flooding America and the world with QE.
By selling other central bankers on this solution the Fed has taken the lead in an experiment that is losing traction across the world Real momentum seems to ebb shortly after each new wave of stimulus and another fix seems to constantly be needed. More on how this policy is doomed to fail in the article below.
http://brucewilds.blogspot.com/2013/11/we-are-on-path-to-lost-decades.html
Prior depression had Hobo Jungles.
Today has "homeless jungle camps" that were just recently cleared out in Silicon Valley.
Kind of like the Bonus Army encampment in the Anacostia flats?
general douglas macarthur ordered them attacked with calvalry infantry and 6 tanks. what a fuckin hero. then the son of a bitch left his troops in manilla saying 'i shall return', they were captured and marched to camps where a majority of them died. then the bastard is made, de jure emperor of japan, then is finally thrown out on his ass by one of the few presidents i can recall that had balls enough.
smedley butler kicked his ass after a dinner in washington, beat the hell out of him and called him a traitor and a pussy to his face.
Yes but interest rates haven't risen yet, and in the '30s America hadn't transferred its manufacturing base to Asia nor did it support an $18 Trillion national debt through a Ponzi scheme of Treasury auctions as debt and interest came due, so we have yet to see the real end of this ongoing depression.... Asset bubbles DNE sustainability. The country was warned of the ill effects of QE even in 1930:
"Cheap Money a Costly Panacea"
Dr. Anderson of Chemical Bank Says Remedy for Business Slump is Only Temporary; Boon to the Speculator; Interest Rate is Viewed as Just One Factor, Not Dominant in Circle of Trade.
SYRACUSE, N.Y., April 12, "Cheap Money is a stimulant, also an intoxicant," warned Dr. Benjamin M. Anderson Jr., economist of the Chase National Bank of New York City, in an address here tonight. "If the dose is large enough," he said,"a very substantial temporary effect can be brought about, but headaches will follow. It is not the sound way to do it."
After saying that cheap money was a costly and temporary panacea for business depression, Dr. Anderson said:"It is definitely undesirable that we should employ this costly method of buying temporary prosperity again. The world's business is not a moribund invalid that needs continuous galvanizing by an artificial stimulant."
The Federal Reserve System and the central banks of Europe are under heavy pressure from advocates of the cheap money panacea, Dr. Anderson said. The matter is exceedingly simple in the minds of its advocates, he added.
Cheap money will not induce manufacturers and merchants to increase their borrowings in an unsatisfactory business situation, Dr.Anderson declared. He cited the figures for commercial loans as reported by member banks of the Federal Reserve System in support of this contention.
But if merchants and manufacturers will not use cheap money, he said, speculators will. They will use cheap money in buying stocks, for the prospect of capital appreciation....
"In the second place, such methods are extremely costly in their effect upon the quality of bank credit. The ideal employment of bank credit is in financing the movements of goods, in financing short, self- liquidating commercial transactions. We have gone much too far in the substitution of bank investments in bonds, collateral loans against securities, bank holdings of real estate mortgages, and bank holdings of installment finance paper for the normal bank credit that represents goods in movement and that adjusts itself automatically to the volume of trade."
NY Times, April 13, 1930
http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F00812FA345D157A93C1A817...
If history is not repeating, it sure seems to be rhyming.
+10 points for mentioning Anderson. His book "Economics and the Public Welfare" is the best contemporaneous account of the Great Depression. And if you read w/a modern ear, the echoes will resonate
one big difference between the 30's depression, and now, is the BIS didn't have their agenda in place, and the depression allowed them to put it in place, social justice.
1930's govt, paid millions of americans to work, (allbeit agenda driven), this allowed citizens to swallow, and pay for the start of the social justice agenda, i'm sure citizens were told the entitlements would be targeted, and strictly overseen for the most needy.
2008 govt, paying 100 million americans, and illegal aliens not to work, (agenda driven), forcing shorter working hrs., and the ever increasing finanacial pressure of the social justice agenda.
after the 30's BIS forbid the word depression to be used, unless it was to scare the 99%, into submission before the culling.
for the last 80 yrs. there has been just different degrees of recessions, (culling opportunities for the BIS).
the next official BIS depression, there will be an immediate installation sdr's in the cb's, which will be for whole countries financial transactions.
i'm confident our 1%er. college professors have figured out how they'll throw the switch at the irs, confiscating all retirement funds held in america, making them myra's, nationalize all incorporated businesses in america, and within a year have currency all burned, or melted, and replaced by ebt credits for your labor at the govt. businesses, to be spent at the govt. approved stores.
independent, or privately owned businesses will not be reconinized by the irs, which makes them illegal commerce operators, they will be turned in, and ---- ebt card will be credited $---.
sound outlandish, these exact actions have taken place around the world, and there being enacted into law in america.
BIS has taken a hybrid of all the worlds ism's, and ist's, and has steathly inbedded them into america.
Who could down vote that? Wishful thinkers or the Mistruth Brigade.. It is quite obvious to me America is going down. This is a war that never ended but their soldiers are snipers who hide in the shadows.
Yes, Americans are being spied on and every thing worth anything will be confiscated. They will be sorted out by NSA data. Who lives. Who dies. As we know, there are no terrorists, only politica opponents to the NWO.
Ask your children to forgive you on Xmas day.
A lot of words. Not a lot of real analysis.
Thanks for the "last time GDP fell it blah blah blah"
The difference is that the Fed hasn't allowed banks to fail at the rate they did in late 20s and early 30s. When FDR outlawed gold ownership and created the institutional bailout authority called "deposit insurance", banks levered up again.
Being that these things still exist 70 years later, there's not much to be drawn from this broad history naval gazing.
Generationally is an interesting question. The difference would be that the 30s saw generation wealth get wiped out by people who grew up saving. This generation? The story has been how little they save and how levered up people are. Huge difference.
I gotta say, this crap that plays constantly on the side of the screen is getting mighty old Tyler. I get tired of turning it off. I get advertising but this repetitive dung sticks up the whole experience here. And some of it you can't hit the off button. How are you supposed to read? Geez.
Ad Block Plus, etc., etc.
An unconfirmed report that Russia will ask for payment for gas in Rubles from 2015.
URL is to a Yandex translation of a Russian article.
http://z5h64q92x9.net/tr-url/ru-en.en/maxpark.com/community/3782/content...
Cat meet pigeons?
EU countries - buy your Rubles now while they are cheap!
Anyone believing we are experiencing anything remotely resembling the economic, social and political upheavals of the Great Depression is seriously deluded and/or or an economist mesmerized by the isomorphism in his little graphs.
Is Benito Hussein Obama reliving the 1930s?
Quiz time.
What important figure living at ground level throughout the Great Depression said the following in 1939:
-------------
"We have tried spending money. We are spending more than we have ever spent before and it does not work....We have never begun to tax the people in this country the way they should be.... I don't pay what I should. People of my class don't. People who have it should pay.... After eight years of this administration we have just as much unemployment as when we started...and an enormous debt to boot!"
----------
Answer: Henry Morgenthau
U.S. Secretary of the Treasury during the administration of Franklin D. Roosevelt. He played a major role in designing and financing the New Deal.
Yeah we aren't taxed enough. Thanks.
he wasn't talking about taxing the average joe, numbnuts
Yeah, assuming Hellfish is an avg Joe.
Dude,
You aren't supposed to give the answer right away. What is this "Everybody gets a gold star" shit?
Fuck that.
Slash and burn.
Slice and dice.
Starve the fucking beast.
Grover Norquist, is that you?
Tell us about starving the beast in 1981, Grovie.
This is my guy.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesse_Helms
He tried his best. "Senator NO" they called him.
You guys with Americans For Tax Reform should have helped him.
You know how you detest someone just from the fingernails-on-the-blackboard way they speak?
The best thing Helms ever did was insist on revealing the all the names of all the congressmen and senators who dealt with the House Bank. He got several Republicans to resign and was so hated by his collegues and the public, he had to announce he had prostate cancer for sympathy.
A diagnosis of prostate cancer made public is like a get out of jail free card for senators and congressmen.
Yeah, we know you guys could not stand him.
But in spite of every single one of your liberal constituencies throwing every thing they had at him at every election, he retired undefeated.
Because we loved him.
And it was a great joy to watch him kick ass.
And meanwhile, folks, the most important news headline of Obama's presidency...
The Great Depression had an end date whereas the 2008 crash is
the end of Economics, period. Everything else is a moot point.
Ok I didn't want to do it but Q99X2 will lead the revolution. I'm your Napolean M'Fers. I'll show you what to do with green shoots. This is going to be a Y recovery and Greece will default. There ain't no world order until Loyd Blankfein is behind bars and sober. Charge and tax ghosts shall arise out of each look like lsd streamers on mathematical equations and physics shall identify dignity.
Cheer up, if these are the 30s, then we are heading into the 40s.
Yesterday, December 7th, a date which will live in infamy...
re: naming conventions, Great Depression
we are probably too close to current events to correctly name economic events
until the beginning of the second world war the war of 1914-18 was called the Great War.
Now of course that war is known as World War I
in the future, probably this great downturn will be called the Second Great Depression
This Great Depression of the last 6 years has its roots in earlier years and is worse than the 1930s because of two additional important factors:
- in the 1930s there was not the problem of Peak Oil. Today there is.
- we have reached the moment of assumed continual growth being unrealistic.
If the "hands up don't shoot people" decide to shut down the major city interstates for six or so days every one is hungry in a hurry! Shutting down ebt cards would have similar impact! We live in interesting times . One bottle of ranch dressing at the grocery store store today 4.97 . Think on that for a minute! 5 bucks for a plastic bottle with some milk, sour cream
And
Spices with preservatives! We are already there !