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Close Topic OptionsThe Second Great Depression - Page 18 of 21
Recession is 'over' says Bernanke - Page 18 - Politics, Business, Civil, History - Posted: 16th Sep, 2009 - 11:16am
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US Economy worst now than it was in the First Great Depression - what are your thoughts?Sponsored Links:
Post Date: 25th Feb, 2009 - 12:25pm / Post ID: #
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How the US Economy Was Lost
By Paul Craig Roberts
If incompetence in Washington, the type of incompetence that produced the current economic crisis, destroys the dollar as reserve currency, the "unipower" will overnight become a third world country, unable to pay for its imports or to sustain its standard of living. Ref. Source 1
Post Date: 26th Mar, 2009 - 12:54pm / Post ID: #
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Page 18 Depression Great The
E.U. President Calls U.S. Stimulus the 'Way to Hell':
Transatlantic tension over the handling of the global economic crisis intensified Wednesday when the prime minister of the Czech Republic, which holds the European Union presidency, described the President Obama's stimulus measures as the "way to hell." Ref. Source 1
Post Date: 26th Mar, 2009 - 12:59pm / Post ID: #
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I have to agree with the EU president. I think the more and more money that congress and the president keeps pouring into the economy the worse we are going to fall. Might not be this quarter or next quarter but it will happen. We can not keep pumping millions and billions into a failing economy.
Post Date: 12th Apr, 2009 - 1:38am / Post ID: #
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The Second Great Depression
The Looting of America
By Barry Grey
The New York Times on Thursday published a front-page article that provides further insight into the economic and class interests that are being served by the Obama administration's economic "recovery" policies. Ref. Source 3
The Great Depression - Page 18
Bank failures seem to be old news these days - you aren't hearing about them on the TV news anymore, are you? The fact is, 2,932 banks have failed in the past 12 months alone, compared to about 3,000 in 2.5 years of the Great Depression in the 1930s. 45 banks in the U.S. have failed just this year - in just 6 months. That amounts to 323 offices and locations of these banks.
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| Bank Failures: This is an almost impossible number to meaningfully compare because of changes in technology between the 1930's failures and the 2008-on collapse which arguably is still picking up steam. Back then, online banking, ATM's and such didn't matter. Still, there are banks failing all over the place and this week's closures/reorganizations impacted 13 bank branches. How does that compare with the roughly 3,000 banks that had failed in the first 2½-years of the first Depression? It could be argued that when both online and in-person plus ATM's are added, we're doing about the same. Or, worse. Personal Impacts One thing is true of Depression 2.0: You're going to feel it later than your parents (or grandparents) did in the 1930's. Just considering the $200-billion in bank bailout money spent (and not even considering the draw-downs of FDIC, the average cost in constant dollars per capital was around $483 (2009 dollars) then versus $650 just in bank bailout money (not counting AIG, GM, and other printing press adventures) this time around. Why isn't it widely acknowledged yet? Simple... Immediacy of Impact The main difference is that by 1933 (when $3½ billion call it) had disappeared in failed banks, the money was immediately gone. That caused people to immediately stop spending because the losses were both personal (bank shuttered) and devastating (since business accounts also failed). In today's disaster-in-slow-motion, FDIC is simply arranging shotgun marriages/takeovers, and where necessary printing up dollars from their 'insurance' funds to cover the losses. However, whether FDIC can survive with enough money to keep up the paper issuance is arguable. At some point, FDIC will likely be forced to go to (guess who?) The Treasury or Fed to make ends meet and that, in turn, will fuel inflation. Credit Cards As Relief In the 1930's event, there was something called 'relief' - think of it as a forerunner of the modern welfare system. We don't have 'relief' per se, but we do have unemployment insurance, and for people who have been 'caught out' with jumbo mortgages and falling home prices, the credit card has been providing food on the table for millions. Except now, we're seeing that banks are quickly lightening up on credit card limits - while at the same time increasing their interest rates, which will have the net effect, from a public policy standpoint of reducing the amount of relief available. Bad policy, as I see it, but then again, no one asked George. The alternative would be to declare a federal usury cap on credit card operations and take over that set of money-changers and implement a digital currency system parallel to the paper system, with tight controls and convertibility to either a gold & silver, energy, or calorie standard. But, again, no one asked. |
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TOPIC: The Second Great Depression