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Another Great Depression?

Another Great Depression?

  • No, Obama will not follow in Hoover and FDR's steps

    Votes: 1 14.3%
  • Yes, Obama will use this opportunity to expand Governement

    Votes: 6 85.7%
  • I have no opionion because I have no courage of conviction

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Total voters
    7

Mr. President

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Another Great Depression?

With both Barack Obama's supporters and the media looking forward to the new administration's policies being similar to President Franklin D. Roosevelt's policies during the 1930s depression, it may be useful to look at just what those policies were and-- more important-- what their consequences were.

The prevailing view in many quarters is that the stock market crash of 1929 was a failure of the free market that led to massive unemployment in the 1930s-- and that it was intervention of Roosevelt's New Deal policies that rescued the economy.

It is such a good story that it seems a pity to spoil it with facts. Yet there is something to be said for not repeating the catastrophes of the past.

Let's start at square one, with the stock market crash in October 1929. Was this what led to massive unemployment?

Official government statistics suggest otherwise. So do new statistics on unemployment by two current scholars, Richard Vedder and Lowell Gallaway, in their book "Out of Work."

The Vedder and Gallaway statistics allow us to follow unemployment month by month. They put the unemployment rate at 5 percent in November 1929, a month after the stock market crash. It hit 9 percent in December-- but then began a generally downward trend, subsiding to 6.3 percent in June 1930.

That was when the Smoot-Hawley tariffs were passed, against the advice of economists across the country, who warned of dire consequences. Five months after the Smoot-Hawley tariffs, the unemployment rate hit double digits for the first time in the 1930s.

This was more than a year after the stock market crash. Moreover, the unemployment rate rose to even higher levels under both Presidents Herbert Hoover and Franklin D. Roosevelt, both of whom intervened in the economy on an unprecedented scale.

Before the Great Depression, it was not considered to be the business of the federal government to try to get the economy out of a depression. But the Smoot-Hawley tariff-- designed to save American jobs by restricting imports-- was one of Hoover's interventions, followed by even bigger interventions by FDR.

The rise in unemployment after the stock market crash of 1929 was a blip on the screen compared to the soaring unemployment rates reached later, after a series of government interventions.

Conservative Opinion Columns, Issues, Political Debate, Coulter, Sowell, Barone, Hewitt: Townhall.com ... depression

Mr.President: History repeats itself....
 
I had a conversation with a construction worker (very smart one) about four years ago who was telling me that, in eight years, he could see an extremely bad depression comming. He explained several examples of things that are going to fall into place to make this depression even worse than the last. I kind of blew it off at first and forgot about the conversation. As time went on I started to notice everything he said was right on the money! (No Pun Intended!:2razz:)

If things keep happening to show he's correct we will hit a depression far greater than the last!
 
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In this day and age its difficult to see that any depression like the one in the 1930s can happen, but many horrible scenarios can play out. We are certainly in stagnation and have been for a decade at least, especially intellectually and conservatively. Our views on the world is stuck in the past and new ways of thinking about our society and economy is not emerging, creating a situation of desperation since our potential is so much greater than our accomplishment. This situation of stagnation and desperation can last for decades all until we shake of ourself traditions and find new ways of looking at our society especially and as a result also the economy which in all cases to get out of stagnation/desperation will have to be planned, long term and sustainable(stip away the speculation ad gambling parts and we are almost there). Without a sustainable growing economy we will never reach the next level of human development, which at the moment only the west have a possibility of breaking into, and the most likely scenario is that China with their new ways of looking at things and doing things will surpass our society(in say 20 years) and that ours will only get more stagnant/desperate as a result and eventually result in a long row of the type of situations we have today with Iraq and the financial crisis. Unless we change our ways we will keep stepping wrong, unless we have some kind of revolution we will not reach the next step in human and social revolution in the west. But is this depression? I dont know, I dont think so.. My hopes right now lay in the hands of the European Union for Europe as a revolutionary force that can carry Europe at least into the next step of social and human evolution, but the process is slow. For America there needs to be some sort of revolution in the way of thinking, either complete reform through political and governmental reform or as a result of some kind of civil war where the liberal forces win over the conservative forces.

But all this and a lot more is just my personal view on this, and only a tiny summary of a whole lot of relevant stuff. In the end, WE MUST THINK DIFFERENTLY.
 
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In this day and age its difficult to see that any depression like the one in the 1930s can happen, but many horrible scenarios can play out. We are certainly in stagnation and have been for a decade at least, especially intellectually and conservatively. Our views on the world is stuck in the past and new ways of thinking about our society and economy is not emerging, creating a situation of desperation since our potential is so much greater than our accomplishment. This situation of stagnation and desperation can last for decades all until we shake of ourself traditions and find new ways of looking at our society especially and as a result also the economy which in all cases to get out of stagnation/desperation will have to be planned, long term and sustainable(stip away the speculation ad gambling parts and we are almost there). Without a sustainable growing economy we will never reach the next level of human development, which at the moment only the west have a possibility of breaking into, and the most likely scenario is that China with their new ways of looking at things and doing things will surpass our society(in say 20 years) and that ours will only get more stagnant/desperate as a result and eventually result in a long row of the type of situations we have today with Iraq and the financial crisis. Unless we change our ways we will keep stepping wrong, unless we have some kind of revolution we will not reach the next step in human and social revolution in the west. But is this depression? I dont know, I dont think so.. My hopes right now lay in the hands of the European Union for Europe as a revolutionary force that can carry Europe at least into the next step of social and human evolution, but the process is slow. For America there needs to be some sort of revolution in the way of thinking, either complete reform through political and governmental reform or as a result of some kind of civil war where the liberal forces win over the conservative forces.

But all this and a lot more is just my personal view on this, and only a tiny summary of a whole lot of relevant stuff. In the end, WE MUST THINK DIFFERENTLY.

I think you have this ass backwards. We (correction: They) ARE thinking differently, and there is your problem. We need to go back to the ways of our founding fathers...get government the fvck out of our way, live by our constitution, GET RID OF THE FEDERAL RESERVE (which goes back to living according to our constitution), and go back to being a Constitutional Republic instead of the Democracy they're trying to turn us into. Democracy ALWAYS fails. Government has become corrupt as hell and WE need to change THEIR way of thinking.
 
I think you have this ass backwards. We (correction: They) ARE thinking differently, and there is your problem. We need to go back to the ways of our founding fathers...get government the fvck out of our way, live by our constitution, GET RID OF THE FEDERAL RESERVE (which goes back to living according to our constitution), and go back to being a Constitutional Republic instead of the Democracy they're trying to turn us into. Democracy ALWAYS fails. Government has become corrupt as hell and WE need to change THEIR way of thinking.

Wow, you are the first guy other than me I have heard that from. I completely agree with you 100% about your views on democracy. The way it is it will always end up like a joke and a corrupted failure. The problem is that people are too stuck in a singular traditional way of thinking, they all think democracy for example is excellent and empowers the individual, people who are above average intelligence know that that is completely flawed unless you live in a country with say 4 or 5 people in it.

By traditional and conservative thinking and cycle of getting stuck in a certain way of thinking I mean that most people think in term of the present and the past and look at the best solutions there rather than theory and optimal alternatives. In this day and age it is a HUGE problem that people accept the reality as it is.

As for todays conservatives they are conservatives of the ways of today, not the far back past. As for liberals I mean people who have the ability to "think out of the box" or "alternatively", "abstract", "theoretically", "focus on optimals rather than reality", "focus on how things should be rather than accept how they are" and so fourth.
 
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Wow, you are the first guy other than me I have heard that from. I completely agree with you 100% about your views on democracy. The way it is it will always end up like a joke and a corrupted failure. The problem is that people are too stuck in a singular traditional way of thinking, they all think democracy for example is excellent and empowers the individual, people who are above average intelligence know that that is completely flawed unless you live in a country with say 4 or 5 people in it.

By traditional and conservative thinking and cycle of getting stuck in a certain way of thinking I mean that most people think in term of the present and the past and look at the best solutions there rather than theory and optimal alternatives. In this day and age it is a HUGE problem that people accept the reality as it is.

As for todays conservatives they are conservatives of the ways of today, not the far back past. As for liberals I mean people who have the ability to "think out of the box" or "alternatively", "abstract", "theoretically", "focus on optimals rather than reality", "focus on how things should be rather than accept how they are" and so fourth.

Liberals (leftists) focus on how things should be in their opinion. In reality, it doesn't work, and has turned out deadly for the most part. All you have to do is read your history!

Conservatives have not lost their sights on how things are supposed to be according to our Founding Fathers. The Republican Party damn sure has though, and any real conservative that continues to be a member of the GOP has his head up his ass. There is NO difference between the Republicans or the Democrats. If McCain was elected, he would have brought in totalitarianism just a bit slower than Obama.

Oh, and I'm not a guy.:2wave:
 
Liberals (leftists) focus on how things should be in their opinion. In reality, it doesn't work, and has turned out deadly for the most part. All you have to do is read your history!

Yah yah, but the fact is that its better to find optimal solutions than to keep up the ways of the past or to blatantly think that what is the solution at the moment is in any way optimal or even good. Maybe leftist in the US are like you describe, leftists in Europe are "hardcore socialists". The great difference with the national governments of Europe and the European Union government for example is that the European government deals with introducing "best solution" policy, while governments are stuck in a "one side against the other" limbo situation like in the US, and don't achieve anything at all, and when they do achieve something its just as likely to be bad as good, often rooted in the wrong way of thinking.

Conservatives have not lost their sights on how things are supposed to be according to our Founding Fathers.

Those are pretty good conservatives, a shame there aren't more of those and that conservatives nowadays in the US is something completely different altogether. i do however believe that being to attached to a past isn't good, but if the past ways are better than the current ways then there is something completely wrong.

The Republican Party damn sure has though, and any real conservative that continues to be a member of the GOP has his head up his ass.

Well, the people in the US has an extraordinary interests with putting labels on everything. People in the US has redefined the terms left and right and liberal and conservatives to being nothing else than synonyms of each other rather than their true meaning. So in the political picture in the US today Republican=conservative=right, Democrat=liberal=left.. Thats just weird and wrong. Those who do not fit those two labels are the hope for a better future.

There is NO difference between the Republicans or the Democrats.

Small differences exist. But put these two parties on a party scale from left to right in Europe with all European parties included then they seem rather singular in nature on slightly more on the right side of the spectrum than the other. Then take the global scale and it gets even more extreme.

If McCain was elected, he would have brought in totalitarianism just a bit slower than Obama.

Is that a joke about old people? :lol:


Oh, and I'm not a guy.:2wave:

Certainly not, my mistake, I was just focused on other things.. Are you hot? :3oops:
 
Liberals (leftists) focus on how things should be in their opinion. In reality, it doesn't work, and has turned out deadly for the most part. All you have to do is read your history!

Conservatives have not lost their sights on how things are supposed to be according to our Founding Fathers. The Republican Party damn sure has though, and any real conservative that continues to be a member of the GOP has his head up his ass. There is NO difference between the Republicans or the Democrats. If McCain was elected, he would have brought in totalitarianism just a bit slower than Obama.

Oh, and I'm not a guy.:2wave:

No Zeebra, she is a smokin hot smarty! I agree completely with your "ass backwards" post two back. I am a Constitutionalist. For most of the nations life, the government was relatively small and did not get involved with people's lives. It ran the courts and the post office, collected some taxes, protected the borders... that's about it.

Along comes FDR and this nation's government goes Godzilla huge on us and every President since then, and their special interest group money whores, has accepted this and even ENLARGED the government until we see the monster before us now. It's now like the Blob, or something... a joke.
 
No Zeebra, she is a smokin hot smarty! I am a Constitutionalist. For most of the nations life, the government was relatively small and did not get involved with people's lives. It ran the courts and the post office, collected some taxes, protected the borders... that's about it.

Along comes FDR and this nation's government goes Godzilla huge on us and every President since then, and their special interest group money whores, has accepted this and even ENLARGED the government until we see the monster before us now. It's now like the Blob, or something... a joke.

Wow, I agree with EVERYTHING you are saying here. It has happened more than a few times lately. :wow:
 
Wow, I agree with EVERYTHING you are saying here. It has happened more than a few times lately. :wow:

I know... you too. Will wonders never cease?! :lol:
 
isn't obama already talking about public works programs and stuff? newer deal?
 
Does anyone else get the impression that teh **** is about to hit the fan? Ive been seeing outragous levels of civil liberty dismantleing over the last 8 years, and jsut wondering why? people are happy, there is no significant crime, (except in government) and the economy is going well and seems stable.

however now it seems to become more obvious that the USA and parts of Europe knew that this was coming and that it is going to be worse than the great depression, prehaps they WILL need all those new laws they passed...

almost all who had to forsight to see this ecenomic failure coming years away also forsaw that it would be the worst ecenomic trouble ever, they were right about the first when 'accepted opinion' said otherwise and I belive they will be right about the second.
 
In this day and age its difficult to see that any depression like the one in the 1930s can happen, but many horrible scenarios can play out. We are certainly in stagnation and have been for a decade at least, especially intellectually and conservatively. Our views on the world is stuck in the past and new ways of thinking about our society and economy is not emerging, creating a situation of desperation since our potential is so much greater than our accomplishment. This situation of stagnation and desperation can last for decades all until we shake of ourself traditions and find new ways of looking at our society especially and as a result also the economy which in all cases to get out of stagnation/desperation will have to be planned, long term and sustainable(stip away the speculation ad gambling parts and we are almost there). Without a sustainable growing economy we will never reach the next level of human development, which at the moment only the west have a possibility of breaking into, and the most likely scenario is that China with their new ways of looking at things and doing things will surpass our society(in say 20 years) and that ours will only get more stagnant/desperate as a result and eventually result in a long row of the type of situations we have today with Iraq and the financial crisis. Unless we change our ways we will keep stepping wrong, unless we have some kind of revolution we will not reach the next step in human and social revolution in the west. But is this depression? I dont know, I dont think so.. My hopes right now lay in the hands of the European Union for Europe as a revolutionary force that can carry Europe at least into the next step of social and human evolution, but the process is slow. For America there needs to be some sort of revolution in the way of thinking, either complete reform through political and governmental reform or as a result of some kind of civil war where the liberal forces win over the conservative forces.

But all this and a lot more is just my personal view on this, and only a tiny summary of a whole lot of relevant stuff. In the end, WE MUST THINK DIFFERENTLY.
Actually, a little less thought and a lot more learning would be helpful, along with more experience in actual business for more Americans.

If we pin our hopes on the European Union, I may have to revise my opinions on assisted suicide.

I am ever so slightly nauseated by calls for revolutionary thought that can in no way be accurately described by it invoker. That isn't political thought, it's a magic spell.
 
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Actually, a little less thought and a lot more learning would be helpful, along with more experience in actual business for more Americans.

If we pin our hopes on the European Union, I may have to revise my opinions on assisted suicide.

I am ever so slightly nauseated by calls for revolutionary thought that can in no way be accurately described by it invoker. That isn't political thought, it's a magic spell.

Thanks for your interesting points of views. Thanks for not explaining any of them.
 
Along comes FDR and this nation's government goes Godzilla huge on us and every President since then, and their special interest group money whores, has accepted this and even ENLARGED the government until we see the monster before us now. It's now like the Blob, or something... a joke.

Totally agree...problem now is we are stuck with it and our blob of a government will continue to sink us! What government worker is going to vote themselves out of a "lazymans dream job"?
 
Yah yah, but the fact is that its better to find optimal solutions than to keep up the ways of the past or to blatantly think that what is the solution at the moment is in any way optimal or even good.
Our Founding Fathers were not stupid...they were escaping tyranny like the type we are about to see (or shall I say what we ARE seeing). They wanted to make sure it never happened here, but unfortunately there are too many people in high places that give no credence to our Constitution. These idiots find their way into our wonderful government subsidized schools and slowly turn each generation against what we are supposed to stand for. Public schools are nothing but a bunch of indoctrination facilities where political correctness is the main subject.

Maybe leftist in the US are like you describe, leftists in Europe are "hardcore socialists".

I prefer to call them pinko commie-sympathizing idiots that hijacked the word "liberal", kinda like the way homosexuals hijacked the word "gay".

The great difference with the national governments of Europe and the European Union government for example is that the European government deals with introducing "best solution" policy, while governments are stuck in a "one side against the other" limbo situation like in the US, and don't achieve anything at all, and when they do achieve something its just as likely to be bad as good, often rooted in the wrong way of thinking.

I see alot wrong in the EU, and we're going to end up being lucky enough to be like you...is there a sarcasm smiley here?:lol: Talk about having your national sovereignty ripped out from under you. They want to turn us into a North American Union...perhaps that's why our Constitution means nothing anymore. We'll have a "global Constitution" set forth by the UN...One World, One Love. Kumbaya. I'd Love To Teach The World To Sing...:eek:



Those are pretty good conservatives, a shame there aren't more of those and that conservatives nowadays in the US is something completely different altogether. i do however believe that being to attached to a past isn't good, but if the past ways are better than the current ways then there is something completely wrong.
Have you ever read our Constitution and the Bill Of Rights? It's not "being attached to the past", it's doing what is right for the whole country. We were never meant to be a socialist sh!thole, but that's the way we've become, thanks to leftist idiotology. Do you realize that our Supreme Court, whose job it is to interpret our Constitution, actually look to see how other countries deal with similar situations? That is criminal, in my opinion. And it's only going to get worse.



Well, the people in the US has an extraordinary interests with putting labels on everything. People in the US has redefined the terms left and right and liberal and conservatives to being nothing else than synonyms of each other rather than their true meaning. So in the political picture in the US today Republican=conservative=right, Democrat=liberal=left.. Thats just weird and wrong. Those who do not fit those two labels are the hope for a better future.

Those labels don't mean squat anymore because Republicans and Democrats have pretty much melted into each other. Hell, I can't tell the difference anymore. Republicans are no longer conservatives. The only real conservatives are the ones that want to hold on to our Constitution, without all the bull**** that the leftists try to smuggle into it...for example, where in the hell does it say that women have a right to an abortion? I still can't figure out where THAT came from.



Small differences exist. But put these two parties on a party scale from left to right in Europe with all European parties included then they seem rather singular in nature on slightly more on the right side of the spectrum than the other. Then take the global scale and it gets even more extreme.
Well, it's different here. We're moving further to the left.



Is that a joke about old people? :lol:

Nope, just saying that he is the lesser of 2 evils, although I'm not really sure of that anymore. McCain has no respect for the 1st amendment, I have my doubts about his thoughts about the 2nd amendment, and he's a globalist just like the rest of them. Who knows, he may have died in office and then we'd have Palin, who wasn't bad in my book.:lol:




Certainly not, my mistake, I was just focused on other things.. Are you hot?
Yes I am, babe...it's 75 degrees here today and I don't have any windows open...trying to keep the heat in because the deep freeze is coming!:mrgreen:
 
No Zeebra, she is a smokin hot smarty! I agree completely with your "ass backwards" post two back. I am a Constitutionalist. For most of the nations life, the government was relatively small and did not get involved with people's lives. It ran the courts and the post office, collected some taxes, protected the borders... that's about it.

Along comes FDR and this nation's government goes Godzilla huge on us and every President since then, and their special interest group money whores, has accepted this and even ENLARGED the government until we see the monster before us now. It's now like the Blob, or something... a joke.

People got used to living off the gubmint dole. I consider myself a Constitutionalist too, but we are certainly outnumbered! I fear that a bloody revolution or civil war is coming. Stock up on guns, ammo, and storable food, folks!:2wave:
 
Just listen to what she is saying... of course she is smokin hot!
How can a lady with those brains not get you all sweaty?

I don't think it's brains he's concerned about! LMAO!!! And guess what? I AM a blonde!:shock:
 
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isn't obama already talking about public works programs and stuff? newer deal?

He's talking public works alright. He plans on making all kinds of "make-work" positions, all paid by tax dollars.
 
He's talking public works alright. He plans on making all kinds of "make-work" positions, all paid by tax dollars.

I'm afraid that would be too expensive to be worthwhile, though to be sure it's the thought that counts.

:roll:
 
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