tagged w/ Great Depression
-
The Election Day 2009 was not good for Obama. His party lost Virginia and New Jersey. His electorate, made by young people and Afro-Americans, didn't go to vote.
Is it an alarm bell?
http://www.inaltreparole.net/en/world/elezioni2009usa041109.htmlThe Election Day 2009 was not good for Obama. His party lost Virginia and New Jersey.... more
-
-
Eighty years ago this week, the stock market crashed and ushered in the Great Depression. We need to apply the lessons from that era to our own to relieve the needless suffering of the Great Recession.
In just two days, between Oct. 28 and 29, 1929, the stock market plummeted by 25 percent. Between September and November of that year, the Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 40 percent of its value. By July of 1932, the Dow had lost nearly 90 percent of its value.
By then the Great Depression was raging, with unemployment rates rising to 25 percent.
To combat unemployment and alleviate poverty, the federal government engaged in a massive public works and jobs program through the Works Progress Administration (WPA).
Private markets weren’t about to create jobs, and the public sector became the employer of last resort. The job creation from the WPA provided survival and sustenance for millions of American families. Where is the contemporary WPA?
Absent public job creation, it is likely that the economy will not fully recover. The official unemployment rate stands at 9.8 percent. But the Bureau of Labor Statistics acknowledges that the adjusted unemployment rate — including part-timers looking for full-time work, and those who don’t look for work because they don’t think work is out there — is as high as 17 percent. This means that one in six Americans does not have a job. Among certain subgroups — notably older Americans and blacks — the unemployment rate exceeds Depression-era unemployment.
To commemorate this anniversary of the Great Depression, the Obama administration ought to engage in Depression-era tactics to jump-start the economy. We have spent $700 billion bailing out banks and $787 billion in economic stimulus. But we have not focused on directly creating employment, on lifting people at the bottom.
more at link...
http://www.progressive.org/mpmalveaux102709.htmlEighty years ago this week, the stock market crashed and ushered in the Great... more
-
-
Debt keeps the rich elite rich.
Excessive lending is the only way to maintain the living standards of the vast bulk of the population at a time when wealth is being concentrated in the hands of an elite.
The amount by which the elite has benefited is startling, and illustrates the problem with lightly regulated free markets: the rich get much richer while the rest do not get richer at all.
Remember, Jesus said it's harder for the rich to enter the kingdom of heaven. Don't sell your soul for money or riches. Riches fly away with the wind.Debt keeps the rich elite rich.
Excessive lending is the only way to maintain the... more
-
-
The wealthiest 10 percent of Americans now have a larger share of total income than they ever have in records going back nearly a century — an even larger amount than during the Roaring Twenties, the last time the US saw such similar disparities in wealth.
In recent years, the fact that differences between rich and poor are the greatest they’ve been since the Great Depression has become a popular talking point among liberal-leaning economists.
But an updated study from University of California-Berkeley economist Emanuel Saez shows that, in 2007, the wealth disparity grew to its highest number on record, based on US tax data going back to 1917.
Study (PDF): http://elsa.berkeley.edu/~saez/saez-UStopincomes-2007.pdf
According to Saez’s study, which Nobel prize-winning economist Paul Krugman drew attention to at his New York Times blog, the top 10 percent of earners in America now receive nearly 50 percent of all the income earned in the United States, a higher percentage than they did during the 1920s.
“After decades of stability in the post-war period, the top decile share has increased dramatically over the last twenty-five years and has now regained its pre-war level,” Saez writes. “Indeed, the top decile share in 2007 is equal to 49.7 percent, a level higher than any other year since [records began in] 1917 and even surpasses 1928, the peak of stock market bubble in the ‘roaring’ 1920s.”
By comparison, during most of the 1970s the top 10 percent earned around 33 percent of all the income earned in the United States.
The contrast is even starker for the super-rich. The top 0.01 percent of earners in the US are now taking home six percent of all the income, higher than the 1920s peak of five percent, and a whopping six-fold increase since the start of the Reagan administration, when the top 0.01 percent earned one percent of all the income.
There is no consensus among economists on whether large disparities in income lead to economic disruption, but it is hard to ignore the correlation between rising income inequality and the onset of economic crisis. The last time the US saw similar differences in income was in 1928 and 1929, just before the start of the Great Depression.
Saez also broke the numbers down by administration, and found that while the wealthiest few saw their incomes rise as quickly during the Bush years as they did during the Clinton years, the same was not true for the rest of the population.
Saez suggests that the economic growth seen on paper during the Bush years was little more than an illusion for the vast majority of Americans, who saw their income grow much more slowly in the 2002-2007 period than they did during the Clinton years.The wealthiest 10 percent of Americans now have a larger share of total income than... more
-
-
Here is an entire 24 page book discounting common knowledge about the Great Depression.
“HERBERT HOOVER"
believed government should play
no role in the economy.”
“GOVERNMENT PROGRAMS"
helped lower unemployment by
putting many Americans to work.”
“FRANKLIN ROOSEVELT’S"
‘New Deal’ saved America from the
failure of free-market capitalism.”
Mark Twain-
"It ain't what you don't know that gets you into trouble. It's what you know for sure that just ain't so."Here is an entire 24 page book discounting common knowledge about the Great... more
-
-
Here are another 5 examples of common knowledge that is wrong but the one I'm focusing on here is the belief that Herbet Hover was a do nothing laissez-faire free market capitalist and it was his non interventionist policies that worsened the great depression. The common knowledge about the great depression is that government, through Keynesian stimulus saved us from the great depression. This is simply untrue. They inadvertently exacerbated the situation and prolonged it, just taking into account price and wage fixing, by 7 years.
Mark Twain-
"It ain't what you don't know that gets you into trouble. It's what you know for sure that just ain't so."Here are another 5 examples of common knowledge that is wrong but the one I'm focusing... more
-
-
This is another example of common knowledge that is wrong. The common knowledge is that government, through Keynesian stimulus saved us from the great depression..This is simply untrue. They inadvertently exacerbated the situation and prolonged it, just taking into account price and wage fixing, by 7 years.
Mark Twain-
"It ain't what you don't know that gets you into trouble. It's what you know for sure that just ain't so."This is another example of common knowledge that is wrong. The common knowledge is... more
-
-
Another example of what everyone knows being untrue. Enough people saying the same thing long enough still doesn't make it true.
It's not the things you don't know that get you, but the things you know that ain't so. – Attributed to Samuel ClemensAnother example of what everyone knows being untrue. Enough people saying the same... more
-
-
Nano-thermite dust in WTC rubble found in such quantities to require tonnes to have been present during collapse. Nano-thermite is used to melt steel. The American media remains horrifyingly silent as the true masterminds of the attack on our nation slink away in the shadows.Nano-thermite dust in WTC rubble found in such quantities to require tonnes to have... more
-
-
Will this initiate the Dollar Crisis?
Prepare yourselves for harder times ahead.
Watch video and discuss-Will this initiate the Dollar Crisis?
Prepare yourselves for harder times ahead.... more
-
-
These startling numbers, which don't even take Discouraged Workers into account, sound more like the leading edge of a depression than a recession...
Here is the excerpt from the article:
Sylvia Hendersen is one of a vast pool of people that does not show up each month in the official US unemployment rate, to be released today.
She is not unemployed – she picks up scraps of work when she can – and her pride has thus far kept her from applying for state benefits.
In the language of statisticians, Ms Hendersen works “part-time for economic reasons” – she works less than 34 hours a week because she cannot persuade anyone to pay her for more.
More than 4m people in the US have lost their jobs in the past 12 months, and last week the number of people filing unemployment claims rose to the highest since 1982 – and the labour market is even more bloodied than those figures suggest.
The number of people in Ms Hendersen’s shoes, for example, has risen by almost 80 per cent over the past 12 months to 8.6m in February – the highest since records began more than half a century ago.
That is because, as they cut labour costs, many companies have first reduced employees’ hours, moved people to shortened weeks, and cut loose self-employed contractors such as Ms Hendersen, who does business-to-business marketing from home.
These tactics started as early as 2006, and now the average number of hours an American works each week is at its lowest since records began in the 1960s.
Some economists believe those people forced to work part-time should be included in the unemployment rate. Deep in its databases, the US Bureau of Labour Statistics has a measure that does add in these people, along with those who have given up actively looking for work but still want a job.
The bureau catchily calls this figure “U-6”, but others have nicknamed it the “real unemployment rate”. When the official rate hit 8.1 per cent in February, the “real” rate reached 14.8 per cent."These startling numbers, which don't even take Discouraged Workers into account, sound... more
-
-
Clips from article:
By the end of 2009, two-thirds of the state's banks will be operating under cease-and-desist orders or other regulatory actions, Anaheim-based banking consultant Gary S. Findley predicts.
"There are more than 300 banks in California, and the reality is that more than a third of those are losing money," Trezza said.
What I gather from this is 1 in 3 banks are losing money and by the end of the year, 2 out of 3 banks will be in Failure mode in California.
And this is only California...
With approximately 8305 FDIC "insured" banks nationwide holding $14 trillion in assets the FDIC fund will not be able to handle a massive bank failure run.
Expect to see more TARPS and Son of TARPS in the near future.
I post this in hopes of opening the eyes of my fellow Citizens to the upcoming Dollar crisis.
Please read article at link and discuss-Clips from article:
By the end of 2009, two-thirds of the state's banks will be... more
-
-
The number of people without a job in Britain has topped two million - the highest it's been since 1971.
Last month alone, a record 138,000 signed on for benefits.
With shoppers and businesses spending far less money, job cuts have spread beyond the financial services and into construction, retail, manufacturing and other areas.
The figures come a day after a leaked International Monetary Fund document claimed Britain would take longer to recover from recession than any other major economy.
Life's not all bad though - here's a dalmatian riding a bike:
http://current.com/items/89837672/dalmation_riding_a_bike.htmThe number of people without a job in Britain has topped two million - the highest... more
-
-
richjm
-
added this
-
8 months ago
- |
-
The effects of the recession. It's a bigger problem than you might think.
-
-
"Here you see a movie ticket and kernel popcorn, as scaled to their price increase over the past 80 years. On your left, 1929. On your right, 2009. Needless to say, things have changed.
In 1929, The Great Depression popularized popcorn as a movie time treat since it was cheap, easy, tasty and somewhat filling. Back then, a bag cost you 5 cents. Now, a (small) bag costs you $4.75. Sure, our new bag is probably a bit bigger, but it's vastly more expensive.
In fact, when adjusted for inflation, popcorn prices have seen an ironic 666% price increase, while movie ticket prices have increased a more moderate 66%. The above picture tells the story to scale, but just in case you're a bigger fan of numbers:
1929
Movie - $4.32 ($0.35 pre-inflation)
Popcorn - $0.62 ($0.05 pre-inflation)
2009
Movie - $7.20
Popcorn - $4.75
What gives? As many of you know, Hollywood takes a majority of ticket proceeds (we're talking upwards of 70% or more) during the first few weeks a film is released. Not so coincidentally, those first few weeks are also usually a film's best-attended screenings. So theaters fall back to popcorn, soda and candy to make money because Hollywood doesn't see a cut of these sales.
But is this 666% popcorn price increase evil? Obviously, numbers don't lie. Has the increased price of popcorn helped keep ticket prices in check? Possibly, though there's no real way of knowing.
Still, one thing's for sure: Those stadium seats and surround sound systems won't pay for themselves...right?""Here you see a movie ticket and kernel popcorn, as scaled to their price increase... more
-
-
"For most of his life, Martin Munkacsi was a madcap adventurer, Candide with a camera. In pursuit of great pictures during the 1930s and ’40s, the Hungarian-born photographer traveled from his home in Berlin and, later, New York to such far-flung places as London, Liberia, Rio de Janeiro, Hawaii, Turkey, Seville and San Francisco. To this day, Munkacsi’s prints of sporting events, leisure activities, fashion, portraiture and political events remain unrivaled for their energy and flair. Using a 4x5 reflex camera by Adams of London for portraits and a 4x5 speed graphic camera for the outdoors, he combined formal inventiveness with a crack reporter’s nose for a good story. His admirers included colleagues as different as photojournalist Henri Cartier-Bresson and Richard Avedon, the fashion photographer.
Munkacsi’s mantra could not have been simpler. “My trick,” he wrote in 1935, “consists [of] discarding all tricks.” To be sure, his pictures of car races, amusement park rides and bathers in the surf as well as starlets like Greta Garbo, Leni Riefenstahl and Katherine Hepburn project an air of informality. “Never,” Munkacsi advised, “pose your subjects, Let them move about naturally.” At the height of the Depression he declared, “All great photographs today are snapshots.”
Munkacsi is in the news with a batch of fresh gelatin prints, currently on view at New York’s International Center of Photography as part of the Extremely Hungary festival. They were developed from the photographer’s recently discovered lost glass negatives, which no one expected to see again. After Munkacsi died from a heart attack in 1963 at the age of 67, his archive was offered to several museums and universities. There were no takers. Two years ago, when the ICP mounted a 150-print retrospective of the Hungarian’s work, only 300 images were tracked down. After the New York show, more than 4,000 glass negatives spanning Munkacsi’s entire career turned up on eBay. They were in Connecticut filed in small boxes that collectively weighed more than 300 pounds. The ICP negotiated a price and bought them.""For most of his life, Martin Munkacsi was a madcap adventurer, Candide with a camera.... more
-
-
I hope someone out there can correct me...... cuz this is the opposite of the direction i hope the world is taking!
Here is the link to the actual bill, any lawyers who can help the rest of us sort this out?
http://www.govtrack.us/congress/billtext.xpd?bill=h111-875I hope someone out there can correct me...... cuz this is the opposite of the... more
-
-
By the wide stretch of the American River in Sacramento, history is repeating itself. Here, during the Great Depression of the 1930s, men and women who had lost everything and despaired of finding work built rough shelters and huddled around fires.
Now the spiral of job losses and house repossessions has left another wave of Americans homeless, and a new tent city is growing rapidly on lumpy, derelict land between the river and the railway tracks here in the capital of California.
There are more than 300 people living in scattered encampments stretching a couple of miles along the river bank. As many as 50 more arrive each week. Unemployment in Sacramento reached 10.4 per cent in January and California is suffering some of the worst repossession rates in the country, with as many as 500 people losing their homes every day last year.
Charity workers in the city can no longer cope with the number of people coming to them for help. The shelters are full, with one home that caters for women and children turning away 200 people a night.By the wide stretch of the American River in Sacramento, history is repeating itself.... more
-
-
NEW YORK (Fortune) -- The government is bracing for a big bank failure.
A bill introduced in Congress would give the FDIC, the agency that stands behind Americans' bank deposits, temporary authority to borrow as much as $500 billion from the government to shore up the deposit insurance fund.
The bill -- the Depositor Protection Act of 2009, backed by Senate Banking Committee Chairman Chris Dodd, D-Conn. and Sen. Mike Crapo, R-Idaho -- wouldn't change the status of individual bank accounts, which through the end of this year are insured up to $250,000.
But the Dodd-Crapo bill acknowledges what the financial markets have been signaling for the past month -- that the government must take the lead in a costly cleanup of the mess in the financial sectorNEW YORK (Fortune) -- The government is bracing for a big bank failure.
A bill... more
-
-
This isn't my video, I just want to share this. Please share this with others! The people of America must stand up and take hold of our own destinies.This isn't my video, I just want to share this. Please share this with others! The... more
-
