Is this "depression" as bad as the others we have had in the past?

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   Phoebe Pikeposted 13 years ago

   In this time of economic struggle, I have heard many people say we are only going to lose more and that it is going to be harder than any other depression we have ever had... is this true or people just finding a way to describe their economic woes?

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   recommend1posted 13 years ago

   The west has been in recession since the early 1970's - the periods that economists and the media claim as any kind of "not being in depression" are just short spikes of apparent recovery.
   
   There is a major flaw in world economics in its basic premise that the base quantity of all the economies will always continue to expand - patent bull@@it that nobody seems willing to address.  This thinking arose in the dawn of modern economics with colonisation - where the base 'quantity' or sum total did expand.  Colonisation is largely over - except for the American model of colonisation by franchise and 'global' companies.
   
   It is time economists shed their super rich riders and tell it like it is and start planning for balanced economics where gobal corporations become unworkeable and local industry and business becomes the norm again.
   
   The most simple and obvious example is the bacon in your superstore that grew in one country, got processed in another, packaged in another and sold in another. Versus the bacon in my local market that grows within earshot, is processed less than 1 kilometer up the road and is sold in my next door market.  No vast quantities of fuel to drive it, train it, fly it, no overdose of suspicious chemicals to make it last long enough to get half way around the world, no corporation putting all the small players out of the game by underpricing until they have control of the whole market.  Same goes for everything you buy and consume.

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      lady_love158posted 13 years agoin reply to this

      Interesting...I didn't know you could grow bacon. Why stop at buying local? Let's just ignore law order and property rights and live off the land as hunters and gatherers!

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         John Holdenposted 13 years agoin reply to this

         "Didn't know that you could grow bacon"

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            Alexander Peaseposted 13 years agoin reply to this

            I sit here, laughing at the wording. I think to myself, "where can I get some of this bacon seed?"
            
            I just can't stop laughing. Seriously.

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               John Holdenposted 13 years agoin reply to this

               Erm, where to get bacon seed, now let me think, erm, wouldn't be out of a boar would it?

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                  Alexander Peaseposted 13 years agoin reply to this

                  Ohh... *frowny face* ... that's umm... Anyways, depressions in the economy are bad, and it doesn't look like the US is doing anything to solve their debts. In fact, they are trying to keep Japan's economy stable because they invested money over there, (Toyota, Honda, etc.)
                  
                  So, unless a genie comes along and came magically erases the trillions of dollars in deficits, I think that the US will be in this depression for a long time. But, hey, it is all matter of supply and demand, and the supply is dropping like a rock...

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   JeniferDposted 13 years ago

   I have to say it is worse than ever; the governments have a very twisted set of priorities and their first priority is POWER. The U.S. government says we're broke, but, continue to print money to fund an illegal war we cannot afford, they continue to cut funding to programs designed to keep our elderly and disabled taken care of, and off the streets, but, somehow manage to shit a few million to send to foreign countries under the guise of 'foreign aid'.
   
   When a government's priorities mean outside nations' welfare takes precedence over their own countrymen, it's time to get rid of them.
   
   Remember, politicians are like diapers; they must be changed often and for the same reasons.

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   tritrainposted 13 years ago

   I thought we were calling this "The Great Recession".  No?

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      Alexander Peaseposted 13 years agoin reply to this

      That is what analysts are saying so that the general public aren't scared into withdrawing their stocks and cashing out.
      
      It all actuality, the entire world is in a depression. Global markets are dropping and there isn't anything anyone can do about it. But, if the general public knew about this then consumer spending would decline and then the US and world economy would be in big trouble.
      
      To answer your question Phoebe, yes. The "great" depression of the thirties has an impact but, mostly on the US. This depression, recession, (whatever you want to call it), is having an impact on the world. Our connectivity is slowly killing us, due to the fact that not all economies are created equal.

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   Evan G Rogersposted 13 years ago

   The Great Depression was the first recession that the government stepped in to try to fix. It lasted for 2 decades.
   
   This Depression (no, it's not a recession - all the words mean the same thing. They used to be called "panics") the government is trying to solve everything once again.
   
   But this time, the Fed has been keeping interest rates at 0% for well over 2 years now, and there are no signs of the rates increasing.
   
   In so doing, the money supply has more than Quintupled in under 10 years.
   
   Things are going to go horrible.

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   CHRIS57posted 13 years ago

   I think the word "depression" originated from pressing into a flat surface and creating a dent. Now - going from the higher level of a flat road into the dent, that is what is referred to as going into a depression.
   The little picture makes one assumption, the assumption of always being a way out of of the dent, out of depression. Is that so?
   I don´t think so. What if there is no dent but the whole economic road is permanently deformed (lets say by other emerging economic heavyweights like China or India). Then of course the dent, the depression pit cannot be filled with monetary means to ease the way out of the depression.
   Signs are strong that things will not recover. So this is no depression, no bump in the economic road, it is a permanent situation and better adjust to it.

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