Who is still glad we didn't end up with McCain?
- Thread starter olosto
- Start date
TheDemocrat
Active Member
I am very glad we didn't end up with McCain.
TheBrutalTruth
Well-Known Member
Who is still glad we didn't end up with McCain?
Me...
A two headed coin
both sides so very similar
empty and hollow
TheBrutalTruth
Well-Known Member
Yeah, but they would all want to get in her pants. Maybe we could have whored her out in exchange for peace amongst all the nations...
olosto
New Member
Its not like we still can't. Just waive a nieman marcus card in her direction and I sure she would, err saddle up for anything, lol..
olosto
New Member
Really how so? And is this any different that it would have been? Do no forget it was Bush that started the bailout mess. I still maintain that the great depression show us that if the govenment does nothing.. you could be fucked for 15 years..
TheBrutalTruth
Well-Known Member
Lots of government intervention during the great depression though, but unlike now the intervention was a combination of useful like infrastructure spending (TVA (not that I approve of the interference in the markets, but it's better than this bailing out of the banks.)) and useless/wrong like devaluation of the currency in an attempt to brainwash the sheeple into believing that prices were re-inflating instead of coming out and explaining that as a result of productivity gains it would be the natural trend of things for prices to fall as the time-value of the labor involved in producing them was reduced, and thus deflation could be a good thing especially if wages remained bottom sticky and didn't fall as quickly as prices because it would allow for the working classes to purchase more with their paychecks.
No, instead the government intentionally inflates the currency and prices, a fraud that it has continued to this day, and is still continuing.
Random thought but I'm thinking that the deflation threatened the wealthy (less profits) and benefited the poor (more spending power) where as the artificial inflation benefited the wealthy (greater appearance of profits) and hurt the poor (less spending power.) So FDR's leaving the gold standard was a bad move.
TheBrutalTruth
Well-Known Member
Yeah, but during the recession/depression of 1920?
http://fwcon.wordpress.com/2009/02/11/how-we-dealt-with-the-1920-economic-crisis/
It's not mentioned and yet the government's response was to slash its own spending and slash taxes.
olosto
New Member
Depression of 29 on.. The panic that the failing banks caused etc. The gov let it all happen and from what I understand did not do shit about it for quite some time.
You will need to fill in the blanks for me from 1920 to the crash of 29. I honestly do not remember/know my history that well.
You will need to fill in the blanks for me from 1920 to the crash of 29. I honestly do not remember/know my history that well.
TheBrutalTruth
Well-Known Member
http://www.calvin-coolidge.org/html/the_harding_coolidge_prosperit.html
I wasn't even really aware of it until a couple month's ago, and I don't remember any specific in depth discussion of the reaction the government had to the depression of 1920 being really discussed in school. Not like the Great Depression was...
http://modern-us-history.suite101.com/article.cfm/from_normalcy_to_great_depression
Sounds freakishly like Bush's actions in 2001 - 2003...
Create and throw money at the problem
Encourage the banks to slash interest rates
Slash taxes on the rich, but only provide minimal relief for the working and middle classes
Also sounds like Obama's policy now
Create more money than before and throw it at the problem
Encourage banks to slash interest rates
Except now he's just providing minimal tax relief to the working and middle classes and taxing the rich even more.
One would imagine that the economy is going to correct itself regardless (there is also considerable debate around whether or not FDR really did help the country in the 30s.)
I mean, the United States has been having economic panics since it was created.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_recessions_in_the_United_States
Here's one from the above list
Long Depression 1873–1896 &0000000000000023.00000023 years – The collapse of the Vienna Stock Exchange caused a depression that spread throughout the world. It is important to note that during this period, the global industrial production greatly increased. In the United States, for example, industrial output increased fourfold.
23 years that makes the Great Depression seem just kind of middle length.
Then there was another that was 7 years, and three that were 16, 18 and 20 years respectively.
TheBrutalTruth
Well-Known Member
Thanks, and I wasn't even aware of the Depression of 1920 until recently, so I'm still learning all the small details of it.
Interesting stuff, though I just hope that my opinion that the economy will recover in spite of government actions is right.
Though in truth I don't think a lot of people (aside from those with out jobs) have really let it get them down.
I know I went to the bar last night and it was full of people having fun. So even if such action is a result of the depression it is also the seed of economic recovery, because ultimately the economy isn't driven by our basic necessities (if a farmer was just content to feed himself we'd all starve) but by our desire for books, movies, games, consumer devices and other goods and services that are produced by people that have to come up with something to trade for food.
The Government did a bunch which is why the US was in such a prolonged depression.
FDR allowed businesses in every industry to collude without the threat of antitrust prosecution and workers to demand salaries about 25 percent above where they ought to have been, given market forces. The economy was poised for a beautiful recovery, but that recovery was stalled by these misguided policies."
In the three years following the implementation of Roosevelt's policies, wages in 11 key industries averaged 25 percent higher than they otherwise would have done, the economists calculate. But unemployment was also 25 percent higher than it should have been, given gains in productivity.
Meanwhile, prices across 19 industries averaged 23 percent above where they should have been, given the state of the economy. With goods and services that much harder for consumers to afford, demand stalled and the gross national product floundered at 27 percent below where it otherwise might have been.
"High wages and high prices in an economic slump run contrary to everything we know about market forces in economic downturns," Ohanian said. "As we've seen in the past several years, salaries and prices fall when unemployment is high. By artificially inflating both, the New Deal policies short-circuited the market's self-correcting forces."
Without competition, wholesale prices remained inflated, averaging 14 percent higher than they would have been without the troublesome practices.
By 1939 wages in protected industries remained 24 percent to 33 percent above where they should have been, based on 1929 figures. By 1939 the U.S. unemployment rate was 17.2 percent, down somewhat from its 1933 peak of 24.9 percent but still remarkably high.
Recovery came only after the Department of Justice dramatically stepped enforcement of antitrust cases nearly four-fold and organized labor suffered a string of setbacks, the economists found.
Unemployment was high, many of those people could not afford to eat. The people who didn't work for industries where wages were fixed and artificially high couldn't afford to pay the high prices. Farmers were actually plowing under crops while Americans were in food lines.
http://newsroom.ucla.edu/portal/ucla/FDR-s-Policies-Prolonged-Depression-5409.aspx
medicineman
New Member
Who's still glad we didn't elect McCain?................Me.
People are more depressed and looking for the quick fix. Invest in booze and candy bars. Since we are talking economics I thought I'd throw that in.
btw A ton of banks failed in 1921 and the government didnt throw money at them. We bounced back fairly quick.