Time for some economic definitions

if we have a depression we are looking at 20-50% unemployment and 10% or more GNP contraction... in my view if this is the case... we are looking at ten years and the country will be changed in ways that will make it unrecognizable. It will also lead to quite possibly 20 million dead, 50 or more million economic refugees, etcetera. We may even see social crisis the way we have not since oh the 1930s.

A deep recession (which is what I am hoping for at this time), will take most of the Obama first term, if not all of it. It will lead to upwards of 20% unemployment, with a GNP contraction UNDER 10%... it still will be very painful and in order for that not to become a great depression we need a series of legislative measures.

There is more

The Great Depression took 1T and ten years (and some historians argue a world war) to get out off.

Now if I take into account that pesky thing called inflation we are looking at least at 12T... read that number again... 12 T.

So the "bailout" is just the beginning of what it will cost to get out of it.

Now if John McHoover gets elected you ARE looking at a great depression... if Obama gets elected with a Dem congress, as blue dogs, they will fight the necessary changes legislatively, including the social net and re-regulation of the markets. That said... the Dems tend to be MORE flexible than the Rs... so we will have to keep the pressure

That said... for all who believe that the package passed it would immediately affect this... that is not the way things work... it took us at LEAST two years to get here... it is not instant... and it will take anywhere from 3-5 weeks to see the INITIAL effect... and we will need MORE BILLS to be passed to deal with different aspects of this mess

Many of us (rather a few of us) have tried to 'splain that this is but the first of many legislative passages to deal with multiple things and I am betting that like the early depression (this bill has aspects of that), folks round these parts will keep fighting it... because most folks believe the New Deal was one thing... wrong, it was six major legislative packages... the bailout is not even to that level... and many targeted packages

Anyhow... if anybody believes that the New Deal also emerged Athena like from FDR's head... that is magical thinking. It came from the times, as a way to short circuit the commies... but I am sure you knew that.. and I will repeat this... took YEARS to talk form.

history and economics don't matter

:sarcasm:

Without it what would we ignore and be doomed to repeat?

I used to think that it mattered to people on at least one side of the blogosphere, but the last three weeks, in particular last week, have disabused me of that.

It is eerie, but this could be the same arguments and flame wars back on AOL over the IWR... which if you listen to some... I had to support :sarcasm: since I believed this would magically grow the economy :sarcasm:

Yes, I think I am reaching my limit... if not reached it

...for a good post!

And regretfully think you are spot on....


Any advice for doomsday?

and if you have money in the stock exchange... talk to a financial advisor

We moved to Gold years ago... I am starting to look at TBills

And believe it or not, even buying some stocks on companies that are really undervalued right now... if I can find the cash

That is for the LONG TERM, as in at least 10 years

The Dow Jones took all the way to 1955 to fully recover from the depression... so this is a very long view

It's going to make things worse, but you can't say you weren't warned.

this is what i have been saying all along

I don't engage in magical thinking

The bail out, not that you bothered readying that far... will BUY US some time...

And it would be a change... if people round these parts STOPPED misrepresenting at least MY position... or that of a couple others

Now if you thought we were for magic beans... nope, we weren't...

But people will continue to read whatever crap they want to read... like oh... 1929... what a shock! NOT

What's the point of spending $700 billion on the uber-rich to delay the inevitable? This giveaway is nothing but a "golden parachute" for Bush's friends. It's another hastily passed bill in the mold of the Patriot Act or the FISA bill or the IWR. Congress has given Bush everything he's wanted over the last 8 years, and it's been a failure each time. This one is no different.

why didn't they just do this first? It seems obvious that they wanted to curb Democrats' ability to spend and possibly harm existing entitlements.