From Canada: 'Is the U.S. headed for another Great Depression?'

Source: The Globe and Mail

If a depression by any other name would feel as bleak, what do you call the current state of the U.S. economy? A number of influential American economists are no longer mincing words: They argue that deficit-obsessed politicians in Washington are setting the United States up for a repeat of the 1930s.

... At first blush, the analogy seems ludicrous. The U.S. unemployment rate hit 25 per cent during the Dirty Thirties. It's now at 9.1 per cent, after peaking at 10.1 per cent in late 2009. So-called automatic stabilizers – from unemployment benefits to food stamps – mean economic downturns now resemble a big pothole more than a bottomless pit. There are no bread lines.

... For economists of the Krugman-Baker school, 2011 is shaping up to look worryingly like 1937. Then, as now, politicians and policy makers mistook the absence of negative growth for a nascent recovery. They turned to slashing deficits and snuffing out the perceived threat of inflation. That Mistake of 1937 drove the economy back into the red.

Politicians on Capitol Hill seem strangely impervious to warnings of 1937 redux. Neither the news that the U.S. economy grew at an anemic 1.8 per cent in the first quarter, nor the fact that job creation in May was four times below the rate needed to keep up with population growth, tempered calls for spending cuts.

Read more: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/konrad-yakabuski/is-the-us-headed-for-another-great-depression/article2056781/

And we have been. And furthermore, it was done purposefully.

while using the stupidity, ignorance and faithful in this nation to lead the charge by pushing their buttons together with psych ops.

of this country...how long will the people go without jobs and everything taken from them

No Healthcare No Education ...only Capitalists that remind me of Robber barons and the Dickens times

The American empire is OVER

next our Military will have to be diminished and we have spent Billions and Trillions trying to take over the world

now its China's turn

However, few want to actually see what has occurred, and continues to occur.

This is the new American economy. By design. High unemployment, means people will beg to get jobs with low wages, little benefits and poor working conditions, which helps the bottom line.

we may well be headed for another Great Depression. If people lack confidence, we will at the minimum have a double dip recession.

To be honest, it is difficult to be confident at this point. First we need jobs before we see a real recovery.

The Globe and Mail is a Conservative leaning newspaper, editorially supporting Stephen Harper last election.