Look: I am eager to learn stuff I don't know--which requires actively courting and posting smart disagreement.

But as you will understand, I don't like to post things that mischaracterize and are aimed to mislead.

-- Brad Delong

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Everything that appears on this blog is the copyrighted property of somebody. Often, but not always, that somebody is me. For things that are not mine, I either have obtained permission, or claim fair use. Feel free to quote me, but attribute, please. My photos and poetry are dear to my heart, and may not be used without permission. Ditto, my other intellectual property, such as charts and graphs. I'm probably willing to share. Let's talk. Violators will be damned for all eternity to the circle of hell populated by Rosanne Barr, Mrs Miller [look her up], and trombonists who are unable play in tune. You cannot possibly imagine the agony. If you have a question, email me: jazzbumpa@gmail.com. I'll answer when I feel like it. Cheers!

Wednesday, June 1, 2011

Worse Than the Great Depression?

Washington's Blog has a long post on the current economic downturn, cross-posted at Naked Capitalism.  You often hear that it's the worst since the great depression.  It may well be the worst ever.

I'm not going get into extensive quotes.  You can go to the source, and you should for all the information, quotes, links  and eye popping charts.  I see Suzan has picked up the whole post, as well..

But I do want to embed the two videos.  The first shows a lot of non-agreement among CNBC financial talking-head types, from this morning's live action on the market floor.  BTW, the DJI finished the day at 12,290.14 down 279.65.





The second is an excerpt from a recent 60 minutes episode that shows that things are so much worse than you might realize.





There's lots more at the link.  Read it and weep.

I will quote the wrap up at the end.

Two fundamental causes of the Great Depression, and of our current economic problems, are fraud and inequality:


There are, of course, other reasons the economy is still stuck in a ditch for most Americans, such as encouraging too much leverage, bailing out the big speculators, failing to break up the mammoth banks, and failing to spend wisely, where it will do some good. See this and this. But fraud and inequality were core causes of the Depression, and our failure to address them will only prolong our misery.
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