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!

Tuesday, September 8, 2009

Great Depression 2 - The Beginning

I've been saying for a long time that another great depression is unfolding. Here are two articles that support my viewpoint with hard data, and in ways the I wouldn't have thought of.

These are not fun reading, but they are important. Each, in its own way, suggests a bottom is between one and two years away. I think that is quite optimistic.

From Misch.

and

From Thought Offerings.

Both have great graphs. Every picture tells a story.

As a bonus, here is an article from the dreaded Main Stream Media, showing how people are developing a depression era mindset. Ultimately, that is what separates a great depression from a run of the mill recession.

4 comments:

J said...

A Depression could return--the lending crisis looks rather ominous. Unlike most of the Demo blogocrats, however, I don't think we should single out BushCo as the sole culprit, or instigator of the economic collapse, though they certainly played a part (then so did the Pelosicrats who sat on their ass as the mortgage companies went belly up).

The real culprits are the Gingrich/Gramm GOP Congress, AND Bill Clinton, who agreed to nearly ALL the de-reg/privatization plans of Gingrich. Clinton himself signed-off on the dismantling of the Glass-Steagall act, one of the last New Deal regs in effect from FDR. That was one of the Reagan era dreams of finance barons--to allow speculation with mortgage funds--and Clinton more or less capitulated, as he did with Enron and other de-reg BS.

Clinton and the Gingrich/GOP thus gave the reins to G-Sachs, JP Morgan, AIG, et al. and really even to F-mac (though Nixon had started that)--with no more New Deal regs, the banks could tap into mortgage funds and do all sorts of tricks ( swaps, etc) that the old FDR regulators had prevented.

See Counterpunch for some non-partisan progressive writing on the lending crisis--Alex Cockburn also suggested it was bipartisan, and related to de-reg (that is, if we grant that Bill Clinton even was a Demo). Progressive Demos can say grazi to Clinton for helping out the financiers with his pro-business policies in the 90s.

Jazzbumpa said...

J -

Yes. Good points all around.

Interesting you should say of WJC - if he "even was a Demo." IMHO, Clinton was the best Republican President since Eisenhower.

The story goes that as soon as he was inaugurated, Greenspan and somebody else I've forgotten sat him down and said, more or less - Congratulations on the election. Now, listen up - this is how it works . . .

Cheers!

J said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
J said...

Really, I got more respect for real leftist pundits ala Alex Cockburn (or Chomsky) than I do for the usual insider Demo-hack like Berube, Kossacks, or the EotAW gals, even if I disagree with their occasional bolshevik like rant. Cockburn will call the Clintons or St Barack conservative, hypocritical pieces of scheisse, along with criticizing and denouncing BushCo, and the morons of Limbaughland and Foxnews.

That was the tradition of the 60s--freaks did not exactly root for LBJ, or those mama's boys the Kennedys. Chicago '68 was not about supporting the Demos, Inc.--they were considered part of the Machine, really.

These days, merely criticize Obama, and the Dinkocrat regs assume you're riding with Karl Rove. BS. (As with this psychotic pseudo-Dem. Never trust a WASP, even when it votes Demo).

Few demos have even bothered to mention that Obama has actually rejected the public option part of health care reform. No biggie to a Kossack in the 'burbs--in fact, that WAS a biggie, even during Hillary's campaign. I don't care for HRC, but she actually was the h-c reform candidate. Obama's quite the centrist, apart from a few dovey tendencies (then his defense spending nearly the same as Bush's as well).