Are Americans on the cusp of another Great Depression?

[Shield Breaker]

this article seems to agree with that:

America: The Grim Truth

It’s a ten year old blog reeing we don't have socialized healthcare.

 

[spiritofamermaid]

America might enter a depression, but due to farming technology they'll never have a GREAT Depression. Part of the reason the Great was so bad was because no food could be grown due to all the nutrients in the soil being stripped away.

As long as food can be grown, people can eat (discounting things like affordability, where charity orgs will enter the picture) and as a result things will never get as bad as then.

[Didn't read the entire thread so hopefully I'm not late in this thought.]

 

[Ughubughughughughughghlug]

America might enter a depression, but due to farming technology they'll never have a GREAT Depression. Part of the reason the Great was so bad was because no food could be grown due to all the nutrients in the soil being stripped away.

As long as food can be grown, people can eat (discounting things like affordability, where charity orgs will enter the picture) and as a result things will never get as bad as then.

[Didn't read the entire thread so hopefully I'm not late in this thought.]

How to get a 21st Century famine:

Have depression
Elect communist
???
Starve

 

[mindlessobserver]

America might enter a depression, but due to farming technology they'll never have a GREAT Depression. Part of the reason the Great was so bad was because no food could be grown due to all the nutrients in the soil being stripped away.

As long as food can be grown, people can eat (discounting things like affordability, where charity orgs will enter the picture) and as a result things will never get as bad as then.

[Didn't read the entire thread so hopefully I'm not late in this thought.]

Not entirely accurate. The dust bowl compounded misery, but the farmers were alreadg fucked before the drought due to massive over supply. The 1930 harvest was a bumper crop and it was completely worthless as the market was saturated. Entire train loads of grain were just dumped on the side of the tracks.

This was why the department of agriculture began to pay farmers to NOT plant food, and created the magic that was "government cheese" to buy up excess dairy and so on.

 

[super thug]

I don't think there will be another great depression because our economy is much more globalized than it used to be. I think we're on the cusp of something similar to the 2008 crash but hopefully not quite as extreme.

People are always trying to point to something as the main cause of a depression or recession (like the fed reserve) but the truth is that it's never just one thing. It's a bunch of things that all go wrong around the same time. The economy is like a living thing, money flowing around the globe and community is what keeps it healthy but it just isn't healthy if it keeps growing constantly. Already prices don't reflect reality, as this continues more and more people are going to stop spending like buying houses/cars/etc because we're all just waiting for the inevitable correction. It can become a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Honestly I don't think we have to worry about things getting too bad because if they get really bad then this could trigger a revolution. Plenty of folks are fed up with the way things are being handled, I'm sure the thought has crossed everyone's mind that things would be much better if we just threw out the current leadership (like everyone, congress, senate, local government- everyone) and just started over because it's very easy to see this whole thing is fucked. Indeed, I think the reason it is called a revolution is because, like a wheel, it comes around again. While not the purpose of a governing body one of the main goals inevitably becomes to acquire as much power as possible, both domestically and abroad, which invariably leads to corruption and pissing off the masses. I believe the only reason why people won't revolt right now is simply because they have too much to lose if the revolt is unsuccessful. Once people feel like they have nothing to lose, that's always when you see the big uprisings. So if the current political/financial leadership is wise they'll make sure things don't get too bad.

But who knows, maybe the next one will actually be worse that 2008. There was so much horseshit in the 2008 crash, like the disappearance of the TARP bailout funds, etc, sometimes I wonder if they're just testing us to see how much horseshit we'll let them get away with. Used to be that they'd at least try to cover up the bullshit but lately it's like they do it right out in the open like "so what? what are you gonna do about it?" and I think they're right, as long as the people feel they have something to lose we won't do shit about it. Once things get desperate though they'll all be strung up.

 

[It's HK-47]

The problem with trying to compare the numbers here with any of the numbers in the past is that there's absolutely no precedent for this. Even if we were a 1:1 match on the rate of unemployment with any other period in history or if we went rocketing past the recession or the last depression: None of this is organic.

We've never just shut off an economy before, hence why the unemployment claims chart went rocketing through the ceiling. People aren't wrong to say that the best we can do is speculate because nothing like this has ever happened before, so we don't have any idea what will happen when we flick the switch back on. Comparing it to the economics surrounding the 1919 outbreak makes a modicum of sense, but that can't factor in all of the enormous changes the world has gone through since then. We weren't even a fraction as connected back then as we are now.

This is going to be a period in history that will come up in every economics class in the future.

 

[mindlessobserver]

The problem with trying to compare the numbers here with any of the numbers in the past is that there's absolutely no precedent for this. Even if we were a 1:1 match on the rate of unemployment with any other period in history or if we went rocketing past the recession or the last depression: None of this is organic.

We've never just shut off an economy before, hence why the unemployment claims chart went rocketing through the ceiling. People aren't wrong to say that the best we can do is speculate because nothing like this has ever happened before, so we don't have any idea what will happen when we flick the switch back on. Comparing it to the economics surrounding the 1919 outbreak makes a modicum of sense, but that can't factor in all of the enormous changes the world has gone through since then. We weren't even a fraction as connected back then as we are now.

This is going to be a period in history that will come up in every economics class in the future.

I am cautiously optimistic. It's not like all the hard capital has vanished. The store may be closed but it still has its property and inventory. Its just been frozen. If we can get restarted soon things should recover. But the longer this goes on, the greater the danger that the capital starts getting wiped out. The stores inventory may expire, or the owner may fall behind on payments. Which will make it impossible to reopen.

 

[Godzilla1984]

I am cautiously optimistic. It's not like all the hard capital has vanished. The store may be closed but it still has its property and inventory. Its just been frozen. If we can get restarted soon things should recover. But the longer this goes on, the greater the danger that the capital starts getting wiped out. The stores inventory may expire, or the owner may fall behind on payments. Which will make it impossible to reopen.

Smaller businesses are dying in droves due to razor thin margins and the lack of liquidity. The majors with liquidity are going to consolidate like we've never seen before.

 

[The best and greatest]

Smaller businesses are dying in droves due to razor thin margins and the lack of liquidity. The majors with liquidity are going to consolidate like we've never seen before.

So what's the solution beside a massive injection of speculative capital financed by the gov?

 

[Godzilla1984]

So what's the solution beside a massive injection of speculative capital financed by the gov?

Let the largest bubble in the history of humanity burst. But the powers that be won't let that happen. Massive injection is already happening with stimulus package after stimulus package. The question at this point is how they're going to mitigate the mother of all inflation hikes since everything that's going on is waking up a lot of financially illiterate normies to how much they're getting screwed over by design. Fun times.