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Sunday, Nov 8, 2009
This just makes me want to hide under the bed. I knew the income inequality was bad, and the safety net was full of holes, but Yikes! Why, oh why, are the lnuatics running the asylum?
I think whichever Democrat wins the nomination needs to hammer these points home: if we follow the Republican plan of panderin to the rich and screwing the poor, we are all going to be living under bridges. Incredibly, it's still the economy, Stupid.
While I'm not advocating a depression, there were to me a lot of good things that came out of the (capital D) Depression: the many programs of the New Deal, including the CCC, which put my father to work building trails, cabins, rock walls, and many other improvements that last to this day, and the WPA, which put a lot of really talented people to work who would otherwise have advocated solutions that probably sounded good at the time. The federal government instituted a number of regulatory reforms and make-work programs that made the difference between mass starvation and a slow crawl back to stability. In addition, there were millions of people who learned a lot more about waste, efficiency, and the basics of life, lessons forgotten by legions of middle-class people who thought that someone else would pick up the trash and pay the bill. Depression is ugly and avoidable, but it may not be the end of the world....
but the problem is the people who are the problem aren't going to fix a problem they can't see due to standing in the problem and enjoying the view. what a problem!
america, and the world, needs democracy. government of the people, when by the people, will be for the people. and not otherwise. (sorry, abe, good first draft, tho')
My dad worked his whole career for Ma Bell. AKA blue collar union job that mostly doesn't exist any more. When he was young (late 50s), the old-timers told him stories about the depression.
What Ma Bell did, during the depression, was cut everyone's hours equally, and they didn't lay off anyone. The phone guys knew they had the loyalty of each other, their union, and their company, and they all survived. No one starved. They got down to where they worked 10 hours a week or less, but no one starved. In the 50s, they reminisced about how those were the best years--they had all the time in the world to camp, to fish, to work on their houses with scrounged materials, to play with their kids.
It's another relic that will unfortunately never come again, that concept of loyalty to and loyalty from a company. I've been laid off, I've been left behind when my friends got the axe. All of it sucks. I'd like to hear about just one company that weathers this economic storm by keeping their workers instead of dumping them like rotten fish.
You make good points, but two big problems: 1) we got out of the last depression in large part by having Europe taken out as an economic competitor by WWII (which also helped us ramp up our industry); and 2) if there is a global depression, no one will give a shit about global warming, which, if scientists are right, isn't something we can live with.
And Juliebird:
I agree. Unfortunately I don't see either Democratic candidate risking sounding like an "anti-business liberal" in the general election, which will leave them little mandate to take drastic action on the economy once in office (until it's too late, of course, in which case they can try any crazy shit they want).
The kind of government control necessary to land this wild economic plane ride is something our nation just won't accept (we only accept government control over personal things like sex, political beliefs and torture -- not big stuff rich people would rather keep to themselves).
I fear the worst and hope I'm wrong. Thank you Mr. Leonard for another lucid contribution.
I have the unpleasant feeling that it would take a Depression-era WPA program to get a damn thing done about any of our ignored infrastructural crumbling.
Which would be the only good thing about a depression.
Everything else? Can you imagine today's Americans lined up politely to wait for a bowl of soup? Or sleeping in the parks on a 90 degree night unmolested? Or sharing an apartment with a dozen relatives or strangers? That's what my mother remembers.
We all better hope God himself doesn't let it happen again, because none of those things I just mentioned are going to work out so well.
You hear economists say that recessions are needed to purge excess and to make businesses and the overall economy more efficient.
It seems we need a Depression to purge our country of right wing economic ideology, and also to teach American voters that they vote their values over their economic interests at their peril. Maybe a Depression will mean there won't be so many 'Reagan Democrats' happy to join with Wall Street in the GOP coalition.
Yes, we seem to hear "since the Great Depression" every day, and I'm certain that we are heading for another one.
And how did we escape the last Depression? Why, gearing up our industrial might to fight a war, of course. Of course, today we have outsourced all of the industry, and we are fighting way more war than we can afford already.
We won't get out from under "Depression II" until our economy starts producing things of value again, instead of mega-deals and Big Macs. How about 10 million new jobs for the green economy? Let's put our workers back on line building 50mpg autos domestically, and building wind turbines and solar arrays.
All it is going to take is to wrest the controls of government away from the rich, if we're not too busy watching Fox News and American Idol...
Or you can just throw in the towel and invest in apple farms and soup kettles. If we get into the next depression it is going to take a long time to get out.
Much of the initial coverage about Fort Hood turned out to be wrong. Is there anything wrong with that?
The accountability imposed by another country for the CIA's kidnapping and torture reveals much about our own.
Fox News' morning show plays to type, talking about whether Muslims in the Army should face "special debriefings"
219 Democrats and one Republican join in favor of the legislation, which passed by a narrow margin
The survivor and author is upset about comparisons some on the right are making to genocide
Salon headlines in your mailbox
