I am largely ignorant of the economic conditions of the latter Nineteenth Century as my schooling seemed to skip over that period. The War-fixated US History of American public schools tended to jump from the Civil War to the Indian Wars to the Spanish American War without any concern for other cultural developments. I know from my studies of local history that there were serious real estate booms and busts in the late 1880's, strangulating monopolies, rampant government corruption and mass intoxication that gave birth to the Progressive Movement of which my third/fourth-generation flesh is imbued.

We used to gather around each other' coal fires and roast delicious home-made sausages. We played our violins wearing gloves with no fingertips and railed against Emperor Franz-Josef.

Nowhere near as bad as the USA in 2008. Yak-yak-yak...

Do you guys want to contribute to an actual solution now, or are you just looking for safe tree limbs to snarkily snipe from?

Andrew

No surprise. Giovanni Arrighi has been pointing out this sort of thing since his 94 book the Long Twentieth Century, which he has since updated (not to be confused with Hobsbawm's Short Twentieth Century).

By now, 2008, we ought to have live musicians in our elevators: Live musicians who take requests and have comfortable seats and good health care and good, free education for their kids.

THAT should be the "elevator music" of the twenty-first century, and it would be wonderful. That is the sort of thing we expected, for the USA, and for the whole world. Along with flying cars. (I am serious here, folks.)

Our leaders have given us no progress whatsoever, no imagination and no vison at all.

For most of you the apocalypse would be 3 straight days of no XBox. So please don't tell me to learn to eat squirrel and await the zombie horde. You know approximately shit about shit.

The Great Depression was exacerbated by the drought that hit the Dust Bowl of the US. I think there is evidence of drought in the 1870s in the same area as well (Just read the Little House on the Prairie books with my daughter :-). Have you read any analyses of the intersection between these banking crises and environmental pressures determining if a global depression follows and/or how severe it is? Seems like a topic that is right up HTWW's alley...

We have almost reached the point in this adventure that someone will coin the quintessential name by which this period of time will be known. Great Depression, Long Depression, accurate but not very imaginative names.... we will have to come up with something contemporary and catchy. That way I can bore my grandchildren by explaining how I survived the "______" (insert name here.)

I think it's just called "The Bush Presidency."

We'll see. I'm thinking "The New World Order," a la Rockefeller, myself. Banks are going to globalize and consolidate, assuring us that it will solve the problem, and then we'll get to see why all the theories about national isolationism causing the Great Depression, instead of the inherent flaws of fractional reserve banking, were wrong.

And then the fun really begins as we try to wrest our inherent rights back from the bankers and their political puppets!

Back in December, for the amusement of my friends, I wrote up a letter from the year 2027, looking back at how things were 20 years ago in 2007. Among other things, I wrote:

A look back at 2007, from 2027

• George W. Bush is president.

• Practical fusion power is predicted to be “20 years away.”

• Anyone remember HD/DVD? Blu-Ray has not yet won the format war.

• Television is still mostly analog.

• The Greenland Ice Sheet covers 80% of Greenland, and averages 2 km thick—more than twice the size it is today.

• Oil is less than €70 ($100) per barrel, and priced in US Dollars on the world market.

• The US economy is the largest in the world.

• The subprime mortgage crisis, which began in the latter half of 2007, marks the beginning of The Great Collapse.

At the time, I assumed $100/barrel oil was still years away. Never mind how quickly things have gotten out of control financially.

Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it.

- George Santayana

Unfortunately, our culture has economic amnesia.

I pay no attention to people who complain the end of the world is here.

Right. The sky is falling. Not the same thing.

For 15% of the US population it is already a depression. Nobody wants to talk about that.

Last month's poor are no better or worse from this. They had a minimum wage job or jobs or no job last month and their condition is exactly the same now. In fact min wage jobs will be fairly healthy in the coming months. The fact is that if there is a Depression now it will destroy the middle class not the poor.

Because the rich will always make sure of it.

There were many other parallels between the US in the late 19th and 20th Centuries and China today. The adulterated food and other infamous practices of current China were par for the course in the US back then, which had been foisting inferior and too often dangerous products in Europe and elsewhere, until our manufacturers were finally forced to end, or at least curtail, the practices with establishment of the FDA, USDA and other protection agencies. They were also constrained somewhat by slowly emerging environmental and worker protection standards -- which the Bush administration is striving to undo.

In fact, our manufacturers are back where they were then. Many of the corporations that have been exploiting that country's weak product, environmental and worker safety requirements, and low wages, are owned solely or principally by US corporations. They're also using the availability of cheap Chinese and other imported goods to stifle wages of US Workers.

re: "Because the rich will always make sure of it.

“You can always hire half the poor to kill the other half.”

-Boss Tweed, Gangs of New York

tbuktom and steamhammer:

You two are the biggest morons who post here. Give up on trying to be intellectually cute. Go somewhere else and find a good history book to read. Learn something.