No Recovery This Is a Depression Accept that we are now in a depression, Stock Markets still grossly overvalued, poverty rates increase across midwest, a lots opportunity to regulate the banks,Goldman Sachs reports record profits and still bonusing employees richly, mainstream America goes on a financial diet, suburbs now home to American poor. Few professionals are yet willing to admit we have been in a depression for the last year. You have to understand the position that economists and analysts are in. They work for corporations, insurance, Wall Street, banking and government and if they thought we were in a depression and they publicly announced that all chances for advancement would be lost or they would be squeezed out of the firm or simply fired. Under such circumstances can you ever expect that you get the truth? We dont think so. Furthermore the depression we are enveloped in is far from over. The recession encompassed a drop in real GDP in the midst of a credit crisis. The crisis was the result of over-extended credit, prohibitively low interest rates, massive speculation by banks, brokerage houses, insurance companies, and corporations worldwide. It just didnt happen it was planned that way. We saw that recently in testimony before Congress when CEOs of these financial firms admitted they made a mistake in the process of enriching themselves. The worst sin was the criminal securitization of mortgages and the deliberately criminal mislabeling of their ratings. Then making matters worse those who sold this toxic garbage to their clients such as Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan Chase and Citigroup were shorting the product that they had just sold to their best clients. What kind of monsters are these people? Unethical doesnt go far enough. It was criminal. These are the same characters, along with the Fed, and others, who gave us the dotcom boom and collapse and then foisted the real estate boom on our economy. The result has been deflating assets and contracting credit offset by massive lending, money and credit creation by the Fed and monetization, all temporary expedient measures, which in the context of history has led to failure. This has been in process for seven years. This second major abuse of our system in 14 years has presented a terrible dilemma and that is where we are today. Our monetary policy hasnt worked and wont work and there has been and presently is little fiscal control in Washington. This is no normal recession; it is a depression. We Are In A Depression, Not A Recovery - The International Forecaster
Some errors by the author; The 1930s measure of unemployment overcounted by a considerable amount. Counting railroad pensioners, folks who lived in their parents basement and mistresses as unemployed for example. Current measures undercount to the point where the UE figures are a joke. Despite SGS and other attempts to correct for error the homeless, forced early retirements and many other glitches means that in 1930s terms we are at about 25-30% unemployment. Try 4-6 sets of books for financial institutions not two. This thread should get interesting soon.
Leading up to the French revolution, the Monarchy appeared to be oblivious to the plight of the common people. At present, the American Monarchy (Obama and the corrupt fat cats who support him) are pretending to be oblivious to what is happening. Their motto appears to be that if you lie enough about it it will go away. I do not think it will work.
Michael Darda of MKM Partners disagrees. According to Darda, using the same definition as we do today for U-6, the unemployment rate during the Great Depression was ~45% compared to ~17% today. Also, the employment participation ratio is much higher today. Despite the high unemployment rate, more people are employed in the economy relative to the population than at any time before 1975. Thus, the impact of unemployment and the marginal contribution of labor was much higher in the 1930s than today.
To the best of my knowledge there were no systematic, nationwide measurements of unemployment in the 20's or 30's other than the 1930 census and a 1936 postcard cenus. So any links you have to the measurements you're referring to, especially definitions, would be helpful. Undercount based on what? The definition of unemployed hasn't changed much since 1948, and statistical methodology has certainly improved. What research are you referring to that says otherwise?
This is not a depression until one side or the other decides it is to their political advantage to say it is a depression.
The worst happens before it gets better. It may yet not even be a depression, and still in the recession part of the cycle. Recovery may be farther off than many think, but it is definitely something hard to predict. Who jumped the gun on saying we're in a recovery period?
I believe this is correct it is more than just two sets of books being used at Wells Fargo in the reports to SBA the amounts that were charged as being given to my company at the state court level but were never released changed at least three times I know of when the reports went from WF to SBA.