elleve said:No It Is Not.

I was just at the corner. There was no great depression, only Starbucks.

 

 

 

You must be one of those people who believe that the housing bubble was just a "bump on a log", but you fail to read the facts, much less look at charts like these:

New York Times: Week in Review - Image - Graphic - "A History of Home Values"

A Cute Video to Go with the Graphic

Whatever. Recession means that certain assets will be undervalued. For investors like myself, and several of the regular posters here, this means opportunities will present themselves in real estate and other sectors that haven't been seen in years.

greling said:You must be one of those people who believe that the housing bubble was just a "bump on a log", but you fail to read the facts, much less look at charts like these...

You must be one of those people that cannot comprehend the size of the Great Depression. It was called GREAT Depression, because well, it was THAT big of a deal. For all intensive purposes, the Great Depression (and the recession within it) and its effects lasted until AFTER WWII (that's almost 2 decades, for those counting) and in fact WWII was one of the main economic incentives that HELPED slow/stop it before massive changes in US economic policies.

If you are claiming that this will be the next Great Depression, show me what exactly will cause this economy to slump for 20 years?! And don't forget, even with some of the mistakes that have been made, the economy overall and government in particular, have much better and more extensive tools to aid and guide the economy. So again, explain what will cause 20 years of unemployment above 15%?

RushnRockt said:greling said:You must be one of those people who believe that the housing bubble was just a "bump on a log", but you fail to read the facts, much less look at charts like these...

You must be one of those people that cannot comprehend the size of the Great Depression. It was called GREAT Depression, because well, it was THAT big of a deal. For all intensive purposes, the Great Depression (and the recession within it) and its effects lasted until AFTER WWII (that's almost 2 decades, for those counting) and in fact WWII was one of the main economic incentives that HELPED slow/stop it before massive changes in US economic policies.

If you are claiming that this will be the next Great Depression, show me what exactly will cause this economy to slump for 20 years?! And don't forget, even with some of the mistakes that have been made, the economy overall and government in particular, have much better and more extensive tools to aid and guide the economy. So again, explain what will cause 20 years of unemployment above 15%?

1.) Number of local foreclosures highest since the Great Depression
2.) Crisis may make 1929 look a 'walk in the park'
3.) Tent city in suburbs is cost of home crisis
4.) Tent City growing
5.) Foreclosures exceed sales
6.) Prices soar on inflation worries
7.) Inflation Rears Its Ugly Head Once Again
8.) Economist from ShadowStats.com says inflation is much higher than the Federal Reserve is reporting.
9.) Bank profits plunge 84 percent in 4Q
10.) TREASURIES-Bonds surge as Bernanke warns of bank failures
11.) FDIC Girds For Bank Failures
12.) FDIC to Add Staff as Bank Failures Loom
13.) U.S. banking system is borrowing their entire reserves, currently -$17B
14.) More Americans using credit cards to stay afloat
15.) Wheat prices skyrocket; drive food prices up
16.) Gold hits record high of $992 as dollar tumbles
17.) Fears of foreclosure sparking arson for quick insurance cash
18.) Arson Fires Rise in Walker County With Foreclosure Link
19.) Experts Keep Eye On Foreclosure Arson Cases

Oh, and did you even READ the 8-page report by the GAO? I bet you didn't. I can't even PAY most people to bother reading it. They just shrug it off and talk about how this nation is invincible. Pride ego is and irrational exuberance is what caused the Great Depression to begin with.

Unless we decide to significantly rip away from Social Security and Medicare or stop federal funding of all schools, the U.S. is headed for bankruptcy.

I dunno. I guess some people can't be told, just like some used to believe that real estate "can't go down". We have the largest national debt and trade deficit in history and our manufacturing base is on a record decline.

I figure when the next dip hits, we'll have a lot of jobless workers who can't do much outside of sitting in front of a computer.

We live in the best of all possible worlds. Have you ever caressed an i-phone? I suggest you go out and buy one with your economic stimulus check. Heck, buy it before you get the check. It will change your life, your outlook on life, and make you popular with your preferred sex. The Depression was not so "great" so quit touting it like its the next i-phone. If they had i-phones they would not have been so depressed nearly a century ago. The same can be said about a new mac computer. Very very few people are unhappy with their mac computers. In other words, mac people are happy and happiness is the greatest deterrent to depression.

Blessed are those who travel in circles...

DavidScubadiver said:We live in the best of all possible worlds. Have you ever caressed an i-phone? Umm. You do realize that the i-phone is known to the state of California to be extremely toxic, right?

DavidScubadiver said:Your link, by the way, is to an article concerning Greenpeace's analysis of the i-phone. But I stand by my previous statement. Don't eat apple products. Or fish hooks.I didn't read the link... I was just remember the flap from earlier this year where CA made Apple put a warning label on the iPhone.

Anyhow, I was just reminding you to keep your iPhone caressing to a responsible level, that's all.

greling said:Oh, and did you even READ the 8-page report by the GAO? I bet you didn't. I can't even PAY most people to bother reading it.
I swear to dog that if you pay me I WILL read it. And who the heck is Gao anyway? Is that Mao's brother?

RushnRockt said:We have the largest national debt and trade deficit in history and our manufacturing base is on a record decline.

Mmmmright. You would make a bit more sense if you did not hold on to the archaic idea that manufacturing jobs are the bread and butter of economy. Of course, even there you are wrong, seeing how the tide is turning back with manufacturing jobs, seeing how a weak dollar makes manufacturing more profitable in US than other regions. While copying and pasting the links, did you happen to notice that there are actually Chinese manufacturers building factories in US?

greling said:I figure when the next dip hits, we'll have a lot of jobless workers who can't do much outside of sitting in front of a computer.

Wait, is it dip or Great Depression?! Not to mention, that's a silly statement in itself, seeing how your beloved manufacturing jobs also require quite a bit of computer time nowadays. Those workers must be worthless, of course.

The problem with Doomsday believers is that they think if someone does not agree with them, that means they believe in infallibility of this economic system. I can understand why, because that's the only position you can reasonably argue against as a Doomsday oracle. In the real world, many people believe that there will be a recession and markets will adjust, sometimes severely, and make some people poor and unhappy.

Again, you must not grasp the severity of the Great Depression to think that any one of your links or combination thereof points to 20 years of economic down turn. Do you happen to have a large chunk of population in agricultural sector just waiting to spike the unemployment rate to 20-30%? Do you have as much of a severe tariff system between main economies in the world as in the 1920s or '30s? Do you have severely depleted lands across many states causing Dust Bowl (I hope you know what that is). Are you saying that more than 9,000 banks will fail in the next decade (current articles state ~100, not even close). Is there a forcible return to gold standard? If you can point out at least THOSE factors, then MAY BE you have a good case for a depression, but nothing deserving of a name Great Depression.Why do we have to exactly replicate what you are saying to have a GREAT depression? We don't live that exact lifestyle, but the stresses on our current system are no less. Did we have 2+ incomes per household back in the 1920s? Did we have weapons of mass financial destruction that may freeze credit markets far worse than 1000 bank failures? In fact, my observation is the only thing that's holding up the market right now is blind optimism. At the moment everyone realizes how bad, that will be the bottom. And when everyone realizes how long, that will be the long bottom that rivals the Great Depression.

There may be no spike in unemployment this time around because we never had a jobs recovery since the last recession, and the only reason the lack of job creation did not set off a prolonged recession was the fruits for the next recession was being sown from the seeds of the greatest housing bubble...continued credit expansion, continued spending, and now extreme debt levels for the majority of Americans responsible for the expansion. The infusion of so much credit into the economy is what replaced job creation since the last recession so don't look for great upticks in unemployment this time to cause a contraction. Now that credit is contracting....

Furthermore...did we have mega banks, so number for number is not what we should key in on. 1T (trillion) loss of credit from the system this time will make whatever the large number of bank failures in the 20s look like peanuts.

Standard of living will go down, not just a rebalancing of the balance sheets.

The key question I ask is what has been the nerve center or lifeblood of our economy? And will that be ensured continued growth? Is it even possible to squeeze more indebtedness on the country and its citizens and continue the consumption weighted lifestyle?

My optimism lies with the what's past this period, after Americans stop binging on crap and realize they are forsaking tomorrow's future by focusing too much on maintaining what's left of their current standard of living. Not only do we have to rid of the excess and pay past debt, but we have to redirect our resources (savings and productivity gains) toward future challenges. That turnaround requires a GREAT DEPRESSION and why having one is probably the best medicine.