Business The Sun News Saturday, Jul. 25, 2009 Recession eerily reminiscent of Great Depression http://www.thesunnews.com/business/story/996537.html Financial institutions helped develop consumer credit in the 1920s, as postwar prosperity raised the standard of living and old ideas about the burdens of debt quickly disappeared. Americans became so enamored of credit and layaways that many couldn't survive without them. Of course, the Great Depression eventually changed that. Sound familiar? "There's a very odd and overwhelming parallel between what's happening now and the aftermath of the 1929 stock market crash," said Charles R. Geisst, author of the recently published "Collateral Damaged." "Credit in both time periods was vastly overextended, leaving the deflated consumer unable to keep the momentum going and a depression or recession to immediately follow," he said. Geisst's book tracks the history of credit, which he said grows as wealth increases and the political environment allows for easier borrowing, maybe even encouraging debt. He also details what he calls "cannibal consumption," or eating away at one's own equity by taking out a loan on a home to pay off credit card debt. The average American household carries more than 13 credit cards, and more than 6,000 different types of cards are presently on offer - suggesting that the credit phenomenon is more than just a trend, Geisst said. "There's a connection between consumer spending and economic markets that eventually bust under certain conditions," he said. "Right now we'll see a slowdown in spending that will put us back on the track the U.S. was on in the 1950s and 1960s. We can see that these problems are cyclical." HONEY, I'M HOME Stress more of a factor for married couples Being out of work is stressful. Being married may make those worries weigh even heavier. Unemployed husbands and wives recently surveyed noted experiencing stress more often than single job seekers, 81 percent to 51 percent respectively. The poll of 2,261 U.S. adults, conducted by Harris Interactive on behalf of employer information Web site glassdoor.com, also found that more than a third of employed and unemployed respondents said job stress associated with work or finding work caused physical or emotional symptoms such as anxiety, insomnia and high blood pressure. The highest rates of stress were reported among those between ages 35 and 44, while two out of three said the stress affected other areas of their lives. Nearly 40 percent of job hunters said it hindered their personal relationships with friends and family, while almost a quarter said work-related stress had an impact on their relationships as well. "Especially during an economic recession, many are scared to death that they'll be out in the open job market," said Rusty Rueff, career and workplace expert for glassdoor.com. "Dealing with your worries and then those same worries of your spouse can feel like the weight of the world on your shoulders, so it makes sense the number is so much higher for those in a marriage or with a family." The Harris Interactive poll was conducted in the United States between June 22 and June 24. The Associated Press
unemployment benefits and other govt. services were not around in the "great" depression. As much as you hope and pray the economy falls off a cliff, you'll have to wait till the next republican contract on America. And that's going to be a very long time.
I couldn't be more disappointed with Obama. He is tragically allowing the same assholes who put this country into the bind it's in run things. He has reneged on his promise as a true reformer, and has lost all credibility on the economy. This is why we need a viable third party, that refuses to be financed by private interest groups. Obama is driving the U.S. off a financial cliff. Anyone who can't see that we will either need to resort to currency debasement or a war to get out of the problems we face has no concept of reality. And how dare you claim that I "hope and pray" the economy falls off a cliff. First, it already has. Second, I'd do anything in my power to see American Politicians do what's best for their American Constituents, rather than adhere to some globalist scheme which attempts to create some sort of bizarre equilibrium by forcing Americans to work for the wages that citizens of dictatorial regimes slave under.
Very similar to 1929-30 so far, and similar to several contractions before that going back to the 1700s. Read some of Bob Hoye's articles for more on this.
Oh, I don't know about that. I'll bet the Nazi-esq manifesto (disguised as Universal Government Health Care) will be seen as quite a reform job by historians....
There is far too much intervention to relate post 1929 crash to what we're seeing now. Definitely agree that prior 1929 had remarkable similar scenarios to pre-2008 bananas
Instead of spending all your negative energy on posting why the economy will fail, try researching the reasons why the depression happened. Lack of govt. oversight in the financial industry and rampant and fraudulent speculation using 10X margin. Only blathering idiots and half-wits believe govt. has no place in regulating an industry driven by the baser human instincts. That's how you end up with garbage paper being rated AAA and sold to unsuspecting investors. It's going to take a very long time to clean up this republican mess. As long as we can keep the govt. away from the grubby incompetent hands of the crooked republicans, the depression scenario will not be repeated.
Those repubs!!!!!111oneoneuno Impeach Barney Frank and the republican congress we had for the last 4 year... wait a minute... I just realized I'm a liberal hack.
The premise of this thread completely ignores one of the largest factors in the 1930's depression: Political instability across most of the industrialized world, except U.S. and Britian. Forget about opening up a manufacturing facility in Europe or Asia. Who would want to build export channels to these countries if goods could be siezed without due process? International investment in the 1930's was at a standstill. The economic environment now is 180 degrees opposed to then.