The depression largely ended (as far as the U3) before WW2. And neither FDR or Obama started the depressions. You can argue that they contributed to them (which I wouldn’t agree with), but they aren’t ‘their’ depressions. The current depression was due to financial abuses that occured under Clinton and Bush. The economy was in a freefall by the time Obama took over.
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But folks who were making good money during the 1920s were made low enough during the GD to do exactly that. And to stand in bread lines and sign up for relief. If people did it then, people will do it today. They may complain more or drag their feet, but like I said, if the differences is between “sit there on the side of the road and starve” or “work like a slave but at least have a decent meal every day”, then people will do it. We just haven’t been brought low enough yet (and I’m glad for this).
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But even with people in the 20’s making good money (relative to their time), as a society we were much less wealthy then than now. The poor in this country live as well, relatively speaking, as the middle or even upper middle class lived then. How many people, as a percentage of the population, had power to their houses and running water in the 20’s? How many had an automobile? How many had powered appliances? How many ate meat every day? And how long did they have those things, assuming they had them at all? Our current society has had ever increasing prosperity for decades now…we are USED to being able to go to McDonald’s for a burger when we want one, having a coke or a beer in the fridge, and eating meat every day. And we aren’t, as a society, used to working in grinding menial labor jobs for absolute bottom dollars. In the 20’s, what percentage of the population worked in agriculture or agriculture related industries? My guess is quite a bit. Today? A hell of a lot less. Why is it important? Because I think that people who grew up on a farm or doing farm type labor would be more disposed to the kind of work where you give someone a shovel and tell them to dig for 8-10 hours a day for food and maybe a few bucks, especially in the 20’s.
I don’t believe that things are anywhere near bad enough to get most of the unemployed today to do the kinds of labor that was common just to feed your family in the GD. Maybe if things got REALLY bad you’d see that happen…but it would have to be a hell of a lot worse than it is today.
It could shift dramatically, but right now it doesn’t seem nearly as bad as it was then. For one thing, we haven’t foolishly cut off trade or imposed a bunch of tariffs, so we still have that going for us. For another, as I’ve said, we are a richer society today than we were in the 20’s…which means we are more able to deal with this scale of downturn, IMHO.
As for hunger, I just don’t see that as a realistic possibility…not unless we have an agricultural collapse a la the GD as well as a much worse financial collapse. It could happen if we get a perfect storm of problems on top of what we already have, but it seems unlikely right now…and you were talking about 2010’s ‘Depression’ verses the GD, which means that we have only the data to date to go by.
I don’t think it has to do with ‘true grit’. I think it has to do with the fact that the people in the US in the early part of the last century were used to hard times. They weren’t used to even the relative prosperity that some of the ‘upper class’ citizens had…a prosperity that would look fairly meager to the majority of Americans today. A lot of them were raised on farms back then, or worked in some agricultural related field. They weren’t used to things like automobiles or heavy mechanization…they were used to doing stuff using their own backs and hands. When the bottom fell out, they were better prepared to take any sort of work at all, even if it was back breaking labor for long hours in rough conditions and little safety…just for food and maybe a bit of money. With the exception of some illegal immigrant workers in the US, Americans just aren’t used to working like that, in those conditions and for that level of compensation, IMHO.
As a for instance, a lot of folks are out of work today…how many of them have applied to become migrant workers for the big ago-concerns? They COULD do that work…it’s not like those companies HAVE to hire illegals. But it would be back breaking labor at perhaps less than minimum wage. Can you picture a lot of Americans doing this today? How bad would things have to REALLY get before you’d see Americans lining up to do that type of work? IMHO…one hell of a lot worse than things are today. To the point where people are seriously worried about starvation, again IMHO.
-XT
Well, that’s what I have been saying all along. A modern depression on the scale of the GD would be a very bad thing indeed. Everyone thinks they’re middle-class. Even the poor thinks they are middle-class. You don’t see starving people or long lines at the soup kitchen or shanty towns or little kids walking the streets in dirty sackcloth, barefooted. We aren’t seeing these things because things haven’t gotten to depression levels yet. That’s all.
But there is absolutely nothing keeping us from getting to that level.
We don’t see people working back-breaking jobs now because we still have some type of safety net in place and people have some modicum of choice left. Unemployment checks, for instance. Or a person can rely on family members to help because chances are someone in the immediate family is pulling in some dough. Or a person can pick up part-time work here or there. But take away unemployment–which could easily happen if certain people had their way. And let the economy falter even more so that entire families suddenly have no income stream and even part-time work becomes rare. Then what are people going to do? They won’t have a choice but to work in the fields. The Have’s will point the Have-Nots in the direction of the fields and tell them to shut their yaps about not having a “good” job. And because they are starving, the Have-Not’s will obey. When the Have-Not’s complain about not being able to afford decent housing, the Have’s will tell them to get in line for public housing (which will be overburdened) and shut up, you moocher. You will inevitably see tons of homeless and destitute people. The memories of the good times will be with them, but that’s all they will be. Memories. Which can be forgotten eventually.
The problem I see is not that will people will resist surviving by any means necessary and making do with the pittance they get. I guess I think people are more adaptable than you do, and I don’t see people right now being lazy as much as being proud and perhaps overly optimistic. I don’t think people will riot because they won’t be able to afford iPhones or Big Macs. I think they will riot because they will see a system unwilling or unable to help them live with dignity…and they will define dignity as simply having a decent place to live and food to eat (aka, the basics). They will riot because the Have’s will exploit them and make them feel bad for their situations. And the government will have little wiggle room to help because it will be a bankrupt loser with bad credit. They will riot because they will not want to be at the bottom rung of a Third World country.
One memory that people will not forget is that of a government able to do something. If the government shows itself to be unable to help people who were formally middle-class, everyday tax-payers, then you will get very angry people. Again, they won’t be fighting for material stuff. They will be fighting against a society where you can work in the hot-ass sun all day long and but still have to depend on sparse charity to live decently.
Just like the people of the GD did.
Yeah, but then? What’s anybody in America, right now, got to offer that might be better than the establishment?
(Yes, the Arab Spring rebels in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya won without having anything to offer besides “democracy,” but they were facing far worse and clearly undemocratic establishments. The bar would be much higher here.)
What’s so bad about cornbread?
Yes because violence worked so well in Britain and Greece. :rolleyes: And nobody is starving in the US-people are hungry and undernourished but that is not equivalent to starvation.
If we are going by the unemployment rate, some places are already in depression. Upstream someone cited a US unemployment peak (trough?) of 21%. Spanish unemployment is just about there. Further the official US rate of 9 point something is a fiction. It does not count the long-term unemployed and so on. I do not know if the US 21% figure was more or less reliable than our modern 9% number.
In any case, I am becoming more and more a pessimist about this.
When the Great Depression hit, it was politically scary on top of everything else, because there were Communists and Socialists and Technocrats in America, all taken seriously in some circles, who all claimed to have some better alternative to the failing capitalist system. Today there is practically nobody offering any alternatives. So, not so scary in that regard, at least.
There’s nothing wrong with cornbread.
What’s shocking is the idea of not being able to afford flour, a common and generally quite inexpensive staple food, and being forced to eat something else.
http://www.google.com/search?q=tent+cities+in+America&hl=en&rlz=1C1CHFX_enUS443US443&prmd=ivns&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=loZWTobrO-eOsQKAweDEDA&ved=0CC8QsAQ&biw=1600&bih=799
Tent cities in America. The fact is unemployment is a lot higher than reported. But we do have some programs that help those who lose jobs. Unemployment, welfare and some homes having mortgages renegotiated.
The Repubs want to kill those programs.
http://articles.moneycentral.msn.com/learn-how-to-invest/The-real-unemployment-rate.aspx
The unemployment rate is 16.6.
But why would we want people to work in the fields? What would working in the fields produce for employers that they’re not getting now?
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The fact that no one is offering serious alternatives to casino capitalism is what scares me. :eek:
European Social Democracy. This would include a high minimum wage, strong labor unions, and a well financed public sector of the economy paid for by steeply progressive taxation.
Was that ever won by street violence?
Serious question.
Actually they did. The government passed laws to keep it from happening again in the 1930s. That includes Glass/Steagal. But the power of money slowly and inexorably whittled away at it until it was meaningless. Then they killed it.
Our mistake is not learning from it and taking back the control. We need Glass/Steagal and a hell of a lot more regulation. But the power of money and its access to TV ,has convinced a lot of people we don’t need regulation. The financial pros are laughing all the way to their offshore bank.