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Remember the Great Depression?

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Started 4 years ago by Brent
Latest reply from gramarye

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Brent
Columbus
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ummm, yeah. Courtesy of the subprime mortgage meltdown and the BBC
http://subliteratecinephile.blogspot.com/2008/03/return-of-hooverville.html

Posted 4 years ago #
bayrea
Dublin, Oh
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The reason you didn't see it in the local media is because the story is bunk. This is from Camp Hope in Ontario, California. THe camp has been there since last summer to accomodate the population of homeless that has been growing in the area for the last five years. It's a homeless shelter- albeit one that's outside. Very few of the people there are subprime victims. According to the latest survey in the camp, 26% were mentally ill. You can read about it here: http://www.pe.com/localnews/redlands/stories/PE_News_Local_D_tentcity28.2915a96.html
The BBC went out of their way to make it look like everyone there is a subprime victim. It makes for a sexy story. But it's not true. Again- don't trust the media. Even BBC.
Maybe you should read the whole website before posting. Although I would not be surprised to see this kinda thing pop up for real in the oncoming months. Instead of Hooverville we would have Bushtown!

Posted 4 years ago #
lifeliberty
Here
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stopped to get gas last night. normally I'm not bothered. but last evening there was a guy sitting there with a gas can and his dog in front of the door which I suspected was wanting $, and another girl carrying a baby who came up to me and asked for some $ as well, I assumed for gas but didn't ask.
i suppose this might have all been a coincidence, or telling of times that are to come.

Posted 4 years ago #
BetsyB
Westgate
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Big difference between then and today, back in the depression, there just weren't any jobs. Now we have jobs, some not the most desiarable, but jobs nonetheless and people feel they are too good to work them. You used to have immigrants adapt to American customs and learn English so they could find decent jobs and try to provide for their families, now they don't want to break through the barrier, except to get in line at the government aid office.
That is very generalized, but you see alot of crap just doing everyday things like waiting in line at the grocery store here on the westside. People with a couple kids and one on the way, living on food stamps and not understanding a single thing the check out person is saying. Sometimes those moments make it hard for me to stand there politely and not say a thing.

Posted 4 years ago #
mightymighty
North Side
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my G-ma would beg to differ, we ain't even close to great depression level shite, if anything the country is just extremely moody right now.
Prices are just up, which sucks, but we're not seeing food lines and masse unemployment up to nearly 25%.
But things are starting to seriously suck, but it'll take a few years for us to see the full effects of this.

Posted 4 years ago #
Cyclist
Peach District (State of Mind)
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James Kuntler's Response...
March 17, 2008
A Real Freak Out
Things are getting very weird very fast -- and will probably get even weirder, faster, as the train wreck of bad debt meets the Saint Paddy's Day Parade of bacchanalian excess at the grade-crossing of destiny. The train is carrying America's financial system, but the engine driving it is peak oil, because declining energy resources necessarily means declining capital wealth -- and declining value of all the institutions, instruments, and markers that denote that wealth or hope to profit by trading in it. The fiasco leads straight to the necessary reinvention of American life on other terms and by other means.
I've maintained for a long time that, even among those who recognize we have a big problem, there are many impediments to imagining a credible outcome. One thing I've noticed is that in any given public meeting (or lecture hall) you can divide participants into two groups: those who believe we will 'high-tech' our way out of this predicament; and those who believe we'll organize our way out.
I don't subscribe to either point of view, strictly speaking. Both POV's assume that there will be an orderly transition between where we're at now and where we're headed. They're tainted by the kindergarten ethos of entitled happy endings and outcomes, which has been the chief operating system for the Baby Boomers, a therapeutic bias for placing 'good feelings' ahead of reality -- which also has obliterated the tragic sense of life that acts as the only brake on humanity's inherent hubris.
Ultimately, in my view, the issue of what happens next will be settled not by the fantasies of the algae-biodiesel geeks or the wishful thinking of the sustainable futures organizers, but by the natural, self-organizing properties of a society responding 'emergently' to new circumstances. One of the implications of destiny-as-emergence is the probability that we will try any damn fool thing besides the right things to keep the old game going for a while -- even in the face of obvious failure.
I'm sure our political leaders will mount a campaign to rescue the futureless infrastructure of suburbia. It will necessarily be an exercise in futility. But it has already started. That's what the swindle of ethanol has been all about. And the touting of hybrid cars, and the flimflam of "energy independence." Even the "environmental" crowd" squanders most of its attention these days on how to keep all the cars running on something other than gasoline. They don't question the assumption that we will remain a car-dependent society.
As much as I loathe the suburbs in their grotesque late-stage efflorescence, I can understand why those stuck in them would wish to defend their misinvestments. I just hate to think of the political consequences when their disappointment catches up to the reality that the suburbs will not be rescued. And by that I mean not just the houses but the way-of-life associated with them and all its accessories, furnishings, and activities. Bewilderment will soon turn to rage out in the highway-strip-and-cul-de-sac empire.
Now, apparently, we'll also opt for a bail-out of all those who tried to become rich by getting something for nothing at both ends of the Ponzi scheme called the housing bubble -- the "little guys" who signed mortgage contracts they could never hope to pay off, and the Wall Street playerz who bundled these hopeless contracts into fraudulent securities (and their enablers in the ratings agencies, plus the hedge fund smoothies who tried to cash in by using recondite algorithms to dissolve the risk associated with imprudent lending.) The bail-out is likely to accomplish nothing except the more rapid bankruptcy of government at all levels and a second Great Depression at ground level (worse than the first one).
Over the weekend, the Federal Reserve engineered a $30-billion dollar Saint Paddy's day present for the JP Morgan bank by handing them the corpse of Bear Stearns. The object of the game is to prevent the "assets" of Bear Stearns from going to the auction block, on which they would be discovered to be nearly worthless, which would instantly render all similar assets held by the other big banks to be similarly worthless, and would result in a universal margin call that would pretty much unwind the hallucinated "wealth" acquired the past ten years.
Despite the heroics around the fate of Bear Stearns, it looks like the financial system is tottering anyway. Perhaps the last trick left in the rescue bag will be the 100-basis-point drop in the Fed rate rumored to be announced tomorrow. It won't help any of the big banks, since their problem is holding liabilities in excess of assets. Almost certainly it would crater the US Dollar.
The next thing in store for America, in my opinion, will be a rather new surprise: oil-and-gasoline shortages. While frightened money pours into the oil futures markets, driving the price up, strange behavior will start brewing in the actual physical allocation process. Imports of oil and gas to the US may not be as reliable as it had been when America seemed to be a solvent nation. The exporters may be changing their terms of doing business with us -- and that's nearly two-thirds of all the oil we need. The public would probably suck up oil price increases indefinitely, but shortages are going to be something else. A real freak out

Posted 4 years ago #
mightymighty
North Side
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well we're getting the shanty towns!

Posted 4 years ago #
ladyryokomuyo
Fiddler Green
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Big difference between then and today, back in the depression, there just weren't any jobs. Now we have jobs, some not the most desiarable, but jobs nonetheless and people feel they are too good to work them. You used to have immigrants adapt to American customs and learn English so they could find decent jobs and try to provide for their families, now they don't want to break through the barrier, except to get in line at the government aid office.
I'm curious as to how you managed to ascertain all of this from standing in line behind someone in a grocery store. As several Pew Reports have indicated, there is a lot more factors for immigrant mobility than pride.
For a less dense analysis, Christian Science Monitor also addresses this issue.

Posted 4 years ago #
brothermarcus
West Siiiide
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BetsyB wrote You used to have immigrants adapt to American customs and learn English so they could find decent jobs and try to provide for their families, now they don't want to break through the barrier, except to get in line at the government aid office.
That is very generalized, but you see alot of crap just doing everyday things like waiting in line at the grocery store here on the westside. People with a couple kids and one on the way, living on food stamps and not understanding a single thing the check out person is saying. Sometimes those moments make it hard for me to stand there politely and not say a thing.
Sorry to say it, but I'd advise shifting your focus... these moments make it hard for me to stand there politely and not say a thing. The vast majority of immigrants, if I may generalize as well, are more than willing to take on unappealing jobs. Many illegals work several unappealing jobs, pay taxes, and never make a single contact with our government benefit programs because they are afraid of making any contact with the U.S. Government. Many immigrants in the Columbus area are refugees from an environment where being alive day-to-day is not guaranteed... their culture may even dictate that a man says if a woman is allowed to learn English or join the workforce or go to the market at all. If you don't like a legal immigrant using a food stamp card, would you prefer the US Dept. of Agriculture not give out these benefits? We can just have individuals begging for handouts outside of the market everyday when $7 per hour doesn't cover rent, auto insurance, car payment, childcare, clothing, utilities, gas, insurance, diapers, etc...
Take ANY cross-segement of people, and there will be winners and losers, whiners and people with a backbone, cheaters and people with integrity... socialism breeds a mentality that one can do just enough to get by and milk the system, and to a certain degree we have a class that is willing to exploit our socialized systems in the same fashion, living at a standard that I personally could never live at. By and large through personal experience I see the people in that class are not immigrants. In general the immigrants I've worked with are far more likely to take advantage of a hand up, a stagnant section of citizens perpetuate a culture of poverty and irresponsibility I see far overshadowing the immigrant population.
I'm all for holding up a mirror, just don't stand behind it.

Posted 4 years ago #
WildmanDan
W. Hubbard/Vic Village
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My two sets of grandparents (deceased) were all born roughly around 1900 and lived through the depression raising my parents. For whatever reason which they never talked about, it hit my mother's parents worse. You could just tell by the way they still did things trying to live on the land even more than farmers usually do and still finding ways to stretch everything.

Posted 4 years ago #
Lenny Pepperidge

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Probably too early to compare this to the Great Depression...yet. I think a more apt analogy for where this country is headed is the seventies--the, till then unheard of, combination of a stagnating economy with high unemployment combined with steep inflation and high commodity prices.
For a very thoughtful, and in my opinion correct, take on how our problems are linked to the Depression--or more precisely to our undoing of the economic regulations and oversight that we instituted as a result of the Great Depression--read the linked article.
http://www.prospect.org/cs/articles?article=the_bubble_economy

Posted 4 years ago #
gramarye
In Exile
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(1) LOL @ Kunstler using the word "playerz."
(2) When he says this ...
Ultimately, in my view, the issue of what happens next will be settled not by the fantasies of the algae-biodiesel geeks or the wishful thinking of the sustainable futures organizers, but by the natural, self-organizing properties of a society responding 'emergently' to new circumstances.
... I actually agree, but I just can't see how he possibly gets from there to the rest of his conclusions. The "emergence" theory actually favors the capitalist-technophile angle. That's exactly what the tech advocates envision happening. The only thing we differ on--significantly--is what we thing the "natural, self-organizing properties" of society will lead society to organize.

Posted 4 years ago #