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I live in a certain Celtic country with higher GDP per capita than the US and we're contracting harder and faster than in the eighties (where we were in a depression, albeit not a great one). We're looking at 18%+ unemployment by the years end assuming the trend of losses slows down enough and even the mainstream consensus is no recovery for about 3 years.
England, but its fairly acknowledged depression is almost guaranteed their. Spain too. Japan contracted at a 10% annualised rate last quarter, and this one's already worse. Iceland is knee deep in food queus already. China is bleeding tens of millions of jobs.
This is the first global credit contraction since Bretton Woods, bubbles that make the mortgage one look like a picnic; namely derivatives, credit cards and bonds are only BEGINNING to deleverage, and the IMF are acknowledging that advanced economies have begun a depression.
I'm sorry, but the deleveraging/bursting of these bubbles is unlikely going to be a normal "bad recession":
Remember 1929 and 1930 were considered first two years of the depression, despite lowish unemployment etc. (though things really deteriorated in latter half of 1930)
Also, I don't believe US Monetary Supply doubled over a couple of months even in 1970s. When liquidity starts flowing in a short term 1930 like confidence boost, you might see a little inflation...
Also unemployment is calculated differently. You're at 15.4% seasonally unadjusted underemployment (includes part time and discouraged workers) on the U-6, 13.8% adjusted, and that doesn't include the long term unemploymed that Clinton knocked off the workforce entirely.
Also check out the averages of 14 modern financial/banking crises. Where do YOU think this one compares?
Reinhardt & Rogoff (forthcoming in the American Economic Review, May 2009) analyse the effects of 14 'severe' banking/financial crises (including the Great Depression, Finland, Japan, Sweden in the early 1990s, etc.) on the economies of the countries affected.
They find on average that there is a cumulative fall of 36% in the house prices and that it takes 5 years for the minimum to be reached.
They find unemployment rises by an average of 7% and doesn't reach a maximum until 5 years after the crisis begins.
They find that equity prices fall by an average of 56% and that it takes approx. 3 years for this to occur.
They also find on average that GDP per person declines by 9.3% and that this occurs over a two year period.
They analysed financial crises that took place in localised countries, not on a global scale. It is really impossible to say what effect a globalised financial crisis will have, and how close to "average" the results are likely to be
Also some great insight from THE pioneer of fractal geometry, and a protege, for a scientific view on the subject and the current previously unmatched level of complexity in our modern day over-rigid (despite all the neoliberal economics) world economy:
I apologise for not being so good at posting links on this site.
Just copy and paste the site you wish to attach, you don't need to use the URL prompt in the posting page. Thanks for the links, it's good to have as much info as possible in these times.
Texdav made a good comment in his post this afternoon about people pulling their money out of banks. Some time back our homeowners association had a meeting. The subject come up with the economy in general.
One of the people there works for Sam's Club. He was asked what people were buying in bulk. He said nothing more than the usual canned fruits, canned veggies, etc., except for one small item. There has been a run on safes. Security safes! Doesn't surprise me at all.
Great observation! The people in the 1st Depression were so classy, despite all their financial problems. Today, all we see is people behaving like animals, which is why I'm scared and rightly so. I'm glad to know I'm not the only one seeing this.
I remember how kind and helpful people were right after 9-11 and Hurricane Katrina. Hopefully, folks will rise to the occasion this time, too.
Texdav made a good comment in his post this afternoon about people pulling their money out of banks. Some time back our homeowners association had a meeting. The subject come up with the economy in general.
One of the people there works for Sam's Club. He was asked what people were buying in bulk. He said nothing more than the usual canned fruits, canned veggies, etc., except for one small item. There has been a run on safes. Security safes! Doesn't surprise me at all.
Funny you say because my dad just purchased a large safe because he feels we are in for some bad economic times. He felt his Cash and my mom's jewelry must be safe guarded. He is remembering the bad times his parents went through during the last depression.
I don't know about anywhere else but people where I live are not drawing there money out of the banks. Alos with unemployement were its at we are not near to a depression. In the great depression 90% of people were out of work and the foreclosure rate was much higher.In fact so fa5 this is not as bad as the 70's recession especailly with inflation.
Don't be ridiculous. The unemployment rate was 25% at the worst.
I remember how kind and helpful people were right after 9-11 and Hurricane Katrina. Hopefully, folks will rise to the occasion this time, too.
Yeah they helped 9-11 because that was NY.
Katrina displayed a disgusting display of American People. The higher ups didn't care about the poor black. We can go into countries in war but we couldn't help our own for days. Disgusting and revolting. Un American. That's what that was.
Funny thing is the OP here is 2 years old and a new comer here just revived it. The funny thing is here is a 2 year old post talking about a depression when this govt only just officially announced/called it a recession back in November 4 months ago.
Make no mistake, most cities are in a depression, some places are doing a bit better but still labled as a recession.
A statistician would crunch numbers now and say that we have more foreclosures now based on population now as opposed to then. My Mom likes to say yea but you had grown men selling apples on street corners then. Anyone see what people are doing today? Maybe not selling apples but you see grown well groomed obviously once professional men twirling advertisment signs for pizza palors now. It dont pay the bills but it puts rice and beans on the dinner table.
Funny thing is the OP here is 2 years old and a new comer here just revived it. The funny thing is here is a 2 year old post talking about a depression when this govt only just officially announced/called it a recession back in November 4 months ago.
Make no mistake, most cities are in a depression, some places are doing a bit better but still labled as a recession.
A statistician would crunch numbers now and say that we have more foreclosures now based on population now as opposed to then. My Mom likes to say yea but you had grown men selling apples on street corners then. Anyone see what people are doing today? Maybe not selling apples but you see grown well groomed obviously once professional men twirling advertisment signs for pizza palors now. It dont pay the bills but it puts rice and beans on the dinner table.
Where are you seeing this?
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