11-05-2018, 10:34 PM
The difference may be the timing of the rescue of the banks. FDR rescued the banks only after the succession of bank runs that all but destroyed the financial system, putting the economy at the risk of making cash in the bank an unreliable store of wealth. At a certain point, people might get payroll and vendor checks that bounce. Taxing authorities might get checks that had sufficient funds deposited, only to find that the taxpayer's bank had defaulted. All stores of wealth might become irrelevant, and the economy would be reduced to barter.
Much paper wealth that people thought that they had in the 1920s was now void. (One explanation was that the government withdrew funds from the system as a classic deflation).
The rescue of the banks under Obama occurred just before there was a possibility of bank runs. Of course, FDIC insurance and the mandate that the Fed print money to meet banks' needs might have stopped the possible runs. If the autumn of 1929 and the autumn of 2007 are seen as the starts of the economic downturns, then the rescue of the banking system in the late winter 2009 corresponds to the inaction of the Hoover Administration in the late winter of 1931 in the earlier meltdown.
Obama rescued the banks, but he also rescued the people who would fund the reactionary causes set on transforming America into a pure plutocracy If the objective is to prevent the misery of a full-blown 'Second Great Depression' is the object, then Obama and the Democrats in Congress did what is right. If democratic institutions are even more important, the Democrats ended up stabbing themselves in their backs. In 2009 and 2010 America got an abortive Regeneracy. By 2011, America was back to the Degeneracy, reverting to 3T ways that got America into the mess that was the Double-Zero decade.
Question: how long will it be before we have another severe economic meltdown? If you thought Hoover bad, wait until you see Trump denying that a meltdown is underway when one happens.
The Regeneracy is anything but business as usual. In the 1920s, people were looking for the easy, quick buck in highly-marketable securities or real estate that could be traded almost like a stock or bond. In the 1930s people were stuck trying to survive on long-term, low-yield activities that one could not sell off easily. That was small business fitting the interstices that the business failures of the 1929-1932 meltdown made available. That meant small businesses that operated on shoestrings and relied upon an owner creating a customer base. Few people had the funds with which to buy the political process as they would have in the 2010s.
The Republican Party went deep into the shadows in the 1930s; in the 2010s it has so far used salami slicing to destroy one aspect of liberalism after another. The 2018 midterm election that has already begun in many places with early voting may decide at what the salami slicing stops.
Much paper wealth that people thought that they had in the 1920s was now void. (One explanation was that the government withdrew funds from the system as a classic deflation).
The rescue of the banks under Obama occurred just before there was a possibility of bank runs. Of course, FDIC insurance and the mandate that the Fed print money to meet banks' needs might have stopped the possible runs. If the autumn of 1929 and the autumn of 2007 are seen as the starts of the economic downturns, then the rescue of the banking system in the late winter 2009 corresponds to the inaction of the Hoover Administration in the late winter of 1931 in the earlier meltdown.
Obama rescued the banks, but he also rescued the people who would fund the reactionary causes set on transforming America into a pure plutocracy If the objective is to prevent the misery of a full-blown 'Second Great Depression' is the object, then Obama and the Democrats in Congress did what is right. If democratic institutions are even more important, the Democrats ended up stabbing themselves in their backs. In 2009 and 2010 America got an abortive Regeneracy. By 2011, America was back to the Degeneracy, reverting to 3T ways that got America into the mess that was the Double-Zero decade.
Question: how long will it be before we have another severe economic meltdown? If you thought Hoover bad, wait until you see Trump denying that a meltdown is underway when one happens.
The Regeneracy is anything but business as usual. In the 1920s, people were looking for the easy, quick buck in highly-marketable securities or real estate that could be traded almost like a stock or bond. In the 1930s people were stuck trying to survive on long-term, low-yield activities that one could not sell off easily. That was small business fitting the interstices that the business failures of the 1929-1932 meltdown made available. That meant small businesses that operated on shoestrings and relied upon an owner creating a customer base. Few people had the funds with which to buy the political process as they would have in the 2010s.
The Republican Party went deep into the shadows in the 1930s; in the 2010s it has so far used salami slicing to destroy one aspect of liberalism after another. The 2018 midterm election that has already begun in many places with early voting may decide at what the salami slicing stops.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.