What Would A 21st Century Depression Look Like?

[THUNDER HANDS]

I mean, I can understand a great depression when things like phones and cars were new, and televisions hadn't been invented yet. But how could there possibly be a depression with things like cable tv, the Internet, ect.

That would be really odd. I can't imagine some people downloading video of breadlines on Youtube and tuning into MSNBC to catch coverage of people migrating from one city to the other looking for jobs.

I mean, what the hell would a Great Depression in the Information age look like?

[K Gardner]

1. You're assuming your cable company stays in business and you HAVE cable :-)

[msallied]

4. That scares me... My dad is a sub-contractor for Time Warner

I wonder what this is going to do to his business.

[johnaries]

16. Bankrupt it. Sorry.

[depakid]

17. or that people have discretionary income for an internet connection

The waiting lists at the libraries would probably be weeks long.

[Hugabear]

21. Hmmm. Bet more people would start reading for entertainment

That might be a good thing.

I've always wanted to be an author.

[msallied]

22. I am an author. I keep thinking to myself...

that maybe this would be a time in American history when I can make a name for myself. It's times like these when people either make great art or people turn to it for comfort. I don't care about the money. I care about making some sort of a difference...

[Hugabear]

29. Same here

It would be nice if I could make a moderate income from writing, enough to live on. I don't need JK Rowling type money. It would be enough to just know that people enjoy my writing, that it caused people to think.

It never ceases to amaze me when I go to the bookstore, and see the drivel that gets churned out on a regular basis. I know that I could write better stuff than a lot of that garbage.

[gauguin57]

38. Maybe there will be another Federal Writers Program.

I'll have my hand out for that one. I'll write about anything they want me to. Except for any neocon political philosophy, etc. Any right-wing claptrap. I'll even write about golf, and I find golf very boring.

[rug]

2. People would be selling iPods from the back of wagons.

[Venceremos]

3. Interesting question

I've wondered the same thing myself.

[soulcore]

5. Exactly, it won't happen.

We are far too interconnected now, too big to fail if you will.

They will pass something anyway, and off our tax dollars will go into the coffers of Wall Street.

[Hugabear]

19. Too big to fail?!? I'm sure the Roman Empire thought the same thing.

The United States WILL fail. At least in some regards, at some point in time. No country can remain intact forever.

Even countries that have been around for ages - ie China - haven't always had the same form of government.

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

6. We get to starve at blazing fiber optic speeds

[slackmaster]

7. I'm thinking something like Mad Max or maybe Waterworld

Depending on how global warming shapes up.

[Debi]

8. I worry about the cost of the basics - food/electricity/gas/phone service

I'll gladly give up my cable and internet to be able to eat and heat my home this winter! Text messaging be dammed!

[SoonerPride]

9. Make sure you call it THE REPUBLICAN DEPRESSION

thank you

[Justyce]

12. Aren't they all Republican Depressions/Recessions? Maybe we should

number them, like movie sequels. ;)

[Alexander]

20. Every economic downturn is created by Republicans.

[Maven]

10. What does the availability of FOOD have to do with download speeds?

[RoadRage]

11. I just picture iPod's blowing up and down the street... laptops sticking out of trash cans...

Ughgh.. it sorta makes me laugh, until you really think about it. :(

[slackmaster]

39. I heard a rumor that some companies are planning to make black & white LCD TV sets

:scared:

[johnaries]

13. You won't be able to afford cable or the internet. You'll have to sell

your tv and computer, anyway - because you won't have a home to keep them in. And you won't get much for them, because everyone else will be selling their's too. So you'll probably just leave them whever they are.

[Hugabear]

14. What happens when you can no longer afford electricity?

Let's say that you lose your job, and eventually your unemployment benefits run out. What do you do then?

The one thing about the previous Depression is that many of those people didn't really rely on electricity so much, at least nowhere to the extent that we do.

So high-speed internet, cable/satellite TV, etc won't mean much if you don't have the juice to run it.

[Maven]

15. Exactly.

I think we'd be even worse off precisely because people have become so complacent and so dependent on these conveniences.

[Fresh_Start]

18. last depression there were still family grocers

who'd give credit to folks in the neighborhood.
No more neighbors helping neighbors since we we're all walmarted and corporations don't give a damn about their workers let alone there neighbors

[crankychatter]

23. Imagine the grocery stores in poor communities with NO FOOD on the shelves

Imagine that

Imagine not much more food on suburban neighborhood store shelves where there aren't a lot of well to do developments nearby

Imagine the food that there is being so expensive, people are sacrificing shelter for food

imagine that too

imagine in six months, the unemployment insurance running out and people ganging up outside missions and free kitchens... day labor agencies... a thousand people in line for a dozen jobs.

Imagine civil unrest... martial law... crime and violence escalating...

Imagine a war like WW2 that America is unable to fight, because the Military Industrial Complex is credit driven... and it won't revive our economy

oh, yeah

I can imagine it

If you have a place with your own water and enough dirt for a truck patch... I suggest you invest in concertina wire and claymores

Personally? I'll be at ground zero handing out sandwiches until there ain't no more sandwiches

Then we can all go down to the river... and wash our clothes the way we used to.

[Zynx]

24. It actually would come on faster. This is a more credit dependent economy than it used to be.

[crankychatter]

25. I should add that I think this is an excellent question and I've been trying to visualize the answer

for quite a while

recommended for answers from greater minds than mine

[C_U_L8R]

26. Reminds me of the classic eTrade ad

from bubble's burst of yesterday

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vqBEYey6pRM

[kirby]

27. Is your question a joke?

WTF does your internet or cable tv luxuries have to do with anything?

In the previous Great Depression, unemployment went over 25%!!! Incomes fell 50% and so did prices since no one could afford to buy anything. People lost their entire savings (something we have very little of today in comparison).

[THUNDER HANDS]

32. no, it's not a joke

the point of the question is, how do we have a great depression in this day and age when the world, not to mention the nation, is so small and interconnected.

[kirby]

33. I guess you have no clue what a Depression really is then...

Read up on it and then see if something as trivial like watching a breadline on youtube makes any sense.

[abumbyanyothername]

28. A serious answer.

1) Many banks will fail. The FDIC insurance claim may not be safe (too big for us to honor). The Federal Reserve itself might be one of the banks that fails. I would have some of my net worth in metal coins . . . kept at my house.

2) Anything that is imported will at the least cost more and at worst be unavailable. That includes everything at WalMart, all of your gasoline and heating oil, all of your electronics.

3) Assuming that the farm belt can scrounge up sufficient energy (a BIG assumption) food should not be a problem (as it was in the last depression) because so far we don't have a drought. American farms produce, on average, 700 calories per person per day more than we need to sustain ourselves. This, coupled with a capitalist, for profit, food distribution system is why obesity is our #1 national health issue.

4) It is difficult to imagine how we will retrofit all the unemployed from two of our largest sectors -- finance and government (that includes me to some extent in each sector -- finance law). There will be a lot of unemployed white collar types. At worst, I am moving back onto Grandpa's farm that my mom owns with my uncle. Even taking my share at 1/8 of 240 (or so) acres, I can probably manage feeding me, my wife, my mom and dad, my mother in law and any of the kids (3 + 2 spouses) or impending grandkids (1) who want to show up.

5) Entertainment will continue, but prices will fall. I pay Time Warner $200/month for cable, internet, DVR rental etc.

6) Health care will scale way back. People will die from diseases more quickly (approximately 50-75% of health care costs are incurred in the final 6 months of life). Not sure if costs will drop, but we will definitely use less.

7) We will come out of the mess by reclaiming our energy and manufacturing sectors. I kind of believe that if every member of the international community made a commitment to home grown energy, there would be a lot fewer major armed conflicts. Home grown energy needs to be national priority #1. We need to completely retool the transportation sector to run on electricity or use hydrogen as an energy storage medium.

edit: added in-laws to farm family count.

[PVnRT]

36. #3 - There is a drought right now

It's affecting the South (Alabama, Tennessee, Mississippi, Georgia, SE Kentucky), so it's not the breadbasket...but global warming is also a reality. I wouldn't put much faith into there being no droughts in the midwest and Plains.

[TheDonkey]

30. Robots would attack the gates. The matrix will be mobilized

[Hugabear]

31. Crime. Lots of it.

Especially with the extreme proliferation of guns in today's society. Even if you can sustain yourself and your family, you're going to have to deal with people who want to take your food and whatever else you have by gunpoint.

[depakid]

35. Crime rates and economic conditions are positively correlated

So yep- in a culture that glorifies violence and has few safety nets, one can expect a rather marked increase in crimes of all types.

[Greyskye]

34. Max Headroom

The rich get richer, and the have-nots have less.

All while being medicated by the great opiate of TV. Yeah, it would look pretty much like that. :(

[RichardRay]

37. The last one was like this....

No, I wasn't there, but my mother was and I've been talking to her about it a lot in the last few days. Her father was a reasonably well off lumber broker in Portland, OR. She came home from school on day and he gathering the family to explain that they had no more money and would have to move out of their home - immediately. My mother, her five sisters and my grandparents loaded what they could into the Packard and went to stay with relatives in Idaho. By the time they got there, those relatives were also out our their homes.

Grandpa set up a camp near Meridian, ID along with hundreds of other folks in a similar situation. That was less than two weeks after my mother left for school on a normal morning. For the next six years they lived in the Packard and did crop work around the Pacific Northwest. No one had any money, no one had regular work.

So, what would it be like today? First, forget the Internet as we know it. There are too many smaller ISP's involved who wouldn't last the first month. Forget our food distribution network. Sure, the crops could be grown, but there'd be no way to get them to the folks who need to eat them. Figure on pulling up stakes and moving to someplace where you can grow basic foodstuffs, or where you can beg them from folks who can. My father's father was a farmer in Eugene, OR. Dad had all the greenbeans, corn, tomatoes and beets he could eat and they gave away a lot to folks who couldn't grow. There was just no market and no distribution.

The 'protection' we have against that whole scenario is way to thin to provide comfort. I'd suggest people start thinking about how to fix the problem instead of how to punish the guilty.