Depression: better now or back in the 1930s? Which would have the higher survival rate?

[Lerkfish]

This was in response to another thread, but I felt it could be a thread starter on its own.

Would a depression be better or worse for us now than back in the 1930s?

consider how close everyone lived back then to a working food source (farm or ranch). The food distribution was decentralized and localized.
currently, most of our food is produced on a larger scale, but dependent upon distribution. Instead of 500 smaller family farms in a region, you have one big corporate farm to supply that region and 10 times that region. Modern times of economic collapse would prevent people from using the barter system to survive, as they did in the great depression. (I'll chop your wood for a breakfast, m'am).

Add to this that usable land per property is almost nil compared to back then due to maximizing property usage in suburbs and reclaiming farmland as housing projects. Therefore, even the possibility of working your own "truck" farm and stretching out your own supplies through canning and stocking back produce is drastically reduced (not to mentiont that no one knows how to preserve food anymore on a personal scale).

Also consider during the depression, there were a lot more possibilities for "tent communities" because there was so much undeveloped land that wasn't owned or at least not patrolled. Migrant farm workers could better survive with these hub shanty locations as they went out to work on the countless family farms (which of course, no longer exist now).

Further consider that the economic structure was buffered by localization. Yes, banks failed, but they failed individually rather than globally.

Another issue is that there is no demand for manual labor as there once was... so the opportunity for the poor to work hard and get even a paltry wage simply isn't there anymore.

so, honestly, we are on the precipice of economic collapse that has the potential to be exponentially worse than the great depression, if it continues further.

[imdjh]

1. There are a lot of myths about the Great Depression, and stuff left out.

One thing left out is that the minimum wage, which while truly minimal was not very well enforced. And as it was not enacted until 1938 it didn't apply through most of the Great Depression.

Add to this that usable land per property is almost nil compared to back then due to maximizing property usage in suburbs

I'll grant you that people in apartments and townhouses are pretty much screwed unless they can use the commons for gardening. However, during the Great Depression there was a great deal of small food production on small lots. My mom and I were talking about this last night. Even people who lived in town often had all their back yard planted (think To Kill A Mockingbird's Radley's back yard planted in greens) and kept chickens or even a hog or two. Try that in suburbia now and you'll get an HOA citation I should think. But I think the more important change was that the people who "farmed" in their in-town backyards during the GD, still knew how to do it because they had been born on farms in the 1870's.

My mom is in her 80's and I don't know why she was going on about this last night, but she wandered into it and delivered something of a sermon on it. Perhaps she was trying to convince herself that we aren't there yet. Her family didn't suffer terribly during the depression, but in her mind they did. Since she is better off now than they ever were, I think she was convincing herself that everything will be OK, even if she's not around for it (birthday coming up).

The Great Depression was also to some degree regional. Grapes Of Wrath is heartbreaking, but not really the story of the eastern farming communities. They often joke that the Great Depression never came to my hometown, because it never left.

[CoffeeCat]

2. Worse today...for sure...

We are high maintenance creatures today. We need ipods, televisions, cell phones, our big houses, cars
and all sorts of other conveniences just to survive.

Back in 1929, people lived a more simple life.

Also, we have farther to fall today. We're in debt up to our eyeballs. We've got credit-card debt, large
mortgages and car payments and other financial obligations. If our income stops now---it's total catastrophe
and we lose everything. And many people--even people who look very successful, are just a few paychecks
from losing it all.

Back in 1929, people didn't run up debt. Credit cards were non existent, and so were McMansions and giant
SUVs.

We're helpless today. Most of us are complete wimps. We don't know how to cook, sew or fix things any more.
We have the Yellow Pages.

Back in 1929, people knew how to build lots of things, sew clothes, do home repairs and elaborate gardens were
common. People today don't know how to fend for themselves. We rely on others and pay them for services more
than we did in 1929.

If we have unemployment levels similar to the Depression--we're soooo, so screwed. It's also important to remember
that unemployment didn't skyrocket during the Great Depression until about 1932. The 25 percent high unemployment
came much later, after the 1929 crash. We seem to be following a similar trajectory.

[Mojorabbit]

3. I think it will be a disaster

especially in the big mega cities. I grow about 40 percent of my veggies and I do know how to can and preserve. I have fruit trees, a beehive and chickens for eggs, all on a little more than one acre.I think it would be a great thing to teach in high school. If we truly are running out of oil the old skills are important for the next generation to learn.

[MADem]

4. There is no comparing then to now. People killed themselves in droves.

People, literally, starved to death. Men were going from house to house asking for "something to eat, anything, a piece of bread, a glass of water." Really. It was common. If a person was sympathetic, the savvy road travellers would put a mark on a phone pole or a stair step near the house, to let others know. Same deal with someone with a large dog or nasty attitude--don't waste your time here.

Unemployment reached 35 percent in some areas. Nationally, one in four Americans couldn't find work to save their lives.

There was no UNEMPLOYMENT INSURANCE. No "welfare," save private, or church, charities. Your unemployment insurance was your FAMILY--that aunt, uncle, or cousin who would move over (you can sleep on the leather foldout couch with Fred, Bob and Leroy) and put an extra potato and a few cups of water in the soup....if they let you stay.

You cannot compare then to now. There was NO safety net. NONE. Picture yourself out on the street with just the clothes on your back and a sack of personal belongings. That's IT. Now, make do.

If you aren't a good religious person, and can go to a mission or a Saint Vincent De Paul for a bowl of soup, a blanket and a spot on the floor, you're under the railroad bridge, worried about being robbed of what little you have, or stabbed for your shoes.

People who romanticize the Great Depression need to rethink. It was so ghastly, to those who didn't have a relative with a city job, who wouldn't let them sleep anywhere--on the back landing, in the kitchen on the floor, on the porch....that it was beyond describable.

People did terrible things, that they'd never have done otherwise, from theft to prostitution, to simply eat.

And underutilization of resources was a common factor of the Great Depression as well. It's not a modern phenomenon.

http://ingrimayne.com/econ/EconomicCatastrophe/GreatDepression.html

[Fumesucker]

6. The point of the OP though is that if it comes to the same point again..

We, collectively, would be much worse off. So much knowledge of how to survive on the cheap has been lost.

[MADem]

8. No, we won't, because we won't abandon entitlement programs.

Even if we have to turn into Iraq Under Saddam, with a false economy and dinars printed like Charmin toilet paper, we won't abandon entitlements. And if we get to that point, there will be a New WPA.

I don't think you get how "bad" it was in the thirties.

We have the internet, now, too. You think that all of the people who planted home gardens in their back yards all had the skills way back when? Hell no--they figured it out, and they had to do it by asking for help, going to the library, getting a book, or who knows what. I have aunts who were city raised who "figured it out" to do their WW2 gardens--and they had to share the tiny patch of land with two other families in a three decker. AND they had no intrinsic skills. They couldn't even cook--they were too busy going out with the boys and working in defense-related industries.

Nowadays, you can Google "Planting a home garden" and there ya go. You can google anything and get a lesson on "how to."

It's not helpful to romanticize the past. About the only thing that you can say about the past, that is less true today, is that families tended to help people more, even people that they couldn't stand, because they knew that there were no other resources. Also, the churches held sway in a much greater way back then, and they could go around neighborhoods and guilt people out of donations and providing work on behalf of the church to support the religious charitable outreach efforts (which have been supplanted now by state agencies that don't require declarations of faith to receive services).

[Fumesucker]

11. California is already talking about ending entitlements..

And being able to look something up and being able to actually do it under pressure are two entirely different things. I have family members who are fairly serious gardeners and they have spent a great deal of time and effort reaching a high level of skill in that field (pun intended).

I know quite well how bad things were, or at least as well as someone who didn't live through it, my parents were both adults during the Depression and spoke of it quite a bit.

[MADem]

19. Your perfect won't be the enemy of the good. "Less serious" gardeners,

if they need to eat, will get off their asses and figure it out. Really.

It's what happened during the Great Depression, and it's what happened with Victory Gardens during WW2. It's the thing that Michelle Obama is talking about when she runs around the WH garden with the little kids--who are growing gardens at their schools as well--and they're not "serious" gardeners, either.

Don't overblow the talent. Yes, gardeners who are REALLY good can do wonderful things, but even crappy gardeners can manage to grow turnips or tomatoes. Hell, you can grow potatoes in a garbage can--and they come out great, too.

[Fumesucker]

22. But will they figure it out before they starve?

There isn't a lot of room for error in gardening for survival, starvation thanks to crop failure is a regular fixture throughout the history of agriculture. There are a great many ways a crop can fail, even if you do everything just right you are still at the mercy of the elements to a big extent.

I have several gardening books, including "The Encyclopedia of Organic Gardening" and also have access to several acres of land on which I could grow food plants and I seriously doubt I could grow enough food to live on year round. I damn sure wouldn't want to bet my life and that of my family that I could grow enough for us to live on.

In fact I have a living family member who grew their own food on this very property back during the Depression and she tells me how hardscrabble that life was, they even grew sugar cane and had it crushed at the mill to get their sweetener.

Just breaking enough ground for a garden large enough to feed a family is a huge undertaking without the proper mechanized implements. Soil on which people have been growing grass for generations is usually very lacking in nutrients and topsoil, getting it to the point it will grow veggies well requires a lot of amendments such as manure.

If it comes down to that, people will be fighting and killing over tilling machines.

[MADem]

55. Of course they will. Jesus, people who couldn't read and write manage to figure this stuff out.

And if you can't manage to garden, get your ass down to the pier or stream and start fishing. Get out your trusty shotgun and shoot yourself a few squirrels--bring 'em home to the missus and she'll make you a tasty squirrel and fiddlehead stew!

Your worst case, dire scenarios are a bit silly. The idea behind planting a garden is to reduce your grocery bill, not become the 21st Century Little House on the Prairie crowd. If you have a large family and soil needs tilling, why, you take turns with the pick-axe if it comes to that. We're not going to turn into a nation of Daniel Boones, in any event. And if your soil needs amending and you can't afford the amendments, why, the Japanese have had a solution for that for centuries. Talk about waste not, want not!

And you don't have to "till" if you don't want to. Did you know you can grow potatoes in a garbage can? It's idiot easy. Impossible to fuck up. You can also do raised bed gardening if you're having too much trouble tilling. You can even hang your tomatoes upside-down from a makeshift version of that "As seen on TV" sack (something I saw a guy do almost two decades ago, who had a home-made greenhouse he made from old windows, FULL of tomatoes of every kind, growing up, down and sideways, in a space that was about five feet by seven feet--in inhospitable UK!).

It's amazing what people can do when they need to make stuff happen. I've seen examples of ingenuity all over the globe--I have no reason to think we aren't as capable as the next folks when it comes to adapting.

[Fumesucker]

65. Crop failures happen..

Even to the best of farmers.

It's a fact of agricultural life that you aren't always going to get a return on your investment of labor.

And just because people couldn't read or write doesn't mean they were stupid or ignorant, that is a very modern conceit.

Frankly I see us as a culture that is "eating it's seed corn", except we aren't eating the seed corn, we're burning it at an immense rate partly to kill people on the other side of the planet that have never really done anything to us.

[MADem]

72. They're not the NORM, though. You're trying to make the unlikely likely.

And you missed the point that I made--which was that people who can't read and write AREN'T stupid (they can farm, after all, and grow a successful crop), but people who CAN read and write have a leg up on them, because they can also read up on what might happen to their crops before it happens, unlike the illiterate person who will have to wait for experience, or rely on oral tales told by those with experience--if they have anyone like that nearby.

We're not eating our seed corn. Your glass is just determinedly half empty. You simply ENJOY the idea of the worst case scenario.

That's your thing--it's not mine.

[Fumesucker]

78. In a survival situation..

A crop failure only has to happen once..

Then you starve.

[Lerkfish]

80. yup, and only more so with high specialization.

say you have the corn blight one year, and you ONLY raise corn, you're screwed.

[MADem]

85. Unless you move to Africa, you're not going to find yourself in that sort of situation.

Though I'm getting the idea you kinda would LIKE to....

[Jack Sprat]

169. In a garbage can???

Without dirt or water? Just throw potato seeds in the garbage can? Does it need to be outdoors?

[MADem]

170. No, you need dirt. Really, though--it's easy. Takes up no space, too!

http://www.gardeningblog.net/2008/06/23/grow-potatoes-in-a-trash-can/



http://www.ehow.com/how_2222722_grow-potatoes-garbage-can.html

[Jack Sprat]

174. That really is amazing.

I would never have thought it possible. Hanging tomatoes and garbage can potatoes. I could come close to making a meal on those. Thanks.

[NickB79]

12. And I can google "How to perform open-heart surgery" in a few seconds as well

But that doesn't instantly make me a doctor.

There is so much knowledge required to be a good gardener beyond "dig hole, plant seed" that it takes years of practice to get it down right.

[MADem]

13. If you compare planting potatoes to open heart surgery, and feel they involve the same level of

difficulty, well, you will DIE if you have to grow your own food. Start planning your funeral now.

My cousin teaches developmentally delayed children to grow their own food in city gardens. She doesn't teach them open heart surgery, though.

Please. Your hyperbole is absurd. You know the phrase "It ain't rocket science?" It AIN'T.

No one is saying (save you) that "Dig hole, plant seed" is ALL there is to it. But it's not a secret society with ways that only you know, either. Get on the YOUTUBE, watch the Home and Garden Network--it's not that hard. It takes time, energy and attention--not a PhD.

[NickB79]

28. I don't need "the YouTube". I grew up on a farm. I know how to grow food

And I also know that despite the accumulated knowledge of generations of farmers and gardeners, my family had years where they did everything right and still had disastrous crop yields, or my grandmother lost half her garden to disease, insects, or varmints. In those situations, there was always the possibility of a better yield next year. In a survival situation, though, you die.

Right now I work in a community garden in the Twin Cities. I have had to educate an amazingly naive populace when it comes to gardening, answering questions that I would have laughed at as a 5-yr old. Can you grow a tomato from saved seed? What's the good of compost? Aren't earthworms bad for plants? :eyes:

And while even the most green new gardeners like the ones your cousin teach can eventually grow a few tomatoes or potatoes, that is nowhere near the amount needed to sustain a person, much less a family. How many tons of food does a family of 5 go through in a year? Does your cousin have each of those children working their own half-acres of land with nothing more than shovels and hoes in the blistering sun, carrying buckets of water for hours on end? How will they preserve that food for use during the winter months? If you make a mistake while canning, you can die of botulism poisoning. Do they understand that you need to grow a wide variety of vegetables that compliment each other, such as legumes for proteins to compliment the starches of potatoes? If you don't eat the right mixture of vegetables and fruits, you suffer from malnutrition. Do they understand how to maintain soil fertility through composting, green manures, fallow periods, and crop rotations?

Yes, on one hand I can see why you think my example was hyperbole. But both heart surgery and gardening in a survival situation are matters of life and death. The smallest mistakes can mean disaster, and you don't get a second chance.

[Fumesucker]

31. Good post.. Thank you. n/t

[tech3149]

34. Your last sentence says it all

If you don't have the resources to try different ideas, one mistake means you starve. I'm lucky to live somewhere that I could feed a hundred families for most of the year. Check out Food not Lawns!

[MADem]

84. If "disaster" is the norm, then you are in the wrong line of work.

And I'm not talking about large, farmstand farms, here, either. I'm talking about a little plot in the backyard that supplements your diet. Hell, get a cow, and drink a lot of milk, then. Don't forget the chickens--and the eggs, too.

Again, the idea is to REDUCE the grocery bill--not play Daniel Boone. We're not, as a nation, going back to the Little House on the Prarie--if we are, then we'd better have some "Bambi shooting" lessons in the park, too, along with seminars on "Rabbits and Squirrels and Boiled Pine Cones--Now THAT's Good Eatin'!"

As for all of the "silly" questions you were asked by those green and stupid people you're teaching to grow things, they all can be answered, without the eye roll, by friendly people on YOUTUBE, if someone wants to do a little backyard gardening. Gee, you learned when you were five--that doesn't make you "better" than people who are learning the skill later in life.


The idea of everyone having to "Farm or DIE" is just a stupid gloom-and-doom postulation, a dire, sick "wish" that resonates with those who have insufficient excitement in their lives, and who find something "fun" about a survival mentality. The distribution system isn't going to collapse, and the breadbasket of the world isn't going to crap out, either. It's just an exercise in perverse wishful thinking to think that's what is going to happen.

[NickB79]

103. During the Great Depression, millions lived almost entirely off what they could grow themselves

And that was one of the questions raised in the OP of this thread. There was no supplementing your diet with garden produce, because what you grew was ALL YOU HAD. For millions of Americans during the Great Depression, these "gloom-and-doom postulations" were REALITY. I have had this discussion with my grandmother about what it was like to grow up in that era. It really was edge-of-starvation territory for many, many people. If we entered an episode as bad as the Great Depression today, that same situation would rear its ugly head again. We had a distribution system in the 1930's, and the US was already the breadbasket of the world then. It didn't stop near-starvation and malnutrition then because no one had money to buy food! If our unemployment rate hit 25% again, like the Depression, where would a quarter of the US population find the money to buy groceries? You can't supplement that which you don't have in the first place.

Frankly, I'm done with this conversation. Your arguments are incoherent, all over the board, and incapable of even entertaining any point of view that isn't 100% in agreement with your own. You actually seem to think that searching YouTube trumps my 30 years of HANDs-ON experience growing up on a working family farm :wtf:

[MADem]

105. We did not have a distribution system back then like we do today. That's just not true.

Trains brought grains and meats to market--not eighteen wheelers. We had no highways--Eisenhower built those after the Second World War. And farms were LOCAL. People didn't get their produce from factory farms, they got it from the farmstand or the grocer down the road. And they only ate seasonal vegetables and fruits, unless they were canned.

We also had no welfare, no unemployment insurance, no WIC, no social security, or disability insurance, no state foster care program, damn few "homeless shelters" (the odd "mission" perhaps) and no Medicare or Medicaid.

I am actually not arguing with the viewpoint that back in the Great Depression, many country people lived on what they could grow. That's not the only scenario back then, though. I don't know why you think I disagree with that, because I don't.

What I am arguing with is this idea put forth that some people will find themselves in that same situation this time around. That just won't happen. The "family farms" today are few and far between. They are the rare exception, when they used to be the rule. Once upon a time, in my own town, there were HUNDREDS of small farms. Now there are two or three. They're gone. They're "suburbs" now. They aren't coming back. People will have to rely on that welfare and unemployment to get by, if they aren't working. If they can grow a little something in the backyard to make the food stamps go further, well, good for them. That's my point.

Don't get angry with me because you can't make your case. I am entirely coherent, I simply am not buying "The end of the world as we know it." Tell ya what--meet me here in a year or two, and we'll see if that distribution system has collapsed and everyone's out in the back yard with a hoe, struggling to bring in the peas as Peak Oil looms and anarchy reigns.

[Lerkfish]

128. you're actually making some of my arguments in this post that you refuted before

when I made the points. I'm glad you've come around to what I was saying.

I was saying that we DO have a better distribution system, you get that. I was saying we DON"T have a lot of family farms...you get that, too (apparently).

The problem is we are too DEPENDENT on the current distribution system-based economy so that if the distribution broke down, for any reason, it would be difficult to replace it with anything workable in enough time.

[MADem]

132. Well, whatever gets you through the night, I guess!

:hi:

[Thothmes]

141. My grand parents lived in Western Oklamahoma during the 30s.

My Grandfather once told me, first the rains stopped coming. The the wheat died, then the dust came, then the cattle died, then the hogs died, then the chickens died. He said the only option was to get to hell out of Oklahoma or starve. He and his family joined the thousands of Okies that were faced with the same problem in the mid 30s. They left Oklahoma, in his case for Washington State. There was nothing FDR or the New Deal could actually do for these people.

[MADem]

152. The Dust Bowl--a lot like Flint Michigan, today. NT

[tech3149]

29. I wanted to respond to your post to counter your arguments

But finally I had to say, this asshat hasn't said anything that makes sense! Why should I try and counter arguments that are so disjointed? Have a nice life and I wish you well.

[MADem]

87. I guess calling people asshats makes you feel special. How sad for you.

You sound like you're more in need of that "nice life," and I hope you find it, so you don't have to insult strangers on the net to make yourself feel important.

[girl gone mad]

143. California is abandoning entitlements.

I'm pretty certain that if foreign countries lose interest in buying our debt, this administration would cut entitlements long before they decided to stop funding the war machine or significantly raise taxes on the wealthy.

[Lerkfish]

14. that's part of my point, yes. The other part is that we are structurally dependent on distribution

that is centralized: Large, one product corporate farms that depend on being able to distribute by transport to larger regions. Say you DO have a corporate corn farm close to you when everything fails. But the meat packing plant is 900 miles away.

Even IF we knew how to pack vegetables or whatnot, we have turned our agriculture into centralized, specialized units.

the structure itself would be unwieldy and would have to be recast -- which would take time and would be resisted by existing units that benefit from current structure.

[Fumesucker]

24. I agree..

We are really only a few days away from food riots anywhere in the civilized world.

[Yupster]

26. Interesting book

"Dies the Fire" that speculates that one day all the electricity in the world suddenly goes off and never comes back on.

Pretty grim picture.

[Fumesucker]

32. If electricity no longer works we die instantly anyway..

The nerve impulses that keep us going are partly electrical in nature, without them we suffocate (the heart will keep beating without nerve input but respiration is nerve driven).

[jwirr]

9. Your incite leads to one question: Will our safety net be strong enough

to avoid the starvation and helplessness. Many of us have nothing else to rely on. If Social Security, food stamps, medical assistance, housing allotments were to disappear could we survive?

[MADem]

16. Like I said--you need more money, you print it. You create a false economy.

The Russkies did it too, with the ruble.

That's how countries that have toilet paper for money feed their people. The currency becomes worthless outside the country, but inside it, it can still purchase basic goods and services.

The USA is the breadbasket of the world. That is unlikely to change. Starvation is the least of our worries. Even many homeless people are obese.

[Lerkfish]

18. Well, we'll have to disagree. The reason many homeless still eat is current distribution

structure.

eliminate that structure, and where will the homeless get handouts? not from city dwellers. Not from corporate farms. Not from governments if Swarzenneger is any indication of the first thing eliminated from failing state budgets.

[MADem]

20. Who is going to "eliminate that structure"--really. Why would they?

These apocalyptic scenarios are asinine, frankly. And even though our rail system ain't as great as it used to be, it still has tremendous penetration and can move tons for pennies over long distances if every doggone long haul truck in the country suddenly went POOF.

If Ahhhh-nuld starts starving people (in cropland California) then there will be a revolt. But that won't happen. He'll close state colleges first. He'll fire people in the Department of Bullshit and Paperwork first. He'll sell off state assets first. I don't think we'll see people clubbing harbor seals and roasting them over a pit by Monterey Bay.

I get the feeling, sometimes, that some people are perversely HOPING for disaster and drama and devastation. Some of these overwhelming, over-the-top, everyone will starve/no one knows how to farm scenarios are like bad movie plots.

A lot of the poor bastards who worked, unwillingly, under the Khmer Rouge didn't know how to farm, either--they learned, though, poor bastards.

[Fumesucker]

23. All it would take would be a severe enough curtailment of oil..

If the price of oil soars high enough then the transportation infrastructure could well grind to a near halt.

[MADem]

33. You'd see trains come back in a big way. All those old right of ways? They'd be

revitalized. That commuter track that sees three trains in the morning and two at night? It would see trains all day long, packed to the rafters.

And you'd see more electric or hybrid technology, and more VESPA scooters, and more repurposed bikes with an electric motor attached, and more shank's mare. And you'd see lotsa these fuel sipping, hard working beauties:

[NickB79]

39. And how many years will that take to implement?

I recommend you read the Hirsch Report on the effects of Peak Oil and the time needed to prepare for such a transition: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hirsch_report

The bottom line: you need to undertake a crash course in MASSIVE preparation programs for a minimum of 10 years before Peak Oil actually occurs.

The problem? We may be at Peak already. If so, we're well and truly fucked. If the economy recovers, oil prices will spike even higher than last year, and we'll be plunged into an even greater depression. And while the world's governments attempt to address the issue of how to initiate massive rebuilding and restructuring with plummeting tax revenue, people starve to death waiting on those electric trucks to bring them food that they have no money to pay for.

[MADem]

50. Oh fachrissake. It takes an hour to uncap an 'unprofitable" well and

start pumping. Those exist all over the nation and they still have lotsa product in them. We'd also be doing the shale oil thing in a big way.

And do you actually think if we were out of oil and "PEAK OIL" was such that there was no gas in the tanks or oil in the barrels, and those Saudis, who would magically be able to live on, what? Sand? would suddenly decide that they didn't want to sell to us, that we'd sit with our thumbs up our asses and not do a thing in the interim? Fuck no. We'd be drill, baby, drilling in ANWR and off the coast of Virginia and California faster than you could say "Oh, Fuck ME!" We'd be emptying the strategic oil reserves. We'd be drilling in national parks. We'd be selling pellet stoves throughout New England. We'd be tearing the tops off of mountains in West Virginia and EVERYONE would be heating their houses with warm, coal-fired, electric heat. We'd be building a couple or ten of nuclear power plants--maybe even one in YOUR back yard!!

I hate it when The Worst Possible And Totally Unlikely Scenario is dragged out in an effort to "prove" a point.

Now, I insist that you do not misdirect this discussion and try to suggest that because I point out these very OBVIOUS solutions to your fake problem, that I somehow am in favor of drilling in ANWR or anywhere else, because I'm not. And I don't want to rip the tops off mountains in West Virginia, or blast out veins of coal in Obama's home state of Illinois, either, particularly. Or build a dozen nuke plants, necessarily. However, if we did go to that, those chores would CREATE jobs. Lots of jobs.

We're already well into your "ten year plan" you know. We are ALREADY transitioning from an oil economy. Look around you. Ten years ago, how many people (except me) used flourescent light bulbs in their homes (I have used them for twenty years, now--but then, I lived in Europe, too, where they were common)? Who had a hybrid car? Who had an "Energy Star" appliance? Who used solar lighting around their homes and gardens? Who had a solar panel or five on their houses? Who even HEARD of wind power, outside the old generators that were mainly used for well pumps on farms? Who used geothermal or solar energy to heat their water or warm their homes? Who had tightly insulated homes and thermal windows?

We're not fucked. Even though, I swear, some people are hoping we are. You're paying six or seven bucks a gallon for gas in Europe--and they're not fucked, now, are they? We're transitioning, is what we are doing. Even though we were founded by revolution, we don't like that kind of agita in our daily lives. We do things incrementally.

Now that the auto industry has been boxed around the ears, they can get off their sorry, beaten asses and put away the SUV plans and get real and start producing an affordable safe car that doesn't cost a paycheck to drive. They CAN do it. They aren't stupid. They just need the kick in the ass, and they've gotten that.

No one's going to starve to death in the world's breadbasket, unless they have anorexia and dysmorphic body disorder. I just don't know why you're wishing for that, though, and assuming that no one will get off their ass and work towards transition, and that only YOU and old Seymour have this awareness. It's just a silly "sky is falling" POV.

[Lerkfish]

58. I honestly don't think you're really listening to or attempting to understand

the points that other people are making in this thread.

You say you have no paitience for what we're posting, yet no one has posted more in this thread than yourself. If you find the concepts so foreign to you, might I suggest there are many other threads in which to post?

[MADem]

88. I don't have patience for this viewpoint that people are going to sit around doing nothing

as store shelves empty and people starve, in the Breadbasket of the World. So NO, Lerkfish, I don't "get" that. And I think this whole apocalyptic spinning is just a goofy exercise. You can be damn sure if the shit does hit the fan, they'll be running TRUCKS on coal, if they have to--no one is going to starve, and food will be distributed.

Now, if you want that stupid South American, rare Amazon unpronounceable fruit that no one had heard of twenty five years ago, but the hoi polloi can't live without now, those people might be fucked. But meat, potatoes, green beans, apples, cheese, the usual stuff that kids ate before "globalization?" We'll still be able to get that stuff.

These concepts, you see, aren't foreign, they're absurd. They require the complete collapse of our government to happen. And in that unlikely fantasy, no one's gonna be carping on the internet about it--they'll have bigger fish to fry.

[Fumesucker]

93. You were the one saying people could learn things from "the Youtube"..

In case of disaster.

And civilizations can and do fall, it has happened innumerable times throughout history.

What is so special about our particular civilization that it cannot come to a bad end?

[MADem]

101. Now you're making stuff up.

People can learn things from YOUTUBE--like learn how to plant a backyard garden to supplement their food supply and lower their grocery bill-- "whenever." They're not going to wait for "disaster" and then race to their computers.

Come on. You're just spinning now. I'm not going to get into an American Empire discussion--see, that WOULD derail the thread totally.

[Fumesucker]

44. In terms of ton-miles per gallon I strongly suspect an 18 wheeler is more efficient

Than those little three wheeled scooter trucks..

I had a friend that had a Cushman three wheeled scooter truck way back in the day, it wouldn't carry very much.

Freight hauling trucks are big because they are more efficient that way, every nickle a trucker spends on fuel is a nickle he doesn't put in his pocket.

I have an SUV that can pull nine thousand pounds and a sixteen foot trailer that can carry six thousand, I could put about four or five of those little things on my rig without much problem. If I drive for maximum efficiency I can get sixteen mpg with another SUV just like mine on the trailer.

We don't have all these little trucks right now and if things do indeed collapse we won't have the time or money to acquire them.

Infrastructure is expensive, both in terms of money and in terms of the time it takes to build it.

[MADem]

51. The piaggio goes to the train, where the freight is offloaded. Or the large truck driver takes

his load to a distribution center, if there's no distribution center along the train line. The piaggio comes from the store (instead of the eighteen wheeler going to the store) and picks up the product that's needed to fill out the inventory.

I had my entire household goods (and that was a LOT of shit, thousands of pounds of junk) hauled up a mountain in three trips in one of those things. They SIP gas. It's a vespa with a truck body around it. If you think we couldn't come up with something like that, you don't think much of Americans.

You could build a better one around a Harley, that could carry much, much more and still be cheaper.

Easier to say "Can't do," though, I guess.

[Fumesucker]

62. But they do not exist now..

And do you have *any* idea what a Harley costs these days?

My son in law sold his Road King not long ago, he got eighteen thousand dollars for it, I could buy several damn nice used pickups for what that thing cost.

Harleys are almost entirely a lifestyle statement these days rather than a serious mode of transportation. Someone made a comment a little while back that I remember rather vividly, it used to be that a Harley rider was outside the establishment, these days you have to be an integral part of the establishment to be a Harley rider.

We already have a huge fleet of F150s on the road in America, far more efficient to use what we already have, put a largish trailer behind an F150 and you'd be surprised how much stuff you can move in one trip.

Making do is what you do when things are tight, you don't go out and buy or build something completely different.

The thing is that it's very hard to go from an extravagant and wasteful lifestyle to one that is frugal and penurious, the mental changes required are extremely difficult to accomplish. I've watched people several times in my life try to do just that and it would have been hilarious if it hadn't been so damn painful.

Frugality is a mindset and to a big extent it is a mindset that has been lost in America for many decades now, getting it back is going to require a wrenching mental readjustment.

[MADem]

94. You could do the same thing with a less costly riceburner. The brand is beside the point.

However, I'm not telling you to get rid of your vehicles--not at all. So long as your bottom line makes your vehicles efficient, or even "efficient enough" (when you consider insurance costs and maintenance and the cost of car notes, etc. along with the cost of fuel) then you should continue to use them. But when the day comes that you need something that's more efficient, the "next generation" of transportation vehicles for people and stuff should be, and will be, more efficient. That is all I am saying.

I am not suggesting that people throw everything they drive away and change the existing system. In fact, the reason that I offered these counter strategies and other modes of transportation is in response to "ideas" presented here that the distribution system is going to "collapse" because of "Peak Oil." I don't buy any sudden, catastrophic collapse, first of all, but I do see a need to gradually become more efficient with our gas useage.

When gas gets to be seven or eight bucks a gallon, the Piaggio is a great bet.

And I'm also suggesting the Piaggio be used at the end of the line, not to transport stuff across country--by the stores, to pick up their goods at distribution centers. That's often how small businesses in Europe use them. If gas gets expensive enough, it's a good solution.

[Fumesucker]

98. I'm not a mind reader..

I can only respond to what you write, not what you think you mean.

You wrote "Harleys" so that is what I responded to.

[MADem]

102. I didn't realize you were quite so concrete. nt

[Lerkfish]

40. I fail to see how anything I've discussed is "asinine".

I feel I've brought up intelligent questions, and politely I might add.

Its a thread topic, and you're welcome to disagree, but your characterization of me personally or my motives is frankly off topic.

You've made some points, but they all seem to be predicated on the assumption that cooler heads will prevail or the existing structure will adapt in order to accomodate the stressors.
All of which, even if true, does not negate my point that the existing structure and systems are not adequate, as they are now, to address an equivalent to a great depression.
Now, what do we do about that?

certainly, we can start NOW to adapt the system to accomodate predictable stressors.

But in order to do that, we have to IDENTIFY what the weaknesses are of the current system. -- kind of the idea of this discussion in the first place.

You're certainly investing in derailing the thread into pure ridicule of my points, but I believe the issues I raise are important ones.

[MADem]

96. Why are you taking this so personally? I said NOTHING insulting about you. Not a word.

I said that these apocalyptic scenarios are asinine, and they are. They require the total and complete collapse of the federal government, and no small degree of anarchy.


Unless your name is "Apocalyptic Scenario," I didn't pick on you.


That's not the thread topic--the thread topic is along the lines of "Was the Great Depression worse than what we're going through now?"

If the thread topic were "What will we do if the federal government disappeared overnight and we were all left to our own devices?" then these dire scenarios might have a place. I'm not the one doing the derailing here, either--this thread has gone from a "then and now" comparison of two economic downturns in the last century, to "Aggggh!!!! DOOM!!!! Glooooom!!!!!! Everyone is on their own!!! You'll have to grow food to survive, and if your crop fails, you're DEAD, I tell ya--DEAD!!! Because there will be peak oil...and no distribution system! None!!!"

It's just .... asinine, as I said. And to repeat, I didn't say YOU were, so stow the hurt feelings.

[Fumesucker]

99. In post #90 you called him ignorant..

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=5840604&mesg_id=5842523

I don't think you realize how you come across.

[MADem]

104. I did not. You have a problem with a word definition, I see

"You are ignorant" is not the same as "showing your ignorance (of a topic)." Ignorance is "lack of knowledge" or the state of being uninformed or uneducated about a matter. And, even though I didn't say the word "ignorant" or accuse anyone of being that, it is really NOT a synonym for "stupid"--though by your post, I believe you actually and mistakenly think it is.

Example: The poster was ignorant of the real meaning of the word. That means "The poster didn't know what the word meant."

All I can surmise is that you don't know the meaning of the word, you think it means something that it doesn't, or you are being deliberately obtuse in order to pick a fight, or something.

[Fumesucker]

110. Your words, verbatim.

""you just are showing your ignorance and inability to discuss a topic maturely. ""

You never mentioned a topic and you also called him immature.

[MADem]

113. Yes, so?

Reread the sentence--the word TOPIC is right in there.

[Fumesucker]

118. We aren't discussing just one topic..

There are a multitude of topics involved in this discussion, from agriculture to transportation to education.

So which topic was it that the poster was unable to discuss maturely and with knowledge, or was it all of them?

[MADem]

122. You've got eyes, you can read the thread again.

If you genuinely want to know the answer to your query, and aren't simply playing the badger.

[Fumesucker]

139. I'm interested in *you* opinion of which topic it was that the poster could not discuss..

Which is why I asked you the question..

[MADem]

146. I have plainly articulated my views already in this thread. NT

[Fumesucker]

153. Sidestep the question, eh?

In other words you have nothing.

[MADem]

155. I have already answered your question in this thread. I am not sidestepping.

If you would bother to read what I write, you'd see that. Instead, you're having a great old time pecking and carping, for reasons that remain unclear to me.

[Fumesucker]

157. This is a very long thread now, I'm not going to reread the entire damn thing..

Looking for some will o' the wisp of an answer when you could easily put my mind at rest with a couple of sentences.

[MADem]

160. Well, toddle up around post ninety, that might help you sort it out. NT

[Fumesucker]

164. I already quoted part of post 90 back to you

So I have already obviously read it..

But you never mentioned what *specific* subject you were speaking of..

[MADem]

167. Read the whole post. You should be able to grasp context when you do that. NT

[Fumesucker]

177. You could have easily answered my question by now..

Which leads me to think you really don't have an answer.

I already read the entire post and I don't have a clue what you are referring to, pretend I'm stupid, that shouldn't be hard for you, and answer my question clearly.

[MADem]

180. One more time. Read the post. The answer isn't "in" the post, the answer IS the post.

But you're just interested in petty arguments. I do feel sorry for you. What a sad way to live!

[AdHocSolver]

95. Your arguments don't compute.

In no particular order:

There was the great Irish potato famine of 1845 to 1852 (per Wiki) which killed about a million Irish through starvation. So much for relying on growing potatoes in a garbage can.

Printing paper money during a depression is what the Germans did in the 1930's. Even Germans wouldn't accept that fiat currency, unless you could bring a wheelbarrow filled with Deutsch Marks for a loaf of bread.

During the past five plus years, agribusiness has shifted from growing food crops to growing corn for higher profit ethanol to add to gasoline. Mexican agribusiness have been supplying corn to ethanol plants as well, driving up the cost of corn in Mexico to the point where many Mexicans can no longer afford to buy it.

As far as the U.S.A. being the "bread basket of the world", perhaps you haven't done any grocery shopping lately. A lot of our food is imported, and the prices are much higher than they were even just ten years ago.

Last, but not least, a country whose ruling class is hellbent on eliminating entitlements, "privatizing" Social Security, fights public administered health care insurance (provided by every other major country on the planet, as well as several smaller countries), has exported 80 percent of our jobs to Asia, and which treats its war veterans like dregs is going to give a damn about people starving or being homeless?

How long have you been delusional?

[MADem]

108. Yes, they do compute. And calling people "delusional" isn't the way to make your point.

What does the potato famine in Ireland have to do with supplementing your groceries by growing tayties in a garbage can? Answer--nothing. Are you suggesting that HISTORY is going to blight the potatoes? What is your point? You didn't make one.

The money printing solution was a response to "The Sky will fall, the sky will fall!" They have been doing that in CUBA for years now. The government engages in selective subsidization of necessities, like food, so you don't need a barrow of marks for your loaf of bread. Iraq did the same thing. Turkey has done it, too. So has Iran. If such an absurd and unlikely "sky is falling" scenario took hold, the government would do the same. But see, they won't. Because the sky will not fall. We're in a depression, not an apocalypse.

Agribusiness has not "shifted." The way you phrase that, it's as if no one's growing food anymore. Some farms have shifted, but you can still find other crops being grown for purposes of human consumption. Also, the move to use crops that grow in less hospitable environments as ethanol ingredients is just getting off the ground.

Food prices are higher than they were a YEAR ago--never mind ten years ago. Wages are higher too, though they may not be keeping pace. I shop all the time. I take old ladies to the grocery store several times a week. I can name the cost of most staples in the store I frequent to within a few pennies.

Your last paragraph was just soapbox anger. I don't advocate any of that awful stuff. I'm not a member of the "ruling class" either--my car is almost a quarter century old, and I'm wearing a shirt I've had for nine years (one of my newer ones). Oh, and I'm a war veteran, too.

But hey, whatever. I simply don't see the glass as half empty like you do. I don't think we're looking at The End Of The World As We Know It. I believe that Americans are smart people who can adapt to change. I suppose if I listened to the gloom/doomers here to the exclusion of people I meet in my everyday life, I would be less sure of those views.

[Fumesucker]

112. Calling people "ignorant" and "immature" is not the way to make a point either.. n/t

[MADem]

115. I didn't do that, though. Even though you keep trying to twist my words, I refute your assertion.

Which does, and I will say this straight out, so go ahead and call me on it, display a lack of maturity on your part.

You are not interested in talking about the Great Deprssion and today, you want to fight because I have a different POV on these matters than you do, and you don't like that.


I don't want to spend my day fighting with you.

[AdHocSolver]

136. If Americans were as smart as you think, we would NOT be in this predicament.

The stock market drop is not the reason the economy is bad. That reasoning is based on supply side economics, which essentially proclaims that if you give the wealthy corporate big shots enough power and profit, then they will see that you get enough bread and circus to survive and keep you happy.

However, in the real world, economies are demand driven. Demand is the intention to buy goods and services AND having the money to spend on those goods and services. Demand assumes people have income, which usually comes from jobs, but can be from rent, interest, or dividends.

Real wealth comes from manufacturing and selling goods. When 80 percent of what we buy is made in foreign countries, we are buying those goods, not by paying other Americans which would keep the wealth generated in this country, but by running up a big debt to those countries. This devalues the dollar, and is leading to creeping inflation, which is a significant reason why the cost of everything, including "cheap" imports, is going up.

Bailing out the stock market isn't going to forestall a depression. The loss of jobs is what is going to cause a depression. People out of work do not buy goods, and when no one has money to spend, then you get a depression. The current stimulus package is not going to help much either. Since practically everything we buy comes from China, whatever people spend will just fly out of the country.

What needs to be done is to get rid of NAFTA, Most Favored Nation Trading status with China (and just about every other country), get rid of the WTO, the IMF, the World Bank, and every other corporate run fraud, as well as change the tax laws so that corporations can't use offshore companies to evade U.S. taxes.

I am not predicting "bad" things are going to happen. I am telling you that they already have arrived. Most people haven't personally experienced the serious side of the problems, so they are in denial.

I have just explained the problem and the solution: Bring the jobs back to America, and, in addition, provide affordable universal health care. To accomplish this, we (meaning the American public) need to rein in the corporate oligarchy that has duped the public into going along with their agenda for the past 28 years. To get the public on the correct page, they first need to understand the situation. Your posts don't explain anything. They border on Pollyannish. If that makes you feel better, be my guest.

However, the situation this country is in is too dire to let your post go without a response bringing some economic reality to this thread.

[Lerkfish]

138. thanks for your rational post

all your cogent arguments are well made.

[MADem]

158. We were led by a thief who stole from us. Now we need to pick ourselves up and dust ourselves off,

and start making things the world wants to buy. Not stuff that Chinese prisoners can make, either. Not stuff that Indians can do better than us and cheaper (and I'm not talking about customer service--that needs to come home).

We need to make things that take advantage of our brains, our innovative talents, and our forward-looking POVs. We don't need those old jobs--we need NEW jobs, "green" jobs, that don't just provide employment but help the environment. Everything from solar technology to biodegradable plant-based plastics. Stuff the world would love to get their hands on.


We also need to seriously reward businesses for situating themselves in the USA, and punish those who have a bullshit fake office in the US and do all of their real business and hiring overseas. Carrot and stick--and the carrots, like it or not, have to be sweet, otherwise there's no incentive for an employer to create and keep American jobs in America.

We can do it. I have faith. I do not think our best days are behind us, and naysaying isn't going to make me take that POV.

[Fumesucker]

162. We were led by a thief because we were stupid enough to elect him..

Or stupid enough to allow the election to be close enough for his minions to steal.

I knew just about the first time I ever laid eyes on bushie that he was a moran, it was during the 2000 Repub primaries and he was exhorting a crowd somewhere and he said, speaking of Democrats "they think Social Security is a government program", obviously implying it wasn't and the crowd cheered. It was a moronic statement and the crowd were a bunch of morans for cheering it.

So the fact that we were led by a thief is no comfort to me, it tells me I'm surrounded by really stupid people who would allow the election to even get close enough to steal.

The corporations have a stranglehold on our government and I honestly see no way to pry their fingers off our throats, until we do that nothing is really ever going to change.

[MADem]

166. We didn't elect him. We elected a guy named GORE. The Supremes screwed us.

I am not comforted, either, that we were led by an idiot-thief. But what has happened, has happened. We cannot turn back the clock. We can only go forward. That is what I want to do.

Most people don't vote. The high turnout this last time was an aberration, and a reaction to the last eight years. That doesn't mean people are "stupid," they're just not political and they never will be.

Look at the recent VA Democratic primary. NO ONE voted. It was embarrassing, really.

Corporations need to be punished when they misbehave, and rewarded for when they do the right thing, like grow their workforce or adopt green, sustainable, recyclable technology. We can't be shy about that--we have to realize that they have no souls, they will go for the "best deal." We have to carrot-n-stick 'em. Expecting them to do the right thing, out of the goodness of their hearts, like "the mensch of Malden Mills" did, is not reality. That's rare. At least at this stage of our evolution.

Reference:

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/07/03/60minutes/main561656.shtml

FWIW, Malden Mills got sold, eventually. It's now POLARTEC, LLC. http://www.maldenmills.com/

[DeschutesRiver]

163. interesting thoughts in this thread

DH's mom/family were Germans. He grew up hearing many stories, and yeah, one involved his mom as a young girl being sent out with a cart loaded with D. marks to get baked goods and a few other items. And that is the nicest story that can be repeated about what went on for the ordinary person during that time. It was fucking ugliness and evil.

What some consider mere apocalyptic scenarios that are highly unlikely are what some have lived through daily for months or years, and not all that many years ago. On the world scale of things, we have not yet had a shit-storm here in the US of major proportions. And we aren't the special ones or the chosen people of the universe either - when the time comes for our turn, we've become so out of touch that many are going to be pretty surprised with how brutal life is, when the outside events happen too rapidly, and you have no freaking skills that could actually help you survive just one day at a time within a severely fractured system.

We've given our ability as a nation to produce to others around the world; we've grown to think that because we can heat something in the microwave we can cook, because all we've got to do is run down to the understocked grocery store each evening; we think because we remember to change the water in the flower vase that we can grow things; we think because we have gps in our cars we know where we are at all times. We survive and thrive right now only because we are hooked up to a ventilator, not because we are in good health and productive. That ended quite awhile ago. We do not have much to fall back upon in the event of a real and sustained emergency situation.

If/when big historic type troubles start here at home, it will not go well. Eventually we will get back on track, but with fewer passengers.

ETA: I forgot to answer the OP's question "Would a depression be better or worse for us now than back in the 1930s?". If a depression occurs for us now, it will be worse for us than it was for those who lived through the depression in the 30s.

[Lerkfish]

17. I think clearly the answer, is: not all of us.

there would be an equillibrium of power and resources and I imagine we'd see a few riots before it all settled down again.

[CoffeeCat]

35. I appreciate that history...

I have not read a lot about the Great Depression, but what you wrote was riveting, informative
and very sad. I appreciate this information. I always learn something on DU!

I do agree that we are nowhere near Depression levels. And you are right, we do have safety nets today
and many people are benefiting from unemployment benefits. Those truly have been a lifesaver for many.

While I do agree with you about our present state, I worry about what the future holds.

Wouldn't you agree that the unemployment rate (during the Depression AND today) is the key data point that
determines our economic state? I wonder where we are headed. The economy continues to hemorrhage jobs.
During the last month, the economy lost fewer jobs--but this could be due to the natural seasonal dip in
unemployment--due to temporary summer jobs that are created (landscaping, lifeguarding, construction, road
repair). However, nearly all of these jobs disappear after the summer months.

I am concerned about the cycle we're in. Aggregate demand for everything has decreased, unemployment is up and
people are scared. This feeds upon itself, causing further unemployment which leads to decreased consumption, ad infinitum.

I've looked at unemployment figures during the Depression. We had the stock market crash in 1929, but in 1929-1930, unemployment
hovered around 8.5 percent. It wasn't until 1933 or so, that unemployment drastically increased and peaked in 1935 at near
30 percent. It feels like we're following a similar trajectory. The stock market falls first, followed by erratic stock
behavior, and slowly increasing unemployment--which led to further economic contraction, more unemployment, etc.

Unemployment insurance has undoubtedly saved our current situation. However, those benefits run out after 2 years, correct?
I know so many people--professionals (including managers, IT people, vice presidents) who have now been unemployed for one year.

This is a very, very serious situation. Unless the economy improves, many people's unemployment benefits will run out. What then?

And although we *might* be losing jobs at a slower rate--this economy is not creating jobs. That's the problem. You become
unemployed and your outlook for finding a comparable job is pretty bleak right now.

Just some thoughts... I appreciate what you had to say, and I think it's important to continue this discussion--so we can
learn from another and stay informed. :)

[Lerkfish]

41. Or, in my case, I was denied unemployment benefits outright

Because I resigned a job where the paychecks were bouncing and the employer was abusing employees. Simply because I resigned I cannot draw unmemployment.

so safety nets, like all nets, have holes.

[MADem]

111. I have a relative who quit in anger from a job--big mistake. You can only collect if you are fired.

Or laid off.

It's unfortunate, but that's how it works.

[Lerkfish]

123. I understand how it works. I'm making the point that the safety net has holes

and you are agreeing with me...


just because I quit does not mean I don't have to eat.


and your characterization of "quit in anger" is not only inaccurate, but is slanderous to me personally, for no good reason.
I did not quit in anger. Paychecks were bouncing, the company was going under. I made a decision based on the variables I had to deal with.

[MADem]

127. I beg your pardon? I didn't say anything about YOU quitting in anger.

It was my relative who did that, and had she not, she would have been able to collect unemployment.

That was my only point.

You need to read a bit more carefully. Your post just now, where you make a false accusation about what I said and meant, demonstrates that you are taking an attitude towards me, and it is an undeserved one, too. You're spoiling for a fight, and you'll even take an example I gave you about what happened to my family member and apply it to yourself in order to pick a fight.

I guess we're done. There's no point in going on because you're not reading what I am writing.

[Lerkfish]

129. wow. such projection.

how about leaving the thread, then, so other people can rationally discuss the issue?

thanks.

[MADem]

133. Yes, you are projecting. I talked about my relative, in a declarative sentence,

and you assumed that I "must" be inferring something about you. That is projection--on your part.

You've just made a bit of a fool of yourself in this exchange, but I'll oblige you. We don't have anything more to discuss.

[Lerkfish]

135. I'll give you that point

I misread your post.

that does not excuse the other scathing posts you've made about me in this thread, though, ....

[MADem]

144. I have not said a single "scathing" thing about you. Your deliberate misrepresentation of what

I did say, though, borders on abusive conduct on your part.

[Lerkfish]

148. LOL!

whatever. anyone reading this thread will know different.

[MADem]

159. No, they won't, but keep saying that if it gets you through the night. NT

[MADem]

109. I watch the unemployment rate closely--I do think it is an indicator.

I also think part of the reason that we hear a bit less about "Bring 'em Home" when it comes to the troops is that people don't want to see more people in the unemployment line--really. That "topic du jour" has faded a bit.

I have a couple of relatives who are out of work. One, whose benefits were about to run out, just got another four month extension of benefits. I think the benefits depend upon what state you are in, and the Red States may be less kindly than the Blue ones. My guess is that Congress will throw money at the situation in dribs and drabs, hoping that the "shovel ready" projects that have been doled out to the states start to kick in, in short order. We haven't seen the impact of a lot of that money, at least not yet. If it's not enough, they'll just have to throw more at it.

The only other alternatives are government-sponsored programs, like WPA, or a public - private partnership to do something big, like (this is just an example, an idea) revitalize the national grid, or something "big" to benefit the country at large. I'd like to see more work done in the environmental energy sphere--solar energy, wind farms, that kind of stuff. You need people to build that stuff, and maintain it as well.

I am also hoping Fiat Chrysler will come up with something people want to buy. Something greener, neater, and fun.

[Swamp Rat]

5. A depression would be GREAT right now!

... for corpo-fascist republican neocons. This has been their plan for a very long time, to drive us into a depression and turn American into an empire ruled by a few wealthy oligarchs under a cross-tattooed iron fist.

[bobbolink]

83. It would be "great" because a lot of people might lose their ego trips.

Humility is passe'.

Community is passe'.

Caring for others is passe'.

The only way to regain those is for EVERYONE to suffer.

Not likely to happen... it will, again, only be poor folk who will do the real suffering.

[tech3149]

7. For many, it will be a lot tougher

I'm old enough and have the wonderful advantage of parents who lived through the last Republican Great Depression to see the larger view. In today's environment only a small percentage of people have the skills and resources to even approach self-sufficiency. Add to that restrictions by homeowners associations and zoning regulations that restrict people from growing their own food or running a cottage industry from home.

I'm lucky enough to live in an area that could very easily be self sufficient but I'm intimately aware of how difficult it would be to do the same in other areas. If I had children, it would break my heart to know the burden they would have to carry. Being the bleeding heart that I am, it's still crushing to know the hardship given to the next generation by the failure of my own to live responsibly.

[MADem]

10. Those Homeowner restrictions will go out the window if times get tough enough.

And if times get tough enough, people will lose their mortgages in HOA homes, so that will be the least of their worries.

One branch of my family, all city dwellers, knew NOTHING about most aspects of self sufficiency during the Great Depression. There was ONE cook in the family from the old country who could also sew and make soap, but everyone else went out and worked at (crappy) jobs, often temp work or day labor, as they could find them, and brought home their earnings. The old man knew how to put the coal in the stove to keep them warm. No one came from "farm" stock--they were all city raised. They "figured out" how to grow vegetables, and it didn't take a PhD to do it.

If you need to learn to cook from scratch, YOUTUBE can help. Same with growing veggies, sewing and so forth.

I think the assumption that people are too stupid to learn basic survival/frugality skills is kind of insulting to these younger people. If they can learn to program the DVR, they can figure out how to put a seed in the ground and water it and make it grow. Really.

I have faith in people. I think some of them may be a bit XBox oriented, or lazy, but I don't think they're too dumb to learn, and learn in a hurry, if need be.

[Lerkfish]

15. perhaps, but how much will it take to tip the scale? and what will people eat in the meantime?

[MADem]

21. They'll disobey the HOA, and their NEIGHBORS will tell the HOA to STFU.

That's how ya play it. Get a crowd together to shout 'em down. If it's a valid argument.

People who can't make ends meet and are in your dire, in extremis example are probably not paying their HOA fees anyway.

The HOA example, too, really, is silly. If they can't make it where they are living, the HOA is the least of their problem, and they'll have to move, won't they? Or they'll have to blatantly disobey the rules.

They'll probably be selling off their jewelry and furniture before they downsize to a smaller, cheaper place, too. That's usually how it works.

[ContinentalOp]

27. You're the sole voice of reason on this thread.

I think you nailed it when you speculated that some people get a perverse thrill out of the idea of a total societal collapse. Especially the gardeners! :P

[Fumesucker]

30. I'm anything but a gardner..

And I recognize that we are all supported by a vastly complex web of civilization that may well have vulnerabilities that we cannot even fathom. The real world is chaotic in the mathematical sense and very small stimuli can sometimes trigger huge events. "For the want of a nail the shoe was lost" and so forth.

It's not what you don't know that is often so dangerous but rather what you think you know that isn't so.

"That gun's not loaded"

BANG!!

Thud..

[ContinentalOp]

37. uh... so you're saying you just have some small undefinable hunch that things would be catastrophic

but you don't know exactly why or how?

[Lerkfish]

42. similar to saying existing safey nets would survive a depression without saying why or how

its a discussion. Discuss.

[MADem]

52. Print more money.

Create a false economy. How do you think Cuba manages?

[Lerkfish]

53. you mean like preWWII germany?

that's the economic solution you come up with?

I don't think you've done enough study of currency, fiat currency, and speculation markets.

apparently you believe the solution to devalued currency is to further devalue it by printing more currency based on no assets.

[MADem]

56. I didn't say it was a solution. It is an answer to a flaky postulation, that won't come to pass.

Russia has done it, Iraq has done it, Turkey has done it. The Chinese have done it. At one time or another, many countries are, for whatever reasons, using Charmin as currency.

They don't all grow themselves a Hitler and build camps and start gassing people.

[Lerkfish]

57. I edited the post, but I will reiterate that your suggestion is to further devalue devalued currency

by printing more of it based on nonexistent assets.

You call my posts flaky, but I fail to see the logic of many of the points you're attempting to make, here.

[Fumesucker]

71. In Weimar Germany, if you left a wheelbarrow full of bank notes

On the street, someone would dump the banknotes and steal the wheelbarrow.

It really was that bad toward the end.

We've been "printing more money" for many decades now, it's part of the problem and not the solution, more of the same isn't going to save us.

[MADem]

117. The Germans would have done well to subsidize staples, like other governments have done in the past.

It may have saved them a mess.

I don't see printing money as a solution, simply a stopgap against a postulated scenario--like Iran does, like Cuba does. It only works if you subsidize essential foodstuffs, and particularly bread, or rice, or the "starch du jour."

[MADem]

77. I am responding to your idea that the sky is falling. I am only postulating solutions to

a sky actually falling.

One of those solutions is to do what Cuba has done--create a "fake" economy.

We won't have to do that, though. See, I don't buy your dire, worst-case predictions.

We'll see contraction for awhile, people will lose jobs, and then new jobs will be created, many focused on energy smart technologies, the economy will recover, and we'll get back on track. It may not be, in the near term, a future that includes an XBOX for every child, though--some of the little shits will have to SHARE. Oh, the horror!

And some people WILL lose jobs, and they'll have to find the way, in a dual working family, to survive on one paycheck. Others are going to have to reinvent themselves, like the mill workers in New Hampshire did twenty years ago when Bill Clinton told THEM that their jobs weren't coming back, either.

Jesus, ReaganBush did this to us on a smaller scale and left Clinton to clean up the mess. Then BabyBush did it. It's not news. The GOP runs up the credit card, the Democrats have to fix the mess they made. It's a cycle. Obama is knuckling down and getting to it, but it's not just him and it's not going to be fixed overnight.

[Lerkfish]

79. heres the thing: you're highly dismissive of the posts of others in this thread, but

you yourself offer some really off the wall points to counter them:

The economy will not be worse in a depression because:

1. we can just print more money!
2. we can eliminate jobs to save money!
3. we'll survive with the economic safety net when we all lose our jobs... paid for by the people losing their jobs.
4. We can use motorcycles to transport goods!
5. Everyone will know how to farm, and will be successful at it, without land!
6. Communities will change their rules, in plenty of time to help us survive, without us having to lift a finger or plan now!

[Fumesucker]

82. I'm not "predicting" anything at all..

I'm responding to the OP which basically was a "what if?" scenario.

I find this sort of bull session interesting and I've spent enough time reading history and working with my hands to know that things rarely work out either easily or for the best.

Hanging out on soc.history.what-if for many years also primed me for this kind of discussion, that is meat and potatoes over there.

http://groups.google.com/group/soc.history.what-if/topics

[MADem]

86. The OP wanted to know if it was worse back then than now. That answer is obvious.

It is nowhere near as bad now. Not even close, not even comparable.

Now, what people regard as hardship is "basic cable." A dire hardship situation is moving from a 2000 square foot house to a 1000 sf apartment, to house, oh, four people (there would have been ten or more in the same place during the Great Depression).

Then, real hardship was "We have no money and we are sleeping in a ditch with an old piece of corrugated metal as our roof, the children are starving, and someone has to go steal something from that grocery store or beg it from that house over there so we can eat." LITERALLLY not having two pennies to rub together--that's hardship.

That is a long way from "I can't buy the sneakers for my kid that all his friends have, and he has to pack a lunch instead of buying one at the school." The difference is a case of leaps and bounds. Yes, there are people who are suffering today, and suffering badly, but there's a world of real difference between then and now--that's my point.

[Fumesucker]

91. I read it somewhat differently..

To me it was a "what if?" asking about if conditions got to the point that they did during the Depression.

And I think the answer is clear that Americans today would be far less able to deal with those sorts of conditions than the Americans of that era.

[MADem]

106. I think the answer is clear that Americans are more able, not less so, to cope.

They're better educated, they are more adaptable to change, they've got better medical care and are healthier (though fatter), and they have more (no, not more actually--because there were NONE when the Great Depression hit) safety net programs to see them through the rough patches.

[Fumesucker]

116. People are far more specialized now than they were around the time of the Depression..

A small farmer has to be extremely adaptable and able to do a multitude of tasks that people today almost always have done for them.

And the population at the time of the Depression had a far greater percentage of small farmers than it does today.

[MADem]

119. They are. That could be good, or bad, depending on what they end up doing if they

change careers.

[Lerkfish]

126. Changing careers implies that there will be other careers to change to... which, in a depression

is not a given. The majority of occupations in the US today are service industry. We do not have much manufacturing left, that's all been outsourced, even our high tech jobs are being outsourced.
Service industries survive in good economies, but not in bad ones. In bad ones, no one has money or is willing to spend money for various service items (as you suggested in another post, if people start "doing without" then there is less money circulating in the system).

If I may say so, you appear to have an overly optimistic view of the flexibility of the workforce in a depression.

[MADem]

131. Someone who is a painter, who has built their own home, can do a lot

of things, to include home repairs--it's a market where older people, especially, value someone who is talented and won't rip them off.

I do have an optimistic view--I've lived through downturns before. I've endured unemployment when the benefits sucked. We've come out of these situations. It's not easy, but it isn't hopeless.

This one was pretty ghastly: Whip Inflation Now!!!

[Lerkfish]

134. Are you even following economic news lately?

there's optimism, and then there's being oblivious.

All corporations are cutting back on staff, downsizing, closing, declaring bankruptcy, restructuring, being consolidated or simply evaporating. Name one company expanding at this point.

and your suggestion that we all turn into handymen or house painters doesn't even address the cold hard fact that unless other people are EMPLOYED, house painters and handymen will not get work.

This is where I have trouble with your logic.... you keep pretending that there will be some magical employed people who will hire the unemployed people for part time work. What I'm saying is the current structure, unless we decide to change it, is vulnerable and a lot more could collapse, infrastructure wise than in the great depression. If that happens, .... well, you really are hard to discuss things with. Will numbers help?


take a town of 20,000 people, one half of whom work at the widget plant, and the other half service the workers at the widget plant in some service industry (restaurants, grocery stores, what have you). The plant closes, and 10,000 people are out of work. Your suggestion is the out of work factory workers should switch to service industry jobs, where 10,000 people ARE ALREADY EMPLOYED. What are those 10,000 people supposed to do? Even if you ignore the very real problem of there is no longer anyone paying to be serviced, for the sake of argument, lets say the demand for services does not change (it WOULD change, but lets say it doesn't). You now have twice as many people competing for the same number of jobs. In that situation, will the existing service people give up their work or their position? Especially now that there are less ;jobs?

I know, I know, I'm using actual logic to make a point. But if you read through the paragraph above, I think you might get a glimmer of what I'm referring to, here.

[MADem]

145. I did not suggest that "we all" do anything of the sort.

My example was in the context of a specific, single individual discussed in this thread. Find me the sentence where I said "We all should...." You cannot, because I never said such a thing. You are making stuff up about what I said, perhaps counting on others not reading the full context of my comments.

You don't want to discuss. You want to play a silly game of "gotcha."

I hire underemployed people for part-time work. In fact, on top of the guy who will be fixing my porch, I'm having a guy come over next week and help me resod.

It's a slow-down, not a death knell. It's tough for a lot of people, but they aren't going to pick themselves up by following your example.

You're not using logic--you're simply being as negative as you possibly can manage. People do sometimes get what they wish for, you know. If you keep wishing for horrible outcomes for yourself, you'll probably get them.

And as for those widget plant people and your doomed town? Flint Michigan is that town--and the people are LEAVING it for better opportunities. They're tearing down entire neighborhoods and letting them go back to meadowlands.

Sometimes, towns die. Sometimes, people have to leave to find economic opportunity elsewhere. Some of them are logging up in Maine, others are building windmills in Northern Aroostook County. Others have scattered to other parts of the country.

Here, read this--and READ it, don't skim. This town is contracting, it's shrinking--and it might never grow large again: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/financetopics/financialcrisis/5516536/US-cities-may-have-to-be-bulldozed-in-order-to-survive.html

Sometimes, you have to go to where the jobs are. Sometimes, you have to work two or three part time jobs to make ends meet. It's the current reality. Griping about it and deciding that you can do NOTHING about it isn't going to change that or help you turn your life around.

[Lerkfish]

149. the odd thing is, I AM discussing this topic...its MY topic

why do you think I"m not discussing it? because I"m not agreeing with you?

[MADem]

154. You don't want to talk about your OWN original thesis, though, and you're getting mad at me because

I do. You want to talk about world-ending scenarios, you want to overlay the actual concrete lifestyle of the Thirties and their lack of support infrastructure on the events of today, and that's just not realistic--you don't want to examine the tangible differences between the two economic downturns.

That's fine if that's what you want to do, it just would have been nice if you spelled out your goals at the outset. It's a difference between a "compare and contrast" exercise, and a fantasy scenario.

[Lerkfish]

124. yes, that is a proper reading of my OP

you get it.

[Lerkfish]

120. you completely (and perhaps intentionally) misread my OP

and you continue to mischaracterize it and trash me personally for reasons better understood by you, I suppose.

[MADem]

125. I am not trashing you, personally or otherwise, and I don't understand why you are making those

sorts of suggestions.

You said nothing about apocalyptic scenarios or the End of the Federal Government As We Know It (which would have to happen in order to make all of the safety net benefits go POOF) in your OP. If you had, I wouldn't have been as inclined to participate. I thought this was going to be an academic discussion dealing with real differences, not a fantasy exercise.

[Fumesucker]

45. Civilizations have risen and fallen throughout history..

That is an undeniable fact.

What is it that makes our civilization so special that nothing can ever happen to it?

[MADem]

36. Sadly, too many people believe that the paradigm is to sit idly by, and let everything go to hell.

Fortunately, there are enough people in the world, and in USA, that will get up off their behinds if they see a need, and respond to it. Sure, we may not move until we HAVE to, but when we have to, we move!

[CoffeeCat]

38. I have been preparing our family for tough times...

...for more than a year and a half. We paid off all debt, but our mortgage--and
we're stockpiling cash and our spending has practically halted.

I also have a four-month supply of food and other essentials.

I am terrified for our population as a whole--but it seems like the vast majority have not
even begun to prepare. They may be scared, or they may have slowed down their credit-card
spending--but they are in nowhere prepared for bad times.

I feel like I have done some things, but I feel that we are not as half as prepared as I would like.

[MADem]

48. I wouldn't be terrified if I were you. What good does that do you?

Just go about your business, continue to save, and teach your kids not to be wasteful. But don't be terrified, and don't scare your kids. That's no fun. Spend time together as a family--that's free. And it's underrated entertainment, too.

[CoffeeCat]

63. Well, maybe terrified was too strong a word...

I am not terrified for our family. I'm concerned about what's going on around us. However, I have faith
that we could weather any storm. And our preparation eases my mind a bit.

However, I am more concerned (so maybe that's a better word) for the general population. Most seem
oblivious.

We'll be ok...but if things do get really bad, you can't control others and people can be unpredictable
when they're desperate, angry, hungry--or all three.

I'm very aware of the possibilities that our future could bring--and I consider myself very savy and street
smart--but at the same time I recognize the potential for bad stuff ahead. However, I'm not paralyzed. I'm
preparing and ready to step into any situation.

Just thought I'd clarify. I didn't want to give you the impression that I was curled into a fetal position
in the basement, watching "Mad Max". :)

[MADem]

172. I think concern is quite sensible. We've all got to keep our wits about us, and

prepare for that rainy day that, for some of us, has already arrived. I just think that even in tough times, you've got to stick together and back each other up.

The one thing tough times has done with my rather large, sprawling and extended family is bring us closer together. If someone gets in a jam, there are enough of us to all chip in and help out.

[Lerkfish]

43. ironically, aren't you suggesting exactly that?

Your claim is that either existing safety nets will be sufficient, or if they are not, someone somehow will change them down the road but we don't have to worry about that now.

Isn't that exactly the same as "sit idly by and let everything go to hell"?

You seem to be making conflicting points.

[MADem]

46. No, I'm not. There's fluff, and there's necessity. A lot of people confuse the two.

People need to be housed, employed, fed and have health care. Those are the priorities. Planting pansies in the park, providing Senior Square Dancing at the community center, or hiring an extra secretary for the assistant to the assistant to the governor, or giving people pay raises, those aren't "necessities." Some people think they are, though. See, everyone else's pet projects are fair game, just not theirs.

There needs to be some prioritization happening, and some pet projects will be put on the back burner or cut out. Efficiencies and some serious cost-scrubbing needs to happen, too. No longer can some asshole's brother in law overcharge the governments for shoddy service or product. Maybe those offices won't get painted every year, maybe the carpets won't be swapped out every two years. Maybe every fifth flourescent light will be turned off, and maybe the lights will be put on timers in buildings, so more of them go off when most people aren't at work.

It's amazing how much people can save if they just THINK. Maybe allowing more telecommuting will help the situation, too.

I'm not making conflicting points. People will get up off their asses and make tough decisions when they have to. These doom-and-gloom predictions, that sound a lot like wishes, though, I've got little patience for them.

[Lerkfish]

49. nevermind

not worth the effort.

[Fumesucker]

54. There's a surprising number of "hands on" type jobs lost just in that sentence..

""Maybe those offices won't get painted every year, maybe the carpets won't be swapped out every two years.""

Perhaps it's because I have family members currently in construction and have spent some time in construction myself but I see the job losses inherent in those few words of your words I have quoted above.

Not only the painters and carpet layers, but those who make and sell the paint and carpet and those who provide the raw materials, those who transport the raw materials and those who transport the finished products.

And the job losses will trickle down through the economy, the painter won't be buying tools, ladders and such, the carpet layer won't be buying a new truck to transport the carpet, pad, glue and workers and so on and so forth.

A family member of mine has a painting business, his business is off about seventy five percent from what it was three or four years ago, if it drops much further he doesn't know what he's going to do. Luckily for him his house and property are paid for or he would already be out of a home, but then he was smart and got a fifteen year loan and paid it off even faster than that. Not to mention that he designed his own home on literally a blank sheet of paper and then built it with his own hands. If he had gone out and bought the McMansion that his income at the time would have easily let him do he would have long since defaulted on the giant loan that would have required.

But, like me, he grew up with parents that lived through the Depression and heeded their warnings, even if it took him a couple of decades to realize they really did know what they were talking about.

[Lerkfish]

60. Some people fail to see the economy as in interrelated organism.

Much like a complex ecosystem, a simple solution will not work. -- for example: Hey, mountain lions are killing out weak sheep, let's kill the mountain lions. Oops, now the deer population has skyrocketed, and they are endangering our crops...lets hunt deer.

Just like: if the economy tanks, print fake currency, that'll increase the value of the currency!

[MADem]

69. Those jobs aren't lost, they're just working less. And maybe those Union Wages might have to take a

hit, too. The person needing a room painted, who can't afford the guy who charges twenty five bucks an hour might be able to afford the guy who charges twelve, or fifteen. Otherwise, they'll go buy the paint and do a crappy job of it themselves.

When the housepainter is making more than the teacher, priorities might need adjustment. That's the way it is. Way too many people got into construction when the going was good, and didn't see that the gravy train was rolling off the track, and stayed too long at the fair, even when it was past time to move on into another line of work. Maybe some people will have to move--the guy building houses in Phoenix will have to get off his butt and travel to Northern Maine and construct and install windmills. Or, if the railroads are revived, start working laying track and clearing old right of ways. Or try to get hired on by cities doing those "shovel ready" stimulus jobs, fixing bridges, repairing roads, and so forth.

Some jobs are not going to come back, either. People will struggle to find their way. That IS what happens during transitional periods. The same thing happened when the horse and carriage went away--no more stable boys, no more buggy whip makers, no more footmen--all thrown out of work! No great demand for wagon wheels, oats and hay, and the guy who went round the streets scooping up shit, to say nothing of all the blacksmiths thrown out of work...but hey, times change. These people adjusted, and found other work. People do have to change with the times, and sometimes it's not easy, but they manage.


I've always been a fan of "Use it up, wear it out, make it do, or do without." I save my money, drive an old but well-maintained car, and pay all my bills every month, except my annual property taxes. I owe no mortgage, and I save money against a rainy day every month. I help my out of work relatives when they have trouble making ends meet, I drive the elderly to the doc and grocery store and to the voting booth, and every once in a blue moon I wash floors and tables and run a dishwasher at a soup kitchen. I don't use plastic, except of the "debit" variety. I don't buy tons of clothes or shoes and I rarely eat at restaurants anymore. When I do, I tip well, though.

When times are tough, you ratchet down and look for new opportunities. Your painting relative might want to expand his skillset to the "handyman" thing. People who can't afford a carpenter to fix that messed up door, or a plumber to put a washer in the sink faucet or swap out the flush mechanism on that leaky toilet (at eighty five bucks an hour) might be able to afford the "handyman" at 20 or 25.

[Lerkfish]

73. ah, so the Unions are evil argument raises its ugly head.

:rolleyes:

your take of the complexity of the economic system is to over simplify it into republican talking points?

[MADem]

171. Why do you keep doing this? I did not say that at all.

However, when prices fall, wages do, too. That's a truth. It doesn't mean I "cheer" it.

Ask the employees at the Boston Globe. They took a a twenty three percent wage cut. It was either that, or close the paper and have no job at all.

What would you have had them do? Stand on principle, and in the unemployment line? Their union did the best they could under the circumstances for them.

[Fumesucker]

74. I mentioned that he designed his own home with a pencil on a blank sheet of paper

And built it with his own hands. In fact five of us framed the entire house and had half of the roof joists on in a single day.

How much more of a "handyman" do you think he could be, eh?

[Lerkfish]

75. let's review the superior strategy of our friend here...

The economy will not be worse in a depression because:

1. we can just print more money!
2. we can eliminate jobs to save money!
3. we'll survive with the economic safety net when we all lose our jobs... paid for by the people losing their jobs.
4. We can use motorcycles to transport goods!
5. Everyone will know how to farm, and will be successful at it, without land!
6. Communities will change their rules, in plenty of time to help us survive, without us having to lift a finger or plan now!



wow, why do we even need Krugman? We have our economic genius right here at DU, doncha think?

(not referring to fumesucker, obviously)

[MADem]

90. OK Lerkfish, you just are showing your ignorance and inability to discuss

a topic maturely.

I never said the economy WILL NOT BE WORSE. You made that up.

Money printing is how some nations resolve severe economic crisis--which is what is being postulated here. Do I think the crisis will reach that dire stage that you predict? NO.

I hever said "we can eliminate jobs" either. I said people whose jobs disappear (like those guys who worked at the PONTIAC division of GM, for example) will have to do different jobs.

I didn't say we can survive without the economic safety net--I said that luxuries will be eliminated to PRESERVE the safety net.

We CAN use motorcycles, or vehicles that have the same pulling capacity of them, to transport goods--and I'll bet we will in your lifetime, too.

I didn't say everyone will know how to farm--I said family plots will help with the grocery bill.

And communities DO change their rules when it's apparent that change is needed. I can't ride a horse down Main Street anymore--that's a change from seventy years ago.

Grow up. Stop side-snarking. You're just annoyed because "gloom and doom" is "no sale" with me. That's not my fault. If you didn't go so far afield with your scenarios, maybe you'd enjoy the conversation a bit more.

[MADem]

89. I think he'd be booked months in advance. If he wanted to rip off the gubmint,

he could give discounts for cash. I think he'd be fully employed, and then some--if that's the way he wanted to go. Some people, though, are emotionally invested in their businesses, and have a hard time switching gears.

All he needs to do is print up some postcards or flyers listing his talents and specific things he's willing to do, and get 'em out there. People who put up with a leaky faucet or toilet (and spend more on their water bill) will respond to "Leaky faucet or toilet? I can fix that and more! Carpentry, painting, odd jobs! REASONABLE rates! Call xxx-xxxx!"

[Fumesucker]

92. It's not as easy as you might think..

You're really starting to make me wonder how much you have actually dealt with the real world. In your version of reality everything always works out for the best and is easy to accomplish.

That's not the way the real world works, not even close.

[MADem]

100. Well, the guy who is my handyman is going to repair my porch this summer.

And he lives in a house he built, too. Very nice, on a lake. Bought a new snowmobile at an end-of-season sale.

He's doing pretty well, too. People who won't do the big jobs will still want the small ones done.

I have had a hard time getting a hold of him to fit my projects into his schedule. Then, he's talented. He gets twenty bucks an hour, and if he brings a helper, the helper gets fifteen.

I don't think "...everything works out for the best and is easy to accomplish." But I also don't think that everything works out for the worst, that life sucks and is horrible, and everything is IMPOSSIBLE to accomplish.

Of course, people who do feel that way aren't likely to find work in times when employers can be a bit picky.

I think it's important for people to keep plugging away, keep trying, and adapt if they need to.

[Fumesucker]

114. You hand wave away every objection to your rose colored glasses view of the world..

And getting a reputation in business takes years, if not decades.

It's not as easy to just shift your career from one focus to another as you like to make it seem.

[MADem]

121. People in recent years have been highly "job mobile." It's the new paradigm.

My generation got a job and stuck with it. Younger generations think changing jobs every few years is "normal." Or at least they did, until this downturn hit.

It's not "easy" to shift careers, but what's the alternative, really? Do nothing? Stew? Struggle along with a business that has no demand for it?

I don't "wave away objections" I simply point out that if a person has a skill that will translate to a new line of work that has more appeal in this economy, it's sensible for that person to play to his or her strengths and market themselves within that niche of demand. And ask for written and word-of-mouth recommendations from satisfied customers, too. Ask and ye shall receive--that's how businesses grow.

[Fumesucker]

140. There are a diminishing number of jobs..

With an ever increasing number of people seeking those jobs..

Which basically means increased competition for the remaining jobs with concomitant reductions in remuneration.

A point you appear unable to grasp.

[MADem]

147. I do grasp it. And the negative, griping people who don't compete for those jobs aren't going to

get them, now, are they? The people who aren't willing to even apply for something outside their comfort zone aren't going to do too well. That's the truth. Something to "grasp" too, when people are doing that hard work of job hunting.

[Lerkfish]

150. sadly, I don't think your grasping it at all

hey, its simple arithmetic...

although you insist its laziness on the part of the unemployed for some reason.


here's the deal... you have less jobs, and an increasing number of people getting laid off or downsized. you keep saying they should just take other jobs...but there are less jobs overall. We are experiencing the largest numbers of job losses since the great depression. In addition, you have NEW workers entering the search for jobs (kids graduating from school). And companies are hiring THEM instead of the older people who are laid off, because they can pay them less.

you have ten pounds of workers, and an 8 pound bag that keeps getting smaller. Use your math. What is happening? even if every unemployed person was Pollyanna, and had a perfect postive attitude, there are stil LESS jobs than ever and MORE people losing jobs than ever.


why oh why can you not understand this?

[MADem]

151. Think what you like, but do stop twisting both my words and meanings.

It's getting tiresome, and it's only reflecting on you...poorly.

See, your "eight pound bag" will be filled with eight pounds of people who really want to work. The other two pounds consists of people who are going to keep plugging away looking for work, taking work they don't like, working part-time, and doing everything they can to get by, and who will eventually find work that fulfills them as the recovery gets underway.... and it also consists of some people who complain on the internet that they can't find work, will never find work, and that people who tell them to keep plugging are Pollyannas who don't "grasp" things. Those latter people will not be grasping a paycheck anytime soon, because they've decided to not even try. You never grasp what you don't reach for, after all.

[Fumesucker]

156. Mr Micawber, is that you?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilkins_Micawber

Wilkins Micawber is a fictional character from Charles Dickens' novel David Copperfield. He was modelled on Dickens' father, John Dickens, who also ended up in a debtor's prison (the King's Bench Prison) after failing to meet the demands of his creditors.

His long-suffering wife, Emma, stands by him through thick and thin, despite the fact that her father, before his death, had to bail him out on many occasions and the fact his circumstances force her to pawn all her family heirlooms. The maxims she lives by are: "I will never desert Mr. Micawber!" and "Experientia does it (from Experientia docet, One learns by experience)".

He is famous for frequently asserting his faith that "something will turn up". His name has become synonymous with someone who lives in hopeful expectation.

[MADem]

161. Optimists live longer. I have no interest in dying prematurely.

http://www.psychosomaticmedicine.org/cgi/content/full/63/6/910

[Fumesucker]

165. Is it cause or is it effect though?

And keep in mind that correlation does not imply causation.

[MADem]

168. Hard to say. Optimists live longer. That works for me. NT

[Fumesucker]

176. I'll just point out that I haven't revealed my personal philosophy at all in this thread..

All I have done is discuss the likely differences between the population of the 1930's versus the population today in how I think those populations would react to extreme hardship.

[MADem]

179. You called me McCawber. Thus, my discussion of optimism.

I'm not "accusing" you of any particular personal philosophy. I'm simply elaborating on the comments that YOU made about me.

[tech3149]

25. Agreed when times are tough the rules will change

The problem is it will take time. In the interim, it will be very painful for those that don't have the life skills to be self sufficient.
Unlike you, I don't have faith in people in general. I do believe that most people have the intelligence to adjust to living in a different world but they've been "dumbed down" for so long they may not be able to readjust quickly enough to survive. I know too many well educated people who are willing to accept ideas that can be shot down with even limited skills in critical thinking and logic. From my POV, a depression isn't necessarily a bad thing. It will recalibrate the thinking of the general public. It will force the economic royalists to moderate their behavior to avoid cutting their own throat.
It will not be a painless process but I think it is needed. It's time that we had our BS detectors working 24/7 at 100%.

I'd love to see the country come to the table and defend the founding principles but I think they are too propagandized and poorly educated to make an intelligent decision.

[AdHocSolver]

107. The technology was simpler even 20 years ago. Today, products are unfixable or difficult to fix.

When electronics used vacuum tubes or simple transistors, a meter, a soldering iron, and a few hand tools were sufficient to fix almost any electronics gadget.

Todays electronic equipment uses complex integrated circuits, miniaturized surface mount components, and requires tools and test equipment beyond the knowledge and affordability of even many experienced technicians. It is designed to be throwaway so they can sell you a new unit.

Cars were much simpler and almost entirely mechanical. They could still run even when parts were not optimally working. Replacement parts were easily obtained and cheap. A few hand tools would allow almost anyone to perform tune-ups (plugs, points, distributor caps, rotors, spark plug wires), replace radiator hoses, thermostats, water pumps, generators, and regulators. There were plenty of books published on how to repair almost any model of car or truck.

Todays cars are almost impossble to repair for the average person. Almost everything on the modern car is computer controlled, the parts are absurdly expensive, and the auto companies no longer make repair information readily available.

The same problem is true for appliances, and just about everything we use. Your focusing on growing food as the only impediment to survival is a classic straw man argument. Houses back in the 1920's and 1930's used coal or wood for heating, the most complex appliances were a radio and a refrigerator, and many people could do routine maintenance on their cars, if they had one.

A majority of the people today are technically ignorant and are totally at the mercy of some large corporation for their survival. Having worked in a technical capacity for several large corporations, I know that that is not a good position to be in.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

47. Here are some things my grandmother told me

A lot of city people in those days were only one generation removed from the farm, so when they lost their jobs, they moved back in with their parents on the farm, helped with the chores, and at least had enough to eat. (This was before the days of industrial agriculture, and most farmers grew a bit of this and a bit of that, and kept both cattle and pigs, plus the women kept vegetable gardens and earned extra money selling eggs.)

There was no anti-government sentiment. My grandfather was a schoolteacher, and even during the depths of the Depression, school curricula and facilities were not harmed. One year, the Minneapolis school system ran short of money, so they started school a month later rather than cut curricula or close schools. In order to save money on groceries and utilities during the month that teachers were not paid for, my grandparents and mother spent the month of September camping out in a state park where they could buy food cheaply from local farmers and catch fish.

The country had not been de-industrialized, so that when the recovery began, there were jobs for ordinary people to go back to.

Once he got into office, Roosevelt went full speed ahead and didn't particular care who objected. Some of his initiatives were later struck down by the Supreme Court, but it didn't seem to bother him. He tried other things.

In a move that seems unimaginable today, all sorts of people were given government jobs, including artists and writers. The writers were put to work writing travel guides to every state in the union. These guides are considered classics and are highly regarded for their accounts of the history and natural features of each state, even if the travel information is out of date. The artists were put to work decorating public buildings.

[bobbolink]

59. People gave a shit about each other back then... today it's everyone for themselves.

My grandmother was a certified bitch. She was quite ugly to be around.

YET, when a man came to the door asking for food, she not only gave him food, she brought him in, sat him at the table, and SERVED him a meal.

How many people do that today?

The ugliness towards homeless people is well-documented.

It's US that is making it worse now!

And, yes, there were more areas to put up a shanty or tent. Good point.

AND, I would also venture a guess that there may even be more suicides.. it's just not covered inthe press like it was then. And the suicides are not so much of those who had a lot, but those who have nothing and lose even that and survival is no longer possible.

[Lerkfish]

64. Good point. We've shed the concept of community responsibility rather gradually

since the depression, it would be a lot harder to regain that value quickly, or completely, if at all.

My father lived through the depression, and he always said that they didn't have much clothing, but they always ate well, due to my grandfather having a small truck farm and my grandmother canning and pickling a lot of food for the winter. They even ate a lot of "accidental" crops, like gooseberries, blackberries, honey, things they didn't plant themselves but were readily available by hiking the nearby woods.

Looking around, there aren't a lot of nearby woods these days.

[Silent3]

61. On the positive side...

...the economy would have to fail much worse than it has failed so far for things to be as bad, or worse, than the situation we had during the Great Depression.

A depression is characterized by a large and sustained relative drop in GDP. Our current GDP, the already economically collapsed one, could drop to fully half of what it is right now, however, and per-capita GDP would still be way better than what it was just before the Great Depression, never mind during Depression.

US GDP, 1929: $800G, in 1999 dollars
US population, 1930 (close as I could get): 123M
My calculated GDP per capita: 800G/123M ~= $6,500 in 1999 dollars, which is about $8350 in 2009 dollars.

(BTW: It's fucking hard to find any current statistics about GDP that aren't given as a percentage change from a previous year or quarter, and get at the actual fucking current value!)

US GDP, 2007: $13,800G
US GDP, 2009 (guessing about a %20 drop from 2007 about now, which is probably exaggerated): $11,000G
US population, 2009: 305M
My calculated GDP per capita: $31,400

So, we've got a lot of wealth to go around, and would still have a lot of wealth even after a much nastier decline than we've even seen. The pain comes in how sudden economic changes are so unevenly distributed. That, and it's very hard to really compare economic statistics over a span of 80 years. A lot of our increased wealth is in things like iPods, which you can't eat when you're hungry, and designer clothing, which has a marked-up value when computing GDP, but it doesn't necessarily keep you warmer in the cold of winter.

[texanshatingbush]

66. My guess: worse now. THE SPECIALIZATION TRAP

Last year, another DU poster referenced an article which I found fascinating. The original article can be found at :
http://thearchdruidreport.blogspot.com/2008/04/specialization-trap.html

The article referenced above compares "the Fall of Rome" to today's highly-centralized and specialized Western economies. The key point with regard to our world today is one you referenced: the post-Roman economic collapse had its roots in the very sophistication and specialization that made the Roman economy so efficient.

Here are a few snippets:

...“the fall of Rome”...turned western Europe from the crowded, cosmopolitan Roman world into the depopulated, impoverished patchwork of barbarian chiefdoms....

....Economic specialization and centralized production, the core strategies of Roman economic success, left Rome’s successor states with few choices and fewer resources in a world where local needs had to be met by local production. Caught in the trap of their own specialization, most parts of the western empire came out the other end of the process of decline far more impoverished and fragmented than they had been before the centralized Roman economy evolved in the first place....

....The implosion of the western empire thus turned what had been a massive economic advantage into a fatal vulnerability. As the networks of transport and exchange came apart, the Roman economy went down with it, and that economy had relied on centralized production and specialized labor for so long that there was nothing in place to take up the slack. During the Roman Empire’s heyday, people in the towns and villas near Sutton Hoo could buy their pottery from local merchants, who shipped them in from southern Britain, Gaul, and points further off. They didn't’t need local pottery factories, and so didn't’t have them, and that meant their descendants very nearly ended up with no pottery at all.

ANYWAY, I found this a fascinating discourse in archeology as well as a "heads-up" for our own times. FWIW, I have a garden this year!!!!

[Lerkfish]

68. wow. that's exactly what I was referring to

I had no idea of the study or source you cited, but its right along with my thinking.

Overspecialization only works with a well tended distribution system (like the Roman Road system) or waterways, etc.

in modern terms, if we ran out of oil before developing an alternative source, trucks, trains and planes could not distribute the resources.

[Fumesucker]

76. As Heinlein once said..

Specialization is for insects..

[conspirator]

142. I love that phrase. It is true. A man should not depend on a single trade nt

[Lerkfish]

67. One possible aid to the problem I've suggested in the past is to farm

unused public land, like what has to be mowed next to highways, median strips (which could be planted with fruit bearing trees or shrubs -- like blackberries).

This is land is right now producing nothing, but is costing something to maintain. Nearly every community is close to a freeway system, and if the community itself decided to farm that land and collectively use the crops to feed itself, you could have a relatively cheap de-centralized truck farm large enough to assist at least the suburbs if not the big cities.

Large city buildings could have gardens on the roofs.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

70. Possibly, but that's not a good environment for plants

When Minnesota built its first quasi-freeway, they planted lilacs along it. (Imagine someone even thinking of doing that today!)

Unfortunately, the lilacs all died within a few years. They were killed by salt and other deicing chemicals.

Even so, most cities have a lot of vacant land. When big box stores die, you're usually left with a derelict building and an increasingly cracked parking lot. Cities could confiscate that land by eminent domain, tear down the building, rip up the asphalt, and recreate it as a community garden.

[Lerkfish]

81. Valid point, but easily enough accomodated

there can be buffer zones right near the shoulder, and the crop zones can be segregated.

[shanti]

97. you're right

my parents were raised in rural areas during the depression, and it didn't really affect them, so they say. this one's different for all the reasons you mentioned.

[That Is Quite Enough]

130. *If* we enter a new depression, I seriously doubt it will be as bad as the Great Depression.

Things would have to get really f'ing bad for that to happen, and I can't, honestly, see things as becoming that hopeless.

[Lerkfish]

137. ok, but what would prevent something worse from happening?

just saying "I cant honestly see it" is not an argument.

how would food get distributed to people living in cities in a rampant unemployement scenario?

just as an example.

[ContinentalOp]

173. How would it NOT get distributed?

I don't understand what you're even trying to say. The oil is just too expensive or what? :shrug:

[Lerkfish]

175. ok. if the virtual collapse of the great depression were overlaid on the current structure

That could mean that the cities would face massive unemployment, and reduce the number of people who can actually buy food that is distributed. The costs of distribution would remain the same or increase, so the suppliers would sell to those in their immediate surroundings.

The cost of transport (which would include oil, but also maintaining fleets of trucks, trains, what ever) would cease to be cost effective.

I guess what I'm trying to get across is that currently we have large populations concentrated in big cities. Their demand for products is aggregated in one place in a high enough frequency that justifies the added expense to a singular location. It costs money to ship things long distances. Those costs cut into the bottom line. But the current system can handle that because the demand is high due to large numbers of employed people in large cities.

If you collapse demand, by massive unemployment, who is going to buy those expensively transported goods? Not enough to justify a consistent shipping pattern. And suppliers now RELY on being able to be centralized and distribute.

Its a more complex problem than just the cost of oil.

[ContinentalOp]

178. What does that have to do with distribution?

If nobody can afford to buy the food then how does it matter where they live? And the food is not really that far away, nor is the transportation really that expensive or else the system wouldn't work the way it does. Sure, exotic imported produce might disappear from stores so we would just buy local. Or are you under the impression that big cites don't have local farmers markets and things like that?

I would think the marginal increase in transportation costs with modern food is offset by the drastic increases in crop yield and decreases in the amount of labor required as compared to the depression era.

Also, how could a modern depression be even remotely as bad as the last depression without some kind of equivalent agricultural disaster on the level of the Dust Bowl?