Thursday, July 1, 2010

Forbes: Why The Greater Depression Still Lies Ahead


If policymakers do not understand the real cause of a problem, they will in all likelihood be unable to provide a genuine solution.
Messrs. Barack Obama, Benjamin Bernanke and Timothy Geithner do not understand the real cause of this debt crisis. They are politicians first and economists or students of the market second--if at all. Therefore, it is not wise to count on them to tell us when the Great Recession is over, or to provide a plan to prevent another one in the future.
The cause of the Great Depression in the 1930s, and the Great Recession beginning in 2007, was one and the same: an overleveraged economy. Excessive debt levels are the direct result of the central bank providing artificially low interest rates and of superfluous lending on the part of commercial banks.
The easy money provided by banks eventually brings debt in the economy to an unsustainable level. At that point, the only real and viable solution is for the public and private sectors to undergo a protracted period of deleveraging. The ensuing depression is, in actuality, the healing process at work, which is marked by the selling of assets and the paying down of debt.
Unfortunately, our politicians today are focused on fighting this natural healing process by promoting the accumulation of more debt.
During this latest economic contraction, the Federal Reserve took interest rates to near 0%, and the Obama administration is leveraging up the public sector to record levels in a bid to re-leverage the private sector. The government's philosophy is tantamount to sticking a frostbitten man in the freezer so he won't have to suffer the pain associated with the thawing of his extremities.
During the Great Depression, real gross domestic product plummeted 32%. The Great Recession, which we are still struggling through, began in December 2007, according to the National Bureau of Economic Research. In contrast to the 1930s, GDP during this recession shrank only 3.6% from the fourth quarter of 2007 through its low point in the second quarter of 2009. Between the fourth quarter of 2007 and the first quarter of this year (the most recent period for which data is available), GDP contracted a mere 1.1%.
More Here..

14 comments:

  1. sure, they would love for us to think that it is a lack of economic understanding, and thus, mistakes being made on their part- Bull!!

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  2. The following video may give some idea and hope

    CIA Officer Explains New World Order's Demise

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8AIbBGi1gjo


    NO FEDERAL RESERVE

    NO DEPRESSIONS

    IT IS THAT SIMPLE

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  3. Current CNBC website headline "Greenspan: Recent Decline 'Typical' of Recovery".

    Bahh, Bahh, Bahh

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  4. Hmm.... Well how about - NO Federal RESERVE - hard to believe it's been allowed to go on this long. But also NO STOCK MARKET. Companies and corporations are allowed to exist, and get as big as they want, but cannot issue stocks. They survive and grow only on the merits of their products and services. No phony markets to manipulate.

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  5. To 11:37--Great comments!

    We need a revolution to break the stranglehold of these sociopaths on our lives and create a real democracy--not capitalism, not communism, but governance of, by, and for ordinary decent people.

    Warren Buffet was right--there is a class war going on, and his class is winning. The class war is about more than money. It's about what human life should be like: what values should shape society, what goals should it pursue, and who should control it. The banksters and corporatocracy and their stooge politicians believe in inequality, competition, and rule from above, and they fight like hell to make the world that way--unequal, with everybody looking out for Number One, and with the oligarchy in charge. Most people--the people who do the real work of society--believe in equality and mutual support and rule from below. People live by these values in their everyday lives to a large extent--with their wife or husband, their children, their friends and co-workers--but they've been kicked in the teeth for so long that they have lost much sense of their real power.

    The only way to win the class war is to make a revolution. Ordinary people have to gain the power to change all of society with the best values and relationships already in our lives. A new world is possible.

    The capitalists tell us that capitalism is human nature and that people are naturally greedy and selfish. The first step to making a new world is to see that this is not true, that people resist capitalist values everyday. They don't resist them completely, of course--capitalism a very powerful system that finds its way into every corner of our lives. But to the extent that people have any solid, supportive and loving relationships in their lives, they have created them by resisting the sociopathic capitalist culture of greed and selfishness. Most people are already engaged in a struggle against capitalist values to create a better world.

    The good things in our society come not from the elite but from the struggles and values of the people. The people who create the good in this society are capable of creating a new world.

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  6. 1137 your a shill

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  7. No Federal Reserve, No Depressions...tell that to the rest of the countries out there right now. Tell that to Rome and every empire that fell or went through hyperinflation. People look for easy answers but there are none. They like to find one simple group to blame. Civilizations inevitably fail by design.

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  8. no Fed, no IMF, no World Bank, no alphabet anything (lol)...how about some freedom and a big helping of common sense thrown in?
    It's good to see the comments above, a big change from a year ago...people may actually be waking up to what is really being done by these people.

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  9. If people go after the Federal Reserve then they will likely go after the rest and the dominoes will continue falling I think that is what 9:46 and the video link is saying.

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  10. BrianWilliamDotyIIIJuly 1, 2010 at 6:18 PM

    Take a deep breath
    Relax
    Exhale
    And accept what you cannot change
    Our country is going to collapse
    You will really miss reliable electric power
    Your frige
    I will too
    But countries have fallen before
    Empires too
    If we are lucky
    Next time
    We might strike the right balance
    Of what some call
    "Participatory economics"
    Ya boy BWD3 can hunt
    Fish
    Clean & skin
    Make fire from drills y pistons
    Treat water with food grade buckets y sodis
    Sometimes in the cold night of the soul
    3 am, as the writer wrote
    I say start the revolution
    I don't need your fucking FICO score
    Lo, son of ape
    You have gone far enough

    ... but then I get some Ben y Jerry out of the freezer
    And think ya this is ok too
    LOL
    Vatos

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  11. You need to give Obama's change a chance. He said it will work in due time but Americans need to have patience for real change from Obama.

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  12. michael pinto
    love his work
    was on cnbc today saying this
    fighting with leisman

    i agree most americans are blind
    thats why uenployement should be extended to help those who will need it the most
    before collapse

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  13. Many people insist on pointing fingers for the world's chaotic condition at specific human creations; religions, government, schools, this country or that country, military, television, capitalism, socialism, etc. etc.

    Context is the cause of human problems in the world of duality (illusion). Once at the fifth dimension where Tao/Void is reached duality and context ceases, as does suffering.

    The world is filled with everything but Tao/God, the only thing that could set us back to Reality is a massive flux from these currently subtle energies.

    I trust He will do so, mankind is ailing terribly, worse depression or none at all.

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  14. No Fed, Cia, world bank, usury, mainstream media, supporting israel, etc

    its very simple. its called getting rid of the Jews. boom. problem solved.

    its not the "nwo"
    its not the "sociopaths"
    its not the "oligarchs"
    its not the "illuminati"

    its the Jews. study their last names and lineage.

    please wake up.

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