Editorials & Other Articles
In reply to the discussion: Paul Krugman: We're in "a Depression" [View all]Warpy
(110,900 posts)I have the advantage here. My grandmother kept a scrapbook all during the Depression and all during the Hoover years prosperity was just around the corner. I'm seeing the same thing here and now, any tiny positive sign in an otherwise dismal economic picture as proof we don't need to do anything but rein in spending and we'll all be rich again.
The movers and shakers are all claiming it's not Depression II because the stock market is still doing fine and the fact we're only losing a net 100,000 jobs a month is a lot rosier than losing 750,000 jobs a month when the Republicans were in charge.
The stock market is protected because it wasn't infected by the kind of debt that brought it down in 1929. They did that to housing, instead. It is infected by fraud that has spread out from the financial sector and it's not going to stay up forever. Maybe at that point it will get their attention.
Make no mistake, although we're not falling as fast as we were during Stupid's misadministration, we are still falling. Yes, it's a Depression. The only way out of it that has worked before is spending our way out of it. Austerity will only deepen it.
And don't kid yourself that the pablum in the press is proof that it's all over and prosperity is just around the corner. They're lying.