The Depression: If Only Things Were That Good

[OhioChick]

Published: Sunday, 9 Oct 2011 | 11:31 AM ET

nderneath the misery of the Great Depression, the United States economy was quietly making enormous strides during the 1930s. Television and nylon stockings were invented. Refrigerators and washing machines turned into mass-market products. Railroads became faster and roads smoother and wider.

As the economic historian Alexander J. Field has said, the 1930s constituted “the most technologically progressive decade of the century.”

Economists often distinguish between cyclical trends and secular trends — which is to say, between short-term fluctuations and long-term changes in the basic structure of the economy.

No decade points to the difference quite like the 1930s: cyclically, the worst decade of the 20th century, and yet, secularly, one of the best.

More: http://www.cnbc.com/id/44835200

[Gregorian]

1. Well I thought it was informative. I recc' it, and it was zero.

It sure doesn't bode well for now. Except in the renewable energy areas.

I kept thinking about the 30's as I watch the Turner Classic movies. It's very obvious that things were flying. There were over 100 car companies.

[PETRUS]

5. Alex Field is a friend of the family.

Earlier this year, I said "hey, may I ask you some economic questions?" His reply: "I can give you the answers before you ask - 'I don't know,' and 'we're screwed.'

Of course, that was before OWS. ;)

[Gregorian]

6. And having just googled, he has a phd in econ from UC Berkeley.

So that would make him one of the unqualified ELITE.

I love it. Honesty and humility. Too bad he wasn't running the fed.

[iemitsu]

2. i recommended it to see if it would hit 1.

it went to 2.
the problem with the article is that it does not establish a cause and effect relationship between economic policy and human suffering.

[ThoughtCriminal]

3. We post this on the internet and read it with a smartphone

It's not that we aren't developing cool technologies. It's just not as labor intensive as railroads and electrical grids.

The thing is, we DO need to be investing in our infrastructure (railroads, electrical grid, bridges, etc) and as a bonus, put people to work. But we have a big block of politicians that are terrified that if we did something right, it would prove them wrong.

[jwirr]

4. And Ma & Pa Kettle talked us all into buying them. I loved those

movies as a kid but never realized they were the advertisers of the day back then - had to learn that many years later. You are right things were really going great then. They may have been invented in the early 30s but people were in the same position then as they are now - to poor to buy. It was not until the end of the depression in 1939 that they could do that. All those inventions helped to bring us out of the depression.

I am not sure that can happen today. You need capital to get them started and our government has to have too much money for our wars to fund such things as the REA. So much to do and so little will to do it.

[truedelphi]

7. And as WWII was finishing up, and ending both the

German Reich and the American Depression, FDR authorized 144% of GDP spending policy for the year 1943-44.

In order to let needed weaponry, ammo, ships and planes finish production. As a result, anyone not in uniform could have a good paying job as a riveter, munitions maker, food packer, etc.

Not as Obama and the bought out Congress have done - in order to help the Biggest Financial Firms, who have yet to create a single job for a real economy.