Worried Wall Street trader (Credit: Spencer Platt /Getty Images
In a
September 19 blog, I disagreed with an article that described the current economic situation as the "worst global financial crisis since the
Great Depression." If you look at the
History of Recession in the U.S, you will see that this still is not nor will be the worst crisis. The recession of 1980 was longer, and saw unemployment at 10% for 10 months. This recession may even be shorter and less painful than the 1973 recession, which saw stagflation, and unemployment of 9%.
What It Means to You
The government programs of previous recessions often aggravated the business cycle. The monetary and fiscal stimulus packages that have been launched by Bernanke and Paulson, and that are being
launched by President Obama, have been greatly criticized. However, if you compare these programs to earlier policies, such as the wage/price controls and release from the gold standard in the 1970's, and the high interest rates of the 1980's, you will see that current programs are far more creative and responsive than those used in previous recessions.
Related Articles
Comments
You can’t compare this recession to the one in the 1980s.
This recession is caused by the collapse of the Financial system. The US and UK economy is one big ponzi fraud. You don’t even know what is to come. Total implosion
Look for the creditorn ations to take over the world order. Asia and Middle East.
You can not make comparisons because the way numbers are measured are not equal. Regardless of what the dumb box and thumb-sucking Americans say, the United States no longer exists. The government has been taken over by international bankers who are getting ready to make their move. People simply refuse to read Bush 2.1’s executive orders, bills as they pass the house, or publications written by the IMF and CFR. To the few people who know how to read, this isn’t a surprise. As idiots lose their houses, their ssi, and 401k’s, it would be some mild solace if they at least understood why it happened. We are way beyond that now. The government is prepared to deal with the idiots when they get mad far, far, too late.
Timothy, Sounds like you have some personal frustrations – I am glad there is on wise man in our midst.
If the US financial assets are worthless and the people idiots, how about you and your friends who bought them from the idiots and subsequently imploded. It is not the seller of the poison who is an idiot, it is the person who buys it for good money and then drinks it.
Don’t go by the media, majority of my peers, friends and relatives in the US are seeing only a marginal degradation in house pricing – represents 5 heavily populated states in the Northeast USA.
A simple pareto chart shows that 5 markets (three large metro areas) excessively overleveraged and deserved to go through a deleveraging process. It is not the end of the world, unless you want to pick specific pieces of information to justify your stance.
Unfortunately, your future is tied to the regrouping of this one country. If Asia and the Middle-east had their own legs to stand on, there would not be a global recession. It has been now proved that the de-coupling effect, that you are assuming, is proven seriously wrong. The world markets are now more dependent on the US market than ever before – you may want to browse Stanford.edu and other good web sites for materials on this.
All the best!