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Future Economists Will Probably Call This Decade the 'Longest Depression'

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Re: Future Economists Will Probably Call This Decade the 'Longest Depression'

#71

Post by CaptSpify »

rm_-rf_slash wrote: post #34
CaptSpify wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> people still believe the propaganda that we're not in a depression Is there a source for this? Everyone I know believes that we still are in a depression, so it's probably just my social circles. I'd be interested to see the stats behind that.

The housing costs alone in high growth cities like San Francisco, Portland, Seattle, and so on should be enough to show that for many people, things are just fine. At least, for them. The longer things work out for you financially, the less of a problem you see around you. That's the difference between seeing a homeless person and thinking "how unfortunate that the vulnerable fall through the cracks in such a rich so…

That's what is interesting to me: Most of the people I hear complain about it are in those cities, and they are doing just fine. But someone can be doing OK, and still believe the country is not.

Re: Future Economists Will Probably Call This Decade the 'Longest Depression'

#72

Post by ch4s3 »

Zach_the_Lizard wrote: post #51
rm999 wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not common sense to freely experiment with policy unless you're trying to sell a controversial progressive agenda (like, FDR in 1933). And I say this as a progressive who supports much of what he did. Applying sweeping changes is difficult and costly, and undoing them is even harder. For example, farm subsidies, which are generally unpopular, were put into place by FDR and just can't seem to go away. Fundamental…

>farm subsidies The phrase 'Farm subsidies' doesn't quite do justice to what was put into place. The phrase sounds like just giving farmers money to grow stuff, which people might think is inefficient but probably not that big of a deal in the grand scheme of things. After all, these sorts of subsidies should increase supply and lower prices. The reality is there's a tangled web of price controls, subsidies, import q…

Yeah, but we can grow corn and can't grow sugar. It a classic protectionist policy. Since HFCS and sugar are basically perfect substitutes, and the price of HFCS is so low it hardly seems to matter to consumers.

Its also a stupid policy.

Re: Future Economists Will Probably Call This Decade the 'Longest Depression'

#73

Post by Mikeb85 »

clarkmoody wrote: post #44
rm_-rf_slash wrote: post #3

In the course of selling his New Deal to the impoverished American public, president Franklin Delano Roosevelt pitched his reforms by stating: "It is common sense to take a method and try it. If it fails, admit it frankly and try another, but above all try something. The millions who are in want will not stand by silently forever while the things to satisfy their needs are within easy reach." The most frustrating par…

FDR tried lots of thing that had the opposite of the intended effect. Invoking the Trading with the Enemy Act of 1917, Roosevelt declared that "all banking transactions shall be suspended." Banks were permitted to reopen only after case-by-case inspection and approval by the government, a procedure that dragged on for months. This action heightened the public's sense of crisis and allowed him to ignore traditional re…

Look at an economic chart pre and post New Deal. Not only did FDR's policies help the US recover from the depression, it set the framework for the strongest economic growth of the US' history (pre-1930s growth was much slower than it has been post 1945).

Furthermore, your source is as partisan as they come. 'Austrian' economics exists pretty much only on the internet. Mainstream economics has progressed since 1930.

Re: Future Economists Will Probably Call This Decade the 'Longest Depression'

#74

Post by anonbanker »

rm_-rf_slash wrote: post #3

In the course of selling his New Deal to the impoverished American public, president Franklin Delano Roosevelt pitched his reforms by stating: "It is common sense to take a method and try it. If it fails, admit it frankly and try another, but above all try something. The millions who are in want will not stand by silently forever while the things to satisfy their needs are within easy reach." The most frustrating par…

the country's been in perpetual bankruptcy since 1787. What did you expect to happen?

Re: Future Economists Will Probably Call This Decade the 'Longest Depression'

#75

Post by anonbanker »

clarkmoody wrote: post #44
rm_-rf_slash wrote: post #3

In the course of selling his New Deal to the impoverished American public, president Franklin Delano Roosevelt pitched his reforms by stating: "It is common sense to take a method and try it. If it fails, admit it frankly and try another, but above all try something. The millions who are in want will not stand by silently forever while the things to satisfy their needs are within easy reach." The most frustrating par…

FDR tried lots of thing that had the opposite of the intended effect. Invoking the Trading with the Enemy Act of 1917, Roosevelt declared that "all banking transactions shall be suspended." Banks were permitted to reopen only after case-by-case inspection and approval by the government, a procedure that dragged on for months. This action heightened the public's sense of crisis and allowed him to ignore traditional re…

Why does everyone overlook that Roosevelt invoked the "Trading with the Enemy Act of 1917" in order to declare taxpayers (the people) to be enemies of the state that they must conduct trade with?

Why does everyone overlook the ramifications of this action?

Re: Future Economists Will Probably Call This Decade the 'Longest Depression'

#76

Post by Zach_the_Lizard »

ch4s3 wrote: post #69
Zach_the_Lizard wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>farm subsidies The phrase 'Farm subsidies' doesn't quite do justice to what was put into place. The phrase sounds like just giving farmers money to grow stuff, which people might think is inefficient but probably not that big of a deal in the grand scheme of things. After all, these sorts of subsidies should increase supply and lower prices. The reality is there's a tangled web of price controls, subsidies, import q…

Yeah, but we can grow corn and can't grow sugar. It a classic protectionist policy. Since HFCS and sugar are basically perfect substitutes, and the price of HFCS is so low it hardly seems to matter to consumers. Its also a stupid policy.

Sugar is just a single example. Similar policies exist for milk, for instance.

To add insult to injury we also have export subsidies for milk, so not only do we pay the price of higher milk at home we also pay for world prices to be lower.

Re: Future Economists Will Probably Call This Decade the 'Longest Depression'

#77

Post by Retric »

clarkmoody wrote: post #44
rm_-rf_slash wrote: post #3

In the course of selling his New Deal to the impoverished American public, president Franklin Delano Roosevelt pitched his reforms by stating: "It is common sense to take a method and try it. If it fails, admit it frankly and try another, but above all try something. The millions who are in want will not stand by silently forever while the things to satisfy their needs are within easy reach." The most frustrating par…

FDR tried lots of thing that had the opposite of the intended effect. Invoking the Trading with the Enemy Act of 1917, Roosevelt declared that "all banking transactions shall be suspended." Banks were permitted to reopen only after case-by-case inspection and approval by the government, a procedure that dragged on for months. This action heightened the public's sense of crisis and allowed him to ignore traditional re…

This reads like revisionist history. people had called the great depression of 1873 - 1896 the "Great Depression" yet here it was happening again just worse in 30 years. And in those 30 'good' years you had the first world war. Banks where and still are considered a major cause of economic downturns and even today we stress test banks on a regular basis.

Further, environmental devastation played a huge role in the Great Depression. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dust_Bowl

Re: Future Economists Will Probably Call This Decade the 'Longest Depression'

#78

Post by sanderjd »

venomsnake wrote: post #68
dcd0101 wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. It doesn't depend. As he said, those words have actual definitions.

Yeah but USA is having two economies right now that are masked as one in statistics.

Put another way: the proposition is that the current definitions of those words might not be as useful as they once were because assumptions implicit in them have changed.

Re: Future Economists Will Probably Call This Decade the 'Longest Depression'

#79

Post by vox_mollis »

CaptSpify wrote: post #70
bmm6o wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is the basis for everyone you know believing this? "Depression" has an objective definition that objectively doesn't currently hold. Do they not believe the reported numbers of the GDP, or are they using their own incorrect definition of the term?

Disclaimer: I am not an economist. Some of their discussions go well above my head, so it's possible I'm mis-understanding\mis-interpreting what they say. This is also why I'm curious as to a source. The one thing I hear a lot is: The statistics we are using to measure this are BS. One example: We don't account for people who are under-employed, which is important to note in long-term depressions such as this one. Th…

The standard head-in-the-sand HN response to pointing out the disastrous LPR is "old people are retiring".

They don't bother looking into the reality that retirements are being delayed and most underemployment or nonparticipation is within the prime working age demographic.

Point this out, and the response is downvoting. HN emphatically does not want to accept the possibility that the economy is anything but amazing, for reasons I cannot understand.

Re: Future Economists Will Probably Call This Decade the 'Longest Depression'

#80

Post by bmm6o »

vox_mollis wrote: post #79
CaptSpify wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Disclaimer: I am not an economist. Some of their discussions go well above my head, so it's possible I'm mis-understanding\mis-interpreting what they say. This is also why I'm curious as to a source. The one thing I hear a lot is: The statistics we are using to measure this are BS. One example: We don't account for people who are under-employed, which is important to note in long-term depressions such as this one. Th…

The standard head-in-the-sand HN response to pointing out the disastrous LPR is "old people are retiring". They don't bother looking into the reality that retirements are being delayed and most underemployment or nonparticipation is within the prime working age demographic. Point this out, and the response is downvoting. HN emphatically does not want to accept the possibility that the economy is anything but amazing,…

I'm very willing to accept the idea that the economy's performance is uneven, with legitimate hardships in some areas/industries/demographics/etc. If what people observe is that there aren't any jobs near them, I wish they would say that, and not describe any economic trouble as a "depression".
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