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Millions of Americans can't afford food, rent and other basics, report finds

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Re: Millions of Americans can't afford food, rent and other basics, report finds

#61

Post by gremlinsinc »

slashdev wrote: post #35
ThrowawayR2 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't help but recall that the Great Depression and the resulting widespread poverty is considered by some historians to be one of the factors leading up WW2.

I would say the suffering, hyper-inflation and widespread poverty imposed on Germany by the allies after World War I was a stronger proximate cause for the rise of the Nazis and the war in Europe. A very depressing illustration of the proverb that you reap what you sow. WWI was a complex jostling for power of the kind that had always happened in Europe, but on a scale and devastation never before seen. If not sparked…

Sounds like how we're treating IRAN/Cuba/others w/ sanctions during a pandemic. I guess we'll reap what we sow again if we keep it up. Seems when you do bad things it comes back to bites you in the ass.

Re: Millions of Americans can't afford food, rent and other basics, report finds

#62

Post by unhomedcoder »

axguscbklp wrote: post #49
slashdev wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would say the suffering, hyper-inflation and widespread poverty imposed on Germany by the allies after World War I was a stronger proximate cause for the rise of the Nazis and the war in Europe. A very depressing illustration of the proverb that you reap what you sow. WWI was a complex jostling for power of the kind that had always happened in Europe, but on a scale and devastation never before seen. If not sparked…

Not sure about that. From what I understand, the German economy was recovering nicely and the Nazis were doing poorly in elections in the late 1920s. Then the Great Depression hit. Nazi share of the vote in German federal elections from 1924 to the Nazi seizure of power in 1933: May 1924 - 6.5% Dec 1924 - 3.0% May 1928 - 2.6% Sep 1930 - 18.25% Jul 1932 - 37.27% Nov 1932 - 33.09%

unemploymemt in Weimar 1932 was 30%.

umemploymemt in the Reich in 1936 was 1%.

like some wise economist said "it's the economy, stupid."

i hear today US unemployment is 30+% and will hit 45% by July. i guess if America was ever going to repeat the steps from Weimar to Reich, that time is now.

what was Hitler's formula for his economic miracle? it was dead simple.

1. default on the War Debt (owed to America)

2. pour over 50% of GDP in the re-armament in preparation to go to War.

America is -$27 trillion in debt now. if we start ramping up the war machine to test drive the eagle against, oh, say, Chy-na, then start to worry about the new Weimar to Reich tramsition.

may you live in interesting times.

Re: Millions of Americans can't afford food, rent and other basics, report finds

#63

Post by unhomedcoder »

segmondy wrote: post #59
ThrowawayR2 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't help but recall that the Great Depression and the resulting widespread poverty is considered by some historians to be one of the factors leading up WW2.

If you wanna go that route, then actually, the Spanish flu is what led to the WW2. ;-) US President Woodrom Wilson cam down with flu, had a stroke and early retirement from public life. So he couldn't persuade US govt to join the newly formed League of Nations or ratify the Treaty of Versailles. He didn't support punitive measure against German state. Since US was no longer part of process, German paid hard. Hyper in…

i bet Hitler never once forgot about the period of time between 1911-1915 when he was impoverished, unemployable and homeless.

it's funny how a cruel and exploitive economy tends to backfire when the one wrong guy is crushed by it, and then dedicates his life to overthrowing that economy.

Re: Millions of Americans can't afford food, rent and other basics, report finds

#64

Post by xscott »

nimbius wrote: post #8

Im sure someone on HN has explained this before, but why are the markets steady and rebounding when the actual state of the US economy is so dire?? I've been waiting on that promised $1200 check for 2 days shy of an entire month now, and every day that passes I see another bar or clothing store or furniture outlet with boards up on the windows.

I'm no expert, but this is the explanation I heard, and it makes sense to me:

You're judging the market by looking at the indexes. The DOW is 30 large companies. The S&P 500 and Russel 3000 are weighted proportionally to how large the companies are. Even the "small" companies in these indexes are larger than your local restaurants or misc goods / services businesses. The majority (maybe all) of these large companies will easily survive, and many of them are going to scoop up all the customers from the mom and pop shops that will fail because they don't have an aisle of "essential" goods to legally remain open.

Now, if you're retired and need to live on your savings for the rest of your life, where would you put your money? All the people who think the forced shutdowns hurt the wealthy really don't get it.

Re: Millions of Americans can't afford food, rent and other basics, report finds

#65

Post by xscott »

pixl97 wrote: post #60
fataliss wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The market doesn't reflect the health of your local businesses. It's largely chains and massive corporations that are publicly traded. Between the fed's $1.5T injection in the markets and the $500B bailout/loans for corporations, you can see how the numbers might not look too bad from Wall St's disconnected perspective. Today a lot of companies were announcing their numbers and matched ~ expected earnings. Q1 wasn't…

Kind of a tl:dr, the market is ahuman and possibly anti-human.

And yet, as a human, that's probably where you should put your retirement savings.

Re: Millions of Americans can't afford food, rent and other basics, report finds

#66

Post by FuckButtons »

School-Cotton wrote: post #22
MiroF wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> worst decade of chaos and suffering in the last 200 years Where in the world do you all come up with these statements?

The point was that we don’t have any clue whatsoever what will happen because this has never been done before in human history.

No, we don’t, but that uncertainty doesn’t mean that it’s definitely an unprecedented calamity. This is not good, but how not good is yet to be seen and anyone who claims to know how things will shake out is lying or fooling themselves.

Re: Millions of Americans can't afford food, rent and other basics, report finds

#67

Post by jobigoud »

FuckButtons wrote: post #66
School-Cotton wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point was that we don’t have any clue whatsoever what will happen because this has never been done before in human history.

No, we don’t, but that uncertainty doesn’t mean that it’s definitely an unprecedented calamity. This is not good, but how not good is yet to be seen and anyone who claims to know how things will shake out is lying or fooling themselves.

Nobody claimed anything, they said it was "not unthinkable".

Re: Millions of Americans can't afford food, rent and other basics, report finds

#68

Post by raidicy »

BrainlingPdx wrote: post #14
raidicy wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder if people in 1918 thought the same thing. And then the only impact the Spanish flu had on me was it was mentioned in passing in outdated middle school "social studies" books.

That's not true at all. The Spanish flu outbreak had a ton of impact on the modern world. Health codes, science around vaccines, economic effects, etc. To act like the Spanish flu had no long lasting effects shows you didn't pay much attention in middle school social studies.

I didn't. But it doesn't mean the books did it justice either. Anyway, I was trying to illustrate GP's point of getting back to normalcy, albeit vaguely.

Re: Millions of Americans can't afford food, rent and other basics, report finds

#69

Post by flyinglizard »

bathtub365 wrote: post #54
flyinglizard wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My feeling is that investors have steadier hands now after they've witnessed the 10+ year rally after the 2008 crash. No one wants to be left out. Eventually though the market will catch up with what's happening on the streets (unless the fed keeps pumping money in).

The DOW dropped almost 13% on March 16th. That's the biggest single day drop since 1987. How is that evidence of investors having steady hands? Multiple market volatility trading circuit breakers have been tripped since the crisis started. How is that evidence of investors having steady hands? All I see is an extremely complex system with the ability to be reactionary, irrational, and volatile.

Single day drops are anecdotal. Overall drops in S&P500 are much lower, so far, then they were during the 2008 crisis. I’m saying “so far” because eventually the stock market will catch up to what’s happening outside. It’s just that in 2008 economic activity did not come to a halt like now and yet the stock market saw a larger impact.

I think that the sentiment today is that governments and central banks will not allow the market to collapse for as long as they can (a point which no one can really point at).

Re: Millions of Americans can't afford food, rent and other basics, report finds

#70

Post by eloff »

axguscbklp wrote: post #49
slashdev wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would say the suffering, hyper-inflation and widespread poverty imposed on Germany by the allies after World War I was a stronger proximate cause for the rise of the Nazis and the war in Europe. A very depressing illustration of the proverb that you reap what you sow. WWI was a complex jostling for power of the kind that had always happened in Europe, but on a scale and devastation never before seen. If not sparked…

Not sure about that. From what I understand, the German economy was recovering nicely and the Nazis were doing poorly in elections in the late 1920s. Then the Great Depression hit. Nazi share of the vote in German federal elections from 1924 to the Nazi seizure of power in 1933: May 1924 - 6.5% Dec 1924 - 3.0% May 1928 - 2.6% Sep 1930 - 18.25% Jul 1932 - 37.27% Nov 1932 - 33.09%

Wow, that's pretty marked. I think there could be something to that theory then. I'd like to see more context around that before I'm convinced though.
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