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America, 1926: A forgotten 100-year-old report

derekthompson.org

31–40 of 196 posts

Re: America, 1926: A forgotten 100-year-old report

#31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It has felt inevitable to me for a few years now. The market != the economy but a major crash can still trigger a credit crunch that will materially affect regular people. Look at the insane valuations on some of these companies. They can't continue forever. As for WW3, well, there's a diaper-wearing senile old man, with an inferiority complex to boot, in charge of a nuclear arsenal and major conventional forces.

> As for WW3, well, there's a diaper-wearing senile old man, with an inferiority complex to boot, in charge of a nuclear arsenal and major conventional forces. How naive one must be to consider this NPC as the biggest threat to human kind since the dawn of man. It's not that single person who threatens the world, it's the complete American elite and the whole American society who push for wars and more wars, and the…

It sometimes is a single person. Consider the failed beer hall demagogue who wrecked a nation, a continent, and nearly a world.

Re: America, 1926: A forgotten 100-year-old report

#32
post #2

So, we're about to have Great Depression 2 and WW3? Fun.

It has felt inevitable to me for a few years now. The market != the economy but a major crash can still trigger a credit crunch that will materially affect regular people. Look at the insane valuations on some of these companies. They can't continue forever. As for WW3, well, there's a diaper-wearing senile old man, with an inferiority complex to boot, in charge of a nuclear arsenal and major conventional forces.

I think there's a compelling case to be made that WW3 started in 2014 when Putin invaded Crimea.

Re: America, 1926: A forgotten 100-year-old report

#33
post #10

You're a 26 year old in 1926. You're part of what history would later call the Greatest Generation. You will suffer through both the Great Depression and World War II. Perhaps due to those experiences, you will be the only generation that votes more left as you age.

If you were born in 1900 you probably are at the tail end of the Lost Generation — the Greatest Generation is considered to be those born between 1901 and 1927. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greatest_Generation

Lost Generation describes those who experienced WW1. Given that he turned 18 in 1918 it's certainly possible he enlisted or was drafted. The article implies he didn't join WW1. It's that experience rather than his exact birthday that would categorize him into Lost vs Greatest IMO.

Re: America, 1926: A forgotten 100-year-old report

#35
post #2

So, we're about to have Great Depression 2 and WW3? Fun.

It has felt inevitable to me for a few years now. The market != the economy but a major crash can still trigger a credit crunch that will materially affect regular people. Look at the insane valuations on some of these companies. They can't continue forever. As for WW3, well, there's a diaper-wearing senile old man, with an inferiority complex to boot, in charge of a nuclear arsenal and major conventional forces.

And a rapid increase in construction for new Chinese nuclear launch silos and actual underground nuclear testing.

Things are getting spicy.

Re: America, 1926: A forgotten 100-year-old report

#36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It has felt inevitable to me for a few years now. The market != the economy but a major crash can still trigger a credit crunch that will materially affect regular people. Look at the insane valuations on some of these companies. They can't continue forever. As for WW3, well, there's a diaper-wearing senile old man, with an inferiority complex to boot, in charge of a nuclear arsenal and major conventional forces.

I think there's a compelling case to be made that WW3 started in 2014 when Putin invaded Crimea.

If so, we haven't hit the equivalent of Sept 1 1939 yet. That's when WW2 is generally considered to have started, but residents of Manchuria, Austria and the Sudetenland probably consider it to have started earlier.

Re: America, 1926: A forgotten 100-year-old report

#37
post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> As for WW3, well, there's a diaper-wearing senile old man, with an inferiority complex to boot, in charge of a nuclear arsenal and major conventional forces. How naive one must be to consider this NPC as the biggest threat to human kind since the dawn of man. It's not that single person who threatens the world, it's the complete American elite and the whole American society who push for wars and more wars, and the…

It sometimes is a single person. Consider the failed beer hall demagogue who wrecked a nation, a continent, and nearly a world.

To both of your points: the beer hall demagogue wouldn't have gotten to Chancellor if the German elites hadn't decided that he really couldn't do that much damage and we may as well let him be chancellor to quiet down his followers. Even after the putsch, he got a very light sentence because the judge was sympathetic with his right-wing cause. You're both right to some extent. A huge amount of damage was done by one man, but he got to where he did because the German elites thought that he might be useful to their cause.

Re: America, 1926: A forgotten 100-year-old report

#38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It has felt inevitable to me for a few years now. The market != the economy but a major crash can still trigger a credit crunch that will materially affect regular people. Look at the insane valuations on some of these companies. They can't continue forever. As for WW3, well, there's a diaper-wearing senile old man, with an inferiority complex to boot, in charge of a nuclear arsenal and major conventional forces.

I think there's a compelling case to be made that WW3 started in 2014 when Putin invaded Crimea.

China supplying weapons to Iran and Russia. North Korea sending troops to Russia to fight in Ukraine, and along with Russia, conducting hybrid warfare across Europe and the United States. The US sending weapons to Ukraine and other EU allies. SOF from MANY countries operating in conflict zones and deep inside China, North Korea, Russia, and Iran.

The only thing that hasn't really happened is a full economic mobilization. And Russia... may be close to that.

Re: America, 1926: A forgotten 100-year-old report

#39

Great article. Just reminds me of how much societies resemble a pendulum; swinging from one extreme to the other. And of course you have the problem that some people want to freeze it mid-swing, or worse tear the damn thing down completely.

I discovered the pendulum of social movements after reading Bertrand Russell's "The Ancestry of Fascism" at a relative young age (~16 years old), it only really made sense after my 30s though.

It required me watching, experiencing how things I had considered settled and humanity was over them started to turn back: the rise of fascistic tendencies in different societies, anti-intellectualism, etc. things that as a teenager/young adult I never considered could become societal issues again.

Re: America, 1926: A forgotten 100-year-old report

#40
post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

yes almost all americans now have running water and indoor toilets except we have more homeless than ever so they don't even have that with taxes slashed for billionaires and safety-nets for food and healthcare being destroyed, we are actually headed back to 1926 on purpose

The definition of homeless was quite different at that time --- note that there was an entire class of people defined as hobos/migrant workers who began the year helping out with cutting lumber and harvesting maple sugar in the winter, then working south to help with the planting of truck crops (lettuce, spinach, broccoli, peas...) in the spring, pruning fruit trees and harvesting early crops in the summer, then in t…

The people that are homeless now would have been institutionalized or dead back then.
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