Quote from achilles28:
Simplistic, indeed. You seem to think that Depressions are merely "choices" people make, as if on a whim, could be cast-off for endless prosperity.
If that were true, history wouldn't be littered with hundreds of examples of Depressions in the past 300 years alone.
Depressions are the natural result of over-consumption, mal-investment, and excessive leverage. When the bow breaks, and money ceases to be plentiful, the pyramid of debt collapses upon itself and people who invested in real property or securities at excessively high bubble prices, lose their shirt. Or are tied to an asset with a true value 1/3rd it's purchase price at wages that barely appreciate. And the lenders of precious capital get hosed even more. It's capital destruction. What needs to happen is mass bankruptcy. Of individuals, corporations and lenders. Then the system can reset, and new growth can be made on solid ground. This process takes around 18 months, but progress cannot be made without it. Why? Because excessive prices and indebtedness is a huge impediment to growth. People with money won't invest or risk capital in conditions where everyone is barely solvent. And lenders and individuals on the razors edge have most of their income tied up servicing bad debts from the last bubble. This is why in order to get the growth conditions you want, the Government must let the economy collapse and bankrupts go under. Right now, we're stuck in limbo where, as I said above, even solvent institutions and individuals who do have capital won't loan it or invest in real business - real goods-producing, life-enhancing enterprise - because general conditions are terrible and terribly risky. To arrive at Greener pastures, the market and real estate must crash. This is a function of how markets operate via money supply and future earning expectations. However, we have a much more serious problem on the radar and that's a sovereign debt default. We're no longer talking localized recessions where capital destruction is relatively small and manageable. But tens of trillions in pent up global excesses and inflated wages (thanks to decades of wasteful Government spending and deficits) that needs to go belly up. Most Western economies are held up by this spending, which, shortly, will end. So the "reset" period will make Greece look like Disney Land. More like Argentina. This painful purging, if left unmolested by authorities, is relatively quick. No more than 18 months. But that won't happen. We live in Democracies where the idiots vote in idiots to "save them" at any cost. And they usually do, and it looks like the '08 never-ending story or Japan.
You know, whenever the market makes a nice run up, amateurs (like you) crawl out of the woodwork and make every argument under the sun as to why all-time highs are around the corner, why every bear is a delusional killjoy and why bad numbers are really just mass hysteria. You are the sheep to the slaughter. You're driving without headlights. You ought to figure out how all this "economic stuff" fits together before you go shooting off at the hip as to why everyone but yourself is deluded fool who doesn't recognize "your genius". Things operate for a reason. Evidently, reasons you don't understand.