Depression in the US, My ass.

Quote from JJacksET4:

Yeah, how about this due allegiance - It has long been said that an ounce of gold can buy a nice suit - back when an ounce was $20 - a nice suit cost $20. When gold was $400, a nice suit was $400, etc. Now you can get a few nice suits since gold has gone up so much, etc. but the point is these guys were wearing an ounce of gold to the soup kitchen!

And btw I take issue from the other guys statement that if you are unemployed then the unemployment rate is 100% - If a person was unemployed when the U.S. rate was only 4%, they sure didn't get the sympathy they get now.

JJacksET4
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And what exactly is wrong with wearing a suit wherever they went? You think that it's an improvement for all of society to "ghetto out" and wear a bunch of sweatsuits everywhere to hide the fact that most men nowadays are obese? So, the guy's leaving their house would have gotten your stamp of approval if they just showed up looking like bums? btw, it's "due diligence", no idea wtf you meant with "due allegiance".

As to your last statement, I don't see much relevance to it. The point of this thread is that "looks can be deceiving". i.e. this is the "silent depression" disguised by an enormous social safety net with prolonged unemployment benefits, generous food stamp usage, Medicair/Medicaid, Section 8, extravagant pension systems, etc, etc...
 
Quote from oldtime:

Living paycheck to paycheck is normal. That's the way almost all of nature does it. That's why we don't gather manna on the sabbath. Surplus creates problems.
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Not to point out the obvious, but much of the angst is centered on the fact that a majority of people (who can find employment) indeed live paycheck to paycheck (if they can even do that), while a priviledged group (at the top) live off of government largesse (by way of TBTF classification), while those in the other priviledged class (unions) live off of government largesse (by way of capture of the Democratic party).

The interesting dynamic is that so much of the political debate attempts to demonize one group against the other, while both have been and continue to be an enormous drag upon the rest of society. More and more, if you aren't one of these protected rackets, it's becoming a very cold, cruel world.
 
Quote from denner:

And what exactly is wrong with wearing a suit wherever they went? You think that it's an improvement for all of society to "ghetto out" and wear a bunch of sweatsuits everywhere to hide the fact that most men nowadays are obese? So, the guy's leaving their house would have gotten your stamp of approval if they just showed up looking like bums? btw, it's "due diligence", no idea wtf you meant with "due allegiance".

As to your last statement, I don't see much relevance to it. The point of this thread is that "looks can be deceiving". i.e. this is the "silent depression" disguised by an enormous social safety net with prolonged unemployment benefits, generous food stamp usage, Medicair/Medicaid, Section 8, extravagant pension systems, etc, etc...
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No, you are missing my point - first of all however, I think we need to clarify for sure - do we know what this picture really is? Is is a soup kitchen? Is it Job Applications? Is it a line to pick up tickets to the World Series? I see no evidence from the picture it is necessarily a food line. We cannot tell from the pics that these people are super-poor - look at the poor in Africa - most of them aren't wearing fancy suits - if they had good clothes they would trade them for things their families needed.

As far as the last part, since people do have "....an enormous social safety net with prolonged unemployment benefits, generous food stamps..." etc. they really, truly don't feel the pain as much as they would otherwise. I am all in favor of making some of these benefits based on having to do some work or something.

JJacksET4
 
Quote from JJacksET4:

No, you are missing my point - first of all however, I think we need to clarify for sure - do we know what this picture really is? Is is a soup kitchen? Is it Job Applications? Is it a line to pick up tickets to the World Series? I see no evidence from the picture it is necessarily a food line. We cannot tell from the pics that these people are super-poor - look at the poor in Africa - most of them aren't wearing fancy suits - if they had good clothes they would trade them for things their families needed.

As far as the last part, since people do have "....an enormous social safety net with prolonged unemployment benefits, generous food stamps..." etc. they really, truly don't feel the pain as much as they would otherwise. I am all in favor of making some of these benefits based on having to do some work or something.

JJacksET4
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No, we don't really know what the picture is, but give me a few hours and I can probably find other photos from the 1930s that show men dressed in suits at the food line or for job applications, etc...It's just the way men dressed back in those days. My grandfather and his father wore suits every day of the week, even into retirement, along with top hats. You are probably just a bit younger and never met men from that era that would dress in such a manner. "casual" meant nice slacks with a dress shirt. The whole "dressing down" era really began in the 1960s with the introduction of denim...take a look at pictures of men in 1963, then look at 1973...it's like another world.

Now, to your point about Africa..well, take a look at pictures of rural America in the 1930's, then you might change your mind about how bad it truly was. read a bit more about the Dust Bowl of the early to mid 1930's. The Great Depression was no picnic...but to try and do a compare and contrast with parts of Africa is pretty disingenuous. The US had a certain level of prosperity in the 1920's that vanished in an instant.
 
Quote from Random.Capital:

Don't care. In 20 minutes, the next episode of "Hillbilly Hand Fishin'" is on, all is right with the world.
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How many times must I post this? The best eating size is approximately only 1 1/2 pound. And unless you are extremely agile you will never catch one hand fishing. Best method is a hunk of chicken liver on an unweighted 1/0 hook at night. By the time they get big enough to hand fish the only thing they are good for is looking at and letting go to make more babys.

If you're a trader then you are use to accepting risk in exchange for reward. And out where I live that is exactly what you are doing when you eat one of those catfish that have been living in the PCP infected water we have around here.

One and a half pounds is my stop loss, anything bigger than that will still be there if someday I have to choose between starvation and cancer.
 
two weeks ago I was at a giant mall in CT. i had hard time finding a decent spot for my car. i can't imagine all these people coming to the mall to window shop.

US simply can't be in a depression right now.
 
The US is not in a depression yet. But once Europe goes, America will follow.

What we are seeing now is just the tip of the iceberg.

Runningbear
 
You dont need a PHD in economics to understand that IF the economy had been booming for the past 5 years, many more new store locations would have been planned/opened and the consumer base would be larger.

Think of how many stores have actually closed down.. you dont see any lines at Circuit City.
 
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