More Evidence Great Depression II Is Here: 30mm Unemployed in U.S. (19% of workforce)

In case you guys didn't notice, we went to cliff and came back. Need a job? Go to monster, listing after listing. It might not be a job for nasa but it'll do.
 
Quote from Kassz007:

People like you are why these message boards are so damn entertaining!
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you are entitled to your opinion.if there is tremendous social upheaval there will be a dictatorship in the name of maintaining. order.

you are nothing usual in your willingness to look at future possibilities and to ignore signs in the present. the rule of law is withering away. the bailout of financial institutions and GM and chrysler was pseudo legal.

people need to get a laugh where they can get it.
 
Quote from ByLoSellHi:

One other thing - dozens of replies in this thread, most constructive, a few immaterial or childish.

But as of yet, no one has specifically responded to the core issue of the relevance of a 19%, throng of 30 million unemployed in this country.

Does anyone have reason to contest this figure?

It is approaching the rough estimate of 25% UE during the Great Depression.

Does anyone think it doesn't go higher from here? Significantly higher?

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I'm still waiting for a coherent, rational, direct response to this question.

Some of you have parried and bobbed, like a prize fighter, weaving and ducking, barely touching upon it, but none have landed any solid jabs, hooks or uppercuts.

I'm being serious; I believe we're headed for a depression or something very similar. I'm not feigning humor.

If you can tell me why this level of unemployment, structural economic change (destruction) and structural government deficit spending does not pose an inherent risk to the U.S. economy, I really would love to hear the reasoning.
 
Quote from ByLoSellHi:

I'm still waiting for a coherent, rational, direct response to this question.

Some of you have parried and bobbed, like a prize fighter, weaving and ducking, barely touching upon it, but none have landed any solid jabs, hooks or uppercuts.

I'm being serious; I believe we're headed for a depression or something very similar. I'm not feigning humor.

If you can tell me why this level of unemployment, structural economic change (destruction) and structural government deficit spending does not pose an inherent risk to the U.S. economy, I really would love to hear the reasoning.
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I haven't read the whole thing, full disclosure.
But the answer is really very simple: economies are built from the ground up, quite literally. You start at the level of a city block (NOT a rural town's block, or a farm acre; these places are inert, by definition, economically), and work your way up from there.
Walk down any street in Manhattan, downtown Atlanta, downtown Chicago, or the downtowns of any number of other cities, and you'll see active markets for all kinds of goods and services.
Unemployment is a statistic that is useful for describing trends, and useless for the question you're asking, which is whether or not this is an existential threat to the US economy.
Short of nuclear war, there is no such thing.
As long as there are markets where goods are bought and sold freely, the US economy will be large, and will, within the lifetime of anyone now living under the age of 45, generate a new, large middle class seemingly out of thin air.
Deficits were only vanquished once, by Andrew Jackson. Other than that one time, the US has always run a deficit, its inflation rate has always been higher than that of, say, the UK, and its always generated more opportunity too.
That's why the UK is now a relatively minor player, why Japan never managed to beat us, why Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan and the USSR are all history, and why China will threaten, like Japan, to surpass us, but will fail.
And why your children will live at least as well as you.
 
Quote from trefoil:

I haven't read the whole thing, full disclosure.
But the answer is really very simple: economies are built from the ground up, quite literally. You start at the level of a city block (NOT a rural town's block, or a farm acre; these places are inert, by definition, economically), and work your way up from there.
Walk down any street in Manhattan, downtown Atlanta, downtown Chicago, or the downtowns of any number of other cities, and you'll see active markets for all kinds of goods and services.
Unemployment is a statistic that is useful for describing trends, and useless for the question you're asking, which is whether or not this is an existential threat to the US economy.
Short of nuclear war, there is no such thing.
As long as there are markets where goods are bought and sold freely, the US economy will be large, and will, within the lifetime of anyone now living under the age of 45, generate a new, large middle class seemingly out of thin air.
Deficits were only vanquished once, by Andrew Jackson. Other than that one time, the US has always run a deficit, its inflation rate has always been higher than that of, say, the UK, and its always generated more opportunity too.
That's why the UK is now a relatively minor player, why Japan never managed to beat us, why Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan and the USSR are all history, and why China will threaten, like Japan, to surpass us, but will fail.
And why your children will live at least as well as you.
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I'm not being sarcastic or coy, but a short response can dispatch of the above sentiment quickly:

History is replete with once wealthy nations that made that critical turn where "the children no longer lived better than their parents."

The roadside of history is replete with the skeletal remains of once wealthy empires.

Britain & Spain are two examples. Both have lower living standards, by far, now, than they did in generations past.
 
Quote from ByLoSellHi:

I'm still waiting for a coherent, rational, direct response to this question.


If you can tell me why this level of unemployment, structural economic change (destruction) and structural government deficit spending does not pose an inherent risk to the U.S. economy, I really would love to hear the reasoning.
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I can give you 3 reasons...:)

Number 1:
Very little systemic panic on the banks by depositors. Arguably, the worst contributing factor on the great depression was the constant waves of runs on the bank.

Number 2:
The US has too high of production capabilities and too many resources. We can self-sustain. And the most important resource the US is in perhaps the best shape in the world. And that resource is food. The US has the best farming land in the world. It would be very difficult for the US to starve even in the worst case scenarios.

Number 3:
A weak dollar. With the high productivity capabilities in the US, a weak dollar could actually benefit the US immensely. Again...the US is in a unique position here. One of the reasons why we can carry so much debt is because the danger of a weak dollar isn't so scary as compared to other low production capable countries. We essentially have a self-regulating mechanism built right into our economy.

I'm not too worried. Take away our resources, production capabilities or take away our farm land, and then I'm scared shitless.
 
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