You'll have to click, but it's good reading.
http://www.gold-eagle.com/editorials_01/seymour062001.html
1927-1933 Chart of Pompous Prognosticators (check out who's included)
Comments ... #
What I find interesting in any recession/depression/economic cataclysm are the number of financial pundits who believe that simply by power of positive thinking the crisis can be averted.
In their eyes, it is just a matter of getting a critical mass of people to believe in the fairy tale that all is well. Unfortunately, while investors might be irrational in their belief in a looming catastrophe, they are inherently rational in trying to protect their wealth, and by not believing the ruby-slipper-wearing, heel-clicking "experts" who want wish for better times.
Interestingly, also, is the inclusion of Paul Block on that list. I remember doing some related archival research a few years ago on Toledo Blade issues from 1930-33. Block regularly ran front page editorials railing against those who believed the negativity and trying to convince his readers that conditions were not really so bad.
This, of course, was at a time when unemployment rates in manufacturing cities like Toledo and Detroit approached 50 percent.
posted by historymike on Mar 23, 2008 at 10:51:26 am #
HM, ultimately it's not a critical mass thing (although it does involve that aspect), but the ability of each person involved to meet the obligations agreed to in the first place. In other words: Eventually your credit is maxed out. In even shorter words: The money runs out.
True, we could set yet another standard for pumping up the faux economy ... since Bernanke and Paulson could actually print up $30000 per household in fifteen $2000 packs of $20 bills, and just mail the resulting 110 million packages out to the households of the USA. Mommy and Daddy American can then open their packages and scream in shrill delight at how much richer they are at the moment. Mommy and Daddy Moron could then continue spending as if their "House ATM" was still active, and the period of 1998-2007 can just continue as if nothing bad had happened.
Still, by 2010 (note: in the thick of the next batch of ARM resets) we'll be back to the same credit crunch, and it will be easily twice as bad (requiring a TWO TRILLION DOLLAR bailout in total, instead of the ONE trillion that currently (and IMPOSSIBLY) required).
Intelligent and moral people would see that it's best to take the medicine now instead of just continuing to put all this off for as long as possible. Unfortunately, people turn their brains and morals OFF when faced with election and partisan decisions. So all this bailout crap and HappyTalk (a la 1929) will continue until December 2008. After that, the next President will sweep into office to inherit the largest financial crash that Humanity has ever seen or dreamt of.
This might resonate at home:
"In most of the cities and towns of this country, this Wall Street panic will have no effect."
- Paul Block (President of the Block newspaper chain), editorial, November 15, 1929
Well, the pomposity continues in the modern era. Now, Steve Forbes just lost his fucking mind:
Here's How to End the Panic
http://www.forbes.com/columnists/forbes/2008/0407/015.html« The Treasury Department and the Fed should get together with the SEC, the Comptroller of the Currency and other bank regulators and announce that financial institutions for the next 12 months will no longer write down the value of exotic financial instruments (primarily packages of subprime mortgages). »
This continues to make the point that people like Babbleman refuse to face:
The USA is a heavily classed society and the upper class members blatantly act under the assumption that they are not subject to law, rule or any moral standard whatsoever.
The wealthy are going to wring us middle class out like a damp rag until we've got nothing left but our lives to spare. The bailout of the rich is just going to continue, while the general public supports it out of being deceived by the fears of just who really will suffer from all this criminal speculation in real assets.
Forbes is just another fuckhead whom we need to shoot, eventually. Fuck him and his welfare for the rich. Fuck him and his different accounting rules for speculators.
posted by charlatan on Mar 23, 2008 at 10:09:46 am #