Interesting Article about the Great Depression

**fuzzybunny** · 06-09-2007, 07:02 PM

I was surfing the net looking for info about the Great Depression in the hopes of getting some new ideas about ways to cut back/simplify and found this article. The author discusses the causes of the Great Depression. It's not long, pretty easy to read and sounds distrubingly similar to the direction our country is currently headed.

http://www.gusmorino.com/pag3/greatd...ion/index.html

Now I am even more determined to pay off my debt and build the savings account. Remembering the bank runs etc I am also considering the wisdom of having a good chunk of cash available in a safety deposit box etc. What do you guys think?

Christine
June Groceries 8/150

**claimsgirl66** · 06-09-2007, 07:12 PM

Thanks, so credit was a problem then also. Interesting!

**starsapphire** · 06-09-2007, 09:46 PM

Today there are measures in place to stop all market trading if the market falls below a certain amount so the likelihood of a market crash like the 1929 one is small.

**kittykatstrong** · 06-10-2007, 12:18 PM

Interesting that credit was a problem back then. I agree that having a ton of debt gets you in trouble.

Katy

**fuzzybunny** · 06-10-2007, 06:24 PM

I agree that they probably won't allow a big crash and the accompanying hysteria of 1929. I suspect that it could happen over time, say a period of weeks or months of continual down slide? Perhaps it will appear in a different way than the last depression? I am not sure. I do think that if such a situation should begin to reappear it would be more difficult to see at first. Major media can not be depended on to report an unbiased view so the powers that be could probably downplay the severity for quite some time.

I am not particularly worried about it as I know I can take care of myself should things get "really bad", but at the same time I can't help being concerned about the way we seem to be collectively running towards the cliff, so to speak. Rich people are getting even richer and paying less taxes. Poor people are getting even poorer and the middle class seems to be an illusion. I don't know anyone who has the house, kids and car in the suburbs who is not also weighed down under a mountain of debt.

We are so in debt as a nation it is astounding. I don't have any schooling in economics but I do know that you can not just blithley keep mounting debt and not suffer the consiquences at some point. I agree the stock market will not be allowed to crash as it did in 1929 but what happens when we collectively owe so much money that every penny most families make is going to pay down an impossible debt and there is nothing left over for anything else? I don't believe this is an unthinkable scenerio when you consider how much harder it is getting to delclare bankruptcy and the fact that credit card companies actually pursue those who have declared because they know 1. These people will run their credit up again 2. They will be legally unable to declair again and so will be stuck with the debt.

If we reach a situation where in the vast majority of the population owes so much debt that they can not hope to pay it off, can not obtain more credit and all their discresionary income goes towards the maintainence of the debt I think things will become very bad with or without a stock market crash. When people have nothing left to spend service oriented buisness will fail first and these already comprise a large majority of American buisnesses, so people already on the edge will become unemployed. When the serivce industries start to fall then the few manufactoring buisness left in America will begin to fail too and unlike the first depression there will be no farms to fall back on because large corporations already own the vast majority of farms that suppy our food. There will be no migrating to the city to find work because most of us are already in the city.

It's very interesting to me and I can't help but wonder where it will all end up.

Christine