Question #2

[menmon]

Now after you read these two post, you will see that you are not comparing apples to apples. You will also see the actions that we have taken to avoid it again, and then look at what Europe is doing and compare those to our failures during the great depression and you will see that we have taken the right actions and your tea party bull would have put us all in a soup line again.

Also look at how long it took to overcome this worldwide depression/recession and then give the president a break.

This would actually make a good ad for Obama because it sizes it all up really good and its hard to argue with history.

[menmon]

KeynesianBritish economist John Maynard Keynes argued in General Theory of Employment Interest and Money that lower aggregate expenditures in the economy contributed to a massive decline in income and to employment that was well below the average. In such a situation, the economy reached equilibrium at low levels of economic activity and high unemployment.

Keynes' basic idea was simple: to keep people fully employed, governments have to run deficits when the economy is slowing, as the private sector would not invest enough to keep production at the normal level and bring the economy out of recession. Keynesian economists called on governments during times of economic crisis to pick up the slack by increasing government spending and/or cutting taxes.

As the Depression wore on, Franklin D. Roosevelt tried public works, farm subsidies, and other devices to restart the US economy, but never completely gave up trying to balance the budget. According to the Keynesians, this improved the economy, but Roosevelt never spent enough to bring the economy out of recession until the start of World War II.[15]

[huntinman]

Why don't you just post the link to whole damn book?

[menmon]

Debt deflationIrving Fisher argued that the predominant factor leading to the Great Depression was over-indebtedness and deflation. Fisher tied loose credit to over-indebtedness, which fueled speculation and asset bubbles.[17] He then outlined 9 factors interacting with one another under conditions of debt and deflation to create the mechanics of boom to bust. The chain of events proceeded as follows:

Debt liquidation and distress selling
Contraction of the money supply as bank loans are paid off
A fall in the level of asset prices
A still greater fall in the net worths of business, precipitating bankruptcies
A fall in profits
A reduction in output, in trade and in employment.
Pessimism and loss of confidence
Hoarding of money
A fall in nominal interest rates and a rise in deflation adjusted interest rates.[17]

Crowds outside the Bank of United States in New York after its failure in 1931.During the Crash of 1929 preceding the Great Depression, margin requirements were only 10%.[18] Brokerage firms, in other words, would lend $9 for every $1 an investor had deposited. When the market fell, brokers called in these loans, which could not be paid back.[19]

Banks began to fail as debtors defaulted on debt and depositors attempted to withdraw their deposits en masse, triggering multiple bank runs. Government guarantees and Federal Reserve banking regulations to prevent such panics were ineffective or not used. Bank failures led to the loss of billions of dollars in assets.[19]

Outstanding debts became heavier, because prices and incomes fell by 20–50% but the debts remained at the same dollar amount. After the panic of 1929, and during the first 10 months of 1930, 744 US banks failed. (In all, 9,000 banks failed during the 1930s). By April 1933, around $7 billion in deposits had been frozen in failed banks or those left unlicensed after the March Bank Holiday.[20]

Bank failures snowballed as desperate bankers called in loans which the borrowers did not have time or money to repay. With future profits looking poor, capital investment and construction slowed or completely ceased. In the face of bad loans and worsening future prospects, the surviving banks became even more conservative in their lending.[19] Banks built up their capital reserves and made fewer loans, which intensified deflationary pressures. A vicious cycle developed and the downward spiral accelerated.

The liquidation of debt could not keep up with the fall of prices which it caused. The mass effect of the stampede to liquidate increased the value of each dollar owed, relative to the value of declining asset holdings. The very effort of individuals to lessen their burden of debt effectively increased it. Paradoxically, the more the debtors paid, the more they owed.[17] This self-aggravating process turned a 1930 recession into a 1933 great depression.

Macroeconomists including Ben Bernanke, the current chairman of the U.S. Federal Reserve Bank, have revived the debt-deflation view of the Great Depression originated by Fisher.[

[menmon]

Monetarist
Crowd at New York's American Union Bank during a bank run early in the Great Depression.Monetarists, including Milton Friedman and current Federal Reserve System chairman Ben Bernanke, argue that the Great Depression was mainly caused by monetary contraction, the consequence of poor policy-making by the American Federal Reserve System and continued crisis in the banking system.[23][24] In this view, the Federal Reserve, by not acting, allowed the money supply as measured by the M2 to shrink by one-third from 1929–1933, thereby transforming a normal recession into the Great Depression. Friedman argued that the downward turn in the economy, starting with the stock market crash, would have been just another recession.[25]

The Federal Reserve allowed some large public bank failures – particularly that of the New York Bank of the United States – which produced panic and widespread runs on local banks, and the Federal Reserve sat idly by while banks collapsed. He claimed that, if the Fed had provided emergency lending to these key banks, or simply bought government bonds on the open market to provide liquidity and increase the quantity of money after the key banks fell, all the rest of the banks would not have fallen after the large ones did, and the money supply would not have fallen as far and as fast as it did.[26]

With significantly less money to go around, businessmen could not get new loans and could not even get their old loans renewed, forcing many to stop investing. This interpretation blames the Federal Reserve for inaction, especially the New York branch.[27]

One reason why the Federal Reserve did not act to limit the decline of the money supply was regulation. At that time, the amount of credit the Federal Reserve could issue was limited by the Federal Reserve Act, which required 40% gold backing of Federal Reserve Notes issued. By the late 1920s, the Federal Reserve had almost hit the limit of allowable credit that could be backed by the gold in its possession. This credit was in the form of Federal Reserve demand notes.[28]

A "promise of gold" is not as good as "gold in the hand", particularly when they only had enough gold to cover 40% of the Federal Reserve Notes outstanding. During the bank panics a portion of those demand notes were redeemed for Federal Reserve gold. Since the Federal Reserve had hit its limit on allowable credit, any reduction in gold in its vaults had to be accompanied by a greater reduction in credit. On April 5, 1933, President Roosevelt signed Executive Order 6102 making the private ownership of gold certificates, coins and bullion illegal, reducing the pressure on Federal Reserve gold.[28]

[menmon]

Everything above is what Rush and Glenn don't tell you. These are undispuited facts and after reading them....please consider the rhetoric feed by the republicans wanting back in power and their opposition to every action that history has proven needed to be taken. And then ask yourself who really has your best interest.

[menmon]

Why don't you just post the link to whole damn book?

Why don't you read it

[huntinman]

Everything above is what Rush and Glenn don't tell you. These are undispuited facts and after reading them....please consider the rhetoric feed by the republicans wanting back in power and their opposition to every action that history has proven needed to be taken. And then ask yourself who really has your best interest.

Heck, I doubt if you even read it...

[menmon]

I didn't just read it today....please note the orgin of most of the economist cited and you will see that they either studied or taught at the university of chicago. You guys like MF and he is front and center in this research.

[road kill]

Why don't you read it

Why don't you answer the simple question that this thread is based on?