tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32841798.post7196465100735610308..comments2024-03-18T16:33:31.633+00:00Comments on Capitalists@Work: The Great DepressionCityUnslickerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15929544047783163175noreply@blogger.comBlogger18125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32841798.post-39707659828322183042012-01-27T00:30:14.350+00:002012-01-27T00:30:14.350+00:00Seems like you are supporting Keynesian stimulus i...Seems like you are supporting Keynesian stimulus ideas...<br /><br />If you have a boom and bust, eventually given enough time with new technology etc the economy will recovery to the level it was before and more..<br /><br />Nothing I have seen about the history of these attempts at smoke and mirrors has suggested a recovery any quicker than would have happened anyway.<br /><br />During the 20's 30's and 40's was the begining of the motor vehicle era, by the 40's most people who needed them had them and had cheap fuel to run them, and as a result the economy was more efficient.<br />That had nothing what so ever to do with government and central bankers playing paper games.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32841798.post-26345184832631371532012-01-26T21:28:11.682+00:002012-01-26T21:28:11.682+00:00Re Britain, it did a lot better (relatively) than ...Re Britain, it did a lot better (relatively) than the US - because it still had an Empire - Imperial Preference was the order of the day.<br /><br />We haven't got an Empire, and vast new industries were arising in the 20s and 30s UK - automobiles, chemicals, electricals, aircraft.<br /><br />Vast new industries have arisen in the last 30 years - computers, LCDs, mobiles - but none of them here. <br /><br />LabanAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32841798.post-28978344958071061802012-01-26T18:28:54.258+00:002012-01-26T18:28:54.258+00:00CU - it repeats the first time as history, the sec...CU - it repeats the first time as history, the second time as farce....Marx?<br /><br />We are getting the farce!<br /><br />any views on AEP in the Bellygraph? http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/finance/ambroseevans-pritchard/100014380/china%E2%80%99s-very-mysterious-data/<br /><br />As a forecaster, he is a bit of a stopped clock, right every 12 hours or so.....but this is kinda eeriediogenesnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32841798.post-51645185159086549032012-01-26T16:31:28.404+00:002012-01-26T16:31:28.404+00:00Its a great post BQ. History rhymes but rarely rep...Its a great post BQ. History rhymes but rarely repeats.CityUnslickerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15929544047783163175noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32841798.post-35549779824275421482012-01-26T16:15:36.232+00:002012-01-26T16:15:36.232+00:00Good and interesting post. But today is so radica...Good and interesting post. But today is so radically different from then. Given the inbuilt assumptions from experience and how things were then embodied in a lot of economic theory one of our major failures of understanding is just how different the world is now. How goods are carried, how communications work, how marketing is done, how firms are managed (or not), how finance has become critical, how so much money leaks out of all economics and how no government is now "independent" but subject to external events and decision makers.Demetriushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17198549581667363991noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32841798.post-75691778726274827062012-01-26T14:19:08.463+00:002012-01-26T14:19:08.463+00:00to me it is all about money
if you borrow money no...to me it is all about money<br />if you borrow money now you have to pay it back in the future.<br />if the money you spent was used wisely, you will be better off, otherwise worse off.<br /><br />in a grim sense, it remains to be seen whether building lots of schools and hospitals and paying public sector employees more was a wise use of money. many here will say not, but the obvious is not always right.andrewhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07311993288675111834noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32841798.post-10541060304923356022012-01-26T12:39:47.100+00:002012-01-26T12:39:47.100+00:00PS - resources are always scarce. That's why s...PS - resources are always scarce. That's why such ingenious methods of production and extraction are created.<br /><br />And why there are navies and air forces.electro-kevinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16474290901146390184noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32841798.post-18326621459543219512012-01-26T12:31:52.945+00:002012-01-26T12:31:52.945+00:00"WW2 was not inevitable. A great many people ..."WW2 was not inevitable. A great many people tried hard to prevent it."<br /><br />And yet it happened.<br /><br />As for the golden era which followed in the west ? I agree. However, the same could not be said for those stuck in the east nor - for a long while - those countries vacated by the bankrupted colonialists.<br /><br />The Americans went on to colonise without aparently colonising - Mickey Mouse and Coca Cola being their equivalent of our East India Trading Company and doing so without any obligation or pretence of trying to lift those countries.<br /><br />Nick Drew is right about the morphing of modern warfare. I'd better get all of my photos on disc or printed in hard copy. <br /><br />I could not live without Lady Sonia nor Nylon MILFs.electro-kevinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16474290901146390184noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32841798.post-65610170429926123932012-01-26T11:55:20.683+00:002012-01-26T11:55:20.683+00:00BQ, You are much better at your recent history and...BQ, You are much better at your recent history and analysis of same than I. I can only view the developing situation from "New Eyes" naive and simplistic as that may be.<br /><br />But (as could possibly be gleaned from my previous postings) I believe the game is up for modern economics and the current capitalist model. I really believe its that simple!<br /><br />"The number are too big" is not just an arithmetic thing, it getting obvious surely to everyone with half a brain that the money-numbers being tossed around are just getting <i>silly</i>. <br /><br />Now I know that macro numbers have always been big, but the current crop of numbers quoting multiple trillions nay, we are starting to look at 100s of trillions, are simply letting that cat out of the bag or at least putting it among the pigeons! At some point the whole shebang including banks, FED, governments, financiers of all ilk are going to have to admit that they just make it up(the money-numbers that is) as they go along, and that all debts are simply a mirage designed to benefit their system and class by diverting resources their way (not specifically money). <br /><br />Forecasting the outcome of this if the entire populace of the world or countries started to see through the mirage, ala Occupy anything, is at best, err, difficult. But won't be good initially.<br /><br />Global Jubilee is starting to look like the only way out and if anyone in the EU/ECB/IMF/IIF/FED etc had any sense at all or more importantly any regard for the progress of humanity, they would make a start now, probably with the PIIGS. The rest would follow automatically. <br /><br />A Short lived apocalypse is surely better that 20-50? years of long term agony as the system fails and crumbles more and more, not just at the edges but eventually at the centre.<br /><br />The process needs to be controlled not allowed to just spark off one day when a country has a fit of temper! <br /><br />In addition the planet is being exhausted of easy to mine/pump/harvest energy and resources. This will bring war eventually if planet-wide human equality is not addressed. There is enough food we know from figures that we can "feed the world" we have the technology already. <br /><br />Everyone on the planet needs heave a big sigh and accept that they are not going to have an American dream type lifestyle, it doesn't exist (it possibly never did) because the resources to create it don't exist, there is not enough stuff on the planet to make the goodies for all 7 billion of us, while at the same time engineering enough food and water. Unless of course half of us wipe out the other half, and that brings us back to war.<br /><br />Sorry, it got to long but sometimes two sentences are not enough!Timbo614https://www.blogger.com/profile/14671168026195402267noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32841798.post-20980892548035350112012-01-26T11:48:25.017+00:002012-01-26T11:48:25.017+00:00Anon: A lot of words are being written about how t...Anon: A lot of words are being written about how the current situation is similar to 1939. It isn't though. But there are some ongoing lessons.<br /><br />EK: WW2 was not inevitable. A great many people tried hard to prevent it.<br /> It certainly sprang from the depression but its outbreak was just empire grabbing. Germany and Japan were not chasing scarce resources. Oil wasn't scarce. It was just not in their control. Both feared being cut off from supplies. But if neither country had been totalitarian militaristic warmongering countries those fears would not have materialised. <br /><br />But glad you mentioned it as it is worth returning to the current Iran/Iraq/Nigeria/ Arab Spring/ Recession/China a bit later.<br /><br />Incidentally, on any measure that you pick. Be it general health, lifespan, wealth, leisure time, freedom, consumer goods, transport, education, retirement, travel,holidays, hours of work, housing provisional, social care ... the west has been on an upwards trajectory that is unbroken since WW2. China, by contrast, goes backwards from WW1, sinks during the civil war of the 1940/50's. Collapses again during the cultural revolution, stagnates under communism and only slowly emerges from its 1890's level of wealth per/person when Mao dies and a limited free market is introduced.Bill Quango MPhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14861116614665461655noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32841798.post-22497681899786422062012-01-26T11:12:29.455+00:002012-01-26T11:12:29.455+00:00the USA's overwhelming military might and tech...<i>the USA's overwhelming military might and technological advantage. This is probably their last chance to re-assert themselves</i><br /><br />agree with the last part, <b>Kev</b> but as to the first ...<br /><br />there has indeed been a period of complete US dominance. I have written here before about the 1st Gulf War, which left the Russians absolutely gobsmacked: they hadn't believed the NATO air-land doctrine would actually work; but it did, on a very large scale<br /><br />even we & the French have shown we can intervene at will in places like Libya, which still leaves the Chinese baffled<br /><br />and the Russians' pathetic showing in Georgia 2008 was distinctly underwhelming <br /><br />however ... a lot of folk have been watching and learning<br /><br />if Iran - <b><i>Iran !</i></b> - can divert a US stealth drone (ultra-secret) to land intact on one of its own airfields, I think we may safely infer that the USA could be in for a bit of a surprise if it ran up against, say, China (to name a country at random) when everyone was playing their A-game for real<br /><br />(I rather imagine t'internet would cease to exist within the first 5 seconds, along with an awful lot else of what we rely upon for day-to-day existence) <br /><br />of course the Chinese might not enjoy the experience much either: but I can't see a happy outcome for anyone (and this is without even resorting to the old bogey a of global thermo-nuke ruck, which is probably a thing of the past)Nick Drewhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13670594203660051701noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32841798.post-22384885295749484392012-01-26T10:34:14.854+00:002012-01-26T10:34:14.854+00:00WW2 resulted in shifted borders, dismantled empire...WW2 resulted in shifted borders, dismantled empires and new economic opportunities and markets for the victors.<br /><br />The UK was occupied during WW2 by a foreign army and stripped of her empire - not to forget the virtue of many of her women too ! Our culture was to be changed forever to that of Rock and Roll, fast food, lack of deference, bling and laterly Gangsta culture.<br /><br />The war didn't end. Though it stopped in 'Caucasia' it continued vicariously among brown and yellow people in Indo China, South America and in a stand off on the cold borders of western Europe.<br /><br />After the war in Caucasia had ended the result was a vast wealth generating (and consuming) machine called America in the west.<br /><br />That is what the war (another word for economic-sort-out-by procurement-of-other-people's-wealth) brought us.electro-kevinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16474290901146390184noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32841798.post-78775486823810071152012-01-26T10:33:31.144+00:002012-01-26T10:33:31.144+00:00BlackRaven: Totally agree about the gold standard....BlackRaven: Totally agree about the gold standard. His theory is virtually proved by Britain booming when coming off and collapsing when going back on. <br />Roosevelt needed a lot of votes for his second election and he wanted the isolationist ones. So he set up a commission to investigate whether big business had manipulated the USA into WW1. He didn't believe it for a moment, but he wanted to show business that if they kept opposing his new deal and labour reforms, they could be punished. <br />It all came back to bite him hard when he needed the help of business in gearing up the economy. <br />The Liberal view of the New Deal that you read in the Guardian from time to time is a very rose tinted one.<br /><br />Budgie.I use modern terms.<br />In his own day Neville Chamberlain was fanatical about 'a balanced budget.' Something that I can recall being talked about on the nightly news along with 'balance of payments'<br />that are now no longer deemed important.<br />By contrast Churchill was considered a dangerous spending maniac who would destroy the nation's long term stability with his maverick spend and spend policies.<br />History has not been kind to Chamberlain who was really only following a policy similar to the current coalition's of spend only where you must, cut where you can.Bill Quango MPhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14861116614665461655noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32841798.post-9461519209078135992012-01-26T10:31:38.947+00:002012-01-26T10:31:38.947+00:00This comment has been removed by the author.electro-kevinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16474290901146390184noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32841798.post-55502726342726768342012-01-26T10:12:13.736+00:002012-01-26T10:12:13.736+00:00A very interesting post.
Written as though world ...A very interesting post.<br /><br />Written as though world war was incidental to the ravages of economic depression around the globe. "We don't know how these methods would have panned out because war intervened."<br /><br />War was an innevitability.<br /><br />We're going the same way now. <br /><br />This is a re-ordering of old world powers with new. Increased competition for limited global resources. <br /><br />A factor which might limit things is the USA's overwhelming military might and technological advantage.<br /><br />This is probably their last chance to re-assert themselves.electro-kevinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16474290901146390184noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32841798.post-36230495200169351732012-01-26T10:06:52.777+00:002012-01-26T10:06:52.777+00:00I am now depressing....
I know not with what weap...I am now depressing....<br /><br />I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.<br /><br />Albert Einstein<br />US (German-born) physicist (1879 - 1955)Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32841798.post-67134285628445673892012-01-26T09:51:23.455+00:002012-01-26T09:51:23.455+00:00An intriguing notion - that "austerity" ...An intriguing notion - that "austerity" means spending what you earn.Budgienoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32841798.post-58377917790465547902012-01-26T09:13:28.924+00:002012-01-26T09:13:28.924+00:00There is a good paper by Bernanke that shows that ...There is a good paper by Bernanke that shows that when a country came off the gold standard was the best predictor for when it started recovering, and I imagine informs his monetary policy.<br /><br />The thing that isn't really discussed often is how anti-business FDR was, and how much of a negative effect that had. The rhetoric is not dissimilar to that from Obama's 'millionaires and billionaires' grandstanding.BlackRavenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05896472586470597474noreply@blogger.com