21 Sept 2012

Have the Last 5 Years Been Worse than the Great Depression?

By WashingtonsBlog: What Do Economic Indicators Say? We’ve repeatedly pointed out that there are many indicators which show that the last 5 years have been worse than the Great Depression of the 1930s, including:
Mark McHugh reports:
Velocity of money is the  frequency with which a unit of money is spent on new goods and services.   It is a far better indicator of economic activity than GDP, consumer prices, the stock market, or sales of men’s underwear (which Greenspan was fond of ogling).  In a healthy economy, the same dollar is collected as payment and subsequently spent many times over.  In a depression, the velocity of money goes catatonic.  Velocity of money is calculated by simply dividing GDP by a given money supply.  This VoM chart using monetary base  should end any discussion of what ”this” is and whether or not anybody should be using the word “recovery” with a straight face:

 Have the Last 5 Years Been Worse than the Great Depression?
In just four short years, our “enlightened” policy-makers have slowed money velocity to depths never seen in the Great Depression.

(As we’ve previously explained, the Fed has intentionally squashed money multipliers and money velocity as a way to battle inflation. And see this)
Indeed, the number of Americans relying on government assistance to obtain basic food may be higher now that during the Great Depression.  The only reason we don’t see “soup lines” like we did in the 30s is because of the massive food stamp program.
And while apologists for government and bank policy point to unemployment as being better than during the 1930s, even that claim is debatable.

What Do Economists Say?

Indeed,  many economists agree that this could be worse than the Great Depression, including:

Bad Policy Has Us Stuck

We are stuck in a depression because the government has done all of the wrong things, and has failed to address the core problems.
For example:
  • The government is doing everything else wrong. See this and this
Quantitative easing won’t help … it will only make things worse.
This isn’t an issue of left versus right … it’s corruption and bad policies which help the super-elite but are causing a depression for the vast majority of the American people.
The government and the banks are doing all of the wrong things. See this and this.

Source

No comments:

Post a Comment