In 1932, automobile production shriveled by 90%
By BRADLEY R. SCHILLER, Wall Street Journal
"Consider the job losses that Mr. Obama always cites:
In the last year, the U.S. economy shed 3.4 million jobs - 2.2% of the labor force. From November 1981 to October 1982, 2.4 million jobs were lost - 2.2% of the labor force, the same as now.
Job losses in the Great Depression: 1930, the economy shed 4.8% of the labor force. In 1931, 6.5%. 1932, another 7.1%. Jobs were being lost at double or triple the rate of 2008-09 or 1981-82.
Unemployment rates: The latest survey pegs U.S. unemployment at 7.6%. 1982 peak (10.8%). Peak in 1932 (25.2%). You simply can't equate 7.6% unemployment with the Great Depression.
Real gross domestic product (GDP) rose in 2008, despite a bad fourth quarter. The Congressional Budget Office projects a GDP decline of 2% in 2009. That's comparable to 1982, when GDP contracted by 1.9%. It is nothing like 1930, when GDP fell by 9%, or 1931, when GDP contracted by another 8%, or 1932, when it fell yet another 13%.
Auto production last year declined by roughly 25%. That looks good compared to 1932, when production shriveled by 90%.
The failure of a couple of dozen banks in 2008 just doesn't compare to over 10,000 bank failures in 1933, or even the 3,000-plus bank (Savings & Loan) failures in 1987-88.
Stockholders can take some solace from the fact that the recent stock market debacle doesn't come close to the 90% devaluation of the early 1930s."
Mr. Schiller, an economics professor at the University of Nevada, Reno, is the author of "The Economy Today" (McGraw-Hill, 2007).
About Me
- ...
- Business, Free Enterprise and Constitutional Issues; Pro-Life and Pro Second Amendment. Susan Lynn is a member of the Tennessee General Assembly. She serves as Chairman of the Consumer and Human Resources subcommittee, a member of the Finance Ways and Means Committee and the Ethics Committee. She holds a BS in economics and a minor in history.
3 comments:
The main thing is that we've not seen the worse of it yet. Bush was bad enough, but Obama can't save us either. The root cause of the economic crisis is because we have a financial system that is propped up on straws. Abolishing the Federal Reserve would be a start.
Want to save yourselves? Here's how:
1. Get back on the gold standard, pronto. Unless you want a repeat of what happened in Hungary after WWI when 100,000 schillings were not just the monthly wage but the price of a loaf of bread.
2. Let the Detroit big 3 die along with bad banks. Propping up a corpse won't breathe life into it.
3. Abandon Phoenix, Vegas's suburbs and in fact any suburb more than 20 minutes from the city center. (Inland Empire of CA, I'm looking at you.) Doing so will accomplish the following: save water which we need, return more land to farming and food production, drop a demand for oil which means we wont have to beg Saudis for it and wont need to destroy the Florida coast either and who knows, in the process we may just have actual communities again with actual people having actual conversations instead of living in a total isolation interrupted only by the occassional lonely teenage shooting spree.
3. Make foreclosure assistance means based. Same for social security btw. If you can take care of yourself so you wont starve or go homeless, no assistance for you. And yes, that means assistance for those in society who need it. Call if socialism if you'd like.
4. Don't build another highway, bridge or overpass. Let the old ones crumble. Build rails, buses, trains, etc. Public transit should be the connecting tissue of American communities.
Schiller writes for FrontPageMag.com. 'Nuff said.
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