what can I do to prepare for an economic depression?

[ApostateAbe]

I feel a bit nervous about the future of the economy. What I hear in the news about the public and private debt makes me believe that the United States could soon be tossed into the Great Depression of the 21st century. An economic slump happens in every generation of Americans, and I have a suspicion that the next slump is going to be more of an oh-please-God-save-us kind of thing. I don't want to be caught off guard and thrown out into the streets and turned into a God-forsaken homeless guy and die of starvation or lack of meds. I'd like to know what I can do now to prepare for the worst. I am a land surveyor, which means that I am out of work as soon as rich people stop developing their property. I bring home around $1200 per month. I have $2500 saved in the bank. I live in a duplex with a $375 rent and about $200 per month in utilities. I am insulin-dependent, and the meds cost around $25 per month (and it is that cheap because I have insurance). Without those meds, I am a dead man. So give me some ideas.

[wade-w]

What do you call what we're experiencing now?

[Socratoad]

Well Abe, having just awakened, well almost, something that immediately occurred to me, considering a most unfortunate earlier thread, would be to consider moving to Europe, perhaps Sweden or some such nation. A culture where they would be less likely to say "fuck him" its his own fault let him starve. Its called enlightened socialism.

Seriously though, have given a hell of a lot of thought to what is referred to as the "great depression" I find it almost surreal that although not a great deal in the natural world had actually changed during that time, with the exception of the dust bowl area, everything collapsed so bloody fast. Well not for everybody, some actually profited mightily during that time. As are many right now, while for others the depression already has arrived

In short: methinks that there is something very very artificial about our economic system. But then again my theories concerning economics are very unorthodox.

[Dingfod]

Originally Posted by Socratoad

In short: methinks that there is something very very artificial about our economic system. But then again my theories concerning economics are very unorthodox.

I've been calling it a house of cards for a long time. I think the current administration is trying to fix it by building the house of cars even higher.

[Socratoad]

Originally Posted by warrenly

I've been calling it a house of cards for a long time. I think the current administration is trying to fix it by building the house of cars even higher.

I couldn't agree more friend. It becomes an ever growing crock of shit as the days fly by. Wizard of OZ anyone?

[ApostateAbe]

Originally Posted by wade-w

What do you call what we're experiencing now?

I am experiencing comfort and ease. I get heat, food, medical care, water, sanitation, and electricity. If I were living in the 1930's, I would be out of work like one third of everyone else. The times we are living in now is nothing compared to what I fear is to come.

[Dingfod]

I don't know how many were unemployed during the depression, but the dollar amount that the economy shrunk from 1929 to 1933 was equivalent to 55% of the wages in the workforce prior to then. I've heard actual unemployement was only about 18-20% at the peak, but there were a lot of people that took lower paying jobs to get by.

People in the 1930s were, for the most part, a lot better equipped to survive hard times because they weren't that far removed from pre-mechanized society. People were used to walking everywhere, used to not having airconditioning, used to not having television, used to hard physical work, used to knowing how to repair things, hell, used to having things that even could be repaired, etc. They were tough by comparison to todays people.

[Zoot]

Get out of debt. Get to know the people in your neighbourhood. If you have a yard, start a vege garden.

And maybe check out the history of the Catholic Worker movement - http://www.catholicworker.org/historytext.cfm?Number=78

[wildernesse]

Originally Posted by Zoot

Get out of debt. Get to know the people in your neighbourhood. If you have a yard, start a vege garden.

And maybe check out the history of the Catholic Worker movement - http://www.catholicworker.org/historytext.cfm?Number=78

Good advice, IMO.

[ApostateAbe]

I have been living in this neighborhood for a year, but I don't know any of my neighbors, except for one, and I met them only briefly. I am thinking maybe I should pay attention to the neighborhood newsletter and see if there are any parties or whatnot. The holidays have already passed, which would have been an oppurtunity. Maybe that doesn't matter, since, if I lose my job, I'll probably bunk up with my parents. They don't know so many of their neighbors either. I don't have a yard to grow anything. And I am not in debt.

[Zoot]

We had a thing here in Auckland for a while, pioneered by a friend of mine, Father Peter Murnane, that was a community garden where lots of different groups and people - schools, churches, community groups, individuals, families - had little plots in which they cultivated food, and anyone could pop through and take a bit of whatever they wanted. There were all kinds of benefits for this.

[Zoot]

There's a line from Larry Diamond in Tom Robbins' Half Asleep in Frog Pajamas about the next big depression, where he says that people not having jobs doesn't mean not having work, that jobs are a fairly recent development in human history, and that he and his buddy grow enough food on the roof of their house to feed everyone in a three-block radius.

[Socratoad]

Hey Abe, I really did not mean to be so fucking pedantic and snarky in my first post on this thread. Sorry, it was just some residual crap from an earlier thread.

Unless I'm mistaken I believe you live in Seattle or vicinity. I know there are some pretty good well organized groups there belonging to the simplicity movement and/or living simply. These people are into helping one another , not spending big bucks they don't have, community gardening and all that good stuff. I suggest that you look them up and join one such group. It can be one helluva lot of fun too, plus a ready made social network of pretty genuine people.
PS; I already live that way.

[ApostateAbe]

Originally Posted by Socratoad

Hey Abe, I really did not mean to be so fucking pedantic and snarky in my first post on this thread. Sorry, it was just some residual crap from an earlier thread.

Unless I'm mistaken I believe you live in Seattle or vicinity. I know there are some pretty good well organized groups there belonging to the simplicity movement and/or living simply. These people are into helping one another , not spending big bucks they don't have, community gardening and all that good stuff. I suggest that you look them up and join one such group. It can be one helluva lot of fun too, plus a ready made social network of pretty genuine people.
PS; I already live that way.

I used to live in Seattle, but I now live in Vancouver, WA, across the river from Portland, OR. I figure I would have to go to Portland to find the type of community you and Zoot speak of. Vancouver is a very individualistic, not-so-neighborly city.

[flufeemunk]

Abe, here is a sign that you are indeed correct.

Just a note: Capitalism is silly when you become a survivalist.

[JoeP]

Let me check this: most of you think a depression is on the way? Even in NZ, not just the US? Business and public opinion here is lifting. Contract and job prospects are certainly better than they have been since the slump of 2001-2003. Bloody property prices are screaming skywards (I know, asset-price-bubble). And I get good vibes from UK contacts, and can confirm good job prospects there too.

Is there a US depression on the way, led by the falling dollar, and is this going to get the rest of the world?

joe

[godfry n. glad]

Actually, a falling dollar (relative to other world currencies) should be good news for economic activity in the U.S. It means the goods we sell overseas should be relatively cheaper, and thus in higher demand. The falling dollar is a reflection of the crappy balance of trade between the U.S. and it's trading partners.

It should also slow tourism which uses the U.S. dollar as its engine, and, if it falls sufficiently in comparison to other currencies, make it more attractive for other nationalities to visit the U.S., rather than the other way 'round.

As for possibility of a national (or even international) depression...I'd say yes, it could happen. It'd take a major collapse in demand for goods and services. Less demand, less work to produce the products and services demanded. This could be achieved when the major portion of the purchasing public (the middle class) realizes it's waaaaay too far in debt and reduces consumption in an attempt to reduce that debt.

The world economy is much more interconnected than it was in the 1930's and thus I suspect that a domestic reduction in demand would lead to a short-term fall in prices and layoffs until other national markets started stepping in and purchasing U.S. goods at bargain prices. Of course, there is always the possibility that other markets are already too saturated to allow this and other economies would go into the tank, following the U.S. - China, for one, would be irrevocably hurt economically by a U.S. depression.

It would take an initial shock to push the U.S. economy into a major depression (and I thought that 9-11 was going to provide just that). The conditions for the early 20th century depression were well in place before the 1929 stock market crash, but that shock pushed the whole economy into the deepest economic depression of our history. Runs on banks followed and assets dried up very quickly. (I suspect that a rapid neutering of the U.S. military-industrial complex, as heartily wished for by so many peaceniks - like myself - would lead to a national economic depression. I'm sad to say that my nation is an armaments junkie.)

Curiously, the relative empoverishment of the middle class in the U.S. via the recent Republican administrations has worsened the situation by making it more likely that there is a significant portion of the population with purchasing power sufficient to respond to various monetary incentives to brake a downturn. The current mindset amongst the economic nabobs seems to indicate that fiscal policy (government spending) aimed at bettering the condition of the U.S. public (rather than monetary policy) would be immediately unlikely....in other words, the same thing that happened last time. And this despite excessive spending on weapons of destruction and feeding the war machine.

What can you do? Find a rich sponsor whose debt does not outweigh their assets and become a toady. Ass-kissing will get you far.

godfry

[godfry n. glad]

Originally Posted by JoeP

Is there a US depression on the way, led by the falling dollar, and is this going to get the rest of the world?

joe

Is there a US depression on the way? It's hard to tell, joe. There have been many claims to that effect for some time. It's beginning to seem a lot like all those folks who predict the Apocalypse. The end is always near.

Then there are those who maintain we had a depression, during the Reagan years, only for political reasons, we called it a "recession". I rather agree, but it was no where near as deep, or as protracted, as the Great Depression of the 1930s.

godfry

(oh...and I don't think the weakening dollar means a damned thing in terms of an oncoming depression.)

[Socratoad]

Originally Posted by godfry n. glad

Actually, a falling dollar (relative to other world currencies) should be good news for economic activity in the U.S. It means the goods we sell overseas should be relatively cheaper, and thus in higher demand. The falling dollar is a reflection of the crappy balance of trade between the U.S. and it's trading partners.

It should also slow tourism which uses the U.S. dollar as its engine, and, if it falls sufficiently in comparison to other currencies, make it more attractive for other nationalities to visit the U.S., rather than the other way 'round.

As for possibility of a national (or even international) depression...I'd say yes, it could happen. It'd take a major collapse in demand for goods and services. Less demand, less work to produce the products and services demanded. This could be achieved when the major portion of the purchasing public (the middle class) realizes it's waaaaay too far in debt and reduces consumption in an attempt to reduce that debt.

The world economy is much more interconnected than it was in the 1930's and thus I suspect that a domestic reduction in demand would lead to a short-term fall in prices and layoffs until other national markets started stepping in and purchasing U.S. goods at bargain prices. Of course, there is always the possibility that other markets are already too saturated to allow this and other economies would go into the tank, following the U.S. - China, for one, would be irrevocably hurt economically by a U.S. depression.

It would take an initial shock to push the U.S. economy into a major depression (and I thought that 9-11 was going to provide just that). The conditions for the early 20th century depression were well in place before the 1929 stock market crash, but that shock pushed the whole economy into the deepest economic depression of our history. Runs on banks followed and assets dried up very quickly. (I suspect that a rapid neutering of the U.S. military-industrial complex, as heartily wished for by so many peaceniks - like myself - would lead to a national economic depression. I'm sad to say that my nation is an armaments junkie.)

Curiously, the relative empoverishment of the middle class in the U.S. via the recent Republican administrations has worsened the situation by making it more likely that there is a significant portion of the population with purchasing power sufficient to respond to various monetary incentives to brake a downturn. The current mindset amongst the economic nabobs seems to indicate that fiscal policy (government spending) aimed at bettering the condition of the U.S. public (rather than monetary policy) would be immediately unlikely....in other words, the same thing that happened last time. And this despite excessive spending on weapons of destruction and feeding the war machine.

What can you do? Find a rich sponsor whose debt does not outweigh their assets and become a toady. Ass-kissing will get you far.

godfry

godfry, please cease and desist. You are besmirching the good name of s everywhere. May I humbly suggest you use the term "ass-kissing sociopatic neocon" instead

[Dingfod]

The only thing wrong with godfry's analysis is we hardly make anything anymore. We were becoming more and more dependent on tourism. Of course, if the dollar gets low enough, we'll start making shit again, good old American shit.

[Socratoad]

Originally Posted by warrenly

The only thing wrong with Godfry's analysis is we hardly make anything anymore. We were becoming more and more dependent on tourism. Of course, if the dollar gets low enough, we'll start making shit again, good old American shit.

OH ya warren, methinks we could and should go on and on in this vain., perhaps tomorrow after my feeble brain recharges.

I mean, what the fucking hell is going on, millions upon millions of people i offices and ever diminishing numbers of people actually doing anything tangible. Its fucking insane ( a gross understatement.)

Do you remember when the rust belt became just that. Legions of conmen convinced those poor suffering bastards in the Midwest that convention centers were the answer, and so small cities and towns went into debt building all these white elephants ..... many of them are now abandoned white elephants. We dumb fucking conics were not immune to such blandishments either.. I mean what was the fucking point? you come to my convention center and next year I'll come to yours. ? Never seemed to occur to these bright bastards with their shiny new MB As that why build the fucking things in the first place. Lets just all stay at home , The end results would be exactly the same ..... except for the fast talking bastards who are likely living in the Bahamas as we speak.

Right here were I live the same disingenuous arguments are going now regarding casinos. Scheming parties in the city were I live are lobbying like mad to have casinos built bigtime. "Look at all the outside revenue this will attract", is the war cry. Meanwhile every other city and town are being brainwashed in exactly the same way. The only pricks who make money from such insanity are those who build these giant edifices in honour of greed and stupidity.
I see no difference between this and any other house of cards economic theory. Why the fuck don't we really apply such economic horse shit theories right down at the grass route level ...... build every citizen a burger franchise, and then each day we can go to each other's burger stand and buy a burger.

Sorry for so much cursing, but this damn subject winds me up even if I am half dead.

In short why in the hell don't Americans, Canadians and many other countries actually product much anymore other then PR men and smoke and mirrors?

The Emperor has been naked for quite some time time now.

[godfry n. glad]

Originally Posted by Socratoad

godfry, please cease and desist. You are besmirching the good name of s everywhere. May I humbly suggest you use the term "ass-kissing sociopatic neocon" instead

I sit corrected.

Indeed, I'm chagrinned. I also used "ass-kissing" as though it were somehow derogatory.

I would restate that as: sychophantic sphincter-licking neocon parasite.

Thank you, toad.

godfry

[pescifish]

Originally Posted by Socratoad

I mean, what the fucking hell is going on, millions upon millions of people i offices and ever diminishing numbers of people actually doing anything tangible. Its fucking insane ( a gross understatement.)

...snip...

In short why in the hell don't Americans, Canadians and many other countries actually product much anymore other then PR men and smoke and mirrors?

Just a bit of an aside: it might be heartening to know that I am involved directly in producing something, an actual product I mean, on my job. However, I'm pretty sure it is the sort of very American product that only confirms your disheartened attitude toward our economies.

[godfry n. glad]

Originally Posted by pescifish

Just a bit of an aside: it might be heartening to know that I am involved directly in producing something, an actual product I mean, on my job. However, I'm pretty sure it is the sort of very American product that only confirms your disheartened attitude toward our economies.

Um....let me guess. You're involved in producing some of the world's finest missile guidance systems?

C'mon...this great nation still produces some of the world's best and most advanced armaments. And for WMD, we are unparalleled. That goes for explosive delivery systems, too. We're also very good at extracting natural resources, like timber and fossil fuels. Around these parts, a lot of precision castparts (usually for Defense contracts), silicon wafers and computer chips are manufactured. Petrochemicals are still leaving their toxic imprint on lots of American communities, including one of the world's largest sources of tainted food goods, U.S. agribusiness. But it is true that we are rapidly "outsourcing" many of our high value, high skill, jobs overseas to those who work for much, much less. Corporate goals are relatively unhindered by national boundaries these days...They go where the costs of production are lowest, while still being able to assure adequate quality to flog their goods in the markets where consumers have sufficient disposable income, no matter where.

What? You don't know how to change bedclothes or something?

godfry

(...and make sure you leave a little mint on each pillow in the rooms you freshen.)

[Dingfod]

Not everyone is doing unimportant things. I monitor and control oil and gas production and processing from Wyoming to the Gulf of Mexico, but I don't actually make anything. I am in an extractive industry, exploiting resources that belong to the American people, typically only paying the government, the people's proxy, the 12.5% royalty fees, which they use to improve access to the energy resources to be exploited and staff a regulatory bureaucracy. Then, the people's oil and gas gets sold back to them at inflated prices. Shit, not only do I not make anything, I'm helping my company rob from the poor and give to the rich. What a bastard.

Besides... a trained monkey could probably do my job about as well... for peanuts. Don't tell anybody.