[shortonsense]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Tyler_JC', '(')Just to play the Devil's Advocate here)

Wasn't one of the big problems with Peak Oil the weakness of the electric grid to accommodate the new electric transportation infrastructure? And isn't part of Obama's big stimulus push an attempt to "build a smart electric grid"

So, if anything, this Depression might actually be exactly what we need.

Depression? Bring it on.

[bratticus]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', '[')b]Welcome to the Depression

Depression:

An economic condition caused by a massive decrease in business activity, falling prices, reduced purchasing power, excess of supply over demand, rising unemployment, and other negative economic factors.

- Bloomberg financial definitions

[Sixstrings]

That automatic markdown system sounds ingenious. It would encourage shoppers to keep coming back.

[BlueGhostNo2]

Just an arbitrary thought here but isn't what we're going through a repeat of the great depression but with the key players moved around.

In the great depression the problem was too few people held all the assets and money. They had no ability to spend this on consumption themselves so they inflated the price of assets into bubbles which lots of people piled into and used to fund consumption, the bubbles popped.

Those who had all the wealth generating assets got spooked and ran for the hills, they moved their money into gold and cash and kept on asking for debts to be re-payed without lending out for consumption, this created a deflationary spiral which destroyed the wealth generating assets, re-enforcing the fear and hoarding. This was only really ended by ww 2.

So the key is :-

High concentration of the wealth into few hands
Lots of debt throughout
Large numbers of workers so poorly paid they cannot afford to consume
Debt based bubbles blow up
Poorly paid people take on debt and use it to consume
Bubble bursts, destroying confidence of asset holders who head for the hills

Fast forward 78 years.

The developing countries and oil producing countries are chock full of money making machines which funnel wealth into few hands, these few hands invest via the US / UK global IB's creating asset bubbles. People and governments in the US / UK jump on the bubbles borrowing money against inflated asset price and GDP to do so and then use this imaginary wealth to ramp up consumption.

The bubbles pop (seen the stock market and house prices lately?).
This hammers everyone who was consuming on debt thus destroying demand.
Which in turn destroys the wealth producing assets (factories closing in china? People being laid off? Oil at rock bottom prices hurting oil producing countries?)
THIS causes the holders of these assets to head for the hills (government bond yeilds, price of Gold)

So the key players are not the Fed, Obama, the BoE but the Chinese government, Chinese factory owners and Saudi Sovereign wealth funds.
It is these key players confidence alone which counts.

[RdSnt]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Tyler_JC', '(')Just to play the Devil's Advocate here)
Consumers will cut back on spending (aka, resource consumption), couples will have fewer children (overpopulation solution) and government will invest in the kind of infrastructure we need to survive in a post oil world. Less economic activity means less pollution and fewer greenhouse gas emissions, giving us more breathing room to deal with climate change while we develop new technologies to produce cleaner energy.

Depression? Bring it on.

[bratticus]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Sixstrings', 'T')hat automatic markdown system sounds ingenious. It would encourage shoppers to keep coming back.

[miskatonic]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('cbxer55', 'I') have posted this once before. But it is worth posting again seeing the number of new unemployed you cite. This fellow agrees with you.

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'C')onclusion

In total we see the US economy losing between seven and 13 million jobs by the end of 2009 representing a 5% to 10% increase in unemployment. Our forecasts during this crisis have tended to be on the optimistic side; steeper job losses cannot be ruled out, especially if other feedback loops intensify. For example, rising unemployment will lead to a further 20% to 40% decline in real estate prices as households lose access to income to pay mortgage debt. A further tightening of credit as the pool of credit-worthy borrowers contracts means even deeper losses in Wholesale Trade, leading to more unemployment, and so on.

[manu]

This is just a slight dip which "they" should be able to sort out over the next 500 years. Give or take a century.

[Snowrunner]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('AgentR', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('IgnoranceIsBliss', 'H')ow in the heck to you dig out of a 20% unemployed hole? You don't.

[Sixstrings]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'H')igh concentration of the wealth into few hands
Lots of debt throughout
Large numbers of workers so poorly paid they cannot afford to consume
Debt based bubbles blow up
Poorly paid people take on debt and use it to consume
Bubble bursts, destroying confidence of asset holders who head for the hills

[Blacksmith]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Sixstrings', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'H')igh concentration of the wealth into few hands
Lots of debt throughout
Large numbers of workers so poorly paid they cannot afford to consume
Debt based bubbles blow up
Poorly paid people take on debt and use it to consume
Bubble bursts, destroying confidence of asset holders who head for the hills

[Mesuge]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('IgnoranceIsBliss', 'T')he author of that article predicts that unemployment will peak at a rate of 12-20%. I think my state is around 8.1% right now, one of the worst in the country. (along with Florida at our southern border).

I'm pretty confident we will see 12% (coming soon to CA and MI), as well as other areas of the US as well. That will surely lead to even more foreclosures. The downward spiral of this whole thing is very alarming, esp after yesterday's layoff numbers.

20% would be unrest in the streets and pretty much TSHTF. Beggars everywhere and crime such that it is unsafe to go to the stores or drive around. (at least in Atlanta, Orlando, and similar metros) If we get to this, I think you will see all real estate agents out of work!

How in the heck to you dig out of a 20% unemployed hole? You don't. This does not look good folks.

[yesplease]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Mesuge', 'M')oreover, keep in mind that the U.S. gov statistics about the unemployment rate has been usually massively undervalued (on purpose). Many people are out of the book keeping system permanently/seasonaly or not qualified at all, completely under the radar. So, always add some 5-15% (perhaps even more) above the official rating floor..

[BlueGhostNo2]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Sixstrings', 'I')t's time for the Republican Party to be consigned to the dustbin of history and spread the wealth around some -- for the good of the country.

[Revi]

You can't get blood from a turnip. There's no way the Government can tax people much more than it's doing. The bigwigs won't pay any more and those of us in the middle and lower classes don't have anything worth taxing. Do you want our sea doos or the mortgaged house 5 exits out in the suburbs? Please take them. We've been trying to sell them on Craigslist for a year or two.

We owe over 10 trillion dollars.

That's 7000 miles of thousand dollar bills. Not end to end. Imagine a stack of bills layed on it's side from Maine to California and back to St. Louis.

Just making all that debt in paper money will use a large proportion of the national forests.

There's no way we're paying it back. Don't worry.

[vision-master]

FEMA will help............

[IgnoranceIsBliss]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('RdSnt', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Tyler_JC', '(')Just to play the Devil's Advocate here)
Consumers will cut back on spending (aka, resource consumption), couples will have fewer children (overpopulation solution) and government will invest in the kind of infrastructure we need to survive in a post oil world. Less economic activity means less pollution and fewer greenhouse gas emissions, giving us more breathing room to deal with climate change while we develop new technologies to produce cleaner energy.

Depression? Bring it on.

[Tyler_JC]

And yet the data does not support that thesis.

Economic downturns result in reduced birth rates in the developed world.

Drop in Births Reported, And Recession Is Blamed (1991)

Shaky economy means ‘bye-bye baby’ for some (2009)

Pregnancy and Birth Rate Declines in Weak Economy

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'B')irth rates do tend to drop in times of economic uncertainty. There was a dramatic decline in fertility rates following the Great Depression in the 1930s, when, for the first time in U.S. history, women went from having an average of three children the previous decade to two.

In each year after the country’s last four recessions, general fertility rates — calculated as the number of women of child-bearing age per thousand who gave birth — dipped slightly. For example, in the year following the 1973-1975 recession, fertility rates dropped from 68.8 in 1973 to 65 in 1976, according to data from the National Center for Health Statistics, part of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Similarly, following the 1980-1982 recession, the fertility rate fell from 68.4 in 1980 to 65.7 in 1983.

[vision-master]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Tyler_JC', 'A')nd yet the data does not support that thesis.

Economic downturns result in reduced birth rates in the developed world.

Drop in Births Reported, And Recession Is Blamed (1991)

Shaky economy means ‘bye-bye baby’ for some (2009)

Pregnancy and Birth Rate Declines in Weak Economy

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'B')irth rates do tend to drop in times of economic uncertainty. There was a dramatic decline in fertility rates following the Great Depression in the 1930s, when, for the first time in U.S. history, women went from having an average of three children the previous decade to two.

In each year after the country’s last four recessions, general fertility rates — calculated as the number of women of child-bearing age per thousand who gave birth — dipped slightly. For example, in the year following the 1973-1975 recession, fertility rates dropped from 68.8 in 1973 to 65 in 1976, according to data from the National Center for Health Statistics, part of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Similarly, following the 1980-1982 recession, the fertility rate fell from 68.4 in 1980 to 65.7 in 1983.

[Snowrunner]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('vision-master', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Tyler_JC', 'A')nd yet the data does not support that thesis.

Economic downturns result in reduced birth rates in the developed world.

Drop in Births Reported, And Recession Is Blamed (1991)

Shaky economy means ‘bye-bye baby’ for some (2009)

Pregnancy and Birth Rate Declines in Weak Economy

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'B')irth rates do tend to drop in times of economic uncertainty. There was a dramatic decline in fertility rates following the Great Depression in the 1930s, when, for the first time in U.S. history, women went from having an average of three children the previous decade to two.

In each year after the country’s last four recessions, general fertility rates — calculated as the number of women of child-bearing age per thousand who gave birth — dipped slightly. For example, in the year following the 1973-1975 recession, fertility rates dropped from 68.8 in 1973 to 65 in 1976, according to data from the National Center for Health Statistics, part of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Similarly, following the 1980-1982 recession, the fertility rate fell from 68.4 in 1980 to 65.7 in 1983.