I wrote: > > Ah yes, I see exactly what you mean. The world economy is probably in > > for a rough stretch for a while. > > > > I think the question here is "how bad will it be and long will it last?" > > > > There have been worldwide recessions before and we have always come out > > of them, but not without suffering and not always quickly.
And John Mmarchioro writes: > Aren't you assuming what needs to be shown, namely that this is a run of > the mill "worldwide recession"? No, I am not assuming anything. That is why I asked "how bad will it be." It could very well be very bad. It could become as bad as the Great Depression of the 1930's but it is not so bad now and does not yet show signs of becoming so. And even still, we came out of the Depression although it took a long time. > Most experts disagree, and the ones who predicted this crisis (and there > were many, across the political spectrum) disagree the most vehemently. > The evidence is fairly overwhelming (as I myself stated/predicted here > almost one year ago Yes, I understand that you and perhaps the other "experts" you cite are enthusiastically cheering and hoping that this is the last "death wriggle" for capitalism. Maybe you are hoping that this will finally give Communism a chance to come back from the grave. As William mentioned, if you are so convinced of the accuracy of your economic predictions, why not retire as a translator and be a professional investor? I unfortunately do not have such a crystal ball and think that it is the height of hubris for you to tell us that you know the future. > the latest evidence of that > this week was the $18 billion in "bonuses" for Wall Street paper pushers > whose firms are largely on life support courtesy of the US taxpayer.) Yes, I agree that this was shameful. The most telling point that something is not right was that they were being called "retention bonuses." In this economy, no one is being hired; no one needs a "bonus" to convince them not to leave the company. They should be happy just to keep their job. > This is not just an ordinary downturn; it is a financial collapse unlike > anything seen since the 1930s. Even Alan Greenspan, the acolyte of Ayn > Rand and Pontifex Maximus of laissez-faire, has concurred with this > judgment. Would you mind pointing me to the specific statements of Alan Greenspan to which you refer? > And there is no going back to what existed up to 2006. There is > going to have to be a new set of international institutions and rules to > cope with this mess, and the US economy is going to have be overhauled > across the board as well (and that means every sector, from industry to > services to finance, and the ridiculous trade deals that have exported > millions of decent jobs overseas). I don't think that trade deals are ridiculous at all. Although there have of course been abuses, free trade in almost any form has generally been a positive influence throughout history. It was precisely the large trade barriers in the form of Smoot-Hawley tariffs and retaliatory tariffs in other countries that exacerbated the depths of the Great Depression and made the economic downturn at that time last so long. I think we need more global trade and not less. Do we want to bring back to the US those low-wage manual labor jobs that have been exported? We have to create smarter jobs and not just any work. As long as there are people in other countries who are happy to take such work, why not continue to create jobs in those countries that will contribute to improving their economic situation? Regards, Alan Siegrist Orinda, CA, USA --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ Persons posting messages to not_honyaku assume all responsibility for their messages. The list owner does not review messages prior to posting, and accepts no responsibility for the content of messages posted. -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
