WE ARE IN THE GREAT DEPRESSION OF THE TWENTY FIRST CENTURY. WHAT WILL YOU DO TODAY TO CHANGE AMERICA?
Tuesday, July 6, 2010 at 3:23 AM by Bill Baker, J.D.
Editor and Publisher, The San Bruno Beacon
From an economic standpoint, California and the United States are doomed.
On June 6, 2009, I wrote an investment related article titled, THE 1930s REVISITED. ARE EQUITY MARKETS DOOMED TO REPEAT HISTORY? In this article I described what was going on in the equity markets in 1930,1931 and 1932 and how the eerily similar movements of today's equity markets pointed to another Great Depression that is now, in 2010, becoming a reality.
More recently, other people who write about financial events have started to pick up on this theme. A June 8, 2010 article by Henry Blodget titled, REMEMBER: In 1930, They Didn't Know It Was "The Great Depression" Yet, also pointed out the similarities between the action in today's equity markets and the early 1930s equity markets.
In a July 4, 2010 UK Telegraph article titled, With the US trapped in depression, this really is starting to feel like 1932, Ambrose Evans_Pritchard observed, "Let us be honest. The US is still trapped in depression a full 18 months into zero interest rates, quantitative easing (QE), and fiscal stimulus that has pushed the [US] budget deficit above 10pc of GDP".
This Great Depression that we are living through is the greatest threat to every man, woman and child in the United States. It is such a great threat because it may rip our country apart by destroying our social, financial, governmental, and legal infrastructures. Civilized society is based on very frail social compacts between people supported and enforced by highly sophisticated, very expensive government and legal infrastructures. When governments and their legal systems break down, society descends into anarchy, violence and chaos. Think Dark Ages.
Tens of millions of Americans who have already lost their jobs and may never find another job. Millions of Americans no longer qualify for unemployment benefits and have no other resources. Millions of Americans who are homeless. For these Americans there is no American dream and there is little hope as they face a dismal future with no help in sight. Our Federal, State and local governments have failed these people and their families. And, with each passing day, the ranks of the unemployed, impoverished and those without hope grow.
In the United States, the Federal, state and local governments are in great need of significant change. Corporate America needs a fresh start and needs to be rebuilt from the ground up.
The U.S. Federal, state and local political systems that got us into this economic catastrophe are broken and corrupt. They don't work. If they did, America would work.
If we exclude small claims cases and expedited procedures for petty criminal offenses; with few exceptions, the legal and judicial systems in America are not unlike prostitutes providing their services to the highest bidder. In the U.S. legal system, when we exclude small claims cases and petty criminal offenses, the only fair and impartial justice that anybody is going to receive is that which can be purchased through expensive lawyers whom most Americans cannot afford to hire. I am not the first person to observe that lady justice is a prostitute and I certainly won't be the last person to make this observation. We deserve better.
The U.S. business community is so infested with liars, thieves and other assorted sleazeballs that people can no longer trust anything the pariahs leading America's major companies have to say.
The bad news about "Great Depressions" is that they lead to painful social instability. On the other hand, the good news about "Great Depressions" is that they often lead to societal developments, interactions and consequences that result in necessary change.
What will you do today to change America?
