Editorial comment: Is another Great Depression just around the corner?
Editorial comment
Is another Great Depression just around the corner?
Not too long ago the thought the world might have another Great Depression was almost unthinkable. The only kind of depression anybody under the age of 65 knew anything about was the kind cured by Prozac.
Not any more. Talk of another Great Depression is coming to the forefront. Such talk has a way of becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy because Great Depressions are, among many things, caused by human psychology. Cutting back in consumption begets cutting back in production, which begets cutting back in jobs, which begets cutting back in consumption, you get the idea of the spiral downward.
Even the big boys who call themselves Nobel Prize winning economists are beginning to utter those fearful words “Another Great Depression”, witness this editorial in Investor’s Business Daily today, which is a comment on Paul Krugman’s op ed article in The New York Times on Sunday.
So what’s going to happen? If it’s like last time, the upcoming Next Great Depression will last at least ten years with the bottom still ahead of us, like 1929 (think 2008) begat the absolute bottom in 1934 (think 2013) with World War II (think 1939-1945) restarting the engine of productivity in this country.
The silver linings are that, like Herbert Hoover, the present presidential incumbent will probably be a one-termer who will beget someone more capable, think Franklin Delano Roosevelt. However, even FDR to this day has his detractors who say he prolonged the Great Depression, so let’s hope the next New Dealer and his minions will in fact bring us a Better Deal.
One great benefit of the last Great Depression was a new breed of entrepeneurs, who rode the wave of technological innovation resulting from the invention of radio, television, mass-production automobiles and air travel to create vast wealth in this nation.
Most of that wealth was squandered in the recent crescendo of greed, gluttony and shear stupidity brought on by our elected officials’ opening the floodgates to ruinous lending and overspending.
But, perhaps there is a silver lining. Entrepreneurial opportunities similar to those available in the 1930s are here today from the invention of computer technology, biotechnology and alternative energy technology.
Now, if Big Government will just get out of the way and if World War III will just not appear, maybe the working people in these United States of America will once again bring us through to a new tomorrow.
Click here for the editorial in Investor’s Business Daily today.
Click here for Paul Krugman’s op ed article titled The Third Depression.
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