Back in the Good ol' Days

How post FDR recessions compare to pre-FDR recessions with regard to frequency and duration of recession and intervening expansion.


How about we look at some facts?


From 1854-1933 there were 20 downturns lasting on average
22 months with the length of expansion between cycles lasting on average only 25 months. From 1933-2001 there were 12 downturns lasting on average 10 months with the length of expansion between cycles lasting on average 64 months.

Everything You Need to Know About the Financial Meltdown

Sold Out; How Wall Street and Washington Betrayed America

This American Life; The Giant Pool of Money


Greenspan lowering interest rates to the desires of Wall Street and Multinational corporate interest is just one small piece of this puzzle. In fact it's no puzzle. The whole state of the world and our economy is simply the result of bending government policy to the desires of the super wealthy. Wall Street cares nothing about productivity, they care nothing about free markets, they care nothing about market competition nor the invisible hand of the market... they ultimately are looking for fast easy money anyway they can get it. This usually is best accomplished by switching money from production to speculation. It's the best and fastest way to earn lots of money without having to do any real work or produce any real value or real product. Simply give Wall Street everything it wants and this is the end result. Simply look at the major legislation passed over the last 30 years and you will see the building blocks which resulted in this fiasco. Piece after piece of legislation was put together to this specific end ultimately resulting in the CDO. ll just one big coordinated plan to squeeze the last bit of equity out of the lower classes especially when it became clear they could not get their hands onto social security for now. It's proof positive of the dangers of allowing the wealthy elite to circumvent democracy and promote the interest of an elite few over the interest of the many. Its the rock solid evidence for why unregulated free market capitalism does not work and is an idea that is an abject failure when attempted to be put into place in the real world.



The two best resources to understanding this situation in its entirety are HERE and HERE.



"My first instinct was to let the market work, until I realized ... how significant this problem became."_GW Bush



"Capitalism is the astounding belief that the most wickedest of men will do the most wickedest of things for the greatest good of everyone."

John Maynard Keynes