THE NEW DEPRESSION

I've been calling it that for months. Here's why:

Take all of the dramatic financial crisis headlines you've seen since last September- especially the ones that start with words like: most ever..lowest in 60 years...biggest losses etc..

Put them all on one page and look at them all together and ask yourself--

"How the Hell Will We Ever Get Out Of This?!" A recession is determined by an extended economic dip that we eventually pull out of. A Depression looks like a much more foundational problem with no solutions in site. We lost something like 650,000 jobs in January alone. It usually takes the US economy several years to generate that many new jobs..

The new stimulus spending bill is committing hundreds of billions in new debt, on top of ten or eleven trillion we have already have now. "Who is going to pay for this?"

It would be one thing if we had a whole bunch of industries where we lead the world, or new technologies that are coming out of the pipe that are online to produce a whole bunch of new economic activity. I don't see it, do you?

So how do we actually deal with this ridiculously staggering financial crisis? The options don't look good- **(I'm not trying to be Mr. Negative here, but seeing things realistically is the first step towards realistic solutions).

1) We all hunker down and tighten up for the next...ten years?...twenty years? Better re-adjust your dreams now.
2) Society turns into a small priveledged class and the rest of us- poor with few opportunities- history and other countries have very clear examples of this type of thing.
3) Wheels come off the wagon- government loses all touch with real people's needs and becomes it's own insulated industry with an advesarial relationship with it's own people- (look at Mexico for example). We all fend for ourselves- most stop paying taxes if they can get away with it.
4) Real breakdown- Dollar devaluates, millions of out of work start regular riots-(with looting),
we morph into something ugly and American life as we know it dissapears.
5) We stick our heads in the sand and trust that our government has got a good handle on things.

We all hope this doesn't happen but the signs are already there if you look around. The time for more dramatic and creative ideas is now-- before it's too late. In the mean time- let's all remember to help one another as best we can.