From yesterday's New York Times op-ed page: "...I look upon (these optimistic college kids) and wonder if my generation is the last to remember that there is no such thing as limtless prosperity. All booms are followed by busts. All of them. Most of us grew up with the memory of the worst bust of all, the Great Depression, firmly fixed in our family consciousness; even I, born in 1936, have floating in my mind shadowy images of destitute men, women and children traveling along Route 66...Yet I find myself reluctant to play Cassandra to a generation that seems not to know or want to know the reality...only yesterday, the prosperity bandwagon rolled down Main Street, but that era ended abruptly and catastrophically, particularly for people of precisely their age and glimmering hopes. They cannot imagine that at one point 28 percent of Americans had no incomes at all--a figure that today would equal 73 million Americans. Nor can they imagine that grown men and women, people just like themselves, once were driven to begging in the streets and fighting like junkyard dogs over scraps buried in garbage heaps, or that we still do not know precisely how many were killed in the longest and bloodiest period of class warfare in our history. Above all, they cannot conceive that it could happen again--that to one degree or another, it will happen again, and maybe to them. I do tell them all this, of course, when they are willing to listen, but I do not think they really believe me...I wish I could share their insouciance..." T.H. Watkins, professor of American studies at Montana State University.

-- Spidey (in@jam.midtown), October 09, 1999

Answers

"Every boom followed by a bust. Every one of them." Any nay-sayers? Gainsay away.

-- Spidey (in@jam.Throgs), October 09, 1999.

Spidey,

....and every bust is followed by a boom!

Some busts are more severe than others and some booms are "irrational exuberance," but life goes on.

-- mike (maples@voy.net), October 09, 1999.

The disadvantage of men not knowing the past is that they do not know the present. History is a hill or high point of vantage, from which alone men see the town in which they live or the age in which they are living.

G. K. Chesterton

-- no talking please (breadlines@soupkitchen.gov), October 09, 1999.

Mike: please tell me when the boom was for the Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto during World War Two. Didn't over 99% of them die...? How about for Carthage after the last Punic War? Ireland had over a century before even so-so times were the case after the potato blight in the 1800's. Memphis, Tennessee (in the U.S.) was disincorporated for a generation after the majority of its inhabitants died from yellow fever in the 1800's. I wonder how long the villages near the erupting volcanos of Santorini or Krakatoa took before they had booms again? How is the economy of the village of Pompeii these days?

Need any more examples to accept that often in history, times of busts (economic and otherwise) are followed not by booms, but by oblivion or the grave?

my site: www.y2ksafeminnesota.com

-- MinnesotaSmith (y2ksafeminnesota@hotmail.com), October 09, 1999.

How is the economy of the village of Pompeii these days?

Actually, it's excellent; they have lots of tourists. :)

-- Steve Heller (stheller@koyote.com), October 09, 1999.

How do you get to a boom afterwards if the economy depresses and the vast debt burden weighs down on the govt. budgets.

The amount of debt balanceing on a thread of stability is just way beyond comprehension. The debt is way more than the one we are familiar with, the national debt. The US govt is liable for a lot more debt that will come landing on us if the global financial system disrupts. There is a whole universe of financial dealings that are delicate and have vast consequences if they are disrupted. I think that area is the real threat.

The roman civilization was a wreck for centuries after thier structure was ruined. I certainly hope we do well, but my guess is that it is the global financial guys that ultimately drop us off the cliff. They are extremely self interested and will cooperate only as long as they trust what is happening. When or if they see enough disruption in the banking and related financial worlds, they will flee, not wanting to be the one holding the bag. Irregardless of the consequences to the system of thier bailing out.

-- bburke (bburke@rocketmail.com), October 09, 1999.

Mike--yes, "life goes on." Humans survive (barring a dinosaur-level meteor event). But how many, and in what condition? These are the real questions of history, and boom-bust cycles become not just the concern of economists, but involve us all. Your answer suggests an attitude of "so what?" It is the answer of existentialism, of fatalistic nihilism (though I doubt you intended it as such). An economic calamity on the scale of the Great Depression would be ruinous to our society; it is absurd to argue that wide-spread social chaos wouldn't occur, and provide fertile soil for the sprouting of authoritarianism. Read Mark Hillyard's thread above for a look at our CURRENT disenfranchisement. The social and moral climate today is quite different than that of the 1930's, despite the panglossian protestations of the Deckers and Flints. The vastly different percentages of people who are involved in food production, while boosting our GDP, belies a profound weakness that will manifest itself, I believe, sooner rather than later. Reading about Rome is one thing: living it is quite another.

-- Spidey (in@jam.disputatum), October 09, 1999.

You morons thought the Dow was going to crash at 5,000! Hahahahaha Wring your hands all you want, the rest of us are laughing!!

-- Tanqueray (lavida@loca.Ricky), October 09, 1999.

Some of you are taking my response to Spidey's econmic comment out of context.

MinnSmith- Spidey was referring to economic cycles, not wars, plagues and vulcanism. I am well aware that Warsaw was devestating to my people. While Spidey wasn't commenting on that, I do fear scapegoating under extreme economic chaos. But I don't envision economic chaos, just a boom-bust cycle that will see extreme fluctuations but not anarchy.

bburke- Depressions make debt disappear through defaults, just like the biblical concept of the jubilee year. Govt debt will probably not go away, but it is not as dangerous to the economy as private debt.

Spidey- I do not have a "so what" attitude. I just don't envision the same catastrophic environment as you. Even if I did share your view, tell me what I could do about it? You can't protect yourself from anarchy. You can run but you can't hide forever, and sooner or later, the anarchists would get to you as well. Also, why would "An economic calamity on the scale of the Great Depression ...be ruinous to our society?" It wasn't ruinous then- look at our boom today. That was my point: "...every bust is followed by a boom."

-- mike (maples@voy.net), October 09, 1999.

Mike--I tried to indicate that our current social climate makes for a more fragile range of responses to economic disturbance. Additionally, during the G.D., a third to a half of the population was still "tied to the land" in some sense: close to the source of food production. Today the figure is 5%, and far more people are beholden to the government and the 'service' economy for their dough. Clearly, having 28% of the population bereft of a source of income for an extended period would produce social rifts, of the sorts feared by politicians and well-intentioned people alike. Order from chaos, yes, but whose order? At what cost? Even today, in the midst of a decade-long boom, we have massive growth of bureaucracy and a frightening loss of privacy, both electronic and physical. The trend is toward transnational corporate and governmental power, without oversight. Faced with social fragmentation, the response will be ugly. When the King is frightened, men must die.

-- Spidey (in@jam.riposte), October 09, 1999.

Tanqueray: don't make an ass out of yourself until the chips fall. Have they fallen yet? At this point I'd consider you a premature ass.

-- Feller (feller@wanna.help), October 09, 1999.

In the 42 months following year-end 1995, the debt-GDP ratio grew more on a percentage point basis (from 254 percent to 275 percent) than it did in the two decades before 1980 (when it rose from 148 percent to 168 percent). During the past 40 years, only one era rivals the past three years for debt expansion relative to GDP  the mid-1980s. In the aftermath of that period, debt continued rising in relation to GDP from the start of the 1990 recession through 1993. (http://www.fmcenter.com) The original article was in PDF. High debt will make the next resession/depression much worse.

-- Dave (dannco@hotmail.com), October 09, 1999.

Dave: do you think increased debt/GDP ratios fuel equity market speculation? It seems that sustained cheap credit acts as an anodyne on the stock markets, and any withdrawal will be painful.

-- Spidey (in@the.jam), October 10, 1999.