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Is the US Headed for Another Great Depression?
If a depression by any other name would feel as bleak, what do you call the current state of the U.S. economy? A number of influential American economists are no longer mincing words: They argue that deficit-obsessed politicians in Washington are setting the United States up for a repeat of the 1930s.
What we're experiencing may not be a full replay of the Great Depression, but that's little consolation for the millions of American families suffering from a slump that goes on and on,” insists Nobel laureate Paul Krugman.
“At some point, the pain of high unemployment may lead to some new thinking in Washington – but until that time, welcome to the second Great Depression,” adds Dean Baker of the Center for Economic and Policy Research.
At first blush, the analogy seems ludicrous. The U.S. unemployment rate hit 25 per cent during the Dirty Thirties. It's now at 9.1 per cent, after peaking at 10.1 per cent in late 2009. So-called automatic stabilizers – from unemployment benefits to food stamps – mean economic downturns now resemble a big pothole more than a bottomless pit. There are no bread lines.
Still, the Depression mystique has an irresistible lure. It informs (and invariably illustrates) our understanding of economic suffering in ways statistics cannot. A CNN poll this week found that 48 per cent of Americans expect another Great Depression within a year. Who are experts to tell them otherwise?
“The use of the word ‘depression' is an abuse of the language,” says Sebastian Mallaby, director of the Maurice Greenberg Center for Geoeconomic Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations. “But that doesn't mean I'm happy about where we are. There is a painful problem of long-term unemployment.”
And on that level, the U.S. job market may actually be in worse shape than during the Depression. More than six million Americans, or about 45 per cent of the unemployed, have been out a job for more than six months. That's a higher proportion than at any point during the 1930s. In all, about 25 million Americans are unemployed or underemployed.
And Washington may be about to make the situation worse.
Neglecting the lessons of 1937
A slew of stimulus measures have expired and more will soon. Unless Congress acts otherwise, the last of them – extended unemployment benefits and payroll tax cuts – will end on Dec. 31.
Even before then, their impact may nullified if Republicans get their way and force the adoption of massive, immediate spending cuts in exchange for a deal to raise the $14.3-trillion (U.S.) federal debt ceiling by Aug. 2.
For economists of the Krugman-Baker school, 2011 is shaping up to look worryingly like 1937. Then, as now, politicians and policy makers mistook the absence of negative growth for a nascent recovery. They turned to slashing deficits and snuffing out the perceived threat of inflation. That Mistake of 1937 drove the economy back into the red.
Politicians on Capitol Hill seem strangely impervious to warnings of 1937 redux. Neither the news that the U.S. economy grew at an anemic 1.8 per cent in the first quarter, nor the fact that job creation in May was four times below the rate needed to keep up with population growth, tempered calls for spending cuts.
The White House is increasingly worried. No postwar president has won re-election with an unemployment rate above 7.2 per cent. But the policy debate on Capitol Hill, to the extent there has been one, is over. Congress is hell bent on deficit reduction. The best Barack Obama's administration can hope for is to moderate the pace of spending cuts.
In its December report, the deficit-reduction commission appointed by Mr. Obama and headed by Clinton-era budget director Erskine Bowles and ex-Republican senator Alan Simpson, recommended measures that would slash growth in the federal debt by $4-trillion by 2020. But that was well before a string of dismal reports – on jobs, housing, manufacturing and consumer spending – forced economists to revise their growth forecasts downward.
“In an ideal world, you'd have the promise of deficit reduction à la Simpson-Bowles commission coupled with continued stimulus now focused on supply-side benefits, such as infrastructure spending that would make the economy stronger later,” Mr. Mallaby offers.
Instead, the current fight between Democrats and Republicans for political advantage could just lead to the worst of both worlds, as Congress moves to slash spending in the short term without risking the wrath of voters by reforming their cherished entitlements.
If this is a recovery, why do we still feel sick?
Vice-President Joe Biden is brokering debt talks with congressional leaders as the clock ticks toward the Aug. 2 deadline. But additional short-term stimulus measures will be a tough sell. A group of 103 Republican members this week called for immediate spending cuts of $380-billion during the 2012 fiscal year, which starts this coming Oct. 1.
“At a certain point, you have to back off the stimulus. The amount of debt you have becomes either politically or economically difficult to sustain,” Mr. Mallaby explains. “We're at that point in a political sense more than an economic sense.”
The result is that the U.S. economy appears condemned to endure a prolonged period of subpar growth, if not a double-dip recession. (So far, strong banks and a robust housing sector have insulated Canada from the pain it typically feels when the U.S. economy stalls. But for how long?)
Recoveries following a financial crisis tend to be slow going. By this point in the average postwar recovery, the U.S. gross domestic product had risen 9.4 per cent above its low point. But this time, U.S. GDP is up barely half that amount, according to Mr. Mallaby. He does not expect any sudden improvement.
“The larger truth is that the pressure to rein in government spending, coupled with continued pressure on household consumption from soft house prices, points to tough times ahead,” he wrote in a June 3 report. “The latest grim jobs report may not be the last.”
It probably won't turn into a depression. For millions of Americans without anything else to compare it to, it will only feel like one.
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101 Comments so far
Show AllIf the (R)s get their way, and government spending is cut to the bone, the stock market will crash within months and we will be in a great depression. Hell, a technical loan default could bring US down this summer. Government spending is all that is floating our boat. We have all been bled dry and can't spend our way out of a paper bag. Credit cards are maxed out and the home ATM machine is empty. Politics or no politics we need some government spending WPA style. Government seed money to grow new industries at home. Green is the future and Germany is going to cash in like we should be.
Where are those wind mills built in America by Americans using steel made by US steel workers Obama? Where are the crews rebuilding our bridges? How much work has been done building the grid of the future? Remember all that talk from '08? Or, am I misremembering?
There is something in the American psyche that makes US hang on to the bitter end before we consider actually changing. Some corporate examples: Kodak had the film business locked up from George Eastman till they blew it. They kept hanging on to the same old business model. Fuji started to take market share in 35 mm. Kodak's response was the 110 Instamatic. They were really going to make money on their decreased film cost! Digital cameras come along and Kodak stuck with their traditional film business and missed the boat.
Microsoft: How many times can Bill sell us the same Windows platform over and over again. It's just the platform. Internet Explorer is not technically up to speed with the competition. Hang on to that same business model Bill, while Google and Apple innovate.
Auto and steel in this country took and took money from the business while the Japanese were reinvesting in new plant and equipment. US auto makers put their money in slick advertising that their products were better now. Japanese invested in R&D product development - they were driven.
US defense contractors have lived off the government tit for so long now that they could no longer even define profit motive. It's cost plus, so, spend more - It's a Cadillac industry and the give-a-mint is buying. Competition, from our free market competitors, will soon bury the US, just like Khrushchev said. Check out new Russian stealth fighter at a fraction of our selling price.
Our leaders just don't get it. This all works for them but, the final accounting is in the offing. Time to think outside the box America.
Politics or no politics we need some government spending WPA style. Government seed money to grow new industries at home. Green is the future and Germany is going to cash in like we should be.
Where are those wind mills built in America by Americans using steel made by US steel workers Obama? Where are the crews rebuilding our bridges? How much work has been done building the grid of the future? Remember all that talk from '08?
Mr Ryan, I just felt some of your words needing repeating. Please do not give up trying to teach those around you.
May i have some more radioactive gruel ,please, sir? Greed and property ownership have, once again, thrust us in to action.... If you ain't freakin' out, you ain't payin' attention!
So this crisis is being dealt with on an insane political level rather than a rational economical level. Just great. The US has become a madhouse peopled by right wing lunatics running the place and hapless Democrats, including our President, cowering in corners. And the decisions being made will only worsen the crisis.
What a choice for voters!
Damn right we need a choice!! And not one to choose between the right wing lunatics and the hapless cowering other corporately funded political party. The Democrats are not 'cowering' they are standing up right there with their twins helping the rich get richer and greasing the slippery slope to deep depression and the collapse of our monetary system. Well, the monetary system deserves to crash. It ain't based on anything but full faith in our government---and who has trust in that lot of corporate lackeys in D.C. today?
The problem is not really the depression. It is the loss of our democracy. Go on out and see if you can find anyone who wants the wars to go on and expand---who likes our for profit health care system and who is happy that our nation is going bankrupt after giving all of our tax funds to the crooks on Wall Street who belong in jail? Know anyone who agrees with the Supremos that corporations are really just people like us and they deserve the protection of the Constitution?
There in NO ONE in Congress that is paying attention to the people. Throw the bums out!! We need a Constitutional Convention to rewrite our Constitution as directed by our Declaration of Independence. And for God's sake---don't vote for the evil twins. The Democrats and the Republicans are joined at the hip---or is it the pocket book? One is not worse than the other and neither is any good for the working people of this nation.
Nice post! I agree with every word you wrote and that's a rare event for any post on this board exceeding two sentences in length.
Excellent post!
Might I add that we need to force the resignations of those bozos with lifetime appointments on the Supreme Court? We need to scare them into resigning by storming the Court and have a face-to-face encounter with these nuts. Inject some reality into their opulent, cloistered, unaccountable lives. I hate the way the Judicial Branch is set up: radical presidents like Obama and Bush appointing these guys for life and the fools in Congress falling all over each other to the lick their balls. It's a ludicrous way to run a country.
The US doesn't need a new constitution, the people elected to state and federal office need to support and uphold the dictates of the present one and hold accountable those who countermand them, and that includes the current reigning president who so blithely breaks the law. As far as corporations being persons, that wont change as long as the sitting members of the SCOTUS remain in place.
One need only read an online article at the CNN site regarding Daniel Ellsberg's opinion of where the Constitution is to become fully incensed with the lawless state of the US today. The presidents have brashly been breaking the laws of the nation since the time of Truman. Ellsberg contends that it has become worse during the term of each successive president with Obama being the worst criminal of all.
http://inthearena.blogs.cnn.com/2011/06/07/daniel-ellsberg-all-the-crimes-richard-nixon-committed-against-me-are-now-legal/
Many good points in three short paragraphs.
HOWEVER, a Constitutional Convention would surely backfire for those who agree with your viewpoint as the "Plenty-of-money-to-spend-on-propaganda Class" would hoodwink everyone into giving the government less authority and the corporations and families with large wealth accumulations even more power.
Better to work hard to change the legislators we have to work with by growing another American Political Party (and hope the candidates do not immediately sell out to the wealthy and powerful).
My parenthetical comment shows that even our latent optimism gets quickly destroyed by the inherent corruption we see all around us.
I swear it's time to mount mass protests in the street, break some windows, hurt some feelings .... Perhaps the GOP's willingness to cave in to the clueless Tea-Baggers* on the 'debt ceiling' -- even against their own better judgement -- will really have us in another Great Depression soon; but at least it will show the populists among us that a sizeable, vocal minority can scare some change into a two party system.
* Concerning my use of the term "Tea-baggers" when referring to the Tea Party. Yes, I know what "Tea Bagging" means within the gay community. I use it to refer to the Tea Party because it seems to me that tea bagging is exactly what they are doing to the Kochs, the Coors family, Citibank, Goldman-Sachs, ...
Keep in mind OilyBomber appointed Simpson.
Don't forget to throw ignorant people into the mix. The average American is known for voting against his/her own best interests. Who put all those Republicans and Tea Partiers into office in the first place?! It's not corporate money we have to fear, but what it can buy: the stupidity of the average American
why does Common Dreams want us to drink this CFR koolade. Of course it's not a depression it just feels like one, so says the man from the CFR who's actions helped create this non-depression. Abuse of the language, well Mr Mallaby knows all about that. The only thing he and his CFR buddies abuse more than the language(LIES) are the needs of the American people.Come on CD why reprint this garbage here?
Funny how Hoover helped establish the word "Depression" as a description of the economic horror of the thirties. Now politicians avoid the word like a plague, pretending if they ignore the problem, it will go away. The definition of a recession does not take into account the suffering of workers: it is defined as two consecutive quarters of fall in the GDP. A more sensible definition would consider unemployment rates, median length of unemployment, foreclosure rates, food stamp applications, and more. It all underlines the fact that everything is political, definitions, the issues that get addressed in Congress, the "news" that is presented on TV. The dissonance between felt pain and described conditions is astounding.
In 1930 there was still lots of cheap oil to be had as U.S. domestic production wouldn't peak for another 40 years. No such luck this time. Fasten your seat belts, the roller coaster ride is just beginning...
And there were no food stamps during the depression. Now we're printing money at breakneck speed for that, extended unemployment and other bandaids. And the unemployment numbers are about as credible as the inflation numbers. Lies and more lies. It all underscores the general feeling of things being worse than we're told. And it is worse than we're being told. Much worse. If you thing something smells now, just wait until the big turds start hitting the fan. The Big Stink is fast approaching.
Keep your pantry stocked.
We also had the world's pre-eminent industrial manufacturing capability. That's gone, China has it. You're right, we are not digging ourselves out of this hole anytime soon, especially with the corrupt lunatics in charge.
We do still have forests, agricultural exports and coal. When it all collapses, we will be be exploited for our natural resources by wealthier, more economically stable countries.
Good time to start learning home gardening and food preservation. Ain't gonna be pretty.
The USA already exports more raw material than manufactured goods, i.e. Timber, Scrap metal and Recycled Cardboard.
not to forget the Depleted Uranium!
And the Red Russians sent confiscated White Russian gold to pay for USA soup kitchens.
I'm shocked, shocked I tell you. I've "taken" American History-Post Civil War for 3 years in a row and I've never heard or read that the Commies kept our forefathers body and soul together on the confiscated wealth of aristocrats.
I'm always surprised when I am reassigned to that class because the teacher hates my guts. He complains that I'm not supposed to contribute to the classroom discussions, that I'm constantly "off-topic"/disruptive and that I freely distribute the notes I take in class. My special ed. department loves me because I engage my students at a level the other instructors don't, because I love history, social sciences and teenagers. It's been fun to turn the kids on to Howard Zinn, Emma Goldman, Zapatistas, The Grange Movement to name a few of the latest. His real beef is that he's "prepared"( he was "prepared" 13 years ago, when we bought the last issue of the textbooks) and hence is not anticipating the context of the content relative to the needs of the students today. No doubt the research my students undertake keep crowding out the "facts" he like to them to remember. After 3 semesters, I engaged the special ed chair about those fact scores as measured in the textbook tests and was told not to worry about it, they had never been higher as far as the special ed kids were concerned. It took the librarian to clue me in the "problem" was the drop in "regular" student scores ;-)
I was wondering when someone would bring this up.
I am firmly of the school that everything, I mean EVERYTHING, has energetic reasons behind it. Every empire that was ever built, every war that was ever fought, was for control of energy resources, be it rich farmland, slaves, or fossil sunlight deposits.
Now, we are faced for the first time in human history with the spectre of declining energy availability, as fossil sunlight enters terminal decline.
Those who don't remember the "stagflation" of the 1970's -- as well as those who remember it, but didn't learn anything from it -- are going to repeat the same mistakes.
Current leaders and political systems are absolutely not equipped for dealing with continual economic contraction as a way of life. The best example we have, Cuba, is ostracized. The second best example -- the breakup of the Soviet Union -- is unthinkable as an example for western industrial countries.
So it's going to be up to individuals to grow their own food and heat their own houses, WITHOUT much in the way of a cash economy. Get started, folks.
So the trillion dollar + bailout of the financial sector is not going to "save" the economy anyway; the White House is worried about re-election rather than the well being of its citizens: Any doubts left that this is not a nation at all? A "Republican" Party hell bent on making sure the economy tanks so they can blame it on Obama while he and his party are incapable of any courageous actions such as government employment of its people, taxing the wealthy and ending the Afghanistan war in order to keep soldiers from increasing the unemployment rolls by returning home and thus making the Democrats look bad and not re-electable : Any doubts that people do not matter at all to this corporate state? Looks like collapse is inevitable.
but there is government employment of its people.
the military, TSA, CIA, NSA, etc.
You said it, vdb! Government and government contract work are the main source of employment in the USA today. That's why things never get better. Career politicians have created a system that rewards career politicians. With so many government workers that vote, it is impossible to change things.
The only entities hiring in my region are all War related. There's a shortage of welders to build all the ARV's,APC's,light cruisers for the Navy, Coast Guard, Army trucks, you name it. One doesn't know whether to laugh or cry when the long term unemployed loved ones get a job, then you find out it's related to killing someone. I'm pretty sure even my husband's job is war related, though he basically makes "lemonade" and related products. Let's just say their orders surged when Afghanistan did, though it wasn't a DOD PO.
On a related note, when the cans went square like the brandname competitor, sales took a hit. He came home and told me and I said, "I told you to tell them not to switch. Yeah, there's less shipping costs but poorer moms than me buy the round cans to use as tumblers." He told me he had told them before, but they listened to the suits and committed to the new stock. Even capitalists don't listen to the most basic tenets of their faith. The customer is always right, right? snark
"The U.S. unemployment rate hit 25 per cent during the Dirty Thirties. It's now at 9.1 per cent, after peaking at 10.1 per cent in late 2009. So-called automatic stabilizers – from unemployment benefits to food stamps – mean economic downturns now resemble a big pothole more than a bottomless pit. There are no bread lines."
The mechanics of unemployment are that, when you have used up your benefits, you are shoved out the back door. You no longer exist as employment statistics. There are many million of American workmen and women who have been unemployed for so long that they have given up. If you added them to the government stats, that percentage would go way up!
As to no bread lines, they are illegal in most of the US. Public spirited groups have gotten together, usually working out of pocket, or from donations. They provide healthy, nourishing food to the homeless and unemployed. Most of them are immediately shut down as illegal. There is a vast morass of expensive rules and regulations in place, just to stop such things. If the people are feeding the people (often in huge numbers), apparently that is embarrassing to the powers that be. Much better to let them starve or freeze to death in obscurity.
There are some Food Banks around the country, but they can't keep up with the demand.
"Brother, can you spare a dime?"
That 9.1% unemployment rate is not calculated as the unemployment rate of the 1930's was. The standard used to be the U-6, which if still used today would put unemployment rate up around 17.5% rather than the bullshit rigged number of 9.1%.
Even in the depression of the 30's there was not so much power in the hands of so few---nor so many people suffering as a result.
And, in the 30's, more people lived in places where they could produce at least some food on their own land and the total population was between 125 and 135 million.
Aw, c'mon. It's almost common knowledge that the unemployment figures have been re-jiggered so often the official number is meaningless. Shadowstats currently puts it in the 22% range. And for the many homeless and destitute we see everyday, as well as those not so visible, it's more than a feeling - it's the real deal right now. And no bottom in sight.
madman,
Shadowstats is right.
We are in the Greater Depression. The consolidated corporate media is the only reason it is not screamed out daily in the headlines.
This is what I've been calling it lately as well; with a corresponding change to the other as the Lesser Depression. I do this with a heavy heart because I hesitate to "diminish" what many of my elders and betters experienced then. I would hate to be perceived as minimizing their experience, for sure. But we are only in the beginning throes of this one and most of the population is in a much worse position for the decay ahead. But when I discuss it with the survivors of those times, they agree with me, in part because the problem is not named. It is time to start naming it, the inevitable collapse of Empire. Empires always fall in on themselves from the structural unsoundness inherent in its systems. Entropy. The less attached to Empire you can be, the better your position to weather it. We're all brainstorming right now to figure out how we will keep warm this winter; the chief topic of discussion as we garden out back.
Depression, collapse of empire...only moving words around...the slide WILL continue. The response from the masses WILL determine the outcome.
what was so great about the last depression?
Bipolar USA Manic and Depressed.
The Beast is violently flailing as it dies.
Misleading numbers. The actual unemployment is 23-25% See the blue line:
http://www.shadowstats.com/alternate_data/unemployment-charts
"The seasonally-adjusted SGS Alternate Unemployment Rate reflects current unemployment reporting methodology adjusted for SGS-estimated long-term discouraged workers, who were defined out of official existence in 1994. "
In the black community the unemployment rate is acknowledged by the dishonest government statisticians to be above 30%. On the Pine Ridge Reservation in S. Dakota the unemployment rate is 80%.
I got "laid off" when the non profit that was funding the after school youth center here in our little village that I was serving as director for went broke. I was a "contract" worker (what contract?). The only thing the contract meant was that I didn't get benefits and was not eligible for unemployment. So I have been out of work for 9 months, but don't count on any of those statistics.
I have a Masters degree and 30 years experience in software design.
A healthy environment has no economic problems. It's not the other way around.
So the US govt will enlarge the deficit in exchange for no more benefits or social supports for the people? What the hell? So that means the deficit will continue to rise, but Americans get nothing out of it? Then why let it rise at all? Essentially this means to me that the deficit will rise primarily because of interest already owed on the money. Banks get their cut, guaranteed, but the taxpayers get cut off. Or will the deficit rise so that Americans can continue their inexorable war on terror? Another financial sink hole with no benefits to the average American, but will surely bring with it future expenses when all the PTSD soldiers come back home, enemployed and damaged.
As has been pointed out on this thread and elsewhere, unemployment is already near the 30s level if the real stats are considered. And this is when the gov stops the support of its citizens? Instead of helping Americans the politicians are so enraptured with politicking, and serving their moneyed interests, that they are willing to paralyze the system and let Americans suffer. If any Americans have any ways or means to get out of the country, they should have done it a decade ago, but get out now. If a collapse happens you know how they'll handle it, mercenaries, prisons and executive orders.
This is what collapse will look like to you and me.
http://www.uhuh.com/laws/europar3.htm
Or at least me. This is/was a real possibility of what we are/were facing in WI last winter and now as we go forward.This is a white paper prepared for the EU on levels of resistance and "commensurate" responses governments will make. What's particularly disgusting is how the US has broken the way for the EU in measures designed to counter dissent by the citizenry. There is lots of commentary about non-lethal in fact being statistically-only less lethal. It's a real eye opener about what Empire's elite have in store for the proles when it comes down to brass tacks.
This is why the idea of Walker crossing the Rubicon, considering calling in the National Guard, hardened our militancy. Wow, that's discussed in the paper too. You don't suppose Mr. Unitary Executive actual read something academic, do you?
Checked out your link nm. Right and left conservatives worldwide have planned horrible suffering for all of us.
Just checked out the link, I'll be giving it a more thorough reading when I get some time.
I was having a discussion with some friends of mine the other night regarding some video footage of a rat being controlled by RC and a brain implant. The future is now, we're living science fiction and it's dystopian.
"There are no bread lines."
The current local government of Orlando has made giving food to the hungry a crime. People are now in jail for doing it.
As Holden would say, Jesus would puke.
Note that this is an article from the lamestream media and that it perpetuates the b.s. about unemployment rates. Unemployment levels are estimated to be at least double the official published numbers, as they don't include people who no longer receive or are eligible for beneifts, those who have given up looking, and those in the world's largest prison population.
We have been in a Depression for years already, and the only reason we don't see soup kitchens is because of food stamps (1 in 7 Americans use them!). With EBT cards, recipients are less visible than soup kitchen lines, so it's out of sight, out of mind.
When Europe's economy collapses, it's going to get very bad here.
The whole idea that the deficit is the problem in this US economy falling flat on its booty is nuts. The problem is the fact that that deficit isn't being spent on the mass of people but on a few super rich and on the US taxpayers' dole types including Pentagon contractors. The endless war insanity itself is also a huge problem acting as a "giant suction tube" as Martin Luther King Jr would say to put the USA into even worse times. The official US unemployement figrures are fiction with a capital F. They're at least twice what's reported here. and we're already in a depression. Let's stop being so damn naive.
"Somehow this madness must cease" as Dr King said.
I wonder what would happen if Democrats in large numbers left the "president" slot on the ballot blank in the election of 2012 (or even voted Republican); the Republican gets in, cuts taxes on the rich, starts killing Medicare, cutting unemployment benefits, etc., and we get a repeat of the Great Depression but on steroids. Does anyone think that the effect would be a repeat of the kind of massive movement that threatened revolution and would probably have achieved it if FDR hadn't been elected in '32? Or are Americans so utterly brainwashed that they are beyond any kind of response?
There is some Dao wisdom that states that the best way to destroy something is to allow it to go to its extreme. Voting republican is out of the question, staying home on election day is not.
I was musing on this very idea the other day here on CD, posting on the Richard Reich article that disappeared. I was thinking of a Gingrich/Palin ticket, a festival of really tacky and cruel Fundamentalist sicko/hypocrites, winning the election, and how that might really piss people off enough for them to wake up. I'd vote for it. We mostly agree here that it's going to have to get a lot worse before the populace snaps out of it, so bring it on, I say.
There is hope. I read recently that about 30 percent of the population finds the official genius in a cave theory questionable at best. Think of it. That implies that 30 percent of people might be able to infer that most all the international news ensuing from that Ground Zero moment is also highly questionable. This is coming from throughout the political spectrum, which is a good thing because it makes a larger number of people permeable to the message: they're lying to you and they don't give a shit about you.
As more and more people are bumped off their consumer dreams and dumped into financial emergency, maybe this idea might get some real volume of outrage going.
Americans are so utterly brain dead that they are beyond any kind of response. Anyway, this is a Kleptocracy and what the People want is not even on the table. Any kind of massive movement that threatens revolution would be branded as terrorism and dealt with accordingly: e.g. Environmental Activists are now re-defined as Domestic Terrorists in the national security state that has arisen after 9-11. As we enter into the Long Emergency of peak oil and resource depletion, we already have a the worst of both Huxley's Brave New World and Orwell's 1984. Neofascism on the Right and Neoliberalism on the Center-Right. The Left which was a strong force in the 1930's but, having abdicated its anti-war role since 2001, has ceased to exist as a viable alternative. Sorry, not a pretty picture.
One of the comments from "Inside Job" which impressed me was the one where a banker dealing in CDO's said something like, "We knew it was crap but we still sold it. We had to keep dancing until we were stopped." Well, those same agents of financial mischief are still dancing, still engaging in speculative bubble games and they will continue to do so until the tent collapses again. Get ready-- It will probably happen in the next two years. The question is not what they will do. They will ask for another bailout. The question is not what our sold out and corrupt government will do--they will give it to them. The real quetion is what we as citizens will do in response to this stinking craven ineptitude and corruption. I think that the least we should demand of these government officials and representatives if they want to escape with their lives-- is that they resign their positions after voting to call a new Constitutional Convention.