Is it as bad as the Great Depression?

A Stodghill Says So blog:

Times are tough, that's obvious. There is constant talk about it being the worst downturn since the Great Depression. But is it as bad as the 1930s? The answer is a resounding NO!
We don't see breadlines extending for blocks as you did in the early years - 1930-32. We don't see huge numbers of families living in clusters of cardboard shanties called Hoovervilles. We don't see former executives selling apples on street corners. We don't see unemployment figures of 25 per cent. We don't see teachers and many others being paid in scrip rather than cash. We don't see any of the conditions that were the hallmarks of those dreadful years.
But what about the later years? Have you seen any doctors or lawyers manning shovels on WPA projects? Of course not. You would have in 1937; at least I did.
On the other hand, we see some things you didn't see during the Great Depression. We see people trying to hold onto houses far beyond their means, houses they never should have attempted to buy in the first place. We see the federal government handing bankers $350 billion and then have them refuse to say what they have done with it. The same bankers who now are saying, "Give us another $350 billion." The same bankers who are accustomed to huge bonuses and expect them to continue. That, they say, along with all the other perks enable them to concentrate on their work. We can see what a great job they've done of it.
We see the government handing General Motors and Chrysler more billions, then telling them they will have to show marked improvement in their business practices in 90 days or so. Decades of poor decisions are going to be fixed in that amount of time?
So who did a better job of tanking the economy, George W. Bush or Herbert Hoover? Bush wins that contest in a landslide. Hoover, bad as he was up there in his ivory tower, had barely taken office when the mess he inherited collapsed. Bush has had eight years to watch it happen.
No, it isn't even close to being as bad as the Great Depression, but the bankers, the executives and the people in Washington are working at it. So who knows what may lie ahead?

I didn't think one could put a positive twist on our state of affairs. Well, at least the positive part was that it could be worse. I personally think it will get worse before it gets better. What I would like to see are those executives who caused this mess, and that includes our president, being penalized in some manner. People have died, people have lost everything, while the rest of us are suffering from their criminal acts.
Is there some justice left?

I talked to my partner... an expert on economics who predected everything that happened this year three years ago... about this.

His opinion: we'll probably get out of this in one piece (meaing no total collapse) but then about 2-3 years down the road is going to be something perhaps even more devasting: hyperinflation.

Which can gut an economy just as quick as recessionary trends.

That trillion bucks they're tossing into the fire to stave off failure and doom is just that much water added to the soup of our financial worthl

I remember the olden days, not of the great depression, but of my own recessionary experiences, those early years of marriage after my husband got out of the Marines and employed by an airline with poverty wages for the first year. It was 1964 and we had gone to Boston with little money, rented an apartment in a basement. We bought a box spring and mattress and some big pillows and borrowed a table and chairs. The three little kids slept on the mattress and us on the box spring.

Christmas was coming and we had no money. We did buy a Christmas tree and had brought along all the ornaments and lights in the U-Haul trailer we rented for our trip from Chicago to Boston.

And then on Christmas Eve the mail came and with it a check we had not expected, and my husband went to Sears and bought neat stuff for 3 and 5 year olds very cheap and stored them in the car.

There was something in all this we have never forgotten. I have seen young people in the last few years start out as we did but buy everything they need and want with credit cards. People have bought houses beyond their means and missed living in a basement with no furniture, and I really mean missed as I value those times, times when sledding with the little kids was our main means of enjoyment, and moving out of that basement apartment with our few possessions was one of the easiest moves we have ever made.

We are concerned as much of the money we are to live on the rest of our lives is in stocks, bonds and real estate. But we got through living in that basement apartment with little money and furniture, and maybe there was strength in that.

Dick, my grandfather was a teacher in Chicago and instead of a license plate he had a sign on the back of his car that read, "Unpaid School Teacher."

We aren't standing in line for soup yet, but many are going to soup kitchens and homeless shelters. Those are the ones I worry about.

Carol

You are right as usual, Carol. Without a few hard times, how can you truely appreciate those that are good?

When we were first married, my parents travelled across the Pennines from Lancashire to our new home in Leeds, Yorkshire. They not only brought our lunch, all freshly baked, they brought a table and chairs so that we could sit down to eat it!

We could not sell the house when we moved from Leeds to Glasgow and had to let it out for a year while we lived in a first floor bedsit in Garrioch Road, Glasgow, sharing a kitchen and bathroom:

Such true thoughts. If we never have bad times we cannot truly appreciate good times. I find too much sunshine depressing. I have to have a little rain here and there.

However, I was not around for the great depression and hope it does not get that bad. I have heard many tales from those who lived it.

Sometimes when I hear folks complaining about how bad they have it (especiallly the young) I wonder why they haven't done something to work their way out ot it. Many do not know what it means to be having a rough time. They are usually the ones who have had everything handed to them, and the gravy train has hit bottom. Goodness, they might have to give up their cell phone!!

Hard lessons to learn.

I think that most of us who grew up in the 40's experienced hard times. As kids we didn't think of it as hard times but as a way of life. I won't bore you with what we didn't have but rather what we did. We had love, we learned the value of money, we learned how to take care of ourselves and make do.
In later years, when I had achieved financial success and then lost everything except for the clothes on my back, it may have been the value of my early childhood that gave me the strength to start over. Starting from scratch with 3 children was not easy. For a short while I was even forced to go on welfare for the sake of my family. The humiliation was added motivation to find a way to provide for my family and regain a sense of self-worth.
I've been there. I've been rich and I've been poor. As Dick pointed out, without the hard times one cannot appreciate the good times. Possessions/things can disappear but the wealth we possess within is what counts.

Abe's book includes the experience he speaks of. It was a defining moment in the book and extremely well written.

As far as memories of the 1940s, I remember envying the girls with lots of clothes. My few had been sewn by my mother. My mother made them because she couldn't afford "store bought" clothes. She would tell me, "If we bought your clothes in a store, you'd see yourself 'coming and going.'"

We all need basics, food, shelter, basic clothing, medical care. But in recent years, people have also felt they needed a lot more, like fancy clothes, big houses, and DVD players, etc. I admit to becoming part of these societal trends.

Carol

When I was in grade school in the industrial area of Akron's hardscrabble east side back in the 1930s some of the girls wore flour sack dresses sewed by their mothers. It was a good promotion tool for the manufacturers, putting colorful patterns on the sacks.

Dick,
until you mentioned the flour sacks I had forgotten that. Now I remember my mother and grandmother doing the same thing.
It supports the fact that one made do with what they had. Need became the mother of inventions in many areas. Creativity is what made our country great.

It illustrates the phrase: Yankee ingenuity!