Recession's Natural Cycle

[FC]

recession

[fritz]

Tony,

 

My father was in the prime of his life when the Great Depression hit. Born into a farm family, and a farmer all his life, he never to the day he died, forgot what that did to this country.

 

But he survived better than many. My father never had any stock (oh, I think a salesman sold him a few shares in Cities Service Oil Company when oil was discovered here). But I am pretty sure he did not even know where Wall Street was. And that was a good thing for him.

 

I inherited many of his values of how to survive, in case another Great Depression hit. I can assure you my father lived his entire life after that event expecting to go through another one. Of course it did not happen in his lifetime, but it may in yours and mine.

 

Maybe my father was not so uneducated after all. Many so-called educated people jumped to their death out of tall buildings after they were wiped out. The fact that this country is now composed of many less farmers (and many more investors), will make the Great Depression pale in comparison.

 

It can happen again---I know it and you know it. With the speed the world is turning now, it will accelerate like a wildfire. No one will be immune this time.

 

 

Have a great day tomorrow, and give thanks for what we have now (at least for the time being).

 

fritz

[FC]

There were 8 of us kids, and my parents divorced in 73 or 74. By this country's standards, we were in a depression in the mid-70s. $64 per week was the child support.

I would have loved to find some kind of work as a teenager, but jobs were pretty hard to come by. I did find some work, but I seem to remember making $1.85 to $2.10 per hour, when I did find a job.

Still, a recession does teach people a thing or two, like maybe you need your Creator after all? People are so spoiled. I was reading the "Climate Survey" for our hospital. I couldn't believe the low scores people here (civilian and jr. officers) gave for morale, pay, and their job satisfaction. I guaran-darn-tee you they never encountered the women and kids in southern Iraq that lived in 10ft by 10 ft. mud huts, had little water, much less clean water, no food to speak of, and no shoes. Why else would they stand by the side of a dirt road begging for you to throw them your MRE rations? Hard to complain after seeing that.

We'll be just fine.

[AzRednek]

I had a great uncle that lost everything. He managed to scrounge enough after the crash, pay off a city official and bought himself a job as a street car operator. He died leaving allot of money because he was afraid to spend or invest money. He was single and lived in a shack, wore rags always preparing for it to happen again. It wasn't untill the 60's he was persuaded to pull his money out of his floorboards and put it in a bank. My great gandfather was a doctor and his family lived like paupers though the depression but they ate well. Very few patients could pay him so he often collected chickens, hogs, and bushells of fruits, nuts and vegtables for his fees.

[Horsefly]

Both sides of my family farmed along the Red River in Northern Cooke Co. Tex.,and when the depression started,they had no life style change.My grandma talked about how she craved real sugar instead of using sorgum,and both grandpa's said tires and innertubes were almost impossible to get,so they stuffed straw in the tires.They really made some good money for the times trapping.For some reason the price of hides or fur went sky high during those years.My Grandpa Huggins went to Foard Co. and trapped only coyotes,and Grandpa Doughty stayed on Red River trapping coon,bobcats,minks,skunks and possums.In the spring,it was back to farming.Dad and his twin brother pulled bowls or picked cotton in the summers all over West Texas.Both grandads bragged 'till their dying days they never took a Govt. handout or stood in a soup line. I don't I'm made out of the same stuff they were,but I aint been tested either,YET. Jerry

[AzRednek]

My grandfather kept his job as a mechanic at a Ford garage during the depression but was often sent home when no work would arrive. To keep his family fed and rent paid he moonlighted for Al Capone's gang, smuggling booze in from Canada. His pay was often a bottle or two that he prompty sold on the streets of Chicago. Occasionally a mobster would hand him and other workers a 5 dollar bill which was big money in those days. Another relative made a fortune making and selling stills and other equipment to make booze with but later was forced out of town by the mob. My mother claimed that during the depression all the Italian kids she went to school with were all well dressed and lived in nice houses with running water and toilets.

[Dr.Hess]

That article implies that all of our ills will be "cured" by a nice recession. If only we sacrifice a little for the recession, it will all get better. BS. I'm tired of being the one they expect to "sacrifice a little." I'm at the very tail end of the baby boom. I'm the one they talk about f'ing over every time they say that Social Security is bankrupt and needs to be "changed." What exactly do they want to change? Well, after I paid into SS for my whole life, giving a nice supplimental retirement to people that basically didn't pay into it like my grandfather, and there is no one left to pay for mine, they're just gonna f' me out of it and call it even, OK?

 

The Great Depression was orchestrated to force us to Socialism. Socialism, it turns out, isn't about everyone working together for the greater benefit, but really about totalitarianism and control consolidation. The people of the U.S. never would have accepted it if it wasn't for the Great Depression. Look around at what the Feds do today. Virtually every "law" comes down to the Interstate Comerce Clause. That is now interpreted as meaning that the Federal Government can control every single aspect of our lives. This goes back to a case tried by Rosevelt's Supreme Court that said that a farmer growing grain on his own land for consumption by his family on his own land could be regulated by the Federal Government because it affected interstate commerce. That ruling allows the Feds to tell us how many MPG's our cars must get and how many gallons of water our toilets can flush and how many rounds our magazines can have (thankfully temporarily expired). None of that could have happened without the Great Depression. And the Great Depression was caused by the banking industry first giving massive credit and then pulling the plug. Sound familiar?

 

[AzRednek]

Dr Hess I agree with what you say about socialism but can't agree that the great depression was orchestrated. There were indeed many that got rich as result of the depression but the stock market and the crash, is capitalism at it's best. I believe we are closer to socialism than at any time in our history. I feel the hidden agenda of most democrats is to socialize our entire economy.

[FC]

There were commies who would have liked to take advantage of the depression, but cycles in the economy do occur. I read a book on the depression in the Dakotas Main Street in Crisis

I did learn some things from the book, but it could be laborious to read at times. The sun being blocked out by grasshoppers and long dust storms were shocking.

[karlunity]

These things happen.

My family lost their shirt in pork futures in 1918.

They had put a lot into pork, WW l was in full force and expected to go till 1919 at the least.

When it ended in Nov.1918, partly as a result of the revolution in Germany, they lost the family fortune.

We had enough to get by in the depression but have never been "comfortable" again.

 

A bad thing for us but a very very good thing for the guys at the front.

 

karl

[fritz]

"the stock market and the crash, is capitalism at it's best. "

 

I agree with that, but maybe it should read "at it's worst".

 

 

"A bad thing for us but a very very good thing for the guys at the front."

 

I think that my father got by better after WW2 started, and the commodities he raised were more in demand by our troops. That is where the majority of farm commodities went in those days. Even farm scrap iron was picked up and used for the war effort. A war usually is a good thing for some (remember the "Military/Industrial Complex of VietNam era?).

 

So, who is making the money off the Iraq war?

 

 

fritz

 

 

 

[FC]

Individuals don't profit from wars like they did, say, during the Civil War. Defense companies and their shareholders do well during time of war- it's not a person. For instance, some bozo put a handmade sign on the overpass accusing Dick Cheney of profiting from the war. How? That's just political tripe. This war isn't going on because some corporate giant wants more income.

[AzRednek]

Individuals don't profit from wars like they did, say, during the Civil War.

 

I had a relative that made a fortune during WW2 and his family is wealthy today as a result. Being a WW1 vet and seeing the horrors of trench warfare he formed a company to do underwater welding so his sons could be exempt from the draft with an occupational deferment. By war's end he had business operations set up on both coasts, The Great Lakes and Hawaii doing work for the Navy and Coast Guard.

 

He profited very well from the war but his original intention was to avoid it. I never really knew him, only met him a few times at funerals. He and his family pretty well kept to the socialites and country club crowds.

[FC]

I'll tell you this- no non-profit agency funded by the United Way will make an F-16 or Abrams tank. There has to be profit, or running a business isn't worth it.

[fritz]

"Individuals don't profit from wars like they did, say, during the Civil War. Defense companies and their shareholders do well during time of war- it's not a person. For instance, some bozo put a handmade sign on the overpass accusing Dick Cheney of profiting from the war. How? That's just political tripe. This war isn't going on because some corporate giant wants more income. "

 

Thank you.

 

I never suggested that an individual profited from war, but you answered my question with the answer of "Defense companies and their shareholders do well during time of war". That is what I thought.

 

Now we know who profits from the Iraq war. But don't you think we should include (along with the defense companies), companies like Halliburton who are profiting from the war by being awarded contracts without bidding?

 

It seems that the military/industrial complex is alive and doing well.

 

But, somebody has to clean up the mess, restore the country to at least a resemblance of what it was before. But then, what was that?

 

fritz

[karlunity]

If we go by history, wars are like any other human endeavor.

Some profit and some lose in them.

 

In my case, I came home in one piece, went to school and purchased a home on the GI bill.

I could have gotten both an education and a home loan with out going to war, but I would never have been a Marine and that I think, would have been the lose of an honor that no amount of material prosperity could have replaced.

 

karl

 

 

[FC]

I've got no ill will towards Halliburton. They ran a fine operation and performed their services well. I saw that firsthand. It's not up to me whether other little companies might have been able to do the job, whoever they may have been. I know of no company that could have pulled it off. The job got done, and that's what matters.

[karlunity]

Halliburton is hated by the left and the down with America types becouse it DID get the job done.

This is nothing new, back in the 60's they hated Dupont for making weapons.

 

A fine rule to follow is :

 

Look to the left and who ever and what ever they hate......support!

 

 

karl

[fritz]

"The job got done, and that's what matters. "

 

Is it really done?

 

 

fritz

 

 

 

 

[karlunity]

Is it really done?

fritz

 

 

Define "Done".

 

karl

[FC]

You know what I mean- the job Halliburton was given is done right. Are we getting the job done? Well, pretty good considering the fanatical maniacs we are fighting.

[fritz]

"fritz

 

 

Define "Done".

 

karl "

 

 

I'm not the one who said it was done, therefore I feel I do not need to answer your question, Karl.

 

But FC pretty well explained what "done" is (at least in Iraq).

 

 

fritz

 

[sphingta]

Yea, in reference to Haliburton the job did get done. Food served, supplies transfered, troop infrastructure setup and things built such as schools and power plants. What happens after they are turned over is not haliburton's responsibility. If your trying to make a funny about president Bush and others getting the job done, that was not what i believe was being refered to.

[FC]

Improvements. Add to what's below- a civilian I know over there with 1 CAV Safety sent an article about the neighborhood volunteers in Baghdad. They are trained 3 days, armed, and seem to be doing a decent job.

 

Nearly 6,000 Sunni Arab residents joined a security pact with American forces Wednesday in what the U.S. military called the single largest mobilization of volunteers since the start of the war.

 

For about $275 a month — approximately the salary of the typical Iraqi policeman — the tribesmen will man about 200 security checkpoints beginning Dec. 7, supplementing hundreds of Iraqi forces already in the area.

 

About 77,000 Iraqis nationwide, mostly Sunnis, have broken with the insurgents and joined U.S.-backed self-defense groups. The United States has credited the groups with a major role in the recent lull in violence in Iraq.

 

The ceremony to incorporate the new fighters was presided over by a dozen sheiks at a small U.S. outpost in north-central Iraq.

 

U.S. commanders have tried to build a ring around insurgents who fled military offensives launched earlier this year in western Anbar province and later into Baghdad and surrounding areas.

 

With the help of the new Sunni allies, such areas "will be an obstacle to militants, rather than a pathway for them," said Maj. Sean Wilson, with the Army's 1st Brigade, 10th Mountain Division. "They're another set of eyes that we needed in this critical area."

 

 

[fritz]

In reference to all the above, it seems that we can now begin to withdraw from Iraq.

 

It's going to happen sooner or later.

 

fritz