"The Great Depression" Hitting America Again

April 1. 2008

*crickets*

In the February 2008 Sound Off Column I wrote that the current financial crisis that's hit America has passed a recession, heading towards "a depression."

Yesterday, the Independent newspaper in the Britain cited financial stats to support their article "USA 2008: The Great Depression."

Clearly, I'm not the only one that sees it as such. Now, if someone could just translate that to the president, maybe the problem could actually get solved.

In my September 27. 2007 Judiciary Report article "How George Bush Destroyed The U.S. Economy" I wrote, "You left the banking industry unregulated at the worst possible time in history."

Two weeks ago, Congress announced plans for regulating the banking/mortgage industry. A week ago the Fed announced plans as well for regulating the mortgage industry.

It's amazing that it's taken such a long period of time to address regulating the banking/mortgage industry, that behaves like a spoilt child with no rules.

People are suffering in America in a major way and based on mainstream media reports today, you guys in Congress couldn't even put your bickering aside in the face of that, to come together and forge an agreement, finalizing measures that would help the public who pays your salaries.

The lack of empathy may be due to the fact that you get paid $100,000 in per year Congress, so you aren't feeling the suffering the average American is with the financial woes that have beset the country. If you did feel said woes, you'd move a lot faster in addressing said financial problems.

Not that I think said ideas being bantered about in Congress will work, as some of them, in my humble opinion, will expose the nation to additional financial risks.

The worst part of this entire episode is none of it had to happen. I think that has to be the most lamentable aspect of it all.

Had the government put in place proper legislation these banks would not have had the room to do what they did. They behaved like tyrants, unanswerable to anyone, and thus, empowered to gouge the people, and that they did with the attitude of, you as the consumer can't do a thing about it.

It is Enron all over again as well. Clearly the government learned nothing from that fiasco helmed by Bush's friends (there are photos and credible documents in the public domain to supports this).

Reports are coming out once again, ala Enron, that accounting firms have been covering for banks, issuing reports that showed a profit, to boost stock, when there were losses adding up, due said banks' mistreatment of the consumer, in placing increasingly unreachable financial obligations on customers, far different from their original loans. Then there was the fraud and swindling on the part of financial institutions as well.

Two weeks ago, Bush said "we caught the problem early" and they are doing something about it. If you say so. You didn't catch anything early.  

Even on my web sites (that the government has been reading for a few years according to site statistics) I began sounding the alarm a year and a half ago that the American economy was headed for terrible trouble.

A year ago Warren Buffet began issuing warnings. So, this is not something that crept up on the nation out of nowhere. I keep writing this, because I don't understand why the government sat back and let it happen.

Something bad was forming financially, things were getting progressively worse, but the Bush administration in its standard arrogance, knowing nothing about finance, brushed it off as negativism and lack of patriotism and Congress failed to do anything in a timely manner as well. 

Say what you will, but at the end of the day, if you can't comprehend and have compassion for real time human suffering, especially to the point that you don't act quickly to stop the suffering, you don't belong in office.

USA 2008: The Great Depression

Food stamps are the symbol of poverty in the US. In the era of the credit crunch, a record 28 million Americans are now relying on them to survive – a sure sign the world's richest country faces economic crisis

Disadvantaged Americans queue for aid in New York

We knew things were bad on Wall Street, but on Main Street it may be worse. Startling official statistics show that as a new economic recession stalks the United States, a record number of Americans will shortly be depending on food stamps just to feed themselves and their families.

But above all it is the pressures being exerted on ordinary Americans by an economy that is suddenly beset by troubles. Housing foreclosures, accelerating jobs losses and fast-rising prices all add to the squeeze.

Emblematic of the downturn until now has been the parades of houses seized in foreclosure all across the country, and myriad families separated from their homes. But now the crisis is starting to hit the country in its gut. Getting food on the table is a challenge many Americans are finding harder to meet.

The US Department of Agriculture says the cost of feeding a low-income family of four has risen 6 per cent in 12 months…

And the next monthly job numbers, to be released this Friday, are likely to show 50,000 more jobs were lost nationwide in March, and the unemployment rate is up to perhaps 5 per cent.

http://www.independent.co.uk