Great Depression // Current

Found: $182,000 and a Lot of Grief

CLEVELAND -- A contractor who found $182,000 in Depression-era currency hidden in a bathroom wall has ended up with only a few... more

TyMarshal
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Massive Jobs Cuts Underway

Economy, Money, Government, Lost, Job Lost, Depression, Recession, Great Depression, Great Depression 2, Great Depression 2,... more

MisterEThoughts
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Today's Economy & the Depression: Is it Panic Time?

Are we headed for another Great Depression? It’s a question a lot of folks are asking these days. Foreclosures are hitting... more

consumeradvocate101
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A Modern-Day WPA Will Save the Economy. (. . . note to next president)

History shows us the time to act is now. (Works Progress Administration)
The candidates can talk all they want about putting money into alternative fuels, electric cars and high-speed rail, but none of that will mean much if our roads, bridges and rails can't support them. The next president must commit to fixing our infrastructure. Such an investment will create jobs, strengthen our economy and make America more competitive.

"Congress should invest in the more than 3000 ready-to-go highway projects that could be under contract within the next 90 days," says John Horsley, exec director of the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials. "Funding these ready to go projects offers Congress a tremendous opportunity to create jobs & help cash strapped states repair & replace our crumbling infrastructure."

One of every four bridges in the country is structurally deficient or functionally obsolete, & updating them will cost $140 bill, according to the American Association of State Highway Transportation Officials. America's drinking water infrastructure is underfunded; the Congressional Budget Office says we must invest at least $11.6 bill over the next 20 yrs. Highway congestion costs us $78 bill annually through the 4.2 bill hours and 2.9 billion gallons of gasoline we waste each year, according to the Texas Transportation Institute. The list goes on.

Of the two candidates, Obama's said the most about the issue, but not much. At the bottom of the 6th page of his economic policy paper, he calls for the creation of a National Infrastructure Reinvestment Bank. It would "expand and enhance, not supplant, existing federal transportation investments." On the face of it, that means a new chunk of money would be allocated for infrastructure projects as opposed to simply shifting cash from other projects. Obama wants to deposit $60 bill into the bank over 5 years. That's far short of the $225 bill a bipartisan transportation policy commission recommends spending each year for the next 50 yrs, but it's a start. If Obama's numbers are to be trusted, the bank would create two mill jobs and generate $35 bill in economic activity each year.

As for McCain, he hasn't said much of anything. His record so far isn't good. Among other things, he's called for a national gas tax holiday, which would save people pennies at the pump but take money away from the already strained Highway Trust Fund, which finances construction projects. Three years ago, McCain voted against the Transportation Equity Act, which provided more than $286 bill for transportation infrastructure.

Clearly America needs to invest quickly and heavily in its failing infrastructure, and, ironically, now may well be the perfect time to do so. The spiraling economy has drawn comparisons to the Great Depression. While that may be extreme, there's no doubt we're in for tough times. A national infrastructure initiative could make things a little easier.

During the Depression, Pres Roosevelt put $11.4 bill (est $175 bill today) into the Works Progress Administration.
The agency spent nearly $4 bill on highway & road projects and more than $2 billion on public buildings and utilities. All told, the WPA put 8.5 million people to work between 1935 and 1943. Together those people built 651,087 miles of roadway, built or improved 124,031 bridges, erected 125,110 public buildings and laid 853 airport runways. Not bad at a time when the unemployment approached 25 percent.

Beyond providing jobs, analysts say every $1 billion spent on transportation projects creates 35,000 jobs, a modern day WPA would produce lasting benefits. "China is spending 9 percent of its GDP on infrastructure, and we're spending something like one or two percent," says Allen D. Biehler, Pennsylvania's transportation secretary. "A sustained investment would not only create jobs that have a strong multiplier effect on the larger economy, but would prevent us from falling behind other nations."
History shows us the time to act is now. (Works Progress Administration) The candidates can talk all they want about putting... more

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30 days ago

Great Depression holds lessons for surviving tough economy

(CNN) -- Memories of salvaging and stealing to avoid going hungry are part of the legacy of the Great Depression. Some iReporters say they can't help but look at the current economy and feel the past holds lessons for the present.

Pam Van Hylckama Vlieg says her grandfather tried to steal chickens after being laid off from coal mining.

Donna LeBlanc of Waxia, Louisiana, says she carries no credit to this day as a result of the frugality and self-reliance instilled in her by her family. Her husband keeps the couple's credit card and maintains a zero balance.

The Great Depression meant scary times for many households as a period of economic downturn spread throughout the world. Historians trace its start to the "Black Tuesday" stock crash on October 29, 1929, and argue that the resulting global desperation set the stage for World War II.

LeBlanc said her grandparents were fortunate that they didn't have investments and could grow -- or catch -- their own food during the Depression years.

Her grandfather Lester was a "Cajun cowboy" often seen wearing a cowboy hat, and her grandmother Ida was a resourceful woman who spent much of the 1930s working as a store clerk. LeBlanc, always told never to keep credit card debt, heard frightful stories from Ida. iReport.com: See a photo of the happy couple together after all these years

"She remembered vividly the barrels of flour, the bolts of cloth and the hunger in the faces of people as they begged for store credit," LeBlanc said. "The store must have been at least marginally successful, because my grandmother was able to purchase, a piece at a time, a complete six-person setting of Gorham Chantilly silverware for her trousseau, linens and even a Lane cedar chest to house her treasures."

The couple would catch wild hogs, feed them corn for a year and eat them once the wild taste was out of the scavenging animals. They also took advantage of available squirrel meat, a common food in the South at that time.

"It was a uniquely disgusting thing ... to see my grandfather take a stewed, skinned squirrel's head, smack the skull's dome with a heavy silver tablespoon, and dine on the brains," LeBlanc said.

Years after the Depression, LeBlanc's grandparents were well off once again. Ida became a packrat and couldn't help saving what she could. When the family opened up the old cedar chest after she died, they found a decades-old treasure trove of sewing materials and other keepsakes. iReport.com: "My dad used to cry when he spoke of that Great Depression"

The Great Depression turned many Americans into packrats who couldn't bear to part with anything of potential value. They couldn't always afford to buy what they needed....(CNN) -- Memories of salvaging and stealing to avoid going hungry are part of the legacy of the Great Depression. Some iReporters... more

aschneider
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1 month ago

Economists: Don't despair, Depression not knocking

"Hearing some of the dire predictions for an economy struggling to avert a financial collapse, it's easy to recall 1930s photos of people huddled in soup lines or traveling the country for work, and wonder what a depression would look like in the modern world.

Experts say that won't happen. Yes, banks are failing and the stock market plunged Monday. And yes, there is genuine concern that, regardless of the government's $700 billion bailout proposal, the United States still could land in a severe recession.

But despite the alarms, including dire warnings from President Bush, economists insist there is no risk of a second Great Depression because, for some time now, the U.S. economy has been in the midst of a very different, less-threatening phenomenon: 'the Great Moderation.'

Coined by a Harvard economist earlier this decade, the term refers to a U.S. economy shaped by more flexibility and far less volatile swings in growth. That flexibility, fueled by everything from financial deregulation and global trade to the shift toward a service economy, will keep the nation from sinking into a depression.

'The Great Depression should not be the reference point,' said Erik Hurst, an economics professor at the University of Chicago's Graduate School of Business.

'When (Bush) says "there goes the economy," that doesn't mean one in four of us will be out of work. It means we're going to have a recession. There could be a drag on U.S. productivity for four to five years. We may get 1 ½ or two years with little or no growth,' Hurst said.

Is there any possibility of repeating a period in history when the nation's jobless rate reached 25 percent and economic output fell by one-third, as it did during the Depression?

'Zero, just zero,' said Kenneth Rogoff, a Harvard University economics professor. 'Ten percent, that could happen. If we got to 10 percent, that would be pretty spectacular for the U.S. But it would take a lot of mistakes (by Congress) for a long time . . . if Congress takes the ball and it fumbles'...

A better reference point that economists point to is the recession of the early 1980s, triggered by the Federal Reserve Board's efforts to curb runaway inflation by raising interest rates. By September 1982, the overall jobless rate reached 10.8 percent, the first time it had climbed into double digits since the Depression.

In 1982, at least one member in 8 million families was unemployed, accounting for 13 percent of all families. The housing, automobile, aircraft and steel industries all were hit. High oil prices reduced the demand for oil and gas, putting 150,000 miners out of work in a single year. Residential construction slowed because of high mortgage rates. Meanwhile, jobs in the services sector grew, but at a slower pace than previously..."

Full article at link."Hearing some of the dire predictions for an economy struggling to avert a financial collapse, it's easy to recall 1930s... more