Krugman-Third Depression Watch

[n2doc]

May 25, 2011, 12:31 PM
Third Depression Watch
Last year I warned that we seemed to be heading into the “Third Depression” — by which I meant a prolonged period of economic weakness:

Neither the Long Depression of the 19th century nor the Great Depression of the 20th was an era of nonstop decline — on the contrary, both included periods when the economy grew. But these episodes of improvement were never enough to undo the damage from the initial slump, and were followed by relapses.

We are now, I fear, in the early stages of a third depression. It will probably look more like the Long Depression than the much more severe Great Depression. But the cost — to the world economy and, above all, to the millions of lives blighted by the absence of jobs — will nonetheless be immense.


Brad DeLong points us to Macro Advisers, which has now downgraded its estimates for second-quarter growth. As Brad says, these estimates now suggest that we have now gone through a year and a half of “recovery” that has failed to make any progress toward closing the gap between what the economy should be producing and what it’s actually producing.

And nobody in power cares!
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/05/25/third-depression-watch/

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

1. Same depression, imho.

[SoCalDem]

6. Agree.

The "afterglow" years of WWII have been the only bright spots in our economy (for the masses)..

During WWII, there was low unemployment, BUT that was because all the ablebodied men were "away", and the women who filled many of their jobs did it patriotically and for significantly lower wages.

The baby boom afterwards fueled a production boom, and with the US economy standing alone as world champ, we had no competition from war-ravaged countries around the globe.

As soon as the baby boomers hit the workplace, the back-slide started, and it's only gotten worse as time goes on. It's almost inevitable, since the oligarchs have always liked to keep all the money, and if they control the levers of government (which they have always done), the whole "game" is rigged to keep most of us as far down as possible.

When all the boomers are dead & gone, things might actually improve since the workforce might start to reach a parity with the jobs available, although people will have to accept a much lower standard of living, or revolt for a better one.

[SpiralHawk]

7. Yes, the Bush-Republicon Depression

This is the ugly legacy of the 8 years when the Republicons stole the pResidency and shat all over the American economy, leaving it crippled for years to come...

[closeupready]

2. 'Nobody in power cares' because they are all personally rich and doing better now than ever

before, what with the extended tax cuts and all.

On edit I see someone made the same kind of comment directly to Krugman's blog:

>>But the elites of the developed world will not see their standards of living fall.<<

[villager]

3. Nobody "in power" (elective office) will stand up to those *really* in power...

n/t

[Autumn]

4. K/R

Very good article.

[xchrom]

5. Oh they care all right & the results at working out fine for them. Nt

[CrossChris]

8. I guess that's the point of getting into power--you don't have to care if you're on the winning team

Seems pretty simple.