Reply #99: Two major points to consider, folks.

[ProudDad]

There are TWO "economies" operating on Earth.

There is the economy of goods and services exchange, the REAL Economy.

Then there is the phony "economy" of the banksters and "financial managers". Both wings of the Corporate War Party are in hock up to their eyeballs to the latter...

As Paul Krugman also said, it would have been a good, useful and cleansing thing if the latter economy of the confidence tricksters had been allowed to fail. I don't blame the tea party folk for being pissed about that -- I am too... If those banksters and fraudsters had "failed" it would have had NO impact on the Real Economy...Just as bailing them out and "making them whole again" in their huge profits has had NO impact on the Real Economy...

As for stimulus, if Obama had followed the example of FDR and made sure that most of the relief went directly to the suffering (or at least that most of the relief SEEMED to go to those most in need) and then used his golden toungue and the bully pulpit to demonstrate understanding of the average person's real grievances, he may have been rewarded with an increased majority in both Houses as FDR was in 1934.

(But maybe not; today we live in the post "Citizen's United" world :shrug: and because of Dem cowardice and blue-dog treason when they had the chance to pass a Sunshine Law right after "Citizen's United" )...

But, he would have had a better chance if he had proposed and the Dems passed direct relief to the Real Economy of goods and services exchange instead of the phony "economy" of the money lenders and philistines.

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But more importantly, we must all realize that we are moving through an unprecedented historical period in human evolution on this planet. For the first time in human history, just within my lifetime, we have exceeded the carrying capacity of the Earth to sustain the population and renew itself. In fact, we are overdrawing our resource account by 50%; like a starving person, we have quit living off our fat and are consuming our muscle.

That's what makes this "economic" crash so special. We are at the end of the Petroleum Age instead of the beginning of the peak. We have destroyed great swaths of our natural bank account by polluting our fresh water supplies, polluting our air, destroying our topsoil and degrading the food chain by our acts of pollution and over utilization for short-term profit.

This is all NEW, NEW, NEW! This has NEVER happened before during the 200,000 year history of human communities on Earth.

In fact, this is new in the 4.5 billion year history of the Earth! There has never before been a species on Earth that could destroy her as a viable habitat, until now.

And the same blind, short-term thinking that humans in the aggregate seem incapable of overcoming will probably do us in.

So, build lifeboats, try to survive the Long Emergency each in your own way but, for Dog's sake, don't expect the incredibly exploitative "economy" of the 1950-1960s and the mythical "middle class" of that time to EVER "come back".

In that direction lies madness...and planetary death...