Helen Thomas: It's a Depression

[n2doc]

It's a depression
By HELEN THOMAS
HEARST NEWSPAPERS

WASHINGTON -- Few prominent economists will say it, but to me it looks and feels like we are in another Great Depression or a reasonable facsimile.

The current meltdown is dubbed a "financial crisis." But a rose by any other name would still inflict the same hardship and suffering on most people and businesses.

Clearly, the lessons have not been learned from the Herbert Hoover era. Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman, a columnist for The New York Times, says the current banking crisis is "functionally similar to that of the Great Depression."

"Many of the symptoms" are the same, including the impotence of monetary policy -- like cuts in interest rates -- that has not halted the economic downturn.

Typically, the current Republican administration has acted first to bail out the collapsed financial industry, with few strings attached. Belatedly, the government now has come up with an $800 billion program for hard-pressed average Americans to make it easier to get loans for homes, cars and education or borrow through credit cards.

The moves evoke the old quip on Capitol Hill: "A billion here and a billion there and pretty soon you are talking about real money."

more:
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/opinion/389882_helenonline29.html

[goclark]

1. Another golden article from dear Helen

Prayers to a great hero for Justice in America.

Glad to know she is feeling better.
Does she get to ask the first question for Obama?

[Dinger]

2. Ditto

I love Helen!

[Dinger]

3. Helen And Her DU Roses:

[Dinger]

4. Helen Thomas, BadAss:

[Captain Hilts]

10. GREAT picture. I hope she's seen a copy. nt

[glowing]

5. At the end of the day its the belief in the system that creates stability.

If you believe in the whole system and you have people working and exchanging their work for money and in turn that money for things.. then it works... When people don't work, the system fails. All of this could have been hedged had people made living wages.. eventually, the final bill comes due, and you don't have enough money left to buy except for needs.. and eventually, you have no job yourself.

[midnight]

6. Why would cuts in the interest rate work, if there was no money

being put into loaning to the working class? Remember that bailout money went to salries, and parties, and secret locations that were not allowed to be disclosed.

[trthnd4jstc]

7. We need a better economic model. I suggest Democratic Socialism.

Democratic Socialism: With its belief in Freedom and Justice, and its working with the parts of the economy to provide the greates good for the greatest number. This system is superior to "Free" market capitalism. Democratic Socialism does not assume that the Invisible Hand will take care of problems. It believes that we, together, work to make our world.

End the tyranny of the rich over the rest of us. Liberty and Justice for All!

[1776Forever]

8. Thank you for Helen's article and thank God for Helen. I am so grateful for her honesty and grit!

Hear Hear - Helen!



:yourock: :woohoo: :woohoo: :yourock: :woohoo:

[Captain Hilts]

9. You say 'recession' ...

FDR: I say 'depression'...
ER: Let's call the whole thing off...

[bonito]

11. Only the jobless need a bailout

But don't ya know treating the symptom will not fix the problem imo.