America's Economic Future – A Discussion By Ted Kavadas
As seen in the September 15 post (“September 13 Gallup Poll On Upper-Income Americans’ Economic Confidence“) lately there appears to be a significant lessening of economic confidence among “upper-income” Americans; and, as seen in the poll, “This is the first month since the financial crisis of late 2008 and early 2009 that upper-income Americans are …
For a variety of reasons I believe that an understanding of the Great Depression and its causes are important. The stock market Crash of 1929 and the events leading up to it are particularly noteworthy. Along those lines, I have always found the American Experience documentary titled “The Crash of 1929” to be of great …
One year ago, Ben Bernanke presented a speech titled “Economic Policy: Lessons from History.” I view this speech as highly noteworthy – epochal, even – especially in relation to the efforts made to “bring the economy back” from the depths of the Financial Crisis. Here are some excerpts that I find particularly relevant: “I draw …
On February 14 I wrote a post highlighting Milton Friedman’s “Free to Choose” television series of 1980. From time to time I plan on commenting on various material contained therein as much of it is highly relevant to issues we are currently encountering. In Volume 9 there are a couple of comments made, at roughly …
The January 17-January 23 Bloomberg BusinessWeek issue had an article titled “Back to the Economic Future.” The article notes “John Maynard Keynes and Fredrich Hayek, who battled over the Depression, are getting a fresh look as the Long Slump lingers on.” It discusses the current state of the (macro)economic profession and theoretical trends within the …
On Friday, September 10 Timothy Geithner was interviewed by The Wall Street Journal. During this interview, he said: “[The] typical error most countries make coming out of a financial crisis is they shift too quickly to premature restraint. You saw that in the United States in the 30s, you saw that in Japan in the …
On Friday, The Wall Street Journal had an article titled “Why This Isn’t Like 1938 – At Least Not Yet.” Ever since the onset of the “Financial Crisis” there has been a continual flow of comparisons of our current economic situation to that of The Great Depression. Last year I wrote about these comparisons on …
One of the phrases that I have heard innumerable times is that our current period of economic weakness “isn’t as bad as The Great Depression because during The Great Depression unemployment was at 25%.” While I have commented repeatedly on this blog that I don’t believe we should be equating our current economic condition to that of …
On July 26th Ben Bernanke said, “”I was not going to be the Federal Reserve chairman who presided over the second Great Depression.” The quote and associated details can be found here: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124865498517982625.html I found the quote interesting primarily as it once again underscores the popularity (or should I say fixation) that many people, including …
In previous posts I have spoken of the comparisons between our current period of economic weakness and that of The Great Depression. Those posts were on June 22 and June 15, and can be found at these links: https://www.economicgreenfield.com/2009/06/22/are-we-avoiding-a-depression/ https://www.economicgreenfield.com/2009/06/15/great-depression-stock-charts-vs-our-current-period/ I would like to reiterate my view, seen in the above links, that although our current …