First term of Bush.....all Clinton's fault..
Second term of Bush.....all democrats' fault...
Self- Responsibility? Nah....not for neocons...

Hmmm...self responsibility is something I advocate. I can only assume that even though you quoted me you were referring to someone else...

I agree. For a party that promotes personal responsibility, they don't want to take blame for anything. Why this culture of being seen as being always perfect? Who are they trying to fool?

LIZABETH, I agree that the Economist definition of a recession is not as important as other factors. .
Most people who lived during the depression do not remember the GDP but the do remember unemployment and difficulties of buying even essentials.

The figures you give to indicate a rise in unemployment .However I am not sure it will go above 10%. If the car industry callapses it could add 3 Million to the unemployed.

The lessons from the last depression should be we should not blamed the government particarly if it does not belong to the party we supported. Both left wing and right wing governments rosed during the depression. A discontent for all convential poltical parties led to the rise of the Nazies.

The other lesson is we should not panic and stop spending. Those government that first emerged from the depression spent money on national projects. With plentiful and cheap labor many world famous projects were completed.We should be careful of media inspired panic. Bad news sells better and we rarely hear about the good news. How many times have there been headlines on the days the stock market fell but how many headlines have there been on days when it rose.

Hey, hey, hey, careful now! You're beginning to sound just like one of those damned "political conservatives" we have over here in the U.S.

What does a damned "political conservative" sound like when he talks about the deficit? Is there no reason to panic about this type of spending, either?

Are "political conservatives" outpacing the "political liberals" in thier buying of stocks versus the selling which should cause the prices to not fall or just talking about not believing the media inspired panic while still selling?

I'd like to know more than how Aus22 sounds like a "political conservative" we have over here in the U.S. That just sounds like a partisan comment which really doesn't add much to his claim that we shouldn't blame either party or it's philosophy.

Do "political conservatives" think this is just a media inspired panic that doesn't really require a 700 billion to 4 trillion dollar infusion of U.S. wealth into the markets or whereever it's going?

I must admit I don't really 'get it' concerning this whole depression/recession thing. It is almost as though no one around me ever went to school and paid attention!

Hmmm...

I have noted before that an instructor once proved with math believe it or not, that the DOW could not reach... nor could it maintain (which of course would be a given since it couldn't reach it) any balance over 3000!
I am not kidding he proved it.
He had numbers and they all added up!
It was a fact people... it had been proven!

This man later moved to the East Coast and began giving financial advice to people who paid him money (not real money of course but American cash which is just as good).

How do I explain fully though?
OK kids, put on your thinking caps for a moment.
DOW JONES 1929 = 381.17
DOW JONES 1932 = 41.22
That was a plunge of 52.7%
Which does seem huge but then well...
We are talking about a DOW 'plunge' that involved 340 points here people!
340 points
Read it again for those in the back... 340 points apparently destroyed 'America'!

But of course it didn't... because you weren't paying attention in school you were only listening to your psycho liberal teacher who like all liberals wanted to instill fear into you.

In 1929 our (meaning American et al which is important) GDP was a wopping 700 and (muffled) Billion dollars! Yes I said BILLION people we are talking HUGE!
And it hit a low in 1932 of... well... 530 Billion perhaps? Give me a break people I am largely working from memory Google isn't pulling it up but I know it did not drop below 500 Billion at any time.
We just... well... 500 Billion should ring a bell because we just handed that over to one man to dole out as he sees fit whenever and however he wants!
We tossed on another 150 Billion just to grease the wheels a bit and get the ball rolling for such things as a park in Boston and... well... does it really matter?
No it doesn't.

You see when you have a GDP of 500 Billion then 150 Billion is a huge amount of money. Absolutely HUGE! And well it should be!
So we have fools running around today pulling out hair and scratching eyes (others of course not their own!) proclaiming that the world is about to end because we have... whatever we have done as if they understood it!

These are the same idiots declaring that China is taking over the world!
Again, they must have sat at the back or sat right up front and actually believed the freaks who the liberals trained to scare them.

Our current GDP is 14.334 TRILLION dollars.
Just to put that in context we could throw away 334 BILLION dollars and still have 14,000 BILLION dollars!
Meanwhile China's current GDP is around 3.5 TRILLION! (let me add !!!)

Wow!
I don't know how they are pulling that off people but it is true!
But that doesn't mean we don't have competition because the closest country to the USA is rapidly taking us over at 4.3 Billion so the press should be telling you... weak, weak people to watch out for 'the Japs' again!
But the don'e because that doesn't scare you.

More to come

Liz- the last US unemployment figure I have is from Aug. 2008, when it was at 6.1%

Wax- WOW... I mean truly... WOW!
Forget that the universal healthy standard was set by the Roman world at 10%.
Umm...

The unemployment rate in 1932 was 23.6 percent. And we didn't get out of the 10 percent given threshold until 1942 when we dropped from 14.6 percent to 4.7 but I bet many people (not all but many) understand the basic facts of life to at least guess at why this just might have happened right?
NO?

There are three very interesting events that I find very telling about the American people concerning what is currently seen as an emergency:

1: Anyone who was listening in class learned that one never puts more than twenty five percent of investments at risk at any time. I don;t care what school you went to you heard it whether you were listening or not! So then we have ENRON and some idiots who put everything they had into well... ENRON! So we hear things like "I had 4.5 million and now I have 22,000!"
Really? Is that true? If so... then I could use a loan for 22,000, I will double your money but please give me cash up front first!

2: Clinton took office in 1993.
Something happened.
And then he ran for president in 1997.
A couple of hands raised (put your hand down Ray you can't answer this!) and that is all?
Really?
It doesn't matter what Gore claimed does anyone know what CERN is or who Berners-Lee is/were?
No but then that is sadly not surprising nor is it special because the condition of course must be fear!
The DOW in 1993 was a magical 3500.03 on 5/19... thank GOD for Bill Clinton right???

3.Everyone... no not just me but EVERYONE who knew anything about investments and the stock market in 1999 was warning about a stock crash. It had nothing to do with the coming 1999 computer bug it had to do with how stupid Americans had become.
Google... or any other internet start up or Martha Stewart for that matter opened and should have been a dollar. On a good opening day maybe five dollars (five hundred percent profit are you kidding me?!?).
But instead found opening day stocks closing at 250 buck!
Why for God sakes? WHY?
For the same reason why we actually did the proven impossible and passed a DOW 3000. Idiots who can trade from home!
So let's say that Google drops to 50 dollars tomorrow... OH MY GOD!
The sad thing is it is like watching paying 500.00 for a bottle of water while you stand next to a well with an open tap!
Yes they will pretend that they got "screwed" but the fact is they just didn't look around.

That is not deflation it is a justification or better yet an adjustment... which brings us to housing!

Housing is perhaps the saddest... yet funniest... yet saddest part of our recent idiots!

It combines two things that can not do other than confuse someone who is a thinking person: GREED and IGNORANCE.

Yet you hear it all of the time: "I have built equity in my house and it is worth more now... and I am so proud! I bought this house for $20,000 and now it is WORTH $120,000!"

Really?
Good for you moron!

What does it mean people? Does anyone think at all?

OK, here it goes:
My father in law bought his house in 1974 for $18,000.00.
That wasn't chump change in 1974 but it was realistic.
He made his payments and he paid his taxes.
His payments were designed to cover a loan for $18,000.00 and his taxes were based on a house worth $18,000.00.
Life was good!
But then his house was deemed to be 'worth' $40,000.00!
Hey... he doubled his money right???
No stupid! He now pays twice as much in taxes and nothing has changed!
You see his house was purchased to live in so his costs go up when his house becomes valued higher than it was.
Common sense of course but... think about it because most of you never stop top look at the facts of this situation!
He will never build more 'equity' than his original $18,000.00 but I can hear you idiots screaming now "BUT HIS HOUSE IS WORTH MORE SO HE HAS MORE EQUITY"!

Yes he does! If he planned to sell his house. Yet even then you are missing something!
Meanwhile he is now paying taxes on a house worth $225,000.00!
He has long since retired and there is no way he can actually pay taxes that huge (Don't worry Christmas is coming up and I will take care of him) because you are still missing the point!

Let us say that he wants to cash in on his wonderful equity and retire after his property investment payed off in such a grand style for him.
All he needs to do is sell his wonderful investment for $225,000.00 and buy himself another house for $18,000.00 right?!?
He'll have it made in the shade right!
Come on people!
NO... all I can hear are crickets in the back... that is the way it is right?

The last thing a thinking home owner wants is for property values to increase. Yet... the liberals think such a thing is wonderful! And they are always worried about it!
They pass all sorts of rules (not to be racist or elitists but) to "save" property values cause we don't want "mexican types or darkies" leaving cars in the driveway when they should have a garage after all.

We don't want a trailer next door our taxes might go down!
Yes... they might!
I hope you can live with such horror.

Just think of this fact folks:
Any property---- any given property for sale in the USA is overpriced by half!

So where we... oh... property are dropping let's bail out the morgage companies because we don't want property values to drop!
Really?
Not even a little bit?

Look around folks.
Take a quick sniff and ask yourself if you smell something burning.
But most importantly ask yourself, "Do I really know what I think I KNOW?"