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Pluto
Joined: 19 Dec 2006
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 Posted: Sat Jul 25, 2009 7:30 pm Post subject: |
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| visitorq wrote: |
| MollyBloom wrote: |
| Keep in mind that history has proved war improves economic depressions. You never know what the world leaders are planning. |
A major world war is almost certainly in the cards. The international bankers can once again pit nation states against each other, finance both sides with debt-based fiat currencies that they control (soon to be a world bank issued currency like SDRs), put all these countries permanently in their debt, while posing as the saviors by bringing in world government institutions that supercede national sovereignty of countries and prevent 'future wars'. |
Uhm, yeah...
| MollyBloom wrote: |
| Keep in mind that history has proved war improves economic depressions. You never know what the world leaders are planning. |
I suggest you read Henry Hazlitt's Economics in One Lesson, the first 2 chapters at least. There is nothing about breaking windows or killing people that suggests "war improves economic depressions" as you say. |
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MollyBloom
Joined: 21 Jul 2006
Location: James Joyce's pants
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| Posted: Sat Jul 25, 2009 9:01 pm Post subject: |
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| Pluto wrote: |
Uhm, yeah...
| MollyBloom wrote: |
| Keep in mind that history has proved war improves economic depressions. You never know what the world leaders are planning. |
I suggest you read Henry Hazlitt's Economics in One Lesson, the first 2 chapters at least. There is nothing about breaking windows or killing people that suggests "war improves economic depressions" as you say. |
No, but making money to support a war does. That's why I said "history has proved..." Can't you discern opinion from fact?
Throwing around sophomoric textbook links, along with the "breaking windows" bit? Pleasant. At least quote Hazlitt if you are going to use his phrases. |
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bacasper
Joined: 26 Mar 2007
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| Posted: Sat Jul 25, 2009 10:23 pm Post subject: |
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| It was the gearing up for World War II that finally lifted the US out of The Great Depression, wasn't it? |
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MollyBloom
Joined: 21 Jul 2006
Location: James Joyce's pants
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| Posted: Sun Jul 26, 2009 4:33 am Post subject: |
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| bacasper wrote: |
| It was the gearing up for World War II that finally lifted the US out of The Great Depression, wasn't it? |
^^I had that in mind when I posted. |
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visitorq
Joined: 11 Jan 2008
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| Posted: Sun Jul 26, 2009 4:47 am Post subject: |
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| Pluto wrote: |
| visitorq wrote: |
| MollyBloom wrote: |
| Keep in mind that history has proved war improves economic depressions. You never know what the world leaders are planning. |
A major world war is almost certainly in the cards. The international bankers can once again pit nation states against each other, finance both sides with debt-based fiat currencies that they control (soon to be a world bank issued currency like SDRs), put all these countries permanently in their debt, while posing as the saviors by bringing in world government institutions that supercede national sovereignty of countries and prevent 'future wars'. |
Uhm, yeah... |
Does that mean you agree?  (or was that your idea of a rebuttal?)
| Quote: |
| I suggest you read Henry Hazlitt's Economics in One Lesson, the first 2 chapters at least. There is nothing about breaking windows or killing people that suggests "war improves economic depressions" as you say. |
The overall economy is built on giant fraud, stemming from debt-based fractional reserve banking. One big ponzi scheme. The banks who privately issue and control our entire money supply through the privately owned Federal Reserve bank don't actually care about money (they create it out of thin air), they only care about power and controlling everything. Nothing consolidates power like a war. The overall economy is irrelevant to them - the middle class can just go bankrupt and work for the corporatist government or join the army and get killed. The powers that be don't care (in fact they probably prefer it that way). |
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mises
Joined: 05 Nov 2007
Location: retired
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| Posted: Sun Jul 26, 2009 8:07 am Post subject: |
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No. The Great Depression was not brought to an end by the War. The idea that the GD was ended by WW2 is pushed by Keynesian to justify their love of massive public works projects as "stimulus". The GD was a complicated event. It makes no sense to say "war did it" just because that's easiest.
The Great Depression was made more serious by Obam, er, Hoover and the others. It probably wouldn't have been a "Great" event if not for them. |
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bacasper
Joined: 26 Mar 2007
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| Posted: Sun Jul 26, 2009 9:29 am Post subject: |
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| Well, then what got us out? |
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mises
Joined: 05 Nov 2007
Location: retired
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| Posted: Sun Jul 26, 2009 9:34 am Post subject: |
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| Lots of different explanations are offered by economic historians. Virtually all are a product of an individual pushing a particular ideology. I honestly don't know what ultimately did it. |
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bacasper
Joined: 26 Mar 2007
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| Posted: Sun Jul 26, 2009 9:43 am Post subject: |
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Surely some of these economic historians cite the war.
And if you don't know what got us out, how can you be sure it was not the war? |
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mises
Joined: 05 Nov 2007
Location: retired
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| Posted: Sun Jul 26, 2009 11:30 am Post subject: |
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The Keynesian true believers do say it was the war. Paul Krugman used it as a justification for the stimulus.
But how could the war have done that? Clearly, it lessened unemployment and increased aggregate production during the war, but like China's current stimulus binge, these end. The question must focus towards the post-war period. Ben Bernanke thinks it was monetary loosening. That's probably the best answer. Which is why he is loosening now because he sees this depression as similar in structure to the Great Depression. The Great Depression and our depression are different in structure because the GD was caused by monetary tightening which constricted aggregate demand and ours was caused by a massive credit expansion which borrowed future demand and we will now return to produced demand. If that makes sense. |
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Pluto
Joined: 19 Dec 2006
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| Posted: Sun Jul 26, 2009 1:44 pm Post subject: |
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| Well, I wouldn't call Hazlitt's Economics in One Lesson sophomoric. ( I linked the cliff notes, if you want to read the book, here it is) The work challenges its readers to search beyond what we and look for what is unseen. There is popular fallacy that claims WWII got us out of the Depression. There are many reasons for how the Depression came to a conclusion. If it was due to the War, then it was due to the FDR administration leaving the business community alone to build the war machine. Also, there was rationing of everything from apples to cigarettes happening during the War. Hazlitt separates monetary wealth from real wealth. People made more money because there was more of it, it was printed into existence. Real wealth such as houses, factories and labor were either destroyed or diverted to support the War machine. After the War, peoples energies went into rebuilding houses, roads, bridges and factories; they weren't continuing to be built. I don't believe it was WW2 that got us out of the depression nor do I believe an economy can be built by killing people and breaking stuff. |
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MollyBloom
Joined: 21 Jul 2006
Location: James Joyce's pants
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| Posted: Sun Jul 26, 2009 7:18 pm Post subject: |
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| Pluto wrote: |
| Well, I wouldn't call Hazlitt's Economics in One Lesson sophomoric. |
Sorry, I literally meant:
2 : of, relating to, or characteristic of a sophomore <sophomoric humor>
not
1: conceited and overconfident of knowledge but poorly informed and immature <a sophomoric argument>
...because I often see it on economics 101 college syllabi.
Anyway, I am familiar with Hazlitt; I just tend not to agree with a lot of points he makes. His core teaching points are well-written and organized, I must add. Didn't some book critic say this book could teach economics to a child, or something like that? |
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visitorq
Joined: 11 Jan 2008
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| Posted: Sun Jul 26, 2009 10:43 pm Post subject: |
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| Pluto wrote: |
| Well, I wouldn't call Hazlitt's Economics in One Lesson sophomoric. ( I linked the cliff notes, if you want to read the book, here it is) The work challenges its readers to search beyond what we and look for what is unseen. There is popular fallacy that claims WWII got us out of the Depression. There are many reasons for how the Depression came to a conclusion. If it was due to the War, then it was due to the FDR administration leaving the business community alone to build the war machine. Also, there was rationing of everything from apples to cigarettes happening during the War. Hazlitt separates monetary wealth from real wealth. People made more money because there was more of it, it was printed into existence. Real wealth such as houses, factories and labor were either destroyed or diverted to support the War machine. After the War, peoples energies went into rebuilding houses, roads, bridges and factories; they weren't continuing to be built. I don't believe it was WW2 that got us out of the depression nor do I believe an economy can be built by killing people and breaking stuff. |
The depression ended after the war, because everything was destroyed and had to be rebuilt. This was the time when the US was the world's biggest exporter by far and had huge trade surpluses with Europe. The US also had the world's largest gold reserves, allowing the US dollar to become the global reserve currency (Bretton Woods).
Amazing how all this prosperity vanished within just a few decades, and how inescapable debt and prosperity had to become interlinked -- you can thank the Federal Reserve for that. Now there's no more gold, huge trade deficits, and a massively inflated money supply backed by nothing, while still accumulating insane amounts of interest each year, which can never be repaid.
This time the global financial system is too far above the real economy to be salvaged, regardless of whether another war takes place. It needs to be abolished and replaced, but this will never happen while the bankers continue to control everything. |
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mises
Joined: 05 Nov 2007
Location: retired
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| Posted: Tue Jul 28, 2009 6:00 pm Post subject: |
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From the WSJ (!)
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203946904574300263148640896.html#mod=rss_opinion_main
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Let�s Break up the Fed
The Federal Reserve has done a terrible job at financial regulation. Why give it more power?
At the very least we should split the monetary policy and regulatory functions of the Fed, as was done through the Maastricht Treaty that established the European Central Bank. What we need now is a debate about how to break up the Fed�and some of the sprawling financial institutions it supervises�in order to make both the regulator and the regulated more manageable and accountable. |
The whole article is a good read.
If any of you have a few hours to burn reading 72 pages of rather depressing data, give this a go:
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| The End Of The End Of The Recession |
http://www.zerohedge.com/article/end-end-recession |
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mises
Joined: 05 Nov 2007
Location: retired
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