Depression

Is this a depression? It is in many regards but the government would not want people to know about it. The difference in this depression is that there is a whole lot more money flowing through the system making it seem like it is not as bad as it seems. The result is a jobless recovery because most indications (CPI, Stock Market, unemployment numbers) show one thing but we in the streets see another making it hard for people to see the truth.

Current politicians are addicted to creating these short term results but in the long run we are in trouble. Debt levels are extraordinary and the American public doesn't want to see the truth making the politicians more powerful than they should be. Where do we get this mentality of how to handle recessions?

Most of it is in how we handled the Great Depression. Milton Friedman thinks we did not adjust correctly to the amount of Gold therefore not having enough money supply to cushion the markets. He also states in "Free to Choose" that the government is the major source of economic instability and the main cause to the crisis that led tot he Great Depression.

Paul Krugman thinks that government is not doing enough and that it is imperative that they spend more and grow the government. He feels that spending should be ten times what it is now and has a strict Keyensian theory on economics. He states that Keynesians, and himself, believes that in a recessionary time the government should spend while in boom times they should restrain and work on creating a surplus to spend in bad times.

In this depression there is no room to spend because the politicians created a huge mess during the boom times. This was caused from addiction to debt from the top on down to the bottom. This has made it difficult to spend when people need it and has created this political firestorm that is getting nothing done. What are we to do?

The very people who created this mess are arguing on what to do to save us lowly serfs now. It makes for an argument that the whole system needs a real change and not one debated in the halls of Washington by people who know nothing of what we need or want.