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News :: Miscellaneous |
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The Economy: DOWN THE MEMORY HOLE |
Current rating: 0 |
by Sam Smith, The Progressive Review
(No verified email address) |
17 Aug 2001
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History repeats itself-or some people never learn.
The corporate media don't help the public to understand political flim-flam. |
 History repeats itself-or some people never learn.
The corporate media don't help the public to understand political flim-flam. |
Here is a chart from Low Risk (http://lowrisk.com/) that shows the remarkable similarities between the beginnings of the 1929 crash and the NASDAQ crash. This is not to suggest that we are headed for a depression, but only to point out how efficiently news is kept from Americans these days . . . Why was the seriousness of the crash so underplayed? Two factors seemed to have been involved: (1) a fear of causing panic and (2) it was an election year and Democratic journalists did not want to hurt Al Gore's chances. The truth of the matter is that what some Democrats are now calling the Bush slump actually began early in 2000 as both the NASDAQ and the Dow began to collapse.
There are uncomfortable parallels between 1929 and the past year. The 1920s stock market was driven in part by soaring communications stocks such as RCA just as the 1990s market was driven by soaring internet firms. And there was also talk in the 1920s of a "new economy" that permanently changed the way the economy worked.
During the same length of time, the NASDAQ fell over 50% while the 1929 Dow fell only 48%. It is important to note, however, that America probably could have survived such a drop had it not been the subsequent, and less noted, fall from the high 200s to 41 between 1930 and 1932.
This story should be a caution; the economy is not necessarily what the media says it is. Here's another example:
In recent years, it has been a given - in the media as well as among politicians - that reducing government spending and cutting the national debt are clear virtues. This journal has been one of the few to point out that this is far from necessarily the case. Now, with some of the possible effects of such tactics showing up in the dragging economy, the rhetoric may change without, of course, any admission of error. One sign in the wind: an article in the conservative Washington Times noted "a 7.5% burst of spending by state and local governments also bolstered growth in the spring."
If state and local government spending bolsters growth, why not federal government spending? But we're not quite ready to discuss that, are we? Wait another quarter. |
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http://prorev.com/indexa.htm
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