Great, Depression!

[Lemur]

First a report shows that the five biggest banks in the U.S.A. are dead men walking.

America's five largest banks, which already have received $145 billion in taxpayer bailout dollars, still face potentially catastrophic losses from exotic investments if economic conditions substantially worsen, their latest financial reports show.

Citibank, Bank of America, HSBC Bank USA, Wells Fargo Bank and J.P. Morgan Chase reported that their "current" net loss risks from derivatives — insurance-like bets tied to a loan or other underlying asset — surged to $587 billion as of Dec. 31. Buried in end-of-the-year regulatory reports that McClatchy has reviewed, the figures reflect a jump of 49 percent in just 90 days. [...]

Federal regulators portray the potential loss figures as worst-case. However, the risks of these off-balance sheet investments, once thought minimal, have risen sharply as the U.S. has fallen into the steepest economic downturn since World War II, and the big banks' share prices have plummeted to unimaginable lows.

The I read that AIG issued a confidential report that it could fall quite easily, and take down the entire financial system with it:

A draft of the report, obtained by ABC News, was marked "strictly confidential." It said, "The failure of AIG would cause turmoil in the U.S. economy and global markets and have multiple and potentially catastrophic unforeseen consequences." [...] AIG warns in its report of the "systemic risk" that a potential collapse posed. It describes a "systemic risk" as one that "could potentially bankrupt or bring down the entire system or market."

The company said, "What happens to AIG has the potential to trigger a cascading set of further failures, which cannot be stopped except by extraordinary means."

And then I look at the latest unemployment chart, comparing this recession's job losses with previous ones:

None of my neighbors are going through my garbage for food, and I haven't seen any shantytowns. But when do we call this a depression?

[Reverend Joe]

my neighbors are going through my garbage for food, and I see shantytowns.

But when do we call this a depression?

When that happens. Which it might, but give it a little while. Things like this don't take a week; cyberspace has attuned us to a far-too-rapid pace of time, whereas depressions take time to truly develop.

[KukriKhan]

Three L's:

land

lead

liberty

[a completely inoffensive name]

From what I can tell Lemur, there is no exact definition of a depression or even a distinction of a recession from a depression. I feel bad for people like you, who have young to preteen children that will probably be most affected by this downturn due to the strain that most middle class Americans will feel in the years to come from the large large taxes that will follow the stimulus bills.

[Xiahou]

I still don't like that graph. Can't we just have one comparing unemployment rates? I mean "% decline in payroll employment from peak month" isn't exactly the easiest thing to wrap your head around. Something to bear in mind is that it's the decline from the peak month- which would mean the better the economy was doing before the recession, the further it would have to fall.

So, you could be doing really well and have a decline in unemployment that's still less than the peak levels from previous years, but it could still chart as a major recession. When the label of the Y axis is that convoluted, it always tends to make me think they want you conclude something that's not necessarily there.

For example, this is the first unemployment chart I could Google up, charting rates from 1948 to present:

From this you can see, in terms of unemployment, that so far the current recession has not surpassed recessions from even the 70's or 80's let alone the Great Depression.

I think comparisons with our current recession to the Great Depression are still very premature. My state's casinos just posted record profits and virtually every restaurant you go to in my area is still packed on the weekends. Ask someone who lived through the Great Depression how this one compares and see what they think.

[Odin]

"Unemployment then, as now, was closely linked to general macroeconomic conditions. The great depression, when unemployment in the United States reached 25 percent, is the classic example of the damage that collapses in credit can do. Since then, most economists have agreed that cyclical fluctuations in unemployment are caused by changes in the demand for labor, not by changes in workers’ desires to work, and that unemployment in recessions is involuntary." Source= http://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/Unemployment.html


So at 8% reported, lets say 10% to make the liberals argument a little easier for them we have a 90% employment rate which is exceptional. Should we get to around 15-20 then I think we can say "depression" but for now, i think its a bad bad recession with several economic cycles converging.

that being said the credit situation is the key, if that dosent clear up then yep depression here we come. as when you base your currency, economic activity and valuations of wealth on credit or a fictional non fixed asset this is what happens from time to time.

[Husar]

Nowadays "strictly confidential" always seems to mean "only to be viewed by people on this planet".
I mean why is the press invading the privacy of companies?

I agree with Odin, it's only a depression when you have only 10-15% employment and a suicide rate of at least 230%. Suicide is a good indicator for depression.
For now it's just an economic downturn, people still use their cars, don't they? Well, then it can't be all that bad.

[Vuk]

The media used panic to create the Great Depression, and they have been doing the samething over again...

[Hosakawa Tito]

It's a recession when your neighbor loses his job, and a depression when you lose yours. Determining an accurate number of unemployed people is a guessing game and a great number of these people fall through the cracks and aren't counted. My grandparents raised their families during the 1930's and survived; we'll do the same.

[Lemur]

So at 8% reported, lets say 10% to make the liberals argument a little easier for them [...]

Wait, wondering aloud whether the current recession is serious is a liberal thing? Man, what don't those libs have ownership of?

Sir, turn off the Sean Hannity and step away from the radio slowly ...

Xiahou, good points and a helpful chart.

Vuk, you forgot to blame the liberal media for everything. You can't just call them "media" and walk away whistling.

I never cease to find it amazing how everything back here breaks down into predictable (if illogical) partisan lines. I could post that I read somewhere that thunderstorms are very dangerous in Iowa, and I have no doubt that one of our rightwing Orgahs would tell me that thunderstorms are a figment of the liberal media socialist elite's imagination ...

[KukriKhan]

Wait, wondering aloud whether the current recession is serious is a liberal thing? Man, what don't those libs have ownership of?

Sir, turn off the Sean Hannity and step away from the radio slowly ...

Xiahou, good points and a helpful chart.

Vuk, you forgot to blame the liberal media for everything. You can't just call them "media" and walk away whistling.

I never cease to find it amazing how everything back here breaks down into predictable (if illogical) partisan lines. I could post that I read somewhere that thunderstorms are very dangerous in Iowa, and I have no doubt that one of our rightwing Orgahs would tell me that thunderstorms are a figment of the liberal media socialist elite's imagination ...

"Mainstream". Ya gotta work mainstream into it somehow. :)

[Yoyoma1910]

Well Lemur, obviously the great dust bowl was an attempt by the liberal mainstream media, as well as the liberal elite media, to infiltrate and decimate the traditional agrarian lifestyle of the red states. Causing a mass exodus of conservative America into Liberal strongholds, where, unable to ward off the uberliberality of these regions, the migrants suffered from what has come to be known as the "Brokeback Mountain Effect." And that is how "Bears" were born.


See, it's all part of a giant liberal conspiracy.

[Fragony]

It's a recession when your neighbor loses his job, and a depression when you lose yours. Determining an accurate number of unemployed people is a guessing game and a great number of these people fall through the cracks and aren't counted. My grandparents raised their families during the 1930's and survived; we'll do the same.

Good boy. Sky isn't falling down or anything, all fine.

[Vuk]

Wait, wondering aloud whether the current recession is serious is a liberal thing? Man, what don't those libs have ownership of?

Sir, turn off the Sean Hannity and step away from the radio slowly ...

Xiahou, good points and a helpful chart.

Vuk, you forgot to blame the liberal media for everything. You can't just call them "media" and walk away whistling.

I never cease to find it amazing how everything back here breaks down into predictable (if illogical) partisan lines. I could post that I read somewhere that thunderstorms are very dangerous in Iowa, and I have no doubt that one of our rightwing Orgahs would tell me that thunderstorms are a figment of the liberal media socialist elite's imagination ...

Amazing how it breaks down to partisan lines? Who said anything partisan, you or me? I said the media, not the liberal media. I never suggested that liberals were or were not to blame, you did. Not only is that an accusation sir, it is a false accusation.
I delibrately did not say anything partisan, because I did not want to be drawn into a debate that I simply just do not have time for. If I was to bring up partisanism, I would have said that the liberal media caused the greatest financial crisis that the earlymodern/modern would has seen so that they could get FDR elected and impose their political and economic policies on America. The same crisis that Hitler used to gain power. Similarly they did it again to get Obama elected. Now that he is in power they will do the same thing, making the American people feel desperate enough to accept every liberal policy they introduce in hopes of saving them. I could have said that, but I didn't.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

The credit bomb is still going off. Derivatives products continue to go bust and this will worsen as the stimulus package comes in and the government starts stopping foreclosures.

Ugly little unspoken "secret?" Most of those homes saved from foreclosure will still end up in foreclosure when the program stops. So, we either need to buy their homes for them or expect that foreclosures will be stretched out over a period of time.

This will help the big lenders by preventing them from absorbing all of the damage rapidly. It will, however, keep home prices and interest rates down. Overall, this depression will not get loads worse in terms of the markets, but unemployment will creep up past 1983 levels and a real upsurge may be years in the offing.

[Vuk]

Wanna stop this crisis right now? Get rid of the Capital gains tax, institute a flat-rate tax system, kill the BS programs started in the New Deal and added after it, stop all foreign aid, allow the market to regulate itself, lower taxes, stop all unreciprocal trade agreements, enforce US standards to imports from other countries, quit taxing businesses for producing in the US, and start taxing them for operating factories and offices overseas, etc. Do that, and the financial crisis will not only be over, but America will quickly become the most powerfull and wealthy that it has ever been in its history. The common person will live better than ever before, and wealth will naturally spread, slowly breaking the consolidation that happened when powerful investors bought everything up after the depression. It would not even take a full year to recover. In place of foriegn aid, we could start giving interest free loans in small amounts to small time businessmen and farmers in developing countries.

[rasoforos]

Wanna stop this crisis right now? Get rid of the Capital gains tax, institute a flat-rate tax system, kill the BS programs started in the New Deal and added after it, stop all foreign aid, allow the market to regulate itself, lower taxes, stop all unreciprocal trade agreements, enforce US standards to imports from other countries, quit taxing businesses for producing in the US, and start taxing them for operating factories and offices overseas, etc.

Not a single recession goes by without a person shouting 'Lets do mercantilism!!!'

It does not work Vuk. Tried and tested. I would suggest a good macroeconomics book so you can see why.

Some points though:

stop all foreign aid ---> Which means less purchasing power in international markets...ergo larger trade deficit for the US and fall in production. So heaps of unsold goods in the local market and more closed local businesses. (I wont even mention the political side and about what will happen to US tied pariah states like Israel, Iraq and Afghanistan if the buck stops)

allow the market to regulate itself ---> That means that the banking and insurance system will collapse. No savings, no pension funds, no medical insurance. AIG only holds a huge chunk of the world's liability contracts. Now, until the market regulates itself, firms would have to pay for their own liability so if let's say a worker gets permanently disabled a firm will have to come up with 3-4 millions needed for lifetime care. For most small firms this means bankruptcy...

...so immediately local firms will get another hit.

Also, if the system is not supported and provided with liquidity, firms will have a hard time finding cash when needed and will collapse when their outward cashflow peaks.

Also it is a bit naive to think that markets will regulate themselves. Economic theory has progressed since Adam Smith. Some markets like the medical sector are by nature failed markets and cannot self regulate. Also the current collapse was to a certain extent caused by lack of regulation (banks were allowed to give 0% deposit and also high risk mortgages putting an extreme inflationary pressure to the housing market that led to its eventual collapse.


enforce US standards to imports from other countries, quit taxing businesses for producing in the US, and start taxing them for operating factories and offices overseas, etc. --->

You practically propose an exit from the WTO. There are agreements in place that prohibit such action and for good reason.

Such actions will effectively cause a collapse of trade between the US and the world.

If you give local businesses preferential treatment then the other countries will do so so the net outcome will be taxpayers' money waster and a zero net effect. What is the point of reducing tax for local businesses if your potential market target places an import tariff on US products in retaliation?

Also you have to take comparative advantage into account. A country cannot produce everything and be efficient. By restricting trade in an effort to boost local business you end up restricting production efficiency and as a consequence you cause a drop in wages (since lower productivity leads de facto to lower possible compensation for your labour).

In short, by enforcing the protectionist policies you propose:

a) You would force other countries to follow suit causing a zero net effect. Your trade level would be greatly diminished.

b) You would hinder your local firms ability to export because you would get tariffs on the way.

c) By neglecting comparative advantage you would cause a collapse in wage rates by causing lower productivity.

d) By taxing overseas production you will cause problems to that country's economy. They will probably react by nationalizing or restricting FDI to the US. Even if that does not happen, there is a good reason why firms produce overseas, HIGHER PRODUCTIVITY (due to location, lower wages, skilled labour or other reasons). By taxing you will eventually ensure that said firms will produce less efficiently and consequently be out marketed by foreign firms.

There is a reason free trade is promoted. It is an instinctive reaction to resort to protectionism when times are hard, but it is not really the best solution.

It is all good and nice to propose such 'solutions' but you need to consider how interconnected the world market is and also the fact that other countries will not stay idle.

My two cents

[Vuk]

Not a single recession goes by without a person shouting 'Lets do mercantilism!!!'

It does not work Vuk. Tried and tested. I would suggest a good macroeconomics book so you can see why.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Really? When has history showed it not to work? All this time I thought that history has shown the leftist policies of government regulation such as the New Deal not to work. It did not help us at all.

Some points though:

stop all foreign aid ---> Which means less purchasing power in international markets...ergo larger trade deficit for the US and fall in production. So heaps of unsold goods in the local market and more closed local businesses. (I wont even mention the political side and about what will happen to US tied pariah states like Israel, Iraq and Afghanistan if the buck stops)

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

I admit to faulty wording on that point. States that we need to be strong for military and political reasons would still be sent aid, but aid going to countries like Dafur and Somalia where it is just captured and used by the enemy anyway is not helping world purchasing power AT ALL.

allow the market to regulate itself ---> That means that the banking and insurance system will collapse. No savings, no pension funds, no medical insurance. AIG only holds a huge chunk of the world's liability contracts. Now, until the market regulates itself, firms would have to pay for their own liability so if let's say a worker gets permanently disabled a firm will have to come up with 3-4 millions needed for lifetime care. For most small firms this means bankruptcy...

...so immediately local firms will get another hit.

Also, if the system is not supported and provided with liquidity, firms will have a hard time finding cash when needed and will collapse when their outward cashflow peaks.

Also it is a bit naive to think that markets will regulate themselves. Economic theory has progressed since Adam Smith. Some markets like the medical sector are by nature failed markets and cannot self regulate. Also the current collapse was to a certain extent caused by lack of regulation (banks were allowed to give 0% deposit and also high risk mortgages putting an extreme inflationary pressure to the housing market that led to its eventual collapse.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Just because Adam Smith is not of this generationg does not mean that he is wrong.

enforce US standards to imports from other countries, quit taxing businesses for producing in the US, and start taxing them for operating factories and offices overseas, etc. --->

You practically propose an exit from the WTO. There are agreements in place that prohibit such action and for good reason.


Such actions will effectively cause a collapse of trade between the US and the world.

If you give local businesses preferential treatment then the other countries will do so so the net outcome will be taxpayers' money waster and a zero net effect. What is the point of reducing tax for local businesses if your potential market target places an import tariff on US products in retaliation?


Also you have to take comparative advantage into account. A country cannot produce everything and be efficient. By restricting trade in an effort to boost local business you end up restricting production efficiency and as a consequence you cause a drop in wages (since lower productivity leads de facto to lower possible compensation for your labour).

In short, by enforcing the protectionist policies you propose:

a) You would force other countries to follow suit causing a zero net effect. Your trade level would be greatly diminished.

b) You would hinder your local firms ability to export because you would get tariffs on the way.

c) By neglecting comparative advantage you would cause a collapse in wage rates by causing lower productivity.

d) By taxing overseas production you will cause problems to that country's economy. They will probably react by nationalizing or restricting FDI to the US. Even if that does not happen, there is a good reason why firms produce overseas, HIGHER PRODUCTIVITY (due to location, lower wages, skilled labour or other reasons). By taxing you will eventually ensure that said firms will produce less efficiently and consequently be out marketed by foreign firms.

There is a reason free trade is promoted. It is an instinctive reaction to resort to protectionism when times are hard, but it is not really the best solution.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

You are wrong, I am not talking about putting any type of tax or tarriff on goods from another country, just making sure that American companies produce in America. I am talking about taxing the outsourcing of jobs, not the goods coming in. And if we stopped punishing them for producing in the US, they would have very little/no reason to outsource jobs anyway.

It is all good and nice to propose such 'solutions' but you need to consider how interconnected the world market is and also the fact that other countries will not stay idle.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Other countries responding in like will not hurt our market at all. Let them, it would be good for them, and by their economies improving, we would have a larger market for our goods.

My two cents

My two cents.

[LittleGrizzly]

Really? When has history showed it not to work?

We practised mercantilism for a long time before Adam Smiths free market philosphy was taken on fairly extensively by the powers... his treatise came out around about the time of the american war of independence so not long after that...

[Vuk]

Really? When has history showed it not to work?

We practised mercantilism for a long time before Adam Smiths free market philosphy was taken on fairly extensively by the powers... his treatise came out around about the time of the american war of independence so not long after that...

So? Adam Smith was right about 99% of what he said. If we would have followed his philosophy throughout his history, there would have been no great depression, and we would by now have achieved a state of living that we would probably find hard to believe today.

[Yoyoma1910]

Mercantilism was heavily dependent on he use of slavery to produce goods at affordable cost. It wouldn't be effective in an even reasonably humane economic model. The reality holds that some goods are going to be able to be produced more effectively in some nations and regions than others.


If you restrict the purchase of foreign goods, then the production of domestic goods dependent on those goods becomes less feasible.


Of course, sometimes it's a choice of quality over quantity. For instance, domestic vs. foreign crawfish. Even at a 180% tariff, imported tails from China and Turkey are ridiculously cheaper than domestic production. However, the product is notably inferior, partially due to packaging restrictions which require that the flesh not be packed in fat.

[rasoforos]

I admit to faulty wording on that point. States that we need to be strong for military and political reasons would still be sent aid, but aid going to countries like Dafur and Somalia where it is just captured and used by the enemy anyway is not helping world purchasing power AT ALL.

This is a political and not an economic aspect of aid. Shall I assume that we now agree that stopping aid is not a good idea since we need to keep all those economies that will buy from us nice and strong?

Just because Adam Smith is not of this generationg does not mean that he is wrong.

Of course. The same way Aristotle was right in a lot of things about Biology and Physics and Democritus was right about the atom. Such men set up bases and things went a lot further since then. Just because Hippocrates was right about a lot of medical issues does not mean we should not use modern medical techniques for example.

There are as many opinions as there are economists (I should know since I am one) but if it was that easy and all markets could self regulate through Adam Smith's invisible hand then we would not need economic theory. Some markets, due to the nature of their products, information assymetry or other reasons are inherently prone to failure.

You are wrong, I am not talking about putting any type of tax or tarriff on goods from another country, just making sure that American companies produce in America. I am talking about taxing the outsourcing of jobs, not the goods coming in. And if we stopped punishing them for producing in the US, they would have very little/no reason to outsource jobs anyway.

You are making my point now. Let's say U.S firm 'A' has an overseas factory in county 'Yurop'. The moment you tax company 'A' for its overseas investment you will force it to downsize or close down that said investment. That will harm 'Yurop's' economy due to lower production and higher unemployment. Yurop will not of course stand idle but will retaliate. It can do this by putting tarrifs on US imports or even by doing the exact same thing the US did and force it's companies to downsize their investments in the US.

So what will the outcome be? Closed factories in the US and closed factories in 'Yurop' and lots of people jobless.

This is not the end though. Firm 'A' had a reason it was producing in 'Yurop'. Firms do not just get up and go abroad for no reason. Lets say that our product is cars and that firm A can find better skilled labour at cheaper prices and is also closer to its distribution centers and consequently can produce a car with a cost of 5.000 units while it would cost 6.000 units in the U.S. Now the moment you force it to produce localy through your taxation program you imediately reduce its overall competitiveness in the Global market. Suddenly firm 'A' sales drop in the global market because it cannot produce as cheaply as it's competitors. It might be competitive localy but the local market is not enough of course and chances are that it's costs will increase even localy (because some parts will need to be imported anyway and they will be subject to punitive tariffs that you or 'Yurop' imposed).

As for them having little or no reason to outsource jobs. The alternative would be to either produce everything locally or to purchase all your goods from foreign companies. There is a simple argument against it. Let us first simplify the economy into having one resource 'labour' and two products 'bananas' and 'computers'. Let's say that the US has 10 units of labour and that each unit can produce either 5 units bananas or 3 units of computers. Bananas cost 10 dollars per unit and computers 20 dollars in the world market. It is obvious that the U.S is better off using all its resources to produce computers since its Gross domestic product in this case is 10 units of labourX3 computersX20 dollars = 600 dollars. Then it can buy bananas from the world and it becomes obvious that it is much cheaper to do so than to produce localy since you would need 1 unit of labour to produce 50 dollars worth of bananas but, by producing computers and exporting them you can get 60 dollars worth of bananas per unit of labor. So if you force, through protective taxation, your economy to produce both goods and you had 8 workers to procuce computers and 2 to produce bananas in order to cover domestic demand then your GDP would be 8X60 + 2X50 = 580 dollars which is less than the 600 dollars you would produce through free trade. Congratulation, you effectively put your economy in recession!

So forcing your firms to produce localy is not a good idea. How about not letting them outsource? Well if you do allow free trade but no outsourcing then you will end up buying from foreign firms. You will do the foreign countries a great good at the expense of your own economy and they will give you a big big kiss. In simpler words, by letting your companies outsource you can tap into the economic potential of international resources. If you do not some other country will do anyway.

I strongly suggest you read about competitive advantage and why free trade is a positive sum game. A good book (or even wiki) can explain much better than me.

[Lemur]

I would have said that the liberal media caused the greatest financial crisis that the earlymodern/modern would has seen so that they could get FDR elected and impose their political and economic policies on America. The same crisis that Hitler used to gain power. Similarly they did it again to get Obama elected. Now that he is in power they will do the same thing, making the American people feel desperate enough to accept every liberal policy they introduce in hopes of saving them. I could have said that, but I didn't.

I hear there's a sale on tinfoil down the street. Anyway, thanks for proving my point.

[Husar]

The media used panic to create the Great Depression, and they have been doing the samething over again...

From what I read, while it is usually said that one has to be clever to make money with shares etc., it seems that most shareholders are about as stupid as most voters(see other thread for reference). there was even a billionaire or at least very rich man on Tv who was very old and made a lot of money during all depressions, he claimed he mostly does the exact opposite of all the other shareholders, oh and the also said many of them are simply idiots.

Well, it's easy, people hear there will be a crysis because everybody will sell their shares

-> people/let's call them everybody, sells their shares because everybody will sell their shares and prices will drop

-> people wonder why we have a great depression and some even complain about all the other stupid shareholders who caused this depression by selling their shares, while they tell their broker on the phone to sell more shares most likely.

It's like, imagine it's war and nobody goes there.
Same thing, imagine it's a depression and nobody sells his shares/stops giving credit.

Of course there would still be the problem of mortgages that can't be paid off, but those existed four years ago already and we didn't have a depression just because nobody knew it.

[Alexander the Pretty Good]

there was even a billionaire or at least very rich man on Tv who was very old and made a lot of money during all depressions, he claimed he mostly does the exact opposite of all the other shareholders, oh and the also said many of them are simply idiots.

The problem is that investors know this. They all try to do the opposite of "common knowledge" and it ends up becoming the new common knowledge.

[Xiahou]

Xiahou, good points and a helpful chart.

You should check out that site sometime. It looks like a treasure trove of economic information.

[Alexander the Pretty Good]

On the bright side Lemur, at least we'll dress better.

I need a good fitting suit.

[Major Robert Dump]

Are some people here serious when thy say the "recession" has been caused by the media? I understand that some things can be over-reported, but I fail to see how they caused banks and automakers to bottom out, and as I recall the Whitehouse was playing damage control (stimulus checks, anyone?) long before any reports of recession were being sounded.

Instead, I blame the recession on California, Arizona, Colorado and Florida, where the vast majority of the foreclosures have happened. I think those states should be foreclosed and sold.

I also blame the minimum wage increase for the collapse of banks and automakers.

And I blame my mother-in-law for the war in Iraq.

[a completely inoffensive name]

...

[Vuk]

Are some people here serious when thy say the "recession" has been caused by the media? I understand that some things can be over-reported, but I fail to see how they caused banks and automakers to bottom out, and as I recall the Whitehouse was playing damage control (stimulus checks, anyone?) long before any reports of recession were being sounded.

Instead, I blame the recession on California, Arizona, Colorado and Florida, where the vast majority of the foreclosures have happened. I think those states should be foreclosed and sold.

I also blame the minimum wage increase for the collapse of banks and automakers.

And I blame my mother-in-law for the war in Iraq.

What started it?
Why was it fanned into an international crisis?

“You never let a serious crisis go to waste. What I mean by that is it’s an opportunity to do things you couldn’t do before.” -- Obama Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel

Just like with the Great Depression, a way for liberals to get their harmful agenda through, that people otherwise would be to smart to let happen.
'nough said.