Thursday, March 28, 2013

Brad DeLong calls depression

...my conclusion is that I should stop calling the current episode the Lesser Depression. Yes, its shape is different from that of the Great Depression; but, so far at least, there is no reason to rank it any lower in the hierarchy of macroeconomic disasters.
Project Syndicate
Let it Bleed?
J. Bradford DeLong | Professor of Economics, University of California at Berkeley and a research associate at the National Bureau for Economic Research

7 comments:

Dan Lynch said...

Hyperlink missing but easy enough to find.

http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/the-great-depression-redux-by-j--bradford-delong

Definitely a jobs depression.

Tom Hickey said...

Link fixed. Thanks, Dan.

Roger Erickson said...

Pah! I call Repression.

Roger Erickson said...

Seriously, where are the exact boundaries between rec- depr- and repr-ession?

Since our cyclic behavior patterns are always the root cause, all those "essions" are variants of "wepressions"

The point marking transformation to an adequately pass-through economy also marks transformation to an adequately agile culture - able to change fast enough to fully optimize it's adaptive potential.

That doesn't guarantee anything, but at least we don't leave a cultural Achievement Gap unexplored due to petty, internal frictions.

Unknown said...

Since our cyclic behavior patterns are always the root cause, all those "essions" are variants of "wepressions" Roger Erickson

Not quite. A more fundamental root cause is the government-backed credit cartel, the banking system, which drives people into debt (the alternative is to be priced out of the market forever) for interest which does not even exist in aggregate unless a country is a net exporter (in which case the country's central bank "sells" the interest to foreigners so they can buy the exports) and/or the monetary sovereign deficit spends the interest into existence.

The root cause is a government-backed usury for stolen purchasing power cartel.

Roger Erickson said...

And where do people get the idea that the "government" is anyone other than us?

A government of the people only happens if everyone acts like an owner.

No intelligent, coordination ... no democracy.

Unknown said...

And where do people get the idea that the "government" is anyone other than us? Rodger Erickson

Most Americans, including many here, are convinced there is no substitute for our present system of unethical endogenous money creation - if only the government is in charge of it or if it is properly "regulated." But there is an ethical replacement IF we:

1) Recognize that the entire American population (sans bankers and the uber-rich?) deserves restitution for theft by the present system.

2) That private money creation must NOT enjoy government privileges such as the banks now enjoy.