Tuesday, June 7, 2011

The Great [War | Depression] or [World War I | Depression 2.0 ]

Hey.  I'm a computer Geek.

In some programming languages (or meta-languages) you would specify to choose a word by
putting some of the choices in [vertical brackets] like this.

This is a sentence you will [complete | ignore ]  (example--choose one of the words...)


Now:

Here's a little story.

The [War to End all Wars| Great War]   is the original name of what we now call World War One.
It wasn't known as WWI for another 20 years after the end of the first one, when the second one got underway (and we were forced to admit that it wasn't the last war...).

So, we learn that it took  a great deal of time (20+ years) for society to admit that the [War to End all Wars| Great War] wasn't the last one, or the only great one, but only the first one.

Those of you who know me already know where this is going, because I've said it before. (and I have generally beaten that dead horse to a bloody pulp by now!!)

The [Great Depression | First Great Depression ] took place in 1929.   The second one started (and I said it here on my blog starting in 2006) in 2008.   That's almost 80 years after the first one.

Yes, I agree we would be up the creek, without the proverbial paddle, if the current government had NOT taken extraordinary measures.

However I say we ARE in Depression 2.0 today.  Calling this a "double-dip recession" is nonsensical and dangerous.

We can get out of this.  But we need to spend a great deal of federal money to do it.
The money will need to help create jobs, create a huge spending program (think interstate highway system) and unfortunately create More government debt.

But.  More on that later.  Today, I just want to have everyone admit its time to start calling a spade, a spade.   If it looks like a rose, and smells like a rose, and pricks your finger like a rose, it isn't a orchid, and it isn't ethical to continue to try and sell that rose as an orchid.

So my post here today is to try and offer the following position.

Calling our current economic condition a recession or 'double dip recession' is adequate, but it is much more honest to start to call this Depression 2.0.  If we do start to refer to it this way, some of the difficult spending choices will become much clearer to many Americans, and will make getting out of it much easier.

So  it took 20+ years to stop calling it the great war, it's now been almost 80 years, and now we can stop calling it the great depression.

Cheers to all

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