This Is Not The Great Depression

Hmm... similar to, but worse than the '81 recession, which presaged the last great scandal tied to the mass failure of deregulated thrifts.

Makes some sense.

Well, no, but it still sucks.

This chart is actually inaccurate. The current unemployment is much, much higher:

http://www.reuters.com/article/GCA-Economy/idUSTRE5077TM20090109

And the comical way unemployment is current calculated:

http://img.ragea.net/uploads/1234010029.jpg

So no, not depression levels yet, but very close.

How much of our economy was "non-farm" in '29?
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Suspect that we have (in real numbers) many, many more out of work now but, because we're basically a service economy now, this shows up as a lower "rate".
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As has been already said, it STILL sucks, but one can always find stats to make things look better.
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"Figures don't lie but . . ."

...and we won't even get into the relative "quality" of many of the jobs available out there right now.

I was feeling better about things until I saw andrewsauter's link. Now my hair is falling out even faster.

afgiy -- more than you think. In '29, we still had factories that made textiles, clothing and shoes. Lots of 'em.

@Cliff: eh, you'll spend less on shampoo (I've been trying to explore the upside for some time now).

Unemployment rate is notoriously underreported...there are millions of people who have given up finding work and are not listed as 'unemployed'.

Also, the self-employed who are not covered by unemployment insurance are not included in these numbers. While it may be safe to say that we don't have unemployment rates of 20%, when you factor in these two non-reported or underreported populations, it seems likely we have double-digit unemployment NOW.

We will soon enter a bizarre political twilight zone where the administration will shift (already has?) from doomsday talk to sell their agenda to being overly optimistic, and where the GOP will become the "party of no" selling Depression II.

http://www.political-buzz.com/

joyomama,
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I understand that. My mom worked in a clothing factory in Ky until around 1970 or so (there were two in my hometown until then). There were also many many more farmers then too. Those are a dying breed.
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My point was that there was more of an ag economy then that might have skewed the numbers.
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We didn't have the vast fast food and other service industries that we do now.

Sometimes I just feel that comparing our present economy to that at the beginning of the Depression ('29) is like comparing apples to oranges.
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Different basic structure. And some also have this maddening tendency to compare $20/hour manufacturing jobs lost as somehow equivalent with minimum wage fast food positions created when making statistical comparisons.

andrewsauter has a point, KT. The chart compares apples - a 1929 trend line showing unemployment numbers that include "discouraged workers" - with oranges - all of the other (post-LBJ) recession lines that do not.

Also, the self-employed who are not covered by unemployment insurance are not included in these numbers.
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Great. So I'm not even a statistic?
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Color me "less than reassured."
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BTW, why no story on AIG? Why no story on Cheney? Why no story on torture? We knew it wasn't the Great Depression and MS has two posts up about nothing. Y'all can do better than that!

shepherdwong - it's just that my skull looks like it's been battered repeatedly with a lead pipe - I really do prefer to cover the unsightly dents up one way or another.

Cliff - you should see my hat collection.

I won't comment on Obama's flip flop on the economy or his failure to apologize to John McCain, other to say that Scott McLellan has a doppelganger in Gibbs . . . . .

But if people think that this economy is bad now, wait until we do this carbon tax/cap and trade thing. One thing's for sure--if we do that, total economic activity will decline (of course, for the politically connected, they'll do better). Then we may have a depression. Whooppee.

Let's do a thought experiment. Let's say tomorrow morning, the US banned all cars. How quickly would those greenhouse emissions be replaced by emissions in other parts of the world? Just askin'

When we are using fake unemployment figures it makes the whole world seem rosey! How sweet! We've been massaging the unemployment numbers for the past 30 years. We are at least at 15% counting all classes including those who have given up looking for work and the part time employees who because part time because the companies would not hire full time employees because it cost more in benefits, etc.

This whole chart is a lie Karen!

Right now in Tampa there is a church in an affluent area of Tampa that is providing for 19 families. Today a local food bank was contacted by a realtor (one of the uncounted) who was looking for food, she had no money left in the bank, no more credit lines on her charge cards and no food in the house. God knows how she is paying her regular bills. Want me to go on anyone.. I can. Let's stop comparing apples to oranges, these are different years, different economies and different lifestyles. What happened in 1929 doesn't matter today.

spob, You suck and I mean like a vacuum cleaner! You take a post that is really serious and also features a bullcrap chart that says nothing and you start spouting off about some apology to John McCain and then go off into an exaggerated tangent about carbon emmissions. Please crawl back under the rock.

Excellent use of invective twice, newfloridian.
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To spob, the "unemployed" are just meat puppets with no individual existence. The important figures in spob's world are spob, spob, spob's daddy, Dick Cheney, spob, John McCain, Ann Coulter, spob, two unidentified voices in spob's head, and Andy Griffith. The rest of us, in so far as we exist at all, exist to be spob's audience.
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Grateful? Thought so.

Oh gee, you got me.

New Floridian, you are a moron. Got that, a moron. The issue, of course, is NOT whether I meet some bullshit test of "caring" made up by some liberal. The issue is getting the economy back in line. I hear Adam Smith was a really mean guy too. Barack Obama proposes to get the same people who deliver our mail involved in getting energy to every american home and business. And that's gonna do wonders for our economy. So things could be a hell of a lot worse. And Obama's energy ideas (remember, this arrogant guy is going to heal the earth and make the oceans stop rising). And with respect to the thought experiment, the point is, genius, why in the world are we going to economically screw ourselves if after screwing ourselves, our reduction in CO2 will be made up by other nations?

As for the apology to John McCain, one would think, of course, that Obama would have some sense of shame. He ridiculed McCain's "fundamentals are strong" comment, and now, where the measurables are worse, he says the same thing. And Gibbs is too much of an idiot to deflect that.

Worse still, with the government running energy, we're going to have juiced in people getting rich. And I thought you guys were supposed to be against that sort of thing. I know I am. Only my outrage is bipartisan.

By the way, this is hilarious:

http://justoneminute.typepad.com/main/2009/03/a-compelling-message-of-personal-responsibility.html

And this is going to do wonders for the economy:

http://www.redstate.com/dan_mclaughlin/2009/03/16/obama-backtracks-on-bungled-mexico-policy/

Gosh, spob! A link to an unsupported slap at Obama! That's really advancing the discussion there, tiger.