Welcome to the depression

The Panic is over.  The government (including the Fed, whose days may be numbered as an “independent” entity) has blown some bucks, probably badly, and promises to blow some more.  What comes next?

If we follow in about the same track as the Great Depression, we’re in for almost a decade of more of the same:  the stimulus will help some people, but unemployment will remain high; maybe the unemployed will get better health care and workfare, maybe not; the public debt will mount; the rich will remain rich with no narrowing of the gap between them and everyone else; bickering with our allies and trading partners will become more bitter; there will be trouble in the Balkans; people will come to your door and offer to work for cash or food; there will be wars and rumors of wars.  (See this for big picture.)  Or things might happen faster this time….

Here are a few one-liners from the Cowboy Philosopher of the ‘Thirties that ring true today as they must have in the Depression:

 

Be thankful we're not getting all the government we're paying for.

 

A fool and his money are soon elected.

 

Advertising is the art of convincing people to spend money they don't have for something they don't need.

 

Alexander Hamilton started the U.S. Treasury with nothing, and that was the closest our country has ever been to being even.

 

All I know is just what I read in the papers, and that's an alibi for my ignorance.

 

An economist's guess is liable to be as good as anybody else's.

 

Anything important is never left to the vote of the people. We only get to vote on some man; we never get to vote on what he is to do.

 

Chaotic action is preferable to orderly inaction.

 

Don't let yesterday use up too much of today.

 

Everything is changing. People are taking their comedians seriously and the politicians as a joke.

 

Everything is funny, as long as it's happening to somebody else.

 

I am not a member of any organized political party. I am a Democrat.

 

I bet after seeing us, George Washington would sue us for calling him "father."

 

I don't make jokes. I just watch the government and report the facts.

 

I have a scheme for stopping war. It's this - no nation is allowed to enter a war till they have paid for the last one.

 

I never expected to see the day when girls would get sunburned in the places they now do.

 

Instead of giving money to found colleges to promote learning, why don't they pass a constitutional amendment prohibiting anybody from learning anything? If it works as good as the Prohibition one did, why, in five years we would have the smartest race of people on earth.

 

Last year we said, 'Things can't go on like this', and they didn't, they got worse.

 

Now if there is one thing that we do worse than any other nation, it is try and manage somebody else's affairs.

 

Politics has become so expensive that it takes a lot of money even to be defeated.

 

The 1928 Republican Convention opened with a prayer. If the Lord can see His way clear to bless the Republican Party the way it's been carrying on, then the rest of us ought to get it without even asking.

 

The fellow that can only see a week ahead is always the popular fellow, for he is looking with the crowd. But the one that can see years ahead, he has a telescope but he can't make anybody believe that he has it.

 

The man with the best job in the country is the vice-president. All he has to do is get up every morning and say, "How is the president?"

 

Worrying is like paying on a debt that may never come due.

 

--Will Rogers