Akkam’s Razor

• Lines at the ER, a television boom, emptying suburbs. A catastrophic economic downturn would feel nothing like the last one. - The Boston Globe - Today, however, whatever a depression would look like, that's not it. We are separated from the 1930s by decades of profound economic, technological, and political change, and a modern landscape of scarcity would reflect that. What, then, would we see instead? And how would we even know a depression had started? It's not a topic that professional observers of the economy study much. And there's no single answer, because there's no one way a depression might unfold. But it's nonetheless an important question to consider - there's no way to make informed decisions about the present without understanding, in some detail, the worst-case scenario about the future.

• Force of Good: a blog by Lance Weatherby - Today, Sequoia Capital hosted a mandatory CEO All-Hands Meeting on Sand Hill Road. There were about 100 CEO’s in attendance and let me tell you, the mood was somber. I’m not one to perpetuate doom and gloom or bad news, but let me underscore this for you: We are in a serious economic downturn and this is just the beginning. Immediate, decisive and swift action is required, along with frugal, day-to-day management of expenses and our business is required.

Why did the interventions of the New Deal (and our victory in World War II) largely work while the attempts of Johnson’s Great Society fail?  What was different?

From a group dynamics perspective, the shared misery of the Great Depression, funneled into the collective efforts of the recovery allowed Americans to unite based on task specific actions.  The further sacrifices, both direct via the military service of eligible males as well as the indirect sacrifices in wages, resources, and comfort good by the populace briefly made us a cohesive, high performing society.  The monetary gains and ideological shifts of the 1950s forward then cleaved society into thinner demographic slices.  By the late 1960s, poverty, sickness, and racism were absent from a great majority of Americans.  The Americans affected by those issues would find no empathy nor sympathy from those unaffected.  We further declined into a society of us versus them, the have-and-have-nots.

Fast-forwarding to today, particularly through the lens of the environmental crisis, particularly peak oil, the spectre of outstripping, the water problem, and global warming, one can easily see how the conditions that pulled the country out of the Great Depression, contributed to the greatness of the country and her people through the New Deal, and Ultimately won World War II and the immediate post-war period appear to be re-manifesting themselves.  We will all be affected by the scarcity of those resources and the effects they will have on our lives.  Our collective cooperation, whether through innovation, conservation, or re-configuration will change us as a people.  Once the American people begin to view their lives in terms of kilowatt hours, gallons-per-day, and dollars-per-mile, and begin doing what they have to do to get those costs and consumptions in line, we will have primed the pump for the next great period in American history.  This is what the Republicans fear - a Democratically unified country around those principles undoes how the GOP has done business for all of the 20th century.

You can’t tell me that St. BBQ, the maverick of campaign finance reform, doesn’t know explicitly how to game the rules that he helped author.

You can’t tell me that Bernake’s academic focus of research on the Great Depression wasn’t a factor in his selection as leader of the Fed.

You can’t tell me that the decision to stop reporting M3 is not at all reflective of the need to inflate us out of our current financial dilemma.

You can’t tell me that no one could have foretold the current economic crisis while the debate regarding bankruptcy reform was going on in Congress in 2005.

• Paul Kedrosky: Map of Entrepreneurs Around the U.S.
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• Rearming the world - The Boston Globe
  [New weapon] spending is concentrated among the biggest consumers [and producers] of resources, which are trying to protect their [energy interests] at a rate that would have been unthinkable for a developing country until recently.
  (tags: war energy oil power military)
• Father Sez » Archive » Are YOU ready for a 1930’s strength recession?
  Whatever the final expert opinion may be, rather than being the frog in slowly heated up water, it should be mandatory for us to prepare and run through a checklist to see how well prepared we are.
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Disclaimer:  I am by no stretch of the imagination an economist.

In listening to Ben Bernake's statement on the state of the economy and in consideration of the fiscal interventions as well as the pending economic stimulus package, its relevant to revisit the academic specialty of Mr. Bernake - the Great Depression.  As I had written previously:

The Wall Street Journal (subscribers only) has come to the same conclusion I did about Ben Bernake, prospective replacement for Alan Greenspan - he’s been very influenced by his academic research into the Great Depression.

• The Raw Story | After Roberts dies, salary will live on
  The 87-year-old founder of Comcast Corp.’s pay will keep going to his beneficiaries for five years after his death under a new agreement.
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• Evidences of faith and religion in buildings and monuments in the U.S. Capitol-Truth!, Fiction, & Unproven!
  As usual, the email you may receive titled ‘Fwd: Agree & Pass on or Delete’ is full of errors and unprovable statements.
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• New Study: Top 50k blogs had $500 million in 2006 Revenue
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