This Is Where We Came In

By Number Six

Sunday, October 12, 2008 at 10:13 AM

The fictional Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy has two words printed in large type on it's cover:

DON'T PANIC!

I think some need to make that understood and damned fast...

Ah, yes, the now-named "Financial Crisis". It's financial, is it a crisis?

That depends, of course, like anything, on which side of the playing field on which you and your pals park your keisters.

In the news, on some blogs, some, I swear, are sweating 7.62x39's over this mess. Those who shed the crocodile tears tend to remind me of my youth, listening to a fire-n-brimstone preacher quote Revelation:

And has the mighty Babylon fallen? Do we now hear weeping and gnashing of teeth?

Worse, though are those who swear before you, me, Lee, etc... "WE'VE NEVER HAD A CRISIS LIKE THIS ONE! EVER! EVER!!"

To borrow from the Spud, I take off my size 13 work boot, and pound the table: "What part of The Great Depression didn't you study, shit-fer-brains?"

Myth: The Great Depression wrecked the US only.

Fact: The Great Depression swept planet Earth.

One of my history profs back when Six Had More Hair, in fact, stated that the Great Depression was part of the mechanism that enabled Hitler into power, as he promised the German citizens a strong economy(check), a strong military(check) and a nation that was a powerful one(check).

Only one nation was untouched: the U.S.S.R., and that was because they were operating in socialist mode, replete with planning, planning and more planning, so, their economy didn't count.

In fact, there were those who accused FDR of "stealing" the economic ideas of one Mussolini, that the New Deal policies were...fascist. Italy's economic model under Benito was, like Germany, showing great promise...except a little thing called World War II...would change that in time to come, of course.

But, the Great Depression touched every nation on Earth, so, sorry CBS, sorry financial blogs, localized "phenomena" it were not.

"Well, it wasn't this bad!"

Up yours, then. See, it looks worse than it is for a simple reason: We nowadays use far bigger numbers to describe money. Billion, trillion, quadrillion, quintillion, sextillion...all the way to the laughable "gadzillion".

If we used "corrected" or, as we say at the office, "weighted" data, we'd see it's pretty darned close to the phenomena of 1927-1941. SSDD, yes:

-EZ credit, then, no credit

-Consumers stop purchasing

-Banks blow the blue monkey

-Wall Street does a clever imitation of a 747 with both wings shot off.

How, then, is this mess worse than the last mess?

Lee and I have both detailed, documented and illustrated a lot of stuff here at the watch. Read them, Rogers has them below under "older articles", and we've been watching the economic mess for a few now. Among such, you will see how too much of this mess is a return to those same sad, stupid, frivolous, mendatic, and idiotic policies that begat The Great Depression.

In the 1920's, banks and stocks ran like kids through a Toys-R-Us, no rules, no regulations, do whatever one must, but make those profits!...to a sad conclusion around 1927. Interesting, no? Same length of time. Isn't that a tad ironic?

So, CBS, NBC, even PBS...wake up, read the history texts one more time: This is not "uncharted territory" by any means; the damage control was done years ago, then, undone by the money crowd, and here we at a disco playing the same, sad song...of 1927.

And yes, this is where we came in.