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badly misreading what I wrote.

I didn't say we're in another Great Depression.  I said that what we're going through--as a global economy--is comparable to the Great Depression.  And while we've certainly managed to slow the near-free fall that the economy was in when Obama took office, the danger remains that there will not be a full recovery for many years, which is precisely what made the Great Depression so devastating.

Most people don't realize, for example, that the nominal GDP returned to 1929 levels as early as 1936, yet no one would seriously argue that we had recovered by then.  This is the same situation we face today.  If the state governments weren't slashing their budgets, millions more weren't facing foreclosure, and the banks weren't sitting on untold amounts of toxic assets, then I'd say that your worries expressed in your original comments really were the only ones out there, and I would be suitably worried, but not deeply troubled.

As it is, I can only regard us as living in a fool's paradise right now, since there is such foreseeable trouble ahead.

Finally, there actually is serious talk going on right now about the possible end of the dollar as the reserve currency.  Even if it being the reserve currency magically means that our housing market will recover faster, the dollar no longer looks like its magic will last forever.

Your attacks on me would have more credibility if I weren't citing specific problems--state budget cuts, coming foreclosures, toxic assets--to support my larger point, and if you weren't simply ignoring them.  The problem is not simply that such problems exist--bad as they are in themselves--but they are still being so blithely ignored.

"Senate passes expanded GI bill despite Bush, McCain opposition"

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by: Paul Rosenberg @ Mon Jun 29, 2009 at 10:43:02 AM CDT

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