Home » Posts tagged '1930s'

Tag Archives: 1930s

Olduvai
Click on image to purchase

Olduvai III: Catacylsm
Click on image to purchase

Post categories

Post Archives by Category

Elite Terrified of 1930’s Depression or Weimar Hyperinflation – John Rubino

November 14, 2018

Elite Terrified of 1930’s Depression or Weimar Hyperinflation – John Rubino


Financial writer John Rubino says everywhere you look, debt is exponentially mounting. Nothing demonstrates the “imminent bankruptcy” problem better than the financial obligations of New York City. Rubino says, “They just announced that they have unfunded liabilities for retiree healthcare, just retiree healthcare and not the rest of their pensions, of $100 billion. That’s for a city, not a state or a country, and if you add their unfunded liabilities for their pensions, which is another $50 billion or so, and their official debt, which is $50 billion or so, you get $200 billion that New York City is on the hook for that they have not put money away for. If a private sector company had finances like that, they would be insolvent, and their accountants would force them to say that.”You can tell the same story for cities, states and countries around the world swimming in unrepayable debt. So, what will be done when bond defaults and financial failures begin? Will Trump let it go like the failed debt of Puerto Rico or have massive bailouts? Rubino says, “It’s possible that Trump will teach that lesson to the system, but I think the numbers are so big now the risk of a 1930’s style depression, or a Weimar Germany hyperinflation, is so great these guys are going to be terrified of anything that seems to be destabilizing. The pressure on whoever is in charge of the central bank or federal government is going to be to try to nip crises in the bud before they can really get going when you don’t know what is going to happen. For instance, New York City goes bankrupt, and that pulls down Chicago, and then that pulls down California. What does that mean? Nobody knows, and nobody wants to find out.”

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

The Great Depression II

October 17, 2018

The Great Depression II

Whenever a movie has been a huge hit, the film industry tries to follow it up by doing a sequel. The sequel is almost invariably far more costly, as there’s the anticipation by those who create it that it will be an even bigger blockbuster than the original.

The Great Depression of the 1930’s is seen by most people to be the be-all and end-all of economic catastrophes and there’s good reason for that. Although the economic cycle has always existed, the period leading up to October 1929 was unusual, as those in the financial sector had become unusually creative.

Brokers encouraged people to buy into the stock market as heavily as they could afford to. When that business began to level off, they encouraged people to buy on margin. The idea was that the buyer would only put up a fraction of the money for the purchase and the broker would “guarantee” full payment to the seller. As a condition to the agreement, the buyer would have to relinquish to the broker the right to sell his stock at any point that he wished, should he feel the need to do so to get himself off the hook in the event of a significant economic change.

Both the buyer and the broker were buying stocks with money that neither one had. But the broker entered into the gamble so that he could charge commissions, which he would be paid immediately. The buyer entered into the gamble, as he had been promised by the broker that stocks were “going to the moon” and that he’d become rich.

Banks got into the game, as well. At one time, banks took money on deposit, then lent that money out at interest. They would always retain a percentage of the deposited money within the bank to assure that they could meet whatever the normal demand for withdrawals might be.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

It’s Feeling Like the 1930s in Spain and France

February 28, 2018

It’s Feeling Like the 1930s in Spain and France

It’s Feeling Like the 1930s in Spain and France

During the Spanish Civil War, many loyalist leaders and supporters of the Spanish Republican government fled into exile to wage their battle against the Spanish fascist dictatorship of Generalissimo Francisco Franco from abroad. 2018 is beginning to feel like 1939. After the fall of the Second Spanish Republic to Franco, who was aided by Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy, Spanish President Manuel Azaña and Prime Minister Juan Negrin fled to exile in France. Following the October 27, 2017 declaration of independence of Catalonia by the Catalan Parliament and the dissolution of the Catalonian government by Franco’s proto-fascist successor, Spanish Prime Minister Manuel Rajoy, key members of the Catalonian government fled into exile. The President of the Catalonian Generalitat (Prime Minister) Carles Puigdemont and four of his ministers fled to Belgium to avoid arrest by Rajoy’s security forces.

Other Catalonian leaders were imprisoned in Madrid, where they await trials on sedition and rebellion charges. The leader of the pro-independence Popular Unity Candidature (CUP), Anna Gabriel, attained political asylum in Switzerland, where she told the Swiss newspaper Le Temps, “I will not go to Madrid . . . Since I will not have a fair trial at home, I have looked for a country that can protect my rights.” As with the loyalists imprisoned under Franco, the Catalan independence leaders, who enjoy a majority in the newly-elected Catalonian parliament, face decades in Spanish prison cells under Madrid’s EU-supported regime.

Rajoy, like Franco, appointed not a Catalonian but a Spanish Castilian, Deputy Prime Minister María Soraya Sáenz de Santamaría Antón, as acting President of the Generalitat in Barcelona. Rajoy, as was the case with Franco, has Galician roots. Franco’s rule was infamous for stamping out Catalonian government, language, culture, and national identity and Rajoy, whose Spanish People’s Party is the ideological and chronological heir to Franco’s Falangists, does his very best to emulate his party’s ideological forbearer.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Fourth Turning’s Neil Howe Fears “Strong Parallels” Between 1930s And Today: “It’s Going To Be A Rollercoaster Ride”

August 13, 2017

Fourth Turning’s Neil Howe Fears “Strong Parallels” Between 1930s And Today: “It’s Going To Be A Rollercoaster Ride”

This week on the MacroVoices podcast, host Erik Townsend interviewed Neil Howe, co-author of The Fourth Turning, an investing tract that’s found renewed relevance thanks to White House Chief Strategist Steve Bannon, who’s cited it as an inspiration for his (and by extension, President Donald Trump’s) worldview.

According to the New York Times, which published a story earlier this year explaining the theories encapsulated in the book, the Fourth Turning was “written by two amateur historians, making the case that world events unfold in predictable cycles of roughly 80 years each, and that they can be divided into four chapters, or turnings: growth, maturation, entropy and destruction. Western societies have experienced the same patterns for centuries, the book argues, and they are as natural and necessary as spring, summer, fall and winter.”

Few books have been as central to the worldview of Mr. Bannon, a voracious reader who tends to see politics and policy in terms of their place in the broader arc of history.”

Turner shares Bannon’s enthusiasm, saying in his preamble that he believes the Fourth Turning is “the most important investing book of our time…I am such a big fan of this book personally that I literally named my own investment management company Fourth Turning Capital Management after Neil’s work.”

During the interview, Turner and Howe discussed Howe’s conclusion that America is presently in the middle of a 20-year-long period of social, economic and political upheaval.  

Howe begins by explaining how the first book written by himself and William Strauss, with whom he also collaborated on the Fourth Turning, introduced him to the idea that America’s economy and culture follow distinct patterns.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Are We Reliving The 1930s?

December 7, 2014

Are We Reliving The 1930s?.

At the close of last week’s G20 Summit, U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron warned that we’re on the verge of another global recession, citing problems like looming deflation, falling prices, and rising protectionist sentiment. This list evokes a sense of déjà vu: not about the Great Recession, but the GreatDepression. That was the last time we ever seriously worried about disinflation, along with every practically other aspect of economic performance raising alarm bells today: low interest rates, weak investment, slow productivity growth, and chronic labor force detachment.

To be sure, this isn’t an easy comparison to swallow. The Great Depression is the ultimate measuring rod of economic catastrophe to which every other downturn is compared. But as time goes by and forecasts of full recovery keep getting deferred like an ever-fading mirage, it’s one worth examining. How does the Great Depression of the 1930s compare with the Great Recession of the 2010s? Let’s look at the GDPs of the U.S., U.K., and continental Western Europe from 1929 on and from 2007 on, using the base year as an index.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Olduvai IV: Courage
Click on image to read excerpts

Olduvai II: Exodus
Click on image to purchase

Click on image to purchase @ FriesenPress