A photo essay on the Great Depression.

www.english.illinois.edu...

This is a great find and it has alot of pictures to really show you exactly how tough life was at that time. We can only hope that if we do enter another great depression it won't be as bad as this.

reply to post by Misoir


Honestly, my reaction is that I could put together pictures today that are modern equivalents and even worse.

The truth is, economic collapse, should it actually happen now, will be far worse than you can imagine. For one thing, there will be violence. Terrible violence.

I feel pretty certain of that.

Let's hope it never comes to that.

reply to post by loam


Your feelings are dead on . Think of it like this. If you have a fish tank with a normal amount of fish’s, some big some small, all living happily together. But then you unexpectedly need to go out of town for a few days and your brother Freddy forgets to come buy to feed the fish. When you return home you will find that all the big fish have eaten all the littler fish and are working there way up the food chain.

This is what we have going on in the world at the moment. The world is starting to run low on fish food and the fish tank is getting crowded. It’s just a matter of time till the feeding frenzy begins.

More than the violence, will be the people that can not take care of themselves as well. People today do not bake bread nor preserve meat nor know how to do quite a number of things that were common knowledge at the time. Like raise chickens for eggs and food.

Just look at the rush on grocery stores whenever a snow storm or hurricane is due. Milk, eggs, bread, cheese and butter followed by soup. Most people today have no means to heat food should the power go out. And just try to find a wind-up alarm clock today. I had to go to an ACE hardware store and have them order one. A cheap Chinese made piece of crap, the face is cheap paper that buckled under this summer's light humidity.



[edit on 15-2-2010 by Ahabstar]

reply to post by Ahabstar


Also a very good observation.

Unfortunately, should economic collapse really come, it will make the Great Depression look like media spin, which to some extent, by way of comparison, would be true.

reply to post by loam


I think that through no great effort, we will make The Great Depression look like a picnic or Sunday Ice Cream Social in comparison. It is said, that we, as a whole, are only nine missed meals away from total chaos, riots and revolution.

[edit on 15-2-2010 by Ahabstar]

reply to post by Ahabstar


First off great posts everyone, I enjoyed reading what everyone had to say.

Now to Ahabstar. That is my fear too. I don't necessarily think of it because the economy will be way worse than the '30s but instead it's because of human knowledge(lack there of) that will inevitably screw us. Us Americans and Western Europeans really don't have the slightest clue of what to do without computer, television, telephone, electricity, grocery store, money, etc... At least in those times people knew how to take care of themselves but now, well anyone who doesn't have enough money for food will basically go hungry or adapt really quick(which will be nearly impossible). Luckily my grand parents have been told alot of stories about the great depression and how their parents survived it, most people in my family have some form of important self sustaining knowledge. My aunt can sew just about anything, my dad can build just about anything, my mom can cook just about anything, and my grand parents know how to take care of themselves pretty well since they lived in deep poverty with 5 kids in the '70s recessions. My family is use to poverty that's what most of us live in, except my uncles and grand parents. But it's not really my family that I'm so worried about, it's other families. If you just talk to ordinary middle class Americans you would know that they would surely struggle(if not die) in such horrible times.

Keep in mind GD-I start to bottom was 1929-1933, four years. We're 2008-20xx, barely one and a half years into it and towards the end of the the first bear market rally.

There will be repercussions from government debt for quite some time, and the fundamentals (property values/bank asset values, credit, income) have not yet hit bottom. I would guess the housing bottom is 1-2 years off and at best will stay level 5-10 years.

The economy is an open system, government stimulus is an artificial external factor, and negative external factors are cooking in the pot (National debts, the Iran conflict, natural disasters, trade deficits, currency devaluations, etc.). We see the direction, but not the turning points.