Great Depression

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Obama to Launch Radical Bank Reform
Obama to Launch Radical Bank Reform
Jun 14, 2009 9:51 AM CDT

Obama to Launch Radical Bank Reform

Changes will be the most ambitious since the Great Depression

(Newser) - President Obama will unveil next week sweeping new changes to the nation’s governance of troubled financial institutions, the AP reports. Unlike Washington’s temporary ownership stake in automakers and major financial companies, the new regulatory protocol will be permanent and will present the most ambitious revision since the 1930s....

Hardship Made Them the 'Greatest': Brokaw

(Newser) - Even before enlisting, World War II soldiers were made great by the “deprivations and lessons of the Great Depression,” Tom Brokaw writes in the Wall Street Journal. Shared sacrifice and lack of staple goods forged the outlook of the "Greatest Generation," and made the Army almost...

Uncertainty, Not Poverty, Behind Recession Blues

It's not the lack of funds, it's the lack of knowing that brings us down

(Newser) - Americans are worrying more than they were last year, and happiness is down while sadness is up, writes Daniel Gilbert in the New York Times. But it’s not the lightness of our pocketbooks that’s weighing on us; it’s the uncertainty of the times. While most of us...

How Wall Street Went Hollywood (and Brought Down Our Economy)

(Newser) - During the Great Depression, legend has it a group of Wall Street bankers went to Hollywood to see if it was worth investing in, only to be immediately repulsed by the brazen displays of wealth they saw there. Now that it's the bankers being pilloried for their excesses, writes Neal...

Anti-New Deal Book Is GOP's New Bible

Republicans flock to The Forgotten Man in fight over stimulus

(Newser) - For the Republican Party, looking for any kind of traction for its opposition to President Obama’s stimulus spending, anti-New Deal book The Forgotten Man is a godsend, Politico reports. Author Amity Shlaes suggests, in what some call revisionist history, that FDR’s plan, pushed by government bureaucrats on a...

Banking Should Go Back to Being Boring

(Newser) - When Paul Krugman was in grad school, nobody wanted to be a banker. Sure, it paid more than being an academic economist, but “everyone knew that banking was, well, boring,” he writes in the New York Times. That was before deregulation came into vogue in the 1980s, turning...

Uptick in Mass Murders Could Be Linked to Economy

(Newser) - The recent spate of shootings could point to a link between violence and the faltering US economy, the Christian Science Monitor reports. “Most of these mass killings are precipitated by some catastrophic loss, and when the economy goes south, there are simply more of these losses,” said criminologist...

How the US Became a Banana Republic
 How the US Became 
 a Banana Republic 
GLOSSIES
Mar 30, 2009 2:51 PM CDT

How the US Became a Banana Republic

America is a textbook IMF case—but one without a solution

(Newser) - As chief economist at the International Monetary Fund, MIT professor Simon Johnson saw a pattern in bankrupted countries from Argentina to Indonesia: "The powerful elites within them overreached in good times and took too many risks." The current US crisis, Johnson writes in the Atlantic, is "shockingly...

Iconic Depression Setting Makes Do Amid Recession

Could things get as bad for Sallisaw, Okla., as they did in the 1930s?

(Newser) - Many have made the parallel between the current economic slump and the Great Depression. Interested in pursuing the connection, Rafael Alvarez visited Sallisaw, Okla., an icon of the troubled 1930s as the setting of John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath, he writes for the Christian Science Monitor. The downturn...

'Recession Babies' Will Be Boring But Sensible

Economic upheavals rear careful, dull generations

(Newser) - If history tells us anything, it’s that our modern “recession babies” will grow up to be risk-averse bores. “Today’s youngest children are being raised in the same kind of protective bubble as the Depression babies,” Kate Zernike explains in the New York Times. “They...

Krugman: We've All Been Madoffed
 Krugman: We've All 
 Been Madoffed 
OPINION
Feb 16, 2009 8:38 AM CST

Krugman: We've All Been Madoffed

(Newser) - Bernie Madoff’s investors thought they were getting richer every quarter. Then, one day, they discovered their wealth “was a figment of someone else’s imagination,” writes Paul Krugman in the New York Times. And sadly, that’s a pretty good metaphor for America’s experience this decade....

Will the Recession Drive Up Suicides?

We're better prepared now, but rates are still tied to cultural trends

(Newser) - America is reeling from the financial crisis, and the psychological strain has analysts carefully watching national suicide rates, Time reports. Though three high-profile European businessmen took their own lives recently, suicide rates have held steady at 11 per 100,000 people; during the Great Depression, they spiked at 17 per...

Obama Must Spend Boldly— or It's Great Depression II

Only government can save us now: Krugman

(Newser) - For decades economists believed that a second Great Depression was impossible; all the Fed had to do, they said, is print more money. But as Paul Krugman writes, monetary policy has failed; despite "supplying liquidity like an engine crew trying to put out a five-alarm fire," credit remains...

Yes, It's a Crisis: But We Still Need a Catchy Name

(Newser) - Though it's no secret the country is weathering a financial calamity, the crisis still lacks a catchy handle. The New York Times takes a look at news organizations' so-far unsuccessful efforts to find one: Some obvious contenders such as “credit crunch” and “Wall Street crisis” have popped up,...

Noonan: Be Thankful We Don't See This

There's no apocalypse out there

(Newser) - This Thanksgiving, Peggy Noonan is thankful for what she’s not seeing. Despite the relentless glut of negative economic news, “everything looks the same,” she writes in the Wall Street Journal. There is no one selling pencils in the street, no children lining up in bread lines. “...

Cash Makes a Comeback
 Cash Makes a Comeback 
Nov 24, 2008 2:15 AM CST

Cash Makes a Comeback

But cash isn't king for retailers, who'll likely see bigger drop in sales

(Newser) - Americans are reverting to cash for purchases in increasing numbers, according to top retailers Wal-Mart, Target and JC Penney. The shift away from credit is expected to further reduce spending by consumers—who will be limited to cash-on-hand purchases—not just during the holiday season, but during what could be...

Economy's Tanking Too Fast to Wait for Obama: Krugman

The downtime before inaguration could make things grimmer yet

(Newser) - The state of the economy right now reminds Paul Krugman a lot of the start of the Great Depression, including a lame-duck administration that seems to have no credibility, hence no influence on the markets, the columnist writes in the New York Times. Drastic damage was done to the country...

You'll Need FDR's Optimism to Save Us, Obama
You'll Need FDR's Optimism to Save Us, Obama
OPINION
Nov 18, 2008 8:16 AM CST

You'll Need FDR's Optimism to Save Us, Obama

Obama needs to emulate Roosevelt's optimism in the face of deep crisis

(Newser) - Barack Obama keeps saying he wants to emulate Abraham Lincoln but he’s lucky that he more closely resembles Franklin D. Roosevelt, Richard Cohen writes in the Washington Post. Lincoln faced the massive challenge of reuniting the Union but knew just how to do it, while FDR, like Obama, confronted...

Brazilian Trader Shoots Himself at Exchange

He clings to life after suicide attempt in wake of plunging market

(Newser) - A Brazilian trader was in critical condition after shooting himself in the chest on the floor of the nation's commodities and futures exchange yesterday. The tragedy occurred in the raucous interest rate futures pit, where some $21 billion in contracts are traded daily. Brazil's main stock index has plunged 50%...

Krugman: Throw Away Prudence to Fix Economy
Krugman: Throw Away Prudence to Fix Economy
OPINION
Nov 14, 2008 12:03 PM CST

Krugman: Throw Away Prudence to Fix Economy

Depression economics have taken hold

(Newser) - The financial world has been turned upside down, and while we may not be headed for another Great Depression, we are embroiled in “depression economics,” writes Paul Krugman of the New York Times, a time when normal economic tools like the Fed's rate-cutting powers have “lost all...

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