Saturday, December 27, 2008

Great Depression II?

Great Depression II? We're still a long, long way away, see chart above of annual industrial production growth rates, monthly from 2007.1 to 2008.11 and 1930.1 to 1933.12.

Update: Data are available here, the annual growth rate is calculated as the percent change from the same month a year ago.

10 Comments:

At 12/27/2008 10:12 PM, Blogger PeakTrader said...

There were two timely tax cuts under Bush in 2001 and 2008. However, it seems, Bush missed an opportunity for a second tax cut this year. A $2,000 tax rebate for every taxpayer, for example, would have helped clear the market of excess assets and goods. When this excess inventory clears the market, real output and inflation, or nominal output, will accelerate and spur "animal spirits." Instead, we have to wait for Obama's stimulus plan, which seems to be a slow, inefficient, and unfair plan. The Bush Administration, including the Treasury Department, has made several major policy blunders over the past three months, including allowing Lehman to fail (which froze the credit market), and changing the purpose of TARP from exchanging a strong asset (i.e. cash) for weak assets to exchanging a strong asset for equity (banks are less likely to lend at 6% when it has to pay the government 12% for preferred stock, i.e. banks will strengthen their balance sheets first).

 
At 12/27/2008 11:06 PM, Blogger bobble said...

interesting chart. what criteria did you use to pick the start dates for these two series?

 
At 12/28/2008 12:37 AM, Blogger wcw said...

Those were very different times. Sync both times series to months-from-peak, and label correctly while you're at it. Year-over-year growth is not the annual growth rate. See the result at http://lh3.ggpht.com/_8FP0ZXQNIbc/SVcOzTueCJI/AAAAAAAAAkU/s--Vo4ubUco/s800/29vs08.png

The stories are so wildly divergent, you don't have to fudge charts as wildly as our host just did. I don't get it -- does the right-wing merit badge simply require lying at all times?

Oh, and PeakTrader, you make the same comment in response to every post. Please stop, or I may be less polite next time.

 
At 12/28/2008 12:50 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

wcw: Arent you a confident lib? Very full of yourself, I see.

 
At 12/28/2008 12:51 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

BTW, your link doesnt even work, oh humble genius.

 
At 12/28/2008 1:01 AM, Blogger OBloodyHell said...

> does the right-wing merit badge simply require lying at all times?

No just often enough to compete with the incessant lying of the Left. LOL

Don't actually make a case for HOW it's lying, just claim "it's lying" and then make that an automatic extension to all "right-wingers" which this site is anything but.

All your graph does is demonstrate the same point, which is that the current economy is hardly anything resembling The Great Depression, which the lying leftist media is constantly painting it as... for now. You can claim your does it better, but don't bother justifying why, but that's hardly an argument that Dr. Perry's graph is lying.

This site it just not as endlessly negative about the economy as the Leftist Media is, at least, isn't until Obama takes over, after which it'll suddenly switch to "Depression averted thanks to incredibly successful Obama policies!!" -- on exactly the same, or even worse, data.

Mark my words. That's going to be the economic mantra for the media for the next four years: "Wildly successful Obama policies". Even the worst possible news will "have a bright side" which will be stressed, as opposed to the fact that every single positive data ever cited during the last 8 years has had some lunatic downside that got more paragraphs of coverage than the positive data did.

==========

I'll accept the notion that both sides lie. I don't agree with it fully, but I'll accept it for the purposes of argument.

If you think that the Right lies but the Left doesn't, then you're either a lying asshole or a complete idiot.

Since that appears to be the suggestion of your comment, one is left with the obvious question:
Which are you, a liar or an idiot?

 
At 12/28/2008 4:52 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Those were very different times

No kidding. A major reason for the cliff diving of industrial production (IP) in the US during GDI was the factoid that the US accounted for about one half of global IP.

Other countries fared much better during the Smoot-Hawley era. See Table 1 here.


As the US now accounts for about 20% of global IP, it seems highly unlikely that US GDII IP will fall as much as US GDI IP. Global IP could fall as much though.

I think it is just another intertemporal conflation perpetrated by the blog host.

 
At 12/28/2008 6:29 PM, Blogger OBloodyHell said...

Since all substantial new wealth in the USA is derived now from the other "IP", and there are no realistic competitors who are capable of producing Intellectual Property with the same degree of worldwide appeal (a twin function of our melting pot nature plus our love for the qualities of other cultures, which we freely adopt and synthesize into an Americanized form -- think Tex-mex, pizza, and chop suey. Think "The Matrix", which is a synthesis with Hong Kong action wire-work), we aren't in the same situation as the others by any means.

Our chief problem is stabilizing the world's credit and financial situation so that we can all get back to business as usual.

The less the Fed screws things up, the better that will be and the sooner it will happen.

 
At 12/28/2008 7:48 PM, Blogger wcw said...

Anonymous, this is a data question. You may check 1929/2008 recession dates at http://www.nber.org/cycles/cyclesmain.html and IP at http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/INDPRO You may find prima facie evidence that my link does "even work" in its availability through the Coral CDN. Viz http://lh3.ggpht.com.nyud.net/_8FP0ZXQNIbc/SVcOzTueCJI/AAAAAAAAAkU/s--Vo4ubUco/s800/29vs08.png

OBH (Anonymous, you might listen up as well), there is no 'Left' in US politics. At its most radical, the Democratic party produces policies slightly to the right of Eisenhower's.

The lie here is simple: Perry didn't sync economic peaks. It's not a big lie, and as I noted it doesn't change the story. Hence my confusion: why not do this one correctly?

 
At 12/29/2008 7:41 AM, Blogger juandos said...

west coast whiner still babbles on: "Oh, and PeakTrader, you make the same comment in response to every post. Please stop, or I may be less polite next time"...

ROFLMAO!

Oh dear! We all quake in anticipation...

"Great Depression II?"...

Hmmm, yet another one of those Media's Top 10 Worst Economic Myths of 2008...

 

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