One could say that in 1933 only one fourth of Americans were out to lunch. The difference is that people today are further apart one from another. So the situation is peachy if you are not directly affected. This is demonstrated by the several posts on FR by people who gaze into their navel for inspiration.
Some data from the 1920s (TIMELINES OF THE GREAT DEPRESSION:
Organized labor declines throughout the 1920s. The United Mine Workers Union have seen its membership fall from 500,000 in 1920 to 75,000 in 1928. The American Federation of Labor fell from 5.1 million in 1920 to 3.4 million in 1929.
By 1929, the richest 1 percent owned 40 percent of the nation's wealth. The bottom 93 percent had experienced a 4 percent drop in real disposable per-capita income between 1923 and 1929.
Over the decade of 1920s, about 1,200 mergers swalled up more than 6,000 previously independent companies; by 1929, only 200 corporations controled over half of all American industry.
Individual worker productivity rised an astonishing 43 percent from 1919 to 1929. But the rewards were being funneled to the top: the number of people reporting half-million dollar incomes grew from 156 to 1,489 between 1920 and 1929, a phenomenal rise compared to other decades. But that was still less than 1 percent of all income-earners.
In 1922 The conservative Supreme Court stroke down federal child labor legislation.
In 1923 President Warren Harding dies in office; his administration was easily one of the most corrupt in American history. Calvin Coolidge, who is squeaky clean by comparison, becomes president. Coolidge is no less committed to laissez-faire and a non-interventionist government. He announces to the American people: "The business of America is business." Supreme Court nullifies minimum wage for women in District of Columbia.
In 1924 the stock market begins its spectacular rise. Bears little relation to the rest of the economy.
In 1925 The top tax rate is lowered to 25 percent - the lowest top rate in the eight decades since World War I. Supreme Court rules that trade organizations do not violate anti-trust laws as long as some competition survives.
In 1928 Between May 1928 and September 1929, the average prices of stocks rises 40 percent. Trading mushroomed from 2-3 million shares per day to over 5 million.
In 1929 Herbert Hoover becomes President. Hoover is a staunch individualist but not as committed to laissez-faire ideology as Coolidge.
For 1933, unemployment rises to 23.6 percent.
Two crucial difference - US economy is now very dependent on foreign production and we have huge flood of illegal immigrants.
One other crucial difference is that the U.S. today is far less likely to engage in the stupid measures that FDR implemented in the 1930s to "fix" the Great Depression -- which ended up making the Depression far worse than it would have otherwise been.
I'd be careful about calling it a "huge flood of illegal immigrants," as if those folks just sorta came here unbidden. They don't: Americans pay them to come here.
I think in a sense it's a slightly different form of outsourcing for things like agriculture, while still maintaining the production facilities (i.e., the fields) within the US.
The lessons here are pretty obvious, if unpleasant:
2) By choosing to outsource, American businessmen so focused on short-term results that they cannot see the long-term implications of lesson #1.
This is a common story about the "prosperous" economy. A well-educated, well-paid software engineer is let go because his job was outsourced to a third-world plantation state, and perhaps loses his pension. He's forced to move in with relatives, and gets minimum-wage job as a security guard while struggling to pay off his student loan and car and save for his childrens' education. The job figures say he's still employed, but it's not the same at all. This widespread trend is why there's so much discontent with the "prosperous" economy.
The key is the constant wellspring of renewal of small companies starting up with better, displacing, technolology that moves aside the overly mature companies in which lobbying and political clout has replaced entrepreneurship. People should go back and read George Gilder's Wealth and Poverty the way Reagan did.
A. Pole,
I keep meaning to mention this to you:
The author of the new book, "The Long Emergency," believes that the shortage of worldwide oil, which is being accelerated by the industrializatino of the Third World, will put an end to globalism.
He believes that production and agriculture will return to being local, because fuel will soon become too expensive to schlep stuff across country, let alone around the world.
Listen here: http://www.wnyc.org/stream/ram.py?file=/lopate/lopate081705d.mp3
lots of leftist propaganda there (the stock market rising in 1924 had no relation to the real economy).
Also illegal immigration will cause neither a recession nor a depression
A phrase that I would like to have your permission to repeat elsewhere :-)
"...The bottom 93 percent had experienced a 4 percent drop in real disposable per-capita income between 1923 and 1929.
As for me, I'm not all that impressed with our "booming" economy.
The problem for me personally is the same for those 93% who experienced a drop in disposable income-- no real wage increases to speak of, and a tremendous lack of upper middle-income jobs ($40K & up)...at least where I live here in the Land 'O Lincoln.
All I see is a tremendous growth in retail and restaurants, and all the jobs you like from $7.00 to $9.00 an hour.
Nope, no booming economy here.