Jobless Benefits Nearly 2 Years Now!

When unemployment compensation extends to 99 weeks, is it time to declare it a "permanent entitlement"?

Millions of Americans have been forced to rely on unemployment payments for extended periods as the nation struggles through its longest period of high joblessness in a generation, and critics are taking aim, saying that the Depression-era program created as a temporary bridge for laid-off workers is turning into an expensive entitlement.

About 11.4 million out-of-work people now collect unemployment compensation, at a cost of $10 billion a month. Half of them have been receiving payments for more than six months, the usual insurance limit. But under multiple extensions enacted by the federal government in response to the downturn, workers can collect the payments for as long as 99 weeks in states with the highest unemployment rates -- the longest period since the program's inception.

Six months is 26 weeks. That was the old measure of what was considered the usual length of time that it would take to find a new job. A modern measurement of how difficult the "Job Creation" situation has become is that we now pay jobless benefits nearly four times as long -- almost a full two years.

And yet we know that there are thousands of unemployed being dropped from the lists of those considered actively looking for work -- a handy statistical tool that allows the administration to claim that the unemployment rate is better than it actually is. How bad is our economy? Look on the labels of practically everything you purchase. If you can find anything "Made in the U.S.A." count yourself lucky.

You can pass all the "Jobs Bills" you want that merely extend unemployment benefits and that will not alter the fact that America produces less and less stuff. It will take a hell of a lot more "Avatars" earning billions to make up for the financial drain, the stuff coming in versus the money flowing out.

How much of this situation is the Progressive drive to kill off the free enterprise system through a combination of weakening the dollar, preventing the use of American resources (especially energy), and the aggressive push for "globalization" is fodder for thought and I will let you do your own pondering.

But until Washington realizes that it cannot create real "stuff producing" jobs, and that it can only impede the real economy unless it decides to get out of the way, there is no reason for optimism.

Worse, turning over one-sixth of our economy (health care) for federal bureaucrats is not going to help one little bit. It will be the straw that breaks the back of the economic camel.

Obama Starting to Lose His Polling Charm

President Obama's poll numbers are starting to head south as Americans begin to wake up. The above chart was Sunday's number. Today it's still -1.

According to Rasmussen, he should not expect dramatic improvement, as poll results are showing Americans sharply turning against Mr. Obama's recovery strategy. In fact, in the past month, 12 percent more Americans are now pointing the finger of blame at the current president for our economic woes. This is a sharp downward trend that will increase pressure on the White House to push its agendas through Congress as quickly as possible before public opinion freezes the apparatus.

Encouraging news as I see it is that 53 percent of Americans now believe that government stimulus efforts actually hinder the natural recovery of the economy, instead of help.

Now we have to educated the other half of the nation.

The Prophecies of the High Priests Coming True

The High Priests of Finance expect the federal deficit to hit $1.8 trillion by the end of the fiscal year. So how are the actual numbers running two-thirds of the way in?

The former acting director of the Congressional Budget Office, Donald Marron, has a new blog in which he keeps track of such things. It's written in plain ol' American English, has cool graphs, and keen insights on such things.

Marron's post of Monday shows the current running deficit at $984 billion. He breaks down what categories of spending, etc., are contributing to the deficit.

Now you might say, "Hey, Tom, $984 billion doesn't sound so bad since we are eight months into a twelve month fiscal year. What's the deal?"

And I would answer, compare it to last year when the operating deficit was "only" $319 billion. That's $665 billion MORE than a year ago.

Worse, I would tell you, we just went through the part of the year when individual income tax returns come in. This historically is where a great deal of money flows into Uncle Sam's coffers. Thanks to our economic slump/recession/depression (take your pick) tax revenues are $297 billion lower this year.

Some would argue that we should tighten our belts when revenues are down. (Silly flat-earthers!)

Spending on TARP is $130 billion. Spending on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac (officially known as GSE; unofficially known as "pouring money down Barney Frank's rat-hole") is at $60 billion. Since TARP is authorized for $700 billion, and it operates as a "slush fund" for whatever Obama-Geithner-Bernacke desire, you can bet the milk money that more money will be spent.

So buckle up, me hearties, this fine weather's gonna get a bit rough.

Recent Presidents Leading U.S. to One World Order?

There is a lot of good food for thought in this article:

Move Toward One World Order Has Continued No Matter Who is President

This isn't so much a "conspiracy theory" type of story, but an examination of how Satan's influence on the politicians and media masters of the world keeps pulling us repeatedly down a dark path.

On government trends: have you ever noticed that the concept of a new world order and even a single international government moves forward no matter who is in power (Republicans or Democrats)? President Barack Obama has certainly headed in this direction due to the economic "crisis," along with European leaders, particularly Gordon Brown in the United Kingdom. But it also edged forward under President George W. Bush, President Bill Clinton, and especially the first President George Bush.

That was during the Gulf War, and it led a certain Vatican cardinal named Joseph Ratzinger, during a speech on February 8, 1992, at the University of Milan, to warn against the movement ...

... In that speech, Cardinal Ratzinger recalled a 1907 book called Lord of the World and said it described "a similar unified civilization and its power to destroy the spirit. The anti-christ is represented as the great carrier of peace in a similar new world order."

[snip]

As it stands right now, we see how there is already a "one-world economy," with the entire world following the U.S. into recession after the collapse of American financial instruments.

The vehicle toward one-world [is] here ...

The author, Mike Brown, goes on to discuss America's economic malaise, and how it probably will get worse, and spiritual troubles, which are magnified by a media seemingly hellbent on exposing the flaws in Christians (and it's not that hard to find flaws, sadly.)

If the Swiss Run Out of Cash, What Then?

If the Swiss run out of money, heaven help us all!

Economist Artur Schmidt says Switzerland could go broke because Swiss banks extended billions in credit to Eastern European countries which now can't pay back the money.

“Switzerland, like Iceland, is threatened with a potential national bankruptcy,” Schmidt told the Swiss daily Tagesanzeige.

Loans made in Swiss francs stimulated rapid economic growth in many Eastern European countries, Schmidt says, making Swiss currency very important.

Swiss banks lent francs to local banks, which in turn lent them to their customers. Such loans were especially attractive because interest rates were much lower than required for loans in local currency.

The system worked as long as exchange rates between Swiss and Eastern European currencies remained reasonably stable.

Now Eastern European currencies are falling and more borrowers are having problems repaying their loans.

A reminder that this economic mess is not just America.

Why Americans are Skeptical of Obama-Nomics

The Associated Press can't figure out why people are so skeptical of President Obama's Pork-a-Palooza stimulus efforts.

WASHINGTON (AP) - In sheer size, the economic measures announced by President Barack Obama to address "a crisis unlike we've ever known" are remarkable, rivaling and in many cases dwarfing the New Deal programs that Franklin D. Roosevelt famously created to battle the Great Depression.

Winning approval was a political tour-de-force for the new administration.

Yet gloom and uncertainty persist about the plan's ability to deliver a cure for the economy's severe ailments.

Stocks plunged to six-year lows after the burst of bill signings, bailout announcements and presidential pledges.

And polls show Americans are increasingly worried about losing jobs and not having enough money to pay their bills.

AP writer Tom Raum tries to spin the negative mood of the public as the result of just too much bad news coming too quickly. Sorry, Tom, but the American people aren't completely stupid. Some of us actually have read a little history and understand economics and the historical strength of the American economic system a lot better than apparently you do.

Maybe the mood is sour because the Dow Jones Industrials have dropped more since The One's election than they did during the September-October when Democrats used the bad economic news to bash John McCain and the Republicans.

On Election Day 2008, the Dow Jones Industrial Average closed at 9,625.

On Inauguration Day 2009, the DJIA closed at 7,949.09.

The Dow was down just over 100 points today to close at 7,365.67. Total losses since Election Day: 2,260, or 23%. Seven percent of that in the 28 days since Obama was sworn in.

Truly an achievement of FDR proportions, if you understand how Roosevelt put the word "Great" in front of the Depression of the '30s.

There is little investor confidence in the markets because there is great uncertainty. In recent years a majority of Americans became investors, some directly and others indirectly through retirement plans. These people who now find their 401(k) has turned into a 201(k) -- yes, it's a stolen joke -- are not happy about it, but they no exactly why it has happened.

The idea that we have to "do something" even if it means reversing course every few weeks, no matter which stock gets rocked, is anathema to sound economic growth.

Today bank stocks were rocked (again) when U.S. Sen. Chris Dodd of Connecticut, the same Chris Dodd of the favorite son Countrywide sweetheart loan scandal, gave a TV interview and said it might be necessary to "temporarily" nationalize a few big banks. Citigroup and Bank of America promptly dropped to new lows, and there is speculation that neither bank will now live to see May. Thanks for being responsible, Sen. Dodd. Let's not even begin to examine the non sequitor of temporary nationalization.

The Associated Press, being the shills that they are for a happy Obama presidency, want us to believe that all we have to fear is fear itself, when the truth is that the American people are waking up to the truth that we should fear progressive lawmakers and executives who want to expand government at the expense of the free market system.

On a related note, our East Texas comrade George Ure (UrbanSurvival.com) points out that if you factor in for inflation, we have just crossed the threshold of a 50 percent drop of the DJIA since its peak of 14,066.01 on October 1, 2007.

Happy roller coaster ride! Oh, and Happy Birthday, George!

Where Will All This Money Come From?

I suppose the title should be phrased, "From Whence Shall Come All This Money?" but I'm not in the mood to be elegant today.

We - you and I and everybody else - are getting ready to spend nearly a trillion dollars on a stimulus package, this on top of $700 billion in TARP money, plus somewhere between $1 trillion and $2 trillion in the "Son of TARP" bailout program announced yesterday by Tax Cheat, er, Treasury Sec. Tim Geithner; plus Social Security for Baby Boomers during the next 30-40 years ...

... get the point?

How much is a trillion dollars? If you spent a million bucks a day, every day, it would take you over 2,070 years to finish spending it. Stacked in neatly pressed, out of the ATM $1,000 bills, it would be 67 miles high, assuming the wind didn't blow and no one tried to sneak any out of it.

So where is this money coming from? Technically speaking, we are borrowing it.

How will we pay it back? There are four basic options, and I must give credit to Jim Manzi of National Review Online for laying these out in a great article about the Constanza-Hoover Principle.

1. Rollover the Debt. Just keep re-borrowing it from overseas creditors as long as they will put up with your deadbeat ways. Manzi says it's just like people who use one credit card to pay off another. In theory, it works, but you pay interest charges forever. At some point, however, the bill will come due.

2. Higher Taxes. Our children and children's children will undoubtedly pay higher taxes and get nothing from them other than the satisfaction of knowing that they are paying for the debts we racked up. Some estimate that tax rates for future generations will hit 70 to 80 percent of their income. Sounds like hell to me. It also seems very immoral for one generation to enslave the next handful.

3. Default on the Debt. An interesting idea. If we still have a potent military we can flip off the rest of the world when they try to collect, and then hope like hell we can grow all our food, make all our clothes, and provide for everything else that a modern nation requires because no one is going to take any more IOUs (which means no one is going to honor our money, since it is in essence a green IOU).

4. Devalue the Currency. Print lots and lots of money and use it to pay off your debts. Of course, the money will devalue, inflation will skyrocket as in Weimar/Zimbabwe style, and you essentially stiff your creditors anyway. You may still need a strong military, and everyone will need wheelbarrows or pickup trucks to haul the stacks of cash necessary to buy gasoline or bread.

There is another option which, sadly, we're probably unable to choose at this point: Shrink government spending, encourage private thrift and the pay-down of all debts, public and private, and learn to live within our means.

However, just because our government can't do it, doesn't mean that it still isn't a good idea for you and me. In fact, the Oklahomilist Household Budget priorities for 2009 involve an accelerated "get out of debt completely" plan. Don't talk to me of how un-American I am for not buying that big screen, high def TV that I kept hoping someone else would get me for my birthday.

Now if Mr. Obama and his spending pals in Congress don't crash the economy too quickly ...

The Day the World Nearly Ended & Other Gloomy Stuff

There are a couple of pieces of information floating around today that might help us get a perspective on what's really happening with the economy.

I'll warn you right now, it's not pretty stuff. If you'd rather live the life of a mushroom (kept in the dark and fed you-know-what) that's fine. Go read the next post instead.

First, the remarks of Rep. Paul Kanjorski, D-Pa., are raising eyebrows. Kanjorski claims insider knowledge that, on Sept. 18 of last year, someone or someones began an incredible electronic run on the U.S. money market accounts. It hit $550 billion within an hour or so before the Federal Reserve decided to close the windows and regroup.

National Review Online's Katherine Jean Lopez, quoting from the financial blog ZeroHedge, adds this:

... They decided to close the operation, close down the money accounts and announce a guarantee of $250,000 per account so there wouldn't be further panic out there.

If they had not done that, their estimation is that by 2pm that afternoon, $5.5 trillion would have been drawn out of the money market system of the U.S., would have collapsed the entire economy of the U.S., and within 24 hours the world economy would have collapsed. It would have been the end of our economic system and our political system as we know it. (Boldface in the original)

First, I don't know anything about the credibility of the blog site or Congressman Kanjorski. Lopez is reliable, but she posted the quotes and link without comment.

Second, as one of the Great Unwashed (non-elites) I make no claim to economic genius. However, I am a thinker who reads a lot of everything and tries to use common sense to figure out what's really going on. (And I believe this is one of the saving graces of America, that we have the freedom to be Renaissance people, and our collective gut reactions are often better than the opinions of the so-called experts.)

But here's my reaction to this, and it starts with questions: Is this what panicked the Bush Administration into taking so many anti-Free Market steps last fall "to save the free market system."? Who was behind the withdrawals? Was it a foreign company, big money people from overseas, or simply the collective action of investors worldwide?

The answers are important, and the American people deserve to know. If this was an organized attack on our financial system by a foreign government or by a consortium of uber-rich folks in the George Soros' income range, then shouldn't we at least know that these "market forces" were really an assault?

Let's assume that the event happened, for the sake of argument. By keeping the public in the dark, the administration tied its hands by limiting the range of potential responses. Were there not other measures that might have been available to directly go after a threat to our economic way of life? The Bush-Paulson response set in motion a series of events that inevitably lead us to where we are today: spending trillions of dollars we do not have to fix problems that cannot be solved by spending, and establishing strong precedent for a socialist-oriented president and Congress to continue down this dangerous path.

Why? Because we are too delicate to be told the truth? It's like the old government attitude toward UFOs: There's nothing there and you don't need to know the details. Stupid and insulting.

I try not to be a conspiracy theorist because it's generally a waste of time and the truth in most instances if that one should never underestimate the collective hubris of human beings, especially those in positions of power and influence.

But sometimes you just gotta wonder ...

(UPDATE - David C. John posts at NRO on what he thinks happened in September, that it was probably normal and not the result of a nefarious plot. I'm not sure how convincing is his position, but he's spot on with observations that confidence is critical to smoothly functioning markets.)

The second item is an opinion piece by Peter Schiff, posted yesterday. Schiff is the CEO and Chief Global Strategist for Euro Pacific Capital, Inc. A well-known bear on economic matters, he appears on financial shows frequently. As bad as things are right now, Schiff says, they will get worse. The why, however, is why I think he's worth reading. A few excerpts:

Thus far, our economy has actually been spared the worst due to the temporary strength in the dollar and the recent desirability of our Government's debt. ... In addition to cushioning the blow for us, the dollar rally has exacerbated the pain abroad. As money has rushed to our aid it has created a global credit crunch. The rest of the world is not only dealing with losses on toxic U.S. credit instruments but is also shouldering the burden of financing our new borrowing as well. ... In effect, Americans have been using these life-lines to pull the rest of the world into the stormy seas. However, there are signs that those holding the lines are about to cast them adrift. The dollar rally has run out of steam ...

This week President Obama claimed that failure to pass his economic stimulus bill will have catastrophic consequences for the U.S economy. The reality is the catastrophe will be far greater with his plan than without it. If the trends of January and early February of 2009 continue, the rug will be completely pulled out from beneath the U.S. economy, and the full cost of the President's "economic depressant package" will be apparent to all.

If foreign capital does not continue to pour into Treasuries, interest rates and consumer prices in the U.S. will soar. At that point, we will finally be confronted with the real crises that I have long predicted. When the day of reckoning arrives our policy response will be critical. If we continue on the course our new President has mapped out, the catastrophe will far exceed the scope of any he hoped to avoid.

Of course, President Obama says that all major economists share his view that the porkulus package will get the job done. He omits the views of Schiff and over 200 other well-known, big name economists who have come out against the package.

You'd think we'd have time to debate the details of all this, but Mr. Obama says there is no time to waste on frivolous things like public discussion in Congress.

Let's hope Schiff, the trained economist, is all wet, and Obama, the community organizer from the streets of Chicago, is secretly a brilliant economist.

A 'Savior-Based Economy'?

South Carolina's governor, Mark Sanford, understands the threat of federal intervention in the economy.

“A problem that was created by building up of too much debt will not be solved with yet more debt,” Gov. Mark Sanford said Sunday, making a reference to the federal deficit spending that will likely finance the federal stimulus package.

“We’re moving precipitously close to what I would call a savior-based economy,” Sanford also said Sunday on CNN’s State of the Union.

The South Carolina Republican said such an economy is “what you see in Russia or Venezuela or Zimbabwe or places like that where it matters not how good your product is to the consumer but what your political connection is to those in power.”

Which is precisely what the progressives among us really want: the government as supreme arbiter of who succeeds and who fails, not individual initiative.

An Unsustainable Growth Curve

I've been meaning to post this image for several days now and keep forgetting to do so. It's a graph that shows the amount of United States money in circulation, the so-called monetary base.

The image comes from the website of the Saint Louis Federal Reserve Bank. It's not photo-shopped; it's the real McCoy.

Notice the timeline. It goes from 1910 (99 years ago) through today. Incidentally, the Federal Reserve came into being in 1913.

The gray areas of the graph represent recessions (or in at least one famous case, a depression).

The monetary base stays fairly flat until roughly the 1960s (the Vietnam War) when the curve begins to rise. It accelerates in each of the following decades in a more or less mathematical model. There's a little blip rise immediately before the Y2K event - there was some concern that a computer shutdown might restrict access to cash - and another blip right after 9/11.

But then we get to the shocker. What happens to the monetary base in the last few months, as represented by the gray portion that reflects the current recession? A near vertical rise. A moon shot.

Has any nation, modern or otherwise, ever done such a thing to itself and survived?

Better question: Will we?

Treasury Nominee Should Withdraw, or Be Withdrawn

Do we need a Secretary of Treasury -- the guy in charge of the IRS, the Secret Service, and who knows how many trillions of dollars in federal buyout, er, bailout funds -- who doesn't pay his taxes until he's about to get caught?

It may be that Timothy Geithner, until recently one of the Federal Reserve board members, is a true financial genius, but his character does not bear scrutiny. If the Senate confirms his nomination as Treasury secretary, then truly we are no longer a nation of laws but of men, and it becomes more and more obvious that the rules by which us lowly peons are expected to play by are not the rules of the elite.

By the way, did we forget to tell you that Geithner is considered the architect of the TARP ("bailout") program?

Shame on Barack Obama that Geithner's name has not already been pulled from consideration.

The AP report doesn't even adequately detail the full truth of the scandal, but it does include the typical responses we've come to expect from our "leadership" in Washington.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., dismissed the events as "a few little hiccups," and said he was "not concerned at all" about the impact.

Obama reiterated his support for Geithner.

Harry Reid wouldn't know corruption if it bit him on the ass.

For more details on how the Associated Press is trying to white-wash this guy's nomination, read this post over at BizzyBlog.

UPDATE -- Byron York has the damning details on how the IMF (International Monetary Fund) reimbursed Geithner for taxes he did not pay. More grist for the mill.

We wish you a Merry Christmas!

I don't even know how I can justify the time it takes to do this post - there is music to rehearse for tonight's Christmas Eve Mass, personal preparations and a couple of phone calls to make - but I just couldn't not say "Merry, Holy Christmas" to the handful of people who reliably click by here.

Much like that first Christmas when the world was ostensibly at peace but in reality many hearts were troubled, our world finds itself with few major conflicts (a couple winding down) but a great deal of uncertainty about basic things: ethics and morality, economics and philosophies of governance.

We need our Messiah as much now as ever. And, as the saying goes, "Wise men still seek Him."

In a semi-related topic, we ran across a couple of articles today that touch upon the way we as individuals and as societies organize ourselves. What is truly important?

The first place I'd like to send you is Godspy.com where Stratford Caldecott opines on which really is the building block of a society: the individual or the family. He opts for the latter and thinks the rest of us will eventually catch on as we cope with economic disaster and attempt to rebuild. A couple of quotes and you can read the rest:

... the present worldwide disaster which, viewed positively, creates an opportunity for radical change. The possibility of change begins with the dawning realization that we have been wrong not just about the economy, but about ourselves. The decisions and policies that have led to the crisis of capitalism were founded on a false view of human nature.
...

In the real world, the basic unit of society is not the individual but the family, meaning the set of relationships out of which the individual is born or into which he marries. It is from within this set of relationships that the individual exercises what freedom he has, whether it be moral, economic or political.

A shift in philosophical view away from individualism would change everything. If the basic unit of society is understood to be the family instead of the individual, people cannot so easily be detached from the relationships in which they are embedded, including the natural environment on which they are dependent. In other words, if we adopt this person- and family-centered view, truth would come before choice, reality before desire, responsibility before rights. That would make us less easy to manipulate, herd and enslave.

I find his argument compelling, and not unlike my own musings of late.

The second article may well illustrated a practical demonstration of what he is saying. Lois Kindle, writing in the South Shore News & Tribune, tells of an extended family's successful farming adventure in central Florida. No quotes; read it for yourselves.

See you in a day or so.

What is the Price of a Soul?

Bush says he didn't compromise his soul for popularity.

That's obvious. What is not obvious is why he compromised his soul at all.

In an interview with Fox News, the president apparently continues to try to defend the damage he has done to our free-market-based economic system:

"I'm a free market guy," Bush said. "But I'm not going to let this economy crater in order to preserve the free market system."

Or as they said back in the days of Vietnam, "We had to burn the village to save it."

Insanity then, insanity now.

Looking Ahead to Hard Times

The concept that the United States is entering a new era where materialistic achievement and expectations will be scaled back is beginning to seep into the writings of people who a few weeks ago would have mocked anyone making such predictions.

Or, in simpler terms, people are catching on that hard times are a comin'.

Today's offering: Jim Manzi posting in The Corner.

We use the abstract expression “deleveraging” to describe what’s happening in the economy right now. That’s fine for a textbook or a newspaper article. But what’s really happening is that people are learning that the world is not as benign as many people in America talked themselves into believing it to be. Most middle class Americans are going to drive older cars, live in worse houses, and travel less than they thought they would even a couple of years ago. They will be less able to afford to move to the school district that they think will put their kids into the school that they think best for them. They are going to retire later, and have less money to spend when they do. This is painful and dispiriting. It is unequally shared suffering, and much of the distribution of relative pain is driven by luck, which makes it especially bitter to those who have been unlucky.

Manzi starts his post discussing the fallout from the Bernard Madoff fraud. Unless you've been sleeping or over-indulging in Christmas egg nog, you know that over $50 billion of other people's money was misappropriated, siphoned off and otherwise pissed away by one charmingly clever individual who apparently thought Charles Ponzi and the federal Social Security system were great role models.

Should the taxpayers bail out the Madoff victims? My gut reaction is not "no," but "Hell, no!"

But I think it will happen, at least to some limited extent. I also think that many average Americans are going to be very unhappy when they realize that our federal government is putting itself in the position of determining who are the true deserving and undeserving victims of our economic straits. This poses a potential for civil unrest, and that's not a good thing.

Thanks to the billions (trillions?) in financial experiments undertaken by the Administration and the Congress, it is not likely that we can avoid the economic pain ahead, especially considering the incoming Obama administration is even less economically savvy than its predecessor. The best advice for most of us is to pay off our debts as rapidly as we can, reduce our monthly overhead, and make preparations for a period of time that we pray will never come.

And if you're one of those people who still cling to the idea that "it can't happen here" because this is America or that God won't allow it, please try to remember that it already did happen here 80 years ago and the American people then were a lot more God-fearing and devout than they are today.

What would a real 'Depression' look like?

With little or no good economic news to encourage us recently, perhaps we'd be better served by trying to foresee where events are leading us rather than bury our heads in the sands of apathy. One of those who is trying to glimpse a potential future is Drake Bennett, identified in The Boston Globe as a "writer for Ideas." (We think - but are not absolutely certain - that IDEAS is an online research arm of the Department of Economics for the University of Connecticut.)

The article today is entitled, "Depression 2009: What would it look like?"

Bennett, who seems to agree with economists who believe the "odds are we will yet avoid a full-blown depression," raises the question of whether a 21st Century Great Depression would look anything like the one we had back in the 1930s. Not likely, he believes.

He makes a good case that the Depression will be radically different, but in my estimation he is entirely too optimistic. Bennett writes,

"We are separated from the 1930s by decades of profound economic, technological and political change, and a modern landscape of scarcity would reflect that."

"Unlike the 1930s, when food and clothing were far more expensive, today we spend much of our money on healthcare, child care, and education, and we'd see uncomfortable changes in those parts of our lives. The lines wouldn't be outside soup kitchens but at emergency rooms, and rather than itinerant farmers we could see waves of laid-off office workers leaving homes to foreclosure and heading for areas of the country where there's more work - or just a relative with a free room over the garage. Already hollowed-out manufacturing cities could be all but deserted, and suburban neighborhoods left checker-boarded with abandoned houses next to overcrowded ones."

He foresees a return to the inner cities for security and less security in the suburbs.

"... a Depression circa 2009 might be a less visible and more isolating experience. With the diminishing price of televisons and the proliferation of channels, it's getting easier and easier to kill time alone, and free time is one thing a 21st-century depression would create in abundance. Instead of dusty farm families, the icon of a modern-day depression might be something as subtle as the flickering glow of millions of televisions glimpsed through living room windows, as the nation's unemployed sit at home filling their days with the cheapest form of distraction available."

And you say, "That's optimistic?"

Admittedly we are deep into our Nostradamus role playing games, and who knows for sure how it might all shake out. Much of what he writes could be spot on - and you should read the whole thing for yourself - but we think Dr. Bennett misses a couple of key factors that also have changed since 1929.

One, ours is a much coarser culture. There are fewer church-going folks and several generations more or less raised on the idea that morality is relative to one's situation. A Depression would eventually change this, but the early going might be bumpy. Can't see the inner city as a place to run toward.

Two, our economic system heavily relies on corporate agriculture and distribution systems that in turn feature J.I.T., "just in time" delivery. We are but a couple of weeks away, at any given moment, from seeing empty store shelves if something were to interfere with the timely arrival of supply trucks. Diesel shortages, blocked roads, corporate bankruptcies, massive layoffs, credit shortages, or piracy could mean hunger for a lot of folks real quick. Ask anyone who stayed behind in New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina if it was easy to find a can of clam chowder down at the jiffy mart a few days in.

Bennett addresses the food issue. He cities an academic who says that people, even in the cities, will try their hand at growing food. That's probably true, but what if hard times arrive in the dead of winter? It takes several weeks of growing season, seed and a little bit of knowledge, to grow food that you can eat. What happens in the meantime. In 1929, nine out of ten Americans either farmed or had gardens, and gardening experience. Today, I would guess, maybe five out of one hundred Americans have the ability and know-how to grow food.

Steep learning curve.

And what if utilities failed? Those millions of TV sets and DVRs won't do much good if there is no power.

I pray to God every day that the people of this country awaken to the potential disasters ahead and start making plans, simple plans, to protect themselves and their families. If nothing happens, so much the better. If the worst happens, that's one less family that will be panicked into doing something stupid or worse.

Six months ago, an article like Bennett's was unthinkable in a major metro newspaper. It's worth some thought.