Philosophy Now Forum

During the 1920s the economy experienced a wild speculative financial bubble.

The bubble popped and led to the Great Depression in the 1930s.

People living in need and fear turned to strongmen fascists in hope of escape from their desperate situation.

Once the fascists had taken freedom from these people, they started looking for more people to rule and steal from, and World War II was born.

Are we repeating this cycle again? It's perhaps about time now that those who lived through the earlier cycle are almost gone?

First we had the hysterical Net bubble in the 90s, followed by the hysterical real estate bubble in the 2000s.

Now the financial crisis.

What's coming next?

Interesting and provocative, Typist. There are some economists who say that the armaments build-up was itself the way the world got out of the 30's recession. I don't know much about economice myself. But there may be something in it.
OTOH, wouldn't it be WW4?
WW3 is over. The US won it.

the UN condemnation of the US and Israel and the escalation of antisemitism ...

WW3? yeah, it's coming... but it will be fought like no other war...

other wars were survivable/winnable ...

-Imp

Right, and I don't get the theory. If that works, why don't we build 14 billion unneeded refrigerators, and dump them out in the middle of the Atlantic? Economics is as much a mystery as the human psychology it is made of, eh?

Hindsight is 20-20, but looking over the last 15 years it's kind of remarkable few of us saw this coming, given that's it's happened before.

I made a windfall in the net bubble, and I sure didn't worry about it, but went YEA, WHOOPEE!

After the net bubble popped I was talking with a friend who sells real estate. The housing bubble was then heating up and he was going wild and making tons of money. And of course I had to say, "Well, you know, this bubble will pop too" which was hardly what he wanted to hear.

But, even though I knew the bubbles were bubbles and would pop, I didn't think it through as to what would happen next. I guess I assumed things would just go back to normal, which seems quite silly now.

There are lots of lit dynamite fuses burning around the world right now. Any damn thing could happen next.

I've also thought this. Better to get them out the way when you're starting up again. I think the chaos we see all around is some kind of planned build-up to a major war...but, people have had enough of this shit! And have started saying so.

I think the world is wiser and more mature this time around to know that a world war would not solve anything. If a world war were to occur today you could kiss everything and the world good-bye.

In the past wars occurred because nothing really changed. Today we have constant change due to capitalism. So there is no need for war because of the revolution capitalism is always perpetrating on the world. Capitalism is the alternative to war.

Though this might seem at first not so relevant to the thread I believe it is. For, are we now not looking at perpetual continuous war beyond our lifetimes.

http://www.intrepidreport.com/archives/3383

That's a hopeful vision, and it does seem to be how civilization has stayed glued together since WWII.

But it does raise this question.

If we are wiser and more mature, why did we just enthusiastically embrace the kind of speculative financial bubble that has again and again and again been shown to be a sure path to financial calamity? If we are so mature, why did we rush pell mell in to financial calamity, a situation which significantly increases the risk of war?

My parents generation lived through this bubble/collapse/war cycle, and paid a dear price for it, so they were unlikely to forget and repeat. But for us it's just history book stuff.

I question the degree to which we're even in control of this process. Perhaps these cycles are the weather of the human mind, and all we can really do is be sure to bring a rain coat.

Its called Capitalism and your parents did repeat the cycle, as do you and I presume Spike supports it.

Hi Typist,

I didn't say that every aspect of our society has matured or is wiser. Moreover, mature societies like that of the US tend to become complacent, thinking they had arrived and have all the answers. A certain aspect of American society thought that it had reached an absolute when it came to economics and finance. They could do no wrong and thus became arrogance and grew blind to reality, thinking they had repealed the laws of economics.

Most of the developed world followed the example of the US in economic and financial matters, convinced that the US had discovered a nirvana. That exacerbated the financial crisis when it all came unglued.

Nevertheless, I think the financial crisis has been good for the world. It has had a perverse unifying, cooperative effect. Countries have worked together to resolve it. If such cooperation had existed before WWII that war would never have happened.

Where is the segment of society that spoke out strongly against the bubbles and predicted the consequences? I don't recall any such discussion by anybody here or abroad, rich or poor.

Of course now everybody will claim to have seen it, but where were they at the time. Silent, that's where.



You could be right, and I of course hope you are. We'll see. The Europeans seem to be the testing ground for this theory now, we'll wish them luck!

They were drowned out by the Bush administration and its ideology. Ideology won the day.

However, imagine if Bush & Co had privatized Social Security? At Least there was a lengthy discussion about that and privatization of SS didn't see the light of day.

Who was drowned out? I'm sure there were a few people here and there, but I think the reality is few of us cared so long as the good times we're rolling. Me included.

I just don't buy the drowned out theory in general. We've had the net for both bubbles, and there are about a million news channels in the other media.

Okay, you just don't buy it. That's fine. But the bubble, the property bubble, in itself was not the whole story. Had the banks been in better shape and properly managed and over seen by the government things wouldn't have turned out so bad. Had derivatives not grown so waco financial institution and communities would have been in better shape. Had government and personal debt not been so great things would not been so terrible.

Another thing that happened which is rarely mentioned is that the US got over built. There is too much capacity and excess of everything, from shopping malls to factories to houses to consumer goods. That has to be absorbed before the US can truly recover. Also, there is a lack of confidence and trust because of the entire debacle, which is going to take time to reestablish.

9/11 had something to do with the present situation. Bush & co told Americans to go out and spend because if they didn't the terrorist will have won. America did go out and spend like there was not tomorrow. The Feds helped that spending spree with cheap money. America, like and most of the developed economies, was living beyond it means.

People fooled themselves. Despite all the media channels people didn't want to hear bad news. There was too much false optimism out there and not enough skepticism.

Not quite, but you'd have to have been reading the left-wing and marxist economic blogs and think-tanks to have seen the predictions, as the press and media is essentially owned by the capitalists so you'll not be hearing any dissenting voices there. In fact, just read Marx, Keynes, et al, and you'll see that boom/bust is an essential part of Capitalism, with the Marxists, Anarcho-Syndicalists, et al, claiming that depression then war is also a necessary consequence.