DISQUS

Anomalous Material: A look at the Nikkei-225 and Japan's Lost Decades

  • The Unknown Trader · 4 months ago
    Hi, very informative article, and I'm afraid you're right. Reminds of a book I read not too long ago. It was called Crash Profits written by Martin D. Weiss. In the book the U.S. is confronted by a financial crisis. The powers-that-be have two main choices. They can let nature take its course and experience a sharp and hard scenario which would be over relatively quickly, or they can choose to shore things up a and avoid the short term pain which would ultimately lead to the "zombie" type economy. Looks like our government is choosing to prolong process.

    Question: I'm glad I didn't have to go through it personally, but do you think the U.S. was better off for having gone through the Great Depression?
  • CastorTroy · 4 months ago
    I strongly believe the Great Depression allowed the US to start with a clean slate by the 1940's and prepared the country for the great moral and financial hardship of an all-out war on two fronts and allowed for one of the most extended era of economic prosperity after WWII as the US established itself as one of the two superpowers in the world.

    Back then, there was nowhere near the system of safety nets such as unemployment insurance, the FDIC and what not. Unemployment reached 25% while real GDP fell by the same amount at the peak of the depression. People had to run to their banks only to find out they had no savings left. There was tremendous amount of pain felt right away and nearly half of US financial institutions disappeared. Also the government was largely ineffective in slowing down (or delaying) the onslaught with its far-too-small fiscal stimulus and thus, the depression very much sorted itself out. Despite shaking the country to its very core, the United States came out of it stronger. We won WWII, defeated the USSR in an incredibly expensive race arm to become the sole superpower in the world. This will eventually change with the rise of countries like China and India. The question is: will we continue to play a dominant role in the world through the 21st century, or will we start to fade away like the once mighty English, Spanish or French of the old continent?
  • john wayne autobiography · 4 days ago
    I posted your article to my myspace profile.

    Thanks
    Milli
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