1929 all over again

From Krugman's blog tonight:

Don’t panic about the stock market.
Panic about the credit markets instead. Interest rate on 3-month Treasuries at 0.02%; interest rate on high-yield (junk) bonds over 20%.

This is an economic emergency.

I know very little about the economic situation or investments. The way I grew up my parents spent every penny on the 9 of us. We were the investments. I have a 401(k) and have done what they told me to do, as a complete novice. I am sure I'll be completely set back as a complete novice and won't even understand how much I've lost long term.

My grandparents lived through the depression (I remember taking my old blind grandma to the bank in the 1970's and her anxiety that she never got over from those years. I can remember her tension and the way it was translated into her handling of her little savings and teachers pension in the 70's, bless her). She used to tell me to get a safe-deposit box at the bank and put my emergency funds in there so when the banks failed you could wave the key and march in and get your money while everyone else would be waiting in line for their deposits. So there's some advice from a woman who raised 7 children through the depression. Don't know if that advice is any good, but she certainly told me about it every time we went to the bank.

What I do know is that the sun will come up the same tomorrow and the next day, and people will try to do their best with what they've got. Our grandparents got through their crises, and we can get through ours.

Why are we not gathering on the lawn of the White House, demanding that the shackles of federal idiocy be loosened? Why are us conservatives not preparing to have a multi-million march on DC absolutely DEMANDING that the morass of mass stupidity we've been saddled with as far as industry mandates, regulation, enviromental gross stupidity, tax stupidity, etc, be repealed AT ONCE????

Why are we not prepared to invade Congress, engaging in some good old fashioned "do it or we get UUUUGGGGLLYYYYY!!!" storming the halls of Congress and flooding the offices of every Congressman and woman, especially Democrats, demanding that all this stupid and idiotic "progressive" tax crapola that's killing us be removed instantly? Cap gains... GONE. EPA madness... GONE. Restrictions on drilling, farming, wholesale blockages to productivity and production... GONE! NOW!!! Why?

And telling Obama, REMOVE OUR CHAINS OR ELSE WE REMOVE THEM OURSELVES!

Seriously. I can't believe people are just sitting around like bumps on a log "hoping" that some kind of miracle occurs. Why are we even considering allowing Congress to take on trillions more in redistribution at our expense, like health care takeovers? Like stealing our IRA's?

We need every right thinking blogger, radio personality, columnist, and every Republican recruiting the most massive protest this world has seen, where WE THE PEOPLE tell Washington, the truth EVER SO WISELY spoken by R Reagan... Government is NOT the solution to this crisis, Government created it, is worsening it, and will bury us if it is not reigned in.

Congress has literally confiscated EVERY investment dollar in the world by having the treasury float TRILLIONS of debt, and Obama is threatening to let the deficits run wild.

Have these idiots learned NOTHING? That they cannot steal every dollar from the markets with debt instruments and expect the economy to recover? We don't need them running up debt like a fire hydrant blown open, we need them to SHUT DOWN THE SPIGOT. To get off the backs of the productive and LET US FIX OUR OWN LIVES.

And then take that message to the states as well.

So why the bloody hell are you talking about your dog's johnson, and moaning about 1929 when we could freaking DO SOMETHING????

Johnny Dollar: Since you have no relevant comments to make, and nothing of substance to refute the facts with, you're resorting to using your best "mocking tone" in hopes nobody will notice your lack of substance.

Well, Bub, until you, like me, have actually built a business and hired people, you really just don't know how astoundingly stupid and obstructive the federal and state governments are when it comes to actually letting people do things and hire others.

I made no call for child labor. Glass-Steagall did not save our country from anything. Good arguments have been made it was and is a negative overall, not positive. But real impediments exist which stifle producitivity and jobs in amounts you really cannot understand.

If you think that things aren't going to get rough, wait until the unemployment roles hit above 10% and then remind me how you want all this federal stupidity in place, becuase you really DO NOT WANT A JOB, but prefer people to live in utter destitution.

Baldy asks: "Why are us conservatives not preparing to have a multi-million march on DC absolutely DEMANDING that the morass of mass stupidity we've been saddled with as far as industry mandates, regulation, enviromental gross stupidity, tax stupidity, etc, be repealed AT ONCE????"

It's really quite simple. There aren't enough of you who believe as you do. Check the recent election results if you want some kind of confirmation.

Excuse me: I shouldn't speak for others. I don't know why conservatives are not marching on Washington. What I have given is reasons why they _should not_ so march.

Erasmus, you missed the point. There simply isn't a majority in the country that supports Baldy's economic world view. And without support the rest is irrelevant.

Baldy:

I am not defeated; I am pessimistic. In the present condition, I believe that is rational.

Perhaps my point was unclear. In any case you did not address it. You recommended that conservatives should take this moment to descend upon Washington and demand, more or less, the repeal of the progressive agenda. I see a few obvious downsides, and a truly miniscule possibility of success. What you describe is barely civilization, and certainly not conservative.

In addition, the repeal of the progressive agenda will not stop what is coming, because the progressive agenda is not what caused this. You write that we are not yet impoverished. I contend that we do not yet know how impoverished we are, and that the recent troubles are due to our finally getting a peek behind the curtain.

The progressive agenda, and the response of Washington, may prolong the present downturn, but you would have to be ignorant of economic history to pretend that de-regulation and right-wing economics does not create the boom-and-bust cycle. During the bust, economic populism is a virtual certainty.

If you think that your opportunistic march on Washington will not be met in far greater numbers by laid-off auto-workers clamoring for government to do something, you are simply wrong. There is a good reason why our government works the way it does, and that is to prevent the situation you hope to create. Far, far better to have a prolonged depression under a reasonable amount of law and order, than government by riot.

Yours is mere demagoguery, and no part of a conservative solution. Your policies may be sound, but your preferred methods are very dangerous.

Warm regards,

Adam

Why are we not gathering on the lawn of the White House, demanding that the shackles of federal idiocy be loosened? Why are us conservatives not preparing to have a multi-million march on DC absolutely DEMANDING that the morass of mass stupidity we've been saddled with as far as industry mandates, regulation, enviromental gross stupidity, tax stupidity, etc, be repealed AT ONCE????

How about: because conservatives are already regarded as gorged parasites on the national wealth and wellbeing?