Oh Max. I'm sorry. It is going to be as bad if not worse than the Great Depression. I know you don't want to hear that, but it is.
As I've mentioned this began affecting the people in my area in the beginning of October. Companies are already avoiding paying unemployment by reducing the hours of workers. Those employees receive reduced healthcare (they can't see specialists-like oncologists) and because they are employed they can't get any type of supplemental care or compensation from government sponsored programs.
There are people here that do qualify for unemployment who have been waiting 3 months to receive it. It's going to be really bad.
That's really bad, but that's not Great Depression bad. Ask your grandfather. It's not that bad until you have to walk eight miles in the snow uphill both ways to work.
In seriousness, there was really no welfare or health system to speak of in the 1930s, and no fiscal or monetary policies. It's a much different economic environment because of these things, so I haven't given up hope that all those automatic stablizers and policy instruments specifically designed because of the Great Depression are going to keep things from going into that deep of a hole.
In hindsight, we made some really stupid mistakes in our response to the Great Depression. Maybe those lessons will help, and we won't just make a whole set of new ones.
If all else fails, we can always invade Germany, Italy, and Japan.
I'm 52 so I asked my mother. First she said it was going to be far worse than the Great Depression. By the end of the conversation she remembered my politics or worried that she was scaring me and told me that the difference was that people today are better equipped emotionally to handle what's coming and the good thing about it would be that families would gather together again and live under the same roof.
P.S. For Americans, I advise the use of a Roth IRA, where you pay taxes now on retirement contributions and pull them out tax free later. Why? Because tax rates in the future are going to be amazing in order to pay for all this shit.
While we're being negative...won't this only work if your IRA at least maintains value?
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As I've mentioned this began affecting the people in my area in the beginning of October. Companies are already avoiding paying unemployment by reducing the hours of workers. Those employees receive reduced healthcare (they can't see specialists-like oncologists) and because they are employed they can't get any type of supplemental care or compensation from government sponsored programs.
There are people here that do qualify for unemployment who have been waiting 3 months to receive it. It's going to be really bad.
I thought you knew.
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In seriousness, there was really no welfare or health system to speak of in the 1930s, and no fiscal or monetary policies. It's a much different economic environment because of these things, so I haven't given up hope that all those automatic stablizers and policy instruments specifically designed because of the Great Depression are going to keep things from going into that deep of a hole.
In hindsight, we made some really stupid mistakes in our response to the Great Depression. Maybe those lessons will help, and we won't just make a whole set of new ones.
If all else fails, we can always invade Germany, Italy, and Japan.
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To sum it all up in one word: Potatoes
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*gets drunk*
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While we're being negative...won't this only work if your IRA at least maintains value?
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Welcome to Canadia. Without any guaranteed anything. Maybe health care, maybe not. Maybe anytype of anything to keep you living...maybe not.
But you have hope.
Hope is good.
Won't pay for soft-lumber or cattle, but hope is a wonderful thing. :)
And you'll hate us more in five years.
More than you do now, hate.
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