A SEASONED VETERAN'S VIEW OF THE ECONOMY

Our present era news columnists, television announcers, and other media pundits everywhere are compelled to earn their livings, which means they must continually dream up copy to write or events to comment on, even if it adds up to tedious repetition. Moreover, with their ranks having become so abnormally plentiful, we literally get bombed all day long and day after day with the latest hot poop, altogether too often in regard to how sick our current economic picture happens to be. Since doom and gloom tends to attract headline readers and capture the attention of listening ears, that has become an overly popular theme.

For the benefit of those too young to remember our so-labeled Great Depression of 1929-1937, we will now offer some reassurance by bluntly saying "Look, Folks, these problems today ain't nothin' in comparison".

No, they really ain't, and that's for dang sure. Back in 1933, following a full dozen years of Republican administration bunglings, which included allowing organized crime to flourish due to that imbecilic prohibition law, the economy had sunk to an unprecedented low. Regardless of what you read and hear these days, such condition has not been repeated by a long shot.

Presently however, we can thank the blessed GOP for having done their level best to try making it happen all over again. After Bill Clinton had managed to return the country to at least an annual budget surplus position, a pair of clowns named Bush and Cheney blew the ball game by spending the whole bundle and more engaging in fisticuffs with Sadam Hussein and the Taliban, while attempting to track down the elusive Osama bin Laden. In the meantime, our smirking, foreclosure-motivated finance industry went wild offering fictitious credit swindles for the public to gobble up with hitherto unmatched frenzy, and we suddenly lost our collective ass -- although not enough to prevent the banking wizards from doling out massive government assistance funds as executive bonuses at staggering rates.

Still, despite this eight-year sojourn of Bush-Cheney stupidity, what President Obama inherited in 2009 doesn't hold the proverbial candle to the mess FDR had to face seventy-six years earlier. As depressions go, that was a doozy. We weren't noticing gradual recovery indicators as early as 1933, which has already become the case now.

To help fortify our point, we're about to look back upon common incidents that kept occurring throughout those virtually forgotten mid-thirties, and ask how much has repeated itself in this current age. For example:
* How many city block-long breadlines have you seen, either in person or on TV screens?
* Right around the corner from the breadlines, how many men have you similarly viewed
queuing up by the hundreds, waiting to apply for jobs -- any whatsoever?
* How many freight trains have you watched roll past with primarily empty deadheading
cars?
* Furthermore, how often have you been able to count fifty or more hoboes riding atop or
standing inside the open doors of those empty rail cars?
* How many tramps have shown up at your front door either asking to do odd jobs on your
property in return for a single meal, or else simply requesting some of your pocket change?

We haven't had retail or other small business enterprises go bankrupt in fantastic proportions.
Relatively speaking, many seem to be doing rather well in view of this supposedly disastrous downturn.

Restaurants are still crowded at lunch and dinner hours. We observe football stadia, baseball parks, boxing and other sport arenas constantly filled to capacity. We often find standing room only at theater and concert performances. Little or no such ongoing bonanzas existed back then.

Since a man could barely afford to take his kids to a ball game in the afternoon or his wife and family out to an evening movie, he was at least able to drop over to the nearest ice cream emporium and spend a relatively small sum for a household treat to be enjoyed. While slurping away, the people would sit and listen to popular nighttime radio programs, absolutely free. A small degree of pleasure thus remained available at minimal cost. How many of you have had to resort to such penny-pinching activities in the past couple years?

No indeed, this economic stumbling of today ain't nothin' in contrast. Believe us, we sat through the entire rugged affair.