Depressions can be soooooo depressing.

Here's an interesting article on a subject dear to my heart:

"The Greater Depression" - Comparing The 1930s And Today | Zero Hedge

This article compares the parameters, as it were, of the Great Depression and the Greater Depression (presently in progress).

There is a real gem in the comments section: Scroll down to the "Macavity" post for some interesting definitions.

Likewise indicative of the collapse in progress: a mall valued at $190 million in 2005 just sold for $100.00.

Malls Owners Rush For The Exits As Mall-Backed CMBS Defaults Soar | Zero Hedge

Times are tough in Mall-ville these days. And that sort of thing is just a tiny curl of foam in the massive rolling wave of economic collapse that will characterize the contimuation of the Greater Depression.

I saw this sort of thing forecast several years ago as high rents, internet shopping, changing demographics, overbuilding, high mall prices, and the tight economy, act together to drive people and businesses out of the big malls in record numbers.

"The times, they are a'changin', and it's a hard rain gonna fall."

(Somebody famous said that.)

 

One of the comments on the first article seems correct to me,

The Silent Depression seems to fit better. Not only has the government been deceptive but the media also. The true stories of the average Americans situation is not told. I do not believe the good times are rolling. Many have bought into the materialistic lifestyle so they never to stop to realize how broke they really are.

 

What part is depression and what part is structural change? The American Negro in the south is a perfect example of the effect of structural change. While the Civil War ended, the growing of cotton did not and the slaves were transformed into share croppers. They were given enough land to subsistence farm and allowed enough capital to survive as long as they planted, cultivated, and picked the cotton for the owner of the land. While the lifestyle is not what we would call optimum, they survived and it was a stable society. The old 40 acres and a mule dream of the past. If a man had that he could live well. The tractor, the cotton picker, and later improved seeds, insecticides, herbicides, and fertilizers allowed one man to farm much more land and made the "wasted" land for subsistence valuable and displaced the Negros from the land. They moved to Detroit and the other urban areas and supplied the unskilled labor we needed. The same pattern existed in the rest of the US, only it was for the most part small farmers who owned their own land. They too were displaced to the urban areas. With the demise if the factory system and its relatively high wages, and the loss of the small independent businessman, we no longer have a valid self employed middle class. We now have a large segment of the population that is not "participating" in the labor force, is in jail, are consultants, are part time employees, etc, and are not needed by our present economy as it is structured and given the total chaos in the rest of the world, we have millions trying to enter the country either legally or illegally. This has created a vast under class that is living in a permanent depression and the rapid mechanization of what is left of the jobs is only adding to this group. As was true in Rome, the government is trying to keep the masses from rioting and taxing the few remaining for what they can and are printing the rest.

For those of us who wish to maintain some minimum living standard, we may be faced with situations like Argentina or Venezuela, where some form of government may continue to exist, but the economy collapses for most of the population. Having some skill, being out of debt, being self sufficient, and keeping out of sight may well be better than having a lot of wealth or being a well paid banker before the fall.

 

The most recent influential thing(in regards to my 'preps') I've seen recently was the Wartime Farm, having never thought what that was like for people back then. Granted it was in England, but similar rationing and government power-grabbing happened here in the States. What would you do if you were a farmer, rather well off as it were, and all of the sudden you were told by the government you have to double your (human) food output? Millions of livestock were slaughtered, and working animals were put down as well because there's no way to feed them. What was most disturbing to me is that the English people, after the war was over, voted for the political party that would keep all the wartime regulations in place. I can't understand willingly wanting to be a slave.

I'm not sure how bad an obvious Depression now would be, except that most people have no idea about self-sufficiency, so they would want to take from those that have prepared, so there would be a rise in crime, which would probably result in more 'laws' to stop it. I wonder if debtor's prisons would start appearing...

 

Undoubtedly there would be a number of privately owned "correctional" facilities that are contracted to operate prions. Introducing debtors prisons would certainly expand their portfolio of profitable slammers.

 

I bet malls are going under since if you can stand the wait you can get literally everything cheaper on line.