Dear America,
This is starting to be discussed fairly openly and widely now, but Trump's egocentric obtuseness and the obsequiousness of those to whom he listens seem to have deafened him to the obvious; We are heading for a repeat of the Great Depression and we are going there gleefully. You think I'm prophesying doom, but the historical parallels between the beginning of the second Trump administration and the one and only Hoover administration are startling and daunting.
Hoover was elected in 1928 and began his term in January 1929. On October 29, 1929, the traditional account of the stock market crash begins, but the fact is that the market had started to wobble months earlier. On the 29th however, a major decline in stock prices occurred, and over the following eight months, the market continued to decline until June of 1930, at that point having lost 89% of its value by some accounts, it hit its nadir. Where we are right now is parallel to October 1929, and the question with regard to the market, and thus to the retirement security of many millions is, where will we be in December, eight months from now...but there's more to the parallel.
The following June in 1930, Hoover signed the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act. The Depression had started with those initial steep declines in stock prices of October 1929 and in an attempt to interdict the fall of our economy, The Senate introduced and Hoover signed the act, which put heavy tariffs on about 20,000 products being manufactured abroad and competing with American industry in that regard. Among those products were some 30% of our exports to Canada, for which Canada retaliated in kind, diminishing those exports in commensurate amounts. Of course, jobs manufacturing those products declined as well. All in all, countries around the world imposed tariffs in amounts comparable to those imposed by Smoot-Hawley and the downward spiral began here and around the world. The Great Depression was afoot, and it lingered over the world for a decade, beginning to abat only when FDR took office and instituted government spending programs to prop up the unemployed and we fought a world war, which ironically probably constituted the economic stimulus that the world needed to begin and sustain the long economic climb out of the hole created by the depression. But that's enough of the history that parallels our future in my opinion.
The question now is, what can we...what will we learn from our past now that it is no longer in the active memory of the vast majority of not just Americans, but the citizens of the entire world. In the thirties, the community of economic experts warned of the dangers of the course prescribed and taken by Hoover, Smoot and Hawley. But did Hoover, the sine qua non for the bill to take effect, listen? Of course not, and nothing has changed. We have a president who thinks that he is smarter than all those who actually do know something about the subject, and his sycophants are cheering him on, which is like a sirens' song for our president, who loves nothing more than praise and obeisance...enough so that he never doubts himself, nor does he listen to the opinions of those who oppose his point of view. The experts today stand no chance of prevailing upon the president to take a lesson from history. He is committed to proving himself a Putin-style international gangster of whom everyone should be afraid. He is motivated by what motivates every bully: power and the proof of it. So the fate he is courting is the fate that we all shall suffer.
You might wonder why I am writing this in the fashion in which I am. I am not the only person who has opined this way, and as of now, it has availed the world of nothing. So I have no illusions about whether I am doing something that will be availing for our society or the world. This is all old news. But I do have a motivation.
Since the election last year, I have been pondering the issue of why 77 million people, incidentally a plurality, not a majority, voted for a man who is very little more than conceit with feet. His flawed (and to use that word in this context is to minimize its meaning) character is open and obvious to anyone who pays attention to what is happening around him. But somewhere deep inside me I've been pining for the opportunity to say this. When the worst happens, don't blame me. I didn't vote for him.
Your friend,
Mike
This is starting to be discussed fairly openly and widely now, but Trump's egocentric obtuseness and the obsequiousness of those to whom he listens seem to have deafened him to the obvious; We are heading for a repeat of the Great Depression and we are going there gleefully. You think I'm prophesying doom, but the historical parallels between the beginning of the second Trump administration and the one and only Hoover administration are startling and daunting.
Hoover was elected in 1928 and began his term in January 1929. On October 29, 1929, the traditional account of the stock market crash begins, but the fact is that the market had started to wobble months earlier. On the 29th however, a major decline in stock prices occurred, and over the following eight months, the market continued to decline until June of 1930, at that point having lost 89% of its value by some accounts, it hit its nadir. Where we are right now is parallel to October 1929, and the question with regard to the market, and thus to the retirement security of many millions is, where will we be in December, eight months from now...but there's more to the parallel.
The following June in 1930, Hoover signed the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act. The Depression had started with those initial steep declines in stock prices of October 1929 and in an attempt to interdict the fall of our economy, The Senate introduced and Hoover signed the act, which put heavy tariffs on about 20,000 products being manufactured abroad and competing with American industry in that regard. Among those products were some 30% of our exports to Canada, for which Canada retaliated in kind, diminishing those exports in commensurate amounts. Of course, jobs manufacturing those products declined as well. All in all, countries around the world imposed tariffs in amounts comparable to those imposed by Smoot-Hawley and the downward spiral began here and around the world. The Great Depression was afoot, and it lingered over the world for a decade, beginning to abat only when FDR took office and instituted government spending programs to prop up the unemployed and we fought a world war, which ironically probably constituted the economic stimulus that the world needed to begin and sustain the long economic climb out of the hole created by the depression. But that's enough of the history that parallels our future in my opinion.
The question now is, what can we...what will we learn from our past now that it is no longer in the active memory of the vast majority of not just Americans, but the citizens of the entire world. In the thirties, the community of economic experts warned of the dangers of the course prescribed and taken by Hoover, Smoot and Hawley. But did Hoover, the sine qua non for the bill to take effect, listen? Of course not, and nothing has changed. We have a president who thinks that he is smarter than all those who actually do know something about the subject, and his sycophants are cheering him on, which is like a sirens' song for our president, who loves nothing more than praise and obeisance...enough so that he never doubts himself, nor does he listen to the opinions of those who oppose his point of view. The experts today stand no chance of prevailing upon the president to take a lesson from history. He is committed to proving himself a Putin-style international gangster of whom everyone should be afraid. He is motivated by what motivates every bully: power and the proof of it. So the fate he is courting is the fate that we all shall suffer.
You might wonder why I am writing this in the fashion in which I am. I am not the only person who has opined this way, and as of now, it has availed the world of nothing. So I have no illusions about whether I am doing something that will be availing for our society or the world. This is all old news. But I do have a motivation.
Since the election last year, I have been pondering the issue of why 77 million people, incidentally a plurality, not a majority, voted for a man who is very little more than conceit with feet. His flawed (and to use that word in this context is to minimize its meaning) character is open and obvious to anyone who pays attention to what is happening around him. But somewhere deep inside me I've been pining for the opportunity to say this. When the worst happens, don't blame me. I didn't vote for him.
Your friend,
Mike
Leave a comment