Speaking of the Junior League … it may well be the downturn in shopping by consumers whose ears are bleeding from the din of credit card creditors calling night and day that turns what is now termed a “steep recession” into something that everyone can recognize for what it is, which would be a great damned depression slavering down on us. Junior Leaguers could be our salvation, since they’re generally well heeled with a fair amount of disposable time.
Lots of people are throwing around comparisons to the Great Depression, as in “the most serious downturn since” it. That says a lot about how well the government has done at managing the economy since World War II even faced as it is with free market zealots, who the last thing they want are actual free markets, and their pet politicians. The most common reason that people keep bringing up the Great Depression is to sell things like the Great Bailout, which will, as we have repeatedly said, be a whole lot greater than the paltry $.75 trillion that just passed ($3.5 trillion is about right.)
But even the mother of all bailouts, and its mother, will not keep us out of a Great Depression if you, dear sap, quit shopping. When George Bush told everyone to go shopping after 911, he knew what he was doing, or whoever told him to say it knew what they were doing. It was the failure of consumers to keep shopping until their ears bled that pitched the 1930′s depression from “pretty damn good” to “Great.” They didn’t want to borrow money because it began to look as though jobs could become scarce, which of course they did, so not shopping was a pretty good move on the one hand, but one that strangled a bunch of businesses and banks that were already gasping, on the other.
We don’t want to see that, so the imperative is to keep people like you out and about, or online, with your credit cards in hand and a look of grim purpose on your face. You’re not going to spend as much on credit if banks make credit less accessible, so that’s why in addition to buying a bunch of material goods you don’t need, you’re also buying a bunch of banks and insurance companies you don’t need; you’re giving them a whole bunch of money so that they can lend it back to you so that you can spend it and prop up the economy. It’s the free market, baby! Free to everyone but you, anyway.
And you’re getting a lot for your money with these banks and other owners of “distressed financial instruments”: they come pre-owned, broken and without warranties of any kind except the one that says you have to keep shoveling money at them. Lucky you! Instead of a nest egg, you’re stuck with a whole flock of those birds that push your eggs out and replace them with theirs and somehow you wind up feeding them because you don’t know any better.
It’s somewhat unfortunate that shoppers come in all shapes and sizes and political bents, because a national shoppers’ strike on behalf of a particular policy would be a sure thing at the moment. While it’s unlikely that enough shoppers could be rallied behind, say, single-payer universal national health coverage to push it through, perhaps a strike on behalf of inchoate rage would yet be worthwhile.
Mostly though, Americans should remember that if a depression does arrive, it’s up to us to make it great: no second-rate efforts here, thank you very much.
