No one is even discussing the cap and trade program. It's going to be 6-7% of our GDP in new taxes going straight to the government by the end of Obama's term. And this tax is extremely regressive, causing higher utility/energy costs across the board. All in the name of "saving the environment". These people either just don't get it or have other objectives they do not wish to openly share (it's the later). It's the marginal benefit/cost of each unit of pollution that MUST be analyzed, net zero pollution is not possible and idiotic. Every decent resource analyst/environmental economist knows this. This is fact. Imagine what sort of technology and growth could come out of 7% of GDP over a 5-10 year period. I cannot comprehend why this administration is seemingly trying to gut this economy. They are TRYING to get us to repeat the Great Depression.
This is off wiki about the great depression. How familiar does this sound?
"The deflation spiral
US Farm Prices, (1928-35).
The Great Depression was triggered by a sudden, total collapse in the stock market. The stock market turned upward in early 1930, returning to early 1929 levels by April, though still almost 30 percent below the peak of September 1929.[10] Together, government and business actually spent more in the first half of 1930 than in the corresponding period of the previous year. But consumers, many of whom had suffered severe losses in the stock market the previous year, cut back their expenditures by ten percent, and a severe drought ravaged the agricultural heartland of the USA beginning in the summer of 1930.
In early 1930, credit was ample and available at low rates, but people were reluctant to add new debt by borrowing. By May 1930, auto sales had declined to below the levels of 1928. Prices in general began to decline, but wages held steady in 1930, then began to drop in 1931. Conditions were worse in farming areas, where commodity prices plunged, and in mining and logging areas, where unemployment was high and there were few other jobs. The decline in the US economy was the factor that pulled down most other countries at first, then internal weaknesses or strengths in each country made conditions worse or better. Frantic attempts to shore up the economies of individual nations through protectionist policies, such as the 1930 U.S. Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act and retaliatory tariffs in other countries, exacerbated the collapse in global trade. By late in 1930, a steady decline set in which reached bottom by March 1933."
All that needs to be done now is raising taxes on the only consumers left with any buying power (whoops never mind, already did that last week) and to start Smoot-Hawley #2 (whoops, already doing that with autos and it'll get worse). Time to hoard money.
Add this to it and it becomes pretty eerie
When: 1926
Where: Florida
The amount the market declined from peak to bottom: Land that could be bought for $800,000 could, within a year, be resold for $4 million before crashing back down to pre-boom levels. The prices were so inflated that to buy a condo-style property in 1926, you would've had to pay the same as you would now have to pay for a luxury home in the guard-gated communities in Miami ($4,500,000) - without adjusting for inflation!
Synopsis: In the 1920s, the United States of America was chugging along like the British Empire of the 1700s, and it was only natural that people were beginning to believe such prosperity was infinite. But it wasn't the stock market that was the recipient of a bubble. It was the real estate market.
In 1920, Florida became the popular U.S. destination/residence for people who don't like the cold. The population was growing steadily and housing couldn't match the demand, causing prices to double and triple in some cases, which was not exactly unjustified at this point. But, news of anything doubling and tripling in price always attracts speculators. So, once people began pumping huge amounts of money into the real estate market it took off. Soon everyone in Florida was either a real estate investor or a real estate agent.
Unfortunately, the rules are the same whether you pay too much for a stock or for a piece of land: you have to make that much more to claim a profit. This did happen for awhile, and land prices quadrupled in less than a year. Eventually, however, there were no "greater fools" to buy the disgustingly overpriced land, and prices began to adjust ever so subtly. Speculators realized there was a limit to the boom, and began to sell their properties to solidify their profits while they could.
Then everybody simultaneously saw the writing on the wall, and panic selling ensued. With thousands of sellers and very few buyers, prices came down with a sickening thud, twitched a bit, and then crawled down even lower.
Then right after that
When: October 21, 24 and 29, 1929
Where: USA
The amount the market declined from peak to bottom: A string of terrible days led to a more than 40% drop in the market from the beginning of September 1929 to the end of October 1929. In fact, the market continued to decline until July 1932 when it bottomed out, down nearly 90% from its 1929 highs.
Synopsis: Despite the Florida crash, Americans were as bullish as ever. The stock market was guaranteed to make everyone rich as the first world war had been won, and industrialization was resulting in previously-unimaginable luxuries. It was a good time to be American.
Since the stock market was believed to be a no-risk, no-brain world where everything went up, many people poured all their savings into it without learning about the system or the underlying companies. With the flood of uneducated investors, the market was ripe for some manipulation and swindling. Investment bankers, brokers, traders, and sometimes owners banded together to manipulate stock prices and get out with gains. They did this by subtly acquiring large chunks of stock between them and trading them between each other for slightly more each time. When the public noticed the progression of price on the ticker tape, everyone would buy the stock. So, the market manipulators would then sell off their overpriced shares for a healthy profit. On and on the cycle went as uneducated investors turned a profit by selling the manipulated, over-priced shares to someone who wanted to have a rising stock.
Behavioral finance shows that the less an investor knows, the easier it is for him or her to be swept up in popular opinion (herd mentality). This behavior is a double-edged sword because the ignorant investors are also easily spooked into panic. Both actions, joining and fleeing, have very little basis in the quality of the news or the quality of the market. Instead, the herd follows the cow that runs the fastest, trampling the market.
During the craze before the Great Depression a number of academics, including Roger Babson, were predicting a crash if things didn't “calm the hell down.” Sadly, for every Roger Babson, there were four bull-blinded academics guaranteeing the eternal rapid growth of the American stock market. Although Babson had been predicting the crash for years, the capricious and ignorant investors finally listened. The twelve-year worldwide depression came and ended only with the declaration of war. This stands as the worst financial blow to the USA ever. The crash itself, though large in its own right, was nothing compared to the ensuing graveyard market and devastating depression.
