Depression of 2009
2009depression.com
2009depression.com
"They are usually math experts and they say math can predict the future so, if that’s true, why didn’t they see this coming?"
Most of the finance people who didn't see this coming were either simply bad at math, or distorted the math so heavily to fit their preconceived notions of what the world was like that it no longer made any sense. The people who do know the most math- Renaissance Technologies, led by former math professor Jim Simons- were up 80% during 2008 (http://seekingalpha.com/article/138283-barron-s-top-100-rank...).
"Also, income inequality, measured by the ratio of the top 10% of wage earners compared to the bottom 90%, increased dramatically during both presidential terms. The ratio increased from 7.1% in 1928 to 7.8% in 1932 under Hoover, and from 6.8% in 2001 to an outrageous 7.9% in 2006 under Bush, the year the Center For American Progress study was conducted."
I presume what he means here is that the richest 10% now have an average income which is 7.9 times higher than that of the bottom 90%; using "percent" in this context makes no sense at all.
"Further, Both Bush and Hoover took steps to either deport and/or restrict Mexicans from immigrating to America, which is a key signal I will discuss in detail."
Wait... what? I don't know enough about Hoover to say, but there hasn't been any significant change in US immigration policy under Bush, and in any case, Mexican immigrants are a small percentage of the American economy (maybe 5%?).
"Finally, both Bush and Hoover took steps to inhibit certain forms of new energy – Hoover passed prohibition, which eliminated ethanol, and Bush refused to pass any bills that promoted renewable energy."
Prohibition was passed during 1919, a full nine years before Hoover became president; at the time, Hoover was preoccupied with keeping the Russians from starving after the Bolshevik revolution.
"Some examples of things that can’t be easily counted that can indicate that a major recession or depression is looming are lawsuits filed by established companies that seek to block competition or progress (RIAA, AP)"
Companies have always done that, during good times and bad, dating back to Standard Oil and their monopoly over the refining business.
"U.S. citizens complaining about Mexican immigrants taking their jobs, "
Again, US citizens have always done that; see http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/gate/archive... for a humorous take on this.
"In the US, every 40 to 80 years a Civic Generation (or “Joshua Generation”) appears that looks to re-energize social, political, and government institutions to solve neglected national issues, usually by dramatically expanding government."
This is a very far-reaching claim with absolutely no evidence.
"As a result, when we have an election with a large, deep, and stressing fracture between the two parties, you will see a pause or decline in business and the stock market, as people wait to see if the country is taking a step toward progress, or a step back toward the Idealist status quo."
The previous presidential election (2004) was extremely divisive, yet the stock market and business went up for the next three years.
"With all pre-Boomers retired, corporations lost a lot of supervisors, managers, and directors, or those in power positions."
Generations don't work like that; they're continuous, not discrete. There's no large group of people who all retire at the same time; the generation before the Baby Boomers was unusually small (http://www.seanet.com/~jimxc/Politics/Pictures/Fertility1.jp...), so if anything it should be the opposite.
"When combined with Generation X, they will own 70%+ of the workforce, so their 70% take of the available income, which drives the economy, will dictate what products, brands, businesses, and industries will be viable."
The Baby Boomers do a disproportionate amount of spending in this country, and are heavily entrenched into the power structure by virtue of their large numbers; see http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/personalfinance/2919408/B... and http://www.nuwireinvestor.com/blogs/commoncensus/2008/03/ame....
What do you suppose we can do about that, now? How do you fight corruption of this sort on a site like this? Do we need basic research and reasoning skills tests for users?
I'm serious. What can we do we do to save Hacker News?
Your last point kind of illustrates you have no clue what you are talking about.
If boomers are such great spenders, I can assume you think they have the most buying power? Then we shouldn't see any decline in the things they buy such as newspapers, all those old brands of cars,....
Again if you actually read the entire article I address and argue a lot of your points backed with data.
I guess time only tell who is correct.
Yes, I am sticking my neck out on this. Feel free to come chop it off in 3 years if we don't hit a depression, if my predictions don't come true, and if my estimates in the chart don't come true.
At that time I will be happy to tuck my tail between my legs and you can throw pie in my face.
I wrote about what is happening now in 2006, new president with new movement, redistribution of wealth coming, and old media going away. (www.flairjax.com) you will have to search for it.
Again, I suggest stop skimming and read the entire thing.
Let me break it down for you since you like bullet points.
I will talk slowly...
Hoover deported Mexicans. Bush would have but they didn't want to lose the election so he built a fence (billions in $) so it is a major step up from Americans just complaining about Mexicans. See my comment above should have been 'upheld' prohibition not 'passed' my bad. Yes, generations are continuous, but those in power and those industries created and run by Idealist Generations, such as railroad owners, newspaper owners, etc don't have all the power and money. Why do think blogs are struggling? When newspapers die blog will take their place and skyrocket. Just as the automobile did against the railroad.
Maybe if you slowed down you might actually learn something. Your opinions aren't facts. Yes, I have my opinions, but they are supported by data. Where is your data?
So all these numbers are just one big coincidence?
Come chop my neck in three years if I am wrong its sticking out on this one. Go ahead mark your calendar!
- None of the stuff you mention is specific enough to constitute a prediction. If Bloomberg had won in 2008, would you be talking about how this represented a "new movement"? What about Huckabee? Edwards?
- Hoover did not have the constitutional authority to end Prohibition; the 18th Amendment could only have been repealed by another amendment, with the consent of two-thirds of both houses of Congress and three-fourths of the states, as indeed happened in 1933 with the 21st Amendment.
- Blogs are not struggling; they are growing exponentially (http://econsultancy.com/blog/092-surge-in-blog-statistics-as...).
- What numbers? The only numbers in your comment are "3" and "2006".
It's all about high quality links these days.
Although, none of the on site stuff matters anymore without incoming links. Get the links and the on-site SEO right (high content/code ratio, keyword rich copy that still reads well, shallow website architecture, human-readable URLs and proper use of <h> tags) and watch out!
Having said all that, I'm not sure how well this reads, and yes 2009recession.com is a little over-optimized to my eyes, but I'm hardly unbiased since I'm an seo/sem. What else are they going to call it, though? How would you brand a recession analysis website? 2009recession.com pretty much nails it.
That PDF is some killer link-bait, though. A lot of time and research went into that. These are just first impressions, I only looked at it for a minute or two before clicking "back." (I must admit I'm here for the community much more than the content, sometimes.)
Actually, was invited to Ycombinator a couple of years ago was the last group to cut.
So again just a developer no tricks up my sleeve.
www.flairjax.com
Nice try - it needs some work before it is an essay. I think I would agree with the conclusion, but there is way too much rambling, anecdotal evidence, and personalization - and you sound like you can't contain yourself at some points, which makes it sound on the whole unprofessional. Also, give us a summary in the introduction - we don't want to read it all as it is way too long for its own good.
Yes, I am sticking my neck out. Lets wait 2 or 3 years then we will see....
And no I didn't think about SEO I am a Flex/Flash developer and do not know the first thing about SEO.
My blog is at www.flairjax.com
Again, try to see past my horrible writing skills and see if you can understand the message or information.
Depends on the school of economists. Austrian economics is all about that kind of stuff; the Law and Economics school (surely the most entertaining -- you do realize that selling children ought to be legal, right?) also does; the heterodox lefty types tend to talk about that kind of thing when discussing why cash incentives don't always work and how income inequality kills.
So maybe jgervin should listen to some other economists.
I suspect this would be more persuasive to skeptical readers if you moderate the tone. Avoid terms like "outrageous" and "orgy of oil consumption". I would prefer it to be just facts - facts I can check by following hyperlinks!
Also, put your email address on there somewhere, or some other way for people to contact you (other than direct messages via your Twitter account). Many people will have suggestions, from spelling mistakes (like "different generations that grow and dye" should be "different generations that grow and dye") to factual and logical criticisms.
Now it's time to work off the debt the baby boomers have been building up for the past 30 years...
Also, income inequality, measured by the ratio of the top 10% of wage earners compared to the bottom 90%, increased dramatically during both presidential terms. The ratio increased from 7.1% in 1928 to 7.8% in 1932 under Hoover, and from 6.8% in 2001 to an outrageous 7.9% in 2006 under Bush, the year the Center For American Progress study was conducted.
I don't understand the numbers. Surely the ratio between the top 10% of wage earners and the bottom 90% is always 1:9? I get that it must be a measure of the different amount of income earned by each group, but I can't think of what the number might be measuring.
You need it to be "Also, income inequality, measured by the ratio of the average income of the top 10% of wage earners compared to the bottom 90%"
But the linked article doesn't make sense either, or maybe I'm just not getting it. It put it this way: "Under President Hoover, income inequality, as measured by the ratio of the average income of the top 10 percent compared to the average income of the bottom 90 percent, rose from 7.1 percent in 1929 to 7.8 percent in 1932."
Ratios are when you compare two quantities, like 1:9. Percentages are fractions of a whole. So it's strange to express a ratio as a percentage. The obvious interpretation is to say that a ratio of 7% means a ratio of 7:93. But I don't think that's what they're saying, because in the same paragraph they say:
"These periods of high-income inequality sharply contrast the period 1942–1987, when the ratio of top incomes to the incomes of most Americans never exceeded five."
Which would imply a percentage of 17%, if we're using this strange ratio/percentage conversion. That is: 17:73, i.e. 1:5. But they seem to think that higher is worse, so that can't be it.
Maybe they never meant to put percentage symbols in there, and they just meant that the average income of the top 10% is 7.9 times higher than the bottom 90%. If that's the case, I would distrust that source if I were you. That's a basic error.
These are the numbers they gave in the article:
Average income for top 10% in 1929: $76,625
Average income for bottom 90% in 1929: $10,847
$76,625 is $10,847 times 7.1.
Average income for top 10% in 1932: $52,026
Average income for bottom 90% in 1932: $6,688
$52,026 is $6,688 times 7.8.
They wrote: "Under President Hoover, income inequality, as measured by the ratio of the average income of the top 10 percent compared to the average income of the bottom 90 percent, rose from 7.1 percent in 1929 to 7.8 percent in 1932."
They meant: "Under President Hoover, income inequality, as measured by the ratio of the average income of the top 10 percent compared to the average income of the bottom 90 percent, rose from 7.1 in 1929 to 7.8 in 1932."
This confusion of ratios and percentage makes me doubt the competence of the authors.
I suggest you alter your wording to fix the ratio/percentage confusion. You should probably also check any other figures you used from that article.
Also, that article doesn't seem to describe a study. Are you sure your terminology is correct? You might want to call it an article rather than a study. I'm confused about what you meant by "the year the study was conducted". You might be talking about a paper by Saez, Emmanuel and Thomas Piketty, which was referenced by the article?
Somebody needs to read a history book...
Also show me a bill passed by the Bush administration that gave more subsidies to renewable energy than to big oil?
That's mainly what I was complaining about.