There is a lot of concern about our faltering economy. Job loss, the shifting of jobs overseas, stagnant consumer demand and loss of production; these and more have been cited as evidence of our poor economy. Many feel that, given the past four years of the Obama administration, these problems should have been overcome and our economy ought to be comfortably sailing into this decade. But just how long does it take to recover from the worst recession since the Great Depression?
During the Great Depression unemployment topped 25 percent, about double what it was a couple of years ago. Elected in 1932, the Roosevelt administration immediately took strong measures to reverse the effects. However, unemployment was still in double digits through the late 1930s. Slow economic growth and unemployment plagued the nation for all of the late 1930s well into FDR’s second term. It wasn’t until the beginning of the Second World War that the draft and World War II really ended unemployment and the U.S. economy recovered. That was about 12 years after the 1929 crash and ten years after the deepest depths of the Depression and the efforts of FDR.
Deep recessions, such as we have just experienced, appear to be difficult to recover from. Consumer confidence and a return of demand seem to remain stagnant, but there currently are strong signs of recovery.
The auto industry, which Mitt Romney would have let go bankrupt, appears to be well on its way to recovery. According to the figures recently released, new housing construction is coming back.
Last night at the Democratic Convention, former President Bill Clinton asked why we would want to fire President Obama and elect a president who would return us to the same lack of financial enforcement and loose regulation that got us into this mess?
Historically, deep recession recovery appears to take time. There are no quick fixes. The question is one of growing consumer demand, not trickle down economics that during the Bush administration appears to have been no trickle at all. We need to let President Obama continue to direct those policies that help us recover and restore the strength of the middle class.
Steve Wolf
Juneau
Comments (42)
Add commentAnd here is what caused it...
...again, per the WSJ
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000087239639044401750457764568105749826...
"The flashpoint appeared to be the film about the Prophet Muhammad, portions of which in recent days have been circulating on the Internet. Contravening the Islamic prohibition of portraying the prophet, clips from the film show him not only as flesh and blood—but as a homosexual son of undetermined patrimony, who rises to advocate child slavery and extramarital sex, for himself, in the name of religion."
and
"The film's 52-year-old writer, director and producer, Sam Bacile, said that he wanted to showcase his view of Islam as a hateful religion. "Islam is a cancer," he said in a telephone interview from his home. "The movie is a political movie. It's not a religious movie." "
The New York Post on the movie:
"Burn this movie! Based on the 13-minute trailer posted on YouTube, the mysterious anti-Islamic hate "movie" that provoked protests should never have been made — it’s not only the most offensive but the most thoroughly inept piece of "filmmaking"’ I’ve had the misfortune to watch in 30 years of reviewing films ...
On a scale of one to four stars, I’d give it a minus 10. Burn this movie."
http://www.nypost.com/p/news/national/film_worst_piece_of_crap_ever_Wv9K...
@El Boorba
So why target the US Embassy in Cairo?
@grendel
Cause they are nuts? imho opinion it is a result of their newfound political freedom. These whackjobs have been marginalized for so long violence is the only form of social protest they know of. I really wish "their whackjobs" would stop thinking "our whackjobs" represent all of the USA.
I am really bummed about Libya...we actually helped them and they kill our Ambassador and staff? ugh. Reading about Ambassador Stevens and his efforts to support the rebels makes me think this might have been a group of pro-Gadhafi dirtbags taking revenge.
@El Boorba
No, not nuts -- fanatics. It was a terorrist hit in Libya and what the spooks in DC are trying to figure out is what the motive was.
There is always a target audience in a terrorist act, and given the anniversary date, I have to guess target audience was radical islam. Killing the US Ambassador to Libya demonstrates a capability to strike at the US, even if it's somewhat by proxy.
dont worry about invading Iraq!
we will have our hands full here trying to fend off the military from patrolling our own back yards and putting us in detention camps for thinking bad thoughts ... this will be Mr. O's legacy...
Obama may win
But we will all lose...
I do agree with wren's comment that the RNC and the Romney campaign have really turned off A LOT of people because of their suppression of the conservatives and of Ron Paul's campaign. The country will suffer greatly as a result...
Quiet Disgrace....
Even if I was not someone who believes that I have the right to my own body, and that freedom of religion includes freedom from religion, and that all people are entitled to the persuit of happiness - which means getting married even if they are homosexual and some people don't like it - - Even if I didn't believe that our rights as Americans must stand regardless of how a minority of people will abuse those rights, and regardless of the opinions of a narrow religious minority who agree with those rights only when they are being utilized as they see fit - I have a bigger problem with the GOP this year.
Any party in our country who willfully and purposefully seeks to deny the right to vote to American citizens, our most basic and fundamental principal, simply to disenfranchise sections of the population who likely disagree with them - is, in my opinion, committing wholesale treason. I am outraged that there hasn't been more public backlash at the GOP's attempts to "fix" a non-existant problem in carefully selected swing states. To go so far as to suggest that polling places in the city of Columbus should not be allowed weekend or extended hours, but that rural areas in the same district should be allowed weekend and extended hours (you guess which historically voted "R" and "D") - is simply shameful, and I don't get how any American proposing such a thing, with such a clear anti-American purpose, can even look themselves in the mirror, much less ask to represent the entire country.
I have to wonder if our embassy marines in Lybia
were being restricted by the State Department with the same standing orders as in Egypt. No live ammunition!
@kd2
unbelievable. Echoes of Beirut October 23, 1983. 241 Marines and sailors killed in their sleep.
There are no quick fixes -
it is appropriate to keep this thread alive, given the title of the op-piece.
There is a spreading crisis in the ME & North Africa aimed at America, and the targets are the US Missions (our sovereign turf OVER THERE). Enough time and events have transpired to assess the threat. There is enough information to develop courses of action, which our leadership will then choose. This is not a dry run.
Clearly, the situation needs to be defused, and the response needs to be coordinated within the administration -- which requires the direct involvement of the Honcho in charge. So what's it going to be: campaign or lead?
_
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With the hatred and contempt he showed for half the country
in his comments to his rich friends, Mr. Romney showed himself to be morally unworthy for the presidency.
Romney will almost certainly slow down our withdrawal from Afghanistan, and may even reverse it, thus tying us down, Vietnam style, in what will always be an unwinnable and senseless war.
Romney will fight to once again force openly gay people out of the military(even though tens of thousands of them are now out of the closet with no harm done and even though those people have done nothing to deserve being denied the right to serve their country)
Romney will fight to weaken unions(the only protection working people have for their rights.
Romney will fight to cut social services down to virtually nothing, lowering us to the social ugliness and uncontrolled, arrogant greed of the 1920's(all of which led directly to the Great Depression).
Romney will make our air, water, soil and food less survivable by fighting for environmental deregulation.
Romney will fight for a country where the rich are treated as if they are gods who walk the earth, while the rest of us, the vast majority(including everybody who posts in this thread)are treated as scum.
And as governor of Massachusetts, Mitt Romney proved that he doesn't know a thing about creating jobs.
As president, Mitt Romney will not bring the country together, will not work for any higher or positive purpose. He will, instead, serve school-bully-in-chief, falsely dividing us into "Real Americans" and "UnAmericans", a distinction that no one ever had the right to make among American citizens. We all deserve better than that. We deserve a president who believes that all the citizens of this country have as much right to be here and as much right to be heard as anyone else does.
As a grandfather, as a worker, as a 30-year resident of this community, I ask the people of Alaska to do what is right and re-elect Barack Obama this November. Let's be part of the future, not the past.
Ronald Reagan created a monster by courting the Religious Right
Over the last few decades, Reagan's GOP has morphed into God's Own Party.
This a Party who's platform is sympathetic to a group mindset that is both anti-science and pro-religious bias in American law.
Reagan simply would not recognize the Republican Party of today. A presidential loss this election cycle could be a much needed wake-up call for the Party to start reconsidering some of its own positions.
Mike