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Old 06-08-2011, 04:14 PM
 
Location: Denver metro
1,225 posts, read 3,220,633 times
Reputation: 2301

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Quote:
Originally Posted by chiroptera View Post
It's not that bad...at least not as bad as it was in the 1930s, not nearly.

People aren't starving. For4 the most part, even very poor people today have phones, government cell phones, televisions, plenty of food to eat, water, power, rent assistance, Bridge card food and pop money, etc.


In the 1930s some people were literally starving.
Nowadays, some people think they are disadvantaged because they don't have government-supplied cell phones, free housing and enough Bridge card (food stamp) money to keep them in meat and pop all month long.

I work with this population, I am not making it up.
Thank you! Have Americans truly become so spoiled that we think that having to do without a few luxuries qualifies us as being in a depression? I know that some people have been hit very hard by the economy, but the vast majority of us are surviving and have food on the table to eat. Things would have to get ALOT worse before I would think of this as a depression.

I would say that today's economy is much more comparable to the economy of the late 1970's/early 1980's than the 1930's.
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Old 06-08-2011, 05:48 PM
 
4,709 posts, read 12,636,819 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by MaseMan View Post
Very good post. If people want to live in fear, they can do that. I'd rather be optimistic and keep living my life.

Heck, even the real Great Depression wasn't as horrible as some people today seem to think it was, in some regards. I remember my grandfather saying, "Yes, times were tough...but we still worked and we still ate well. We made stuff last and we did without some things. But we still did all right."

People nowadays make the Depression out to be some sort of apocalyptic event that nearly destroyed the entire world. Americans need to get over it and get on with their lives, in some respects. Ignore the crap on TV that is just designed to play on base emotions.

Your grandparents were fortunate to eat well during the Great Depression....so were mine.

But apparently there was real hunger. The Federal school lunch program came about in response to the shocking malnutrition among many World War II recruits. Often severe enough to fail their induction physicals.
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Old 06-08-2011, 05:58 PM
 
8,263 posts, read 12,166,827 times
Reputation: 4800
Quote:
Originally Posted by MaseMan View Post
If people want to live in fear, they can do that. I'd rather be optimistic and keep living my life.
Some live in fear, some live for constantly posting things trying to create fear in others.

I don't understand either, but there is probably a psych thesis waiting to happen on the second one.
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Old 06-08-2011, 05:59 PM
 
8,263 posts, read 12,166,827 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by car54 View Post
But apparently there was real hunger.
That is the impression I get too... hell after reading Grapes of Wrath or listening to Woodie Guthrie I feel lucky going to the fridge to eat a freakin orange.
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Old 06-08-2011, 07:45 PM
 
15,442 posts, read 21,268,037 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by car54 View Post
But apparently there was real hunger. The Federal school lunch program came about in response to the shocking malnutrition among many World War II recruits. Often severe enough to fail their induction physicals.
You bet there was. My mother-in-law in Texas got the only food for her family by walking down the local vegetable house and pulling culled and rotten potatoes and lettuce from the factory's water outflow. There was a lot of hunger during the depression because money became unavailable. According to my father-in-law who was on a farm, the people on the family farms felt the impact of the crash the least.

My dad was 20 years old when the stock market crashed in 1929. He was so shaken from the Great Depression that he spent the next 60 years of his life waiting for the next big one. Consequently, he never owned anything substantial because he refused to have credit. The Depression was significant and it still affects America.

With the size of the economy and population now, if the economy does crash all over, things will be much different than the '30s. A new crash will make the Great Depression look like a party.
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Old 06-08-2011, 07:51 PM
 
5,546 posts, read 9,975,273 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by MaseMan View Post
Very good post. If people want to live in fear, they can do that. I'd rather be optimistic and keep living my life.

Heck, even the real Great Depression wasn't as horrible as some people today seem to think it was, in some regards. I remember my grandfather saying, "Yes, times were tough...but we still worked and we still ate well. We made stuff last and we did without some things. But we still did all right."

People nowadays make the Depression out to be some sort of apocalyptic event that nearly destroyed the entire world. Americans need to get over it and get on with their lives, in some respects. Ignore the crap on TV that is just designed to play on base emotions.
My 89 year old mother would disagree with you.
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Old 06-08-2011, 07:54 PM
 
15,442 posts, read 21,268,037 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by mistygrl092 View Post
My 89 year old mother would disagree with you.
As would my parents, God rest their souls.
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Old 06-08-2011, 08:14 PM
 
5,546 posts, read 9,975,273 times
Reputation: 2799
Quote:
Originally Posted by High_Plains_Retired View Post
As would my parents, God rest their souls.
I get the impression that a lot of people saying it wasn't "that bad" are not the offspring of depression era parents. I am. I was raised with the same mindset as my parents. I've heard the stories first hand and from my parents who went through it.
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Old 06-08-2011, 08:26 PM
 
5,730 posts, read 10,099,206 times
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YouTube - ‪Great Depression Cooking‬‏


My Grandparrents discuss it.

It's not something any of us would want to live through.

After I came back from Iraq my Grandfather (For the first time in his life) started talking about WW2. (I saw a few things over there... we actually had been sitting in silence for about an hour and he just started talking and didn't stop)

It lead to other conversations...

Thought the link might be interesting.

I've watched several of the videos, but not lately...
I should gocheck...
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Old 06-08-2011, 08:34 PM
 
15,442 posts, read 21,268,037 times
Reputation: 28680
Quote:
Originally Posted by mistygrl092 View Post
I get the impression that a lot of people saying it wasn't "that bad" are not the offspring of depression era parents. I am. I was raised with the same mindset as my parents. I've heard the stories first hand and from my parents who went through it.
I guess some folks escaped some of the worse parts of the Great Depression. My parents, and my in-laws, were hit extremely hard in Texas. It greatly affected not only their lives but the lives of their children.

For my family's sake, I try to be optimistic as to what the future holds because I truly believe we can only imagine what a worldwide economic crash would be really like. Maybe the economy will eventually get rolling soon and we can all stop talking doom, gloom and depression?
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