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Other ways they were better off in the Great Depression than we are is that in those days you only needed one income to support a family. So if the breadwinner lost his job, the spouse was available to help make ends meet by taking in laundry or doing work on the side.
Maybe food was too expensive but if you grew your own at least you could do it in clean soil and clean water and you had clean air to breathe as the food supply wasn't tainted like ours is. Now the fallout from Fukishima has affected every part of the 48 contiguous states. Also Correxit from the BP oil spill did a great job poisoning ocean life not to mention polluting the air with Benzene. If these accidents weren't bad enough we have DELIBERATE spraying of Chemtrails; DELIBERATE poisoning of the water supply with Fluoride and other toxins.
If that isn't enough , they want to mess up our nervous systems with flicker rates in electricity and electromagnetic fields.
The so called "Green" energy efficient (squiggly) light bulbs are loaded with mercury. They give off a toxic fume and if they break you practically have to call a HAZMAT team in to clean them up. YET THE GOVERNMENT is not allowing the production of incandescent light bulbs (except in South Carolina) after this year. It is a hundred times worse than the "GReat Depression" if you think about these things.
With "friends" like our own government who "care" about us, who needs enemies?
And we deserve it, because Americans refuse to wake up, unfortunately. We deserve EVERYTHING we're going to get because the average American is only concerned about abortion and gay issues, and what episode of Jersey Shore is on and who won "the game" last night
No doubt. These stupid, inconsequential issues dominate the spectrum. People need to wake up to the real problems plaguing modern day America. In the long-term, it doesn't matter who won [insert reality show].
Here is a article saying that households are getting more in gvt handouts then they are paying in taxes. The first line I find a little shaky since they did not back it up with any data or info.
Quote:
U.S. households are now getting more in cash handouts from the government than they are paying in taxes for the first time since the Great Depression.
But they do have some eye opening stats backed by the census :
Quote:
Households received $2.3 trillion in some kind of government support in 2010. That includes expanded unemployment benefits, as well as [COLOR=blue !important][COLOR=blue !important]payments[/color][/color] for Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and stimulus spending, among other things.
Also, an estimated 59% of the 308.7 million Americans in this country get at least one federal benefit, according to the Census Bureau, based on 2009 data. An estimated 46.5 million get Social Security; 42.6 million get Medicare; 42.4 million get Medicaid; 36.1 million get food stamps; 12.4 million get housing subsidies; and 3.2 million get Veterans' benefits.
Also remember that in 1929-30 when the Stock Market crashed, the narcissism and materialism that defined the Roaring '20s ended and people became more humbled. However, the same narcissism, materialism, and me-me-me attitude that dominated the 2000s decade is as strong as ever. There's one reason why the Great Depression was better than the time we're living in now.
Very true. It doesn't help that the government keeps pressing to buy buy buy which feeds it. Sure we are cursed with an economy which is based on us buying stuff we think we really need but what it feeds is the "things" culture.
Ask someone who has been there in this world. Say somoene who has been homeless and lives on something way below "average" now. Or disability. You learn quick. Pay the bills. Do a shopping for food for the month. see whats left for the non necessities. I doubt I'm the only person who had to learn to question each purchase. Yeah, I get toys but have to wait for them or get presents from family. And when I buy, its judged on what need there is. If its getting a bigger and better one, no.
Problem is, we've screwed ourselves where to keep the economy afloat we need sales of the kind of things we should be waiting on or saving up for or just plain not getting in the first place. Thus, the cure will just recreate the problem.
Oh, yes, it was way better then. People trying to make a living selling apples. People putting their kids on "orphan trains" and literally farming them out to the midwest b/c they couldn't take care of them, shantytowns, yes, all that was much better than the way things are now. How could I have ever thought otherwise?
Other ways they were better off in the Great Depression...
At the height of the Great Depression the official unemployment rate was 24.9%
The suicide rate in 1920-28 12.1; 1929 the suicide rate rose to 18.1.
"One woman said she borrowed 50 cents from a friend and bought stale bread for 3 and a half cents per loaf, and that is all they had for eleven days except for one or two meals....One woman went along the docks and picked up vegetables that fell from the wagons. Sometimes the fish vendors gave her fish at the end of the day. On two different occasions this family was without food for a day and a half....Another family did not have food for two days. Then the husband went out and gathered dandelions and the family lived on them."
Between 1929 and 1941, 4,000,000 Americans desperate for food and lodging roamed the land. Of this number, 250,000 were teenagers who rode the rails and grew up fast in speeding boxcars, living in hobo jungles, begging on the streets and running from the police and club-wielding railroad guards.
How many girls rode with the army of boys on the loose was difficult to determine because the majority traveled in disguise for their safety. One estimate put the number of transient females at one in ten or 25,000.
Some traveled with young children, as happened with Harold Kolima's mother, who had three boys, ages five, seven and nine when she rode the rails. Harold, the youngest, recalled a haunting scene: "My mom, three little boys, with bed rolls and a large suitcase, and a puppy dog tagging along, walking through the railyards at Omaha, Nebraska. Looking for a freight headed west."
For four years, the family lived a "Grapes of Wrath" existence in hobo jungles and harvest camps, taking boxcars from Nebraska to follow the harvests in California.
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