The Third Depression
Posted in Main Blog (All Posts) on June 28th, 2010 4:43 am by HL
The Third Depression
Paul Krugman: “Recessions are common; depressions are rare. As far as I can tell, there were only two eras in economic history that were widely described as ‘depressions’ at the time: the years of deflation and instability that followed the Panic of 1873 and the years of mass unemployment that followed the financial crisis of 1929-31.”
“Neither the Long Depression of the 19th century nor the Great Depression of the 20th was an era of nonstop decline — on the contrary, both included periods when the economy grew. But these episodes of improvement were never enough to undo the damage from the initial slump, and were followed by relapses.”
“We are now, I fear, in the early stages of a third depression. It will probably look more like the Long Depression than the much more severe Great Depression. But the cost — to the world economy and, above all, to the millions of lives blighted by the absence of jobs — will nonetheless be immense.”
Republicans Struggle to Find Ways to Attack Kagan
“For weeks leading up to the start of Elena Kagan’s Senate confirmation hearings Monday, Republicans have struggled to find a compelling line of attack to take against the Supreme Court nominee,” the Washington Post notes. “But their efforts to wield an effective cudgel against President Obama’s second nomination to the country’s highest court have largely failed.”
“In part, participants say, that is precisely because it has been overshadowed by a flood of other events that have consumed Congress and kept Republicans from mounting a more muscular front against her. But it is also a measure of how skilled operatives have become at managing the process — and choosing nominees who are notable in part for their political blandness.”
Corruption Suspected in Airlift of Billions in Cash
“More than $3 billion in cash has been openly flown out of Kabul International Airport in the past three years, a sum so large that U.S. investigators believe top Afghan officials and their associates are sending billions of diverted U.S. aid and logistics dollars and drug money to financial safe havens abroad,” the Wall Street Journal reports.
“The cash — packed into suitcases, piled onto pallets and loaded into airplanes — is declared and legal to move. But U.S. and Afghan officials say they are targeting the flows in major anticorruption and drug trafficking investigations because of their size relative to Afghanistan’s small economy and the murkiness of their origins.”
