The Second Great Depression - Has it Come?

Migrant Mother shot by
Dorothea Lange

Does March 16, 2020 - the day that nearly all restaurants and cafes closed in Los Angeles - mark the end of the Age of the Baby Boomers? In response to the coronavirus epidemic, across the globe - governments have imposed executive orders - which prevent us from assembling together. Although politicians are telling us that this is so that we can quarantine the coronavirus epidemic, I wonder if there's an ulterior motive. Are the bonds of community being disintegrated? Can it be that soon governments will announce that they run out of our money and that really we're in a Second Great Depression? If so, the last reaction these thieves of state want from us is a revolt to hold them accountable. Bog Iger, Bill Gates and other executives have already stepped down and abandoned ship. Doesn't it remind you of how Ken Lay resigned in Enron right before the whole scandal was exposed? If you don't remember, Ken Lay cashed in on all his stocks before handing the mess to his successor. Employees lost their pensions and shareholders lost everything.

It looks like the season is ripe for a day of reconciliation of the books. For years - governments and corporations have known that the successor generations (Gen. X, Millennials, and Z'ers) couldn't sustain the promises of their pension and healthcare. Take for instance an expose that LA Times did on El Monte's retiree - who have it better off than when they worked. According to it, "The retired city manager of El Monte collects more than $216,000 a year, plus cost-of-living increases and fully paid health insurance. 'It’s giving me an opportunity to do a number of things I didn’t get to do when I was younger, like travel to Europe, take some things off my bucket list,' Mussenden, 66, said recently."

And why should we the public help a retired city manager fulfill his Peter Pan Freudian unfulfilled childhood fantasies?

So, public officials kept giving themselves bigger and bigger raises for themselves and their friends. They took out bigger loans on behalf of the people (but never personally of course), and told themselves - It'll be someone else's problem.

But now, the Ponzi scheme is coming to an end. The pigs could feed at the trough as long as the successive populations were larger than the previous one. But that's no longer true. And as Peter Drucker, the Godfather of business science pointed out, every government and corporation knows that it should adjust its business to a changing demographic. But it doesn't do so.

So - the thieves of state - have to figure out ways to keep the whole Ponzi scheme afloat. Stealing from employees' pension is a good one, promising to invest it but never doing so. Burdening and oppressing the undocumented and stealing from them was another one. Raising taxes is another one. But it's like taking out a loan to cover the interest on a credit card loan. You can do it for awhile, but that comes to an end too.

And all the while, we're kept distracted by the old Roman Empire strategy of bread and circus. Actually, it was President Nixon who wanted obese Americans by increasing corn and sugar production. Circus means entertainment. As long as the masses have entertainment - they can be distracted. But over the years, has anyone been paying attention that Super Bowl ratings have been dropping?

I'm wondering (can't be 100% certain), whether the jig is up. Our economy has been running on borrowed time and money for awhile now and infinite growth is no longer possible. And this "pandemic" (which I'm not saying isn't a real issue) is also being used for crowd control. (I wrote two papers on the coronavirus. The first one argues that corona suppresses the immune system. The second argues that the viral immunity is CD4 driven. Nature has recently published an infected patient's data, which suggest that both these theories are correct.)

As Shakespeare wrote in Julius Cesar, the government's strategy to control us - "Cry 'Havoc!' and let slip the dogs of war." George Orwell, Alexander Solzhenitsyn and the Bible all warn that to control us - governments have to keep us in a constant state of panic - usually by war against nations. During peace time, the U.S. has been at undeclared wars with Russia, Iran, and North Korea. Then came the War on Terror. Now the war has become the war on the invisible enemy: Coronavirus. Then the government will come out looking like the heroes, as it has the solution that comes out of nowhere.

(C) Martin Armstrong

One of my sources estimates that 61% of us are on government subsidies of some form. According to economist Martin Armstrong - 33% of our economy is made up of government workers. Armstrong argues that from 1900 to 1980 - there's been a huge shift that's reduced those in the agricultural workforce, which has been primarily shifted to service and government industries.

Likewise - we're in another labor sector shift. I believe we're going to see a downsizing of government. No more incompetent buddy deals and leaches parasitizing on taxpayers, just because they're the best friend of a politician. I'm fairly certain there will be a transition, and that we in fact are making those shifts now.

Although economists disagree over the cause of the Great Depression, it appears to me pretty obvious what it is. Fraud caused the Great Depression, the 2008-Foreclosure Gate, and it'll be identified as the reason that caused the Millennial Depression.

And sadly, these great fraudsters of this world will have enough money to escape justice. Why are we always taught in school that crime doesn't pay, when it clearly does?

No one can predict the future accurately all the time. But the post-coronavirus world will emerge radically different than the Baby Boomer run one. My generation will be left with the burden of paying for the debt created by the last one. That's all history is. One generation cleaning up the mess of the last one.

As T.H. White asked: “When shall I be dead and rid. Of all the wrong my father did? How long, how long 'till spade and hearse. Put to sleep my mother's curse?”