In Regard to Recessions

There have been 33 recessions since 1854, long before the Great Depression. Some of them were severe, some were short and corrected themselves without putting too much pressure on people. When Andrew Jackson was President, he disliked the Second Bank, also known as Biddle’s Bank. His aim was to pay off the national debt, which he did manage to do. It is, in fact, the only time the USA has ever been able to say “we don’t owe nuttin’ to nobody.”

“The 1830s were a tumultuous decade for America. The attempt by the Second Bank of the United States for an early recharter was passed by Congress in July 1832, but the bill was vetoed shortly thereafter by President Andrew Jackson. The hopes of the bank’s supporters to turn the veto in a winning campaign issue in that fall’s presidential campaign failed dismally. In 1833, Jackson retaliated against the bank by removing federal government deposits and placing them in “pet” state banks. As federal revenue from land sales soared, Jackson saw the opportunity to fulfill his dream of paying off the national debt – which he did in early 1835. But as the economy overheated and so did state dreams of infrastructure projects. Congress passed a law in 1836 that required the federal surplus to be distributed to the states in four payments.” – https://lehrmaninstitute.org/history/Andrew-Jackson-1837.html

In the years that followed Jackson, the USA went more deeply into debt, with land purchases all the way out to the west coast, and subsequent to that, the territory known now as Alaska was purchased from the Russian Empire by Andrew Johnson in 1867. Known as Seward’s Folly, it cost the USA in the post-Civil War era $7.2 million, about what a pricey house in Chicago now costs.

The real intent behind the Civil War was to wreck the economy of the South, which did happen. The South’s economy was based on cotton production, not on the industrial steel mills and stockyards of the North. The fact that cotton was easy to raise, and that cheap labor and easy access to the coast for shipping, never mind access to even easier shipping on the Mississippi River, made it all the more important for the South to establish its own identity, hence the attempt to secede from the North and take control of Louisiana and Mississippi, as well as the entire southern coast. The South’s economy depended almost entirely on cotton, which was marketed to the textile and spinning mills of England, a vibrant source of revenue that the North could not acquire. And yes, when the Civil War ended and the damage was done, the South floundered economically for many, many decades.

The following article written early in March 2020 indicates that the writer and his sources expected a recession, but did not anticipate an intentional shutdown of almost all commerce, nor is there an indication that one of the major “tells” of a real recession occurs at the gas pump.  https://qz.com/1815176/will-coronavirus-cause-a-us-recession-in-2020/

To quote the author of the article:  “The coronavirus is both a supply and demand shock, which will deliver a heavy punch to the US economy,” Sweet told Quartz by email. “A [US] recession is avoidable, but that depends on how the collective psyche holds up and the policy response.”

Meanwhile, the OECD and the IMF, as well as banks like JP Morgan, have also downgraded their estimates for global growth. The New York Federal Reserve’s real-time forecast for the US economy remains positive for both Q1 and Q2. – article

When the article was written, early in March 2020, the doomsday scenario of the Covid-19 virus had not yet become so widespread, and the analysts consulted did not take it into account.

So, yes, we’re in a recession now: it is manmade, intentionally shutting down businesses with no thought to the consequences for large or small businesses, or to suppliers of goods for the consumer markets, e.g., your grocery store, Hormel, Exxon, United Airlines, etc. Some companies that paid dividends have been forced to forego that for the duration of this episode of dictating the terms of our existence to us.

Most recessions follow rises in the stock and commodities markets. These are part of natural cycles, not created out of whole cloth the way the current recession has been. The 2007 recession came on the heels of the idiotic mortgages people were persuaded to carry, as well as other odd and harmful antics in financial markets that literally sent companies into oblivion, like the Enron scandal that made the longstanding accounting firm of Arthur Andersen shut its doors permanently in June 2002. That Andersen was complicit in what Enron wanted it to do – destroy evidence – was behind that failure, but shutting down in one day was a shock to its employees and the public in general. And things just went sour from there.

Following the Bush administration, you know who got elected and what he set out to do, and the false hopes that were splattered all over the place – and the naive and uninformed believed it would all happen. And a recession occurred during that administration, because there was no real attempt to put the country back on track. Missed opportunities….

The Dow Jones and other market averages have been fluctuating significantly for several weeks now. One financial analyst views it as a buying opportunity, but his response to this recession, which, as he has said, is “manufactured” rather than real, is that another and very real recession will be hitting all of us, including overseas markets, in the 2021-2022 time period. The hysterics and outright fabrications that I’ve seen – you’ve seen them, too – in politicians holding public office and in the media are a clear signal that something is changing. Keep an eye on this.

I’m guessing that we will face a real recession in 2021-2022. I’d take that as a warning to spend as little money as possible on unnecessary things and keep your ammo, pantry, cupboards and freezers stocked.

And do not take anything for granted.

Category: COVID-19, Economy