An interesting way for you to put it [emphasis mine]: “I’ll still take his non-political opinions over yours, since you seem to be setting me up that way.”

I’m going to try to make myself very very clear: you can take ALL his opinions over mine, if that seems correct to you. But after commenting here all these years, I would hope that you realize I’m not setting you up “that way.” I couldn’t care less about Lewis’s opinion vs. mine, or who wins the contest. I care about what seems reasonable, logical, and true.

I tried to point out why his point of view didn’t seem to me to fit the facts. I haven’t read much by him and maybe all his other stuff is great. But even if I had, and was familiar with his work and admired his work tremendously, if on a particular topic he didn’t make sense to me I would disagree with him and have no hesitation to say it, even if I had previously trusted him. Of course, if I previously liked his work, I would be more inclined to really really try hard to find a flaw in my own argument if it disagreed, but in the end I would stand by my own logic no matter what his previous reputation and my previous experience with him.

To me, his argument on what we were talking about in the other thread just didn’t conform to the facts. That’s all.

You keep saying you trust him, which is fine. I neither trust nor distrust him – as I said I barely know the guy. I could only find one previous post of mine that mentioned him. I have no dog in the Michael Lewis race.

I’ll still take his non-political opinions over yours, since you seem to be setting me up that way.

I’m curious whether you’re familiar with this book of Lewis’, and if so, what you think of it. I have not read it, but from the description it seems like pretty standard anti-Trump and pro Deep State stuff to me.

Here’s the Brad Pitt character remonstrating his younger friends who just pulled down a big short which would make them millions. They are dancing and jiving to each other, but Brad Pitts, looking about as cool as a retired investment banker who gave it all up for Colorado granola can be, reminds them:
______________________________________

Do you have any idea what you just did? You just bet against the American economy.

You know what I hate about f*cking banking? It reduces people to numbers. Here’s a number: every 1% unemployment goes up, 40,000 people die, did you know that?
______________________________________

That’s my concern too, along with Griffin and others here. It’s not my only concerrn, but it’s a serious one.

I’m not the only one to catch the echo from today to 2008. Here’s a blogger who got there over a week ago with a YouTube link to the film:

https://www.rebellionresearch.com/blog/economic-depression-will-destroy-more-lives-than-coronavirus

Michael Lewis is damn good at getting the inside story, and mostly, in my experience, he has been right.

Yeah, we have decided to just go to locally owned restaurants like burger places or pizza (for carry out obviously). They need all the customers they get while the big guys are better equipped to take the hit (hopefully). Just ran to the grocery store and they were a virtue signaling show if I’ve ever seen one. People had to line up outside and they were letting people in every 30 seconds or so but once you got in people were walking along passing each other on aisles like normal. I would say half the people were wearing masks some quite elaborate looking which I don’t have a problem with I guess but the entry policy was pure show.

I talk to people. They say that they are shunning the big grocery stores due to (a) the peer pressure to wear a mask and gloves (one guy came in a hazmat suit!), (b) the social distancing boxes taped to the floor at the checkout lanes, (c) the limitations on purchases of paper products, and (d) the feeling that we are all extras in a B movie contagion film.

The little Mom and Pop deli around the corner is doing bang-up business. The shelves are stocked with paper products, no limits, though not the brands I normally buy but heh beggars can’t be choosers. Lot’s of Boar’s Head deli meats, freshly baked bread, etc. On top of that someone who knows my name!

One gentleman walked in and said he is closing his auto repair shop. His business went from 5o-70 cars a day down to 10. He has to lay off all his mechanics, and he’s now unsure if he’ll be able to reopen again. Many business owners do live on the margin.

Another fellow walked in looking depressed. When asked he said his wife was not feeling well but he confided that she’s been watching a lot of television news which is non-stop negative in the State of New York.

I gave up on television three years ago. My wife watches but mostly Hallmark Channel. She will turn on the news for 10 minutes each evening, making sure that she turns off the volume. She looks for the daily tallies and then turns it off.

Ten state govs. defaulted on their debt, extreme (non-violent) hostilities with the creditors in the U.K., rioting in the streets with rebels in Philly firing canon at gov. troops, rebels seized control of the Rhode Island government, and so on.

It’s just my opinion that what makes a depression great is the amount and duration of social pain.
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Art Deco on April 5, 2020 at 7:20 am said:

“the construction of a revised architecture of federal banking regulation [under FDR] which included deposit insurance, and the incorporation of the Home Owner’s Loan Corporation to promote work-outs of sour real estate loans.”

Good stuff Art. I’ve read a few pieces that imply that real estate wasn’t an issue, which always struck me as extremely unlikely. My guess is that it was more commercial real estate rather than homes. Also, maybe farm real estate was a big problem with wheat farming going through perhaps a 50 year cycle of declining wheat prices.

Most of the little I learned about the banking reforms under FDR’s first term I’ve forgotten, but I thought there was something like good bank/bad bank resolutions in order to get rid of the junk loans and restore confidence.

But I do think looking a net or per capita wealth or income in the late 30’s is cold comfort to the 10 to 15% unemployed, and misses a big part of what makes a depression great.

Uuuuummm… Lemme ask you a what’cha call a Rhetorical Question, Dear Blathering NY Genius: Are you talking about the same American working class who will hugely support the president’s re-election in November??

DUuuuhhh…

All of the foregoing is fictional.

Appropriations for federal agencies did decline in nominal terms by about 40% between FY 1921 and FY 1922. Over 90% of these cuts are attributable to the last leg of winding down the war effort (distributed between the War Department, the Navy Department, the Veteran’s Bureau, and the Bureau of War Risk Insurance). The cuts to these agency appropriations were about $1 bn in nominal terms, or roughly 1% of the period gross domestic product.

The salient features of the Hoover Administration had flat nothing to do with the president being a ‘progressive’ or with ‘respect for the rule of law’. From October 1929 to March of 1932 there was a rapid rise in the demand for real balances not met by monetary authorities. The monetary base declined slightly during those years. The result was abnormal deflationary pressure and double-digit real interest rates. That put a damper on economic activity and also induced defaults as people were unable to service their debts. That induced two waves of bank failures which further reduced the quantum of M1 as demand deposits were extinguished or locked up in bankruptcy court, so you intensified deflationary pressure. It was only in the spring of 1932 that the Federal Reserve attempted open market operations to attempt to stabilize price levels and the Congress incorporated the Reconstruction Finance Corporation to provide credit to industry. It was at that point that the rapid economic implosion came to an end. There was little or no growth in the latter half of 1932, but at least the economy was not contracting. Note, Britain devalued the pound in September 1931 and it’s recovery began almost immediately. The economic contraction in Britain over the 2-3 year period in question was on the order of 6% rather than 30%.

As for the Roosevelt Administration, they had salutary and unsalutary policy measures. Most salient among them was a series of measures enacted in the spring and summer of 1933: the bank holiday, the devaluation of the currency and the institution of mildly inflationary monetary policy, the construction of a revised architecture of federal banking regulation which included deposit insurance, and the incorporation of the Home Owner’s Loan Corporation to promote work-outs of sour real estate loans. For all the unsalutary policies the Administration followed, these measures had a tremendous tonic effect, Per capita product grew a mean of 7.3% per year during the years running from 1933 to 1941 was was by the latter date about 20% higher than what it had been in 1929. The labor market remained dysfunctional, with a great deal of labor stashed in the Works Progress Administration and residual unemployment a great deal higher than it had been in 1929, but that’s another issue. The country as a whole was more affluent.