Capitalism threatens to throw us back to the Dark Ages

The facts are in, folks, and they tell us what is obvious to anyone with common sense. Namely that this economic crisis will be greater than the 1930s Great Depression. We are going to have vast unemployment and soup kitchens and mass poverty.

https://www.marxist.com/capitalism-threatens-to-throw-us-back-to-the-dark-ages.htm

 

This is different.

We need to approach this like a war.

Americans need to help each other through this.

This is the challenge of our generation and how we get through it will say a lot about who we are as a people.

 

Marxism was debunked by the 20th century.

Our only hope out of this is capitalism and the good will of good people.

 

I thought Bernie dropped out of the race? He loves bread lines and soup kitchens.

 

This is hopefully temporary and will come to an end in, perhaps, a few months as the quarantine ends and people go back to work. Of course there is a possibility that companies will fold up and go out of business after trying to wait it out. But, then, I'm hoping that there will be aid for small businesses in the aid package that is currently in debate in Congress.

 

I think there may likely be a small recession, but I don't think it will be anywhere as bad as the 2007 Recession, and certainly not like the Great Depression.

The US does have some very worrying long-term trends, but I don't think those are going to culminate in disaster just yet, at least not in the next few years.

However, I won't dismiss the fact that it could be something exactly this that could tip things into a recession, if there were already underlying problematic issues. Sort of like lighting the match when there is already plenty of wood on the fire.

 

In some ways, the economy is a lot more fragile than people realize.

It's like a gas-powered lawnmower. As soon as you turn that thing off, it's really hard to get it restarted again. So far with this disease, they're saying there's been a 25% drop in GDP. Now the cause of that is very temporary, likely only a few weeks, but when an economy suddenly drops like that, even for a very short time, it can be hard to get it going again. That's a huge shock.

Even though a 25% drop in GDP for 3 weeks might only be equivalent to a drop of 1.4% on an annual basis.

 

America will survive.

But, obviously, the worst part is the indefinite length of the shutdown.

There is no "date certain" for a return to normal life.

 

I see this as a temporary crisis, 6 - 9 months, as long as the Govt. acts for the benefit of all the people. We can't have people losing homes because their jobs disappeared due to the virus. There has to be a plan to help people with mortgages until they are on their feet or the large corporations just get richer;

"The NBER study estimates that the 4 percent decline in America’s homeownership rate, from 67 percent before the crash in 2007 to 63 percent in 2014, means that roughly 1.5 million American households have shifted from owners to renters.

This represents more than $220 billion in housing value—a huge transfer of wealth from Americans who once owned, or would have owned, these homes, to large corporations."

https://www.citylab.com/life/2019/1...rental-recession-homeowner-management/599371/

 

Well quite frankly we've had nearly 30 years of believing we can get rich on debt and retire wealthy. And we bailed out the worst of them 2008-2016. Theres a lot of undoing to do.

 

I don't see how it can go on, as it has been, for that long.

They're going to have to relax a lot of these precautionary measures after 1 or 2 months.

 

If small business owners have to continue paying their rent to property owners while they are closed, they will be out of business very quickly.
If this shut down lasts for two months as they are now seeming to indicate it will, then one hell of a lot of businesses will fold.

 

Any business that does not have a two month reserve deserves to fold — especially if they have spent those reserves on inflating their company value.

I manage two business; both can go 60 days with normal operations and 150 days through cutting back on labor and inventory.

 

They don’t have to. You should really be paying attention

 

Trump seems to disagree

 

I agree. Sending everyone checks is a stupid idea and centralized power will not contain this virus

 

You don't understand how this works. Over the long-term, rents will have to come down.

When businesses start saying they can't pay current rent levels, and decline to renew the lease, the property owners will start thinking about lowering the rent levels.
If property owners want to keep their current tenants, they will give some reprieve.

The free market isn't all one-sided. It's a two-way street.

 

I've read more than one story about commercial property owners telling their tenants to pay their employees instead of paying rent...

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/corona...pay-rent-service-workers-staff-relief-checks/

 

Robert E. Allen wrote:

Our only hope out of this is capitalism and the good will of good people


Looks to me that the government is raiding the collective wealth of the nation (again) to save the banks and other big businesses from a microscopic organism. How is that capitalism??

 

The Right doesn't support this any more than the Left.
This isn't an ideological Right/Left issue.

Or at least it doesn't necessarily divide along the normal Right/Left lines.

The most ardent conservative proponents of a free market believe government shouldn't get involved, and that these businesses should fail.

Probably a rare example of something the most extreme conservatives and the far Left can agree on.

 

You must be confusing the Plutocratic Socialist Donnie with good ole Bernie. What part of trickle-down economics confuses you? Right-wing socialists want to redistribute wealth from many to the 1% of the 1%, which directly results in bread lines and soup kitchens. Poverty is the goal of right-wing socialists.

 

Everyone on the left is criticizing Trump for not being upbeat and positive, but only thing I hear from the left is we're all going to die.

 

Trump DESERVES every bit of criticism.

He acted (at least) 2 Months Too Late.

^Facts are FACTS.:smh:

 

You miss the elephant in the room, government contractors

 

Was that back when he wanted to curtail international travel and seal our borders but was called a racist for his efforts?