(North Edge of Tokyo Metropolitan Area Observed from Miles Far)Alarming Data Invoking New Great Depression
If you can stop the possible occurrence of another Great Depression, you can deserve the title “Hero of the 21st Century.”
But, it seems to be necessary to start this great contribution by making the top 0.1 percent in the economically stratified American society repent so much as to cry before the Christ.
That is why I am writing this way even if you are loved by the top 0.1 percent or the bottom 0.1 percent.
May you try to be loved by the God!
SECTION I: Great Depression to Pearl Harbor Attack
It is well known that 80 years ago a great economic catastrophe was set off in Wall Street, New York, hitting the whole American economy on a scale never observed.
This Great Depression led to strong adherence of the Empire of Japan to the Chinese market relying on its military capability and superiority, which in turn provoked some American elites into taking a hard measure against the Empire.
Consequently, 12 years after the debacle in Wall Street in 1929, the U.S. Government virtually forced the Empire of Japan to attack the Pearl Harbor naval bases by implementing an oil embargo and freezing Japan’s assets in the U.S. while requesting all-out withdrawal of the Imperial Army from mainland China, so that the U.S. could join the war in Europe against Nazi Germany, as the Empire of Japan had mistakenly allied itself with Germany.
So, it is important to review the Great Depression that started in 1929, in order to keep peace in the world, especially in the Era of the War on Terror.
SECTION II: Main Causes of the Great Depression
People were enjoying new products in 1920’s: cars and radios.
However, cars and radios are not the main causes of the Great Depression, but the glitter of new products based on new technologies really made people blind against an approaching crisis and the ever expanding gap between the poor and the rich in the U.S. society after WWI.
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Main Causes of the Great Depression
Paul Alexander Gusmorino 3rd : May 13, 1996
The Great Depression was the worst economic slump ever in U.S. history, and one which spread to virtually all of the industrialized world. The depression began in late 1929 and lasted for about a decade. Many factors played a role in bringing about the depression; however, the main cause for the Great Depression was the combination of the greatly unequal distribution of wealth throughout the 1920's, and the extensive stock market speculation that took place during the latter part that same decade…
According to a study done by the Brookings Institute, in 1929 the top 0.1% of Americans had a combined income equal to the bottom 42%. That same top 0.1% of Americans in 1929 controlled 34% of all savings, while 80% of Americans had no savings at all…
The large and growing disparity of wealth between the well-to-do and the middle-income citizens made the U.S. economy unstable. For an economy to function properly, total demand must equal total supply. In an economy with such disparate distribution of income it is not assured that demand will always equal supply. Essentially what happened in the 1920's was that there was an oversupply of goods. It was not that the surplus products of industrialized society were not wanted, but rather that those whose needs were not satiated could not afford more, whereas the wealthy were satiated by spending only a small portion of their income. A 1932 article in Current History articulates the problems of this maldistribution of wealth:…
The U.S. economy was also reliant upon luxury spending and investment from the rich to stay afloat during the 1920's. The significant problem with this reliance was that luxury spending and investment were based on the wealthy's confidence in the U.S. economy. If conditions were to take a downturn (as they did with the market crashed in fall and winter 1929), this spending and investment would slow to a halt…
The speculative boom in the stock market was based upon confidence. In the same way, the huge market crashes of 1929 were based on fear…
The market crashes undermined this confidence. The rich stopped spending on luxury items, and slowed investments. The middle-class and poor stopped buying things with installment credit for fear of loosing their jobs, and not being able to pay the interest. As a result industrial production fell by more than 9% between the market crashes in October and December 192948. As a result jobs were lost, and soon people starting defaulting on their interest payment. Radios and cars bought with installment credit had to be returned. All of the sudden warehouses were piling up with inventory. The thriving industries that had been connected with the automobile and radio industries started falling apart. Without a car people did not need fuel or tires; without a radio people had less need for electricity…
http://www.gusmorino.com/pag3/greatdepression/
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Put simply, if the whole American wealth had been shared equally by all the citizens like distribution of cars and radios in 1929, there would have been no Great Depression that in fact led to WWII where tens of millions of people were killed all over the world, including those victims in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan, in 1945.
SECTION III: DATA ALARMING
In a long-term scope, the present age is getting closer to the danger of entering another Great Depression era.
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Revised October 13, 2006
NEW DATA SHOW EXTRAORDINARY JUMP IN INCOME CONCENTRATION IN 2004
By Aviva Aron-Dine and Isaac Shapiro
…
- The top one percent of households (those with annual incomes above about $315,000 in 2004) garnered 53 percent of the income gains in 2004.
(Click to enlarge.)…
- The share of total U.S. income that the top one percent of households received in 2004 was greater than the share it received in any prior year since 1929, except for 1999 and 2000.
Income gains were even more pronounced among those with the very highest incomes. The incomes of the top one-tenth of one percent of households grew more rapidly than the incomes of the top one percent of households. The share of the national income received by the top one tenth of one percent of households increased by 1.6 percentage points from 2003 to 2004; in other words, more than half of the increased share of income going to the top one percent of households actually went to the top one-tenth of one percent of households. (See Table 1.)
http://www.cbpp.org/7-10-06inc.htm
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The above figure is really alarming, since the share of total pre-tax income held by highest income one percent is now coming back to the level of 1929.
SECTION IV: OTHER DATA ALARMING
Related data since 1960 also show an alarming trend.
The focus is always placed on the top one percent or 0.1 percent in the hierarchy of accumulation of Mammon in this world.
We should not blame any super-rich men. But, as businesses are the major player in the U.S. economy and the largest machine to produce and harvest wealth in the society, we cannot neglect a trend of an increase in wealth American CEOs are accumulating.
The above figures are found in the following site:
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Wealth, Income, and Power
by G. William Domhoff
September 2005 (updated December 2006)
This document presents details on the wealth and income distributions in the United States, and explains how we use these two distributions as power indicators.
Some of the information might be a surprise to many people. The most amazing numbers come last, showing the change in the ratio of the average CEO's paycheck to that of the average factory worker over the past 40 years…
It's even more revealing to compare the actual rates of increase of the salaries of CEOs and ordinary workers; from 1990 to 2005, CEOs' pay increased almost 300% (adjusted for inflation), while production workers gained a scant 4.3%. The purchasing power of the federal minimum wage actually declined by 9.3%, when inflation is taken into account. These startling results are illustrated in Figure 7….
The claims made in the previous paragraph need much further investigation. But they demonstrate the ideas and research directions that are suggested by looking at the wealth and income distributions as indicators of power.
http://sociology.ucsc.edu/whorulesamerica/power/wealth.html
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Now we have plenty of data, figures, and graphs suggesting coming danger.
Honestly speaking, it is the wealthiest 0.1 percent of citizens that have the most influence on the situation posing just between the great recession and the sustained business.
If the wealthiest 0.1 percent of citizens lose confidence in market or the whole economy and think to sell stocks and bonds or pull out their investment to protect their own assets, their actions can trigger a great debacle in the financial market.
The U.S. Government must order them to hold stocks and bonds and continue investment if the situation worsens, since it is one of the most effective and simplest way to prevent it from further getting worsened and eventually entering a critical course to another Great Depression.
In other word, stop the wealthiest 0.1 percent from behaving like a terrorist.
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That is all for today.
Respect old people who have still a memory of life after the Great Depression that erupted in 1929 from Wall Street, New York.
And, remember if you want to be richer today, while the data are showing such alarming signals, you are really accelerating the coming of another Great Depression.
If you have a car and a radio, be content with them.
(Oh, the summer has really gone. Yesterday it snowed in the Hokkaido Island, Japan. Yet, I know you love the summer song if you are in black or white…
http://www.fukuchan.ac/music/j-folk2/shiroisangosyo.html )
Mar 9:17 And one of the multitude answered and said, Master, I have brought unto thee my son, which hath a dumb spirit;
.....
Mar 9:23 Jesus said unto him, If thou canst believe, all things are possible to him that believeth.
Mar 9:24 And straightway the father of the child cried out, and said with tears, Lord, I believe; help thou mine unbelief.
Mar 9:25 When Jesus saw that the people came running together, he rebuked the foul spirit, saying unto him, Thou dumb and deaf spirit, I charge thee, come out of him, and enter no more into him.