When I was a small child, during the Depression years, I saw a newsreel that left a lasting impression on me. It showed farmers pouring milk into a ditch. They were angry because they could not sell their milk at a price that would allow them at least to break even.
City dwellers had it even worse. Photographs of that time show people lined up in hopes of getting their money out of the bank, and later photos show long lines at improvised soup kitchens. There wasn’t much of a safety net. Social Security, originally part of the Socialist Party platform under presidential candidate Norman Thomas, finally came into being in 1935, followed in 1936 by unemployment insurance.
The Depression was so severe that our country readily adopted economic remedies that would have been unthinkable in more prosperous times. World War II brought us full employment, a high level of personal savings, and a long period of prosperity in the years that followed. It also killed millions of people, brought on the nuclear age and the military brinkmanship of the Cold War, and ushered in the baby boom generation.
Economic crises are nothing new, here or around the world, and it’s still as true as ever that most of our problems are of our own making. It’s likely that the latest recession can be weathered by most U.S. citizens with a lot less damage than that caused to their ancestors during the Great Depression, but we still have plenty of reasons to be concerned.
The decline of the dollar and collapse of the sub-prime mortgage market are likely harbingers of more trouble ahead. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke’s massive infusion of government money to back up J.P. Morgan’s purchase of Bear Sterns did give the U.S. stock market at least a temporary reprieve. Additional injections of cash and cuts in the interest rate are intended to relieve the spreading credit crunch, but will, at the same time, contribute to increasing inflation, also fueled (literally) by rising prices of oil and gas.
We are still a rich country, but have treated our natural resources like the spoils of war, materials to be recklessly looted and wasted with no care for the future. As our resources diminish while our population keeps growing, manipulating the money supply is a short-term fix at best. We added more than 20 million people between 1980 and 1990, another 33 million by the year 2000, and another 25 million since then. World population increased from about a billion people in 1900 to today’s estimated population of nearly 6.7 billion people.
Other countries have joined the fray, and have shown themselves equally adept at plundering nature’s bounty, here and around the world. A cheapened dollar means our resources can be had at bargain prices. American technology and technicians are for sale to the highest bidder. China is the new giant, reaching into every part of the world where resources can be found to feed its staggering economic appetite. It’s no wonder prices for basic materials keep doubling and doubling again.
We would do well to recognize and cherish the real wealth on which our lives depend. Fossil fuels and metals make our lives more luxurious, while their misuse can jeopardize our future. Land, air, water, and nature’s living organisms are the fundamental goods that make our own lives possible.
Connie Harvey’s e-mail address is cmharve@gmail.com.
