Sunday, January 20, 2008 Sun.star Essay: A slump, a crunch By Erma M. Cuizon Sun.star Essay
A FEW days ago, there was news about Wall Street market crashing due to growing concerns on banking and finance. Can you believe that happening to invincible America?
Although there has been a rebound a few days after when IBM reported on its strong earnings---an almost incredible 24-percent increase in quarterly profits---some financial groups still warn about a weak US economy.
Now they’re talking of the probability of a recession—some say “mild” and still coming, others say it’s already there, still others (like the Republicans) deny it.
But when I saw that breaking news on Jan. 12 over at BBC, saying, Wall Street fell, I remembered what I read about America’s Great Depression. There were authors who wrote about it in great fiction works.
A recession surely isn’t quite the same, if there’s a recession but what happens if it drops further?
A quick line from the paperback encyclopedia says the Great Depression in economics is a “period of low output and investment, with high unemployment.”
There have been two most depressing periods in the world, in economics--1873-1926 and America’s Great Depression from 1929 to 1930. It meant few jobs, no food, and terrible life.
In the US decades ago, the stock market crashed in 1927 but the effect was felt only about two years after and the gloom stayed on for four dreadful years. The condition affected everyone in all ages---including children who worked in factories, canneries, even mines, no longer dreaming of school.
All kinds of people regularly stood in line to get their share of government hand-outs. To top it all, there was a frightening drought, destroying the dreams of people in the farms, who abandoned two States to look for food somewhere else. Those who couldn’t find shelter lived in shacks and shanties.
Most of the immigrants, in fact, set up camps like refugees.
Five million employable people had no jobs in 1930, growing in number to almost 13 million in just two years’ time.
It must have been like a horrendous storm (if not a cataclysmic nightmare) so that when it was over, it was like one getting out of a sick bed to try to learn how to walk again, asking, “Where am I?”
But the Americans probably were also physically brittle after the experience of living on powdered milk, dried beans and potatoes only. There were even instances, according to survivors who are now in their 90s, when as starving children, they’d chew on their hands, “nearly drawing blood”.
Many authors wrote about life during the Depression, among them Sinclair Lewis in 1930 who was the first American writer to receive the Nobel Prize for Literature.
But people learned to help each other in suburban areas or in the farms.
Together, communities tried to invent ways to have fun without having to spend at all. Neighbors played backyard games, card games, and board games. In 1930, someone invented the Monopoly which became a sensational pastime during the dark days. Or most people listened to the radio, and went to outdoor free movies when they came to town. Singing games became popular among children, too.
Many songs which are part of our life today were composed during the Depression, including “Brother, Can You Spare A Dime” sang by Bing Crosby and “Somewhere Over The Rainbow” composed by Harold Arlen.
The experience probably gave the Americans the will to overcome.
But why go through it if we can try to prevent the fall? Shouldn’t our leaders listen to the heartbeat of our economy and help push, for the sake of the country, to keep up with whatever good has come out of our struggle, instead of play politic?
An economic ruin isn’t a joke, warns an economic professor to a roomful of students, including you and I. And we shouldn’t only say, “Sure,” with a blank face.
