So how bad can this get for us?

[Hugabear]

I've heard many people - including my own company's owner - say that this could very well be much worse than the Great Depression.

So what exactly will happen once the entire economic infrastructure collapses like a house of cards? Even if this "bailout" goes through, it's only delaying the inevitable.

How high will the unemployment get? What happens when millions of Americans suddenly find themselves homeless? Even if you're lucky enough to own your own home, you're still not out of the woods. With jobs being scarce, electricity could very soon become a luxury. Ditto for running water. Many of the things that we take for granted now could soon be gone. We've come a very long way since the first Great Depression, most people nowadays wouldn't know how to fend for themselves if you gave them a shotgun, an axe, gardening tools, and fishing line.

What really pisses me off is that you're going to have tens of millions more Americans that will be homeless, while entire subdivisions sit unoccupied because there is nobody to buy those houses.

[Robbien]

1. What's even worse is that our country does not produce enough food

to feed us. Somewhere in the neighborhood of 60% of our food comes in from overseas. No other country will want our dollars, so our food sources will dry up.

[yellowdogintexas]

10. a lot of that is out of season stuff or exotic items. Remember when you could not

find citrus fruit in stores in the summer? This is why it was always a part of Christmas to have oranges, tangerines in Christmas stockings. Lemons and limes were always available but more expensive off season. Nut crops harvest in fall, and they were in stores for the holidays.

Now that things can be shipped overnight or second day to any major market we can have fresh strawberries for Christmas, varieties of apples all year round, etc.

I go to my grocery which gives the source of all foods they sell. Right now the early domestic apple and pear crops are trickling in and fewer of those bins say "Peru", "New Zealand" or "Chile". In the winter, the citrus will all say Rio Grande Valley, or Florida or California, not Latin America and New Zealand.

Seafood often has "international"sources, even if it is just Mexico or Canada or the Caribbean. Did you know Tilapia is largely farm raised in Ecuador? It is my favorite fish to buy in the market, and I know if this chain had a local (closer than Ecuador) supplier, they would use it. They choose Texas providers first whenever possible.

Throw in the international (non perishable) items which Americans have discovered through travelling abroad, through ethnic dining out, or all those cooking shows, such as umpteen varietes of Extra Virgin Olive Oil (which not so long ago came in about 3 brands, one of which was horrible), exotic vinegars, sea salt, teas, coffees, pastas, wines, beers, etc.

Add the needs and homesick longings of (mostly) Asian and Latin American Immigrants for their 'Home Brands' for their cooking needs. If the customers ask for it, merchants will carry it. Never mind that domestic brands of canned beans are equal to international brands. Seriously, I used to have to hunt high and hell for ingredients when I wanted to do any kind of international dish.

We export a huge amount of grain products. I truly do not know about perishable food; for example when OUR citrus, apples, etc are in season, are we selling them to Southern Hemisphere or European countries?

If we had to, we could as a nation return to only offering to consumers what is available domestically. Our supermarkets would not have as much international food offerings, and we would go back to planning our meals around what was in season.

[Morrisons Ghost]

2. I think at best

This is going to cost the american taxpayer alot of money for a very long time...no matter who's in office everyone will pay for this!

[bdamomma]

3. the terrorists in the WH, have to be thrown on the streets.

[Rosa Luxemburg]

4. who pays - yes us the little people. The big people make money off this

[Warpy]

5. We can't borrow our way out of this one

so it's likely to be worse.

It's also going to be worse because everybody out there wants to protect what they have, even if they have more than a thousand people living a thousand lifetimes would ever need.

Until they start addressing demand side economics, it will continue to get worse. That means removing the glut of wealth from the supply side and distributing it downward.

And we know how popular that's going to be, especially in the corporate press.

[On the Road]

6. Without the Federal Buyouts

there was a real chance of a string of bank failures and a new great depression.

That is unlikely now with the feds taking over so much of the bad mortgages. A year or so from now we'll be in much better shape than today.

[lonestarnot]

7. No one gets out of this world alive.

Roll with the flow.

[slackmaster]

8. One of my neighbors just started raising chickens in his yard

He has about 15-16 birds, all Rhode Island Reds.

I'm sure he's in violation of the zoning here, but the birds are quiet and they're cool to see.

[Arugula Latte]

14. Raising chickens for eggs is very popular here in Portland.

You're allowed three hens, and we have several friends/acquaintances who have hens in their yards.

It's more to get the natural, organic eggs rather than survival, but that might change as times get tough.

[fla nocount]

9. Not as bad as a few bat-shit crazy enablers would have us believe.

I would be frightened too if my only marketable skill was being bat-shit crazy. Lowered expectations, a focus on food, shelter, and perhaps self defense. I think this is the extreme end of how bad it could get. Meat on Sunday, cake on your B'day, wearing big brothers' hand-me-downs. If the whole country lived like this, there's your trillions, and many folks already do.

The real losers will be those who realize that the populace is the product, is the commodity. "Sheep are filthy and disgusting creatures, impossible to keep clean unless kept as pets. Periodically it's necessary to shear the whole flock right down to their skin and sell the wool...it's for their own good."

Bahh-baahhhh

[dasmarianDemuth]

11. kinda bad

The problem is this: money is made available via debt. Think about it on a really simple level. Go to the store. Get milk. When you walk to the counter, you have a debt which is settled via currency that you have on hand. This is your personal liquidity. So debt creates the need for money, and thus money itself. This is the really the most fundamental economic principle.

The problem is that if the banks can no longer lend to you because they have nothing to lend (called a lack of liquidity), there is no ability to allow new debt in the economy. So you want to buy a house or a car, start a business, get something on your credit card, but the lending institution doesn't have anything to help you buy it. Money becomes scarce, people hoard what they have and will only buy what they can afford. This sounds good, but it also means they can't afford to buy anything, like a house or a car. This in turn means no homebuilders, no carmakers, no nothing. All the people involved in many, many industries are out of work. Those who do have jobs work for nothing. A few at the top get very rich, the rest of the people are serfs. This death spiral would mean a complete collapse of our standard of living, and likely turn our modern currency based lifestyle into a barter system.

Take a look at how Russia is turning out. It's kinda like that, but would be worse.

[HamdenRice]

12. DemocracyNow this morning: You'll need gold to buy groceries

As explained here:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=4057340&mesg_id=4057340

[DeschutesRiver]

13. My dh and I just made a bet about unemployment

he thinks the unemployment rate won't go past 15% by the end of 2009.

I think it will hit 30-35% at the peak next year, so I bet the 35%. Loser takes over keeping the woodstove working the entire winter of '09 (that means getting up mighty early). In the Great Depression, unemployment was 25%, and now given the fact that our economy is highly fueled by consumer consumption (not manufacturing), the global aspect of trade and manufacture, and how many jobs I see in this bloated economy that are fluff and filled by people who have no skills to trade to hold down a necessary job when the fluff disappears - well, I think I will get a winter off from stoking that woodstove.

I understand how scared people are (I am too), but there will never be enough taxpayer dollars (even if you jacked the tax rate up to something like 80%) to fund all the bailouts that are currently proposed and supposedly seriously being considered. Not enough dough - ever.

So likely, the first bailouts to get through the door will end up hiking our tax rates (Obama can do nothing to prevent this, though I believe he will try on the spending side, but responsibly so. I hope). Then the realization that this is so enormous that we can't even tax our way out of it will "suddenly" become fact, and the rest of the bailouts simply won't happen.

Which, the way things are sizing up right now, means that the Wall Street pig's bailouts get funded; the rest of us will be hung to dry, with a big fat tax bill. And still facing the inevitable collapse - so I say no bailouts, let the .gov come up with real solutions, let everyone from fat cat to worker take a hit now, and let us begin the struggle of reconstruction. This may limit the bad times to years, instead of decades.

I saw a post here where economists almost immediately had some of those "other than a bailout" solutions; ie, have banks eliminate dividends, make them issue more stock even if it dilutes current shareholder's assets, etc, which would give banks time to raise capital and work with the bad loans. Instead of just waiting for a check from us vis the government. In a couple of hours, there seem to be solutions pouring in, so how come we are in such a rush to go with the worst possible way to get out of this debt situation? Because the only part of a "bailout" that is intended to go through is the one to Wall Street - the rest is just talk, so that we all think help is coming for us too, and thus we don't bitch as much about the wall street rescue.

[ieoeja]

15. Socialism can still save us.

Have to make up a new name to sell it in this country, however. Maybe call it "A Newer Deal".