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The U.S. has gotten progressively worse and worse at handling recessions, and yes, it's in no spot to handle the next one. But this is nothing new. It's been h

The U.S. has gotten progressively worse and worse at handling recessions, and yes, it's in no spot to handle the next one. But this is nothing new. It's been heading this way for a long time. You could have ran this same article a year ago before the current administration took over. I don't want to mention politics, but politics plays a big role here. When your party is in power, life is good and spending is easy. When your party is out of power, hard times are coming and we should prepare. The state of the nation doesn't flip around that quickly. Instead it's all about long-term trends like debt and interest rates. But by viewing all public policy through a partisan lens, it allows folks to always blame the "other guys". It is a dysfunctional political system that's led to a dysfunctional financial system. I think the U.S. might have another decade or two, but one day, being the world's reserve currency ain't going to cut it any more. That day is going to suck.

tonyedgecombe 9y ago
Democracy does seem to have a problem delivering fiscal responsibility, it's too easy to put it off for the next government.
- jacobush 9y ago
  The problem is larger than fiscal. It’s about long term thinking in general. We have no common cause, vision or “myth” to gather round.
  - rralian 9y ago
    I was thinking this the other day actually. That we are generally best served when people extrapolate their interests for the long term. And this is a big part of religion and faith. But they don't always help people value the collective long-term interest.
  - ams6110 9y ago
    Common rallying causes have been systematically dismantled. You can't be patriotic because our history isn't perfect. You can't be religious because it might offend someone. God and country have been the common denominators of our culture and they are no longer seen as relevant, and there is nothing else to replace them. It seems like we are more interested in finding and emphasizing all the ways we are different from each other rather than rallying around anything we might have in common.
    - alphaalpha101 9y ago
      If you think Americans aren't patriotic or religious you really need to get out more. Americans are incredibly patriotic and religious and very proud of being so, compared to any other western country. To us, it seems insane how patriotic and religious you guys are.
    - dragonwriter 9y ago
      > You can't be patriotic because our history isn't perfect. This is untrue; very few people have a problem with patriotism. Lots of people have a problem with various forms of nationalism, but none of that is about imperfection of history except insofar as certain breeds of nationalism center around glorifying and recreating bad aspects of history. > You can't be religious because it might offend someone. While this has always been true to an extent for faiths other than than that of the most dominant local form of Christianity, it is less true (not more) now than in the past.
      - toasterlovin 9y ago
        > This is untrue; very few people have a problem with patriotism. Look, I come from the left. Growing up, there was definitely the sense that it is in poor taste to express enthusiasm about America or being an American. That it was something reserved for red necks who drive pick up trucks. The American flag, as a symbol, was considered gauche and the only time you would wear anything with the flag on it is if you were being self-consciously ironic. There was no sense that America was great. Instead, the focus was almost exclusively on America's flaws.
        danans 9y ago
        This critique is overly focused on shallow aesthetics ("gauche", "pickup-trucks"), which really have nothing to do with patriotism, and more to do with some kind of tribal name-calling, which I'm sure takes place on both left on right. It is just as patriotic to acknowledge and grapple with a country's flaws as it is to express pride in one's country. There's no contradiction between the two.
- saas_co_de 9y ago
  according to most of the histories I have read monarchs and dictators have not been well known for fiscal responsibility either so I am not sure if this is a democracy problem.
  - chestervonwinch 9y ago
    You can't logically conclude that it's not a democracy problem simply because you named a separate condition that implies lack of fiscal responsibility.
    - saas_co_de 9y ago
      yes, but if fiscal irresponsibility is present in democracies, monarchies, dictatorships, corporations of all sizes, and of course individuals, then on what basis would you claim that democracy has a unique problem with fiscal irresponsibility?
    - emodendroket 9y ago
      Where's the system that doesn't have this problem, I guess is my question.
- maxerickson 9y ago
  Here in the US it is evident that we have plenty of resources available, the "supply" part of the economy is working great. There are people that have limited access to this fountain of goods, probably for multiple reasons. There's an argument to be made that making a number bigger in a ledger for the sake of increasing access to that fountain of goods is not a "crisis".
  - Retric 9y ago
    200+% inflation rates destroy the meaning of any such ledger really quickly. The US had 17% inflation rates* fairly recently and just avoided that cliff. Higest short term rate listed: 23.7% in june 1920. http://www.usinflationcalculator.com/inflation/historical-inflation-rates/ http://www.usinflationcalculator.com/inflation/historical-in...
    - JumpCrisscross 9y ago
      > The US has 17% inflation rates fairly recently I'll bite. What's your source.
      - daxorid 9y ago
        17% is a little high, but I'm guessing the GP is referring to 1980: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_1980s_recession#Inflation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_1980s_recession#Inflatio...
        Retric 9y ago
        Annual inflation capped at "1980 soared to 13.5%", but the inflation rate spiked above that in the same year. http://www.usinflationcalculator.com/inflation/historical-inflation-rates/ http://www.usinflationcalculator.com/inflation/historical-in... lists a peak of 14.8% but if have seen 17% elsewhere. 1917-1920 had some periods over 20%.
        deleted 9y ago
        [deleted]
- alphaalpha101 9y ago
  'Fiscal responsibility' is not a meaningful concept.
- emodendroket 9y ago
  Or, more cynically, you can deliberately create fiscal crisis conditions to justify cutting programs you wanted to get rid of in the first place.
  - topspin 9y ago
    The cynic in me believes that sort of scheme is SOP in the US. Here are CA lawmakers back in 2003 weighing the benefits of prolonging the budget crisis for leverage to push through tax increases: http://articles.latimes.com/2003/jul/22/local/me-budget22 http://articles.latimes.com/2003/jul/22/local/me-budget22
- peoplewindow 9y ago
  Don't over-generalise from the USA. There are plenty of democracies that run balanced budgets and thus don't have a deficit, or even run a surplus. For example, Germany, Switzerland. The UK government has won the last three elections on a backdrop of "we're going to cut spending still further to try and balance the budget" and voters supported that. The USA is actually somewhat unusual amongst democracies in how little effort there truly is to reign in spending. The Republicans seem to have lost any ability to enact real policy. Only the Dems seem able to make major changes to US society and it's always in the direction of more spending. When the Reps get in, they seem too weak, too divided and too beholden to the military to pass any real spending cuts.
  - tonyedgecombe 9y ago
    The UK government has won the last three elections on a backdrop of "we're going to cut spending still further to try and balance the budget" and voters supported that. What they promised and what they delivered were two different things.
    - peoplewindow 9y ago
      The deficit has halved. They promised it'd fall even faster than it did, but my point stands - democracy is not incompatible with responsible spending.
hackerguy99 9y ago
>The U.S. has gotten progressively worse and worse at handling recessions Recessions have been fewer and lest frequent according to the data. What are you looking at that disputes this?
- emodendroket 9y ago
  I'm guessing that, like the article, he's talking more about mitigating the pain of recessions for the average person.
  - hackerguy99 9y ago
    >he's talking more about mitigating the pain of recessions for the average person. So your claim is that the pain of recessions for the average person have been getting worse over time? Where is that evidence? I don't see it. Unemployment during the depression was around 25% and people were starving.
    - emodendroket 9y ago
      Ok, but how about if you stick to the postwar period?
      - AnimalMuppet 9y ago
        Here's my take. Postwar, inflation at the peak of the business cycle was rising every cycle until 1980. Then Volcker clamped down on inflation, and since then inflation as dropped each cycle. Unfortunately, unemployment at the bottom of the cycle has also grown with each cycle.

tonyedgecombe 9y ago

Democracy does seem to have a problem delivering fiscal responsibility, it's too easy to put it off for the next government.

jacobush 9y ago
The problem is larger than fiscal. It’s about long term thinking in general. We have no common cause, vision or “myth” to gather round.
- rralian 9y ago
  I was thinking this the other day actually. That we are generally best served when people extrapolate their interests for the long term. And this is a big part of religion and faith. But they don't always help people value the collective long-term interest.
- ams6110 9y ago
  Common rallying causes have been systematically dismantled. You can't be patriotic because our history isn't perfect. You can't be religious because it might offend someone. God and country have been the common denominators of our culture and they are no longer seen as relevant, and there is nothing else to replace them. It seems like we are more interested in finding and emphasizing all the ways we are different from each other rather than rallying around anything we might have in common.
  - alphaalpha101 9y ago
    If you think Americans aren't patriotic or religious you really need to get out more. Americans are incredibly patriotic and religious and very proud of being so, compared to any other western country. To us, it seems insane how patriotic and religious you guys are.
  - dragonwriter 9y ago
    > You can't be patriotic because our history isn't perfect. This is untrue; very few people have a problem with patriotism. Lots of people have a problem with various forms of nationalism, but none of that is about imperfection of history except insofar as certain breeds of nationalism center around glorifying and recreating bad aspects of history. > You can't be religious because it might offend someone. While this has always been true to an extent for faiths other than than that of the most dominant local form of Christianity, it is less true (not more) now than in the past.
    - toasterlovin 9y ago
      > This is untrue; very few people have a problem with patriotism. Look, I come from the left. Growing up, there was definitely the sense that it is in poor taste to express enthusiasm about America or being an American. That it was something reserved for red necks who drive pick up trucks. The American flag, as a symbol, was considered gauche and the only time you would wear anything with the flag on it is if you were being self-consciously ironic. There was no sense that America was great. Instead, the focus was almost exclusively on America's flaws.
      - danans 9y ago
        This critique is overly focused on shallow aesthetics ("gauche", "pickup-trucks"), which really have nothing to do with patriotism, and more to do with some kind of tribal name-calling, which I'm sure takes place on both left on right. It is just as patriotic to acknowledge and grapple with a country's flaws as it is to express pride in one's country. There's no contradiction between the two.
saas_co_de 9y ago
according to most of the histories I have read monarchs and dictators have not been well known for fiscal responsibility either so I am not sure if this is a democracy problem.
- chestervonwinch 9y ago
  You can't logically conclude that it's not a democracy problem simply because you named a separate condition that implies lack of fiscal responsibility.
  - saas_co_de 9y ago
    yes, but if fiscal irresponsibility is present in democracies, monarchies, dictatorships, corporations of all sizes, and of course individuals, then on what basis would you claim that democracy has a unique problem with fiscal irresponsibility?
  - emodendroket 9y ago
    Where's the system that doesn't have this problem, I guess is my question.
maxerickson 9y ago
Here in the US it is evident that we have plenty of resources available, the "supply" part of the economy is working great. There are people that have limited access to this fountain of goods, probably for multiple reasons. There's an argument to be made that making a number bigger in a ledger for the sake of increasing access to that fountain of goods is not a "crisis".
- Retric 9y ago
  200+% inflation rates destroy the meaning of any such ledger really quickly. The US had 17% inflation rates* fairly recently and just avoided that cliff. Higest short term rate listed: 23.7% in june 1920. http://www.usinflationcalculator.com/inflation/historical-inflation-rates/ http://www.usinflationcalculator.com/inflation/historical-in...
  - JumpCrisscross 9y ago
    > The US has 17% inflation rates fairly recently I'll bite. What's your source.
    - daxorid 9y ago
      17% is a little high, but I'm guessing the GP is referring to 1980: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_1980s_recession#Inflation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_1980s_recession#Inflatio...
      - Retric 9y ago
        Annual inflation capped at "1980 soared to 13.5%", but the inflation rate spiked above that in the same year. http://www.usinflationcalculator.com/inflation/historical-inflation-rates/ http://www.usinflationcalculator.com/inflation/historical-in... lists a peak of 14.8% but if have seen 17% elsewhere. 1917-1920 had some periods over 20%.
        deleted 9y ago
        [deleted]
alphaalpha101 9y ago
'Fiscal responsibility' is not a meaningful concept.
emodendroket 9y ago
Or, more cynically, you can deliberately create fiscal crisis conditions to justify cutting programs you wanted to get rid of in the first place.
- topspin 9y ago
  The cynic in me believes that sort of scheme is SOP in the US. Here are CA lawmakers back in 2003 weighing the benefits of prolonging the budget crisis for leverage to push through tax increases: http://articles.latimes.com/2003/jul/22/local/me-budget22 http://articles.latimes.com/2003/jul/22/local/me-budget22
peoplewindow 9y ago
Don't over-generalise from the USA. There are plenty of democracies that run balanced budgets and thus don't have a deficit, or even run a surplus. For example, Germany, Switzerland. The UK government has won the last three elections on a backdrop of "we're going to cut spending still further to try and balance the budget" and voters supported that. The USA is actually somewhat unusual amongst democracies in how little effort there truly is to reign in spending. The Republicans seem to have lost any ability to enact real policy. Only the Dems seem able to make major changes to US society and it's always in the direction of more spending. When the Reps get in, they seem too weak, too divided and too beholden to the military to pass any real spending cuts.
- tonyedgecombe 9y ago
  The UK government has won the last three elections on a backdrop of "we're going to cut spending still further to try and balance the budget" and voters supported that. What they promised and what they delivered were two different things.
  - peoplewindow 9y ago
    The deficit has halved. They promised it'd fall even faster than it did, but my point stands - democracy is not incompatible with responsible spending.

hackerguy99 9y ago

>The U.S. has gotten progressively worse and worse at handling recessions Recessions have been fewer and lest frequent according to the data. What are you looking at that disputes this?

emodendroket 9y ago
I'm guessing that, like the article, he's talking more about mitigating the pain of recessions for the average person.
- hackerguy99 9y ago
  >he's talking more about mitigating the pain of recessions for the average person. So your claim is that the pain of recessions for the average person have been getting worse over time? Where is that evidence? I don't see it. Unemployment during the depression was around 25% and people were starving.
  - emodendroket 9y ago
    Ok, but how about if you stick to the postwar period?
    - AnimalMuppet 9y ago
      Here's my take. Postwar, inflation at the peak of the business cycle was rising every cycle until 1980. Then Volcker clamped down on inflation, and since then inflation as dropped each cycle. Unfortunately, unemployment at the bottom of the cycle has also grown with each cycle.