In article , Ed Huntress
wrote:

On Tue, 24 Mar 2015 06:55:39 -0700, Rudy Canoza
wrote:

On 3/23/2015 10:33 AM, dpb wrote:
On 03/23/2015 10:25 AM, Ed Huntress wrote:
On Mon, 23 Mar 2015 09:22:37 -0500, wrote:
...

Them was tough folks...

I'll say they were tough. We have plenty of Depression-era stories in
my family, but combining it with the Dust Bowl must have made them
epic.

It hardened people in different ways, some became so concerned even
after the era was over they never did recover. I know of an old fellow
only slightly older than grandfather down in the OK panhandle about 40
mi on W from us who never got over the feeling of needing to miser
everything--he never bought any newer or larger equipment nor other
improvements so when there were better years he couldn't take advantage
of them owing to simply being so outdated couldn't do more than just get
by.

The idea that it was a universally searing, wrenching experience is BS -
a political myth. At its depth, 25% of the workforce was unemployed.
That's terrible, but it means 75% of the workforce was still working,
and life for them and their families went on more or less normally.

Greece has had unemployment in excess of 25% for over three years.
Their definition approximates ours: not working but seeking work. I
doubt if their depression is portrayed as ours was.

Greece's situation is not portrayed as ours was for good reason.
Greece has safety nets. In the early years of the Depression, the US
did not.

No Social Security or other safety nets. By 1932 alone, 273,000
American families were evicted from their homes. There were roughly 2
million homeless people in the US during the Depression.

And then there were the bank failures. No FDIC. By 1933, depositors
lost $140 billion through bank failures. 11,000 of the country's
25,000 banks collapsed. Lending almost stopped.

These things had cascading effects that disrupted life 'way beyond the
mere unemployment numbers.

There is a lot more to it than that, Ed. Greece is not a good parallel.

Greece's problems are caused by gross mismanagement, and Germany is not
willing to subsidize this.

Data point: something like one half of employed people in Greece work
for the government. How can this work? (I read it in the WSJ, but
don't recall where. When I asked a Greek coworker, he would not answer
the question, always changed the subject.)

Another data point: Probably fifteen years ago, I did a lot of
2nd-shift integration work, and got to know the owner of the local
pizza joint well. He was Greek, and had emigrated to the US with his
new wife and 2yo son ten or fifteen years before, speaking no English,
and started out washing dishes in a local pizzeria. Long story short,
he now owned the pizzeria, and his BMW was proudly parked out front.
His English was still very rough, but with effort workable.

Eventually, I asked the obvious question: Why didn't you do all this
back in Greece? He answered "Impossible!", because one could not get a
business loan unless one were very well connected, and because it took
forever (and many bribes) to get all the many necessary licenses.
Here, the licenses took about a month in total, and he was easily able
to get the needed loans. He now owned a string of pizzerias, and over
time had brought his entire village over one-by-one to man the
pizzerias. And there they were, standing behind him and listening to
the story - these were mostly adults, not the usual collection of
pimply-faced surly teenagers. And the pizza was good.

The two data points are connected - Greece has far more government than
is healthy or affordable.

So far as that pizzeria chain owner is concerned, the streets of the US
*are* paved with gold.

Joe Gwinn