The Wall Street stock market crash of 1929 is generally blamed for kicking off the global depression that followed it. However, the crash was the direct result of inflated stock values not just in the US but everywhere. That balloon was so overinflated that it took very little for it to pop.
Holland went through a depression starting in 1637 resulting from over-speculation in the tulip market. Tulip bulbs were selling as high as $60,000 a bulb before reality settled in, and people all over Europe lost fortunes they’d invested.
Without going into detail, here’s a list of our nations worst times over “recent” history:
1819, 1832, 1836, Six Year Depression 1837-1843, the Panic of 1857, depression of 1869-1871, panic of 1873, the Depression of 1893, which was one of the worst in American history with the unemployment rate exceeding ten percent for half a decade, the panic of 1901 and the stock market crash of 1929.
Then we have minor and major recessions that fell short, some just barely, of being called depressions in every single decade since 1945, with the one under George Bush Sr. being the worst, in the early ’90’s, until this latest one under his son, George W. Bush. Economies NEVER remain static, they always cycle like seasons or phases of the Moon.
Wars are the same way. Because economies rise, standards of living rise too, and populations boom. Everyone’s heard the expression “Babyboomers”, the surplus of children born during boom times. Then along come the bust times, the economic fires die back down and many of those “Boomers” find themselves standing in bread lines.
Governments intent on dominating their neighbors seize on these bust times to draft all those unemployed men into military service and then go to war. A prime example of this is the “Axis” that formed between Germany, Italy and Japan in 1938 at the height of the Great Depression and the great World War that followed as these nations set out to conquer the world.
Once again, unemployment worldwide is growing rapidly after a long period of prosperity during which world populations have massively increased. Today we have Boomers who are the parents of Boomers who are parents themselves, and the world’s economy is tanking at the same time that violent Islamist movements are proliferating, backed by Islamist nations such as Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Iran.
Islamism is a worse form of Fascism than Hitlers Naziism or the Fascism practiced by Mussolini and the Japanese, and is possibly even more fanatical. There seems to be no way of stopping it from spreading and the violence increasing, and they’re aggressively pursuing nuclear weapons. War with these Islamist nations is inevitable as their goal is the same old goal as the Axis, to conquer the world.
The stage is getting well set and most of the props are in place. Wars have always been used to use up excess population and gain territory at the same time. Wars can bring some nations out of poverty while making paupers of rich ones. It all depends on who wins and how much damage is incurred.
We’ve entered into another down cycle that will eventually upcycle again. We’ve entered into another war cycle also. Both are just beginning. Prudent people will do well to make appropriate preparations.
