Quote:
Originally Posted by Mike33
I have a question for economists on GFY. Is it possible (within reason) for us to ever face a 1930 style depression ever again where people wait in lines for bread etc. within the next 100 years or so? Or is that basically a thing of the past that is virtually impossible to recur? The economy is much more complex today compared to 1930, globalized, different trade policies, and many more checks and balances in place, different technology infrastructure and so on. Just curious about more expert insight into it.
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Yes we could face that. It would be more difficult to have something like that happen now than in the 1930's but it could. There was a guy on Fox News a little while back that gave a doomsday scenario with oil that could easily be the start of something like this. He basically said that as we continue to be more and more dependent on foreign oil and the price of it continues to rise we buy exactly what we need and sometimes have trouble getting that much. Basically we are living hand to mouth on our oil supply. So what if one day something happens and the supply is cut off even if it is only for a week or ten days? What if they just decided to not sell to us? Everyone would panic and run out and fill their gas tanks. With that happening we would drain the gas supply we have on hand dry within 36-48 hours. People would also hit the stores and buy as much food as they could afford. Within 48 hours the stores would be empty and we would be out of food. With no gas we have no way of getting more food to the stores. As soon as people's personal food supply gets low they panic and when panic sets in we are in big trouble.
This may not lead us directly to a depression, but without gas people could not get to work, the companies would stop making money, the economy would come to a dead halt and if it wasn't jump started pretty quickly it could lead us down a very ugly path.
I don't think anything would happen that would last for years and years, but I could see something that could last several months and then take years to fully recover from.